guests, and she swallowed hard. She put her hands deep into the pockets of her jacket as the taxi cut expertly through the traffic towards Kensington, the driver thankfully taciturn, the glass slide of his window tightly closed, leaving her alone with her thoughts. She felt strangely disorientated, half her mind still clinging to the dream, alienated from the roar of the rush hour around her. It was as if this were the unreal world and that other cold past the place where she still belonged.
Her flat was cool and shadowy, scented by some pinks in a bowl by the bookcase. She threw open the tall balcony windows and stood for a moment looking out at the trees in the square. Another shower was on its way, the heavy cloud throwing racing shadows over the rooftops on the far side of the gardens.
She turned towards the kitchen. Collecting a glass of apple juice from the carton in the fridge, she carried it along to the bathroom, set it carefully down on the edge of the bath and turned on the shower. Stepping out of her clothes, she stood beneath the tepid water, letting it cascade down onto her upturned face, running it through her aching fingers. She stood there a long time, not allowing herself to think, just feeling the clean stream of the water wash over her. Soon she would slip on her cool cotton bathrobe, sit down at her desk and write up her notes, just as she always did after an interview, whilst it was still absolutely fresh in her mind. Except that this time she had very few notes, and instead the small tape recorder which was waiting for her now on the chair just inside the front door.
Slowly she towelled her hair dry, then, sipping from her glass, she wandered back into the living room. She ran her fingers across the buttons of the machine, but she did not switch it on. Instead she sat down and stared blankly at the carpet.
In the top drawer of her desk was the first rough typescript of her article. She could remember clearly the introduction she had drafted:
Would you like to discover that in a previous life you had been a queen or an emperor; that, just as you had always suspected, you are not quite of this mundane world; that in your past there are secrets, glamour and adventure, just waiting to be remembered? Of course you would. Hypnotists say that they can reveal this past to you by their regression techniques. But just how genuine are their claims? Joanna Clifford investigates …
Jo got up restlessly. Joanna Clifford investigates, and ends up getting her fingers burned, she thought ruefully. On medieval stone. She examined her nails again. They still felt raw and torn, but nowhere could she see any sign of damage; even the varnish was unchipped. She had a vivid recollection suddenly of the small blue-painted office in Edinburgh. Her hands had been injured then too. She frowned, remembering with a shiver the streaks of blood on the rush matting. ‘Oh Christ!’ She fought back a sudden wave of nausea. Had Cohen hypnotised her after all? Had she seen that bloody massacre before, in his office? Was that what Sam had wanted to tell her? She rubbed her hands on the front of her bathrobe and looked at them hard. Then, taking a deep breath, she went over and picked up the tape recorder, setting it on the low coffee table. Kneeling on the carpet she pressed the ‘rewind’ button and listened to the whine of the spinning tape. She did not wait for the whole reel. Halfway through she stopped it. Somewhere in the flat there must be some cigarettes. Nick might have left some lying about – perhaps if she went to look.
But she did not move. Outside she could hear the highpitched giggle of a child playing in the garden square, and in the distance the constant hum of the traffic in Gloucester Road. They were twentieth-century sounds. Whatever had happened this afternoon had no more relevance than a dream, or a TV movie watched on a wet Saturday afternoon with the curtains drawn against the rain. So why was she afraid to hear the tape?
She pressed the ‘play’ button and closed her eyes as Carl Bennet’s voice filled the room, made thin and tinny by the small machine.
‘– and now, tell me about your dress. What colour is it?’
Then came her own voice, mumbling, a little hesitant. ‘My best surcoat, for the feast. It is scarlet – samite – trimmed with gold thread and, below, its gown of green and silver, and I shall wear my pelisson lined with squirrel fur if Nell can find it. My boxes are not all unpacked.’ Her voice had dropped until it was so quiet it could hardly be heard.
‘And now you are going down to the great hall. Are you not afraid your husband will be angry?’ Bennet asked.
There was a moment’s silence, broken only by the hiss of the tape.
‘A little,’ she replied at last. ‘But he will do nothing. He will not want people to think his wife does not obey him and he will not dare touch me because of the child.’
‘Are you going downstairs now? Describe it to me.’ Bennet sounded as if he was talking to a child of five, his voice patient and clearly enunciated.
‘The stairs are dark and cold. There ought to be a light. The wind must have blown it out. But I can hear them laughing now below in the hall.’ She was speaking in a strangely disjointed fashion.
I sound drunk, Jo realised suddenly and smiled grimly as she listened.
The voice went on, describing the scene, pausing now and then for what seemed interminable silences before resuming unprompted. Closing her eyes, Jo found she could see it all so clearly. A nerve began to leap in her throat. She did not have to hear what came next, to listen again to the screams and the agonising crash of metal. She drew up her knees and hugged them as her voice began to speak more quickly.
‘William is reading the letter now and the prince is listening to him. But he is angry. He is interrupting. They are going to quarrel. William is looking down at him and putting down the parchment. He is raising his dagger. He is going to … Oh no, no NO!’ Her voice rose into a shriek.
Jo found she was shaking. She wanted to press her hands against her ears to cut out the sound of the anguished screaming on the tape, but she forced herself to go on listening as a second voice broke in. It was Sarah and she sounded frightened. ‘For God’s sake, Carl, bring her out of it! What are you waiting for?’
‘Listen to me, Jo. Listen!’ Bennet tried to cut in, his patient quiet voice taut. ‘Lady Matilda, can you hear me?’ He was shouting now. ‘Listen to me. I am going to count to three. And you are going to wake up. Listen to me …’
But her own voice, or the voice of that other woman speaking through her, ran on and on, sweeping his aside, not hearing his attempts to interrupt. Jo was breathing heavily, a pulse drumming in her forehead. She could hear all three of them now. Sarah sobbing, ‘Carl, stop her, stop her,’ Bennet repeating her name over and over again – both names – and above them her own hysterical voice running on out of control, describing the bloodshed and terror she was watching.
Then abruptly there was silence, save for the sound of panting, she was not sure whose. Jo heard a sharp rattle as something was knocked over, and Bennet’s voice very close now to the microphone. ‘Let me touch her face. Quickly! Perhaps with my fingers, like so. Matilda? Can you hear me? I want you to hear me. I am going to count to three and then you will wake up. One, two, three.’
There was a long silence, then Sarah cried, ‘You’ve lost her, Carl. For God’s sake, you’ve lost her.’
Bennet was talking softly, reassuringly again, but Jo could hear the undertones of fear in his voice. ‘Matilda, can you hear me? I want you to answer me. Matilda? You must listen. You are Jo Clifford and soon you will wake up back in my consulting room in London. Can you hear me, my dear? I want you to forget about Matilda.’
There was a long silence, then Sarah whispered, very near the microphone. ‘What do we do?’
Bennet
