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

on the floor, her face white and strained, her hair still damp from the shower. He saw at once that she had been crying. She looked at him blankly.

      ‘What is it? Are you all right?’ He flung down the jacket he had been carrying slung over his shoulder and was beside her in two strides. Crouching, he put his arms around her. ‘You look terrible, love. Nothing is worth getting that worked up about. Ignore the damned article. It doesn’t matter. No one cares a rap what it said.’ He took her hand in his. ‘You’re like ice! For God’s sake, Jo. What have you been doing?’

      She looked up at him at last, pushing him away from her. ‘Pour me a large drink, Nick, will you?’

      He gave her a long, searching look. Then he stood up. He found the Scotch and two glasses in the kitchen. ‘It’s not like you to fold, Jo,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘You’re a fighter, remember?’ He brought the drinks through and handed her one. ‘It’s Tim’s fault. He was supposed to warn you last night what might happen.’

      She took a deep gulp from her glass and put it on the table. ‘What are you talking about?’ Her voice was slightly hoarse.

      ‘The paragraph in the Mail. What did you think I was talking about?’

      She shook her head wearily. ‘I haven’t seen any papers today. I was here all morning, and then this afternoon I went … out.’ She fumbled with the glass again, lifting it with a shaking hand, concentrating with an effort. ‘They printed it, did they? The great slanging match between your past and present loves. That must have done a bit for your ego.’ With a faint smile she put out her hand. ‘Show me what it said.’

      ‘I didn’t bring it.’ He sat down on the edge of the coffee table. ‘If you are not upset about that, Jo, then what’s happened?’

      ‘I went to see a hypnotherapist.’

      ‘You what?’ Nick stood up abruptly. ‘The man you saw with Tim Heacham, you mean? You saw him again?’

      She shook her head slowly. ‘No. Someone else. This afternoon.’

      He walked across to the French windows and stared out over the square. ‘What happened?’

      She did not answer for a moment and he swung back to face her. ‘I warned you, Jo. I told you not to get involved. Why in God’s name did you do it? Why couldn’t you listen? God knows, you promised.’

      ‘I promised you nothing, Nick.’ Wearily she pulled herself to her feet. ‘You must have known I’d go. How could I write that article unless I’d been to a session myself?’ She threw herself onto the sofa and put her bare feet up onto the coffee table in front of her.

      ‘You did go to a session and you watched someone else being regressed. Tim told me.’

      ‘Well, it wasn’t enough. Have you got a cigarette, Nick?’

      ‘Oh great! Now you’re smoking again as well!’ Nick’s voice was icily controlled. ‘You’re a fool, Jo. I told you it was madness to mess about with this. Damn it, isn’t that the very thing you want to prove in your article?’

      ‘A cigarette, Nick. Please.’

      He picked up his coat and rummaged through the pockets. ‘Here.’ He threw a packet of Consulate into her lap. ‘I’ve always credited you with a lot of sense, Jo, and I warned you. Hypnotism is not something to undergo lightly. It’s dangerous. There is no knowing what might happen.’

      ‘We’ve been through this before, Nick,’ she retorted furiously. ‘I’ve got a job to do and I do it. Without interference from you or anyone else.’ She was fumbling with the cellophane on the pack.

      ‘And I’m just here to pick up the pieces, I suppose?’ Nick said, his voice rising. ‘And don’t tell me you’re not in pieces. I’ve never seen you upset like this. And scared. What have you done to your hand?’ He was watching her efforts with the cigarettes.

      ‘Nothing.’ Clenching her teeth she ripped the packet open and shook one out.

      ‘Nothing?’ he repeated. He gave her another close look. Then he relented. ‘Go on, you’d better tell me what happened.’ He found a matchbox and struck one for her, steadying her hand between his own. ‘You let him hypnotise you, I presume?’

      She nodded, drawing on the cigarette, watching in silence as the cellophane she had thrown down onto the table slowly unfolded itself. The sound of it set her teeth on edge.

      ‘You know, it isn’t a fraud,’ she said at last. ‘I can’t explain it, but whatever it was, it came from me, not from him.’ She balanced the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray and picked up her glass. ‘It was so real. So frightening. Like a nightmare, but I wasn’t asleep.’

      Nick frowned. Then he glanced at his watch. ‘Jo, I’m going to phone Judy – I’ll tell her I can’t make it this evening.’ He paused waiting for her to argue, but she said nothing.

      She lay back limply, sipping her drink as he dialled, watching him, her eyes vague, as, one-handed, he slipped his tie over his head, and unbuttoned his shirt. The whisky was beginning to warm her. For the first time in what seemed like hours she had stopped shaking.

      Nick was brief to the point of curtness on the phone then he put the receiver down and came back to sit beside her. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘let’s hear it all from the beginning.’ Leaning forward he stubbed out her abandoned cigarette. She did not protest. ‘I take it you’ve got it all on tape?’ He nodded towards the machine.

      ‘All but the last few minutes.’

      ‘Do you want me to hear it?’

      She nodded. ‘The other side first. You’ll have to wind it back.’ She watched as he removed the cassette and turned it over, then she stood up. ‘I’ll go and get some clothes on while you listen.’

      Nick glanced at her. ‘Don’t you want to hear it again?’

      ‘I did. Just before you came home,’ she said quietly. ‘We’ll talk when you’ve heard it.’

      She carried her glass through to the bedroom and closed the door. Then she walked across to the mirror and stood staring into it. Her eyes were strained, but clear. There was nothing in her face to show what had happened. She looked exactly the same as usual.

      She realised suddenly that she was listening intently, afraid that the sound of voices would reach her from the front of the flat, but the door was thick and Nick must have turned down the volume. The room was completely silent. She went to open the blind which she had drawn earlier that day against the sun, and looked down into the cobbled mews which lay behind the house. On a flat roof nearby someone had put out rows of window-boxes. Petunias, brilliant jewelled colours, their faces wet with raindrops, blazed against the grey London stone. Overhead, a jet flew soundlessly in towards Heathrow, the wind currents carrying the roar of its engine away. It all looked so familiar and comforting, so why did she find the silence unnerving? Was it that at the back of her mind she kept remembering the white windswept silence of the Welsh hills? She closed her eyes and at once she felt it, pressing in around her, the vast desolate spaces beneath their blanket of snow and again she felt the ache of the cold in her feet. Shivering, she lay down on the bed and pulled the quilt over her. Then she waited.

      It was a long time before Nick appeared. She lay watching him quietly as he walked across the carpet and sat on the bed beside her. He looked grim.

      ‘How much of that do you remember?’ he asked at last.

      ‘All of it.’

      ‘And you weren’t fooling?’

      She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. ‘Did I sound as if I were fooling? Did he?’

      ‘All right, I’m sorry. I had to be sure. Do you want to talk about it now?’

      ‘I don’t know.’ She hugged her bathrobe around her. ‘Nick, this is crazy. I’m a journalist.