Lady of Hay

by Barbara Erskine

  “Like hell I will!” Nick glared at him.

  “I mean it. Go back to Miss Curzon, Nick. She is your new love, is she not? I went there straight from the airport under the impression that you would be there. She is not pleased with you, little brother. If you value your relationship with her I suggest you make amends as fast as you can. Meanwhile I shall listen to the tape and talk to Jo when she returns. I don’t want you here.”

  Nick took a deep breath. “Jo asked me to stay.”

  “And I am asking you to go.” Sam turned his back on Nick, his shoulders hunched as he searched for the play button on the machine. “She is my patient, Nick.”

  Nick hesitated. “You’ll call me after you’ve spoken to her?”

  “I’ll call you. Better still, do you still have your apartment in Mayfair?”

  “You know I do.”

  “Give me the key then. I’ll stay there for a night or two. And I’ll see you there sometime, no doubt.” He switched on the tape and sat back on the sofa thoughtfully as Jo’s voice filled the room.

  ***

  It was four hours before Jo came home. She stopped dead in the doorway, her keys still in her hand, staring at Sam. He had long ago finished playing the tape and was lying on the sofa, his eyes closed, listening to the soft strains of the Concierto de Aranjuez.

  “How did you get on?” He did not immediately open his eyes.

  Jo sighed. She dropped her shoulder bag on the floor and banged the door behind her.

  “Where’s Nick?”

  Sam’s eyes narrowed. “He felt he should return to make his peace with Judy. I’m sorry.”

  “I see.” Jo’s voice dropped. “And he’s left you here to pick up the pieces. I suppose I should be grateful he stayed at all last night. I hope he told you I don’t need you, Sam. Nothing awful happened. I’m perfectly all right. I did not become incurably insane, nor did I kill anyone as far as I know.” She unbuttoned her jacket wearily. “When did he leave?”

  “Soon after I arrived. He was worried about you, Jo.” Sam was watching her closely. “Nick’s a nice guy. Even if it is all over between you both, he wouldn’t have left you alone, you know that.”

  Jo dropped her jacket on a chair and reached for the Scotch bottle on the table by the phone. “That’s right. Good old St. Nicholas who never leaves a friend in the lurch. Want one?”

  Sam shook his head. He watched as she poured; she did not dilute it.

  “Have you heard it?” Her eyes had gone past him to the cassette lying on the coffee table.

  “Twice.” Her face was pale and drawn, he noted, her hair tied back into an uncompromising ponytail that showed new sharp angles to her cheekbones and shadows beneath her eyes.

  “It all happened, Sam.” She raised the glass to her lips. “I found it so easily. William de Braose, his wife—most books seem to call her Maude—I didn’t even know it was the same name as Matilda—their children, the massacre of Abergavenny. It was all there for anyone to read. Not obscure at all.” She swallowed a mouthful of whisky. “I must have read about it somewhere before, but I swear to God I don’t remember it. I’ve never studied Welsh history, but all that detail in my mind! It doesn’t seem possible. Christ, Sam! Where did it all come from?”

  Sam had not taken his eyes from her face. “Where do you think it came from?”

  She shrugged, flinging herself down on the sofa beside him, turning the glass around and around in her fingers.

  Sam eyed the length of lightly tanned thigh exposed where her skirt caught on the edge of the cushions. He moved away from her slightly. “Where would you like it to have come from?”

  Jo frowned. “That’s a loaded question. Yesterday morning I wouldn’t have hesitated to answer it. But now…Matilda was so real to me, Sam. She was me.” She turned to face him. “Was it the same in Edinburgh? Did the same thing happen then too?”

  He nodded slowly. “You certainly reacted dramatically under regression. A little too dramatically. That was why we decided it would be better if you remembered nothing of what happened afterward.”

  Jo jumped to her feet. “You admit it! So you told me to forget it, as if it had never happened. You took it upon yourselves to manipulate my mind! You thought it would be bad for me to know about it, so bang! You wiped it clean like a computer program!” Her eyes were blazing.

  Sam smiled placatingly. “Jo, it was for your own good. No one was manipulating you. Nothing sinister happened. It was all taped, just as it was for you yesterday. It’s all on the record.”

  “But you deliberately destroyed my memory of what happened!” She took a deep breath, trying to control her anger. “Was I the same person? Matilda de Braose?”

  “As far as I remember you didn’t tell us what your name was,” Sam said quietly.

  “Well, did I talk about the same events? The massacre?”

  Sam shook his head. “You were much more vague with us.” He stood up abruptly and walked over to the windows, looking up through the net curtains toward the sky. “You must not go back to this man, Jo. You do understand that, don’t you?”

  “Why not?” Her voice was defiant. “Nothing terrible happened. And he at least is honest with me. He has professional standards.” She threw herself down on the sofa again, resting her head against the cushions. “Oh, sure, it was a bit nerve-racking for him, as it obviously was for you, but I was all right, wasn’t I? I didn’t seem hysterical, my personality didn’t disintegrate. Nothing happened to me.” She looked down at her hands suddenly, then abruptly she put them behind her.

  “What’s wrong?” Sam had seen her out of the corner of his eye. He went over to her, and, kneeling, he took both her hands in his. He studied the palms intently. Then he turned them over and looked at her nails.

  She tried to pull away. “Sam—”

  “Your hands aren’t hurt?”

  “No, of course they’re not hurt. Why should they be?”

  He let them go reluctantly, his eyes once more on her face. “They were injured last time, in Edinburgh,” he said gently. “They started to bleed.”

  She stared at him. “There was blood on the floor, wasn’t there?” she whispered after a moment. “I remembered that. And when I got home I found I was covered in bruises.” She stood up, pushing past him. “I thought I’d had an accident. But somehow I never bothered to ask you about it, did I?” She bit her lip, staring at him. “That was your posthypnotic suggestion too, I suppose. ‘You will not remember how you were injured, nor will you question why.’ Is that what you said to me? God, it makes me so angry! All this has happened to me before and I did not know about it. You snatched an hour or so of my life, Sam, and I want it back.” She looked down into her glass, her knuckles white as she kneaded it between her fingers. “It’s the thought that these memories, this other life has been lying hidden in me, festering all these years, that frightens me…Wherever they come from, whatever they are, they must mean something special to me, mustn’t they?” She paused, then she looked away from him. “Do you know how she died?”

  Sam’s jaw tightened. “Who?”

  “Matilda, of course. They think she was starved to death.” Jo drank the rest of her whisky quickly and put down the glass. She was suddenly shuddering violently.

  Sam stood up. He caught her arm. “Jo—”

  “No, Sam, it’s all right. I know what you’re going to say. I’m not about to get obsessive about her. It’s me, remember. Level-headed Jo Clifford. I’m over the shock of it all now, anyway. Reading about it has put it in perspective. All those dry dates and facts. Ugh! Funny how history never seemed to deal with real people, not to me anyway. At least not until now…” Her voice trailed away. “When you and Professor Cohen finished your experiments, Sam, did you reach any conclusions?”

  “We were able to float various hypotheses, shall we say.” Sam smiled enigmatically.

  “And they were?”

  “Roughly? That different subjects reacted in different ways. We tabul
ated almost as many theories as there were regression sessions. You must read his book. Some people faked, there was no question about that. Some openly reenacted scenes from books and films. Some produced what they thought we hoped we would hear. And some were beyond explanation.”

  “And which was Joanna Clifford?”

  “I think one of the latter.” He gave a wry smile.

  Jo eyed him thoughtfully. “I had a feeling you were going to say that. Tell me, Sam, do you believe in reincarnation?”

  “No.”

  “Then what do you think happens?”

  “I have one or two ill-formed and unscientific theories about, shall we say, radio waves trapped in the ether. Some people, when in a receptive state, tune into the right wavelengths and get a bit of playback.”

  “You mean I was actually seeing what happened in 1174?”

  “An echo of it—a reverberation, shall we say. Don’t quote me, Jo, for God’s sake. I’d be drummed out of every professional body there is. But it does go some way to explain why more than one person gets the same playback on occasions. It explains ghosts as well, of course. A good all-around theory.” He laughed.

  “Have you seen a ghost?”

  The strain, he noted with satisfaction, had lessened in her face; her neck muscles were no longer so prominent.

  “Never! I’m not the receptive type, thank God!”

  “Why not? Sam—” She paused in the doorway, running her fingernail up and down the cream-painted woodwork. “Can you hypnotize people?”

  “I can. Yes.”

  “And regress them?”

  “I haven’t gone on with Cohen’s experiments,” he replied carefully. “There are others chasing that particular hare now. My field is rather different.”

  Jo grinned. “You didn’t answer my question, Dr. Franklyn. Can you regress people?”

  “I have, yes.”

  “And would you do it to me?”

  “Under no circumstances. Jo—” He paused, groping for the right words. “Listen, love. You must not contemplate pursuing this matter. I meant it when I said you should not see Carl Bennet again. You must not allow anyone to try to regress you. I am not so concerned about the drama and the psychological stress that you are put under, although it is obviously not good for you. What worries me is the fact that you are prone to physiological reaction. You reflect physically what you are describing. That is very rare. It is also potentially dangerous.”

  “You mean if William beat me…her up, I’d wake up with bruises?”

  “Exactly.” Sam compressed his lips.

  “And if she starved to death?” The question came out as a whisper.

  There was a pause. Sam looked away. “I think that is unlikely.” He forced himself to laugh. “Nevertheless, it would obviously be foolish to put yourself deliberately at risk.”

  For a moment Jo did not move, her eyes on his face. Then slowly she turned away.

  ***

  It was dark when Dorothy Franklyn arrived at the apartment carrying an armful of roses. A tall, striking woman in her mid-sixties, she habitually wore tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses and immaculate Jaeger suits that made her look the epitome of efficiency. She was in fact always slightly disorganized and invariably late for whatever she was trying to do. Jo was enormously fond of her.

  “Are you sure you don’t mind me dropping in like this, Jo?” she said apologetically as she came in. “I came up for a matinee and then I had supper, but I wanted to leave you the flowers.” She eyed Jo surreptitiously. “You look tired, my dear. Would you rather I just left them and went?”

  Jo shook her head. She caught the other woman’s arm and pulled her into the room. “Sit down and I’ll put the kettle on. You’ve just missed your son. That’s why I’m tired, he took me out to dinner.”

  Dorothy smiled, her whole face lighting with pleasure “Jo! I’m so glad. It broke my heart when you and he split up—”

  “No—” Jo interrupted. “I meant Sam.”

  “Sam?” Dorothy frowned. “I thought he was in Switzerland.”

  “He was. He’s stopped off in London for a few days—mainly to do a quick psychoanalysis of me, I think.” Jo grinned wryly. “He’s staying at Nick’s apartment if you want to see him. Nick’s not there, of course, so the flat is free.”

  She could feel the other woman’s eyes on her face, bright with embarrassment and sympathy, and she forced herself to go on smiling somehow.

  “How is Sam?” Dorothy asked after a long pause.

  “Fine. He’s been giving a paper on some terribly obscure subject. I was very impressed. He took me to tea at the zoo.” She laughed.

  Dorothy smiled. “He always says the zoo teaches one so much about people.” She hesitated, eyeing Jo thoughtfully. “He has always been very fond of you, you know, Jo. I don’t think you and Nick ever realized how much it hurt Sam when Nick walked off with you. Nick has always found it so easy to have any girl he wanted—I’m sorry, that sounds dreadful, and I know you were different—you were special to him. But you have been special to Sam too.”

  Jo looked down guiltily. “I think I did know. It’s just that we met under such strange circumstances. I was a guinea pig in one of his experiments.” She shivered. “Our relationship always seemed a little unreal after that. He was so concerned about me, but I always had the feeling it was a paternal concern, as if he were worried about my health.” She paused abruptly. “He was, of course. I know that now. Anyway, he was twenty-six or seven and I was only nineteen when we first met. We belonged to different worlds. I did rather care for him—” She was staring at the roses lying on the table. “If I’m honest I suppose I still do. He’s an attractive guy. But then Nick came along…” She stood up abruptly. “Let me put these in water or they’ll die before our eyes.”

  “Is it serious, this thing with Judy Curzon?” Dorothy’s voice was gentle.

  “It sounds like it. She is much more his type than I ever was. She’s domesticated and artistic and a redhead.” Jo forced herself to laugh. “Perhaps I should cultivate old Sam now. Better late than never, and we seem to have quite a bit in common after all. It might even make Nick jealous!” Scooping up the flowers, she buried her face in the velvet blooms, then she carried them through to the kitchen and dropped them into the sink.

  After turning the cold tap on full, she turned and saw that Dorothy had followed her. She was frowning.

  “Jo. Please don’t just amuse yourself with Sam. I know it must be tempting to try to hurt Nick, but that’s not the way to do it. There’s too much rivalry between those two already.”

  “Rivalry?” Jo looked astonished. “But they hardly see each other, so how could there be?”

  “Sam has resented Nick since the day he was born.” Dorothy absentmindedly picked the petals off a dying rose and threw them into the trash. “I used to think it was normal sibling rivalry and he’d grow out of it. But it was more than that. He learned to hide it. He even managed to fool Nick and their father that he no longer felt it, but he never fooled me. As he grew up it didn’t disappear. It hardened. I don’t know why. They are both good-looking, they are both confident and bright. Sam is enormously successful in his own field. There is no reason for him to resent Nick at all. At least, there wasn’t until you came along.”

  Jo stared at her. “I had no idea. None at all. I thought they liked each other. That’s awful.” Wearily she pushed the hair off her face. “I’m sure Nick likes Sam. He told me that he used to worship him when they were children, and I sometimes think that secretly he still does. Look at the way he turned to him when he was worried about me.” She stopped. Had Nick really turned to Sam for help, or was he merely using him cynically to take her off his hands? She closed her eyes unhappily, trying to picture Sam’s face as he kissed her good night. It had been a brotherly kiss, no more. Of that she was sure.

  Dorothy had not noticed Jo’s sudden silence. With a deep sigh she swept on after a minute. “I used to wonder if it was my faul
t. There was a six-year gap between them, you know, and we were so thrilled when Nick came along. Elder children sometimes think such funny things, that somehow they weren’t enough, or that they have failed their parents in some way…”

  “But Sam is a psychiatrist!” Jo burst out in spite of herself. “Even if he felt that when he was six, he must be well enough read by now to know it wasn’t true. Oh, come on, Dorothy, this is all too Freudian for me at this time of night.”

  “Are you seeing Sam again?”

  Jo nodded. “On Wednesday evening.”

  Dorothy frowned. “Jo, is it over between you and Nick? I mean, really over?”

  Jo turned on her, exasperated. “Dorothy, stop it! They are grown men, not boys fighting over a toy, for God’s sake! I don’t know if it’s over between me and Nick. Probably yes. But we are still fond of each other, nothing can change that. Who knows what will happen?”

  After Dorothy had gone Jo sat staring into space for a long time. Then slowly she got up and poured herself a drink. She glanced down at the books and notes piled on the table, but she did not touch them. Instead, restlessly, she began to wander around the room. In front of the huge oval mirror that hung over the fireplace she stopped and stared at herself for a long time. Then solemnly she raised her glass. “To you, Matilda, wherever you are,” she said sadly. “I’ll bet you thought men were bastards too.”

  ***

  The answering machine was to the point:

  “There is no one in the office at the moment. In a genuine emergency Dr. Bennet may be reached at Lymington four seven three two zero. Otherwise please phone again on Monday morning.”

  Jo slammed down the receiver. She eyed the Scotch bottle on the table, then she turned her back on it and went to stand instead on the balcony in the darkness, smelling the sweet honeyed air of the London garden, cleansed by night of the smell of traffic.

  It was a long time before she turned and went back inside. Leaving the French windows open, she inserted her cassette back into the recorder and switched it on. Then, turning off the lights, she sat down alone in the dark to listen.