A woman's snuffly voice bubbled from the phone.
"Ellen, listen, I'm so sorry to call you at this time of night, but I only just found out and I had to call you straightaway, to tell you and to apologize for my shocking behavior yesterday. It was just inexcusable."
The voice was familiar but Ellen couldn't place it. Someone with a bad cold. She'd seen someone with a bad cold just recently. Who was it?
"I'm not sure--"
"I'm pregnant, Ellen."
"Luisa!" Ellen thought back to Luisa's furious, pale face as she'd demanded her money back. In hindsight, it was obvious. Of course she was pregnant. She'd had that particular washed-out look about her that Ellen had seen on her own face in the bathroom mirror. It was just that Luisa had been so angry about not being pregnant that Ellen hadn't recognized it. "My doctor had been trying to call me. We were meant to be starting our next round of IVF, and my doctor called and said, 'You can't start this cycle,' and I said, 'What's the problem?' and she said, 'The problem is you're pregnant.' A natural pregnancy! After all these years! And it's all due to you! You got me pregnant!"
"I think your husband might have something to do with it," said Ellen.
"I can't believe I asked you for my money back. I'm horrified by my behavior. I was crazy with jealousy and I don't know--just crazy!" She lowered her voice slightly. "Also, I don't know if you know, but the Daily News is writing a story about you."
"Yes," said Ellen. "I know."
"I'm so, so sorry, but I ran into Ian Roman when I was leaving your place, and maybe he intimidated me a bit, or I was sort of starstruck--well, I'm just looking for excuses for my inexcusable behavior really. He gave my details to a journalist and she interviewed me, and now I'm just sick about the things that I said. I've left her about thirty messages trying to withdraw my comments. If it's too late and this story appears, you'll have to sue me. I'm serious. It's the only answer. Sue me for every penny I've got. I haven't got that many pennies, but you sue me for them. I deserve it."
She paused and her voice became muffled as she spoke to someone else. "But it's true! I deserve it!" It seemed like Luisa's husband wasn't quite so keen on being sued.
"I think I've managed to get the story stopped for a few days," said Ellen.
"Oh, thank God! Well, when the journalist calls me back, I'm going to set her straight. I'm going to tell her that you're a miracle worker."
"Please don't tell her that," said Ellen. "Seriously."
"Well, I'm just going to tell her the truth. This is a miracle baby. Oh, sorry, Ellen, I've got to go, my parents have just arrived, but thank you, seriously, and once again my deepest, deepest apologies." Her voice skidded up with delight. "Dad, I can't drink champagne!"
Ellen heard a man's voice say, "Well, Grandpa sure can!"
"Congratulations," she said. "Congratulations to all of you," but Luisa had already put the phone down.
She inhaled. Exhaled. She got a bit teary thinking about the Grandpa-to-be with the bottle of champagne. Oh, God, it was still early days. If she was getting the credit for Luisa's pregnancy, would she get the blame if something went wrong? But still, her professional reputation appeared to be safe for a few more days.
She went back into the dining room. Patrick was leaning over his mother's chair following the progress of the Monopoly game, while his father marched his token around the board, shaking his head dolefully.
"Pay up! Pay up!" shouted Jack. "Triple the rent!"
"I think you've bankrupted him, darling," said Maureen hopefully. "Does that mean we're done?"
"Everything OK?" Patrick looked at Ellen.
"It's good," said Ellen. "Tell you later."
"Hand over the cash, dude." Jack held his palm out to his grandfather.
"It's late, we probably should wrap this game up soon," said Patrick.
"But you said I was having the day off school tomorrow," protested Jack.
"Yes, but the point was so you could rest."
"I slept all day," said Jack. He did appear to be bursting with good health now, his eyes bright and clear.
"He's full of beans," said Maureen. "But you two look exhausted. Why don't you let him stay with us tonight?"
"I don't know," said Patrick. "After last night, I'd rather--"
"We'll take him to McDonald's for breakfast as a special treat," said Maureen casually. She concentrated on rattling the dice in her cupped hands.
"Yes!" said Jack. "Hash browns!"
"Mum," said Patrick, but Ellen could see he didn't have the energy to argue. Her own mother would be up against a formidable adversary in the battle for ruling grandma.
An hour later, Ellen and Patrick had the place to themselves, but instead of sleeping they were eating their way through a bag of marshmallows and playing the Dragon Blade Chronicles on Jack's PlayStation. Since having a stepson, she'd done a lot of ninja fighting.
"You're getting pretty good," said Patrick, after he'd defeated her for the fifth time. "For a lentil-eating hippie girl."
"It's strangely addictive," said Ellen. "And actually, lentils are not my favorite legume."
"Leg what?"
"Just shut up and eat your marshmallows."
They sat silently for a few seconds, chewing.
Finally Patrick cleared his throat and said carefully, "OK, enough is enough. We still haven't got to the main item on the agenda."
"Just forget about it," said Ellen. "Honestly. Let's play another game." She picked up the console. Patrick took it from her and put it back on the coffee table.
"Is that the first time I've said anything like that under hypnosis?"
"Yes."
"It's just that you once said to me that hypnotherapy was completely consensual," said Patrick, "that no hypnotist could make you do or say anything that you didn't want, and I certainly did not want to say that in front of you."
Maybe your subconscious wanted to tell me, thought Ellen.
"Well, this is where it gets messy because I'm not just your therapist, I'm your partner," she said in her professional voice. "I don't normally lie in bed with my clients!" She gave a horrible fake little laugh, but Patrick wasn't smiling. "I think you were probably half asleep, half in a trance. Anyway, it really doesn't matter--"
"Doesn't matter? Of course it matters!" said Patrick. "What a thing for you to hear! And the thing is, it gives you a completely skewed idea of how I do feel, and ever since you told me, I've been struggling to think of the right way to put this."
"It's OK," murmured Ellen. If she hadn't compromised her professional integrity so badly, this horribly awkward conversation would never have had to take place.
"Have you ever had any doubts about this relationship? Ever compared me to one of your previous exes? Ever had a thought cross your mind that you wouldn't want me to know?"
"I don't know, I guess." She squirmed. Throughout the course of their relationship there had been a whole plethora of thoughts and feelings that she wouldn't want him to know about.
"What about that day after we visited Colleen's parents and I was being a bastard, did you think to yourself, Geez, what have I got myself into here?"
"I ... don't really remember." She remembered how she'd relived the weekend in the mountains with Jon the whole way home.
"Of course you've had moments of doubt. You probably felt like strangling me when I left those boxes in the hallway, but the thing is, you don't say every single thought that crosses your mind out loud."
"Yes," said Ellen. His eyes held hers. She looked away. "I mean no."
A feeling of misery swept over her. All day she'd been waiting for him to deny what he'd said, to somehow explain it away, and even though she wouldn't have believed him, she'd been perfectly prepared to begin the process of deluding herself. Now she just had to grin and bear it: Her husband would always be looking at her and wishing she was his first wife.
"I understand," she began bravely.
"You do not," said Patrick.
"Oh, OK."
"You think love is black and white. All women think that. And they're wrong. Women are really intelligent except for when they're being really stupid."
She punched him, quite hard, on the arm.
"Ow. Look, I'm still not saying this right." He chewed on the inside of his mouth with an expression that was so frustrated it was almost anguished.
"It's all right." She rubbed his arm where she'd punched him. "I do understand."
"Have I been talking too much about Colleen lately?" said Patrick abruptly.
Ellen shrugged and smiled.
"I'm sorry." He picked up her hand. "She's been on my mind, ever since we got engaged and you told me about the baby. It's because I've felt so happy. Even with Saskia still hanging about. I haven't felt this happy since Colleen was pregnant with Jack. And that's made me think about her, remembering things."
He ran his thumb over her knuckles.
"Colleen told me I'd fall in love again, and have more babies, and I said I wouldn't. I said I'd never be happy again. But I am. Sometimes I think, actually, this is better than it ever was with Colleen. It's deeper, it's more grown-up. It's just ... better. Then I thank God and the Internet that I met you! And then I feel bad for Colleen, because it's like I'm thinking, Thank God she died."
"Right." She wasn't sure if she believed him, or if he just wanted to make her feel better.
"I'm not sure if you believe me, but it's the truth. Don't you ever have thoughts that totally contradict each other? Isn't it possible to feel one thing one day and the opposite the next?"
"I guess. Well, yes." She really wasn't enjoying this role. It was mildly humiliating. She was the one who was meant to ask the wise questions, to gently lead the less emotionally intelligent to new insights.
"And the stupid thing is, when I have those thoughts, I feel like I should make up for it to Colleen by remembering all the good times I had with her. As penance. So the better it is with you, the more I think about her. Does that make sense? I don't know. Maybe it's a Catholic thing."
"No, that makes sense."
"Anyway, obviously, I do not spend my days comparing you and Colleen, like you're in some sort of permanent ninja-fighting contest. To be honest, most of the time my thoughts are pretty superficial: like, hmm, I feel like lamb chops, or how can I beat Jack to level 4 on Tomb Raiders. That sort of thing."
Ellen picked up two marshmallows and squished them together between her fingertips.
"When Colleen died everyone started talking about her as if she were a saint. People put on these mournful faces as if our marriage had been amazing, as if we never had a fight. And I think I bought into that. I was younger. Everything was simpler. So I guess that's why I said what I said last night. Of course I'll never love another woman the way I loved Colleen, because I'll never be eighteen and falling in love for the first time again, but that doesn't mean I'm not in love with you. And exactly the same thing applies in reverse. I never loved Colleen the way I love you."
Ellen suddenly, unexpectedly yawned, and Patrick laughed. "Aren't I meant to be the one yawning while you talk on about your feelings? Anyway, the bottom line is that I love you with all my heart. Not in a halfhearted, second-best way. I love you. And all I can do is spend the rest of my life proving that to you. Do you get that, my crazy hypnotist?"
He put his hand to the back of her head and kissed her, hard, as if they were saying good-bye at a railway station and he was going off to war.
A deeply peaceful feeling surged through her veins. It wasn't so much what he'd said, but the two lines of fierce concentration between his eyes the whole time he was speaking made it seem as if it really, really mattered that she understood. Or maybe it was just because she was so very, very sleepy, and Luisa was pregnant, and the newspaper article wasn't running.
"I think I get it," she said when they came up for air.
"Thank God, because I don't think I've ever talked about 'feelings' so much in my entire life as I have over the last two hours." He handed her a marshmallow. "See? The last marshmallow. That's love. Now let's go to bed."
Chapter 26
Enrique Penalosa, the former mayor of Bogota, Colombia, believed that we should strive to create "Cities of Joy." Hisobjective was to create urban infrastructure with one objective:happiness. As town planners, can we plan for happiness?Are we planning for happiness?
--Quote from a speaker at a seminar attended by Saskia
Brown following the death of her mother. "Plan for
happiness," she wrote in her notebook.
It was a warm Saturday afternoon, two weeks after the accident, or the event, or whatever you want to call it. I'd been moved to a new room adjoining a courtyard where they sometimes wheeled me out for some fresh air. I could smell jasmine and the possibility of summer.
The surgery on my ankle had gone well, according to the doctors, and my pelvis fracture was healing as expected. No more morphine clicker. Just ordinary pain relief doled out in little plastic cups.
Lance's wife, Kate, sat on the visitor's chair next to me. We were both knitting. She'd been twice before to give me lessons, refusing to accept any money for the wool or the new needles she'd bought especially for me. My first project was to be a scarlet beanie with a big white pom-pom on top. It was for me. The thought had crossed my mind to knit something for Jack, or even for Patrick's mother, Maureen, because she'd once knitted me a beret. An apology gift, I thought. Something to say good-bye. It would be a nice gesture. But as soon as I thought of it I saw an image in my head of a huge oak door, like something you'd see on a medieval castle. The door slammed shut in my face.
Kate said I was a "natural knitter." I didn't understand why she was being so kind to me. She didn't seem like a "do-gooder," as my mother used to call certain ladies from our church: the ones with saintly smiles who dropped off casseroles and bags of secondhand clothes but were always too busy being charitable to other needy folk to accept Mum's offer of a cup of tea. I've always blamed those women for my godlessness.
I liked Kate. She was a tiny bit odd. Not eccentric, just a bit off-kilter. She always spoke a beat too late or too soon, and she dropped things a lot. She was friendly but not in that look-at-me-demonstrating-my-excellent-social-skills way. I felt strangely comfortable with her.
She told me that after we'd met at the Christmas party last year, she'd been telling Lance to invite me over for dinner one night, but Lance was too shy. She and Lance had only been in Sydney for a year.
"We're on the hunt for new friends," said Kate. "See, now that you're trapped in your bed, you can't get away from me. I'm stalking you."
I laughed a bit too loudly at that.
Kate cleared her throat, and we fell silent. I listened to the gentle clack-clack of our knitting needles and the muted busy sounds of the hospital that had become the backdrop of my life.
"Speaking of making new friends, Tammy and I did a yoga class on the weekend," said Kate suddenly. "I picked her up from your place."
"I know," I said. "She told me."
Tammy had been coming in every few days, bringing books and DVDs, takeaway food, and gossip about our old circle of friends that she was rejoining. I enjoyed seeing her, but I was always tired after she left. Kate's visits were somehow more restful. Maybe it was the knitting.
"Is that weird?" said Kate. "That I've been to your house without you there?"
It was a bit weird, but I didn't really care.
"Of course not," I said.
"I was a bit worried you might feel like I'm stealing your friend," said Kate, in her odd, almost childlike way. I realized what made her odd was her honesty. She didn't seem to filter her comments. She was a bit like the hypnotist.
"Tammy and I have been out of touch for years," I said to Kate. "She's up for grabs."
Kate smiled. "When you're back on your feet, we could all three go to yoga. We had coffee afterward at this cafe that makes the best chocolate mud cake I have ever had in my entire life. It brought te
ars to my eyes, it was that good."
I didn't say anything. I didn't want to imagine facing my life again after leaving the hospital. "You must be counting the days," one of the nurses had said to me, and I said yes, I was, but not in the way she meant. The thought of returning home, to my real life, made me feel sick.
"You should have had herbal tea after a yoga class," I said.
"I know. We probably ruined the energy flow with caffeine," said Kate.
We knitted again in silence. I liked the rhythmic feel of the needles sliding in, up and over, the sense of achievement as the rows multiplied.
"You're getting hooked." Kate nodded her head at my knitting.
"It's sort of hypnotic," I said, and I saw the hypnotist's face the day I first visited her as "Deborah" and we stood together looking out her window at the ocean. It felt like a very long time ago.
The police had been to see me the day after my ankle operation. A man and a woman. They both seemed very young to me, which didn't stop me from feeling terrified, and humiliated, and full of burning shame. What would Mum think? She was so respectful of the police. They read me a caution. It was a bit different from the one you hear on the American cop shows, drier, not as glamorous, and therefore scarier.
"So how did you end up here?" said the policeman, indicating the hospital bed, and he took out a notepad. I told him, and they both listened, their faces expressionless.
I guess they'd heard worse.
They asked me if I was aware that stalking was now a criminal offense. They said that they were serving me with an interim Apprehended Violence Order, on Patrick's behalf, effective immediately, and that I wouldn't be able to go within one hundred meters of him, his home or his workplace, and that I was legally bound not to "assault, molest, harass, threaten, intimidate or stalk" Patrick. I would have the option to contest the Apprehended Violence Order at a court hearing. They said this in a tone of voice that made it obvious I would not succeed. The penalty for breaking the terms of the AVO was a $5,000 fine or two years in jail.
Assault. Molest. Harass. Threaten. Intimidate. Stalk.
Those words are burned permanently in my head. They were using those words in relation to me: A good girl. A school prefect. A pacifist. I cried when I got my first and only speeding ticket.
There was more.
In addition to the Apprehended Violence Order, I was also charged with a break and enter. The policewoman handed me a court attendance notice, which I took with such badly trembling fingers it slipped from my hand and nearly fell to the floor. She grabbed it just in time and placed it carefully on my bedside cabinet, and for a moment her eyes lost their official sheen and I saw just a hint of pity.