“Then I’ll get you some food.”
“I said a drink.” His eyes were hard.
“Okay. A drink.” Judy was staring at him as she groped behind her in a cabinet and found a whisky bottle. “I’ll fetch some glasses.”
“Do that.” Nick had not moved. He was looking at the blank canvas with the same intensity he would normally have given to a painting. His head ached, and he knew he was tense and irritable and that it had been a mistake to come. He wasn’t sure why he had. His desire for Judy had gone and yet he had found himself hailing a taxi and giving her address automatically, compelled by a need to be with her that he could not define or understand.
“So what’s wrong? Apart from the office, I mean?” Judy poured half an inch into the glass and handed it to him.
He drank it quickly and held it out to her again. As she was pouring he caught her wrist, forcing her to slop the whisky until the glass was almost full.
“Careful! Look what you’ve done!” she cried.
“Shut up, Judy,” he said, bored. “One tumblerful is the same as the sum of all the prissy little doses you’re going to give me one by one.”
“I am not going to hand you little doses one by one. If you drink that lot on an empty stomach you’ll be flat on your back!”
“Fine. With you in my arms?”
“No!” She took the glass out of his hand and put it down with a bang on the table. “Please leave now, Nick.”
“Oh, come on!”
“I mean it!” She bit back sudden angry tears. “Please get out of here. Go back to your office and sort out your problems there, not in my studio.”
She pulled the door open and stood by it. “I mean it!”
For a moment he hesitated, then he picked up the whisky glass, took a couple of gulps from it, put it down, and strode past her to the door.
“I thought you wanted me back,” he said softly as he stood for a moment looking down at her.
“Out, Nick,” she repeated.
He shrugged, then, with a strangely grating laugh, he walked past her and out onto the landing.
She slammed the door. For a moment she listened to the sound of his footsteps running down the long flights of stairs, then she turned back into the studio.
“Oh, yes, I want you back, Nick Franklyn,” she said to herself softly. “But on my terms. Not yours.”
As she picked up his glass and began to pour the whisky carefully back into the bottle, she found she was shaking.
They took Jo to a nearby boardinghouse, the two kind strangers who had found her on the riverbank. And there she was shown to a spotless room with a mansard window, overlooking the common beyond the river. Alone at last, she lay down wearily on the bed. Her last thought as she drifted into sleep was of little Will. As he played in the dirt of the castle bailey he had fallen on the ground and grazed his knees. She had to see that someone cleaned them properly and smeared on some antiseptic; the whole place was so filthy…
She awoke the next morning to the smell of frying bacon. Puzzled, she lay staring around her room, looking at the pink chintz curtains blowing at the open window and the pink drapes of an unfamiliar dressing table. Her mind was fuddled with sleep. Slowly she pulled herself into a sitting position and rubbed her eyes. She was still fully dressed. Someone had put a tartan blanket over her while she slept. Her bag and typewriter stood on the floor by the door and she could see her car keys on the dressing table. Vaguely she remembered giving her keys to the strangers; they must have collected her things.
The rest of it was coming back to her now too. Sitting by the River Wye, looking up at the broken silhouette of the castle, she had somehow gone into a regression; on her own and, without wanting to, she had slipped back to the time of Matilda and for two or three hours had lain on the white shingle in a trance, oblivious of the world around her. She hugged her knees with a shiver, wishing suddenly that Nick was there. Then she put her head in her hands. Had she even forgotten that? That she could never see Nick again? She bit her lip, trying to hold back the tears. Nick and she were finished and Richard was far away beyond her reach. She was alone.
Standing up shakily, she glanced at her watch. It was ten past nine. She went to the window and stared out at the low hills beyond the trees. It was somewhere up there that she and Richard had ridden with their hawks.
She found she was clenching her fists violently, suddenly overcome by fear. Was it her need to see Richard that had made her regress alone and unprompted, or was it something else? Was Matilda beginning to take her over? She took a deep breath. She had been mad to come to Wales, mad to think she could handle this alone. She did need Carl Bennet’s help. He had started all this off and somehow he had to help her to get free of it again. She had to go back to him, had to persuade him to try again to make her forget, and as soon as possible.
Margiad Griffiths was in the kitchen when Jo, showered and in a fresh dark-blue cotton dress, went down. She turned from the stove and smiled. “Better, are you?” she said. “I’ve just made some coffee, or would you prefer tea?”
“I’d love some coffee, please.” Jo sat down at the kitchen table. “I didn’t realize I was so tired. I am sorry, I’ve put you to a lot of trouble.”
“Not at all.” Margiad reached down two earthenware cups from the cabinet. “The Peterses have gone, though. Sorry not to see you again, they were. They sent their best wishes.”
“I wish I could have thanked them. I still don’t know quite what happened to me by the river yesterday.”
“Exhaustion, I expect.” Margiad poured the coffee. “I usually put my guests at the tables in the sitting room, through there, if you’d rather…”
Jo grimaced. “No, I’d rather stay here, if I may. I expect all your other guests went out ages ago, it’s so late.”
Shrugging, Margiad passed her a bowl of sugar. “I’ve only the three rooms. The Peterses had one, and there was a nice young teacher in the other. Walking Offa’s Dyke, he was, but he stopped here for the books. Everyone comes to Hay for the books.”
Jo smiled. “I was here doing some research into the history of the town.” The coffee was strong and fragrant. She could feel the heat of it seeping into her veins.
“Oh, it’s an old town. The castle’s very ancient. That’s Richard Booth’s now, of course. Did you see it?”
Jo shrugged. “I’m more interested at the moment in the old castle. The first one. It was near the church.”
“Down here?” Margiad stared at her. “Well, now. I never knew that! Fancy there being another castle. You’ll be off to see it later, I suppose?”
Jo sighed regretfully. “I can’t today. I’ve got to go back to London.” She stared down with some distaste as Margiad put a plate of eggs and bacon down on the table in front of her. “I didn’t realize that was for me-”
“Go on, girl. Eat it up while I make you some toast. You could do with some good solid food in you.” Margiad was watching her carefully while behind her the frying pan sputtered gently on the stove. “Will you be coming back this way then, or have you finished all your research?”
Jo picked up the knife and fork. She cut into the top of the egg and watched the yolk flow across the plate.
“I don’t know,” she said after a moment. “I think it’s a case of whether it has finished with me.”
Her walk back toward the town took her past the site of the old castle. All that remained was the motte, grass-covered and sown with wildflowers. There was no sign of the wooden keep or the bailey that she remembered, nor of the thick hedge. She stood and stared for a moment, half afraid that something would happen, but there were no ghosts, no shadows, just a cheerful black-and-white collie that loped across the grass, cocked its leg against the wall, and disappeared into the trees near the church.
It was market day and she stared in confusion at the clustered colorful stalls that had appeared around her car overnight, wondering how on earth she was going to move it. Catching the eye of the woman selling farm produce
