The Hypnotist’s Love Story

  I guess Jack is too big for sandboxes now, although it's still there in their backyard. Sometimes, when Patrick is at work and Jack is at school, I go to the house and eat my lunch in the backyard. I sit there on the garden seat we bought on eBay, where I used to have my morning cup of tea, and I remember when this was my home and this was my backyard and this was my life.

  I always told him we needed a padlock for that back gate.

  I used to sit in that sandbox with Jack and we'd play with his Matchbox cars for hours. His dad did better sound effects than me, but I was more patient. Patrick was too much like a kid himself. He'd build this amazing racetrack through the sand, with bridges going over lakes, and then he'd get all frustrated when Jack suddenly decided to stand up and stomp on it. I'd say, "Patrick, he's two years old."

  Jack looked so tall and lanky when he got out of the car at the hypnotist's place. I was parked across the street. I just stayed there after my appointment with her. I'd had a feeling that Patrick was coming over for dinner. When she'd taken me upstairs, I'd smelled a garlic and wine sort of smell, like something marinating. I didn't expect to see Jack come too. It gave me a shock. A sudden shock of indescribable pain, like when you're a kid, and you're hit on the nose with a basketball on a cold morning, and you cannot believe how much it hurts, and your friends all laugh and you want your mother so bad.

  I don't think Jack was especially excited about meeting the hypnotist. He didn't look too happy. His shoulders were all slumped. I thought I saw him blowing his nose. I hope he doesn't have the flu. It's bad for people with underlying conditions like asthma.

  Once, when he'd just turned three, and Patrick was away for work, Jack had an asthma attack in the middle of the night and I had to take him to Emergency. I can still remember the terror I felt seeing his little chest heaving as he tried to suck in enough air, and the way his beautiful green eyes fixed on mine, begging me to help him, and then sitting there with him on my lap, trying to stop him from pulling off that stupid little plastic mask while they gave him Ventolin. The doctors and nurses all assumed I was his mother. "How is Mum coping?" "Does Mum need a cup of tea?"

  It would have been stupid to have corrected them and said I was just his stepmother. "Does Stepmum need a cup of tea?"

  Jack called me Sas, because that's what Patrick called me. Each night when I went in to say good night, he'd take his dummy out of his mouth (we didn't wean him off his dummy until he was nearly four, which was very bad; we were soft with him) and say, "I lub you, Sas," and quickly pop his dummy back in, and every time I felt like my heart would just about explode out of my chest.

  Jack was more than I'd ever hoped for, more than I'd ever dreamed.

  The night he had the asthma attack, they finally let us go home when the sun was coming up. I didn't want to put him in his cot, so I took him into our bed, and we both fell asleep. When I woke up, Patrick had got home from his trip, and he was just standing there watching us, with this look on his face, this look of tenderness and love and pride, and he said, "Hello, family." I'll never forget that look.

  Two years later, three weeks after Jack started school, Patrick said, "I think it's over."

  "You think what's over?" I said cheerfully. That's how unexpected it was. I didn't have any idea what he was talking about. A TV series? The summer?

  He meant us. We were over.

  Chapter 6

  "The rejected stalker is often a former intimate partner, with a complex, volatile mix of desire for reconciliation and revenge." ?!! (Revenge for what? What did he do to her?)

  --Scribbled note by Ellen O'Farrell while

  Googling "motivations for stalking"

  There were no more "micro-expressions," or if there were, she didn't catch them. Her doubts drifted away like candle smoke.

  The first two weeks of July were glorious that year: shiny, blue-skied winter days as crisp and crunchy as apples. It was the perfect weather for a new relationship, for holding hands on public transport, for the sort of behavior that makes the recently brokenhearted want to weep and everyone else roll their eyes.

  Ellen collected memories: a remarkably lustful kiss pressed up against a brick wall like teenagers outside the Museum of Contemporary Art; a Sunday morning breakfast when she'd made him laugh so hard other people in the cafe turned to look; a mildly drunken game of gin rummy that ended in bed; coming home from yoga to find an enormous bunch of flowers lying on her doorstep with a note that said: For my girl.

  They stopped being quite so careful with each other. "Jesus," said Patrick the first time he saw Ellen polish off a giant steak.

  "Aren't you meant to be a good Catholic boy?" said Ellen.

  "I wasn't using the Lord's name in vain. I was saying, Jesus, did you see what that woman just ate? I thought I was dating a hippie, dippy vegan chick, not a bloodthirsty carnivore."

  "Hurry up or I'll eat yours."

  There was no sign of Saskia for a while.

  "Maybe I've scared her off," said Ellen, who was still idly researching the psychology of stalking whenever she had a spare moment.

  "Maybe!" Patrick patted her arm in the kindly, worried fashion of a doctor responding to a terminal patient who says, "Maybe I'll be the exception to the rule."

  The words "I love you" began to hover in Ellen's thoughts, like a song lyric she couldn't get out of her head. She remembered reading somewhere, probably in a stupid magazine article, that it was fatal for the woman to say "I love you" first. Which was the most sexist, superstitious thing she'd ever heard ... but still, there was no rush. They'd only been dating for six weeks. The right moment would present itself.

  She thought back over her previous "I love you" history.

  She'd been the first to say "I love you" to Andy. He'd looked momentarily terrified before he quickly, dutifully said that he loved her too.

  She also said it first to Edward, after drinking a particularly delicious strawberry daiquiri. She hadn't really meant it, to be honest. She meant that she loved strawberry daiquiris.

  Actually, now that she thought about it, she always took the lead. She'd written "I love you" on Jon's thirty-eighth birthday card, and he'd taken forty-two humiliating days to say it back.

  It might be safer all round if Patrick said it first.

  And then he did.

  He stayed at her place one weeknight, and in the morning he was running late for an early appointment. He leaned over the bed, kissed her cheek and said, "OK, gotta go, love you," before rushing off.

  He'd said it in the exact same casual voice that he used on the phone to tell Jack that he loved him. It was clearly a slip of the tongue.

  She was pondering this, half amused, when she heard the sound of his footsteps pounding up the spiral staircase. She sat up in bed as he reappeared at her doorway.

  "Sorry," he said breathlessly, his hands gripping the doorjamb. "That was a mistake. Well, no, not a mistake! I was waiting for the perfect moment with moonlight and rainbows or whatever, and now I've blown it. Fool." He slapped his forehead.

  He came and sat down on the bed next to her, and looked at her in a way that she didn't think she'd ever been looked at before, by anyone, lover or friend, as if nobody else had ever concentrated that hard.

  He said, "I would like to make something very clear."

  "All right." Ellen made her face serious.

  "I am making this, er, declaration on the record. I am of course prepared to put it in writing if necessary."

  "Right."

  He cleared his throat. "Ellen. I love you. I officially love you."

  "I love you too," said Ellen. "Officially, that is."

  "Right. Good then. Well, this has all worked out extremely well then."

  He held out his hand and they shook hands, as if at the conclusion of a satisfactory business deal, except that before she could let go, he pulled her to him, rolled her on to her back and kissed her hard.

  They sat back up, grinned idiotically at each other and then Patrick
looked at his watch. "OK, so this sounds bad--"

  "That's right. Love me and leave me."

  He kissed her again and left. She lay back down and felt drenched with happiness. This was how love was meant to feel: simple and peaceful and funny. Obvious. There was nothing to analyze. It seemed to her that she had never loved or been loved like this before. All those other times had been a wishy-washy imitation of the real thing.

  Just imagine if she'd gone her whole life without knowing that!

  (Also, not that it mattered, it was just something interesting to note for future reference: He said it first.)

  I rescheduled my appointment with the hypnotist because I had to go away to Melbourne for work.

  I tried to get out of it, but Trish supposedly came down with some terrible virus, and I was the only one available at short notice. Single, childless woman. What else have you got to do? That's right. Nothing.

  Patrick and I never went to Melbourne together, so there were no memories lurking on street corners. At first it seemed like the trip was a good idea. The brooding skies and cruel breezes were a relief after Sydney's relentlessly cheery weather. Work kept me busy and distracted. I was tired at night and fell asleep straightaway.

  But the longer I was away from Sydney, the more my desire grew to see Patrick and Ellen again. On Thursday morning I woke up early, ravenous for information. What were they doing right that moment? Had he stayed at her place? Had she stayed at his? My need to know felt physical, like a nutritional deficiency.

  I flew back to Sydney on the first flight out on Friday morning, my hands clenched around the armrests, leaning forward as if I could will the plane to go faster. I was a vampire and I needed blood.

  It was Friday afternoon and Ellen was taking a moment in between appointments for some deep breathing and positive affirmations.

  She had a somewhat stressful weekend ahead of her.

  That night Patrick was meeting Ellen's mother and godmothers for dinner, and the following evening Ellen was being introduced to Patrick's family. On Sunday Patrick was meeting Julia for the first time. They were having fish and chips at Watsons Bay, and Patrick's friend Stinky was coming along too, to meet Ellen and also as a possible match for Julia, although his name obviously didn't bode well. ("Oh, he doesn't actually stink," Patrick had said, all chuckles at the thought of Stinky actually stinking. "That's just what we call him." "So why do you call him that?" Ellen had asked, but Patrick just chuckled. Men were so strange sometimes.)

  They hadn't meant for all these introductions to happen on consecutive days. It had just turned out that way because of various reasons such as Ellen's mother suddenly rescheduling their dinner, and Stinky unexpectedly being in Sydney for the weekend.

  The weekend loomed in front of Ellen like a week of exams and dental appointments. She'd woken up that morning with a vague sense of dread, manifesting itself in an unpleasant feeling of nausea. It felt like a crowd of people was about to come stomping through the middle of their delicate new relationship, throwing about their opinions, asking questions, digging up flaws. Patrick and Ellen would see each other through the eyes of other people, people who mattered. Their perspectives would be like harsh, unflattering spotlights illuminating shadowy corners.

  Breathe in.

  She didn't give a fig what other people thought!

  Breathe out.

  Rubbish. She gave a whole fig tree. She wanted everyone she loved to love Patrick and everyone he loved to love her.

  Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe--

  "Forget it," she said out loud.

  She gave up trying to access her higher self and instead took a chocolate from her silver bowl, letting it dissolve slowly in her mouth. The chocolate was there for therapeutic purposes. It released the neurotransmitters endorphins and serotonin, leading to a sense of well-being, and even euphoria. Which, as Julia said, was all just a complicated way of saying chocolate tastes good.

  Ellen closed her eyes for a moment and felt the warmth of the sun on her face. She was sitting in the recliner chair that her clients used. She often sat here and tried to imagine what it must be like for them, seeing her sit opposite them. Did they ever catch a glimpse of her doubts, or worse, her vanities? Did she look silly sitting there, with her legs so professionally, elegantly crossed? Did the sun shining through the windows show up the little hairs and lines around her lips?

  She would bet that when Patrick was out on a job, leaning over to peer into his theodolite, lifting one arm high, he never felt a moment of self-consciousness. But it was different in a "soft" profession like hers, where there were still some people who thought she was akin to a magician, or a faith healer, or a fraud. She remembered meeting an old friend who said, with genuine surprise, "You're not still doing that hypnosis stuff, are you?" as if it had just been a funny little phase. "It's my career," Ellen had told her, but the friend, a corporate lawyer, thought she was joking, and laughed politely.

  In fact, it was more than a career. It was her passion, her calling, her vocation.

  The recliner was still warm from the last client who had sat there: Deborah Vandenberg, the woman who suffered from unexplained, debilitating pain in her right leg if she walked for more than ten minutes. Before coming to Ellen, she'd tried physiotherapists and chiropractors and sports doctors; she'd had X rays and MRIs and exploratory surgery. There appeared to be no physical reason for the pain. The medical profession had basically shrugged their shoulders and said, Sorry, we don't know.

  "I was very active," she'd told Ellen. "I loved bushwalking. Now, some days, when it's very bad, I find it hard to shop. This pain has changed almost everything about my life."

  "Chronic pain does that," said Ellen.

  She'd never experienced it herself, but over the years so many clients had brought her stories of how pain was a corrosive presence that cruelly ate away at all the simple pleasures of life.

  "But I may be able to help," she'd said.

  "Everyone thinks they can help." Deborah gave her a politely cynical smile. "Until they give up on me."

  She reminded Ellen a little of Julia. She was tall and confident, with short dark hair and a tomboyish grace as she sat back in her chair, one long black-jeaned leg entwined about the other.

  She had mentioned that she enjoyed cooking, so at their previous session Ellen got her to imagine a stove dial she could use to turn her pain down. Today, as soon as they sat down, Deborah told Ellen that it was "possible" she'd turned her pain down one notch while walking through a car park that morning.

  "But I probably imagined it," she said, as if suddenly doubting herself. She had made it clear from the beginning that she was a skeptic. At the end of her last session, she said, with some pride, "You didn't put me under; I was fully conscious the whole way through." "That's fine," Ellen told her. (She got that a lot, and often from clients who had just moments ago been drooling and slack-jawed, quite clearly in deep trances.)

  "We're going to work on another dial today," Ellen told her. "I think we'll call it your 'Good Energy Dial.'"

  Deborah's lips pulled back in a slight sneer. "That sounds very ... cute."

  "I think you're going to like it," said Ellen firmly, ignoring the sneer. Negativity hid fear.

  She used a quick, simple induction that involved feeling a deeper sense of relaxation with each step taken down a flight of stairs and watched as Deborah's sharp features relaxed. She looked much younger when she was in a trance (and in spite of her skepticism, Deborah most certainly did go into a trance). The lines on her face smoothed out, and there was a vulnerable, naked look about her, in contrast to her conscious edgy confidence. It made Ellen feel motherly toward her.

  "I want you to think of a time when you felt filled with confidence or joy," she said. "Sift through your memories until you find that one perfect moment. Nod when you're there."

  Ellen waited and watched, and as she did, she traveled back through time herself to her own perfect moment, when she had first
practiced hypnosis. She was eleven, sitting in this very room, with her grandmother, her mother's mother, who believed that everything Ellen did was spectacular. Ellen had just finished reading a book she'd found at the library, How to Hypnotize Anybody, and her grandmother had agreed to be her first patient. She'd used a necklace as a pendulum and watched her grandmother's shrewd brown eyes follow it, back and forth, back and forth.

  "You're very good at that," her grandmother said afterward, blinking with what Ellen could tell was genuine surprise: It was quite different from her generous clapping after Ellen played her the recorder. "I think you might have a gift."

  I think you might have a gift ...

  The sweetest, most surprising words imaginable. It was like that moment in the movies when superheroes discover their powers, or perhaps it was how nuns felt when they first heard the spooky, charismatic voice of God whispering in their virginal ears.

  Deborah, her eyes still shut, her cheeks slightly flushed, nodded to signal she had her moment. Ellen wondered, briefly, what Deborah was remembering.

  "That feeling you're reliving right now, that's the feeling that I want you to be able to call upon, whenever you need it. Whenever you press your thumb into your right hand, you can generate that feeling. The harder you press, the more you can increase the feeling, until it's flowing like electricity through your body."

  Ellen let her voice rise with the vigor and power she wanted Deborah to feel.

  "So next time you feel pain, this is what you can do. First you can use the pain dial to reduce your level of pain, and then you can use your energy dial to recreate that feeling of power."

  She saw a flicker of hesitancy on Deborah's face and immediately switched to a more authoritative, paternal tone. "You have the ability to do this, Deborah. It's all there, inside you. You are going to excel at these techniques. You can be pain-free. You can be pain-free."

  A few minutes later, Ellen brought Deborah out of her trance. She blinked in a disoriented, bleary-eyed way, like a passenger waking up on a plane, before quickly checking her watch. Then she ran both her hands through her hair and said, "I didn't go under again," and briskly pulled out her wallet from her handbag.