He turned guiltily to see Judy, wearing a tightly belted bathrobe, standing in the doorway.
“Judy-”
“Yes. Judy! Judy’s bed. Judy’s apartment. 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 with 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 that hovered in the air. She gave a small, lost smile.
Nick resisted the impulse to take her in his arms.
The next morning he drove over to Jo’s apartment. Swinging her keys, he made for the pillared porch that supported her balcony. He glanced up to see the window open wide beneath its curtain of honeysuckle as he let himself in.
“Jo?” As the apartment door swung open he stuck his head around 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 that hid her eyes as she looked down at the page before her, the high planes of the cheekbones, 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.”
He picked up the top book on the pile by her typewriter and glanced at the title:
“Jo, I want to talk to you about your article.”
“Good. Discussing topics is always helpful.”
“You know my views about this hypnotism business.”
“And you know mine.”
“Jo, will you promise me not to let yourself be hypnotized?”
She leaned forward. “I’ll promise you nothing, Nick. Nothing at all.”
“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. “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 hypnotized. If necessary.” Furious, 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 hypnotized. Some people can’t. They tried it on me once at the 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. “Call up your brother and ask him all about it. Samuel Franklyn, MD, DPM, et cetera! He will spell it out for you.”
“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-”
“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! 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!”
“Then I’d best leave,” said Nick. Jo closed the door behind him.
That same evening Pete Leveson called with the name of the hypnotherapist: Carl Bennet. Devonshire Place. Jo scribbled it down on the notepad on her desk. She stared at it thoughtfully for a while after she had hung up the phone, then she tore off the page and put it on top of her typewriter.
The night of the party the huge photography studio was already full of people when Jo and Pete arrived. They paused for a moment on the threshold to survey the crowd, the women colorfully 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.
Jo saw Nick almost at once, standing in front of Tim’s photos, studying them. She recognized 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 arrange something special for us. 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 champagne onto the floor. “Jo, I want to talk to you.”
She spun around 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.
