Barbara Erskine 3-Book Collection: Lady of Hay, Time’s Legacy, Sands of Time

‘Nick? It’s Sam. Let me come up.’

Nick was waiting on the landing as Sam walked slowly up the carpeted stairs. ‘You’re too late,’ he said brusquely. ‘She went to a hypnotist yesterday and let him regress her.’

Sam followed him into the brightness of the flat and stared round. ‘What happened? Where is she?’ He faced his brother coldly, taking in the dark rings beneath Nick’s eyes, and the unshaven stubble.

‘She had gone before I woke up.’ Nick ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I think she was OK. She was last night. Just shocked and rather frightened. She had a long session which seemed to get out of control. The hypnotist couldn’t bring her back to consciousness. She seemed to get so involved in what was happening, it was so real to her.’

‘You were with her?’ Sam turned on him sharply.

‘Of course not! Do you think I’d have let her go! No, she brought back a tape of what happened and I heard it last night.’ Nick shook his head wearily. ‘She was in a terrible state – but not in danger as far as I could tell. She never stopped breathing or anything. I stayed the night with her and she spent most of it tossing and turning and pacing up and down the floor. She must have got up at dawn and gone out. She did say she’d go to the library first thing. Maybe she went there to see if she could find any of these people in a history book.’

Sam took off his jacket and threw it on the back of the sofa. Then he sat down and drew the tape recorder towards him. ‘Right, Nick. May I suggest you return to your titian-haired artist friend and try to apologise for last night’s ruined meal? Leave Jo to me.’

‘Like hell I will!’ Nick glared at him.

‘I mean it. Go back to Miss Curzon, Nick. She is your new love, is she not? I went there straight from the airport under the impression that you would be there. She is not pleased with you, little brother. If you value your relationship with her I should go and make amends as fast as you can. Meanwhile I shall listen to the tape and talk to Jo when she returns. I shan’t want you here.’

Nick took a deep breath. ‘Jo asked me to stay.’

‘And I am asking you to go.’ Sam turned his back on Nick, his shoulders hunched as he searched for the ‘play’ button on the machine. ‘She is my patient, Nick.’

Nick hesitated. ‘You’ll ring me after you’ve spoken to her?’

‘I’ll ring you. Better still, do you still have your flat in Mayfair?’

‘You know I do.’

‘Give me the key then. I’ll stay there for a night or two. And I’ll see you there some time no doubt.’ He switched on the tape and sat back on the sofa thoughtfully as Jo’s voice filled the room.

It was four hours before Jo came home. She stopped dead in the doorway, her keys still in her hand, staring at Sam. He had long ago finished playing the tape and was lying on the sofa, his eyes closed, listening to the soft strains of the ‘Concierto de Aranjuez’.

‘How did you get in?’ He did not immediately open his eyes.

Jo sighed. She dropped her shoulder bag on the floor and banged the door behind her.

‘Where’s Nick?’

Sam’s eyes narrowed. ‘He felt he should return to make his peace with Judy. I’m sorry.’

‘I see.’ Jo’s voice dropped. ‘And he’s left you here to pick up the pieces. I suppose I should be grateful he stayed at all last night. I hope he told you I don’t need you, Sam. Nothing awful happened. I’m perfectly all right. I did not become incurably insane, nor did I kill anyone as far as I know.’ She unbuttoned her jacket wearily. ‘When did he leave?’

‘Soon after I arrived. He was worried about you Jo.’ Sam was watching her closely. ‘Nick’s a nice bloke. Even if it is all over between you both he wouldn’t have left you alone, you know that.’

Jo dropped her jacket on a chair and reached for the Scotch bottle on the table by the phone. ‘That’s right. Good old St Nicholas who never leaves a friend in the lurch. Want one?’

Sam shook his head. He watched as she poured; she did not dilute it.

‘Have you heard it?’ Her eyes had gone past him to the cassette lying on the coffee table.

‘Twice.’ Her face was pale and drawn he noted, her hair tied back into an uncompromising pony-tail which showed new sharp angles to her cheekbones and shadows beneath her eyes.

‘It all happened, Sam.’ She raised the glass to her lips. ‘I found it so easily. William de Braose, his wife – most books seem to call her Maude – I didn’t even know it was the same name as Matilda – their children, the massacre of Abergavenny. It was all there for anyone to read. Not obscure at all.’ She swallowed a mouthful of whisky. ‘I must have read about it somewhere before, but I swear to God I don’t remember it. I’ve never studied Welsh history, but all that detail in my mind! It doesn’t seem possible. Christ, Sam! Where did it all come from?’

Sam had not taken his eyes from her face. ‘Where do you think it came from?’ She shrugged, flinging herself down on the sofa beside him, turning the glass round and round in her fingers.

Sam eyed the length of lightly tanned thigh exposed where her skirt caught on the edge of the cushions. He moved away from her slightly. ‘Where would you like it to have come from?’

Jo frowned. ‘That’s a loaded question. Yesterday morning I wouldn’t have hesitated to answer it. But now. Matilda was so real to me, Sam. She was me.’ She turned to face him. ‘Was it the same in Edinburgh? Did the same thing happen then too?’

He nodded slowly. ‘You certainly reacted dramatically under regression. A little too dramatically. That was why we decided it would be better if you remembered nothing of what happened afterwards.’

Jo jumped to her feet. ‘You admit it! So you told me to forget it, as if it had never happened. You took it upon yourselves to manipulate my mind! You thought it would be bad for me to know about it, so bang! You wiped it clean like a computer program!’ Her eyes were blazing.

Sam smiled placatingly. ‘Cool it, Jo. It was for your own good. No one was manipulating you. Nothing sinister happened. It was all taped, just as it was for you yesterday. It’s all on the record.’

‘But you deliberately destroyed my memory of what happened!’ She took a deep breath, trying to control her anger. ‘Was I the same person? Matilda de Braose?’

‘As far as I remember you didn’t tell us what your name was,’ Sam said quietly.

‘Well, did I talk about the same events? The massacre?’

Sam shook his head. ‘You were much more vague with us.’ He stood up abruptly and walked over to the windows, looking up through the net curtains towards the sky. ‘You must not go back to this man, Jo. You do understand that, don’t you?

‘Why not?’ Her voice was defiant. ‘Nothing terrible happened. And he at least is honest with me. He has professional standards.’ She threw herself down on the sofa again, resting her head against the cushions. ‘Oh sure, it was a bit nerve-wracking for him, as it obviously was for you, but I was all right, wasn’t I? I didn’t seem hysterical, my personality didn’t disintegrate. Nothing happened to me.’ She looked down at her hands suddenly then abruptly she put them behind her.

‘What’s wrong?’ Sam had seen her out of the corner of his eye. He went over to her and, kneeling, he took both her hands in his. He studied the palms intently. Then he turned them over and looked at her nails.

She tried to pull away. ‘Sam –’

‘Your hands aren’t hurt?’

‘No, of course they’re not hurt. Why should they be?’

He let them go reluctantly, his eyes once more on her face. ‘They were injured last time, in Edinburgh,’ he said gently. ‘They started to bleed.’

She stared at him. ‘There was blood on the floor, wasn’t there?’ she whispered after a moment. ‘I remembered that. And when I got home I found I was covered in bruises.’ She stood up, pushing past him. ‘I thought I’d had an accident. But somehow I never bothered to ask you about it, did I?’ She bit her lip, staring at him. ‘That was your post-hypnotic suggestion too, I suppose. “You will not remember how you were injured, nor will you question why.” Is that what you said to me? God it makes me so angry! All this has happened to me before and I did not know about it. You snatched an hour or so of my life, Sam, and I want it back.’ She looked down into her glass, her knuckles white as she kneaded it between her fingers. ‘It’s the thought that these memories, this other life has been lying hidden in me, festering all these years, that frightens me … Wherever they come from, whatever they are, they must mean something special to me, mustn’t they?’ She paused then she looked away from him. ‘Do you know how she died?’

Sam’s jaw tightened. ‘Who?’

‘Matilda, of course. They think she was starved to death.’ Jo drank the rest of her whisky quickly and put down the glass. She was suddenly shuddering violently.

Sam stood up. He caught her arm. ‘Jo –’

‘No, Sam, it’s all right. I know what you’re going to say. I’m not about to get obsessive about her. It’s me, remember. Level-headed Jo Clifford. I’m over the shock of it all now, anyway. Reading about it has put it in perspective. All those dry dates and facts. Ugh! Funny how history never seemed to be to do with real people, not to me anyway. At least not until now …’ Her voice tailed away. ‘When you and Professor Cohen finished your experiments, Sam, did you reach any conclusions?’

‘We were able to float various hypotheses, shall we say,’ Sam smiled enigmatically.

‘And they were?’