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

it was ten years since they had had their brief affair, they had managed to stay the best of friends.

      He did not look at her now, concentrating on the traffic as he drove.

      She changed the subject abruptly. ‘You promised to tell me all about the hypnotherapist, remember? Did you find out his name for me?’

      ‘’Course I did. Got your notebook in that sexy little purse of yours? He’s a chap called Bennet. I’ve got his phone number and address. He’s got consulting rooms in Devonshire Place.’

      She grinned. ‘So he costs – and he’s successful, yes?’

      ‘Presumably it’s tax-deductible for you! I’m assuming this party’s at Tim’s studios so I thought we might eat at that new place in Long Acre. It’s still early, but if we’re doing battle we may as well go in fortified.’ He grinned again.

      ‘We’re not doing battle, Pete, so there’ll be no fisticuffs, I told you. A dignified silence is all I require.’ She rested her arm along the back of his seat, studying his profile. ‘If that bastard thinks I care at all he’s got another thing coming.’

      ‘But you do.’ He glanced at her. ‘Poor old Jo.’

      ‘Stuff.’ She smiled. ‘Now, where is it you’re taking me for dinner?’

      The huge photographic studio was already full of people when they arrived. They paused for a moment on the threshold to survey the crowd, the women colourfully glittering, the men in shirt-sleeves, the noise already crescendoing wildly to drown the plaintive whine of a lone violin somewhere in the street below.

      Someone pressed glasses of champagne into their hands and they found themselves sucked inexorably into the huge hot room.

      Jo saw Nick almost at once, standing in front of Tim’s photos, studying them with almost ostentatious care. She recognised the set of his shoulders, the angle of his head. So, he was angry. She wondered briefly who with, this time.

      ‘You look wistful, Jo.’ Tim Heacham’s voice came from immediately behind her. ‘And it does not suit you.’

      She turned to face him. ‘Wistful? Never. Happy birthday, Tim. I’m afraid I haven’t brought you a present.’

      ‘Who has?’ He laughed. ‘But I’ve got one for you. Judy’s not here.’

      ‘Should I care?’ She noticed suddenly that Pete was at the other end of the room.

      ‘I don’t think you should.’ He took the glass from her hand, sipped from it, and gave it back. ‘You and Nick are bad news for each other at the moment, Jo. You told me so yourself.’

      ‘And I haven’t changed my mind.’

      ‘Nor about tomorrow I hope?’

      ‘Tomorrow?’

      ‘Our visit to Bill Walton. He’s going to lay something special on for us.’ He shivered ostentatiously. ‘We’re going to see Cleopatra and her Antony! I find it all just the smallest bit weird.’

      She laughed. ‘I hope you won’t be disappointed this time, Tim. It’ll only be as good as the imagination of the people there, you know.’

      He held up his hand in mock horror. ‘No. No, you’re not to spoil it for me. I believe.’

      ‘Jo?’ The quiet voice behind her made her jump, slopping her wine onto the floor. ‘Jo, I want to talk to you.’

      She spun round and found that Nick was standing behind them. Quickly she slipped her arm through Tim’s. ‘Nick. I didn’t expect to see you. Did you bring Judy? Or Sam? Perhaps Sam is here ready to psych me out. Is he?’ Rudely she turned her back on him.

      ‘Tim, will you dance with me?’ She dragged her surprised host away, leaving Nick standing by himself looking after her.

      ‘Jo, love, you’re shaking.’ Tim put his arm round her and pulled her against him. ‘Come on. It’s not like you to show your claws like that. You know Judy isn’t here. Nor is Sam. So what’s it all about, eh?’

      She closed her eyes briefly and rested her forehead against his chest. ‘I know, I know, I know. I’m a fool. It’s Sam. I’ve got this weird feeling that I don’t want to see him. Nick’s been at me about this hypnotism business – we’ve already rowed about it. It’s all to do with Sam, who disapproves of my work and has been trying to pressurise me through Nick into dropping the whole thing.’ She pushed away from him and smiled with an effort. ‘Do you think I’m neurotic?’

      Tim grinned. ‘Only in the nicest sort of way. Come on. Let’s get another drink – most of yours went on the floor, and the rest is down my neck.’ He took her hand firmly. Then he made a rueful face. ‘You’re in love with Nick you know, Jo. The real thing.’

      She laughed. ‘No. No, Tim, you dear old-fashioned thing. I’m not in love with anyone. I’m fancy free and fully available. But you are right about one thing, I need another drink.’

      There was no way she would ever admit to herself or to anyone else that she loved Nick. If she did then it was an observation which had to be stamped out.

      Behind her Tim glanced towards the door. He frowned. Judy Curzon stood there, dressed in a floor-length white dress embroidered with tiny flame and amber coloured beads, her red hair brushed close to her head like a shining cap. Her huge eyes were fixed on Nick’s face.

      Tim shook his head slowly, then firmly he guided Jo into the most crowded part of the room.

       3

      While Tim locked the car the following evening, Jo stared up at the front of the house. It was a tall, shabby building in the centre of a long terrace of once elegant Edwardian town houses, the windows dark and somehow forbidding on this, the deeply shadowed side of the street. She turned her back on it with a shiver and glanced down instead at the brightly lit windows in the basement of the house behind her. Through one she could see a woman bustling round in the kitchen; putting cups out on a tray. The ordinariness of the action was reassuring. Behind them the traffic sped down the hill, slowing at the bottom for the traffic lights before dropping into Richmond.

      ‘Jo, about last night –’ Tim was pocketing his car keys.

      ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ Jo hunched her shoulders. ‘It was a great party for some. Now please forget it.’

      ‘But the way Judy behaved was appalling. How could she have even thought of it!’

      ‘She’s a jealous lady, Tim, fighting for a man. Women are like that. Primeval!’

      ‘And aren’t you going to fight?’

      ‘For Nick? No.’

      Two young women were climbing the hill towards them, their arms linked. They were giggling, looking at the house numbers, and instinctively Jo knew they were heading for the same address. She relaxed slightly. For them it had the same slightly naughty, slightly frightening feeling as Jo had felt attending a seance when she was a student. She shivered. Was it going to be a party game as she suspected or had Nick been right? Would the evening turn into something risky? Firmly she put Nick out of her mind. Whatever had been left between her and Nick was over.

      She was aware suddenly that Tim was behind her. He was smiling. ‘I hope the one in the décolleté red dress takes part,’ he murmured. ‘I’d like to see her in an orgasmic seizure!’

      ‘Lech.’ She grinned at him affectionately. ‘I don’t know where you get this idea that everyone has an orgasm the moment they are regressed. Has it crossed your mind that in a previous life she may have been a man with a stubby beard and BO?’

      ‘Spoil-sport. She might have been a boy, though. Look at that neat little derrière!’