Her Frozen Heart Page 3

  ‘Now? Oh God. Is it Patrick?’

  Caitlyn was too surprised to speak at once. How does she know?

  In the silence, Sara spoke again. ‘What’s he said? Caitlyn? Are you okay?’

  The policewoman came up, put her hand on Caitlyn’s shoulder and nodded encouragingly.

  Her voice returned. Sara didn’t know. How could she? ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘What? Dead? What? I don’t understand . . .’ Her voice faded. Sara – always so composed, unflappable, confident. Suddenly speechless.

  ‘His taxi crashed. On the motorway. On the way back from the airport.’

  Sara was still silent, then words came in a rush. ‘Oh my God. I’ll come now. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ And the phone went down.

  ‘She’s coming,’ Caitlyn said to the policewoman. ‘You can go now.’

  ‘We’ll wait.’

  Then Caitlyn seemed to crumple down inside herself and her knees buckled. The policewoman reached out and caught her before she could fall, then helped her to the sofa by the window.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, breathless. ‘It’s just . . . my son. I’ll have to tell my son.’ And, suddenly, with Max’s face in her mind, it felt as though her heart were bleeding.

  Sara arrived thirty minutes later. She must have driven fast, Caitlyn thought, to get here so quickly. Once she was there, the police went, leaving grief-counselling leaflets and the case number for whatever would happen next.

  Sara was pale, her face bare but for some smudges of the day’s khol and mascara under her eyes, and her red hair was pulled back into a rough ponytail.

  Yet she still looks like a Pre-Raphaelite beauty about to sit for her portrait. Caitlyn wondered how she could think such things with Patrick only just . . . Say it. He’s dead. Now that she stared into Sara’s oval face, something came into her mind. It was her conversation with Patrick in the minutes before the crash, but his words, all that she could hear of them, were swirling around her head, refusing to make sense.

  What did he say?

  As the front door closed behind the departing police officers, Sara turned to her, hugged her and burst into tears. She was speaking, but her voice was a distant sound as Caitlyn strove to remember the words that Patrick had said just before the impact.

  He said . . . he said . . . she threatened something. But what? What was it? Did I hear it? Or not? Patrick’s words were sliding out of her mind even as she reached for them.

  ‘Oh God, Caitlyn, I’m so sorry! This is such an awful, awful thing. I can’t believe it! I can’t take it in!’ And then another tight hug, a cheek on her shoulder, the faint damp of tears on her shirt.

  She put her arm around her friend’s shaking shoulders. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I can’t take it in either.’

  ‘You’re in shock!’ Sara pulled back to examine her anxiously, wiping her tears and sniffing. ‘Of course you are. You need a drink. Do you have brandy?’

  And she was gone, heading upstairs in search of Patrick’s drinks cabinet. Of course they had brandy. They had the finest Napoleon cognac. She heard Patrick’s voice in her head: Doesn’t she know me by now? But ask her for the Glenmorangie, you know you prefer it.

  ‘Patrick,’ she said out loud, and felt the first bitter burst of pain at her loss. Not Max’s but hers. So much was gone. Just like that. ‘Oh Patrick.’

  Sara was coming down the stairs and towards her, two glasses of rich brown brandy in her hands.

  ‘We need this,’ she said, and smiled wanly. Her large grey eyes were reddened and her lower lip shook. Then she began to weep again. ‘It’s so fucking unfair! What are we going to do?’

  Caitlyn stared at her, feeling for a moment as though she were looking at a stranger.

  Patrick, what were you trying to tell me? And why can she cry when I can’t?

  Sara pressed the glass of brandy into her hand and wiped her eyes. ‘Come on, drink it.’ She drained her own in a gulp and then regarded the empty glass. ‘I should have brought the bottle. I’ll go and get it. And I’m not leaving you tonight. Understand? I’m with you every step of the way.’

  Whatever it was, Caitlyn realised, it didn’t matter now.

  The enormity of Patrick’s death blotted out everything else.

  The next morning, as Caitlyn lay awake in bed, staring unseeing into space, gripped by an evil sense of sick dread and trying to grasp that Patrick was not coming back, she heard the front door slam. An hour or so later, Sara returned, then brought her a cup of coffee, knocking timidly at the bedroom door.

  ‘Did you manage to sleep?’ she asked, setting down the coffee and sitting on the bed.

  ‘Not really. A bit.’ Caitlyn remembered a blur of intense dreams. In them she’d experienced storms of passion, screaming, crying, maddened emotions, but she’d woken to the same dank and bitter coldness within. It was a kind of icy horror that froze her in a state of fearful emotional paralysis.

  ‘I’ve been home to get some things. I’m going to stay with you. You shouldn’t be alone.’ Sara smiled down at her, and put her hand on Caitlyn’s. ‘You need me.’

  Caitlyn looked up at her, surprised. She had never known Sara like this. Their relationship usually involved Caitlyn providing the emotional support, the stability through times of crisis, the caring and nurturing. It was very odd to see Sara taking that role.

  Sara stood up. ‘I’ve put my suitcase in the spare room. I’m going to unpack. Come down when you’re ready.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  Sara smiled again. Her grey eyes filled with tears. ‘It’s the least I can do, darling. The absolute least.’

  Sara was as good as her word. She stayed by Caitlyn’s side at almost every waking moment, through the horrible phone calls Caitlyn had to make: to Patrick’s family and colleagues, to her own family, to Max’s housemaster.

  ‘Please don’t tell him, Mr Reynolds. I’ll do that. But just so you know what’s happened.’

  ‘Of course.’ Mr Reynolds’ voice was redolent with sympathy. ‘How terrible. I’m so sorry, Mrs Balfour. Please accept my deepest condolences. Poor, poor little Max.’

  The mere mention of Max’s name could send a sudden shimmer of grief through her, and trigger a desperate need to weep, though she could manage to control that within a few moments. The sadness she felt for herself had burrowed itself down somewhere inaccessible, leaving her able to function but on a kind of autopilot. Instead she felt the burden of everyone else’s shock and despair at what had happened.

  ‘Oh God, Caity, we’re so sorry,’ Maura said, hugging her tight, her eyes pink around the rims and her skin blotchy. She had come over as soon as she could. ‘I can’t believe Patrick’s gone. It’s a bloody tragedy. You poor, poor darlin’.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Caitlyn said, thinking how Maura adopted Callum’s Irish accent at moments of intensity.

  Maura gave her a worried look. Then, over coffee at the kitchen table, she said, ‘What are you going to do about Max?’

  ‘I’m going down tomorrow first thing to tell him. I would have gone today but I can’t quite face it yet.’

  ‘Shall I take you? I can get compassionate leave from work. Callum can look after the kids.’

  Caitlyn had a sudden flash of her sister’s home: disordered, chaotic, but warm and loving, full to the brim with four children, an Irish wolfhound and two cats. Maura was their lynchpin, the creator and organiser and sorter-outer, ferrying kids to sport and music, conjuring up meals and clean washing. They needed her.

  ‘No thanks. It’s okay. Sara’s going to drive me.’

  Maura looked over to where Sara sat on the sofa at the other end of the room, talking intently into her mobile phone. Her expression was wary. She had never liked Sara, guessing, rightly, that despite being scrupulously polite, Sara looked down on her. ‘How long has she been here?’

  ‘Since I found out. I called her. She insisted on staying.’

  ‘You didn’t call me?’ A wounded expression cross
ed Maura’s face.

  ‘I didn’t want to bother you.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Caitlyn, I’m your sister! What kind of bother did you think it would be?’

  Caitlyn felt guilty, instantly seeing why Maura was hurt. ‘I . . . sorry. I just thought Sara didn’t have family commitments.’

  ‘No.’ Maura looked repentant. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped. You should do what you think is right. It’s what you want, darlin’. But if you need me to drive you to Oxford, just say.’

  ‘It’s okay, honestly. Sara will do it.’

  But when they were flying down the motorway towards the school, Caitlyn wished she were with Maura after all. She’d forgotten how Sara liked to drive with her wrist balanced on the top of the steering wheel, the other hand gesturing as she talked, the speed dial climbing. She couldn’t help thinking of Patrick, similarly oblivious to the danger as he talked to her on the phone, and then suddenly – boom. Gone. Dead.

  The thought made her shake with fear. I can’t leave Max. I’m all he’s got now. Her voice came out in a kind of roar. ‘For God’s sake, slow down, Sara! Please! Please!’

  Sara braked, surprised, and slipped the car into the middle lane. ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  Caitlyn was shaken, panting and trembling. ‘Don’t you understand? Max needs me!’ she said, and burst into tears. Sara pulled off into the nearest layby while Caitlyn wept, then, when the car was stopped, turned to her, stricken.

  ‘I’m really sorry! I didn’t mean to upset you.’ She struggled to lean over and embrace Caitlyn but it was too awkward so she patted her shoulder instead, while Caitlyn cried. Sara started to cry as well, fat tears welling up and spilling down her cheeks – picturesque even in sorrow.

  ‘Oh Caitlyn,’ she said, wiping tears away. ‘We loved him. We’re going to miss him so much, aren’t we? What are we going to do without him?’

  Chapter Four

  Roger took Fred Burton Brown away for the entire afternoon of his arrival, enthusiastically showing him everything. Tommy was glad to see Roger full of energy again. She’d been worried about her brother ever since his return from the army: he’d been so low, and getting lower, sunk in private misery. When Fred’s letter arrived, Roger had smiled for the first time in an age.

  ‘It’s Burton Brown,’ he’d said over the breakfast table, the letter clutched tightly in one hand. ‘You remember Fred, don’t you? From Cambridge?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Tommy said, trying to recall. The days when she’d visited Roger at his college were so long ago now. Before the war. Before she and Alec were married. A different life, peopled by madcap, happy strangers, now just a blur in her mind’s eye. ‘Did I meet him?’

  ‘How should I know? Perhaps. Anyway, it makes no odds. He wonders if he can come and stay. He’s not long back from convalescing and he says his flat has been bombed out of existence. Poor chap.’ Roger frowned, lost in a memory for a moment. ‘What a shame.’

  ‘How long?’ Tommy asked, scooping out the last of her boiled egg.

  ‘He doesn’t say. A few weeks, I’d guess. He says he’s still recovering, but not from what.’

  ‘Of course he can come.’

  ‘Yes.’ Roger glanced again at his letter, frowning, then slapped it down on the table. ‘Well, I’ll just say he can come for as long as he likes. It’ll be good to have him here.’

  ‘Yes. It will,’ Tommy said warmly, happy to see a light of enthusiasm on Roger’s face. She’d grown so used to seeing him dull-eyed, his complexion pale and pasty, his hair carefully combed to hide the fact that it was already thinning although he was barely thirty. ‘It will make us all a good deal chirpier, I should think.’

  ‘What will?’ asked her sister, coming into the dining room slowly and sightlessly, her nose buried in a book. Her spectacles suddenly popped up over the top of the cover, wide blue eyes behind them, blinking and curious.

  ‘You’ll get hurt doing that,’ Tommy observed. ‘You’ll walk into a pillar and brain yourself.’

  ‘No I won’t,’ Gerry said. ‘I can see and read at the same time.’ She put her book on the table, tossed her long dark plait of hair back over her shoulder and looked over at the chaffing dishes on the side. ‘It’s very tantalising to put those things out when there’s nothing in them. It makes me think of bacon and kippers and kedgeree, and all the things we used to have.’

  ‘There’s porridge. Or an egg.’

  Gerry went over and lifted a lid to peer at the grey, pasty sludge underneath. ‘It’s not the kind of porridge I like. What’s in it? Dust? The sweepings from the stable?’

  ‘Don’t be disgusting. You know Ada does her best with what there is.’ Tommy pushed her silver egg cup away. ‘Have some porridge, Gerry, there’s a dear. I don’t want her to throw it away.’

  ‘It feeds the hens, doesn’t it?’ Gerry said, lifting a solid scoop of it up with her spoon. ‘I’m not entirely sure this is fit for human consumption in any case.’

  ‘Please don’t say that when Ada can hear you,’ Tommy said quickly. ‘Now, here’s some good news. Roger has a friend coming to stay with us. A friend from Cambridge.’

  Gerry looked interested. ‘Fresh blood? Oh goody.’

  Roger said proudly, ‘He’s rather a brilliant scholar. He gained a double first in Classics.’

  ‘Really? Perhaps he can advise me on universities then.’

  ‘I could do that,’ Roger said, looking hurt.

  ‘But you don’t want me to go to one,’ Gerry remarked.

  Tommy said hastily, ‘You’d better write to warn him about the cold, Roger, he might not be used to it. Tell him to bring the warmest things he can. He’ll need all of them.’

  Now, while Fred Burton Brown was getting the full tour, Tommy went in search of a broom so that she could sweep up the fallen greenery. She found one outside in one of the old stone sheds attached to the house. It was icy outside, the world chilled to its depths, and her feet were numbed almost at once from the iron cold of the ground that made even the stone-flagged hall seem cosy by comparison. At least sweeping would keep her warm. The fires would not be lit till later and the central heating was only switched on for an hour in the morning in the hope it would warm the house enough for the entire day. But even so, the boiler simply ate up coal, and there was the range to keep going, or there would be no hot food. Thank goodness there was plenty of wood for the house fires, or the coal would never last at all.

  And now there’s someone else here, another room to heat, more food to find. I must remember to ask Mr Burton Brown for his ration book or Ada will be cross.

  As she swept the rubbish into a bucket, she wished she’d asked him to bring a hot water bottle. In fact, as many as he could get his hands on. The old rubber ones were perishing and there were no more to be had, so they were having to dig out clay ones. The other night Tommy had even filled a warming pan with hot coals and swept the children’s beds to get some warmth into their clammy cold sheets. She was pretty sure the pan hadn’t been used since last century.

  I expect he’s used to city life, she thought now, hauling up the bucket and heading out for the back door. Hot radiators and endless steaming water. I hope we don’t kill him. After all, he is convalescing.

  She left the bucket in the passage by the drawing room and took the broom back outside.

  ‘Thomasina! What on earth are you doing?’

  Tommy turned to see her mother, enveloped in a large tweed coat, a headscarf wrapped around her hair, with rubber boots on, come marching up, her two slender black labradors trotting at her heels. She looked disapprovingly at the broom Tommy was holding.

  ‘Just sweeping up, Mother. I’m putting the broom back. We’ve taken the decorations down.’

  ‘At last! It should have been done weeks ago.’

  ‘The children didn’t want to see them go so I thought it would do no harm to leave them. But with the visitor coming, it was a little too eccentric to have them up. They made a frightful mess
to clear up though.’

  ‘I can see that.’ Mrs Whitfield looked peeved. ‘But why are you sweeping? Where is Clara?’

  ‘Day off. And Ada’s gone too.’ Tommy spoke lightly, brushing off the disapproval as she always did. She’d grown used to the idea that nothing she did would ever please her mother. The harder she worked, the more her mother disliked it. ‘Roger bowled up with Mr Burton Brown about half an hour ago, and is now taking him on a guided tour of the house. He seems very nice. I’m sure you’ll like him.’

  ‘As long as he makes Roger happy. That’s the most important thing. And you must tell the children to keep quiet – he won’t want to be bothered with them and their racket. Please, Thomasina, tidy yourself up before dinner. You look a perfect savage. Come, Hebe, come, Hermione.’

  Mrs Whitfield turned and headed for her front door, the black dogs following her obediently. Tommy watched her go, half relieved and half irritated.

  Never a word of thanks. Never an acknowledgement of the work I do. Roger was sent to Winchester and Cambridge to prepare him for running this place, and he does nothing. I got piano lessons and French conversation, and I’ve run the whole show for years. Not that Mother has ever appeared to notice.

  Tommy sighed. There was no point in dwelling on it. The truth was, she’d loved taking it all on, even if she never felt quite up to the task. It had given her a purpose and a refuge, and a place to raise the children.

  Besides, there’s no time. I shall have to start on the dinner soon, if we’re going to eat anything at all tonight.

  There was quite an air of excitement in the house with the new arrival. The children, who had been in a state of crotchety lassitude since Christmas, were noticeably more fizzy and excited. They were allowed to stay up late for dinner in honour of the new arrival.

  ‘My goodness, what a treat, pheasant!’ Mr Burton Brown said as they sat down to casserole with boiled potatoes and boiled winter greens. ‘I haven’t had it since before the war.’

  ‘Pheasant again!’ groaned Antonia. ‘I hate it. When I grow up, I’m never going to eat pheasant again as long as I live.’