Her Frozen Heart

As soon as Sara had left the next day, Caitlyn ran up the stairs to the spare room and uncovered the boxes. She tugged a few down onto the floor, yanking open their lids and pulling out the contents. The box she’d opened before was now at the bottom but she found what she was looking for, lifting the bank statements out with shaky hands. Yes. Here it was. Every month, there was a payment of hundreds of pounds to Rose Yard Flowers.

She went back to Sara’s Instagram account. The date of the photograph was the day after a payment to Rose Yard Flowers of £125.

‘Well, Caitlyn,’ he said when she’d explained what she wanted to know. ‘I’m not sure there’s much I can tell you. Patrick said that this account was for his private use.’

‘That’s fine, really. You’ve been a help,’ Caitlyn said wretchedly. So her theory had been wrong. It wasn’t business. Pleasure, then. Oh God. ‘I’m very grateful.’

When she’d put the phone down, she went back to Sara’s Instagram account. Now the pictures filled her with violent distaste. She scrolled through, going back years, recognising some outfits she’d seen Sara wear, some of the locations, and even some of the parties.

Then she saw it. A photograph of a hand and wrist wearing a watch she knew well, resting on a table by a Martini glass. The caption said: A preprandial with a handsome man with exquisite taste #luckygirl #shyclient.

Can you come up here? I really need to talk to you. C

Nicholas arrived a few hours later, when his tutorials were finished, clutching a bag of croissants.

‘I thought these might be welcome,’ he said, holding them up with a smile, then he saw her face. ‘What’s up? You look awful.’

‘It’s Sara.’ Caitlyn’s eyes filled with tears. ‘She turned up here yesterday out of the blue.’

‘What? Sara’s in Oxford?’ Nicholas looked bemused. ‘The two of you, both back at the same time? That’s weird.’

‘It’s worse than that. I think she’s come back on purpose to play games with me. And the awful thing is that I’m pretty sure she was having an affair with Patrick.’ It sounded so grim spoken out loud like that, and the same stomach-dropping mixture of betrayal and despair plummeted through her.

As Nicholas made a pot of coffee, Caitlyn tried to recount as clearly as possible what Sara had said last night, but her words kept coming out jumbled and Nicholas would make her go back and tell him again as slowly as she could. ‘And then on the way home, I remembered something to do with her Instagram – and the name Rose Yard Flowers.’ When she told him how she had found that name in Patrick’s bank statements, Nicholas’s expression grew solemn.

‘That’s not all. He also had payments to a place called Fortescue House. And look.’ Caitlyn got out her phone and opened the Instagram app. She put it in front of him so he could see the picture of a smart hotel room on Sara’s page, with a caption underneath it.

Love this hotel, so chic and stylish. Real inspiration here.

Thanks for a marvellous stay @FortescueHouseHotel

‘It matches the date of a payment by Patrick to the same hotel.’ Caitlyn lifted miserable eyes to Nicholas. ‘It’s not even that far from his chambers.’

‘Oh shit.’ Nicholas gave her a sympathetic look. ‘That’s hard to explain away.’

‘And then there was this.’ She scrolled to the picture with Patrick’s hand in it. ‘You see? That’s him.’

‘Of course I am. That’s his hand.’ She couldn’t help her voice coming out shrilly. ‘I think I would know my own husband’s hand. I know that watch, it’s upstairs if you want to see it!’

Nicholas looked at her anxiously. ‘It’s okay, I believe you. I just wish I could say I’m surprised. It’s what you’d expect from Sara, isn’t it?’

‘But . . . not from Patrick,’ she whispered, desolate. ‘I trusted him. He never gave me any reason not to. And it must have been going on for a while. Look at how long ago these pictures were posted! Two years ago, more for that one.’ She took a deep breath and tried to speak coherently so that Nicholas would understand. ‘He . . . rang me, the night he died, and tried to tell me something about Sara but I couldn’t hear what it was. There were just a few words I could make out – I heard “threatened” and “important”. And he said he wanted to tell me, before she did.’

‘I would say it’s fairly conclusive that Patrick and Sara were having an affair.’

Heat rose up in Caitlyn’s chest and into her face. Hearing it like this from Nicholas, even though it was the inescapable conclusion, was more horrible than it had been on her own lips. Boiling tears stung her eyes and she felt her shoulders shake.

‘Oh Caitlyn. I’m really sorry. This is just terrible. To find out like this . . .’

‘I can’t . . . I can’t believe she would do that to me. Well . . . I can now. Now that you’ve told me what she was like, what she did. But . . . not him. Not my Patrick.’ She began to weep, seized by an awful grief. ‘He . . . he died . . . and my old life and everything I believed in died too – and what have I got now? It was all . . . all a lie.’

‘Come on.’ Nicholas got up and lifted her coat to her shoulders. ‘Come on, we’re getting away from here. Right now. Where’s Max?’

She cried as he led her to where his car was parked, put her in the passenger seat, and then switched the engine on so that it roared into life.

She sank down into the seat and wept as he drove, aware vaguely of the wipers going as the rain came down. At last she said, ‘Where are we going?’

‘We’re going where I always wanted to be when I was most miserable. Back home.’

The rain had stopped by the time Caitlyn and Nicholas reached King’s Harcourt. It was surrounded by a riot of blooms, its ancient stones golden and dappled by sunshine, rambling roses climbing up around the ground-floor windows.

‘It’s so incredibly beautiful,’ Caitlyn said, as they got out. She was calm now. ‘I can see why problems seem to melt away here.’

‘There’s a serenity,’ he said. ‘And it always helps put things in perspective.’

They stood together gazing at it. ‘You shouldn’t lose this place, if you can help it,’ Caitlyn said softly. ‘It’s too precious.’

They said nothing for a while, soaking in the house’s ancient beauty. Then Nicholas said, ‘Come on, we won’t go in just yet. Let’s walk for a while.’

They wandered around the house and through the gardens at the back, walled quadrangles leading into one another, each with a different style of planting.

‘That’s a bowling green,’ Nicholas said, pointing to a velvety square of lush grass.

He led her through crumbling brick arches with bright pink and white daisies growing in busy profusion from cracks in the mortar. From the formal gardens, they walked through a shaggy paddock fenced off for ponies no longer there, and then out to the woods. As they crunched under the trees, Caitlyn saw a large wire enclosure.

‘Oh.’ Caitlyn pursed her lips. ‘I don’t know how I feel about that. Shooting’s cruel, isn’t it?’

Nicholas laughed as they went past the pen. ‘Look.’ He pointed at drums with small trays at the bottom and water dispensers. ‘If I could come back as a pheasant here, I wouldn’t be too unhappy. Food and drink on tap, protection from predators and a lovely wood to roam in. Encouraged to breed as much as possible. A couple of times a year, some guns take aim at you and if you’re terribly unlucky you might get shot but most don’t. If you do, you get put in the pot. You get eaten. You have had a much nicer existence than just about any supermarket chicken that can be bought. So . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Is that cruel?’

She laughed. ‘You’ve converted me. And you’re clearly a lot posher than you ever let on before.’

Nicholas shrugged. ‘I don’t know about that. But it’s amazing how many people want to be your friend because of somewhere like this. I preferred to keep it quiet.’

‘From people like Sara,’ Caitlyn said, and her spirits swooped again as she remembered.

‘Absolutely.’ He smiled at her. ‘If Patrick really wanted her, and risked his marriage for her, then he wasn’t the man he must have been when he married you.’

‘I think that’s how it looks. But there’s still doubt. And he’s not here to confirm it.’

‘You can’t trust her,’ Nicholas warned. ‘Don’t forget that. She’s not to be trusted. If she thinks it’ll get a response, she’ll say anything. She loves to stir. Creating waves is all she really cares about.’

The walk soothed Caitlyn’s mind a little and helped her through the pain of what she had learned. They talked about the past, their student days and everything they remembered, except for the last time they had seen each other.

When they reached the house again, she was calm and ready to have a cup of tea with Aunt Geraldine. The old lady looked as neat and well presented as last time, her snowy hair set in waves and a string of pearls at her neck tucked under the silk collar of her blouse.

‘Well, this is a nice surprise,’ she said. ‘How very pleasant to have you back here.’ She raised her eyebrows at Nicholas.

‘Caitlyn’s still just a friend,’ Nicholas said, as they settled down by the stove for their tea.

‘This is the most beautiful place,’ Caitlyn said, wanting to change the subject. ‘I can’t wait to move in. It feels as though it must be impossible to be unhappy here for long.’

‘I’m afraid that’s not true. It’s possible to be very unhappy even here. My poor dear brother was the proof of that. And then there’s Venetia.’

‘The lady in the Gainsborough portrait. My sister Tommy was quite entranced by her and often used to talk about her story. She died young and suddenly – Venetia, I mean – found dead in bed in the main bedroom upstairs, and left her husband heartbroken. He didn’t look at the portrait again. So you see, even here, unhappiness can persist. Although perhaps it’s easier to bear life’s challenges when you’re surrounded by beauty.’

‘Poor girl,’ Caitlyn said, filled with melancholy thinking of the young beauty in the painting. ‘That’s awful.’

Aunt Geraldine leaned towards her. ‘I think you’re carrying a grief like that. Something very heavy. It’s weighing you down awfully.’

‘Auntie,’ Nicholas began, looking embarrassed, but Caitlyn stopped him with a smile.

‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘Yes, you’re right. I lost my husband very suddenly. I’m still coming to terms with it. In some ways, I still feel as though Patrick is just away, and that he might come back through the door at any time. And the longer he’s away, the crosser I get with him. I know I ought to feel sad, and I do feel sad because I miss him all the time. But . . .’ She frowned. ‘Oh, I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like he’s playing hide and seek with me and I keep expecting him to pop up again. And more than anything, I want him to come back and explain things to me. But he’s never going to do that.’

‘The answers are always there, if you look for them. But often, they are inside yourself. That’s what I’ve found anyway.’ Aunt Geraldine looked at her over the top of her spectacles. ‘But I also believe happiness can be a choice. And so can unhappiness. The will is a powerful thing, but you do need to learn how to use it, and how to battle with others who want to use their willpower over you when you don’t want them to.’

‘You’re quite the oracle today, Aunt,’ Nicholas said with a laugh. ‘Very Delphic pronouncements.’

‘And you are too cheeky by half. I think Caitlyn knows what I’m talking about.’

‘I don’t think it can always be chosen,’ Caitlyn said. ‘And besides, don’t we need sadness? If something awful happens, if we lose someone we love, don’t we need to feel grief?’

‘Of course it’s natural to mourn, and mourning often never ends,’ Aunt Geraldine replied. ‘But it must be encompassed into life, folded into it, alongside all the other emotions of existence. As we live, we layer our experiences one over the other, learning as we go. When I say one can choose to be happy, I suppose I mean that you have to recognise the point at which you allow sadness or rage or despair to infect you so thoroughly that it overwhelms everything else, rubs it all out.’

‘People with depression don’t “allow” themselves to feel it, do they?’ Caitlyn asked, frowning. ‘Most loathe it, in my experience.’

‘Of course there are gradations, and things outside one’s control. You must decide if it is beyond your scope of choice or not.’

Geraldine smiled at her as she picked up a digestive biscuit. ‘Oh good, dark chocolate. My favourite. Renee got milk last time. Filthy!’

Before they left, Aunt Geraldine said to Nicholas, ‘So, boy, why don’t you spend more time here?’

‘Terms are eight weeks long. Three terms a year. That’s less than half the year,’ said his aunt sternly.

‘I suspect you will, once Caitlyn’s here.’ When Caitlyn bent to kiss her farewell, Aunt Geraldine said, ‘Come as soon as you like. I’d like to meet your boy.’

‘Nicholas has a daughter, you know. He called her Coco. So funny to me. We used to drink cocoa all the time. Not rationed, you see. I got to like it without sugar as well. But nice as it was, I’d never call a child after it!’