She had to cling to his arm to stop her legs buckling beneath her. ‘How . . . how long was I out?’
‘A couple of minutes, maybe. Long enough for me to be really worried about you anyway.’
A couple of minutes. Yet as Nell she had lived through a whole winter. Pain jabbed behind her eyes and her throat burned with unshed tears.
‘I . . . see,’ she managed with difficulty, but she didn’t see at all. She didn’t understand anything. Recovered memory had seemed the obvious answer to her dreams of Nell, but how could dreams feel that real, that true?
One of the builders produced a stool. ‘Sure you don’t want to sit down, love?’ The others were eyeing her warily, as if afraid that she was going to be sick, or burst into tears. Tess didn’t blame them. She felt like doing both, but she mustered a smile.
‘I’m fine, really. Sorry for the fuss.’
Luke was still scowling with concern. ‘I think I should take you to hospital.’
‘No!’ Tess’s response was instinctive. At hospital they would want to examine her. They would want to know what happened, and what could she tell them? Oh, I was just off in the sixteenth century for a while?
If Martin got wind of it . . . Ice pooled at the base of Tess’s spine at the thought. ‘I mean, no, I’ll be fine,’ she said more moderately. ‘Really. I just need to go and sit down for a while.’
She had managed to let go of Luke at last, but her hands were shaking, and they throbbed agonizingly. She saw Luke’s gaze drop to them, and she dug her fingers into the pockets of her jeans.
‘I’ll go with you,’ he said. ‘We’d better leave the rat problem for another day.’
Tess wanted to insist that she could manage on her own, but in the end she was glad of his support. Clearly unconvinced by her protestations that she was fine, Luke helped her back down to the street and then up the stairs next door to the door of her flat. Steering her into the front room, he settled her onto a sofa and brought her a glass of water. ‘Here,’ he said, proffering it brusquely.
Her throat was hot and raw and the water was soothing. ‘Thank you.’
Luke pulled out one of the chairs from the table, swung it round and sat on it facing her. ‘Are you sure you shouldn’t see a doctor? That’s twice you’ve gone faint on me today.’
‘It’s nothing,’ said Tess, holding tightly onto the glass of water. ‘Nothing medical.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Then what? Something’s wrong, Tess. I know. Tell me what the hell is going on.’
Chapter Seven
There was a long silence. Luke just sat there, waiting for an answer. She had forgotten how patient he could be, how stubborn. He was going to insist on an answer, and he wouldn’t go until he had one. Tess could feel her strength sagging, but what could she tell him?
In the end, she opted for the truth. ‘I don’t really know,’ she said.
‘Who’s Tom?’ Luke leant forward. ‘Is he your husband?’
‘No.’
‘Your lover?’ His voice took on a harsh edge, and to Tess’s horror, her eyes filled with tears.
Tom. Oh, Tom. ‘No.’
She fumbled the glass onto a side table, but she had hesitated just a little too long, and Luke had seen the sheen of tears. Tess could practically see his defences going back up as he sat back.
‘It’s none of my business anyway.’
‘I don’t have a lover! It’s nothing like that. Tom . . . oh, I can’t explain,’ she said wretchedly. She put a hand to her head where the pain still jabbed behind her eye. ‘Something weird is going on and I don’t know what to do.’
Luke’s expression sharpened. ‘Weird?’
The words teetered on the edge of Tess’s tongue. I keep slipping back to another time. I’m living another life. I’m a girl who died over four hundred years ago.
Part of her longed to tell him, longed to share her fear, and her fascination. She wanted to trust him, but how could she dare? The old Luke would have listened, but what did she know about him now, this man with the intent gaze and the inflexible mouth? He was tougher now, sterner, harder to read.
Tess would like to think that he had put their past behind him, but they had parted so bitterly all those years ago, and she sensed a wariness in him now that was probably equal to her own. True, he had been kind earlier, and there had even been a moment when that awful stilted politeness had evaporated and she had let herself wonder if it might be possible to be friends again, but how would he react if she told him exactly what was happening to her? Tess couldn’t bear the thought of confiding in him, only to be written off as a middle-class hysteric: spoilt, neurotic, attention-seeking. It was what Martin would say, after all.
Luke was watching her face with those unnervingly keen eyes. ‘I’m worried about you, Tess,’ he said.
Tess hesitated, gnawing on her knuckle. The temptation to confide in him was very strong, but she couldn’t bear to see his expression change. She couldn’t bear it if that cool mouth twisted with contempt, if he said what Martin would say. If he made her feel what Martin always made her feel.
No, she couldn’t risk it.
Besides, how could she tell him what was happening if she didn’t know herself? Something was wrong – there was no getting round that. She couldn’t fall asleep without warning in the middle of the day, but if she wasn’t asleep, she wasn’t dreaming. And if she wasn’t dreaming, she was . . . what? Travelling through time? Really?
It couldn’t be true. Everything in Tess rebelled at the very idea. She didn’t want to accept it. She wouldn’t accept it. There must be another explanation. But nothing else made sense.
And until she found one that she could believe, she would have to deal with this alone. Whatever this was. Wearily, Tess rubbed her hands over her face.
‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘I’m just tired.’
‘Come on, Tess—’ Luke had started to protest when the phone in the study began its shrill, insistent ringing.
Tess’s stomach flipped at the sound. She wanted to ignore it again, but the alternative was to stay there and try and convince Luke that she wasn’t crazy, and she wasn’t sure that she had the strength for that. Besides, it might be about Oscar.
She levered herself unsteadily to her feet. ‘Excuse me. I’d better get that.’
Her legs were so wobbly still that she had to hold onto the wall, but she made it to the study, followed by an obviously concerned Luke.
Tess was thinking more clearly now. She was glad she hadn’t succumbed to the temptation to blurt out her fear and confusion. If their positions were reversed, she wouldn’t hesitate to recommend that he see a doctor, and she knew Luke would do the same. She couldn’t risk him frogmarching her to a GP for Prozac or arranging for her to be carted off to a psychiatric ward at Bootham Park. Not until she had ensured that Martin would never get custody of Oscar.
Turning her shoulder on Luke, she picked up the phone without looking at the caller display. ‘Sorry, I need to take this,’ she said. ‘Hello?’ she said into the phone as she walked out of the study, leaving Luke behind, and she wasn’t even surprised when the only response was the hiss of static in her ear.
‘You haven’t given my mobile number to anyone, have you?’ Tess turned her phone edgily in her hands.
‘Of course not,’ said Vanessa in surprise. ‘Why?’
Tess told her about the calls she had been getting. ‘Only you, Mum and the school have this number.’
‘It’s probably a mistake.’ Vanessa had been running and was wearing tight Lycra shorts and a top with complicated straps. Her hair was twisted up in its usual scrunchie, and her feet shifted restlessly in her trainers. ‘Graham’s always ringing me and not saying anything, and when I ask him about it later it turns out he had the phone in his pocket and pressed my number by mistake.’ She laughed merrily. ‘Goodness knows who else he rings by accident!’
‘But why would it keep on happening? Nobody else should have the number in their phone.�
��
‘Perhaps whoever it is put your number in by mistake. It’s really easy to mix up digits and input the wrong number.’
‘Perhaps.’ Tess was unconvinced, but Vanessa clearly didn’t think there was anything to be concerned about.
Chewing her cheek, Tess watched Oscar running around the playground, his sweatshirt trailing behind him in the dust. He was laughing, and her heart clenched at the sight of him absorbed in his game. He was such a solemn little boy. He had quickly learnt to make himself quiet and still when Martin was around. This was what he had needed: other children to run around with, a normal school, silly games.
She had done the right thing bringing him to York, Tess told herself. She couldn’t let silent phone calls or bizarre dreams knock her off course. She had to stay steady for Oscar.
‘Is everything all right?’ Vanessa was passing the time doing a few bends and stretches. ‘You look a bit peaky.’
Anyone would look peaky next to her glowing fitness, Tess thought with a touch of sourness. Luke’s insistence on how dreadful she looked was still rankling.
‘I’m just a bit tired. I haven’t been sleeping well.’
Luke hadn’t believed her, but Vanessa accepted the explanation without a blink. ‘I’m not surprised in that horrible flat!’
‘It’s not that.’
Tess drew a breath. Ever since the incident with Luke, she had been thinking about how much she wanted to talk to someone about what was happening. It was stupid not to, she had decided in the end. Whatever she had told Luke, she hadn’t been doing a good job of coping with it by herself, had she?
She half-regretted not telling Luke now, but the opportunity had passed and he had withdrawn like a snail shrinking into its shell. If she hadn’t known better, she would have wondered if he had been hurt by her refusal to confide in him.
Anyway, wouldn’t it make more sense to talk to Vanessa? It was Vanessa who had befriended Tess when her parents had first moved to York, and they had been inseparable all through school, hanging around in each other’s bedrooms or in the Museum Gardens until they were old enough to spend Saturday nights in Ziggy’s or Harry’s Bar in Micklegate.
Vanessa had been her closest friend. Until Luke. And though they had lost touch once Tess moved to London, the moment Tess had come back, Vanessa had been there to help. Perhaps Vanessa could be a bit bossy, and there were times when Tess had to grit her teeth at her smug certainty about everything, but she was kind and she was generous, and they had known each other a long time. If she couldn’t tell Vanessa, she couldn’t tell anyone.
‘I’ve been having these dreams,’ she said.
‘Dreams?’ Vanessa took her own elbow and pushed it behind her ear. ‘What sort of dreams? Nightmares?’
‘No, well, not exactly. They’re just so vivid, Van. I’m this girl in Elizabethan York. I know it sounds mad, but it’s like I’m her. It’s like I’m there.’ Tess flexed her sore fingers impotently, trying to explain. ‘In the dreams, I have memories. I know how the street smells. I know how tight my bodice is laced. I can taste the food.’ She ran her tongue over her teeth, remembering the congealed sauces with their spicy edge, the heavy pastry, the tantalizing aroma of roasting meat. ‘Do you ever have dreams like that?’
‘Never.’ Vanessa’s ponytail bounced emphatically when she shook her head. ‘I hardly ever dream. If you ask me, Tess, you’re not tired enough. You should take some exercise. Come for a run with me and I promise you, you’ll have no problem sleeping.’
‘So you don’t think there’s any chance those dreams might be . . . real?’
‘Real?’
‘Like I might be somehow reliving the life of someone in the past.’
‘Of course not.’ Vanessa laughed, then stopped when she saw Tess’s expression. ‘You don’t, surely?’
‘No . . . at least . . . is it so unthinkable?’
‘Tess! You’re not serious?’
Of course she wasn’t serious. How could she be?
‘No . . . it’s just that Mum was reminding me the other day about things I used to see when I was a kid. Things there was no good explanation for.’
‘It doesn’t sound like your mother to encourage you in that!’
‘She didn’t. She said I was just overimaginative.’
‘Well, you were a bit of a drama queen at times,’ said Vanessa, and although she smiled, Tess could hear an undercurrent of something – amusement? contempt? – in her voice.
‘I was?’ She didn’t remember that. When she thought about growing up in York, she thought about how desperately self-conscious she had been about her weight. And how much she had missed her father. She didn’t remember making scenes.
‘Oh, yeah. Remember that school trip to Margaret Clitherow’s house?’
Tess shifted uneasily. ‘No.’ That headache was back, jabbing insistently at her mind.
‘Yes, you do,’ Vanessa insisted. ‘It wasn’t much of a trip as it was only to see the shrine in the Shambles, but they brought us in on a bus. Jeanette had a huge bag of marshmallows, and we had a race to finish them by the time we got off the bus . . .’ She trailed off when Tess still looked blank. ‘You must remember that!’
‘I don’t.’
‘We were all feeling sick when we got to the Shambles, but of course you had to be sicker than anyone else.’ Vanessa smiled again but the glance that went with it was pin sharp. ‘The rest of us just felt queasy, but you made a huge performance out of it. You started panting and groaning and carrying on, and then you reeled out of the house and threw up all over the Shambles. It was gross!’ She looked hard at Tess. ‘Oh, come on, I can’t believe you don’t remember that!’
It was coming back. The dim room, the horror lurking in the air. She hadn’t wanted to go inside – Tess did remember that now. There had been a dreadful pressure on her chest, a huge weight pressing her down, down, down, so that she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t remember getting herself outside, just a roaring sound in her ears. She had been sick, yes, but there was something wrong with Vanessa’s story . . .
‘I didn’t eat any marshmallows,’ she said slowly.
‘Yes, you did,’ Vanessa corrected her. ‘That’s why you were so sick.’
‘But I never liked them.’
‘I can see why you wouldn’t like them now. Being sick like that would be enough to put anyone off. I’m not surprised you haven’t touched one since. I’m not mad about them myself.’
‘No, I meant –’ Tess stopped. There was no point in arguing with Vanessa. She was so sure of herself that Tess would never convince her that she wasn’t right.
But she had always loathed marshmallows. Her father had taken her on a memorable camping trip when she was six. Their campfire meal had ended with toasted marshmallows, and was followed that night by a bout of food poisoning that had inextricably linked the two in Tess’s mind. There was no way she would have stuffed herself with marshmallows on a school trip when she was thirteen. Something else had made her sick in that house in the Shambles.
Vanessa might be sure Tess had been dramatizing herself, but Tess remembered only the horror, the sensation of being crushed, as Margaret Clitherow had been. They had known about Margaret’s fate, of course. That was the point of the trip. Margaret Clitherow was a butcher’s wife who had been pressed to death beneath a door for refusing to renounce the Catholic faith, and who was later canonized. The house where she had lived in the Shambles was now a shrine. So it was always possible that Tess had been so involved in the story that she had had a physical reaction to it. Overreacted, Vanessa – and no doubt her mother – would say.
But that wasn’t how Tess remembered it.
Why were so many of her memories out of kilter with everyone else’s?
‘I wouldn’t worry about it anyway,’ said Vanessa briskly. ‘It sounds to me as if you’re just overtired. Your marriage has broken down, you’ve moved house . . . it’s no wonder you’re stressed.’
‘Yes.�
� Tess looked away. ‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right.’
Oscar was still engrossed in his game. It was time to change the subject.
‘Hey, you’ll never guess who’s making Richard’s shelves.’
Vanessa paused in mid-stretch. ‘Who?’
‘Luke Hutton.’
She had wanted it to sound a funny coincidence, no big deal, but Vanessa was appalled.
‘You’re kidding! Oh, Tess, you poor thing. How awful for you!’
Tess was taken aback. She had known Vanessa hadn’t cared much for Luke but she hadn’t thought she disliked him that much.
‘It’s okay, really. I don’t mind.’
‘He was such a bastard to you,’ said Vanessa with such venom that Tess found herself driven to defend Luke, something she had never expected to be doing.
‘He wasn’t that bad.’
‘He was!’ Vanessa’s mouth was set as she moved onto the other elbow. ‘I always thought he was using you.’
‘Using me?’ Tess let out a little huff of amusement. Either her memory was completely wrong, or Vanessa’s was. ‘How on earth do you work that out? I was just a fat lump, too shy to talk to anyone. I couldn’t believe he wanted to go out with me at all.’
‘You come from a nice family.’
Tess stared at her friend, wondering if she was joking, but Vanessa seemed perfectly serious.
‘Oh, come on, Van! That’s the last thing someone like Luke would care about.’
‘You think so?’ Vanessa sniffed. ‘You know his father spent some time in prison, don’t you?’
Annoyance bubbled in Tess’s throat. ‘Yes, I did know,’ she said evenly. ‘Luke told me. Not that it’s got anything to do with Luke. If he wanted to cash in on my connections – although God knows what they were! – he went the wrong way about it when he dumped me, didn’t he?’
‘Only because he could see you were moving onto better things.’
Better things? Tess thought about her life with Martin and said nothing.
The Memory of Midnight Page 12