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

Next morning she still had not told him whether she was prepared to go to the party. He was watching her as she stood before a large canvas, once more lost in thought, a slim, small red-haired figure dressed in a man’s shirt and torn paintstained jeans. Her feet were bare. She turned away from it at last wiping her fingers on a rag. ‘I really don’t want to go. For one thing Jo will be there.’

He frowned. ‘It’s important, Judy. There will be other people there too for God’s sake. People with influence. You need the exposure, love.’ He grinned suddenly and moving towards her took hold of her shirt, a hand on each lapel, drawing her towards him until she was pressed against his chest. ‘You need a lot of exposure, Judy.’ She stopped him as his fingers began working at her buttons, and pulled away, shaking her hair out of her eyes. ‘No, Nick. Not now. I want to work.’

She padded across to the mantelpiece and picked up a newspaper cutting. ‘Did you see this?’

He took it from her, frowning. Then he laughed. ‘But Judy that’s great. Pete Leveson’s column is publicity with a capital P. You’ve arrived, kid!’ He dropped a kiss on the tangle of red hair.

She was staring down at the clipping in her hand, frowning. ‘Did you ask him to write about me?’

Nick was watching her with something like tenderness. His blue eyes narrowed quizzically, and he grinned. ‘No one tells Pete Leveson what to write. Many have tried. He’s been offered bribes before, but it doesn’t work. No. If you’re there, you’re there on your own merit.’

She still looked unhappy. ‘He was very close to Jo once, wasn’t he?’

‘They went around together.’ Nick agreed cautiously. ‘They both worked for W I A.’

‘So she might have said something –’

‘She might but I hardly think it’s likely under the circumstances.’ He turned and went to stare out of the large uncurtained window, onto a vista of fire escapes and back windows beyond long depressing gardens strung with washing. ‘Look, Judy, do you mind if we drop the subject? If you are going to work some more on that painting I’ll clear out. I’ve got things to do back home.’

She bit her lip, cursing herself silently for mentioning Jo’s name. ‘See you tonight maybe?’ she said. ‘I’ll cook if you like.’ That at least was something Jo couldn’t do, or so she had gathered from Nick’s oblique remarks.

He laughed. ‘That’s an offer you know I can’t resist. OK. I’ll be back around eight.’ He put his arm around her shoulder and gave her an affectionate squeeze. ‘I’ll bring us some wine.’

He ran down the four flights of dingy stairs to the front door and pulled it open over the detritus of old leaflets and letters that habitually littered the bare floor behind it. He detested Judy’s studio, the shabby rundown house with its dark stair-well that always smelled of cooking and stale urine, the noisy dirty street where scraps of old paper drifted over the pavement and wrapped themselves around the area railings. Every time he left his Porsche there he expected to find someone had stolen the wheels or carved their name across the gleaming bonnet. As he eased himself into the driving seat he was frowning. It irritated him that she was so attached to the studio. It made no sense now she was becoming successful.

As he drew away from the kerb he glanced back up at the terrace of houses. Her dusty windows gleamed curtainless in the sun, the bottom half of the sash thrown up, the box of geraniums which he had wired to the sill for her a defiant splash of colour in the uniformly drab façade. When he turned back to squint through the tinted windscreen he had already put her out of his mind.

He was a relaxed driver, his elbow resting casually on the lowered glass of the window, his hand gentle on the wheel as he leaned forward to slot in a cassette while the car crawled along the Brompton Road then north up Gloucester Road.

He frowned again as he drew up at the lights. Her phone still wasn’t answering that morning. ‘Get the hell out, Nick,’ Jo had said. ‘I’m my own woman. I don’t belong to you. I just don’t want to see you any more …’

He drummed his fingers on the steering-wheel, undecided, and glanced at his watch.

The empty parking meter outside her flat decided him. Swinging her latch keys he made for the pillared porch which supported her balcony, glancing up to see the window open wide beneath its curtain of honeysuckle as he let himself in.

‘Jo?’ As the flat door swung open he stuck his head round it and looked in. ‘Jo, are you there?’

She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, the typewriter on the low coffee table in front of her, dressed in jeans and a floppy turquoise sweater, her long dark hair caught back with a silk scarf. She did not appear to hear him.

He studied her face for a moment, the slim arched brows, the dark lashes which hid her eyes as she looked down at the page before her, the high planes of the cheek-bones and the delicately shaped mouth set off by the severe lines of the scarf – the face of a beautiful woman who would grow more beautiful as she grew older – and he found he was comparing it with Judy’s girlish prettiness. He pushed the door shut behind him with a click.

‘I’ll have that key back before you go,’ she said without looking up.

He slipped it into his breast pocket with a grin. ‘You’ll have to take it off me. Did you know your phone was out of order?’

‘It’s switched off. I’m working.’

‘That’s bloody stupid. Supposing someone wanted you urgently.’ He took a deep breath, trying to curb his sudden anger. ‘Is there any coffee going while we talk, Jo?’

Without waiting for an answer he walked through to the kitchen. It was a mess, stacked with unwashed dishes and opened cans. He found the orange coffee pot full of cold grounds and with a grimace began to rinse it out in the sink. ‘What’s been going on here?’ he called out over his shoulder.

‘Nothing, as you can plainly see,’ she answered quietly. Soundlessly she had come to stand in the doorway behind him, watching. ‘I’ve been working, as I said, so I haven’t been skivvying and the place is a shambles.’

He rummaged in the fridge and brought out half a bottle of milk. Solids floated in the clear blue whey as he held it to the light and he shuddered as he tipped it out. ‘You obviously need looking after, lady.’

‘Don’t I just.’ She found two clean mugs in the back of the cupboard. ‘We’ll have to have it black. So. What have you come for?’

‘To talk. To see how you are.’

‘I am fine. Busy. Unencumbered. Just the way I like it.’

‘And starving?’

She smiled. ‘Are you offering to take me to lunch?’

‘Nope.’ The coffee made to his satisfaction, he poured it out and, gathering up the two mugs, he led the way back to the living room.

He put down the mugs and picked up the top book on the pile by her typewriter and glanced at the title. The Facts Behind Reincarnation. He frowned.

‘Jo, I want to talk to you about your article.’

‘Good. Discussing topics is always helpful.’ Deliberately misunderstanding him she flopped down on the sofa cushions and reached out her hand for the mug.

‘You know my views about this hypnotism business.’

‘And you know mine.’ She grinned at him, her grey-green eyes narrowing. ‘So let’s break new ground. Let’s discuss my wholefood article. I’ve an interview fixed up with Rose Elliot and another with the head chef at the Ritz, to find out –’

‘Jo, will you promise me not to let yourself be hypnotised?’

She leaned forward and put down the mug. ‘I’ll promise you nothing Nick. Nothing at all.’

‘I’ve a good reason for asking.’

‘Yes. You think you can meddle in my life. Well you can’t. I thought I had made that clear. I am not your concern.’

‘Christ, Jo! Don’t you know how dangerous hypnosis can be? You hear awful stories of people permanently damaged by playing with something they don’t understand.’

‘I’m not playing, Nick,’ she replied icily. ‘Any more than you play at advertising.’

He sat down opposite her, his blue eyes hard. ‘Advertising does not interfere with your consciousness –’

‘That’s a matter of opinion!’

‘And neither,’ he went on, ignoring her interruption, ‘does it seek to work in your mind without your conscious knowledge.’

‘Oh no?’ She laughed. ‘Oh, Nick, don’t be so naive. What else is advertising but mind bending? You’ve read enough psychological crap to qualify you three times over as a better shrink than your brother! But that’s not the point. The point is I’m working. Working, not playing, on a series of articles. If I were a war correspondent I’d go to war. If I find my field of research is hypnotism I get hypnotised. If necessary.’ Furiously she got up and walked up and down the room a couple of times. ‘But if it worries you so much perhaps you’d be consoled if I tell you that I can’t be hypnotised. Some people can’t. They tried it on me once at university.’

Nick sat up abruptly, his eyes on her face. ‘Sam told me about that time,’ he said with caution.