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

The girl suddenly flung out her arm, catching a pile of books on the table beside the couch and sending them crashing to the floor. Sam jumped, but she seemed not to have noticed. She was pushing herself up onto her elbow, her eyes open, staring in front of her.

Cohen was all attention. Quietly he slid from the stool and as she stood up he moved it out of her way.

Sam recovered from his surprise and wrote hastily: Subject somnambulant; moved from couch. Eyes open; pupils dilated. Face pale and drawn.

‘Joanna,’ Cohen spoke softly. ‘Would you not like to sit down again, lassie, and tell us your name and where you are.’

She swung round, but not to face him. Her eyes were fixed on some point in the middle of the room. She opened her mouth as if trying to speak and they saw her run her tongue across her lips. Then she drew herself up with a shudder, clutching at the neck of her sweater.

‘William?’ she whispered at last. Her voice was husky, barely audible. She took a step forward, her eyes still fixed on the same point. Sam felt the skin on the back of his neck prickle as he found himself looking at it too, half expecting someone or something to appear.

His notebook forgotten, he waited, holding his breath, for her to speak again, but she stayed silent, swaying slightly, her face drained of colour as she began to stare around the room. Disconcerted, he saw that huge tears had begun to run slowly down her cheeks.

‘Tell us where you are and why you are crying.’ The quiet insistent voice of Professor Cohen seemed to Sam a terrible intrusion on her grief but to his surprise she turned and looked straight at him. Her face had become haggard and old. ‘William,’ she said again, and then gave a long desperate cry which tore through Sam, turning his guts to water. ‘William!’ Slowly she raised her hands and stared at them. Sam dragged his eyes from her face and looked too. As he did so he heard a gasp and realised with a shock that the sound had come from his own throat.

Her hands had begun to bleed.

Electrified, he pushed himself away from the window and reached out towards her but a sharp word from Cohen stopped him.

‘Don’t touch her. Don’t do anything. It’s incredible. Incredible,’ the older man breathed. ‘It’s auto-suggestion, the stigmata of religious fanatics. I’ve never seen it before. Incredible!’

Sam stood only feet from her as she swayed once again, cradling her hands against her chest as if to ease their pain. Then, shivering uncontrollably, she fell to her knees. ‘William, don’t leave me. Oh God, save my child,’ she whispered brokenly. ‘Let someone come. Please … bring us … bring him … food. Please … I’m so cold … so cold …’ Her voice trailed away to a sob and slowly she subsided onto the floor. ‘Oh God … have mercy on … me.’ Her fingers grasped convulsively at the rush matting which carpeted the room, and Sam stared in horror as the blood seeped from her hands onto the sisal, soaking into the fibres, congealing as she lay there emitting dry, convulsive sobs.

‘Joanna? Joanna!’ Cohen knelt awkwardly beside her and, defying his own instructions, he laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘Joanna, lass, I want you to listen to me.’ His face was compassionate as he touched her, lifting a strand of her heavy dark hair, gently stroking her cheek. ‘I want you to stop crying, do you hear me? Stop crying now and sit up, there’s a good girl.’ His voice was calm, professionally confident as the two men watched her, but there was growing anxiety in his eyes. Slowly her sobs grew quieter and she lay still, the harsh rasping in her throat dying away. Cohen bent closer, his hand still on her shoulder. ‘Joanna.’ Gently he shook her. ‘Joanna, are you hearing me? I want you to wake up. When I count three. Are you ready? One … two … three …’

Under his hand her head rolled sideways on the matting. Her eyes were open and unblinking, the pupils dilated. ‘Joanna, do you hear me? One, two, three.’ As he counted Cohen took her by the shoulders and half lifted her from the floor. ‘Joanna, for the love of God, hear me …’

The panic in the man’s voice galvanised Sam into action. He dropped on his knees beside them, his fingers feeling rapidly for a pulse in the girl’s throat.

‘Christ! There’s nothing there!’

‘Joanna!’ Cohen was shaking her now, his own face ashen. ‘Joanna! You must wake up, girl!’ He calmed himself with a visible effort. ‘Listen to me. You are going to start to breathe now, slowly and calmly. Do you hear me? You are breathing now, slowly, and you are with William and you have both eaten. You are happy. You are warm. You are alive, Joanna! You are alive!’

Sam felt his throat constrict with panic. The girl’s wrist, limp between his fingers, had begun to grow cold. Her face had taken on a deathly pallor, her lips were turning grey.

‘I’ll ring for an ambulance.’ Cohen’s voice had lost all its command. He sounded like an old man as he scrambled to his feet.

‘No time.’ Sam pushed the Professor aside. ‘Kneel here, by her head, and give her mouth-to-mouth. Now man! When I say so!’ Crouching over the girl he laid his ear to her chest. Then, the heel of one hand over the other, he began to massage her heart, counting methodically as he did so. For a moment Cohen did not move. Then he bent towards her mouth. Just as his lips touched hers Joanna drew an agonising, gasping breath. Sam sat back, his fingers once more to her pulse, his eyes fixed on her face as her eyelids flickered. ‘Go on talking to her,’ he said urgently under his breath, not taking his eyes from her face. Her colour was beginning to return. His hands were once more on her ribs, gently feeling the slight flutter of returning life. One breath, then another; laboured painful gulps of air. Gently Sam chafed her ice-cold hands, feeling the stickiness of her blood where it had dried on her fingers and over her palms. He stared down at the wounds. The cuts and grazes were real: lesions all around the fingernails and on the pads of the fingers, blisters and cuts on her palms, and a raw graze across one knuckle.

Cohen, making a supreme effort to sound calm, began to talk her slowly out of her trance. ‘That’s great, Joanna, good girl. You’re relaxed now and warm and happy. As soon as you feel strong enough I want you to open your eyes and look at me … That’s lovely … Good girl.’

Sam watched as she slowly opened her eyes. She seemed not to see the room, nor the anxious men kneeling beside her on the floor. Her gaze was focused on the middle distance, her expression wiped smooth and blank. Cohen smiled with relief. ‘That’s it. Now, do you feel well enough to sit up?’

Gently he took her shoulders and raised her. ‘I am going to help you stand up so you can sit on the couch again.’ He glanced at Sam, who nodded. Carefully, the two men helped her to her feet and guided her across the room; as she lay down obediently Cohen covered her with the rug. Her face was still drawn and pale as she laid her head on the pillow. She curled up defensively, but her breathing had become normal.

Cohen hooked his stool towards him with his toe, and perching himself on it, he leaned forward and took one of her hands in his. ‘Now, Joanna, I want you to listen carefully. I am going to wake you up in a moment and when I do you will remember nothing of what has happened to you here today, do you understand? Nothing, until we come and ask you if you would like to be regressed another time. Then you will allow us to hypnotise you once more. Once you are in a trance again, you will begin to relive all the events leading up to this terrible time when you died. Do you understand me, Joanna?’

‘You can’t do that.’ Sam stared at him in horror. ‘Christ, man! You are planting a time bomb in that girl’s mind!’

Cohen glared back. ‘We have to know who she is and what happened to her. We have to try and document it. We don’t even have a datefix …’

‘Does that matter?’ Sam tried to keep his voice calm. ‘For God’s sake! She nearly died!’

Cohen smiled gently. ‘She did die. For a moment. What a subject! I can build a whole new programme round her. Those hands! I wonder what the poor woman can have been doing to injure her hands like that. No, Dr Franklyn, I can’t leave it at that. I have to know what was happening to her, don’t you see? Hers could be the case which proves everything!’ He stared down at her again, putting his hands lightly on her face, ignoring Sam’s protests. ‘Now Joanna, my dear, you will wake up when I have counted to three and you will feel refreshed and happy and you will not think about what happened here today at all.’ He glanced up at Sam. ‘Is her pulse normal now, Dr Franklyn?’ he asked coldly.

Sam stared at him. Then he took her hand, his fingers on her wrist. ‘Absolutely normal, Professor,’ he said formally. ‘And her colour is returning.’

‘We’ll send her home now, then,’ Cohen said. ‘I don’t want to risk any further trauma. You go with her and make sure she is all right. Her flatmate is a technician at the labs here, that’s how we got her name for the tests. I’ll ask her to keep an eye on things, too, to make sure there are no after-effects, though I’m sure there won’t be any.’

Sam walked over to the window, staring out at the snow as he tried to control his anger.

‘There could well be after-effects. Death is a fairly debilitating experience physically,’ he said with quiet sarcasm. It was lost on Cohen, who shook his head. ‘The lass won’t remember a thing about it. We’ll give her a couple of days to rest, then I’ll have her back here.’ His eyes gleamed with excitement behind the pebble lenses. ‘Under more controlled conditions we’ll take her back to the same personality in the period prior to her death.’ He pursed his lips, took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his forehead with it.

‘All right. Here we go. Joanna, do you hear me? One … two … three.’

Joanna lay still, looking from one to the other, dazed. Then she smiled shakily. ‘Sorry. Didn’t hypnosis work on me? In my heart of hearts I thought it probably wouldn’t.’ She sat up and pushed back the rug, swinging her feet to the floor. Abruptly she stopped and put her hands to her head.

Sam swallowed. ‘You did fine. Every result is an interesting result to us, remember.’ He forced himself to smile, shuffling the papers on the table so that her notes were lost out of sight beneath the pile. The tape recorder caught his eye, the spools still turning, and he switched it off, unplugging it and coiling up the flex, not taking his eyes off her.

She stood up with an effort, her face still very pale, looking suddenly rather lost. ‘Don’t I get a cup of tea or anything, like a blood donor?’ she laughed. She sounded strained; her voice was hoarse.

Cohen smiled. ‘You do indeed. I think Dr Franklyn has it in mind to take you out to tea in style, my dear. It’s all part of the service here. To encourage you to return.’ He stood up and went over to the door, lifting her anorak down from the hook. ‘We ask our volunteers to come to a second session, if they can, to establish the consistency of the results,’ he said firmly.

‘I see.’ She looked doubtful as she slipped into the warm jacket and pulled the scarf around her neck. Groping in the pocket for her gloves she gave a sudden cry of pain. ‘My hands! What’s happened to them? There’s blood on my scarf – there’s blood everywhere!’ Her voice rose in terror.

Cohen did not blink. ‘It must be the cold. You’ve been a naughty girl and not worn your gloves, that’s nasty chapping.’

‘But –’ She looked confused. ‘My hands weren’t cold. I wore gloves. I don’t even get chilblains. I don’t understand …’

Sam reached for his raincoat. He suddenly felt very sick. ‘It’s the heavy snow coming so soon on top of a warm spell,’ he said as reassuringly as he could. ‘I’ll prescribe something for you if you like. But I suggest scones and cream and hot tea might be the best medicines to start with, don’t you think?’ He took her arm. ‘Come on. My car is round the back.’

As he closed the door of the room behind them he knew that he would personally see to it that she did not return.

1 (#ulink_e877b38a-cb68-5949-b89b-4cdb4b1254d1)

London: 1985 (#ulink_e877b38a-cb68-5949-b89b-4cdb4b1254d1)

‘Basically I like the idea.’ Bet Gunning leaned across the table, her eyes, as they focused on Jo’s face, intense behind the large square lenses of her glasses. ‘Six articles exploring various fads which have swept the world showing man’s fear and rejection of modern life and values. Shit! That sounds pompous!’ The eyes narrowed and gleamed suddenly. ‘I’m right in thinking that the usual Jo Clifford approach will be used? A ruthless appraisal, then a knife in the back?’

Jo was watching her intently, admiring Bet’s professionalism. The relaxed lunch at Wheeler’s, the casual gossip – she had seemed only to glance at the typed notes Jo had pushed across the table but now, as she reeled off the titles of the articles, she proved she had memorised and digested them. Bet had no need to refer back to the paper she had slipped into the enormous leather sack she toted everywhere on her shoulder.

‘“Whole Food: Health or Nostalgia” – a bit old hat, lovie, if you don’t mind my saying so. It’s been bunked and debunked so often. Unless you’ve got a new approach?’

Jo grinned. ‘Trust me, Bet. OK the series in principle and I’ll show you some outlines.’

Bet looked at her sharply. Jo was wearing her innocent look, her grey-green eyes staring vaguely into the middle distance, her dark hair framing her face so that she looked disarmingly soft and feminine. Meeting her for the first time she had thought Jo might be an actress, or a model perhaps; Bet smiled inwardly. Were there any clues? The uncompromisingly large man’s Rolex watch perhaps?

Their eyes met and both women smiled appreciatively. They had been friends for five years, ever since Bet had taken over as editor of Women in Action. Jo had been on the staff then, learning the trade of journalism. She learned fast. When she left to go freelance it was because she could name her figure for the articles she was producing.