Lady of Hay: An enduring classic – gripping, atmospheric and utterly compelling

‘A pin?’

‘Oh yes. You’ll hear it on the tape. I stuck a pin into the palm of your hand. Had you not been in a sufficiently deep trance you would have shrieked at me, and bled of course.’

Jo stared at both her hands in disbelief. ‘And I did neither?’

‘You did neither.’

She shivered. ‘It’s horrible. You could end up having complete domination over people without them ever knowing it!’

Carl looked offended. ‘My dear, we have a professional code, I assure you, like all doctors, and, as I said, always a chaperone.’

‘In case you get your evil way with a woman patient?’ The strain on Jo’s face lessened as she smiled at last.

‘Even hypnotherapists are human!’ he responded.

‘And as such are liable to be hurt by what I write about them in the magazine?’ Serious again, Jo swung her shoulder bag onto her arm. She picked up her tape recorder and stood up, shocked to find her knees were still trembling.

Bennet made a deprecatory gesture with his hands. ‘I will admit I have read some of your work. I believe it to be well researched and objective. I can ask for no more from you in my case.’

‘Even though I’m not converted to your theories of reincarnation?’

‘All I ask is an open mind.’ He went to the door ahead of her. ‘Are you sure you feel well enough to go? You wouldn’t like to rest a while longer?’

She shook her head, suddenly anxious to be outside in the fresh air.

‘Then I will say goodbye. But even if you feel you must leave us now, I beg you to consider returning for another session. It might help to clarify matters for both of us.’

She shook her head. ‘No. I’m sorry.’

‘Well then, can I ask you to note down every detail of what you remember?’ he begged. ‘While it is still fresh in your mind. I think you will find your memory clear and complete. Far, far more than you described to me. All kinds of details which you did not mention at the time but which you will remember later. You’ll do it anyway for your article, I’m sure.’ He was standing in front of the door, barring the way. ‘And you’ll check the history books to see if you can find out whether Matilda existed?’

She gave a tight smile. ‘I will. I’m going to check everything meticulously. That I promise you.’

‘And you will tell me if you find anything? Anything at all?’ He took her hand and gripped it firmly. ‘Even if she is the heroine of a novel you read last year.’ He grinned.

‘You don’t believe that?’

He shook his head. ‘No, but I think you may. Perhaps you would come back, just to discuss what you have discovered,’ he went on hopefully as he opened the door for her at last. ‘Will you do that?’

‘I’ll certainly send you a copy of the article before it goes to press.’

He sighed. ‘I’ll look forward to that. But remember, you know where I am if you need me.’

He watched as she walked along the carpeted hallway towards the stairs, then he closed the door and leaned against it.

Sarah was collecting the cups. ‘Do you think she will come back?’ she said over her shoulder. She twitched the rug on the sofa straight and selected a new blank tape for the machine.

Bennet had not moved from the door. ‘That girl is the best subject I’ve ever come across,’ he said slowly.

Sarah moved, the tray in her hand, towards the kitchen. ‘And yet you were dreading this appointment.’

He nodded. ‘Pete Leveson had told me how anti she was. She had made up her mind before she ever met me that I was a charlatan.’ He chuckled. ‘But it is the strong-willed, if they make up their minds to surrender to hypnosis, who are by far the best subjects. This one was amazing. The way she took it over. I couldn’t reach her, Sarah! I could not reach her! She was out of my control.’

‘It was frightening,’ Sarah said vehemently. ‘I wouldn’t have liked to be in her shoes. I bet she has nightmares about it. Did you notice? She wasn’t half so confident and sure of herself afterwards.’

He had begun to pace the carpet restlessly. ‘I have to get her back here. It is imperative that we try it again.’

Sarah glanced at him. ‘Weren’t you afraid, Carl? Just for a moment?’ she asked.

He nodded. ‘I didn’t think it could happen. But it did. And that is why it is so important. She’ll come, though. She’ll think about it and she’ll come back.’ He smiled at Sarah vaguely, taking off his spectacles once more and squinting through them at some imaginary speck on the lens. ‘If she’s half the journalist I think she is, she’ll come back.’

9 (#ulink_adbf24bd-0883-59ba-8043-306771641c34)

As the cab drew away from the kerb Jo settled back on the broad slippery seat and closed her eyes against the glare of the sunlight reflected in the spray thrown up from the road by the traffic. Then she opened them again and looked at her watch. It was barely five. She had lived through twenty-four hours of fear and horror and it was barely five o’clock. In front of her the folding seats blurred; above them the tariff card in the window floated disembodied for a moment. Her hands were shaking.

With a squeal of brakes the taxi stopped at the traffic lights and her bag shot off the seat onto the floor. As she bent to retrieve it she found herself wincing with pain. Her fingertips felt bruised and torn and yet, when she examined them, they were unharmed. She frowned, remembering the way she had clung to the stone arch to stop herself from fainting as she watched the slaughter of William’s guests, and she swallowed hard. She put her hands deep into the pockets of her jacket as the taxi cut expertly through the traffic towards Kensington, the driver thankfully taciturn, the glass slide of his window tightly closed, leaving her alone with her thoughts. She felt strangely disorientated, half her mind still clinging to the dream, alienated from the roar of the rush hour around her. It was as if this were the unreal world and that other cold past the place where she still belonged.

Her flat was cool and shadowy, scented by some pinks in a bowl by the bookcase. She threw open the tall balcony windows and stood for a moment looking out at the trees in the square. Another shower was on its way, the heavy cloud throwing racing shadows over the rooftops on the far side of the gardens.

She turned towards the kitchen. Collecting a glass of apple juice from the carton in the fridge, she carried it along to the bathroom, set it carefully down on the edge of the bath and turned on the shower. Stepping out of her clothes, she stood beneath the tepid water, letting it cascade down onto her upturned face, running it through her aching fingers. She stood there a long time, not allowing herself to think, just feeling the clean stream of the water wash over her. Soon she would slip on her cool cotton bathrobe, sit down at her desk and write up her notes, just as she always did after an interview, whilst it was still absolutely fresh in her mind. Except that this time she had very few notes, and instead the small tape recorder which was waiting for her now on the chair just inside the front door.

Slowly she towelled her hair dry, then, sipping from her glass, she wandered back into the living room. She ran her fingers across the buttons of the machine, but she did not switch it on. Instead she sat down and stared blankly at the carpet.

In the top drawer of her desk was the first rough typescript of her article. She could remember clearly the introduction she had drafted:

Would you like to discover that in a previous life you had been a queen or an emperor; that, just as you had always suspected, you are not quite of this mundane world; that in your past there are secrets, glamour and adventure, just waiting to be remembered? Of course you would. Hypnotists say that they can reveal this past to you by their regression techniques. But just how genuine are their claims? Joanna Clifford investigates …

Jo got up restlessly. Joanna Clifford investigates, and ends up getting her fingers burned, she thought ruefully. On medieval stone. She examined her nails again. They still felt raw and torn, but nowhere could she see any sign of damage; even the varnish was unchipped. She had a vivid recollection suddenly of the small blue-painted office in Edinburgh. Her hands had been injured then too. She frowned, remembering with a shiver the streaks of blood on the rush matting. ‘Oh Christ!’ She fought back a sudden wave of nausea. Had Cohen hypnotised her after all? Had she seen that bloody massacre before, in his office? Was that what Sam had wanted to tell her? She rubbed her hands on the front of her bathrobe and looked at them hard. Then, taking a deep breath, she went over and picked up the tape recorder, setting it on the low coffee table. Kneeling on the carpet she pressed the ‘rewind’ button and listened to the whine of the spinning tape. She did not wait for the whole reel. Halfway through she stopped it. Somewhere in the flat there must be some cigarettes. Nick might have left some lying about – perhaps if she went to look.

But she did not move. Outside she could hear the highpitched giggle of a child playing in the garden square, and in the distance the constant hum of the traffic in Gloucester Road. They were twentieth-century sounds. Whatever had happened this afternoon had no more relevance than a dream, or a TV movie watched on a wet Saturday afternoon with the curtains drawn against the rain. So why was she afraid to hear the tape?

She pressed the ‘play’ button and closed her eyes as Carl Bennet’s voice filled the room, made thin and tinny by the small machine.

‘– and now, tell me about your dress. What colour is it?’

Then came her own voice, mumbling, a little hesitant. ‘My best surcoat, for the feast. It is scarlet – samite – trimmed with gold thread and, below, its gown of green and silver, and I shall wear my pelisson lined with squirrel fur if Nell can find it. My boxes are not all unpacked.’ Her voice had dropped until it was so quiet it could hardly be heard.

‘And now you are going down to the great hall. Are you not afraid your husband will be angry?’ Bennet asked.

There was a moment’s silence, broken only by the hiss of the tape.

‘A little,’ she replied at last. ‘But he will do nothing. He will not want people to think his wife does not obey him and he will not dare touch me because of the child.’

‘Are you going downstairs now? Describe it to me.’ Bennet sounded as if he was talking to a child of five, his voice patient and clearly enunciated.

‘The stairs are dark and cold. There ought to be a light. The wind must have blown it out. But I can hear them laughing now below in the hall.’ She was speaking in a strangely disjointed fashion.

I sound drunk, Jo realised suddenly and smiled grimly as she listened.