The Hypnotist’s Love Story

  Julia put her hand on Madeline's arm and Ellen watched Madeline flinch slightly. It was Wednesday night and the three of them were out having dinner at a crowded Thai restaurant before they saw a movie. They were squashed together in a booth. The movie started at nine p.m. and it was seven-thirty now, and they'd only just managed to get their menus delivered. They were going to be late for the movie, which would irritate Madeline, while Julia would make a show of not letting it worry her, being the free and easy type that she wasn't.

  Julia and Madeline didn't get on, and they only pretended to like each other for Ellen's sake. As the "mutual friend," Ellen normally made a point of seeing them separately, but she'd known that they both had wanted to see the new George Clooney movie, so it seemed silly not to ask the two of them.

  Now she reminded herself not to do it again. Julia always seemed to want to make it clear to Madeline that she was the longer-standing friend, bringing up stories from their school days, mentioning old friends and behaving in a slightly adolescent fashion. Madeline refused to take part in the I'm-the-better-friend-of-Ellen competition and instead took refuge in her role as the only mother among the three of them. She maintained a permanent distracted, harried expression, as if she was listening out for a child's cry. At the moment she was eight months pregnant, so she was even worse than usual, with one hand permanently pressed to her belly. Now that Ellen was pregnant too, Madeline had the edge over Julia and she was using it to full advantage, constantly steering the conversation back to babies. As the only one drinking, Julia was working her way through a bottle of wine and fighting back by using every opportunity to imply that she adored her childfree existence and high-flying career.

  Ellen wanted to grab both their hands and say, Relax!

  "What?" said Madeline. She moved her hand slightly away from Julia's. She wasn't a touchy-feely sort of person. Julia, picking up on this, was always touching Madeline's arm, and kissed her ostentatiously whenever they all met.

  "Her stalker leaves her freshly baked biscuits at her front door--and does she toss them straight in the trash and call the police, like any normal, sane person would do?" said Julia. "No, she makes herself a cup of tea and she eats them!"

  "I hope they didn't have nuts in them," said Madeline. "You should be avoiding peanuts when you're pregnant, did you know that?"

  "Nuts are the very least of her worries!" cried Julia. "The stalker would have spat in them for sure. Or worse. Oh, God, I'm gagging at the thought of what she could have done, Ellen, of what she probably did do. Seriously."

  "Well, what sort of biscuits were they?" asked Madeline.

  "Shit-flavored," said Julia. She giggled so hard she keeled over sideways.

  Madeline shifted herself away from Julia and smiled stiffly. "How did you know they were from her?" she asked Ellen.

  From her prone position Julia said, "Were they chocolate chip?"

  "They were Anzac biscuits, and I know they were from her because there was a note," said Ellen. "It said: I made these today and I thought you might like some. Love, Saskia."

  "Oh, that's so creepy." Madeline shuddered with distaste to show that this sort of thing wouldn't be allowed to happen in her own orderly life.

  "It gets worse," said Ellen.

  "It does?" Julia sat up again. Ellen had only given her half the story before Madeline arrived.

  "I think she cooked them in my house," said Ellen.

  "Oh. My. God," said Julia.

  "What made you think that?" asked Madeline, calmly, because Julia had taken on the dramatic role.

  "There was a smell of cooking in my kitchen," said Ellen.

  She remembered standing in the kitchen, after that strange awful day in the mountains, breathing in the distinctive fragrances of golden syrup and brown sugar, her heart hammering, reminded so strongly of visits when her grandmother was alive. Her grandmother used to make Anzac biscuits all the time. Saskia's had been nearly as good as hers, maybe better. Crunchier.

  "You might have imagined it," said Julia.

  "Probably not," said Madeline. "Your sense of smell is so acute when you're pregnant. When I was having Isabella, I once smelled--"

  "No crumbs?" interrupted Julia. "Or any other signs? Things moved in your cupboard?"

  "The opposite of crumbs," said Ellen. "My oven was too clean. I think she cleaned it after she used it."

  "Why would she come to your kitchen and cook?" mused Julia. "What point is this lunatic trying to make? What's the message she's trying to give you?"

  "I hate cooking in someone else's kitchen," commented Madeline. "I can never find what I want."

  Julia blinked slowly at her and then turned back to Ellen.

  "What did Patrick say?"

  "I didn't tell him," said Ellen. "When we got back from the mountains, he had to go straight to the office. He just dropped Jack and me off. There's no point telling him. It just upsets him."

  She didn't tell them that she and Patrick hadn't been talking by the time they got back from the mountains.

  "Did you tell Jack?" said Julia.

  "I just said a friend of mine left them," said Ellen. "He wasn't that interested."

  "You didn't let Jack eat them, did you?" asked Madeline.

  "No," said Ellen. "I thought I'd better not. I distracted him with chocolate biscuits instead. We ate them while we did his homework."

  "Biscuits before dinner," murmured Madeline.

  "But you ate them yourself! You shouldn't have even touched them," said Julia. "They could have been poisoned."

  "Not to mention the danger to your unborn child," said Madeline.

  Now the two of them were nodding in complete agreement, both with serious, responsible expressions on their faces.

  "I know," said Ellen. "I didn't even think."

  And they'd smelled so good. It was ironic, but she'd been upset and disconcerted by the sight of the biscuits, and then, when she pulled one out and held it by her fingertips, it felt like exactly the thing she needed to make herself feel better. And then it was so good, she ate another one. So eating the biscuits made her feel better for the shock of receiving them. It wasn't until after she'd eaten three in a row that it even occurred to her that they could have been poisoned, and then she'd spent the rest of the evening secretly hyperventilating and Googling things like "How long till poison takes effect?"

  "You've been so weirdly flippant about this whole thing from the beginning." Julia spoke at the same time as she tried to catch a waiter's attention on the other side of the room. "This woman came into your home. She violated your privacy. Why aren't you terrified? And why is this waiter pretending he can't see me? You can see me, oh, yes, you can!"

  "I don't know," said Ellen. "I am a little bit terrified."

  Ever since the incident with the biscuits, she'd felt a sense of slight breathlessness, as though she was running late for something important. The previous night she'd woken up just before dawn with the thought clear in her head: Something bad is going to happen. Saskia wasn't going to stop until something happened. But what? What needed to happen?

  It seemed to her that it wasn't about Saskia and Patrick anymore. It was about Saskia and Ellen. It was between the two women. And if she could just work out the right thing to do, or the right words to say, maybe she could end it. But what to say? What to do? What? It felt like that endless moment just after you've knocked something breakable off a table, and instead of grabbing it in midair, you freeze with one arm outstretched, and after it smashes you think, "I could have stopped that from happening."

  "You should be completely terrified," said Madeline sternly. "All the time."

  "Thank you so much," said Ellen. "That's extremely comforting."

  "What I don't understand is why you haven't got the police involved," said Julia. "There should be a restraining order out against her, and then each time she breaks it, you call the cops, wham, she's in handcuffs. Problem solved."

  "Patrick did go to the police once," said
Ellen. "And he keeps talking about going again, but then he doesn't ever seem to get around to it. Also, I don't think it's quite as easy as you describe."

  "I've heard those restraining orders are pretty useless," agreed Madeline.

  "You go to the police then," ordered Julia, pointing at Ellen, and ignoring Madeline.

  There had been a moment, when she was holding her oven mitt, her grandmother's oven mitt, thinking about the fact that Saskia had probably used it, slid her hands inside its soft cloth to protect her hands, when Ellen had been filled with outrage at the sheer audacity of this woman. She'd marched toward the phone to call the police, but then she'd stopped before she even picked up the receiver. How could she prove it? Sniff the air, Officer, can't you smell the scent of baking? And just look how clean my oven is! I never left it that clean! She would have looked like a fool.

  And besides, it was up to Patrick, and for whatever the reason, he still wasn't ready to get the police involved.

  "She's never showed any signs of being violent," she said feebly.

  "Not yet," said Madeline.

  "You do realize she's going to turn up at your wedding," said Julia. "When the priest says, 'If anyone here present knows of any reason why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony,' she'll pipe up, 'Oh, me, me!'"

  "I don't think they actually say that anymore," said Ellen.

  Julia talked over the top of her. "She'll come charging down the aisle saying, 'I'm the reason!'"

  "She might bring a gun," said Madeline enthusiastically.

  "You'll have to wear a bullet-proof vest under your gown," said Julia.

  "I don't think I'll bring my children," mused Madeline.

  "Mmmm," said Ellen. This was why she and Patrick hadn't got very far with their wedding plans. Every time they started talking about it, the conversation came back to Saskia. "Even if we go overseas she'll probably track us down," Patrick had said.

  He'd seemed relieved when Ellen suggested perhaps they should just wait until after the baby was born, even though his mother would probably "have kittens" about the child being "born out of wedlock."

  Ellen's nausea wasn't making her feel very bridal anyway.

  "You must hate her," said Madeline. "I hate her on your behalf. You can't even plan your own wedding!"

  "I don't hate her," said Ellen. "Not really. I'd actually quite like to talk to her."

  "Yes, good idea, ask your stalker out for coffee," guffawed Julia.

  "Ring her up now and ask her to join us at the movies," said Madeline, with a quick, shy grin at Julia.

  Julia laughed harder than was necessary. They were bonding over Ellen's foolishness.

  "I might ring her one day," said Ellen thoughtfully. She stirred her glass of mineral water with her straw and watched the bubbles. "I just might."

  Ever since Sunday I've been thinking about the man who came to Ellen's house.

  "Ellen O'Farrell?" he said, and sort of lunged at me when I opened the door. I stepped back and kept the screen door shut.

  "No," I said. "She's not here."

  "OK, who are you?" He had the tone of someone who demands and receives the very best service. He reminded me of the developers I deal with at work. Men who are so very, very sure of their place in the world.

  "Well, who are you?" I said quite snootily, which is funny seeing as I was actually the intruder.

  "I'm someone who needs to talk to her," he said. His nostrils flared. "Urgently."

  "I could give her a message," I offered, imagining a jaunty little note left on a Post-it on her fridge: Angry man dropped by who needs to see you urgently. Love, Saskia.

  "Don't bother." He looked like he was trying hard not to punch a wall. "I'll come back another time."

  "You do that," I said spiritedly.

  And then he left.

  It was strange, but as I closed the door, I actually felt defensive on Ellen's behalf. There's something so guileless about her, like she believes everyone is as sweet and sincere as she. When clearly we're not.

  Also, I had a strong feeling I knew that man from somewhere. I just couldn't quite remember where.

  "So what was it like meeting the dead wife's family?" asked Julia. Her cheeks were flushed from all the wine she was drinking, and she'd rubbed her eyes so her mascara was faintly smudged, giving her a sexily disheveled look. In the restaurant's shadowy mood lighting she looked the way she had when Ellen and she used to take their fake IDs so they could go out drinking together in high school, during their not especially impressive, short-lived rebellious phase. (Her mother and godmothers had got up to much worse when they were teenagers.)

  "Oh, but wait, I want to hear about meeting your dad!" Madeline sat back and laced her hands together under her breasts and across the top of her big belly. As she moved, Ellen's elbow bumped against the firm flesh of her belly, and she was shocked by the reality of Madeline's baby. There was an actual baby just centimeters away from Ellen's elbow. Not just the idea of a baby. A real live baby curled up under the striped fabric of Madeline's maternity top and the stretched skin of her stomach. Ellen laced her own hands together in imitation of Madeline and placed them across her own stomach, which was still soft and only faintly, implausibly rounded, as if she'd just been enjoying a few too many pizzas. Her clothes were starting to feel tighter, but it was impossible to imagine that in a few months she'd have an enormous stomach like Madeline's, one that would give her that characteristic pregnant swaybacked gait, one that would cause people to smile and offer a chair and ask, "How much longer now?"

  "Her life is like a soap opera these days, isn't it?" said Julia.

  "Like sand through the hourglass, so are the days of Ellen's lives," intoned Madeline in a quite good American accent. Ellen had never heard her put on a voice before to make a joke.

  "Remember when she was so calm and Zen? Nothing messy ever happened to her?" said Julia.

  "That's not true!" protested Ellen. "I had messy relationship breakups."

  "No, even your breakups seemed to happen on a higher level of existence than the rest of us," said Madeline.

  "That makes me sound annoying," said Ellen. She was hurt. It was like she had overheard a conversation that revealed what her friends really thought of her.

  Julia and Madeline were too busy liking each other for the first time to notice.

  "Oh, not that annoying. Anyway, me first," said Julia. "The wife's family?"

  "Maybe we should just concentrate on eating quickly and efficiently," said Ellen, as a waiter appeared at their table with three giant plates balanced on his forearm.

  "Let's skip the movie," said Madeline. "Let's just relax."

  "Excellent idea." Julia settled back in the booth and smiled at Madeline.

  Watching them talking to the waiter, confirming what each dish was, leaning back politely to let him spoon out their rice, Ellen saw for the first time that the two of them were actually quite similar. Their carefully relaxed demeanors hid a fragile defensiveness, as if they expected to be criticized at any moment and they weren't going to stand for it. They both seemed to cling so hard to their chosen personalities. I am this sort of person and therefore I believe this, I think this, I do this and I am right, I'm right, I'm sure I'm right!

  Although, then again, maybe everybody did that to some extent. Perhaps all grown-ups were just children carefully putting on their grown-up disguises each day and then acting accordingly. Perhaps it was a necessary part of being a grown-up. Or perhaps it was just that Ellen felt herself to have a more nebulous, less defined sort of personality than both Madeline and Julia.

  Or perhaps this was all a load of rubbish, and Madeline and Julia were just being themselves. Lately, Ellen was becoming increasingly impatient with the way she never just accepted anything at face value. She couldn't quite understand her impatience. It was like she'd suddenly turned against a dear old friend for no good reason.

  "It must have been so awkward," said Madeline. "Meeting Patrick's old in-
laws."

  "Do you think they hated you?" asked Julia. "Replacing their beloved daughter?"

  "They were lovely," said Ellen. "They seemed perfectly relaxed about it, but I made a fool of myself."

  "Oh, no," said Julia, as though Ellen was in the habit of making a fool of herself. "What did you do?"

  "I saw a photo on the wall of Colleen holding Jack when he was a baby and I--"

  "You criticized her?" said Julia. "You spoke ill of the dead!"

  Julia was terrified of death. Whenever she was confronted with it, she became skittish and weird, as if she could somehow ward it off.

  "Does that sound like something I'd do?" said Ellen, as she lifted her spoon to her mouth.

  "Shellfish!" screeched Madeline, and knocked the spoon from Ellen's mouth.

  "It's not!" Ellen indicated the plate in front of her. "It's the chicken."

  "Oh, sorry, you're right," said Madeline. "Carry on."

  "Anyway, I think this whole thing with what you can and can't eat when you're pregnant has gone too far," said Ellen. "The French still eat soft cheeses and drink wine, the Japanese still eat sushi--and their babies are all fine."

  Madeline pursed her lips, as if she wasn't quite convinced about the quality of French and Japanese babies. "I wouldn't be taking any risks in the first trimester."

  Julia's face closed down slightly at the pregnancy talk. "So what did you do when you saw the photo?"

  "I cried," said Ellen.

  "You cried? You didn't even know the girl!" Madeline put down her fork, as though she'd just tasted something disgusting; she was clearly mortified on Ellen's behalf.

  "Why would you cry?" asked Julia with interest.

  "Pregnancy hormones," said Madeline wisely. "Although you can't spend the next six months behaving like that! Couldn't you, I don't know, hypnotize yourself or something?"

  It was clear just how seriously Madeline was taking this that she'd suggest self-hypnosis. Ellen knew that Madeline thought hypnotherapy was a load of new age nonsense, a waste of people's time and money, quackery, plain silly, misguided but well meaning; she didn't know which actual phrases Madeline would use, but she knew from the carefully polite blank expression that crossed Madeline's face whenever Ellen's career came up that it would be something along those lines. Ellen had never pushed because she knew Madeline would lie to be polite, and she'd lie badly, and Ellen didn't see the need to make her uncomfortable. She knew that Madeline was fond of her, and that she would never want to hurt Ellen's feelings.