Betrayal (14 page)

             
“Answer the letter. It’s the only way to get to the bottom of this.”

             
Lydia nodded numbly as she took the letter from Dan’s extended hand.

             
The telephone rang and Lydia nearly jumped off the sofa. She pleaded silently with Dan not to answer the telephone. He felt his body tighten as the annoying ringing continued, ten rings, eleven rings then at last silence. Lydia relaxed immediately, burying her face beneath Dan’s chiseled jaw, softly kissing his sun-tanned neck.

             
“Darling,” he said at last as he nuzzled her silken hair.  He could feel her flinch, her body tightened.  Dan hesitated.  Pulling her closer still, his voice uneven with emotion, Dan began, “I think I should call Alan tomorrow and set up an appointment.”

             
Even in Dan’s warm embrace Lydia felt alone, adrift on the tide of her ever- changing emotions. She lifted her head, her cornflower blue eyes searching Dan’s face.

             
“Do what you think is best, Dan.”

             
. He knew Stokes had insisted that no one be present at these sessions except for the client and himself. Stokes had demanded that Dan understand that he was not entering into a doctor/patient relationship with Lydia. Stokes had offered to use his skill as a hypnotist to aid Lydia in understanding her nightmares, but he would not be acting as a psychologist or be offering any counseling. Dan remembered being surprised but he quickly realized the benefit when Stokes agreed to make an audio tape of the session, for discussion. Had it been a true doctor/patient relationship anything Lydia said under hypnosis would have been confidential. And Dan wanted to know everything that was said. 

             
“How about going out for dinner and a movie?”  He asked, hoping to take Lydia’s mind off her fear of letting go.

             
“I guess so,” she said reluctantly, realizing their cuddle was at an end. “I’ll just go and change my clothes.”

             
With Lydia safely out of the room, Dan reached for the telephone. Glancing at the business card in his hand he quickly dialed Stokes’ home telephone number. When the answering machine picked up Dan groaned. His dislike of talking to machines causing him to stutter and stammer. “Hello, Alan, it’s, ah, me, Dan Taylor, uhum. I think, uhum, Lydia’s ready, uhum, for you. I mean… Look, I hate talking to these things. Call me.”

Slamming down the receiver Dan turned to see Lydia enter the room. He moved away from the telephone saying sheepishly, “Just calling the service to let them know where we’ll be, but I will have to try again later as all I got was their answering machine. Let’s go,” he said as he pulled the heavy front door open. Lydia grabbed his arm as they turned west on Germain Street.

“Darling,” he said his tone abruptly serious. “I’m worried.”

             
His tone annoyed Lydia who snapped, “What about? I have agreed to do what you want me to.” She turned around and headed home.

             
“Lydia, wait up.” Dan had to run to catch up with her. Out of breath he sputtered, “Lydia, it’s just that your moods change so easily, too easily. One minute you are hysterically happy, the next you are either raging or crying. It is not like you to behave this way. You are the most even tempered person I have ever met, or at least you were.”

             
“Was I now?” Lydia said irritably as she turned the key in the lock. She pushed the oak and etched glass door open, flinging her purse to the floor. “Well, maybe, just maybe, Dan Taylor, if you were living two lives you’d be confused too.”  Lydia stomped off to the bedroom slamming the door behind her. Tears streamed from her eyes as Lydia closed and locked the bedroom door.

             
Dan collapsed in frustration on to the sofa. He stared into the fire as he tried to figure out what was happening to his life. Dan had just reached for the bottle of whiskey on the sideboard when he heard the soft sound of a door opening.  Cocking his head he listened to the quiet footsteps in the hall.

             
“Dan,” Lydia whispered.

             
“Yes,” he replied, turning toward her, the bottle still in his hand.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s happened to me.”  Lydia’s voice was so low his ears had to strain to hear her. Meekly, she entered the room taking a seat close to the snapping gas fire.

The ice cubes clinked against the glass as Dan poured in a half tumbler of whiskey. He stood glowering at Lydia, his emotions awash in confusion. Silence reigned supreme, only the artificial snap-crackle of the fire broke its hold.

Lydia sat with shoulders hunched, leaning towards the hearth. Dan stood, glass in hand, a few meters away, his head erect, anger and bewilderment clouding his dark eyes. Neither spoke.

Finally, Lydia said, “I’m sorry, Dan. I don’t understand anymore than you do. Sometimes I am not even sure what century I’m in. Before you came home, I was sitting as I am now, just here before the fire, watching the flames dance and I saw a scene form in the fire.”  Lydia hesitated, waiting to see if Dan would stomp out of the room. He didn’t.  Lydia continued a little less hesitantly. “They were in a large cold room, a bedroom.”

“Who were?”

“The girl Elisabeth and two other women, one of whom I recognized from the garden in my daydream. The other stood in shadow. I couldn’t see her very well. I only saw the scene briefly, but I felt the bone-chilling cold of the room and then it dissolved back into the dancing flames when I heard the front door open. What is happening to me? And what is Old Beretun? Do you think they are connected?”

“I don’t have any answers for you, Lydia. Maybe Alan is right, maybe there is a Great Unconscious out there that we can contact in a dream state. Maybe reincarnation really exists, though, as a doctor, I can’t believe in it. I’ve seen too much to go back now. But, it certainly seems as if someone else’s life is falling over into yours. I don’t know. All I know is that you are not the same person I begged to move in with me. I want to
marry you, Lydia. I want to buy a house, have children, pets, the whole white picket fence thing, but…”

“I know, Dan, but I am not ready for that level of commitment. I need to find out why Elisabeth’s life plagues my dreams. Why in moments of quiet do I drift to her life? What does it mean?  Does it mean anything at all? And now, there’s this inheritance, Lord knows, what that will entail.  I love you, Dan, but I am not ready to be your wife.”

Dan swept his hand over his face in exasperation. The telephone rang again. Walking to the table Dan lifted the receiver to his ear. Nodding, he spoke a few words Lydia couldn’t hear and then he hung up the phone.  “I have to go out. I need some time to think. I can’t take much more of this. I never know what I am going to find when I come home. And work, well, work has become hell. I never know whether you will be there when I need you. Ours is a ‘family’ family practice. I need you on the front desk. Our patients need you there. You have a special way with people, and frankly I am tired of them asking why you have changed. I don’t know why, but changed you have. The nightmares were bad enough, but now this craziness is eating up our days too.”

Lydia bent forward resting her head in her hands. She ached to reach out to him, but she remained quiet. What could she say? He was right, she had changed. Lydia’s heart sank as she heard Dan cross the room. She listened as the front door opened and closed.  How long she sat there, Lydia didn’t know. He still wasn’t home when hunger drove her to the kitchen. She stood staring into the refrigerator, seeing nothing to tempt the emptiness within. Holding the door open, she raised her hand to her mouth as her gaze lowered to the floor. What could she do? She was losing Dan and she knew it.
Letting the heavy door close Lydia paced aimlessly through the apartment, unable to settle down.

Her fears of losing Dan mingled with her fears of letting go, of letting herself show through the layers of carefully constructed onion skin. Her feelings of inadequacy, her lack of self-esteem, the buried seeds of doubt, how could she dare to reveal her true self?  Under hypnosis, she would have no control, the real Lydia would be unmasked, her insecurity, her failings, for all to see. The insecurities and taunts of her childhood whirled around Lydia enveloping her in a sea of tears.

Dan found her collapsed in a heap by the bedroom door.  He had found her this way before, exhausted by terrors he could not understand. Lifting her gently, he carried her to the bed. She slept on, his touch unnoticed. He lay on the bed next to her, staring at the darkened ceiling until he too fell into an exhausted sleep.

                                                                                    ***

Dawn broke clear and cold. Dan awakened to find he was alone in the bed. Sitting up his eyes searched the bedroom for Lydia. The tinkling sound of water being run into a glass container relieved him of his anxiety. He stood up, taking note of his creased slacks and wrinkled shirt. He changed quickly into a clean shirt and navy-blue serge trousers, the white shirt snowy against his tanned face. He buttoned his shirt as he passed down the hall to the kitchen. Passing his hand over the stubble of his beard, he wished he had taken the time to shave before confronting Lydia. His hands sought the pockets of his pants, a nervous habit from his high school days. His fingers toyed with the loose threads at the pocket’s seams. Delaying the inevitable, he walked into the apartment’s living room. He reached to pull the heavy brown drapes open. He stood gazing out the window watching as traffic built to steady stop and go on the quiet residential street. He grimaced as he watched the daily commuters snap up the few parking spaces on Germain Street.

             
Dan felt uneasy about not having resolved his anger of the previous night. His mother had always taught that you should never go to bed angry. He felt bad that he had not made peace with Lydia. But he meant to stand his ground. He was determined to bring about an end to the unsettling situation brought about by Lydia’s nightmares. Stokes had almost guaranteed he could end Lydia’s dream by post-hypnotic suggestion. It had never been Dan’s intention to investigate Lydia’s dreams, only to end them.

             
Dan became more determined than ever that she would indeed see Stokes for the one session that would be her cure. He paused in the hall before entering the kitchen.

Lydia stood with her back to him, washing the glasses from the night before in the kitchen’s large porcelain sink. If she heard Dan enter the room her movements didn’t show it.

“Pax?” he asked, snaking his arms around her waist.

“Pax,” Lydia replied, her anger dissolving. She was smiling as she twirled in his arms to face him.

“I’m sorry I huffed and puffed my way out the door. It really wasn’t a very mature way to behave. Forgive me?” he asked, giving Lydia his very best little boy lost look.

“You haven’t shaved yet,” she said as she poked him in the belly. “You will be late for your hospital rounds if you don’t get going right this minute.”  Placing her hands
on Dan’s hips she turned him around, patted him on the back and sent him out of the room.

Dan reappeared at the kitchen door a few minutes later. Lydia turned to him, falling into his outstretched arms. She nuzzled his neck, kissing the soft spot below his left ear just below his jaw. “Mmm,” she said softly between quick kisses.  “Ah my favorite place, in the entire world. I feel so safe here.” Her nose picked up the delicate scent of his after-shave, ‘Giorgio pour homme’.

              Dan opened his eyes, relaxed in the closeness of her lithe body. They drifted in the pleasure of their embrace until Dan’s eye caught sight of the kitchen’s bright sunflower clock.

             
“Oh,” he groaned, as Lydia’s lips pressed deeper into the soft flesh of his neck. Reluctant to let go of the embrace he fought the increasing awareness that if he didn’t leave soon he would indeed be late for the office, very late. His lips moved in a silent curse at the location of the Saint John Regional Hospital. Well out of the city center, it meant going miles out of his way.  Knowing to resist further would only put him hopelessly behind, Dan lowered his face to Lydia’s moist lips, kissed her; then gently he turned her around to face the steaming tea kettle.

             
“I have time for a quick cup of coffee, but that’s all. No, I don’t want any toast,” he continued as Lydia turned to slip two slices of bread into the toaster. “I am too late. How would you like to go to that new restaurant on King Street for lunch?”

             
Lydia’s blank look brought a broad smile to Dan’s face. “You know that new Italian place up towards King’s Square.”

             
Lydia nodded, asking, “Will there be time?”

             
“Only if I get out of here now, I should be in the office by nine-thirty,” Dan said, and with a wave of his hand he was gone.

***

             
After Dan left the room Lydia breathed a deep sigh of relief, pleased that she had succeeded in herding him out the door before the subject of hypnosis was raised. He would be unable to talk about it before he reached the office and there she could delay indefinitely if need be. Lydia smiled as she poured a cup of hot tea into her favorite china cup. Her cat, Tremayne, weaved his way through her feet settling at last to doze on her slipper. Lydia stroked the cat’s back with her toes, pleased he had sought her out after her unintended cruelty of the previous day when she had locked him in the townhouse’s basement.