Lady of Hay (3 page)

Nick rose to his feet. “I have good reasons, Bet. I don’t know who the hell has been talking to you about me, but just because I’m seeing someone else doesn’t mean I no longer care about Jo.” He was pacing up and down the carpet. “She’s a bloody good journalist, Bet. She’ll research the article thoroughly…” He paused, running his fingers through his thatch of fair hair.

“And why shouldn’t she?” Bet sat on the corner of her desk, watching him intently.

He reached the end of his trajectory across her carpet, and, turning to face her, he leaned against the wall, arms folded, his face worried. “If I tell you, I’m betraying a confidence.”

“If you don’t tell me, there’s no way I’d ever consider stopping the article.”

He shrugged. “You’re a hard bitch, Bet. Okay. But keep this under your hat or you’ll make it far worse for Jo. I happen to know that she is what is called a deep trance subject—that means if she gets hypnotized herself she’s likely to get into trouble. She volunteered in the psychology lab at the university when she was a student. My brother Sam was doing a PhD there and witnessed it. They were researching regression techniques as part of a medical program. She completely flipped. Jo doesn’t know anything about it—they did that business of ‘you won’t remember when you wake up’ on her, but Sam told me the professor in charge of the project had never seen such a dramatic reaction. Only very few people are quite that susceptible. She nearly died, Bet.”

Bet picked up a pencil and began to chew the end of it, her eyes fixed on his face. “Are you serious?”

“Never more so.”

“But that’s fantastic, Nick! Think of the article she’ll produce!”

“
Christ
, Bet!” Nick flung himself away from the wall and slammed his fist on the desk in front of her. “Can’t you see, she
mustn’t
do it?”

“No, I don’t see. Jo’s no fool, Nick. She won’t take any risks. If she knows—”

“But she doesn’t know.” His voice had risen angrily. “I’ve asked her about it and she remembers nothing.
Nothing.
I’ve told her I think it’s dangerous to meddle with hypnosis—which it is—but she laughs at me. Being her, if she thinks I’m against it she’s keener to do it than ever. She thinks everything I say is hokum. Please, Bet. Just this once, take my word for it. When she brings the idea to you, squash it.”

“I’ll think about it.” Bet reached for another cigarette. “Now if you’ll forgive me I should be at a meeting downstairs.” She smiled at him sweetly. “Did you know we were running a review of Judy Curzon’s exhibition, by the way? She’ll be pleased with it, I think. Pete Leveson wrote it, so the publicity should be good.”

He glared at her. “It’s a damn good exhibition.” He reached out for the doorknob. “Bet—”

“I said I’d think about it, Nick.”

She sat gazing at the desk in front of her for several minutes after he had left. Then she reached down to the bag that lay on the carpet at her feet and brought out Jo’s sheaf of notes. The paragraph on hypnotic regression was right on top. Glancing through it, she smiled. Then she put the notes into the top drawer of her desk and locked it.

2

As Jo let herself into her flat she automatically stopped and listened. Then, throwing down her bag, she turned and closed the door behind her, slipping the deadlock into place; she had not really thought Nick might be there.

She went into the kitchen and plugged in the kettle. It was only for those few minutes when she first came in that she missed him: the clutter that surrounded him of cast-off jackets, papers, half-smoked cigarettes, and the endlessly playing radio. She shook her head, reaching into the refrigerator for the coffee beans. “No way, Nicholas,” she said out loud. “You just get out from under my skin!”

On the table in the living room was a heap of books and papers. She pushed them aside to make room for her coffee cup and went to throw open the tall French windows that led onto the balcony which overlooked Cornwall Gardens. The scent of honeysuckle flooded the room from the plant, which trailed over the stone balustrade.

When the phone rang she actually jumped.

It was Tim Heacham. “Jo? I’ve fixed up for us to go and see my friend Bill Walton.”

“Tim, you’re an angel. When and where?” She groped for the pad and pencil.

“Six-fifteen Thursday, at Church Road, Richmond. I’m coming with you and I’ll bring my Brownie.”

She laughed. “Thanks. I’ll see you at your party first.”

“You and someone. Okay, Jo. Must go.”

Tim always hurried on the phone. No time for preliminaries or good-byes.

A broad strip of sunlight lay across the fawn carpet in front of the window, bringing with it the sounds of the London afternoon—the hum of traffic, the shouts of children playing in the gardens, the grinding monotony of a cement mixer somewhere. Reaching for her cup, Jo sank onto the carpet, stretching out her long legs in front of her as she flipped through the address book she had taken from the table and brought the phone down to rest on her knee as she dialed Pete Leveson’s number.

“Pete? It’s Jo.”

“Well, well.” The laconic voice at the other end of the wire feigned astonishment. “And how is the beautiful Joanna?”

“Partnerless for a party. Do you want to come?”

“Whose?”

“Tim Heacham.”

There was a pause at the other end of the line. “I would be honored, of course. Do I gather that Nick is once more out of favor?”

“That’s right.”

Pete laughed. “Okay, Jo. But let me take you out to dinner first. How is work going?”

“Interesting. Have you heard of a guy called Bill Walton, Pete?” Her glance had fallen to the notepad in front of her.

“I don’t think so. Should I?”

“He hypnotizes people and regresses them into their past lives.” She kept her voice carefully neutral. To her surprise he didn’t laugh.

“Therapeutically or for fun?”

“Therapeutically?” she echoed incredulously. “Don’t tell me it’s considered good for you!” She glanced across at the heap of books and articles that formed the basis of her researches. Half of them were still unread.

“As a matter of fact it is. Fascinating topic.” Pete’s voice faded a moment as if he had looked away from the phone, then it came back strongly. “This is work, I take it? I was just looking for a phone number. You remember David Simmons? His sister works for a hypnotherapist who uses regression techniques to cure people’s phobias. I’ll tell you about it if you’re interested.”

***

It was one-thirty in the morning when the phone rang, the bell echoing through the empty studio. Judy Curzon sat up in bed with a start, her red hair tousled. “Dear God, who is it at this hour?”

Nick groaned and rolled over, reaching for her. “Ignore it. It’s a wrong number.”

But she was already pulling herself out of bed. Standing up with a yawn, she snatched the sheet off him and, wrapping it around her, fumbled her way to the lamp. “It never is a wrong number at this hour of the morning. I expect someone is dead.” She pushed through the bedroom door and into the studio.

Nick lay back, running his fingers through his hair, listening. He could hear the distant murmur of her voice. Then there was silence. She appeared in the doorway. “It’s your bloody brother from Edinburgh. He says you left a message for him to call, however late.”

Nick groaned again. “I spent most of yesterday trying to reach him. Sorry, Judy. I’ll go into the sitting room. I’ve got to speak to him now.”

He shut the door and picked up the receiver. “Sam? Can you hear me? It’s about Jo. I need your advice.”

There was a chuckle from the other end. “In bed with one and in love with the other. I’d say you need my advice badly.”

“Sam, this is serious. Jo’s set on writing an article on hypnotic regression. Can I tell her what happened to her last time?”

“No. No, Nick, it’s too risky. I could do it perhaps, but not you. Hell! I can’t postpone this trip. Can you get her to wait until I get back? It’s only a week, then I’ll fly direct to London and have a chat with her about it. Stall her till then, okay? Don’t let her do it.”

“I’ll try to stop her.” Nick grimaced to himself. “But you know Jo. Once she gets the bit between her teeth…”

“Nick, it’s important.” Sam’s voice was very serious. “I may be wrong, but I suspect that there is a whole volcano simmering away in her unconscious. I discussed it with Michael Cohen dozens of times—he always wanted to get her back, you know, but I persuaded him in the end that it was too dangerous. The fact remains that her heart and breathing stopped—stopped, Nick. If that happened again and someone didn’t know how to handle it—well, I don’t have to spell it out, do I? It must not happen again. And just warning her is no good. If you were to tell her about it, cold, after posthypnotic suggestion that she forget the episode, she either won’t believe you—that’s the most likely—or, and this is the risk, she may suffer some kind of trauma or relapse or find she can’t cope with the memory. You must make her wait, Nick, till I get there.”

“Okay, Sam. Thanks for the advice. I’ll do my best. The trouble is, she’s not talking to me.”

Sam laughed. “I’m not surprised when you’re in another woman’s bed.”

Nick put down the receiver.

“So. Why do you have to discuss Jo Clifford with your brother for half an hour in the middle of the night?”

He turned guiltily to see Judy, wearing a tightly belted bathrobe, standing in the doorway.

“Judy—”

“Yes. Judy! Judy’s bed. Judy’s apartment. Judy’s fucking phone!”

“Honey.” Nick went to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “It’s nothing to do with you—with us. It’s just…well.” He groped for words. “Sam’s a doctor.”

“Sam’s a psychiatrist.” She drew in her breath sharply. “You mean there is something wrong with Jo?”

Nick grinned as casually as he could. “Not like that. Not so’s you’d notice, anyway. Look, Judy. Sam is going to come and have a chat with her, that’s all. Hell, he’s known her for about fifteen years—Sam introduced her to me in the first place. She likes Sam and she trusts him. I had to talk to him tonight because he’s going to Switzerland tomorrow. There is no more to it than that. He’s going to help her with an article she’s working on.”

She looked doubtful. “What has this got to do with you, then?”

“Nothing. Except he’s my brother and I’d like to think she is still a friend.”

Something in his expression made her bite back the sarcastic retort that hovered in the air. She gave a small, lost smile.

Nick resisted the impulse to take her in his arms.

***

The next morning he drove over to Jo’s apartment. Swinging her keys, he made for the pillared porch that supported her balcony. He glanced up to see the window open wide beneath its curtain of honeysuckle as he let himself in.

“Jo?” As the apartment door swung open he stuck his head around it and looked in. “Jo, are you there?”

She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, the typewriter on the low coffee table in front of her, dressed in jeans and a floppy turquoise sweater, her long dark hair caught back with a silk scarf. She did not appear to hear him.

He studied her face for a moment, the slim arched brows, the dark lashes that hid her eyes as she looked down at the page before her, the high planes of the cheekbones, and the delicately shaped mouth set off by the severe lines of the scarf—the face of a beautiful woman who would grow more beautiful as she grew older—and he found he was comparing it with Judy’s girlish prettiness. He pushed the door shut behind him with a click.

“I’ll have that key back before you go,” she said without looking up.

He slipped it into his breast pocket with a grin. “You’ll have to take it off me. Did you know your phone was out of order?”

“It’s switched off. I’m working.”

He picked up the top book on the pile by her typewriter and glanced at the title:
The Facts Behind Reincarnation.
He frowned.

“Jo, I want to talk to you about your article.”

“Good. Discussing topics is always helpful.”

“You know my views about this hypnotism business.”

“And you know mine.”

“Jo, will you promise me not to let yourself be hypnotized?”

She leaned forward. “I’ll promise you nothing, Nick. Nothing at all.”

“Christ, Jo! Don’t you know how dangerous hypnosis can be? You hear awful stories of people permanently damaged by playing with something they don’t understand.”

“I’m not playing, Nick,” she replied icily. “I’m working. Working, not playing, on a series of articles. If I were a war correspondent I’d go to war. If I find my field of research is hypnotism I get hypnotized. If necessary.” Furious, she got up and walked up and down the room a couple of times. “But if it worries you so much, perhaps you’d be consoled if I tell you that I can’t be hypnotized. Some people can’t. They tried it on me once at the university.”

Nick sat up abruptly, his eyes on her face. “Sam told me about that time,” he said with caution.

“So why the hell do you keep on then?” She turned on him. “Call up your brother and ask him all about it. Samuel Franklyn, MD, DPM, et cetera! He will spell it out for you.”

“Jo, Sam will be in London next week. Just hold on till then. Promise me. Once he’s seen you—”

“Seen me?” she echoed. “For God’s sake, Nick. What’s the matter with you? I need to see your brother about as much as I need you at the moment, and that is not a lot!”

“Jo, it’s important,” he said desperately. “There is something you don’t know. Something you don’t remember—”

“What do you mean, I don’t remember? I remember every bit of that session in Edinburgh. Better than Sam does obviously. Oh, I’m sure he doesn’t want me to investigate the subject of regression. It’s one of his pet theories, isn’t it, and he doesn’t want me to debunk it in the press. That wouldn’t suit him at all! If your brother wants to see me, let him come and see me. I’ll deal with him myself. You and I have nothing else to say to each other. Nothing!”

“Then I’d best leave,” said Nick. Jo closed the door behind him.

***

That same evening Pete Leveson called with the name of the hypnotherapist: Carl Bennet. Devonshire Place. Jo scribbled it down on the notepad on her desk. She stared at it thoughtfully for a while after she had hung up the phone, then she tore off the page and put it on top of her typewriter.

***

The night of the party the huge photography studio was already full of people when Jo and Pete arrived. They paused for a moment on the threshold to survey the crowd, the women colorfully glittering, the men in shirt sleeves, the noise already crescendoing wildly to drown the plaintive whine of a lone violin somewhere in the street below.

Someone pressed glasses of champagne into their hands.

Jo saw Nick almost at once, standing in front of Tim’s photos, studying them. She recognized the set of his shoulders, the angle of his head. So he was angry. She wondered briefly who with, this time.

“You look wistful, Jo.” Tim Heacham’s voice came from immediately behind her. “And it does not suit you.”

She turned to face him. “Wistful? Never. Happy birthday, Tim. I’m afraid I haven’t brought you a present.”

“Who has?” He laughed. “But I’ve got one for you. Judy’s not here.”

“Should I care?” She noticed suddenly that Pete was at the other end of the room.

“I don’t think you should.” He took the glass from her hand, sipped from it, and gave it back. “You and Nick are bad news for each other at the moment, Jo. You told me so yourself.”

“And I haven’t changed my mind.”

“Nor about tomorrow, I hope?”

“Tomorrow?”

“Our visit to Bill Walton. He’s going to arrange something special for us. We’re going to see Cleopatra and her Antony! I find it all just the smallest bit weird.”

She laughed. “I hope you won’t be disappointed this time, Tim. It’ll only be as good as the imagination of the people there, you know.”

He held up his hand in mock horror. “No. No, you’re not to spoil it for me. I believe.”