The Hypnotist’s Love Story

  She was a good friend to me at that time, taking care of me like I was an invalid. She made me chicken soup and cups of tea, and held my hand while I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling and tried to breathe, even though I felt like a lorry had parked on my chest. I remember asking her if life would ever feel the same again, and she said, "Of course it will, honey." She was wrong, but still, she was a nice girl, the sort of girl who calls you "honey" and says, "I love you." I can't actually believe I once had a friend like that. It's like remembering that I once spoke fluent French, when now I can't understand a single word.

  After I moved out of her place and into the duplex, she kept trying to be my friend. She wanted me to go dancing and drinking in nightclubs and bars. She wanted me to snap out of it, to pull myself together, to show him, to get back out there.

  I remember thinking that it wasn't fair. If Patrick had been killed in a car accident, I would have been allowed to grieve for him for years. People would have sent me flowers and sympathy cards; they would have dropped off casseroles. I would have been allowed to keep his photos up, to talk about him, to remember the good times. But because he dumped me, because he was still alive, my sadness was considered undignified and pathetic. I wasn't being a proper feminist when I talked about how much I loved him. He stopped loving me, so therefore I had to stop loving him. Immediately. Chop, chop. Turn those silly feelings off right now. Your love is no longer reciprocated, so it is now foolish.

  He and Jack were both gone from my life as if they were dead, but that was hardly a tragedy. Breakups happen to everyone. It was the same with Mum's death. Old people die all the time. And she was sick! So, a blessing really. So what that you'll never hear her voice again. So what that you'll never read Jack another bedtime story. So what that you'll never make love to Patrick again.

  Get over it, get on with it, get a grip, girl. Everyone wanted me to hurry up and make myself happy again--cut my hair, sign up for evening classes--and it was just plain irritating when I wouldn't, when I couldn't. It was no wonder that Tammy slipped out of my life.

  And now here she was again, after all these years, her voice on my mobile phone sounding exactly the same; Tammy always sounded slightly puffed out, like she'd just run around the block.

  "Saskia, honey, I'm back in Sydney!" she said. I didn't know she'd left Sydney. "You're not on Facebook!" she said. "How are your old friends meant to find you if you're not on Facebook, you philistine!"

  She acted as though we'd just lost touch the way ordinary people do. She didn't even mention Patrick. She asked if I'd have a drink with her on Wednesday night. And I said sure, while I sat in the car and felt the sun on my face, and I thought no way do I need therapy! I'm meeting an old friend for a drink tomorrow night! I'm perfectly normal.

  Then five minutes later I found myself driving to the hypnotist's house.

  I'll just drive by, I told myself. I won't stop the car. Jack will be at school, and Patrick will be at work, and Ellen will be sitting in her striped chair, in her cozy little glass haven, offering chocolates, letting her liquid voice rise and fall while the sunlight dances around the walls.

  As I drove there I wished I was still Deborah going for another appointment about my leg pain. It's strange how much I enjoyed those sessions. The pain has been worse again lately. I haven't even bothered with any of Ellen's techniques. Now that I'm not Deborah to her, I don't feel entitled to use them.

  But Patrick was there.

  As I turned the corner into her street, I saw them coming out of the house together, hurrying as if they were running late for an appointment. Patrick was wearing jeans. He had the day off. Why? He never took a day off during the week. Ellen was wearing jeans too, and a beautiful long gray fitted coat with cute pom-poms bouncing about on little strings. The sort of coat only someone quirky and delightful could wear. You couldn't tell she was pregnant yet.

  They looked like a couple; nobody looking at them would think that they didn't belong together. And there it was, that strange feeling of exquisite, tender pain: delicate but fierce, like a long, thin, gleaming needle slowly piercing my flesh.

  Where could they be going? I didn't even bother fighting it; I had to know. If I could just know, it wouldn't hurt so much. I always think that, even though the knowledge always hurts more.

  So I followed them. I was driving one of the work cars because mine was acting up again, so Patrick didn't see me or do any of his clever maneuvers to get rid of me.

  They drove to Jack's school.

  A school concert, perhaps? Or a soccer game? One that I'd missed? I thought about texting him to ask, not that he would answer, of course, but then Ellen stayed in the car while Patrick went into the school. He was half running. Was Jack sick?

  But then only a few minutes later he reappeared, walking quickly, carrying Jack's schoolbag while Jack ran to keep up with him. They jumped in the car and off they went again.

  I couldn't think where they'd be going at this time of day, and my desire to know was now a raging thirst. I was leaning forward now, my hands clenched hard around the steering wheel, my vision focused entirely on the number plate of Patrick's car.

  I dream about that number plate.

  Lance from work rang on my mobile and I let it go to voice-mail. Following them was all that mattered. I lost them at a set of lights on Military Road, when some idiot driver slammed on her brakes at an orange light, as if her sole purpose was to thwart me. I screamed with frustration and slammed my hands so hard on the steering wheel they will probably bruise. It was pure luck that I found them again. When I got to the end of Falcon Street, I turned left onto the Pacific Highway, for no particular reason, just because I was in the left-hand lane, and I saw the three of them walking along a footpath. Ellen pointed at a building and they disappeared inside.

  I found a spot nearby and didn't bother putting money in the meter. I walked back to the same building while pain grabbed and twisted at my leg.

  When I got to the empty lobby, I stopped at the directory board that listed various business names. Dental surgery. Chartered accountants. Immigration specialists. It could have been anything.

  And then I saw: Sydney Ultrasound.

  That's where they were going. To see the baby.

  The baby.

  It felt personal, as if all three of them were doing this to hurt me, as if this entire building had been placed here for the sole purpose of hurting me.

  He would hold her hand, and they would listen to the heartbeat and exchange teary, radiant smiles. I've seen the movies. I know how it works. Jack would see his little brother or sister for the first time.

  You'll be the best big brother in the world, I used to tell him when Patrick and I were trying to get pregnant. Jack said he'd prefer a little sister. His best friends were all girls at preschool. "I want a little sister called Jemima," he said. "With black hair." And then he added, "Please." I was teaching him manners at the time. I said that would be fine. I quite liked the name Jemima.

  I thought, Thank God I followed them. Otherwise I might never have known what day it was that they went for the ultrasound. It would have suddenly occurred to me, probably at three a.m. one morning, that they must have been due for an ultrasound by now, and then I would have lain awake, obsessing over the details, wondering when it was, and where, and what they wore. At least this way I had some control. I was still part of it; I still existed. Even if they didn't know I was there, I would know. I could say, "Fancy seeing you here!" as they came out of the office, or I could send a text tonight saying, "How was the ultrasound?" or I could do nothing at all, but I would be a part of it from the beginning: from that very first pregnancy test, of course.

  Perhaps they'll make me godmother.

  Oh, I'm a riot.

  It was a big busy waiting room, filled with plump pregnant bellies, and couples holding hands while they chatted softly, and slim women reading magazines while secretive smiles played across their faces. These were all people who fitte
d as snugly into society as the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle: clean, wholesome people who loved and were loved back.

  I sat down on the first seat I saw, close to the door, and picked up a magazine. As I did, I heard a nurse say, "Ellen O'Farrell." There was a pause and then again, louder this time, "Ellen O'Farrell."

  I looked up and saw that Ellen had been in the middle of helping herself to two plastic cups of water from one of those water cylinders, and now she was flustered, in that charming, girlish way of hers, uncertain what to do with the cups, her bag slipping off her shoulder as she straightened up too quickly. I saw Patrick and Jack walk toward her, and Patrick took the cups out of her hands while Jack lifted the strap of the bag back up over her shoulder--so grown-up, so well mannered. I taught him those manners. Then the nurse said something I didn't hear, and they all smiled, and off they went down a corridor, the three of them; they hadn't noticed me at all.

  A woman sitting next to me said, "Are you all right?"

  I hadn't even realized I was crying.

  "If you died," said Jack to Ellen, "would the baby die too?"

  "Jack!" said Patrick. "What sort of question is that?"

  They'd gone out for an early dinner at a local pizza restaurant, and Jack was studying the ultrasound photos while they waited for their pizza to arrive.

  "The baby needs me to be alive to keep growing," said Ellen. Should she reassure him that she wasn't going to die, like his mother? Or was he just interested? Or was he hoping she would die? Maybe he was sick to death of the healthy lunches.

  "Did you eat your lunch today, Jack?" she asked.

  "So, like, when Armageddon comes, and all the pregnant women die--" began Jack.

  "Jesus! Enough with the Armageddon," said Patrick. "This is why you're having nightmares and this is why you're falling asleep in class."

  "I didn't actually fall asleep," said Jack. He put the ultrasound photos down and Ellen slid her finger across the table and pulled them back toward her. "I just closed my eyes for a minute to concentrate."

  "They couldn't wake you up, mate," said Patrick.

  Just before Ellen and Patrick had been due to leave for the ultrasound, the school had called to say that Jack had put his head on the desk and fallen so soundly asleep that the teacher had carried him all the way to sick bay without being able to wake him up. They'd assumed he was coming down with something, but he seemed in perfectly high spirits now, thrilled to have been given the day off school and taken along for the ultrasound.

  "You were probably snoring," said Patrick. "Nobody else could concentrate."

  He put his head on one side and gave a convincing rumbly snore.

  Jack grinned. "You snore. I never snore."

  "Me? I don't snore," said Patrick. "Do I, Ellen?"

  "No," said Ellen. He did snore, in fact; she was considering earplugs. She picked up the ultrasound photo and studied it. Mine, she thought. My baby. She glanced at Patrick and amended it: Our baby. The photo had a ghostly look to it, as if it was a photo of some supernatural phenomenon. "Everything looks just as it should," the woman doing the ultrasound had said. "Congratulations." And then she'd said, "Oh look! He or she is waving at you!" and she'd pointed out a tiny, ghostly hand, and Patrick, Ellen and Jack had all waved back.

  "You snore like an earthquake!" Jack jabbed his finger at Patrick. He leaned forward with his elbows on the table and the tablecloth began to slip. "You snore like a volcano!"

  "Careful, mate." Patrick adjusted the cloth. "Actually, your mum taped me snoring once. I did sound a bit like a volcano."

  Ding! Fourth Colleen reference in the last hour, thought Ellen. She couldn't seem to stop noticing it, no matter how hard she tried.

  "There's a volcano in America called the Yellowstone Supervolcano," said Jack. "And when it erupts--POW!" He banged his fist on the table and a glass full of sugar packets tipped over. "That's the end of the world. It could happen any minute."

  "Really?" said Ellen.

  "I don't think so," said Patrick. "Where's our pizza? Don't they know we're starving over here? Let's see that photo again." He took the photo from Ellen.

  "Have you got a photo of me like that somewhere?" said Jack.

  "Yeah, your mum put it in your baby book, remember? You've seen it before."

  Ding!

  Oh, Ellen, give it a rest. What was the poor man meant to do? Ignore his son's questions? Pretend Colleen never existed?

  "I'm going to the toilet," announced Jack.

  He always went to the toilet whenever they went out. It was his excuse for wandering around the restaurant, checking out whatever interested him.

  "I bet he stops right there, where you can see into the kitchen," said Ellen.

  Jack stopped on cue, looking nonchalantly casual as he pressed himself up against a potted plant, and stood on tippy-toes so he could see over a ledge into where they were tossing pizza dough up into the air.

  Ellen and Patrick laughed, and for a moment it felt like they were both his parents. Patrick smiled. "Funny kid." He lifted up the photo and looked at it. "I wonder if you'll be worried about Armageddon one day, baby? Or will you be a serene, spiritual soul like your mother?"

  "I'm not feeling that serene at the moment," said Ellen. "What a day. First Luisa wanting her money back, and then Ian Roman threatening to 'bring me down.' I think this qualifies as the worst day in my professional life."

  "Ian Roman is just throwing his weight around," said Patrick. "Don't worry about him. He'll get distracted buying his next television station or whatever." He paused. "So are you really hypnotizing his wife to fall in love with him?"

  "Of course not," said Ellen. "I can't make anyone feel something that isn't genuine. Rosie asked me to do that and I suggested that we do some work on her self-esteem issues instead. You can't love someone unless you feel good about yourself. I can't tell you too much, but I just said I would try and help give her enough self-confidence to either leave him or to try and make it work."

  "Mmmm," said Patrick. He looked doubtful.

  "What?" said Ellen.

  "I don't know. I guess it sounds a bit ... airy-fairy?"

  Ellen felt quite profoundly irritated. "Oh, so now you think I'm some sort of charlatan as well, do you?"

  "Of course not. Look. I'm a simple surveyor. A man of the land. Obviously I have no idea what I'm talking about."

  "Obviously," said Ellen.

  "Quick! Change of subject! How about our beautiful baby? Hey?" He handed her the photo, and Ellen smiled in spite of herself.

  After a second, Patrick said, his tone changed, "Did you see her?"

  Ellen kept looking at the photo. She knew exactly whom he was talking about.

  "Yes," she said.

  "I have to do something about it," said Patrick. "With the baby coming..." He pressed a fingertip to the photo. "I've never thought of her as dangerous, but she looked a bit ... I don't know, unhinged. Crazier than usual."

  Ellen thought of Luisa today, crazy with grief and envy over Ellen's pregnancy. She thought of Saskia's face when she walked into the waiting room. Ellen had seen her immediately. She had a feverish, desperate look about her, as if she was hurrying to catch an important flight.

  "Did Saskia want to have a baby with you?" she asked.

  "Who cares if she did?" said Patrick roughly. "There is no justification for this!"

  "I just wondered," said Ellen. I just want to understand.

  "Family-size supreme?" interrupted a waitress.

  When they got home, there was a message on Ellen's voice-mail from a journalist named Lisa Hamilton. She said she was working on a story for the Daily News about hypnotherapy and "its claims" and had been speaking to some of Ellen's clients. "I wondered if you would care to comment about some of the allegations that are being made," she said.

  Her voice was cold and clipped, full of certainty and authority with a faint edge of disgust.

  Ellen put down the phone.

  "Everything OK?" said
Patrick.

  "I think I know how Ian Roman is planning to put me out of business."

  Chapter 21

  Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious.

  --Freud, 1900

  What's that old cliche? All publicity is good publicity?" said Patrick.

  Ellen was already in bed and Patrick had just come in from checking on Jack.

  "This isn't going to be good publicity," said Ellen. She'd called back the journalist and had agreed to meet her for an interview the following morning at eleven. Ellen had talked to plenty of journalists over the years, and normally she quite enjoyed it. Ever since she'd attended a seminar a few years back called "Marketing Your Hypnotherapy Practice," she'd actively looked for opportunities and made herself available for comment. Every December she was called up by journalists writing articles to appear in the new year with headlines like "How to Stick to Those Resolutions: We Ask Our Panel of Experts!" She'd been interviewed for health magazines about weight loss, and business magazines about overcoming public speaking nerves. She contributed to a weekly "mental health" column for her local paper, and she was a regular guest on various midmorning radio shows. She'd even been on television a few times.

  In every case the journalists she'd dealt with had been, if not respectful, at least perfectly friendly and interested. She was soft news. The human-interest angle. Something a bit different for the women readers. A bit of fun. Nobody was really too fussed about what she had to say. They didn't really believe in hypnosis, but they didn't care too much either way.

  But as soon as she spoke to Lisa Hamilton, she knew that this was going to be a different sort of interview than anything she'd done before. Her manner didn't even warm when Ellen, in a blatant plea for sympathy, had mentioned that she was pregnant and suffering terrible morning sickness and would therefore prefer not to meet too early in the morning. Lisa was clearly not the sort of person who could fake the charm in order to get Ellen to reveal more. If she was going to write an article trashing Ellen, she had to hate her.

  Ellen had no experience being hated.

  It wasn't helping her nausea.

  "I remember Colleen saying that they didn't mind if they got a bad product review because the only part that stuck in people's minds was the name of the product." Patrick pulled back the quilt and climbed in next to her.