As she went to pick up one of the fallen boxes, she saw that Patrick had carefully written "Miscellaneous" on the side. She laughed. It was meant to be a gentle, loving laugh at her imperfect but adorable husband-to-be, but it came out an unpleasant, bitter-sounding bark, as if she'd been unhappily married to him for years and this was the last straw.
Then she said, "Oh, please don't" as the bottom of the box broke and another flood of "miscellaneous" items crashed to the floor.
She dropped the soft dusty sheets of cardboard and stamped her foot. Her home would never be hers again. It was going to disappear under a mountain of rubbish. She scratched viciously at her wrist as an itchy feeling of rage enveloped her, as though tiny bugs were crawling all over her body.
This is an inappropriate reaction. You need to breathe. In and out. Imagine a white light is filling--
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" she screamed in the empty hallway.
She looked about for something, anything, to distract her.
She bent down and picked up the photo album.
The first photo she saw was of an impossibly young-looking Patrick wearing a puffy-sleeved white shirt with a blond girl sitting on his lap. She had on white jeans tucked into her boots, padded shoulders, earrings with dangling orange feathers. Patrick and Colleen. Young love in the late eighties.
She flipped the pages.
Photo after photo of Colleen posing for the camera, presumably held by Patrick. Hands on her hips, pouting her lips, opening her eyes wide, smiling seductively.
Ellen's seventeen-year-old self, the one who had worn a very similar pair of earrings when she was a schoolgirl but would never have had the confidence to model like that for a boyfriend, responded bitchily. "Yes, you're pretty hot stuff."
Her better self spoke up: Ellen! What's wrong with you? She's a little girl! Seventeen and she's going to die young. Give the poor girl a break.
She turned the page.
"Oh, lordie me," she said, this time in her grandmother's voice.
She was looking at naked photos of Colleen. Her blond hair slick against her head like she'd just stepped out of the shower. Without the dated clothes and hairstyle, she'd lost that faintly silly look that people have in old photos. Now she wasn't just a pretty eighties girl, she was a classic beauty, with high cheekbones and big eyes. Ellen studied each photo, feeling both weirdly excited and slightly sick. Colleen had a perfectly proportioned body, slim and curved in all the right places. She could have been a model.
There wasn't anything pornographic about the photos. They were innocently sensual; Ellen could feel the raw intensity of first love.
There was one beautiful photo of Colleen lying completely naked on a single bed with her eyes closed, sunlight across her face. Ellen imagined how Patrick must have felt as a horny teenage boy looking at this gorgeous girl. Ellen had been perfectly attractive as a teenager, a "pretty" girl--but she'd never had a body like this, and now her skin was aging and her body was thickening with pregnancy and she was filled with a feeling of pure envy. She wanted to be that young girl, lying naked on a bed with the sunlight on her face, and the truth was she never had been and she never would be.
Stop looking, she told herself. This is highly personal, private stuff! You have no right! It's disrespectful. Your reaction is emotionally immature. Everyone has photos of their high school sweethearts tucked away in old boxes, it's no big deal! Shut the photo album, put it somewhere safe where Jack can't find inappropriate photos of his dead mother, and go and research prams for the baby on the Internet, or do your taxes or something.
She sat down cross-legged on the floor among all the miscellaneous junk and kept looking, and as she did, she felt a strange longing to have a girl-to-girl talk with Saskia.
"Do you think he's still in love with his wife?" she could ask her. "Do you think he ever really got over her? Do you think neither of us really ever had a chance with him?"
She felt like Saskia would be the only person who would truly understand why she couldn't stop looking at these photos.
Chapter 15
You'll never forget your first age regression!
--Flynn Halliday
Describe what's going through your mind," said Ellen. Alfred Boyle, the humble accountant who wanted help with public speaking, was sitting in the green recliner displaying all the signs of an ideal hypnotic state: His cheeks were flushed, his eyes moved restlessly behind his eyelids, his well-polished black business shoes splayed outward.
It was Ellen's second session with him and she was doing an age regression.
After their first appointment, it had become obvious to Ellen that Alfred's fear of public speaking was a full-blown phobia. He trembled and stammered just talking about it. It was having a serious impact on his life. He regularly called in sick on days he was due to give a presentation.
Alfred had already regressed to his first job as a trainee accountant, when he'd made such a hash of a short presentation, his boss had eventually interrupted, "Don't worry about it, mate."
Now Alfred was describing an incident in high school where he'd had to give an impromptu speech on the topic of music.
"I feel sick," said Alfred. His voice sounded younger. Not as deep. Even the awkward way his jaw moved reminded Ellen of a teenage boy. "I've got nothing to say about music. Music. What is music even? Like, sounds and shit? I cannot think of a single word to say about music. They're all staring at me. They think I'm an idiot. I am an idiot."
"Where do you feel the fear?"
"Here." Alfred pressed his hand to his stomach. "I'm going to vomit. Seriously. I'm going to vomit all over the classroom floor."
Ellen looked at him uneasily and felt her own nausea rise.
"We're going to use that feeling like a bridge," she said firmly. "And we're going to follow that bridge to the very first time you felt that way."
She was on the hunt for what was called the "Initial Sensitizing Event."
"As I count backward from five to one, you will travel back in time. Five, you're becoming younger, smaller ... four, you're following the feeling ... three, you're nearly there ... two ... one."
Ellen leaned forward and tapped Alfred lightly on the forehead with her fingernail. "Be there."
She waited a beat.
"Where are you?" she said.
"Preschool," said Alfred.
At the sound of his voice Ellen felt a cold shiver. It never ceased to amaze her when this happened. There was a fifty-two-year-old man sitting in front of her, but she was talking to a small child.
"How old are you?"
Alfred held up his palm and tucked back his thumb.
"Four?" said Ellen.
Alfred nodded shyly.
"And what's happening, Alfred?"
"It's quiet time, but Pam is crying in the reading corner. She's really sad. I think I should cheer her up and give her a present."
"How?"
"I'm giving her a present."
"Ah, that's a good idea. What is it?"
"My snail."
Oh, dear. This was clearly not going to work out well.
"Your snail?"
"Yeah, I found it on the footpath this morning and I put it in my pocket. It's huge! And guess what?" Alfred's face filled with boyish enthusiasm. "His shell is hairy! I've never seen a hairy-shelled snail before."
"What are you doing now?"
"I'm saying, "'Look, Pam, this is for you.'"
"What's Pam doing?"
By the expression of shocked horror on Alfred's face, it didn't look like the snail had been a hit. "She's screaming and pushing me away!"
Oh, Pam, thought Ellen.
"I'm falling back against the bookshelf and it's crashed to the floor with everyone's Easter eggs we painted this morning! And Miss Bourke is yelling like she's on fire, and I can't find my snail and everyone is looking at me."
Alfred's shoes drummed against the floor. "Miss Bourke is hitting my legs!"
Bitch, thought El
len.
Four-year-old tears were running down Alfred's fifty-two-year-old face. "Now I have to stand up in front of everyone and say sorry to Pam and sorry to the whole class for breaking their Easter eggs, and everyone is looking at me like I'm ... like I'm a bank robber."
Ellen wanted to march straight back through time and remove Alfred from the preschool and take him out for an ice cream.
But there was only person who could do that.
She raised her voice. "I want to talk to grown-up Alfred now. Are you there?"
Alfred straightened up. He cleared his throat and lifted his chin. His voice deepened again. "Yes."
"All right, Alfred, I want you to go back to that preschool now and see your four-year-old self with your grown-up eyes. I'm going to count backward from five. Five, four, three, two, one ... be there."
Alfred stretched his neck.
"Are you there?"
"Yes."
"Can you see four-year-old Alfred?"
"Yes."
"What would you like to say to him?"
"It's all right, mate. Girls don't like snails. They're strange like that. You were just trying to help. None of it was your fault."
Ellen checked her watch. The session was running overtime and she had Mary-Kate McMasters booked for the next one, assuming of course that she turned up. Time to wrap up with a few positive suggestions.
An image of Mary-Kate's sad, dumpy face appeared in Ellen's mind.
She looked thoughtfully at Alfred Boyle.
Mary-Kate and Alfred were both single.
"Single," they'd both said immediately, with exactly the same resigned well-what-would-you-expect intonation in their voices when she'd asked about their relationship status for their intake paperwork.
They were of similar ages. She couldn't think of anything else they had in common, but still, who could ever really predict the magical combination of personality attributes and backgrounds and chemistry that caused two people to fall in love?
So why not give them just the tiniest nudge? The barest flick of her fingernail could roll them together like two marbles. What would be the harm? Before she could change her mind, she started talking.
"You've been carrying around the feelings from that day in preschool for a long while now. Now you can begin to rewrite history. The next time you run into a sad-looking woman you may feel a strong desire to pay her a compliment..."
Ellen paused. Assuming Mary-Kate was the next sad-looking woman he saw, how would she respond? Presumably not like four-year-old Pam, but still this was Mary-Kate. Ellen actually had no idea how she'd react. Was this a crazy idea?
"And no matter how she reacts, you'll feel good about yourself. In fact, you'll feel great."
Ellen hesitated. How far should she push this?
Oh, to hell with it.
"You may even find yourself asking her out. You'll speak clearly and confidently and you'll look her straight in the eye, and if four-year-old Alfred starts to get in the way, grown-up Alfred will take charge. You'll ask her out for a drink. Tonight if she's free. To the Manly Wharf Hotel, perhaps. You could sit at one of those seats right out..."
OK, now she was getting carried away. She hurriedly finished off.
"And even if this woman says no, you'll be filled with optimism and confidence and positivity, because all that matters is you took that leap. Nod to show me you understand."
Alfred nodded once. His head had dropped forward toward his chest. He looked like a drunk who was agreeing that someone should call him a taxi.
Well, thought Ellen. What would be, would be.
She brought him out of his trance.
"How do you feel?" She poured him a glass of water.
Alfred took the water from her outstretched hand, tipped his head back and drank deeply. Then he put the empty glass back down on the table and grinned at her. He actually had quite a nice smile.
"Good, I think," he said. He shook his head and chuckled. "Yep, I've always been such a hit with the ladies. Just what every girl wants. A hairy-shelled snail. I hadn't thought about that in years."
"A tomboyish girl might have appreciated the snail," said Ellen.
"But you're not saying that was the cause of my problem with public speaking, are you?" said Alfred.
"I'm not saying anything at all." Ellen folded her hands on her lap and smiled at him.
"It's just--"
"What?"
"Well, it's so trivial. It's embarrassing. It's not like we discovered I had a past life where I was, I don't know, stoned to death by Egyptian monks because I gave a boring speech."
"Egyptian monks?"
"I don't know, I'm an accountant, not a historian! Anyway, I don't believe in past lives."
Excellent. That was something he had in common with Mary-Kate. They could chat about their lack of belief in past lives. Perhaps they'd been skeptical lovers in ancient Rome.
"Or at least if I'd repressed some really shocking, traumatic memory from my childhood," mused Alfred.
It was interesting how many clients with perfectly happy childhoods longed to find something dreadful in their past.
"The most trivial incident can be traumatic for a child," said Ellen. "And your subconscious retains those memories. That's what we're going to do at our next session. We're going to reprogram your subconscious. Alfred, you're going to be amazed at the new confidence you're going to experience."
As she made this pronouncement, she leaned forward and locked eyes with Alfred. She'd found that her clients remained extremely suggestible straight after they came out of a trance. It was a good opportunity for her to reinforce the session with some waking suggestions.
She looked at her watch. Come on, Mary-Kate. Don't cancel. This could be your destiny waiting for you.
She wrote out Alfred's receipt, and as she slowly led him down the stairs, the doorbell rang.
Yes!
"Ah! That will be my next appointment," said Ellen joyously, as if it was a magnificent surprise to have another client show up.
"Oh, that's ... good," said Alfred, who was probably now wondering if she had cash flow issues.
Ellen opened the door to reveal Mary-Kate's unsmiling, dour face. Alfred stood back courteously to let her in first.
"Hi, Mary-Kate!" caroled Ellen.
Mary-Kate looked at her suspiciously. "Hi."
"Oh!" Ellen slapped the side of her head (quite hard--she was a terrible actress). "I meant to give you ... something, Alfred. If you could just wait one moment, I'll be right back. My apologies, Mary-Kate. I won't be long. Just, ah, take a seat, both of you." She gestured at the two cane chairs she had sitting in the hallway next to a coffee table with magazines.
As she headed back up the stairs, she saw Mary-Kate plonk herself down and pick up a magazine from the coffee table.
Alfred coughed nervously and kept standing. He walked over to one of the prints Ellen had hanging on the wall and studied it intently like a serious buyer in a gallery.
Ellen went back into her office and found some notes on self-hypnosis for public speaking. She also picked up a relaxation CD for good measure.
Then she stood at her window and watched the ocean. Was she putting her toe across that ethical line again? They probably weren't even talking to each other. She looked at her watch. How long before they'd start to worry that she'd collapsed or something?
She'd give them five minutes. Five minutes that could mean nothing at all in the stories of their lives, or five minutes that could potentially change everything, forever.
Which will it be, Alfred and Mary-Kate?
Chapter 16
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
--Buddhist quote on Ellen's bathroom mirror
So I guess I should, that is, I mean I assume you don't want ... should I wait in the car?"
They had pulled up at the graveyard where Colleen was buried. Jack was in the backseat of the car,
his head down, lips moving silently as he played with his Nintendo DS. He'd played for the whole hour and a half it had taken them to drive to Katoomba. Colleen's parents had moved to the Blue Mountains a few years before she'd died, and they'd wanted her to be buried close to them. On the seat next to Jack was a giant bunch of Colleen's favorite flowers (yellow gerberas) that Patrick had specially ordered and picked up from the florist that morning.
(It wasn't like Patrick was buying flowers for another woman. A rival for his affections. A mistress. Certainly not. And it wasn't as though Patrick had never bought flowers for Ellen before. He had. Many times. Beautiful bunches. So, then, why was she even thinking about the damned flowers when there was nothing to think about, nothing at all?)
"No, I want you to come." Patrick turned off the ignition and unbuckled his seat belt. He turned to look at her and smiled uneasily. All morning, he'd been in a jumpy, skittish mood, laughing too loudly at her jokes, overly stern with Jack, and then suddenly hugging him to make up. It was as though he had intense stage fright about an upcoming performance.
"I'd sort of like to introduce you to her," he said quietly.
"Ah," said Ellen.
"Is that too weird?" He put his hand over hers.
"Of course not," she said, while silently shrieking, Of course it's weird! Are you out of your mind?!
Patrick turned to the backseat. "Ready to come and see Mum, mate?"
"Just let me--" said Jack without looking up, his thumbs moving rapidly.
"Jack," said Patrick sharply.
Jack sighed and tossed aside the Nintendo. "Fine."
They all got out of the car. It was even colder than Ellen had expected and she pulled her coat more tightly around herself. She looked about, as she always did now, to see if Saskia had followed them today, but there was only an older couple murmuring to each other as they walked hand in hand back from the graveyard. The woman smiled at Ellen.
Since the book and flower incident, Ellen had only seen Saskia once, when she and Patrick and Jack were at their local supermarket. Jack and Patrick were arguing over breakfast cereals, and Ellen had looked up to see Saskia walking down the aisle toward them, pushing an empty trolley. Their eyes had met and Ellen had automatically smiled because it was Deborah Vandenberg she first saw: a client suffering chronic pain who was doing well with her treatment, who had chatted and joked with Ellen, a woman of a similar age to Ellen, who reminded her a little of Julia, who could so easily have been a friend.