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

‘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.

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.