Love at Second Sight

by Cathy Hopkins

  ‘Don’t stress over it,’ said Fiona. ‘There are times in life when you have to step back and let things unfold and not try and force the issue. So, are you ready? I think we made some real progress in our last session, so let’s see if we can go any further this time.’

  I nodded and closed my eyes. I’m going to be asleep in seconds, I thought. The atmosphere was so peaceful in Fiona’s office and the scent of lavender and frankincense that she bUmt added to the calm.

  ‘Do you mind if I record the session again, Jo?’

  ‘Sure, go ahead,’ I said, though I had the feeling that the only sound I was going to make today was zzzzz.

  Fiona began to talk softly. ‘We’re working with the unconscious mind. In it, a whole realm of memories and experiences are stored. Remember, it is your friend and will only allow to surface what it sees to be appropriate and helpful to you.’

  ‘OK.’ I was dozing off already. Friend, unconscious, I thought as I listened to Fiona begin the familiar countdown. It wasn’t long before I felt myself drifting in a timeless state of mind, rested to the point of falling asleep.

  ‘You’re going back,’ Fiona, voice droned, ‘back to when you were young . . .’

  Images of my childhood flashed into my mind as she spoke. Gardens. Mum and Dad. Effy. I felt totally safe partly because the process had become familiar and partly because I trusted Fiona and what she said.

  ‘If it’s helpful, you could go back even further, back to a time before your birth. Before the time you returned to in our last session, to a time when you lived . . .’

  I saw a tunnel, dark and faint, then a pale light, fog at the end. I tried to see further into it but felt I couldn’t.

  ‘You’re feeling very calm and relaxed now. If it’s appropriate you will go back. If the time’s not right, you will still feel relaxed, calm, at ease.’

  The mist began to clear. I could see a room. I felt small and cold.

  ‘I see my mother,’ I said. ‘But she’s not my mother from this life.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Me. Henrietta.’ I said it with certainty this time. I wasn’t trying. I knew I was her.

  ‘And who is your mother?’

  ‘Cecilia. She’s sewing in the corner. I’m very happy. We’re happy. Oh but, my father. He gets sick.’

  Suddenly I felt wracked with grief.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Eight. My dad works at the glassworks. He makes fancy glass bells. I take his supper to him when he’s on nights.’

  What’s your father’s name?’

  ‘Tom. My mum’s got all dressed up for his funeral.’

  I felt a terrible sadness. I didn’t like what I was seeing. My dad being buried. It was cold, wet. My mother crying. Make it go away, make it go away.

  Everything went grey, like a television screen that had lost its picture. I felt like I was drifting again then became aware of Fiona’s voice. She sounded so far away. Where are you now, Jo?’

  I felt uncomfortable and drifted away again. I started to feel myself relax, and the images began to reappear.

  ‘What happened? Where are you?’ Fiona asked.

  We went into the workhouse when I was nine, after my dad died. They put you out if you can’t pay your rent. Our house was boarded up and we was thrown out.’

  Who went into the workhouse?’

  ‘Me and me mam and John, my little brother. I had lovely black curly hair, but they cut it all off at the workhouse. Me mam’s too. I don’t like it here. My mam’s in the washhouse scrubbing clothes, working hard cos you have to earn your keep. I feel awful. Bleak. Hopeless.’

  The images seemed to be flitting about to different points in Henrietta’s life, but I could see it all so clearly. I felt like I was describing a film but a film in which I had a starring role.

  ‘I’m happy. I’m six. I’m at home with my dad and my mam. I love my dad very much. He’s a good singer and always invited to weddings to sing.’

  The images began to change and I felt older again.

  ‘I’m fourteen at school in Macclesfield. The Industrial school. Oo it’s such a beautiful place. I can count to ten on my fingers. One, two, three ... I get prizes. One in Standard Four and another for darning. I’m a good darner.’

  ‘What about your job in service?’ Fiona coaxed.

  The inner images seemed to fast-forward like on a DVD.

  ‘I started as a mother’s help. My lady has three children. It’s at my lady’s house where I met Katie Barrow.’

  Katie Barrow. Inwardly, a jolt of recognition went through me. Shock at her memory. Katie. Katie! How could I have forgotten her all these years?

  ‘Who’s Katie?’ Fiona asked.

  ‘Golden-haired Katie they call her. She has this natural golden hair. She’s knocked about by her dad. Katie is two years older than me but she’s my friend and we’re in service together.

  ‘I send me mam money. She’s in a poor way, drinking and that. My mind’s worried. I can’t sleep to think I’m comfortable and my mother ... I send her money. I have a little bank book with about eight pounds which is a lot of money I’ve saved.’

  The images seemed to fast-forward again and I desperately tried to keep up and make sense of what I was remembering.

  ‘Do you want to continue, Jo?’ Fiona asked.

  I nodded. I felt totally relaxed and intrigued as if looking at a home movie I hadn’t watched for a long time. ‘Katie went down to London and she wrote me to come to join her. She’s my best friend. She has beautiful clothes and a real china tea set. We share lodgings.’ It was weird lying there, watching and remembering images that were so familiar but also so dream-like.

  ‘Katie has a baby. It dies. We have no money to bury it. It has to go in a subscription grave. The undertaker says they took all the horses because there’s a big funeral on, so we have to carry the baby to the cemetery. When we get to the church, they’s burying someone else. There are big crowds. A big coffin for whoever’s died and Katie’s little one next to it on a little stool. The priest says prayers for the man that’s died and then he turns to us. There’s only me and Katie on our side and he says, we won’t only pray for this little child, we’ll pray for this mother that’s lost him . . . Oh, when he says that we both burst out crying right from our very hearts.’

  Intense grief wracked me and I found myself sobbing. It felt hopeless.

  Far away, I heard Fiona’s voice. ‘Jo, Jo, it’s all right . . . safe and easy . . . focusing on your breath, the feel of the couch beneath you, the sounds of the traffic outside . . .’

  I felt myself coming back and followed Fiona’s words.

  ‘When you open your eyes, you’ll feel. . .’

  I was back in Fiona’s office. I was safe but shivering. I felt so cold.

  Fiona put a blanket over me. ‘Are you all right?’

  I took a few deep breaths. ‘I’m fine. It was like the most vivid dream. I can see it all so clearly. So sad that Henrietta lost her father when she was young, just like me in this life. And Katie Barrow. I can’t believe I’d forgotten about her.’

  ‘Remarkable,’ said Fiona as she switched off her recorder. ‘Your recall was so articulate.’

  ‘But where did all that come from?’

  ‘You went very deep this time, Jo. Relax here for a while and take some deep breaths. Don’t try and work it out or analyse too much. Let it settle.’

  ‘Can I take the recording to listen to?’

  ‘Yes of course you can. I’ll do a copy for you. Now just relax.’

  Easy to say, I thought as I closed my eyes. The images had been so vivid and totally unexpected. Most of all, the memory of Katie was so strong. My dearest and closest friend. How could I have forgotten her? I asked myself.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Even Effy was stuck for words after she’d heard the CD. I called her and Tash as soon as I’d left Fiona’s and we all met at Effy’s house where I played them the CD of the sessi
on.

  ‘It was so weird,’ said Tash. ‘It was your voice all right but not how you speak or your language and how could you have known all those things?’

  ‘I don’t know. I did think maybe it was a film I’d seen, or something like that but. . .’

  ‘What?’ said Effy.

  ‘It felt so real. There are a few details that we could check out, and if they turn out to be true, then I know for certain, it was no film I was recalling.’

  ‘What details?’

  ‘Henrietta’s family. I said all of their names, her mum was Cecilia, her dad Tom and she had a younger brother John. I have a feeling that you or Tash mentioned those names to me when you first found the Gleesons on the census online so maybe I remembered them. We can double-check those.’

  Tash nodded. ‘I think you’re right. I seem to remember we found a Cecilia.’

  ‘But more importantly, there was one detail that has never appeared anywhere before: Katie Barrow and her baby. The first I knew about them was in my regression. I felt like I really knew her. As I say on the recording, she was my best friend. If Dave and his computer-whiz uncle can find her and maybe even a record of her child, then we know for definite that Betty didn’t make the story up. She never mentioned Katie and neither did Lily, the other clairvoyant. That came from inside me and me alone.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Tash. ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Maybe I was Katie,’ said Effy.

  ‘Or me,’ said Tash.

  ‘I thought about that,’ I said. ‘But don’t you think Betty would have said something? She saw all of us that afternoon on the Heath.’

  Effy nodded. ‘Yeah maybe. But you did say that you felt I looked familiar the first time you met me and I felt the same about you.’

  We looked at each other for a moment then both smiled. ‘Maybe you were Katie,’ I said. ‘Maybe Tash was. Maybe I’ve known both of you before and maybe that’s why Betty didn’t say anything that afternoon on the Heath. She didn’t need to because, unlike Howard and Henrietta, we’ve all found each other.’

  Tash laughed. ‘A lot of maybes there but hey, you could be right. Maybe we have been together loads of lifetimes.’

  ‘What about Howard?’ asked Effy.

  ‘I didn’t get to that part of Henrietta’s life,’ I said. ‘I was younger, sometimes about nine, at times six, sometimes about fourteen, but all before she started working as a governess.’

  ‘Will you have another session?’

  ‘Definitely I want to see what happened.’

  ‘And you’re OK with it?’

  I shrugged. ‘Yes. No. Fascinated more than anything. I feel that there’s no going back now. If I don’t go under again, I’m going to spend the rest of my life wondering about how Henrietta’s life turned out. And Fiona is as intrigued as I am, she suggested we do another session. I just hope it helps answer some questions about this life too.’

  Fiona fitted me in for another session on the Thursday of the same week.

  ‘You really are an interesting case,’ she said as she positioned her recorder ready for the session. ‘Such recall. But don’t be surprised if nothing happens this time. There are no guarantees and remember, the unconscious will only reveal what is most useful to you.’

  ‘I know.’

  I got settled on the couch and Fiona went through her usual countdown. This time though, I found it harder to relax and didn’t seem to be drifting away.

  ‘Where are you, Jo? Fiona asked after a while.

  ‘Right here on the couch. You were right. It doesn’t seem to be working this time.’

  ‘Maybe you’re trying too hard. Don’t try to make it happen. Forget about Henrietta or trying to remember. Just let go and if we have a session purely for relaxation, that will be fine too. Do you want to take a break or carry on?’

  Fiona’s words reassured me. ‘Let’s carry on,’ I said.

  Fiona took me through a visualisation down through a wood, past water to a lake. I focused on her words and let my mind follow the images she was presenting. Down steps, through dappled sunlight. Soon I was drifting pleasantly, almost asleep when the internal misty TV screen appeared.

  ‘Where are you, Jo?’

  I focused on the mistiness. I felt alone. Sad.

  ‘Katie’s gone.’

  ‘Gone where?’ asked Fiona.

  Suddenly the connection was there again. ‘I don’t want to go the way Katie has. She ran away from the big house where she was working cos she was having the baby. She had to. They put unmarried mothers into the asylum. And it weren’t her fault. He said he’d look after her, the baby’s father, but he never did. And now she can’t get no references. When the baby died, she started drinking with her pals. Jugging it from six o’clock in the morning to eleven at night. Crowds of ‘em. It was only a penny a gill. Oooooh she had a mouth on her when she’d been jugging it. She was never the same. No one ever called her goldenhaired Katie any more, she were a wreck. She died soon after. They put German measles on the death certificate, but it wasn’t German measles and I said so to the Inspector of the town. I said there should be an inquest but he said, what good’s that. It won’t bring her back. She were my friend, and now she were laid out. Such a beautiful girl, gone.’

  I could see it clearly and didn’t want to talk about it any more. I drifted for a while then more images came into view and I felt as if I was going forward in time.

  I saw a house in a big garden with a wrought iron fence around it. I recognised the house. Detached, double-fronted, a bay window to the side and a brass sign to the left of the front door saying: Edward Watts. Doctor. There are fields opposite. I live there with the family. I feel a rush of excitement.

  ‘Where are you now, Jo?’ asked Fiona.

  ‘In a kitchen. A lovely house. Bright from tall windows and it’s warm. I’ve got a job and I’m dressed up and try to speak more refined. I look after Daniel. He’s a baby. Daniel’s got a cough and I’ve got a bottle of Scott’s emulsion for him. I got it from the chemist’s. And. . .’

  A boy entered the room. He looked about nineteen. Just like when I saw Katie, I felt a jolt of recognition. It was like electricity going through me. Pure joy. It was Howard. My Howard. It’s been so long, I thought. He was my everything, my all. He occupied my every thought. I loved my job because every day I might see him in the garden, in the corridor, in the kitchen. Our eyes would meet, connect. It was our secret. How could I have forgotten him? He was my life.

  I felt bewildered. Where have I been? I asked myself. I’ve been lost for years and years, forgotten what was most important. How could that have happened? I’ve been in a dream, a dream in which he hasn’t featured. Where’s he been? Where have I been?

  Howard’s tall and dark with gentle, grey eyes that are looking at me, full of tenderness and longing. I’m happy just to be close to him. We’re laughing at Daniel’s face as he takes his cough mixture. He doesn’t like it.

  I feel a raw ache to be with him, an emptiness inside because I have been without him for so long, and am aware that tears are running down my cheeks.

  I can’t look any more. The craving to be with Howard is too overwhelming. I know, deep inside, that he’s no more than an image from my unconscious mind, but that is what makes it unbearable. He’s lost to me here and now, in this present time where I’m lying on a couch in Highgate remembering from some well deep inside of myself, a boy I should never have forgotten. Howard Watts. My soulmate.

  But already his image is becoming shadowy and fading back into time gone by.

  ‘Jo, Jo.’ Fiona’s voice pierced into my consciousness. ‘Jo, Jo, you’re coming back now and when you wake you’ll be safe and relaxed . . .’

  I focused on her voice, let myself be brought back and felt myself awakening.

  ‘Waking up now, three, feeling at ease, calm, and two, when you open your eyes you will feel refreshed as though waking from a deep sleep, one.’

  I opened my eyes. Back in Fiona�
�s office. Back in the present day. But I had not forgotten.

  Fiona let me lie for a few minutes before she spoke. I won’t forget, I thought. I mustn’t.

  ‘The house where Henrietta worked,’ I told Fiona. ‘It was the house from my recurring dream.’

  ‘And how do you feel about that, Jo?’ she asked.

  Another wave of loss flooded over me. Howard. I had seen his tombstone, his grave, and I could no longer reach him. He was gone from me, not just to another city or country but to another time. ‘So much loss,’ I said. I don’t know where to find Howard, I thought with despair. Henrietta lost her dad and I lost mine and now I’ve lost Howard. I couldn’t tell Fiona any more. It all felt so sad. As I lay there, suddenly a glimmer of hope flickered inside of me, growing stronger. If Betty was right and, like Henrietta, Howard is back too, then I have to find him. If we’ve come so far through time to be together then if there’s even a chance we could be together, we must take it and never lose each other again.

  Fiona took my hand. ‘Are you OK?’ She looked at me with concern and the touch of her hand was reassuring. ‘You seem sad.’

  ‘I saw him,’ I told her. ‘I saw Howard.’

  Even saying his name cut into me. I felt panic. I didn’t want to lose the memory of his face. I had no photograph, just an image in my mind that was already fading fast, like a candle about to bUm out, flickering then dying, leaving me in the dark, desolate and alone.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said, but I was cold and shivering.

  Fiona found a blanket and wrapped me in it like she had the time before. ‘Lie quiet for a while,’ she advised. ‘It’s a lot to absorb. Your unconscious mind needs to assimilate what you experienced.’

  ‘It was so real,’ I said, ‘but already it’s going, like waking from a dream.’

  ‘Yes. You’ll find that the vividness of the images will start to fade, but what’s important will stay.’

  She was right. Something important was still with me. The deep ache of loss and sense of urgency that I must find Howard.