The Memory of Midnight

by Pamela Hartshorne

  ‘What other explanation is there?’ asked Luke, so reasonably that she was taken aback. She would have thought it was obvious.

  ‘My mother would tell me that I was hysterical or making it all up for attention.’

  ‘Supportive of her.’ His lip curled.

  ‘You remember what she was like.’ Tess sighed. ‘But what if she’s right? What if I’m having some kind of breakdown?’ Twisted in her hair, her fingers dug into her scalp. ‘What if I’m losing my mind? That’s what a doctor would say, I know. They’d chuck me into Bootham Park Hospital and then what would happen to Oscar?’

  ‘Now you are sounding hysterical.’ Luke’s brusqueness cut across her rising voice. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to work on the assumption that Nell is real, and deal with that?’

  Tess lifted her head to gape at him. ‘You believe me?’

  He lifted his shoulders, non-committal. ‘I can’t see any reason not to believe you,’ he said. ‘That’s twice now I’ve seen you come round from an episode – or whatever you want to call it – and it’s been clear that for a few moments you’re just not there. There’s someone else behind your eyes and your voice is different . . . it’s creepy, if you want to know the truth.’

  ‘But . . . but it’s not possible,’ she stuttered. ‘You don’t believe in ghosts!’

  ‘I don’t know what I believe,’ admitted Luke, ‘but if there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the last few years, it’s to keep an open mind. I’ve seen people possessed by spirits in voodoo ceremonies in Haiti, and a perfectly healthy man in Africa turn his face to the wall and die because he believed he was cursed. I’ve spoken to sane, sensible people in Canada who’ve said they’ve seen Big Foot, and a woman in Spain with stigmata on her hands. There are a lot of things out there that can’t be explained.’ He shrugged. ‘You could say that rationalism is just another belief.’

  Tess stared at him, still grappling with the idea that he had accepted so easily. Luke kept surprising her. He had been so restless when he was younger, so eager to go out and take on the world – like Tom, she realized with a pang – and now she couldn’t get used to how steady and thoughtful he had become. True, the resentment she remembered still surfaced on occasion, but his patience and tolerance were apt to catch her unawares.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘but aren’t most of those cases of people simply seeing what they want to see? I’ve never believed in any of that stuff – I don’t want to believe in it! My whole career has been about examining the evidence, not wild flights of fantasy. I’m the last person to start regressing!’

  ‘Are you? My mum always said you were fey.’

  Her hands dropped from her head. ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t you remember? You never made a big deal of it. It was just that sometimes you’d make a comment about someone sitting in a corner, and then cover it up quickly when it was obvious that none of the rest of us had seen anything.’

  She’d forgotten. Just like she’d forgotten the monks at Rievaulx Abbey and the rotting heads on Micklegate Bar until her mother had reminded her. How had she been able to block those memories so successfully?

  ‘My mum thought I was attention seeking if I said anything when I was a child,’ she said slowly. ‘I guess I learnt not to mention it after a while.’

  ‘There you go. That’s probably why you studied history,’ said Luke. ‘It was the perfect way to deny that side of your personality.’

  Tess chewed the inside of her cheek. It was possible. ‘Okay, say that’s true . . . but why would it all start up again now? Nothing like this ever happened to me in London.’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s something to do with being in the flat? From what you’ve told me, it’s definitely connected in some way. Or maybe you’re particularly vulnerable at the moment. It’s a stressful time, leaving a marriage, starting a new life. Could be your mental defences are down.’

  ‘Maybe.’ The rigid muscles in Tess’s back were starting to unclench, and she sat back in her chair. It was extraordinarily comforting to hear Luke talk as if being possessed was something understandable, even normal. To be able to talk to him without having to convince him that she wasn’t having a breakdown or making it all up in a wild bid for attention.

  ‘Lots of people would love to be in your position, you know,’ he said. ‘They’d do anything to be able to go back and see what it was really like in the past.’

  Tess thought about Ralph, about the vicious satisfaction on his face as he raped her. ‘They’re welcome to it,’ she said bleakly.

  ‘Okay, I was sort of fascinated at first,’ she went on after a moment, considering. ‘Nell was such a courageous, curious little girl. I wish I’d been more like her when I was a child. I don’t know how to describe it. When I’m her, I feel . . . a zest for life that I can’t imagine in this one. Everything then is rougher, and harder I suppose, but it’s more vibrant too, and there’s an energy in the air. It feels foreign now, that appetite for extremes. Doing an appallingly filthy job one day, and feasting and carousing the next. Horrible cruelty, right next to laughter and kindness.’

  Remembering, she looked around the cafe, comparing the wooden tables and tasteful whitewashed walls with Elizabeth Hutchinson’s parlour.

  ‘We’re all so moderate now,’ she said. ‘Everything’s more muted.’

  ‘Really?’ Luke leant forward, interested. ‘I always imagined life was all sober and black and white after the Reformation.’

  Tess pursed her lips and tilted her head to one side while she considered the matter. ‘Nell’s world is much more colourful than this one, or maybe it’s just that she appreciates colour more . . .’ she said. ‘Her gowns are blue and red and green, and they’re embroidered with flowers and insects.’ She looked down, as if she could see the gloves on her hands. ‘The walls are hung with tapestries or painted cloths, and the cushions and bed clothes are brightly coloured.’

  She smiled faintly, looking around at the plain walls and unvarnished tables and chairs. ‘Nell wouldn’t think much of this decor.’

  ‘You’re making it sound like a good time to live.’

  ‘I was happy,’ said Tess after a moment, not noticing that she had slipped back into talking as if she were Nell. ‘It was all I knew. And when I was with Tom . . .’ She stopped, swallowed hard. ‘Well, anyway. Yes, it’s true, there were times when I’ve wished I could be back there, but Tom’s gone now, and I’m married to Ralph. He can do what he likes to me. He’s my husband, and I’m his property.’ Fear fisted in her belly at the thought of him.

  ‘Nell,’ said Luke.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nell was his property, not you.’

  ‘Yes.’ She drew a breath, settled her breathing, steadied her hands. ‘Yes, you’re right. It’s not me. At least I could leave my husband. Nell can’t run away. She’s got nowhere to go and no one to help her, poor cow. She belongs to Ralph.’

  The horror of the wedding night hit her anew, and she covered her face with her hands. ‘I don’t want to go back now,’ she said, muffled. ‘I don’t want him to put me back in that chest.’ When she looked up again, her eyes were stark. ‘I’m frightened.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Luke nodded. ‘I think you should be,’ he said seriously. ‘This is dangerous stuff. If Ralph can hurt you in the past and you can wake with bruises in the present, what else could he do? Shit, I’m sorry,’ he said when Tess blanched. ‘I didn’t want to frighten you any more. I just think you should talk to someone who knows a bit more about what you’re dealing with.’

  ‘What, you mean there are people out there who know about being trapped in the past with a sadistic husband?’ Tess’s laugh held a wild edge.

  ‘There are people who know about regression,’ said Luke, unfazed. ‘I had a job in Lincoln last year, taking pictures for a story in the Express. It was a piece about regression, and they’d hyped it up with stories about housewives believing that they’d lived again as Cleopatra and so on. Ther
e was this guy who hypnotized them, who was made to sound like a real charlatan by the reporter, but I got to meet him when he agreed for some shots to be taken of him with a client during a session.’

  ‘A session?’ she echoed in disbelief. ‘People do this voluntarily?’

  ‘Apparently.’ His eyes crinkled at the corners. ‘I turned up, all ready to be amused, but it wasn’t anything like I was expecting. Ambrose wasn’t the flamboyant character the reporter had made him out to be. I was . . .’ Luke paused, searching for the right word. ‘Impressed,’ he decided. ‘I didn’t see any evidence of anything bogus. It felt surprisingly normal.’

  Tess considered that. ‘What does he do, exactly?’ she asked, still suspicious.

  ‘In the session I photographed, he put the client in a hypnotic trance, and asked her some questions. Her experience was nothing like as vivid as yours, but she said when I asked her afterwards that she had found it really helpful, and that the experience had helped her understand some of her fears.’ Luke spread his hands. ‘It could be mumbo-jumbo psychology, but Ambrose seemed to know what he was talking about. I think he’d be really interested to meet you, and maybe he could help you find an explanation about what’s happening to you.’

  He glanced at Tess, who had gone back to chewing her cheek. Her expression was wary.

  ‘Do you want me to see if I can find his number? I could call him, set up a meeting if you wanted.’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’ Tess was torn. She had always hated the idea of being hypnotized but it would be a relief to talk to someone who wouldn’t necessarily ship her straight off to a psychiatrist.

  Her hands, she realized, had stopped aching, and she turned them palm up to study the lines and creases as if she had never seen them before. Her fingers were slender, completely unmarked. She remembered the searing pain at the church, the clamour of reluctance in her head. Would she fare any better with Luke’s hypnotist? Instinctively, she was resisting the idea of hypnosis. Perhaps it would be better to try talking to Pat French again?

  The instant jab in her fingertips made her hands jerk, and Tess folded them back in her lap.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  She walked back to the flat feeling steadier than she had for days. Perhaps that was all she had needed, she thought hopefully. To talk to someone about what was happening and to not be dismissed as hysterical or overimaginative.

  You live in a world of your own, Theresa. You make things up.

  Firmly, Tess pushed the memory of Martin away. She hadn’t made Nell up. Luke believed her. Tess held onto that thought. She should have talked to Luke before, the way she had talked to him about Martin. It had been a mistake to think that she could deal with Nell on her own. She should have trusted him.

  But then, she had made so many mistakes, she hardly knew how to trust herself.

  At least Luke hadn’t urged her to see a doctor. Tess feared that more than anything. His suggestion of a deliberate regression was interesting, she thought as she set up her laptops for work, but the idea of hypnosis made her uneasy. It felt too much like putting herself into someone else’s control, just as she had done when she married Martin. Tess didn’t want to be controlled by anyone, ever again.

  She switched on both laptops and watched the screens blink into life. If things got worse again, she would consider talking to this Ambrose, she decided. For now, as long as she didn’t look in the corner where the chest had been, or at the wall where the great bed had once stood, she was fine.

  The flat hummed quietly. The air was calm, and Tess even managed to get some work done. Her eyes were beginning to glaze over when she leant back and stretched her arms above her head to release the tension in her shoulders. She was hungry.

  Barefoot, she padded through to the kitchen, enjoying its clutter. Enjoying being normal.

  It was working, not thinking about Nell or Ralph. All she needed was to be normal like this. She didn’t need to be hypnotized or exorcised or analysed. She would just think about putting on the kettle, making a sandwich, ordinary tasks that anchored her in the present. The bread was sitting on the worktop, twisted and sealed with an old clothes peg. The butter and the jam were still out from breakfast, and the flap on Oscar’s cereal box was open where she had forgotten to close it neatly. Martin always insisted that everything was tidied away and the worktops were kept immaculately clear. It gave Tess a small stab of satisfaction every time she left things out simply because she could.

  She was still smiling at her untidiness when she pulled open the cutlery drawer to find a knife and her sense of wellbeing juddered to a shocked halt.

  The cutlery she had taken such pleasure in tossing carelessly together was now immaculately neat. The forks lay tucked together on their sides; the knife blades were all pointing in the right direction; every spoon was precisely aligned so they slotted neatly into each other.

  Exactly as Martin liked them.

  Tess felt as if a cold hand had closed around her throat, and it was a moment before she could breathe. Shock and fear jostled together and then, shoving them aside, surging rage. This was Martin’s doing, it had to be. Just when she had started to relax. Just when Oscar was beginning not to jump at the sound of a door banging. Without thinking, she reached in and jumbled knives, forks and spoons together in a kind of frenzy.

  How had he got in? And what else had he done? The thought drove her upright and out of the kitchen to check the rest of the flat in a fury, but there was nothing else out of place.

  Tess went back to the cutlery drawer. It was a mess again, the way she had left it that morning. Now it was hard to remember how chillingly neat it had been when she opened the drawer. Why had she let that moment of anger ruin her evidence? But evidence of what?

  Luke might believe her, but surely even he might start to question her reliability after a while? Certainly nobody else would listen. She imagined showing the drawer to Vanessa, telling her about Martin’s obsession with order, trying to convince her that he had been in the flat.

  Perhaps you imagined it, Vanessa would say soothingly. Or perhaps you arranged it yourself out of habit and you just don’t remember doing it. You’ve been under a lot of strain, Tess. There’s no sign of Martin breaking in, is there? Are you sure you couldn’t have done it?

  Tess wasn’t sure, that was the problem. She had been imagining so much lately she was no longer sure what was real and what had been no more than a dream.

  Suddenly defeated, she slumped against the worktop and dragged her hands down her face.

  Her first impulse – to ring Martin and confront him – was evaporating. He would take her contacting him as a sign of encouragement, and then he would have her phone number.

  Besides, what would she say to him? I know you were in the flat? I know you rearranged the spoons? She would sound hysterical and neurotic, and Martin would use that. He would claim that she was ill or depressed, that she couldn’t look after Oscar properly. It would be best for everyone if she went home, he would say, and her mother, Vanessa, any GP hearing wild stories of cutlery that magically arranged itself would agree.

  And that was before anyone got wind of the fact that she had been experiencing life in the sixteenth century.

  Shameful self-pity sloshed through Tess and she pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes to stop herself giving in to tears. Wasn’t it enough that she had to deal with a vicious husband who had been dead for more than four hundred and fifty years without one playing games with her mind in the present too?

  Now you are sounding hysterical.

  Luke’s cool words sliced through her rising panic and stayed in her mind like a knife stuck in cheese. As before, the thought of him was something fixed, something steady for her to hold onto. Tess drew a quavery breath and set her jaw. She was not going to give in. Not now. Not now she had just found the strength to leave Martin and start again.

  Stony faced, she closed the cutlery drawer and went back
to work. She had lost her appetite. A vicious headache was building behind her eyes but she would not give in to that either. She wiggled the mouse so that the screen leapt to life. Oscar needed her. She had to stay strong.

  She had to stay strong. Under the cover of the table, Nell laid a hand on her stomach. Sweet Jesù, let it be true. Let there be some hope.

  ‘The keelboats came in today.’ Across the table Ralph was brimming with self-satisfaction. ‘I have my merchandise from Hamburg at last.’

  Hamburg. Where the moon still shone on Tom. The thought of him was like a skewer through her heart still and Nell’s ears rushed with the effort of not showing it to her husband.

  Sometimes when she thought about Tom, it was like remembering another life, a life that had belonged to someone else altogether. Had she really been that girl, smothering giggles on All Hallows Eve as Tom smeared honey on a door, or hunkering down on a step with him to share gingerbread hot from the pan? Could that maid who had tumbled so joyously in the long grass with him really have been her?

  If she let it, her life would narrow to a joyless sliver, so Nell was learning to take pleasure in moments: licking a finger to press it on a crumb of sugar crumbled from the loaf, letting the sweetness burst on her tongue; folding the linen, crisp and clean from the laundresses in St George’s Close; listening to a bee bumbling drowsily through the lavender. Since Tom’s mother had died, the garden behind the Maskewe house had been neglected, but Nell was bringing it back to life. She planted herbs for her still room – sweet basil, bay, borage, camomile, mint, hyssop and purslane – and flowers for her pleasure. She grew daisies and goldenrods, and marigolds and poppies, and she pruned back the old roses so that they flowered. She set a bench amongst them so that she could smell their fragrance.

  She spun out each moment like a spider its web, stringing herself from day to day, not letting herself think about the night. The more pain she suffered, the more Ralph liked it, and Nell had learnt to scream and whimper straight away, so that he got his business over and done with quickly.