Lady of Hay

by Barbara Erskine

  10

  Is he here?” Judy was standing in the darkened hallway outside Jo’s door with her hands on her hips. She was wearing a loosely belted white dress and thonged sandals that made her look, Jo thought irrelevantly, like a Greek boy.

  “Please, talk more quietly or you’ll wake the whole house.” Jo stood back to allow her to enter, as Judy’s furious voice wafted up and down the stairwell outside the apartment door. It was barely nine o’clock on Sunday morning.

  The apartment was untidy. Cassettes littered the table and the floor; there were empty glasses lying about and ashtrays full of half-smoked cigarettes. Jo stared around in distaste. Beside the typewriter on the coffee table there was a pile of papers and notes where she had been typing most of the night. Books were stacked on the carpet and overflowing onto the chairs. She threw open the French windows and took a deep breath of cool morning air. Then she turned to Judy.

  “If you’re looking for Nick, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. He’s not here. I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning.” She went through into the kitchen and reached into the refrigerator. “Do you want some coffee?” she called.

  Judy looked taken aback. “He said he was coming back here.” She followed Jo into the kitchen uncertainly.

  “Well, he didn’t come.” Jo reached down a large vase from a cabinet and stuffed the roses from the sink into it. “Aren’t these lovely? Nick’s mother brought them up from Hampshire for me yesterday.”

  Judy’s jaw tightened fractionally. “I have never met his mother.”

  “Oh, you will. She is already on your trail. Every girlfriend has to be vetted and approved and then cultivated.” Jo leaned against the counter and looked Judy straight in the eye.

  “Do you still love him?” Judy tried hard to hold her gaze.

  Jo snorted. “What kind of naive question is that? Do you really think I’d tell you if I did?” Behind her the coffee began to perk. She ignored it. “At this moment I wish both Sam and Nick Franklyn at the other end of the earth, and if it makes you happy I will cordially wish you there with them. But I should like to say one thing before you go there. If you decide to make any more inventive little statements to the press about my sanity or lack of it, be very careful what you say, because I shall sue you for libel.”

  Judy retreated. “I don’t want anything from you. I’m not surprised Nick couldn’t wait to get away from here!” She turned to the front door and dragged it open. Behind them the phone in the living room began to ring. Jo ignored it as she unplugged the coffeepot. “Shut the door behind you,” she called over her shoulder.

  Judy stopped in her tracks. “Sam told me you’re schizophrenic,” she shouted, “did you know that? He said that you’ll be locked up one of these days. And they’ll throw away the key!” She paused as if hoping for a response. When none came she walked out into the hall and slammed the door. Jo could hear her footsteps as she ran down the stairs outside. Moments later she heard the porch door bang.

  Behind her the phone was still ringing. Dazed, Jo moved toward it and picked up the receiver. Her hands were shaking.

  “Jo? I thought you weren’t there!” The voice on the other end was indignant. Jo swallowed. She was incapable of speaking for a moment. “Jo, dear? Are you all right?” The voice persisted. “It’s me, Ceecliff!”

  Jo managed to speak at last. “I know, Grandma. I’m sorry. My voice is a bit husky. Is that better?” She cleared her throat noisily. “How nice to hear you. How are you?”

  “I am fine as always.” The tones were clipped and direct. Celia Clifford was a vivacious and attractive woman of seventy-six who, in spite of the alternate cajoling and threats of her town-dwelling daughter-in-law and granddaughter, lived completely alone in a rambling Tudor farmhouse in the depths of Suffolk. Jo adored her. Ceecliff was her special property, her refuge, her hidden vice, the shoulder that tough, abrasive Jo Clifford could cry on and no one would ever know.

  “You sound a bit odd, dear,” Ceecliff went on briskly. “You’re not smoking again are you?”

  Jo looked ruefully at the ashtray beside the phone. “I’m trying not to,” she said.

  “Good. And nothing is wrong?”

  Jo frowned. “Why should anything be wrong?”

  There was a chuckle at the other end of the line. “There shouldn’t. I just wanted to make sure that you didn’t have any excuses up your sleeve. You’re coming to lunch here, Jo, so you’d better get ready to leave within half an hour.”

  Jo laughed. “I can’t come all the way to Suffolk for lunch,” she protested.

  “Of course you can. Take off those dreadful jeans and put on a pretty dress, then get in the car. You’ll be here by one.”

  “How did you know I had jeans on?” Jo had begun to smile.

  “I’m psychic.” Ceecliff’s tone was dry. “Now, no more talking. Just come.” There was a click as she hung up and Jo was left staring down at the receiver in her hand.

  ***

  Bet Gunning turned over in bed and ran a languid hand over Tim Heacham’s chest. “Much drunker and you wouldn’t have been able to make it, my friend.”

  Tim groaned. “If I had been much drunker, you could have been accused of necrophilia! If you have any sense of decency at all, Ms. Gunning, you’ll fix me one of your magic prairie oysters in the kitchen and shut up.”

  Bet gave him an old-fashioned look as she padded out to the kitchen but she said nothing. She was too content. In a few moments she was back with a tray containing two coffee mugs and a glass. She watched as Tim drank down the mixture pulling a series of agonized faces, then she held out her hand for the glass. “Now. Coffee and then a cold shower. That will get you compos mentis.”

  “Sadistic bitch.” Tim patted her knee fondly as she sat down next to him. “Is this what makes you such a good editor? Rouse them, satisfy them, give them their medicine, kiss them better, and send them away!”

  She laughed. “So you think I sleep with my staff as well?”

  “It’s the general word. And all your ancillary acolytes—like me. But only the men, of course, as far as I know.”

  Bet reached forward and tugged his hair. “Listen, Tim! If you want to talk shop, tell me how you are getting on with Jo’s pictures. Have you started on them yet?”

  “Of course. But I thought the deadline wasn’t for months.”

  “It isn’t.” Bet inserted her legs beneath the sheet next to his and ran an exploratory finger across his solar plexus.

  Tim flopped back against the pillows and pushed her hand away. “No go, love. Don’t even hope. I’ve had it!” He grinned at her fondly. “I took some super pictures of a woman being hypnotized to think she was a nineteenth-century street girl. I’ll show you the contacts. The only trouble with that article from my point of view is that however glamorous and exciting the stories these people are telling, basically they are still just Mr. and Mrs. Bloggs sitting there in a chair. But it is a tremendous challenge—to catch those faces and make your readers see in them the reflection of whatever character is inhabiting the person’s mind at that moment.”

  “If anyone can do it, you can.” Bet lay back on her elbow beside him and reached for her cup. “You know Jo was regressed herself once?”

  “No. She told me about it. It was a failure. All that guff Judy sounded off was jealous rubbish.”

  Bet shook her head. “Not so. Nick talked to me about it a couple of weeks back. He begged me to kill the article. According to him Jo nearly died under hypnosis.”

  Tim sat up. “For Christ’s sake—”

  Bet smiled. “He overreacts. It would make a better article, you must admit, if Jo could say it had happened to her. Jo is nothing if not honest. If something strange happens to her she’ll write about it.”

  “Even if it’s published posthumously?” Tim swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. “My God, Bet! I thought you were Jo’s friend! Would you really want something awful to happen to her just to make a good
story?” He reached for his trousers and pulled them on. “Bloody hell!”

  Bet laughed. “Don’t be so dramatic. I want some action. I want to see Jo up against something she can’t debunk, just for once. I want to see how she handles an article that really stirs her up. It’ll do her good. I suspect Nick resents her success. He’s jealous of her independence. That’s why they split up, so a plea from him to call off the article comes over to me as very suspicious. She doesn’t need his help—or his hindrance. Oh, yes, I am her friend, sweetie, probably her best friend.”

  “Then God help her.” Tim tugged open a drawer and pulled out a black cashmere sweater, drawing it down awkwardly over his head. “With you and Judy Curzon for friends, who else does she need!”

  “Well, there’s always you, isn’t there? You wouldn’t be entertaining me so enthusiastically if you thought you could lay your sticky little hands on our Jo, would you, my love?”

  Tim flushed a dusky red as he turned away. “Crap. Jo’s never had eyes for anyone but Nick since I’ve known her.” He stared into the mirror and ran his fingers through his hair.

  “More fool her then, because Nick is playing the field. Where are you going?”

  “Sunday or not, I have work to do. Are you going to cook my lunch?”

  Bet stretched, snuggling back under the covers. “Why not? Who were you in your previous life, Tim, do you know?”

  Tim turned and looked down at her. “Funnily enough, I think I do.”

  Bet’s eyes grew round. “You are joking?”

  “No.”

  “Well?” She sat up, the sheet pulled up tightly around her breasts. “Who were you?”

  He grinned. “If I told you that, my love, I’d regret the indiscretion for the rest of my life. Now, you may go back to sleep for exactly forty-one minutes, then get up and put the roast on. I should be finished in the darkroom in an hour.” With a wave he ducked out of the bedroom and ran down the spiral stairs to the studio below.

  ***

  The north London traffic was heavy, and Jo was impatient, but she was so preoccupied she barely noticed the cars and the heavy pall of fumes under the brassy blue sky. It was not until the road finally widened and the cars began to thin that she started to relax and look around her. The air became lush with country summer: blossoms, thick and scented on the trees, rich new green leaves, hedgerows smothered in cow parsley and hawthorn while overhead the sky arched in an intensity of blue that never showed itself in London. Jo smiled to herself, turning off the main road to make her way through the lanes toward Long Melford. She always felt light-headed and free when she arrived in Suffolk. Perhaps it was the air or the thought of seeing Ceecliff, or perhaps it was only the fact that she was nearly always faint with hunger by the time she reached her grandmother’s house.

  She turned down the winding drive that led toward the mellow pink-washed house and drew up slowly outside the front door. Nick’s Porsche was parked in the shade beneath the chestnut tree. She sat and stared at it for a moment, then angrily she threw open the car door and climbed out.

  Nick must have heard the scrunch of her car tires on the gravel for he appeared almost at once around the corner of the house. He was in shirt sleeves, looking relaxed and rested as he grinned at her and raised his hand in greeting. “You’re just in time for a drink.”

  “What are you doing here?” Her anger had evaporated as fast as it had come and there was a strange tightness in her throat as she looked at him. Hastily she turned away to pull her bag out of the car. She held it against her chest and wrapped her arms around it defensively.

  “I needed to talk to your grandmother, so I called her up and came down last night.” He stopped six feet from her, looking at her closely. She had unfastened her hair, letting it fall loosely over her shoulders in an informal style that suited her far better than her usual severe line, and she had changed into a soft clinging dress of peacock blue silk before leaving home. She looked, Nick thought suddenly, very fragile and very beautiful. He resisted the urge to reach out and touch her. “She’s in the garden at the back with the sherry bottle. Come on around.”

  “What was so important you suddenly have to drive out to Suffolk to talk about it?” Jo asked mildly.

  Nick was silent for a moment, still staring at her. Than he shook his head slowly. “I thought I’d do some research for you.” He grinned. “Guess who came from Clare, just around the corner?” He began to lead the way across the gravel.

  Jo followed him. “You came here to check on that?” she said in disbelief.

  Nick shrugged. “Well, no, not exactly. I wanted to talk mainly. And I admit it, I told Ceecliff not to say anything about me when she called you. I wanted to talk to you too and I thought you might not come if you knew I was here.”

  “It’s a pity she didn’t mention you,” Jo retorted. “Your girlfriend was with me when she called. You could have had a word with her and put her mind at rest. She clearly thought I had hidden you under my bed.”

  “Judy was at your apartment this morning?” Nick frowned.

  Jo had begun to walk toward the garden at the back of the house. The grass was soft, scented beneath her sandals, with patches of damp velvety moss and strewn with daisies. “She was just telling me that your brother had confided to her that I was schizophrenic and would need to be locked up soon.”

  Nick laughed. “I hope you didn’t believe her. I’m afraid you seem to bring out the worst in Judy.” He was following her now, around the corner of the house. “Jo, I think there’s something I should explain. Wait a minute, please.” He caught her arm.

  “There’s no explaining to do, Nick.” Jo turned on him, pulling herself free. “You and I have split up. You have a new woman in your life. The night before last you were kind enough to help me out for old times’ sake, when I was feeling a bit frayed, but as soon as someone else turned up to sort me out, you went back to Judy. End of story. Lucky Judy. Only I wish you would explain to her she need not feel so insecure.”

  She could feel a sudden warm breeze stirring her hair as she walked on toward the walnut tree near the willow-shaded pond where her grandmother was sitting in a deck chair. On the horizon white cumulus was beginning to mass into tall thunderheads. She bent and kissed Ceecliff’s cheek.

  “That was unfair to trap me into coming here. Nick and I have nothing to talk about.”

  Ceecliff surveyed her from piercingly bright dark eyes. “I would have thought you had a great deal to talk about. And if he hasn’t, I have! Nick has told me about your amazing experiences, Jo.” She reached up and took her granddaughter’s hand. “I want to hear all about them. You mustn’t be frightened of what happened. You have been privileged.”

  Jo stared at her. “You sound as if you believe in reincarnation.”

  “I think I must. Of a kind.” Ceecliff smiled. “Come on. Sit down and have a sherry and relax. You’re as taut as a wire! Nicholas came up last night to talk to me about you. He was worried that you’re trying to do too much, Jo. And I agree with him. From what he’s told me, I think you need to rest. You must not try to venture into your past again.”

  “Oh, so that’s it.” Jo levered herself back out of the deck chair she had settled into. “He came here to get you to talk me out of going on with my researches. Part of the great Franklyn conspiracy. I wish you would all get it into your heads that this is no one’s business but mine. What I do with my mind and my memory, or whatever it is, is my affair. I am a sober, consenting, rational adult. I make my own decisions.”

  Ceecliff was looking up at her as she talked. She grinned impishly. “There you are, Nicholas. I told you she’d say that.”

  Nick shrugged ruefully. “You did. But it was worth a try.” He handed Jo a glass. “So come on, Jo. You haven’t told us whether you found anything out in the library yesterday. We are all agog.”

  Jo stared at him in feigned astonishment. “Are you telling me now that you’re interested? You amaze me! You weren’t so interes
ted yesterday when you couldn’t wait to leave and go back to Judy!” She had forgotten her grandmother, seated between them.

  “I only went because Sam said I had to, for God’s sake!” Nick’s face was flushed with anger. “Don’t you think I wanted to stay? If he hadn’t pulled rank and reminded me you were his patient I’d have waited all day to make sure you were all right.”

  Jo put her glass down on the tray so abruptly the sherry spilled onto the silver, spattering into amber droplets. “He said I was his patient?” she echoed. Her face had gone white.

  Ceecliff had been watching them both intently. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it literally, dear,” she put in hastily. “I expect he meant that as you had both called him in for his advice he would like the opportunity of talking to Jo alone.”

  “I didn’t call him in!” Jo glared at Nick repressively. “It was Nick’s idea.”

  “Because he is obviously enormously concerned about you.” Stiffly Ceecliff pulled herself to her feet. “Now, no more fighting, children. I wish to enjoy my lunch. Come inside and later Jo can tell us what she found out about her Matilda.”

  ***

  They took their coffee in the conservatory at the back of the house as huge clouds massed and foamed over the garden, blotting out a sky that had become brazen with heat. Ceecliff sent Nick out to bring in the garden chairs as the rain began to fall in huge sparse drops, pitting the surface of the pond. Then she turned to Jo.

  “You’re going to drive that young man straight into her arms, you know!”

  Jo was pouring the coffee, frowning with concentration as she handled the tall silver pot. “It’s where he wants to be.”

  “No, Jo, it isn’t. Can’t you see it?” Ceecliff leaned forward and helped herself to a cup from the tray. “You are being very stubborn. Especially as you obviously love him. You do, don’t you?”

  Jo sat down on the windowseat, her back to the garden. “I don’t know,” she said bleakly. Her hands were lying loosely in her lap. She stared blankly down at them, suddenly overwhelmingly tired. “I’m not sure what I feel any more about anyone. I’m not sure I even know what I feel about myself.”