The Memory of Midnight (30 page)

If only she knew.

‘Thank you, Janet,’ she said. ‘There is warm wine by the fire. Take two cups in case he has someone with him.’

She felt guilty for letting Janet serve him. If she were braver, she would go herself. A good wife would warm his wine with her own hands. She would carry it up to him, fetch his gown and make
sure the fire was stoked. And if she were not with child, Ralph would expect her there. He knew well how much she hated the closet. He called her in whenever he could and made her stand next to the
chest. He didn’t say anything, but he looked at the chest and he looked at her, and his teeth showed bone white in a smile. He liked it when she was afraid.

It was his favourite thing.

But no more. Nell spread her hand on her stomach which jutted proudly, high and round. Definitely a boy, the goodwives said, inspecting her with experienced eyes. She had let out her laces. She
was doing everything she could for her son. Every morning she drank a good draught of sage ale. She rubbed powdered tansy on her belly. She kept an eagle stone in the purse that hung from her
girdle.

And she prayed.

She prayed that the babe would hold. That Ralph would not beat her while there was a chance she might bear his son. Nell longed to hold the baby in her arms, but at the same time she wished she
could be with child forever.

But Ralph was in a sour mood that night. She could tell the moment they sat down to eat in the parlour. He put on a smiling show for Janet when she served them, but Nell saw the muscle ticking
under his right eye, and apprehension uncoiled within her. Something had triggered a fury of frustration in him, that much was clear. He would want to vent it and she prayed it would not be on her.
She prayed that he would go out after supper, but her prayers were in vain. When he came to bed, she knew by the way he closed the door to their chamber that his abstention was at an end. The best
she could hope for was that he would be less rough.

‘It is time you resumed your wifely duties,’ Ralph said, coldly stripping off his clothes. ‘No man can be expected to abstain until a child is born.’

‘As you wish, husband,’ said Nell. ‘But take care not to harm the babe.’

‘What am I, a monster?’ he snarled as he climbed on top of her.

Nell didn’t answer. She opened her legs and turned her face to the wall but it was not enough for Ralph. He heaved and grunted on top of her, but his yard would not rise and he cursed her
for it. She knew better than to speak, but much good it did her.

‘This is your fault, you witch,’ he said savagely. ‘You have unmanned me! Can you do no better than to lie there like a sack of turnips? I would get as much pleasure from
it!’

Nell moistened her lips. ‘I do not want to hurt the babe,’ she said carefully, but of course that was the wrong thing to say too.

‘The babe! The babe!’ His voice rose in fury. ‘I am sick of hearing about the babe. If you showed a fraction of that care for your husband, it would be a fine thing indeed!
But, no, you just lie there mocking me. I can tell.’

‘No.’ She shook her head, her mind scrabbling frantically for a way out of this.

‘
Yes
,’ he contradicted her. ‘Do you think I do not see the way you laugh behind your hand at me?’ He yanked her up onto her knees. ‘I’ll wipe the
smirk from your face!’

Frantically, Nell shoved both her hands at his chest. ‘Don’t!’

There was a moment of stillness as her voice rang around the chamber.

‘Don’t?’ Ralph echoed incredulously, but there was delight there too. At last he had his excuse and he savoured it. ‘
Don’t?
You dare say nay to your
husband?’

‘Ralph, I beg of you –’ she began, but it was much too late. There was a blankness in his eyes she recognized all too well as he raised his hand and cuffed her so hard across
the head that she fell back across the bed and tumbled to the floor.

For a moment she lay there, dazed, and then he was standing over her, naked, his mouth peeled back like a dog’s. He dragged her to her feet so that he could knock her down again. ‘Do
you try to master your husband? I’ll teach you to say “don’t” to me!’

Whimpering, Nell tried to curl up into a ball, but Ralph was having none of it. He kicked her in her side until she could get herself to her knees, retching in pain, and then he dragged her by
the hair to push her against the bed. He was panting, excited by her stifled moans. She lay half on, half off the bed, her face crammed into the coverlet. Her head was ringing and she could hardly
breathe.

Now
he was hard.
Now
he could take her the way he wanted to. He bucked into her, finishing with a cry of triumph, and then he took his wife and dropped her to the floor in
disgust.

The pain was agonizing. Nell wrapped her arms around her stomach and rocked herself backwards and forwards on the cold boards. Tears trickled silently down her cheeks, as silently as the blood
already seeping between her thighs.

‘Oh my God!’ Vanessa dropped to her knees beside Tess, who had crumpled to the kitchen floor and was curled up in a foetal position in a pool of tea and broken
china. ‘Tess! What happened?’

‘My baby . . .’

‘
Baby?
You’re pregnant?’ Vanessa scrambled back to her feet. ‘Oh my God, I have to call an ambulance!’

‘No!’ Desperately Tess hauled herself back to the present. ‘No ambulance!’

‘But Tess—’

‘Please, Vanessa.’ With an effort, she struggled to a sitting position and put her head between her knees. ‘I don’t need an ambulance.’

‘Tess, you passed out! One minute you were standing there and the next you went absolutely white and pitched onto the floor! And if you’re pregnant . . .’

‘I’m not.’

‘You were talking about your baby,’ said Vanessa, still agitated.

Leaden with misery, Tess shook her head against her knees. ‘There’s no baby.’

‘At least let me run you to the walk-in centre—’

‘I’ll be fine.’ Tess summoned a smile, and pulled herself shakily to her feet to prove it. ‘I’m sorry I gave you such a fright.’ She looked down at the mess
on the floor. Her skirt had a dirty brown stain spreading up from the hem. Pointlessly, she brushed at it. ‘Sorry about the mug too.’

‘Heavens, don’t worry about
that
! Sit down and I’ll make you another cup of tea. You’d better have some sugar.’

Vanessa was at her best when she had something to do. She bustled around, clearing up the broken mug, wiping the floor, taking juice out to the children in the garden. Tess was glad to sit for a
bit while the pounding in her head subsided and the wrenching ache of loss began to ease.

‘Now.’ Vanessa pulled out the chair across the table from Tess and sat down at last. She had on her firm-but-kind face. ‘I’m worried about you, Tess. What’s all
this about a baby?’

‘It’s nothing.’ Tess knuckled the last of the tears from under her eyes.

‘I had no idea you might be pregnant!’ Vanessa allowed hurt to creep into her voice. ‘I do think you might have told me.’

‘I’m not pregnant, Van. There’s no question of it.’ Tess stirred her tea, watching the liquid swirl round and round without really seeing it. There was nothing for it.
She was going to have to tell Vanessa what had happened. She had told Luke, hadn’t she? That had been okay. Maybe Vanessa would be able to help too.

Straightening, she tapped the teaspoon on the rim of the mug to get rid of the drops and laid it carefully on the table. ‘Do you remember I told you about those vivid dreams I had when I
first moved into the flat?’

Vanessa nodded to her to go on, but Tess could see a guarded look dropping into her eyes already.

‘I’ve been having them regularly,’ Tess went on, picking her way cautiously. ‘I’m the same person every time, but I get older . . . It’s so
real
,
Van. I know you think it’s crazy, but I really don’t think these are dreams. I think for some reason I’m slipping back in time to live Nell’s life in the past.’

‘Oh, Tess, come on . . .’

‘Just now, when you mentioned a baby, that was enough to tip me back,’ Tess ploughed on without letting Vanessa finish. ‘I was here, but I was in Elizabethan York. I was . . .
I was pregnant then but my husband beat me and I lost the baby and then I came round on your kitchen floor,’ she finished lamely, knowing how unconvincing she must sound. ‘I can’t
explain it, Van, but that’s what happened.’

Vanessa’s silence was eloquent. ‘Now I really am worried,’ she said at last. ‘I can’t believe you haven’t been to a doctor about this, Tess.’

‘I don’t
need
a doctor! I’m not ill!’

‘You might not think you’re ill, but you’re not behaving rationally,’ said Vanessa in a soothing voice that scratched Tess’s nerves raw. ‘You’re talking
about time travel and babies that don’t exist . . . I really think you need some help.’ Reaching across, she laid her hand over Tess’s. ‘The person having a breakdown is
often the last to realize what’s happening.’

Tess snatched her hand away. ‘I. Am. Not. Having. A. Breakdown!’

Vanessa smiled sadly. ‘And how many people do you think are going to believe you about that?’

‘Luke does.’

Wrong
thing to say. Vanessa’s expression shuttered and she sat back.

‘Luke would. It’s typical of him to encourage you in this nonsense. He’s always been irresponsible that way. I mean, has he thought about Oscar? Have
you
thought about
Oscar?’

‘Of course I have,’ said Tess coldly. ‘Oscar’s my priority. He’s fine.’

‘Is he? What if you passed out like this when you were alone with him? He’d be terrified!’

‘He didn’t even notice the one time it happened.’ Too late, Tess heard the defensive note in her voice, and, spotting a sore spot, Vanessa was quick to follow up.

‘So you’ve already had one of these . . . lapses . . . when you were alone with Oscar? Oh, Tess, that’s dangerous! Have you told your mother about this? I
really
think
it’s time you saw someone who could help.’

‘Vanessa, please . . .’

‘It’s not like the GP will send you straight off to a psychiatric hospital, if that’s what you’re worrying about.’ Vanessa leant forward once more, determinedly
supportive. ‘I think it’s more likely he’ll refer you for counselling. Maybe Martin could come too.’

‘Martin?’ Tess reeled back, aghast at the idea, but Vanessa wasn’t ready to let it go.

‘It sounds to me as if these “dreams” of yours are a bizarre way of working through some of the difficulties in your relationship with him. Really, he needs to be here, so you
can talk it through together, and he can be there for Oscar too. This could be just what you need to put your family back together.’

‘No.’ Tess felt cold. She pushed back her chair. ‘I should probably think about getting Oscar home. I know you’re trying to help, Vanessa, but no. I’m sorry I told
you anything.’

Vanessa was determined not to be pushed away. ‘I’m very glad you did.’ She was smiling with determined patience. ‘It’s not easy being on your own and you need
someone to watch out for you. You need help, Tess, and I won’t let you down, I promise.’

It sounded to Tess like a threat. She called Luke on her mobile when she and Oscar were walking home. He wasn’t answering so she left a message.

‘I’d like to see that guy you told me about, the one who knows about regression. Can you ring him for me? As soon as possible.’

Hunched forward over the wheel as he peered at house numbers, Luke drove slowly along the street. ‘I think . . . yes, this is it.’ He pulled into the drive and
stopped the car in front of an unassuming semi.

‘
This
is where he lives?’

‘What were you expecting? A haunted house?’

‘I don’t know. Nothing this . . .’ Tess studied the house through the windscreen. It had a neat front garden, with standard roses lining the path up to a blue front door. The
windows were criss-crossed with mock-Tudor panes and discreetly screened with lacy net curtains. ‘Nothing this ordinary,’ she said at last.

‘Ambrose seems very ordinary when you meet him. His name’s the weirdest thing about him, I reckon.’ Luke glanced at Tess. ‘You’ve been very quiet for the last few
miles. Nervous?’

‘A bit.’ She wound down the window to let in some air. It was hot in the car but she wasn’t ready to get out just yet and put herself in the hands of Ambrose Pennington.

She’d liked the drive across the flat Lincolnshire fenland. The sky was wider than in York and the sense of space liberating. For miles, it seemed, they had been able to see
Lincoln’s cathedral perched atop a ridge that jutted into the horizon. For Tess, it had been a time of limbo, and she had felt curiously weightless sitting next to Luke as the old car rattled
along. In motion, there was nothing she could do, but the closer they got to the city, the faster her reservations came crowding back.

‘I haven’t – what should I call it? – slipped . . . for two weeks now.’ It had been an enormous relief to be able to reassure Vanessa, who had taken to studying her
with an anxious frown, that she was fine.

And she was. She thought she was anyway. There had been no disturbing phone calls, no glimpses of men who might or might not have been Martin in the summer holiday crowds. Once or twice, the
doorbell had rung, and she had answered the intercom to find that nobody was there, but it was an easy mistake to press the wrong button, after all.

There had been no Nell either. Tess still ached for the baby she had lost. That
Nell
had lost, she had to keep reminding herself. She held onto Oscar so tightly now that he wriggled to
get away.

The desperate scraping and scratching in the wall still rasped into her dreams, but Tess was almost used to it now, just as she was used to the pain in her fingers that came and went without
warning. She wanted to relax, but she didn’t quite dare.

It had taken Luke some time to set up the meeting with Ambrose Pennington. Several times Tess had picked up the phone to ask Luke to cancel it, only to change her mind at the last minute. That
very morning when she and Luke dropped Oscar off with her disapproving mother, she had been tempted to suggest they forget the whole thing and go to the coast instead, but in the end she had
decided to go through with it.