‘You are joking, aren’t you?’ Caitlyn cried down her mobile phone. She was standing in the middle of the M&S lingerie department, and a lady rifling through the all-in-ones looked her way with interest. ‘How can that be the case?’
‘I’m afraid it’s in the standard contract you signed,’ said the estate agent apologetically down the line. ‘You can be served notice anytime from five months, and then you have to leave by the end of the sixth month.’
‘You’re telling me I’m going to be served notice to quit?’
‘On the next rent day. That will give you a month to make other arrangements. But I’m giving you a heads-up so that you don’t get a nasty surprise.’
Caitlyn thought of the little sitting room, homely and cheerful, the sofa covered in a bright patchwork blanket and the vase of drooping pink tulips on the coffee table. She had begun to think of the cottage as home, and couldn’t bear the thought of uprooting herself and Max again, not when they’d just settled in. ‘You said it would be a long-term contract because the owner had gone abroad for the foreseeable. Not six months!’
‘The owner’s plans have changed. I’m sorry, Mrs Balfour. There’s really nothing I can do. But I can set up some viewings of other rentals on our books – we’ve got some really delightful properties ready to view—’
‘No thanks, not right now. I’ll call you back when I’m ready to do that.’ Caitlyn clicked off the call and stood fuming by a stand of dressing gowns. A moment ago she’d been thinking about bras and pyjamas. Now she had to consider the fact that they were going to be homeless in less than eight weeks. Bang in the summer holidays, when she’d been planning to join Maura and the family on their trip to Cornwall.
Great . . . just . . . great!
She strode out of the shop, dropping her mobile into her bag and hardly seeing anything as she went. Out of Marks she turned right and a moment later found herself standing at the crossroads by Carfax, just up the hill from her old college. There it was, huge, golden and imposing, dominated by the great bell tower. Almost without thinking, as though following old song lines from her past, she started to walk down the hill towards it, past the queues of people in the bus stops outside its honey-brown walls, until she reached the cobbled ground under the great arch. Beyond the two enormous studded gates was the sunlit quad, its tended lawns like emerald velvet and a fountain playing in the centre. It hadn’t changed a bit in all the years since she had last been here. It seemed an obvious place to come, and yet she hadn’t made her way here until now. There were too many bittersweet memories to contend with inside the walls.
Shall I go in? She hesitated on the threshold, almost pulled forward into the old familiar place. Then on impulse she marched through the gate and into the porter’s lodge. The porter looked up as she stood at the desk. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I’m looking for Nicholas Brooke, he’s a fellow here—’
A voice came from behind her. ‘Caitlyn! It is you, isn’t it?’
She jumped and turned to look at whoever had called her and saw Nicholas coming towards her, beaming.
‘I can’t believe it!’ He was already at her side, and had enveloped her in a tweedy hug, his jacket scratchy through her thin top. He kissed her cheek and stood back to look at her. ‘Caitlyn Collins! You’re exactly the same. What on earth are you doing here?’
‘I came in on the off chance you might be here. I should have emailed first, I know . . .’
‘Don’t be silly. It’s great to see you. Have you got time for coffee?’
She smiled at him. A moment ago, in her memory, he’d been about twenty, fresh-faced, with spiky black hair and dark brown eyes, a legacy of his Italian heritage. Now that image was rapidly being overwritten with the reality of a man of almost forty, with silver-grey in his dark hair, and wrinkles round his eyes and mouth, a dusting of grey and black stubble over his chin. He was a little heavier than he had been, but then, he’d been skinny as a young man and it suited him to carry a bit more weight. He had aged well. His olive skin was only a little lined and the wrinkles were from expression rather than age. And where once he would have worn jeans and baggy T-shirts, he was now in muted cords and a tweed jacket, a well-washed checked shirt underneath. ‘I’d love that, thanks.’
‘Come on, then.’ He led her out of the porter’s lodge and into the quad. ‘What brings you here? Are you just visiting for the day?’
‘No. I live here now,’ she said, almost apologetically. ‘We moved a while ago.’
‘I had no idea. I don’t do much social media or I probably would. I’m too taken up teaching the kind of bloody-minded, vaguely interested, lazy undergraduates that we once were. Well, I was.’
As he turned and led her down a small corridor and then up a winding wooden staircase, she was overwhelmed with memories. The sound of her feet on the wood, the dusty smell of the staircase, the echo of the stone walls transported her back in time twenty years while Nicholas was explaining how he’d gone to work in the City before feeling he’d missed his vocation and returning to academia. He stopped in front of a sturdy outer door with his name painted in white above it: Professor N. C. Brooke. He took out his keys and opened it, then the inner door that revealed the rooms within, and turned to smile at her.
‘Come in. Excuse the mess.’
She followed him in, fascinated. She’d always known that there was far more to the college than she’d ever seen, more than her own rooms, her friends’, the communal bits. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives going on within its walls. Whole houses existed unseen inside the quads. There were hidden gardens, little-known staircases, secret libraries, invisible balconies, room after room behind stout locked doors, like a castle of secrets from a fairy story. She realised suddenly what a very little part of it she’d experienced. It was bigger and deeper than she’d guessed. And here was another part revealed: Nicholas’s rooms.
‘Aren’t they lovely?’ she said, as she came in, dipping her head beneath a low beam. Nicholas’s rooms weren’t on the grander lower floor, but tucked up towards the top, with high windows overlooking the battlements and the stately quad below.
He looked around proudly. ‘It’s bigger than you’d think up here. And as I’m stuck up under the roof, in the less desirable bit, they’ve given me a larger set than most. I’ve got two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom and’ – he led her through a dark oak door – ‘of course, my sitting room and study.’
She almost laughed out loud as she looked around. ‘It’s perfect,’ she said. ‘Exactly right. I bet your students love it.’
It was a cosy room, with a low ceiling with ornate plastered squares, and a thick black beam over a fireplace where the remains of a log lay in soft white ash. The walls were lined with bookcases full of volumes and ornaments and pictures. Where there was no bookcase, there were panels hung with pictures, and one side of the room had deep stone window seats in front of two windows. The curtains were dark red tapestry, and green and ruby-red velvet cushions provided softness on the hard stone. A squashy green sofa and two armchairs draped in colourful ikat fabrics were grouped around the fire, and everywhere were more books, piled on the coffee table and beside the chairs. By the fire was a drinks tray, with large bottles of sherry, gin and vodka, tiny tins of tonic, and an ice bucket shaped like a golden pineapple.
‘Sherry! I bet you hand out little glasses before a tutorial. You’re a textbook Oxford don,’ Caitlyn said, laughing properly now. ‘Your students must be impressed.’
‘Whatever it takes to make them happy,’ he said. ‘I hate to let the young people down.’
‘It’s wonderful.’ She followed him as he led the way to his tiny garret kitchen. ‘You should hire it out for films. Are you happy up here?’
‘I am. It can be a bit reclusive. But I always get away during the holidays. I spread my wings and escape Oxford’s little enclave, do some living. But I love coming back. It’s a kind of home to me.’
‘Yes. I know what you mean.’ Caitlyn watched as he filled the kettle and set about making coffee. ‘Ever since we moved here, I’ve felt as though I’ve come home. Which is odd, as I grew up in Southport. But there’s something about this place, isn’t there?’
‘It stains you. Marks you. Like the ink hidden in banknotes to explode over robbers. You can’t see it but it’s there.’ Nicholas grinned at her. ‘But in my case, I grew up really quite close.’
She looked around the little set. ‘And you live here alone?’
He nodded lightly. ‘Yes. I’m single. It hasn’t always been the way, but it is right now.’
‘Oh.’ She was wary of stamping over his life, asking questions when she so dreaded the same herself. Besides, how well had she really known Nicholas all those years ago? Did she have the right to make such personal enquiries?
They went back through to the study-sitting room and Caitlyn sat down on the squashy sofa. ‘I feel as if I’m about to have a tutorial. I’m nervous. I haven’t got an essay.’
‘Do you mean to tell me, Miss Collins, that you don’t have your essay with you?’ Nicholas sat back in armchair. ‘What’s your excuse this week?’
‘Ugh, that just gave me nasty butterflies. And I’m not Collins any more. I’m Balfour. I’ve even got a son, Max. He’s eleven.’
‘Ah. I’ve got a daughter. Twelve.’
‘Really?’ Caitlyn almost looked about as if she might spot a twelve-year-old girl hiding behind the curtains. ‘Where is she?’
‘She lives in the States with her mother, who is also an academic, at Columbia. That’s where I go during the holidays.’
‘Oh, I see.’
There’ve been twenty years of living since I last saw him. We both have our stories. She smiled at Nicholas again. ‘It’s so nice to see you. You’ve hardly changed.’
He ran a hand through his silver-streaked hair, his expression rueful. ‘That’s nice of you, but I have a bit. I’m getting on a little now.’
‘We all are. What’s nice is that we’ll always remember how we used to be.’
‘True.’
They looked at one another, and there was a moment of awkwardness as their gaze met. A memory swum into her mind but she rejected it before it had time to form properly. Nicholas glanced down into his coffee and Caitlyn, wanting to ease the sudden tension between them, found herself propelled up and out of the sofa. She walked over to his desk, a battered antique piled up with books and papers, and a green-shaded brass reading light. There were some framed photographs propped up on it, and her eye was caught at once by the picture of a merry young girl with long blonde plaits wearing denim dungarees and a stripy top. ‘Is this your daughter?’
‘Yes, that’s Coco.’
‘Isn’t she pretty? She’s so fair! Not like you at all. But she has your brown eyes.’
‘Yes, her mother is Swiss German. She got the Nordic colouring from her.’ Nicholas stood up and came over, looking fondly at the photograph. ‘She’s the light of my life. I miss her horribly when I’m over here. Thank goodness for technology, that’s all I can say. We connect on the screen all the time. But we both count down the weeks until I can get there.’
‘I’m not surprised you miss her.’ Caitlyn looked back at the picture. ‘There’s no way she can live here?’
‘Nope. None.’ Nicholas sounded final on the subject.
God, listen to me. I’m prying. When I promised I wouldn’t.
‘So,’ Nicholas said. ‘What brings you to Oxford? Are you working here?’
‘No . . . no. I used to work in the art world, assessing paintings for an auctioneer. But I’m not working at the moment. I don’t know what brought me back exactly. It’s close to my son’s school, I suppose, but also . . . well, it sounds a bit odd, but I wanted to find out more about the past. To see if I’d remembered it correctly. I thought you might be able to help me with it, that’s why I dropped by on the off chance you were here.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’m happy to help.’
There was a pause, then he said awkwardly, ‘And Max’s dad? Is he with you?’
‘No. No. I’m . . . on my own.’ For some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to say that Patrick was dead. Instead she said hastily, ‘You remember Sara, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do. She was unforgettable. Trouble with a capital T. Do you still see her?’
‘Oh yes. I do. Not recently, she’s in America. She’s a successful interior designer now.’
‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ Nicholas smiled and raised his coffee cup to his lips.
‘We’re still close. She’s Max’s godmother.’
Nicholas looked embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you two were still friends. Forget what I said about trouble, I was only joking.’
‘No, I’m interested. Really. What do you remember about her?’
‘Sara was great. Lovely, intelligent and fun, if a bit highly strung. And you two were best friends. I remember you sharing tutorials and being basically inseparable.’
‘Yes.’ Caitlyn knew that wasn’t the real story but that she’d mishandled it and missed her opportunity to find out the truth. She would have to win Nicholas’s trust to do that. She felt flustered, impelled to change the subject. ‘Perhaps I can pick your brains about something else. I’ve had a rather frustrating piece of news. Just when I’d got Max and myself settled in town so I could be close to his school, the landlord has served notice on me. I’ve got to be out in a few weeks, right in the middle of the holidays, so I need some recommendations of places to live.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Spring Hall.’
‘I know it. I went there myself, actually. It’s not far from my childhood home.’
‘Your childhood home? I don’t suppose it’s for rent, is it?’ Caitlyn asked jokily.
Nicholas looked at her oddly. ‘Well . . . as it happens, some of it is for rent. My great-aunt lives in part of it. But the other half is empty. She’s let it out at various times, but it’s vacant right now. There’s plenty of room there.’
Caitlyn gazed at him, interested. ‘Where did you say it is?’
‘In a village not that far from Spring Hall – about ten miles the other side, twenty-five miles from Oxford. The house is called Kings Harcourt.’
‘I don’t know it.’
‘Then why don’t I show it to you? It has a famous painting you might be interested in, if it’s in your sphere of interest. A portrait by Gainsborough.’
‘Really?’ Caitlyn was intrigued. ‘That’s my period, actually. I’d love to see it.’
‘Good. I can show you the house at the same time. It could be just what you need.’