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

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СКАЧАТЬ and bleeding, not just painful!’ Her voice was shaking. ‘Oh, God, it was all so real. Nick, I’m frightened.’ She stared at her hands, holding them out before her.

      Nick took hold of them gently, standing up. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We need another drink. And something to eat. Is there any food in the flat?’

      She dragged her thoughts back to the present with difficulty. ‘In the freezer. I forgot to buy anything today.’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘I was going to go shopping on my way back from Devonshire Place but everything went out of my head.’

      Nick grinned. ‘I’m not surprised. Being a baron’s lady with a castle full of serfs, you can hardly be expected to lower yourself to trundle round Waitrose with a shopping trolley. You must try not to let it upset you too much, Jo. Try and see the amusing side. Think of it as a personalised horror film. You got front row stalls and no ice-cream in the interval. But, apart from that, thank God there’s no harm done this time.’

      ‘That doesn’t sound very scientific.’ She forced herself to smile. Standing up slowly she pulled the belt of her robe more tightly round her. Then she headed towards the kitchen and pulled open the freezer door. ‘There’s pizza in here or steak.’ The normality of her action calmed her. Her voice was steady again.

      ‘Pizza’s fine. What intrigues me is where you dredged all this information up from. The details all sounded so authentic.’

      ‘Dr Bennet and Bill Walton both said that they usually are. That’s one of their strongest arguments in favour of reincarnation of course.’ She lit the grill and put two pizzas under it. ‘Where it is possible to substantiate things, apparently they are usually uncannily accurate. I’m going to check as much as I can. Is there any whisky left?’

      ‘I’ll get it. Have you any books on costume? What is a – what was it, a pelisson, for instance?’

      She shrugged. ‘A pelisse is a kind of cloak I think.’ She took some tomatoes out of the fridge and began to slice them as Nick reappeared with the whisky bottle and a dictionary. Moments later he looked up. ‘Pelisse is here. You’re right. But no pelisson. Perhaps I misheard. Are you going up to the library tomorrow?’

      She nodded. ‘I’m going to check everything, Nick. Absolutely everything.’

      He leant against the worktop watching her, relieved that she seemed calmer and more like herself. Her face was beginning to look less pinched. ‘I wonder if Matilda really existed?’ he said at last. ‘And you read about her somewhere. Either that or she’s a fictional heroine or was in a TV film or a comic or a strip cartoon when you were a child, or perhaps a film you saw when you were about two years old and have completely forgotten with your conscious mind.’

      ‘And all my wealth of detail is pure Cecil B. De Mille?’ She laughed, ruefully. ‘All your theories have been put forward before. Mainly by sceptics like me!’

      ‘Well, if it isn’t any of those what is it?’ He stared down at the glass in his hands. ‘Have you considered the fact that Bennet could be right, Jo? That reincarnation could exist?’

      She shook her head thoughtfully. ‘No, I can’t believe that. There must be a perfectly good explanation which does not strain one’s credulity that much, and I intend to try and find it. Perhaps Matilda is my alter ego. The woman I would have liked to have been. Have you thought of that?’

      He set down his glass and put his arms around her waist. ‘I hope not. All those swords and guts and things. No, you told me the premises you’d be working on in your article, Jo, and that tape hasn’t made me change my mind about a thing you said. It’s all fantasy, you’re right. Whose, I’m not sure. But that is all it is. It’s none the less dangerous for that, but there is nothing supernatural about what happened to you.’

      She released herself with a frown and reached to lower the gas. ‘All the same, I’m not starting to write the article, Nick. Not without asking a great many more questions. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone.’ She reached down two plates and put them to warm. ‘Here, let me make a salad to go with these. Neither Bennet nor Walton was a fake, Nick. I was wrong to think it. They didn’t ask any leading questions. Bennet didn’t influence my “dream” in any way. If he had I’d have heard on the tape. Look, if there is any period of history I would say that I should like to identify with at all it would be the Regency. If he’d been a fraud he would have found that out in two minutes.’ She poured vinegar and oil into a jar and reached for the pepper mill. ‘I dare say I could have re-enacted a dozen Georgette Heyer novels. I read everything of hers I could lay my hands on when I was a teenager. But he didn’t ask. He didn’t guide me at all. Here, give this a shake. Instead I find myself in medieval Wales. With people talking Welsh all round me, for God’s sake!’

      Nick shook up the dressing and poured it over the salad. ‘If it was Welsh,’ he said quietly, ‘God knows what it was you said. If you had jumped up and down shouting Cymru am byth I might have been able to substantiate it!’

      ‘Where did you learn that?’ she laughed.

      ‘Rugger. I don’t mess about when I go to Twickenham you know, it’s very educational.’ He touched her cheek lightly. ‘Good to see you laughing. It’s not like our Jo to get upset.’

      She pushed a plate at him. ‘As Dr Bennet pointed out, it’s not every day that “our Jo” witnesses a full-dress massacre, even in a nightmare,’ she retorted.

      They ate in the living room. ‘Bach to eat by,’ said Nick, putting his plate down and riffling through the stack of records. ‘To restore the equilibrium.’

      She did not argue. It meant they didn’t have to talk; it meant she needn’t even think. She let the music sweep over her, leaving her food almost untouched as she lay back on the sofa, her feet up, and closed her eyes.

      When she opened them again the sky was dark outside the French windows onto the balcony. The music had finished and the room was silent. Nick was sitting watching her in the light of the single desk lamp.

      ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ she asked indignantly. ‘What time is it?’

      ‘Eleven. Time you were in bed. You look exhausted.’

      ‘Don’t dictate, Nick. It’s time you went, for that matter,’ she said sharply.

      ‘Wouldn’t you like me to stay?’

      She pushed herself up on her elbow. ‘No. You and I are finished, remember? You have to go back to your cosy love nest with the talented Miss Curzon. What was it you said on the phone, “working late” – she won’t believe it, you know, if you stay away all night!’

      ‘I don’t much care what she believes at the moment, Jo. I am more concerned about you,’ Nick said. He stood up and turned on the main light. ‘I don’t think you should be alone tonight.’

      ‘In case I have nightmares?’

      ‘Yes, in case you have nightmares. This has shaken you up more than you realise, and I think someone should be here. I’ll sleep here on the sofa if the idea of me in your bed offends you, but I’m going to stay!’

      She stood up furiously. ‘Like hell you are!’ Then abruptly her shoulders slumped. ‘Oh God, Nick, you’re right. I do want you to stay. I want you to hold me.’

      He put his arms round her gently and caressed СКАЧАТЬ