Lady of Hay (5 page)

Jo grimaced. “She’s right. If she told you that it’s very brave of you to be so open with me.”

“Why not? I’ve nothing to hide. As I told you, the hypnotism is real. The responses are real. I do not seek to explain them. Perhaps you will be able to do that.”

He grinned.

Jo found herself smiling back. “I doubt it,” she said as she picked up her bag, “but I daresay I’ll give it a try.”

***

“Come on, Jo. There’s something wrong, isn’t there?”

Tim put a double Scotch on the table in front of her and sat himself down in the chair facing her.

Jo summoned up a tired smile. “I’m exhausted, Tim, that’s all. This’ll put me right.” She picked up her glass. “Thanks for arranging everything this evening.”

“But Walton worried you, didn’t he, and not just because you thought he was a fake.”

She shook her head slowly. “He wasn’t a fake. At least, I don’t think so. A telepath perhaps—I don’t know—” She was silent for a minute. “Yes, he did worry me, Tim. The stupid thing is, I don’t know why. But it’s something deep inside me. Something I can’t put my finger on, floating at the edge of my mind. Every minute I think I’m going to remember what it is, but I can’t quite catch it.” She took a sip from her glass and grinned suddenly, her face animated. “Makes me sound pretty neurotic, doesn’t it? No, Tim, I’m okay. I think I’ve been letting Nick get to me more than I realize, with his fearsome warnings. He’s a bit paranoid about hypnosis. He told me once that he has this fear of losing consciousness—even on the edge of ordinary sleep. I think he thinks hypnosis is the same—like an anesthetic.”

“And it is true he’s been on to his brother about you?” Tim asked gently after a pause.

She drew a ring on the table with her finger in some spilled beer. “I could kill Judy.” She looked up at him again and gave a rueful grimace. “I wouldn’t be surprised if what she said was true. Nick told me he’d been in touch with Sam.”

“You knew Sam well, of course.”

She nodded. “He became a friend after—” She hesitated. “After they tried to hypnotize me, he and his boss, in Edinburgh, that first time. But we were never lovers or anything. The
coup de foudre
came with his kid brother.”

Tim raised an eyebrow. “And
the foudre
has not yet run to earth, has it?”

“Oh, yes. After last night it has. Finished. Caput. Finis. Bye-bye Nicholas.” She bit her lip hard.

Reaching over, Tim touched her hand lightly. “Poor Jo. Have another drink.” He stood up and picked up her glass without waiting for her reply.

She watched him work his way to the bar, his tall, lanky frame moving easily between the crowded drinkers. She frowned. Tim reminded her of someone she had known when she was a child, but she could not quite remember who. Someone she had liked. She gave a rueful grin. Was that why she could never love him?

She held out her hand for her glass as he returned. “I’ve just thought of who it is you remind me.” She gave a quick gurgle of laughter. “It’s not someone from one of my previous lives. It’s my Uncle James’s Afghan hound. His name was Zarathustra!”

***

Tim poured himself another whisky as soon as he got in. He had dropped Jo off at her apartment, declining her offer of coffee. Throwing himself down in one of his low-sprung easy chairs, he reached for the phone.

“Hi, Nick. Can you talk?”

He shifted the receiver to his other hand and picked up his drink. “Listen, have you seen Pete Leveson?”

“He was here earlier.” Nick sounded cautious.

“Did he manage to call off the press?”

“Apparently not. Have you warned Jo?”

Tim took a long drink from his glass. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. Shit, if he can’t do it, no one can. And I don’t think Jo has a clue what is in store for her. She doesn’t seem to realize anyone else heard at all. As far as she was concerned there were only two people in that room at that moment—Judy and herself. I hope that dolly of yours is really proud of herself. Listen, Nick, what is this about Jo and hypnotism? Is it serious?”

“Yes. It’s serious. So if you’ve any influence with her, keep her away from it.”

“We went to see a hypnotist tonight.”

“Christ!”

“No, no. Not for Jo. Or at least only for her to watch other people being regressed. It was fascinating, but the fact is that Jo did behave a bit oddly. She didn’t seem to be the least bit susceptible herself when he did his tests on everyone at the beginning, but afterward Walton said she was really, but she had been fighting it, and it upset her.”

“It would.” Nick’s voice was grim. “Look, Tim, is she going to see him again? Or anyone else, do you know?”

“I don’t think so. She did say that maybe she’d got enough material to be going on with.”

“Thank God. Just pray she doesn’t feel she needs to pursue any of this further. Sorry, Tim. Judy’s just coming in. I’ve got to go.” His voice had dropped suddenly to a whisper.

Tim grinned as he hung up. The henpecked Lothario role did not suit Nick Franklyn one bit.

4

Jo wanted to call Sam.

For hours she had lain tossing and turning thinking about Bill Walton and Sarah Potter, who had once been a street girl called Betsy; and about Tim and Judy Curzon; but her mind refused to focus. Instead again and again she saw images of Cohen’s little Edinburgh study, with the huge antiquated radiator against which Sam had leaned, then the snow, whirling past the window, blotting out the sky, then her hands. Somehow her hands had been hurt; she remembered her fingers, blistered and bleeding, and Michael Cohen, his face pale and embarrassed talking about chilblains, and suddenly with startling clarity she remembered the bloodstains on the floor. How had the blood, her blood, come to be smeared all over the floor of his study?

She sat up abruptly, her body pouring with sweat, staring at the half-drawn curtains of her bedroom. The sheets were tangled and her pillow had fallen to the floor. Outside she could just see the faint light of dawn beginning to lighten the sky. Somewhere a bird had begun to sing, its whistle echoing mournfully between the tall houses. With her head aching she got up and staggered to the kitchen, turning on the light and staring around; automatically she reached for the kettle.

She found Sam’s number in her old address book. After carrying a cup of black coffee through to the sitting room, she sat on the floor and picked up the phone. It was four thirty-two a.m. as she began to dial Edinburgh.

There was no reply.

She let the phone ring for five minutes before she gave up. Only then did she remember that Sam had gone abroad. She drank the coffee slowly, then she called Nick’s apartment. There was no answer from his phone either and she slammed down the receiver.

“Goddamn you, Nick Franklyn!” she swore under her breath. She stood up and went to throw back the curtains, staring out over the sleeping square. On the coffee table behind her lay a scrap of paper. On it was written in Pete Leveson’s neat italic script:

Dr. Carl Bennet, hypnotherapist. (Secretary Sarah Simmons: sister of David who you rather liked if I remember when he came to
W I A
as a features writer in ’76.) Have made an appointment for you Friday, three
p.m
. to sit in on a session. Don’t miss it; I had to grovel to fix it for you.

Jo turned and picked up the piece of paper yet again. She did not want to go.

***

It was two forty-five as she walked slowly up Devonshire Place, peering at the numbers and stopping at last outside one with a cream front door. Four brass plates were displayed on the elegantly washed paneling.

The door was opened by a white-coated receptionist. “Dr. Bennet?” she said in response to Jo’s inquiry. “Just one minute and I’ll call upstairs.” The place smelled of antiseptic and jasmine. Jo waited in the hall, staring at herself in a huge gilt-framed mirror. Her eyes were shadowed from lack of sleep and she could see the strain in her face as she watched the woman on the telephone in the reflection behind her.

“You can go up, Miss Clifford,” the woman said after a moment. “The second floor. His secretary will meet you.”

Jo walked up slowly, aware of a figure waiting for her on the half landing at the head of the flight of stairs. Sarah Simmons was a tall fair-haired woman in a sweater and shirt, and Jo found herself sighing with relief. She had been afraid of another white coat.

“Jo Clifford?” Sarah extended her hand with a pleasant smile. “Pete Leveson spoke to us about you. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Jo grinned “Did he warn you I’m the world’s most violent skeptic?”

She laughed. “He did, but Carl is very tolerant. Come and meet him.”

Carl Bennet was sitting at a desk in a room that looked out over the street. It was a pleasant book-lined study, furnished with several deep armchairs and a sofa, all with discreet but expensive upholstery; the carpet was scattered with Afghan rugs—sufficiently worn to emphasize their antiquity. It was a comfortable room; a man’s room, Jo thought with sudden amusement, the sort of room that should smell of cigars. It didn’t. There was only the faintest suspicion of cologne.

Carl Bennet rose to greet her with a half-hesitant smile. “Miss Clifford. Please, come and sit down. Sarah will bring us some coffee—unless you would prefer tea?” He spoke with a barely perceptible mid-European accent. He nodded at Sarah, who disappeared through a door in the far wall, then he looked back at Jo. “I find my kitchen is the most important part of my office here,” he said gently. “Now tell me, exactly how can I help you?”

Jo took out her notebook and, balancing it on her knee, sat down on one of the chairs. It was half turned with its back to the window. Her mouth had gone suddenly dry.

“As I believe Pete Leveson told you, I am writing an article on hypnotic regression. I’d like to ask you about it and if possible see how you work.” She was watching his face intently. “Yesterday I attended a session with Bill Walton in Richmond. I wonder whether you know him?”

Bennet frowned. “I’ve heard of him, of course—”

“And you don’t approve?”

“On the contrary. He has published some interesting papers. But we practice in very different ways.”

“Can you tell me how your approach differs?” Jo kept her eyes fixed on his face as Sarah came in with a tray.

“Of course. Mr. Walton is an amateur, Miss Clifford. He does not, I believe, ever claim medical benefits from his work. I am a psychologist and I use this form of hypnosis in the treatment of specific conditions. I use it primarily in a medical context, and as such it is not something to be debunked by cheap journalism. If that is what you have in mind, then I would ask you to leave now.”

Jo flushed angrily. “I feel sure, Dr. Bennet, that you will convince me so thoroughly that I will have no cause to debunk—as you put it—anything,” she said a little sharply. She took a cup from Sarah.

“Good.” He smiled disarmingly. He took off his glasses and polished them with the cloth from the eyeglass case that lay on his desk.

“Are you really going to allow me to sit in on a session with a patient?” Jo asked cautiously.

Bennet nodded. “She has agreed, with one proviso. That you do not mention her name.”

“I’ll give you a written guarantee if you wish,” Jo said grimly. “Would you explain a little of what is going to happen before she gets here?”

“Of course.” He stood up and, walking over to the sofa, sat down again. “It has been found that unexplained and hitherto incurable phobias frequently have their explanation in events that have occurred to a subject either in very early infancy or childhood, or in a previous existence. It is my job to regress the patient to that time, take them once more through the trauma involved—which is often, I may say, a deeply disturbing experience—to discover what it is that has led to the terror which has persisted into later life or even into another incarnation.”

Jo strove to keep the disbelief out of her voice as she said, “Of course, this presupposes your absolute belief in reincarnation?”

“Of course.”

She could feel his eyes steady on her face. She glanced away. “I am afraid you will have to convince me, Dr. Bennet. I must admit to being very dubious. If you were to affirm to me your belief in reincarnation as part of a religious philosophy, I should not presume to question it. It is this quasi-medical context—” She indicated the consulting room couch. “Are you saying therefore that everyone has lived before?”

He gave a tolerant smile. “In my experience, no. Some have lived on this earth many times, others are new souls.”

She stared at him, swallowing with difficulty the bubble of laughter that threatened to overwhelm her as he stood up again, a solid graying man in his sixties, and walked over to her chair. “I can see you are derisive, Miss Clifford,” he said severely, his eyes on hers, magnified a little by the thick lenses of his glasses. “One grows used to it as an initial, perhaps defensive response. All I ask is that you keep an open mind while you are here. Are you objective enough to be able to do that?”

Jo looked away. “I am sorry, I really am. I pride myself on my objectivity and I will try. In fact”—she set her cup down at her feet—“you have aroused my curiosity intensely. Can you tell before you start whether people have lived before?”

He smiled. “In some cases, yes. Sometimes it is harder.”

Jo took a deep breath. “Can you tell by looking at me?”

He stared at her, holding her gaze for a while, until she dropped her eyes and looked away.

“I think you have been on this earth before, yes.”

She felt her skin creep. “How can you tell?”

He shrugged. “I might be wrong. It is an instinct I have developed after years of studying the subject.” He frowned. “I have a suspicion that the patient you are about to meet may not in fact have done so,” he said with a grimace. “I can’t promise anything from her that will necessarily help you with your article. I have had one preliminary interview with the lady—we shall just call her Adele. She is a good hypnotic subject. She has a very strong and illogical fear of water that can be explained by nothing that she can remember. I shall try to regress her, and it may be that we need go no farther than her own childhood to discover the cause.” He walked thoughtfully back to his desk, glancing at his watch. “She is late, I fear. Sarah!” He called toward the side room from where they could hear the sound of a typewriter. It stopped and Sarah appeared in the doorway. “Call Mrs. Noble and make sure she has remembered her appointment.”

He scowled at the blotter on his desk, tracing the ornate gold tooling of the leather with a neatly manicured finger. “This lady is both vague and a hysteric,” he said almost to himself. “It would not entirely surprise me if she did not turn up.” He picked up the file on his desk and turned back the cover.

Jo felt a sharp stab of disappointment. “Are people usually apprehensive about your treatment?” she asked after a moment’s pause.

He looked at her thoughtfully. “It would be strange if they were not.”

Sarah appeared in the doorway. “Sorry, Carl, she’s not coming. She says her daughter is ill and she has to go to see her. I told her she’d have to pay for the appointment anyway—”

Bennet gave a sharp gesture of dismissal. He stood up abruptly. “I am sorry, Miss Clifford. I was looking forward to proving my case to you. I am afraid this visit has wasted your time.”

“Not necessarily surely.” Sarah had picked up the folder on the desk. “Have you ever considered undergoing hypnotic regression yourself, Joanna? After all, Carl now has an afternoon free—at your disposal.”

Jo swallowed. “I suppose I should try it myself,” she said hesitantly. “Do you think I could be regressed, Dr. Bennet?”

He spread his fingers in the air and shrugged. “We could try. People of strong personality tend to make good subjects, but of course they must allow themselves to be hypnotized. No one can be against their will, you know. If you are prepared to set aside your reservations completely I would be prepared to try.”

“I have no phobias to speak of.” She managed a little smile. “Hobby horses, yes. Of such are my columns made, but phobias, I don’t think so.”

“Then we could regard it merely as an interesting experiment.” He bowed with old-fashioned courtesy.

Jo found she was breathing rather fast. The palms of her hands were sweating. “I’m afraid I would be a difficult subject even if I cooperate as hard as I can. I did take part in a survey at the university under Professor Cohen. He didn’t manage to get anywhere with me.”

Bennet sat down on the edge of the desk and looked at her thoughtfully. “Michael Cohen was one of the great authorities on the subject. I wish I had met him before he died,” he said a little wistfully. “I’m surprised to find you so hostile to the theories behind hypnotic regression if you were involved in any of his clinical trials. When you say nothing happened, do you mean he was not able to regress you at all?”

Jo shook her head. “He couldn’t hypnotize me. I didn’t know why. I didn’t fight it. I wanted it to happen.”

Bells were ringing in her mind once more, full of warning. Almost in panic she turned away from him, not wanting him to see the struggle going on inside her; she crossed the carpet to look out of the window into the busy street below, shivering in spite of the humid warmth of the afternoon. The sun was reflecting on a window opposite, dazzling as she stared at it. She turned back to Bennet.

“I have a small tape recorder in my bag. Would you object if I used it while you try?”

He shook his head and gestured toward a table by the far wall. “As you see, I use one too, for various reasons. I also always insist that Miss Simmons is present to act as a chaperone.” He did not smile. “I should explain, however, that often one needs a preliminary session to establish a rapport between hypnotist and patient. It is a far more delicate relationship than that implied by music-hall acts or sensational fiction. So you should not expect too much on this occasion.” He grinned suddenly. “Or too little either, Miss Clifford. You may indeed be a hard subject—I’m sure with your cooperation, though, I can achieve something. And I have a feeling you would be an interesting case.” He smiled boyishly. “Quite a challenge, in fact. But I don’t wish to talk you into this if you still have any reservations. I think you should take a little time to consider—”