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

‘OK, Sam. Thanks for the advice. I’ll do my best. The trouble is, she’s not talking to me.’

Sam laughed. ‘I’m not surprised when you’re in another woman’s bed.’

Putting down the phone Nick went into the kitchen and lit the gas under the kettle. A motorbike roared up the street below, a lonely sound in the silence, and he shivered, keeping his eyes on the friendly blue flame.

‘So. Why do you have to discuss Jo Clifford with your brother for half an hour in the middle of the night?’

He turned guiltily to see Judy, wearing a tightly belted bathrobe, standing in the doorway.

‘Judy –’

‘Yes. Judy! Judy’s bed. Judy’s flat. Judy’s fucking phone!’

‘Honey.’ Nick went to her and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘It’s nothing to do with you – with us. It’s just … well.’ He groped for words. ‘Sam’s a doctor.’

‘Sam’s a psychiatrist.’ She drew in her breath sharply. ‘You mean there is something wrong with Jo?’

Nick grinned as casually as he could. ‘Not like that. Not so’s you’d notice, anyway. Look, Judy. Sam is going to come and have a chat to her, that’s all. Hell, he’s known her for about fifteen years – Sam introduced her to me in the first place. She likes Sam and she trusts him. I had to talk to him tonight because he’s going to Switzerland tomorrow. There is no more to it than that. He’s going to help her with an article she’s working on.’

She looked doubtful. ‘What has this got to do with you, then?’

‘Nothing. Except he’s my brother and I’d like to think she is still a friend.’

Something in his expression made her bite back the sarcastic retort which hovered in the air. ‘Is that coffee you’re making?’ she asked lamely. She gave a small, lost smile.

Nick resisted the impulse to take her in his arms. ‘Sure, then we must get some sleep. I’ve an early start at the office.’

At his desk the next morning Nick pressed the button on the phone. ‘Jane? Get Jo Clifford for me at her flat.’ He gnawed his thumbnail, staring down at the heap of papers on his desk. The intercom buzzed. ‘Sorry, Nick. There’s no reply.’

‘Damn. Thanks, Jane. Can you keep trying every now and again?’ He glanced at his watch. It was after nine and Sam was already on his way to Basel.

Her flat remained empty all day. At eight he drove to Judy’s studio in Finborough Road. He knew it would cause trouble if he rang again from there but that could not be helped. He rang four times in the course of the evening and checked once with the exchange to see if her phone was out of order. Then, angry with her and himself, he gave up.

Judy was sulking. She had grudgingly opened a can of soup which they shared in silence, then returned to her huge abstract canvas. The light was too poor to paint, but she studied it for a long time, her thin shoulders hunched defensively, refusing to look at him.

He went to her and, putting his arms around her, cupped her small breasts in his hands. He kissed the back of her neck.

‘You know why I’m trying to reach her, Judy.’

She nodded without speaking. Then she turned and put her arms round his neck. ‘I can’t help it, Nick. I love you so much. I’m sorry.’

He kissed her gently. ‘You’re a silly child, Judy. Now, come to bed and I’ll tell you about a party we’re going to next week.’

He could not bring himself to say he loved her.

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.

‘So why the hell do you keep on then?’ She turned on him. ‘Ring up your brother and ask him all about it. Samuel Franklyn, M.D., D.P.M. He will spell it out for you.’

‘Jo –’

‘Go to hell, Nick! Or take me to a pub. But don’t mention the subject again, OK?’

Nick groaned. ‘You are a stubborn, stupid, blind fool, Jo.’

She stared angrily at him for a moment. Then, unexpectedly, she grinned. ‘I know. It’s hell isn’t it? Shall I get my jacket?’

As they were walking along the river’s edge after a pub lunch at Strand on the Green Nick broached the subject again, however. They had stopped to look at the water as it sucked and gurgled around the bows of a moored yacht and divided to race around Oliver’s Eyot.

He watched her covertly as she stared at the water, mesmerised by the glint of sunlight on the wet mud slicks, her eyes narrowed in the glare. ‘Jo. Will you talk to Sam? There’s something I think you should know.’

She looked round and stared at him. ‘Nick, I thought I warned you –’

‘No. I’m warning you. You’ve got to listen, Jo. I’m not interfering, I’m not trying to wreck your career. Sam told me I should never discuss this with you. But it’s important and I think you should talk to him. It’s about that time in Edinburgh when you were hypnotised –’

‘When I wasn’t hypnotised!’

She turned and began walking briskly back towards Kew Bridge. ‘Thanks for the lunch, Nick. It was nice, for old times’ sake. Now I suggest you get back to Judy. I’ll get a bus home –’

‘Don’t be an idiot, Jo.’ Almost running, he caught her up and took her arm as she made her way between the Saturday afternoon strollers. On the river behind them a coach yelled instructions to a rowing eight through a megaphone. Neither of them heard him, too engrossed in their furious antagonism. As they reached the car he forced her to get in and drove in tight-lipped silence till they drew up outside her flat. Then he turned to her and put his hand on her wrist. ‘Jo, Sam will be in London next week. Just hold on till then. Promise me. Once he’s seen you –’

‘Seen me?’ she echoed. ‘For God’s sake, Nick. What’s the matter with you? I need to see your brother about as much as I need you at the moment and that is not a lot!’

‘Jo, it’s important,’ he said desperately. ‘There is something you don’t know. Something you don’t remember –’

She turned on him. ‘What do you mean I don’t remember? I remember every bit of that session in Edinburgh. Better than Sam does obviously. Oh, I’m sure he doesn’t want me to investigate the subject of regression. It’s one of his pet theories, isn’t it, and he doesn’t want me to debunk it in the press. That wouldn’t suit him at all!’ She groped furiously for her seat-belt release. ‘Just leave me alone, Nick! If your brother wants to see me, let him come and see me. I’ll deal with him myself. You and I have nothing else to say to each other. Nothing!’

She flung the car door open and climbed out. ‘Goodbye, Nick.’

He watched, exasperated, as she ran up the steps, then he drove off without looking back.

Closing the street door behind her she leaned against it for a moment, blinking hard. Then resolutely she began to climb the stairs to her own front door. It was only when she reached the top that she realised that he still had her spare set of keys.

Pete Leveson, resplendent in a pink silk shirt and velvet jacket, picked Jo up on the following Wednesday soon after six.

‘Still not talking to Nick?’ he asked as he opened the car door for her. The black Audi Quatro was double-parked outside her flat.

‘I’ve not seen him since Saturday.’ She settled in and pulled the seat-belt across her green silk dress. ‘But I think we will tonight. Do you mind?’

‘As long as you don’t actually expect me to hit him.’ He eased the car out into the traffic.

‘We don’t have that sort of relationship, Pete. It’s very civilised.’ Jo frowned. ‘Anyway I do my own hitting when necessary, thank you.’

‘Of course. I’d forgotten how liberated you are. I miss you still you know, Jo.’

She glanced at him sharply. Pete was a handsome man in his mid-forties and, though 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!’ They watched the two girls climb the flight of stone steps which spanned the basement area and ring the doorbell. A light came on behind the stained glass of the fanlight. The door opened and the two girls disappeared.