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

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?’

‘Roughly? That different subjects reacted in different ways. We tabulated almost as many theories as there were regression sessions. You must read his book. Some people faked, there was no question about that. Some openly re-enacted scenes from books and films. Some produced what they thought we hoped we would hear. And some were beyond explanation.’

‘And which was Joanna Clifford?’

‘I think one of the latter.’ He gave a wry smile.

Jo eyed him thoughtfully. ‘I had a feeling you were going to say that. Tell me, Sam, do you believe in reincarnation?’

‘No.’

‘Then what do you think happens?’

‘I have one or two ill-formed and unscientific theories about, shall we say, radio waves trapped in the ether. Some people, when in a receptive state, tune into the right wavelengths and get a bit of playback.’

‘You mean I was actually seeing what happened in 1174?’

‘An echo of it – a reverberation, shall we say? Don’t quote me, Jo, for God’s sake. I’d be drummed out of every professional body there is. But it does go some way to explain why more than one person gets the same playback on occasions. It explains ghosts as well, of course. A good all-round theory.’ He laughed.

‘Have you seen a ghost?’

The strain, he noted with satisfaction, had lessened in her face; her neck muscles were no longer so prominent.

‘Never! I’m not the receptive type, thank God! You haven’t any coffee I suppose, Jo?’ He changed the subject thankfully. ‘I need a regular fix every two hours or I get withdrawal symptoms and it’s been twice that at least.’

‘Why not? Sam –’ She paused in the doorway, running her fingernail up and down the cream-painted woodwork. ‘Can you hypnotise people?’

‘I can. Yes.’

‘And regress them?’

‘I haven’t gone on with Cohen’s experiments,’ he replied carefully. ‘There are others chasing that particular hare now. My field is rather different.’

Jo grinned. ‘You didn’t answer my question, Dr Franklyn. Can you regress people?’

‘I have done, yes.’

‘And would you do it to me?’

‘Under no circumstances. Jo –’ He paused, groping for the right words. ‘Listen, love. You must not contemplate pursuing this matter. I meant it when I said you should not see Carl Bennet again. You must not allow anyone to try and regress you. I am not so concerned about the drama and the psychological stress that you are put under, although that is obviously not good for you. What worries me is the fact that you are prone to physiological reaction. You reflect physically what you are describing. That is very rare. It is also potentially dangerous.’

‘You mean if William beat me … her up, I’d wake up with bruises?’

‘Exactly.’ Sam compressed his lips.