Lady of Hay (43 page)

“Nick—”

“Or Sam. Sam has always wanted you, hasn’t he? My mother came and told me as much today. Has he ever dared to touch you? I doubt it! My brother is scared of clever women!”

“Please, Nick!” She tried to pull away from him. “You’re hurting me. You promised you wouldn’t—”

“I’ll do what the hell I like with you, Jo.” He smiled at her. “Violence excites you. You like powerful men. You like a man who can bring you to your knees.”

She struggled frantically. “You’re drunk, Nick—”

“I don’t think so. In fact, I’ve not drunk nearly enough.” He let go of her so suddenly she nearly fell. “Let’s have some more wine.”

“You’ve had enough.” She dodged away from him, then stooped and grabbed her crumpled shirt. “If you don’t get out of here in ten seconds, Nick, I’m calling the police!”

He had picked up the wine bottle, and, holding it up to the lamplight for a moment, he poured some into his glass. He moved toward her, sipping it. “This is a good year,” he murmured. “I’m glad you care about good wine. Many women don’t—”

Jo was backing away from him toward the phone. As she reached it he lunged toward her and caught the phone cord, jerking it out of the socket. His wine spilled over her arm as, with a cry of fright, she dodged past him.

“You know, I quite enjoy your show of resistance, Jo,” he said lazily. “I can see why men always prefer—what is it they call them—women of spirit!”

“Just stop all the chauvinist crap and get out of here!” Jo was shaking violently. She put the sofa between herself and Nick as she pulled on her shirt.

“We were talking about the men who told you what to do, weren’t we?” he went on conversationally. “What about those men of Matilda’s? William de Braose, now. He never asked permission before he screwed his wife, I’ll bet. Did it thrill you? Being forced to obey him? You had to obey your husband, didn’t you?” He was moving toward her again slowly, his handsome face set.

Jo backed toward the French doors. “Please, Nick, go away.”

“You haven’t told me yet. Did William turn you on?”

She shook her head. “Never. He was repellent.”

“Yet you bore him six children.”

“Not me, Nick. It wasn’t me, for Christ’s sake! Look, why don’t we go out? It’s a glorious night. Why don’t we go for a drive? A long drive. Do you remember once we drove down to Brighton. We could have a swim at dawn and then have breakfast down there—”

“Tell me about Richard de Clare,” Nick went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Tell me about the handsome Richard. He turned you on, now, didn’t he?”

“Yes!”

Suddenly her fear and anger overflowed and she was yelling at him. “Yes, he bloody well did. He turned me on, as you put it. He was fun. He was humorous and good to be with. He wasn’t intense and competitive. He wasn’t a bloody chauvinist even though he was a medieval knight and an earl! He was a gentleman, Nick. Something you wouldn’t know how to be, if they exist these days, which I don’t think they do. And yes, he was good in bed. And in the bracken and anywhere else he happened to be! Very, very good. A hell of a lot better than you will ever be!” She stopped, panting.

In the silence between them the brown, spiced voice of Edith Piaf had begun to sing “Milord.”

Suddenly Nick began to laugh. “So we have the truth at last.” He went to the stereo and turned up the volume.

“
Allez, dancez, milord!
My only consolation,
milord
,
is that you are dead,
milord
! Dead for eight hundred years! Poor Jo. Being screwed by a ghost! A fucking, imaginary ghost!”

He turned up the volume full, then gave her a mock bow. The sound blazed around the flat, reverberating off the walls, distorted almost out of recognition by the vibration of the bass notes. Jo clapped her hands to her ears.

After snatching his jacket off the chair, Nick slung it over his shoulder and walked to the front door, then he turned. “And you, Jo,” he shouted. “Are you a ghost as well? Think about it, my lady! Think about it!” He opened the door then strolled out onto the landing.

Jo hurled herself at the door and banged it shut, shooting the bolt and putting on the chain. She was shaking from head to foot. Then she staggered to the stereo and switched it off. Only then, in the sudden echoing silence, did she hear the furious hammering on the ceiling from the apartment upstairs.

23

The desk in Bet’s office was covered with slides. She looked up as Jo came in and grinned maliciously as she switched off the viewing box. “God! You look as if you’ve had a hard night. Coffee or medicinal brandy?”

“Coffee, please.” Jo flung herself down in the ocher armchair by the window, letting her bag fall to the floor.

There was a pot perking permanently in the corner of the office, slotted between the bookshelves and piles of magazines. Bet reached for a cup from the tray, filled it with black, unsweetened coffee, and handed it to Jo. “Are you going to tell me?”

“Nick and I had a fight last night.”

“So what’s new?”

Jo raised the cup to her mouth with a shaking hand. “He’s behaving so oddly, Bet. Not like himself at all.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised. You heard about the screw-up Jim Greerson made of the new Desco campaign? He commissioned some unknown to do the artwork, then I gather Nick wasn’t interested enough even to look at it, so Jim went ahead and approved it to show to Mike Desmond. Mike had fifty fits it was so lousy and ran screaming off to Franklyn-Greerson’s nearest competitor and had hysterics in their lap.” Bet scrutinized Jo’s face with cool amber eyes. “But you knew all that.”

Jo smiled wearily. “I knew the gist of it. Can I have some brandy in this coffee?”

Bet walked to her desk, opened the right-hand bottom drawer, and took out a full bottle of Courvoisier. “He didn’t knock you around did he, Jo?” Her eyes were resting on the fading bruise on Jo’s wrist.

Jo shrugged. “Only verbally last night.”

“You mean he has before?” Bet was vastly intrigued.

Jo smiled. “Not really, I suppose. Sorry to disappoint you, Bet. But he did frighten me. It was as if he’d changed personality completely. It can’t have just been business worries. Hell, I was around when he and Jim first went into partnership. They weathered all sorts of crises then and Nick just took them as a challenge. He wouldn’t let one thing like this change his whole personality!” She gave a little shiver. “He’s acting like someone possessed.”

Bet sat down on the chair behind her desk. She crossed her elegantly trousered legs.

“Do you still love him?”

Jo sipped her coffee. “God knows!”

“Then I suggest you leave the relationship to God for the time being.” Bet scrutinized the soft red leather of her ankle-length boots. “What about thinking about work instead? I haven’t seen your byline on the newsstands for weeks. You only appear to feature as the subject of other people’s articles these days.”

“Bet, I said I was sorry about that—”

“Forget it.” Bet put her elbows on the desk. “I want this story for
W I A
, Jo. The whole story, as it happens. Matilda’s life story. Not the romantic crap Pete Leveson was spooning out. I want the real version. The blood-and-guts reality. I want exclusive rights from now on. And I’ll pay. I want to serialize more or less as it happens. Right to the bitter end.”

“I don’t know if I’m going on with it, Bet.” Jo reached for the brandy bottle and slowly unscrewed it. “It frightens me so much. I was thinking of going back to Bennet and asking him again to help me forget all about Matilda. I went to Wales, to the places Matilda knew. When I got there I went into a regression spontaneously, without anyone there to hypnotize me. It was as if I were being taken over by her. I couldn’t stop myself.” She bit her lip. “I panicked and came home. It was terrifying, Bet. I couldn’t handle it. I could suddenly see the whole thing getting out of hand, see her life unrolling hour after hour, day after day, taking over my own existence—”

Bet’s eyes were shining. “Exactly! Jo, you’ve got to let it happen. Come on, don’t tell me you don’t want to do it. It’s the scoop of the year. I want to know what it feels like for a twentieth-century woman to go through the time barrier into the dark ages—”

“It’s hardly the dark ages, Bet. The twelfth century was a time of renaissance.” Jo smiled wearily. “And it’s not
me
who goes back. I am not conscious of myself as having any identity other than that of Matilda at the time. I only make comparisons afterward.”

“Then make them afterward!” Bet picked up a pen and held it in front of her with both hands. “Come on, Jo, it’s not like you to duck out of a challenge. Throw yourself into it. You said you had been to Wales?”

Jo nodded.

“Then go back. Go back now. Concentrate on the story. Don’t fight it. Take this hypnotist man with you if you want to.
W I A
will pay. I’ll draw you up a contract giving us exclusive rights. You can have three consecutive months. Maximum publicity, TV advertising—cover line, of course. It’s possible a TV series might come out of it—who knows? I’ll talk to one or two people I know at the BBC and see what they think. Come on, Jo. We’re talking about a lot of money apart from anything else.” She paused, giving her a sideways glance. “It’ll get you away from Nick for a bit. That can’t be bad either.”

Jo took a deep breath. “True,” she said. She was torn. The journalist half of her wanted to do it; it was the other half, the deep-rooted private half, which resented Bet’s intrusion, and that half of her was still afraid. She looked thoughtfully past Bet out of the windows toward the river. “What about the rest of my series if I agree?”

“We’ll do one of your other articles on its own if you’ve finished it. Drop the rest of the series for the time being. We can go back to them later.” Bet stood up. She walked around the desk and took the brandy bottle out of Jo’s hand. “Come on, I’ll take you out to lunch. You have to admit it, Jo, it’s a bloody good story. You’re too experienced a journalist not to see that. You once told me you’d like to have been a war correspondent, remember? Now is your chance to prove it. Okay, so you’re taking some risks, but think of the experiences you’ll be having. There is a book in this, Jo. You can base it on our series.” She scooped the strap of her tote bag onto her shoulder. Then she paused. “Listen, why not see if Tim Heacham will meet you down in Wales?” She dropped the bag and turned the phone on her desk to face her. “I’ll call him now.”

“I haven’t agreed yet, Bet.” Jo stood up.

“Yes you have.” Bet grinned as she dialed. “You wouldn’t have come to see me this morning if you’d really wanted to stop. You would have gone straight to your hypnotist. Here”—she held out the phone—“the number is ringing.”

***

Bet met Pete Leveson for lunch at Langan’s the following Monday. They sat downstairs, both greeting other diners for a few moments before they turned to one another. Pete grinned. “Perrier with a slice of lemon at this time of day, right?”

Bet raised an eyebrow. “That will do for starters.” She sat back in her chair and looked him straight in the eye. “I’m prepared to bet you know why I asked you to meet me here.”

“Hands off Jo Clifford?” Pete leaned back and crossed one long leg over the other. He stared up at the ceiling. “Do you intend to make it worth my while?”

“You mean you want me to trade stories?” Bet glanced at him quizzically.

“Possibly.
If
you know anything exciting that I don’t.”

Bet laughed out loud. “Touché. Supposing I promise to keep my ear to the ground?” She took up the menu and began to look at it thoughtfully. “There is one favor you might do for me, though, Pete,” she said, not taking her eyes from the list of hors d’oeuvres. “Spend a little time with
la petite
Curzon. I think you’ll find her grateful.”

“You mean Jo will be grateful if Judy has less time for Nick.”

Bet concealed a smile. “No, that’s not what I meant,” she said. She raised a languid hand to greet a colleague who had appeared in the doorway.

Peter gave her a sharp look. Then he grinned. “I see—and while the cat’s away…She’s gone to Wales, you said?”

Bet nodded. “Tim has gone with her. He’s going to photograph the locations—ruins and mountains and things, and also try and catch Jo while she’s in a trance. You’d be amazed how quickly he agreed to go. He dropped everything—left his entire diary to that dishy George chappie and whatever his other assistant is called, packed his knapsack and went.”

Pete gave a silent whistle. “So that’s the way the wind blows. Does Nick know what is happening?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t care. Nick Franklyn is Jo’s worst enemy in some ways. He distracts her from her work. He turns her neurotic when I want her incisive and militant. He blunts that acerbic edge that makes Jo Jo.”

“Besides which, you’ve fancied him yourself for years.”

Bet gave an enigmatic smile. “Have you tried the nest of quails’ eggs they do here?” she said innocently. “If not, I’d recommend it.”

***

There was a knock on Jo’s bedroom door. She stood back from her suitcase and stared for a moment out of the dormer window toward the trees that screened the River Wye from her view. “Come in, Tim. I’m just about ready.” Tim appeared, stooping beneath the low sloping ceiling. “You were right about Mrs. Griffiths,” he said in an undertone. “What a gem. I’m glad she had rooms for us.” He wore an open-necked checked shirt and jeans. There was a camera case slung from his shoulder. “Shall we walk up into Hay?”

Jo nodded. She slipped her notebook into her tote bag and followed Tim down the creaking staircase and out onto the sun-baked pavement.

They walked slowly up the road past the church, stopping to stare at the grass-covered tump where once the first castle of Hay had stood, then they made their way toward the bridge that spanned the river. Leaning on the blue-painted railings, they stared down into the water far below.

“You say it happened here the first time?” Tim asked.

Jo nodded. “I was sitting on the shingle down there.”

“And it happened completely spontaneously?”

“I think I knew something was wrong. Things went strange—a bit jerky, as if I were starting a migraine. Then, quite suddenly, I was somewhere else.”

“You want to try again?”

Jo swallowed. “Of course. That’s what we’ve come for. Actually”—she gave Tim a wry smile—“I’d rather have someone there. I think I’ll feel safer somehow. Waking up and finding those people bending over me…I felt as if they had seen me naked.”

Tim nodded soberly. “I do understand. Come on.” He was about to turn away from the rail when he stiffened and leaned farther over, looking down into the bright glitter of the water. “Look. By those streamers of weed.”

Jo felt a shiver touch her shoulders. She clutched the rail, peering down, half expecting to see some shadow from the long-ago past.

“There. See it?” Tim leaned over in excitement. “A huge fish.”

Jo relaxed. She smiled at him in relief. “This is a famous fishing river. You should have brought your rods, if you fish.”

“No way.” Tim followed her toward the far side of the bridge. “I’d hate to kill anything for fun, that’s a sport for the gods. Besides, I shoot as much as I want with my camera.”

She turned in at the swinging gate that led off the road and onto the footpath. “That sounds very philosophical.”

“Perhaps.” He was grinning as he followed her down the footpath through the trees and onto the shingle strip along the river. Slowly Jo led the way to the spot where she had sat before, picking her way over the smooth rocks that lined the bank of the river. She stopped at last on the edge of the shingle once again.

“It was here,” she said.

Tim was watching her. “You don’t have to try to do it now, Jo. We can wait.”

“No. I want to.”

She put her bag down and sat nervously on one of the boulders. She swallowed, staring at the water, not blinking, allowing her eyes to be dazzled, deliberately trying to make her mind a blank.

Beside her Tim squatted silently, his eyes on her face. He was completely relaxed, his long limbs folded with the motionless ease of someone accustomed to the role of watcher. Jo, in contrast, was rigid with tension. He saw her swallow again. She was frowning. “It isn’t going to happen,” she said at last.

“You’re trying too hard,” Tim said easily. “Try to relax.”

“I can’t.” She tore her eyes away from the water to look at him. “I suppose, deep down, I don’t want it to happen. I’m afraid. Last time, sitting here, I was completely relaxed. It was the last thing I expected. Besides, I think I was so exhausted that my mind went a complete blank and that is when it happened.”

“Were you afraid with Dr. Bennet?” Tim smiled easily.

She nodded. “I was afraid but I couldn’t fight his hypnosis. He knew how to approach it obliquely to put me at my ease.”

“You were telling me you read a book on self-hypnosis. What did that tell you to do?”

She grinned wryly. “It was incredibly complicated. To do with separating the two halves of the brain. You have to keep one half distracted while the other half is stimulated. I didn’t read the instructions too carefully at the time, I must confess. It sounded awfully like hard work.”

Tim laughed. “You should have brought it with you. I could have read out the instructions as we went along. I find it hard enough to cope with my brain even when I think it’s working in unison.” He stretched his arms above his head lazily. “Tell me the point Matilda’s story has reached now.”