The Hypnotist’s Love Story

by Liane Moriarty

  I fell asleep, eventually, and when I awoke my back had seized up and the sun was rising and I couldn't see Patrick's car. So that meant they'd stayed at his place.

  I thought of them asleep in the bed that was once mine, probably lying on sheets that I'd chosen, and I wondered if he was reaching out for her now in the dawn light, running a fingertip so delicately down her arm she wasn't sure if she was dreaming it. Dreamy, half-asleep lovemaking at dawn was his thing.

  I opened the car door and got out all hunched over, like an old lady. The kookaburras laughed like crazy.

  Chapter 7

  Remember ...

  All hypnosis is self-hypnosis.

  You can't get stuck in hypnosis.

  You are always in control. You can stop at any time.

  Hypnosis is a natural state of mind.

  Help yourself to the chocolates!

  --Laminated card stuck to Ellen O'Farrell's office wall

  Ellen woke to the feel of Patrick's fingertip running slowly, delicately up the length of her arm.

  The fingertip on the arm was always his opening move.

  Jon used to kiss the back of her neck. Tiny butterfly kisses.

  Edward would lick her earlobe, enthusiastically and wetly, which tickled unbearably. He mistook her shrieks and convulsions for crazy sexual excitement and she never got around to clearing up the misunderstanding.

  Andy would whisper in her ear, his breath hot and irritating, "You feel like ... ?" ("What?" she always wanted to say. "I feel like what? Finish the sentence!")

  She wondered if Jon was kissing the back of someone's neck right now, and if Edward was licking an earlobe and Andy was whispering his unfinished question.

  Why are you thinking about ex-lovers?

  With her eyes still closed, she rolled toward Patrick to give him easier access to her arm. She liked the fingertip thing. She loved the fingertip thing.

  She'd loved Jon's butterfly kisses too.

  So what? Concentrate on the fingertip.

  Presumably, Patrick had used the same techniques on Saskia, in this very same bed, possibly on these very same sheets.

  Which was interesting, but not at all relevant.

  Once you'd perfected your sexual moves you didn't tend to change them. She herself still kissed exactly the same way that boy in the caravan park had taught her to kiss when she was fifteen. He tasted of beer. Disgusting and delicious. What was that boy's name? Chris? Craig? Something like that.

  Patrick tugged at her nightie. "Let's get this off."

  She wanted to be in bed with Patrick right now; there was nowhere else she wanted to be. On the other hand, it didn't especially please her, the idea of Jon kissing someone else's neck.

  She helped Patrick pull the nightie off over her head.

  She wondered what Saskia was doing right now. Where did she go last night, after she lost them at the lights? Did she go home and look at old photos of herself and Patrick? Did she cry?

  Was Ellen responsible for another woman's pain? Should she give him back? Of course, she had no intention of giving him back. He didn't want Saskia. He wanted Ellen.

  This was the way the world worked. Relationships ended. If they didn't, she'd still be with the beery-breathed boy in the caravan park.

  Julia was right. Saskia needed to be a grown-up and move on.

  But, on the other hand, wasn't there something noble about Saskia's refusal to let go? She was crazy with passion. Ellen had never let passion make her do anything crazy.

  "What are you thinking about?"

  Patrick was up on his elbow, looking down at her, smiling. He brushed back her hair from her forehead.

  "Saskia," she answered honestly, without thinking.

  Patrick retracted his hand. "I cannot get away from that woman, can I?"

  "I'm sorry," said Ellen. She went to pull him back toward her, but his lips had compressed into a thin line and he looked like a grumpy schoolteacher who has just about had it up to here with you kids.

  He said, "Now the bitch is in bed with us."

  He got out of bed and walked into the en suite bathroom, closing the door behind him unnecessarily hard.

  Ellen settled herself back on her pillow and gazed up at the slowly whirling ceiling fan. (Around and around and around. She saved it up as a good image for an induction. "Imagine you're watching a ceiling fan.")

  Look, Saskia. You stopped us from having sex. He's angry with me because of you.

  Every time she was with Patrick, part of her was imagining how Saskia would react if she was there, watching. It was like she was performing in her own reality TV show with an audience of just one. If Patrick knew how much time she was devoting to thinking about Saskia, he'd be furious.

  Outside the window, the kookaburras burbled with laughter.

  If you stare at someone for long enough from behind, they will sense your gaze and turn around. They don't actually see you, but they feel something different in the atmosphere.

  That's why I've always believed that if I thought about Patrick for long enough and hard enough, he would sense it. If someone can feel a gaze across a room, then shouldn't they be able to sense a torrent of true emotion, a tsunami of feeling, from across a handful of suburbs?

  I imagine my feelings like a dense cloud, floating above the streets of Sydney, and one day Patrick is standing in the shower (he likes his showers long and hot, steam billowing) with the window open and all of a sudden he senses it--my love--he's breathing in the cloud of my feelings, and he turns off the taps and thinks, "Saskia."

  And while he's drying himself he thinks, "I made a mistake."

  And then, before he even gets dressed, he calls me. And everything is right again.

  People get back together. It happens all the time. Why shouldn't it happen to us?

  Ellen could hear the sound of Patrick's shower running.

  She must have upset him; he'd been looking forward to this morning. Jack had stayed with his grandparents, and Patrick wasn't picking him up until they went there tonight for dinner. He'd talked about how they would sleep in till late this morning, and eat breakfast and read the papers in bed. He'd bought croissants especially. Now she'd ruined his morning.

  Was it any wonder that the poor man didn't want to hear his stalker's name mentioned when he was trying to make love to Ellen?

  Overcome with remorse, she threw back the covers.

  Without putting her nightie back on, she got out of bed and tried the bathroom door. It wasn't locked. The shower was pounding. There was so much steam she could hardly see.

  "Are you going to join me?" said Patrick from the shower. He didn't sound like an angry schoolteacher anymore.

  She pulled back the screen.

  A few minutes later her legs were locked around Patrick's waist and she wasn't thinking about Saskia at all.

  I wandered around for a while in the hypnotist's front garden.

  I picked a daisy and stuck it behind my ear, as if I was that sort of girl, the sort who knows she will look whimsical and pretty with a flower stuck behind her ear. It was like I thought the daisy could transform the whole situation, make me cute and endearing, as if this was a funny little love triangle, as if Ellen and I were two girls at a party trying to get the attention of the same boy. Then I walked onto Ellen's front porch and caught sight of my own reflection in the glass panel next to her front door. I looked middle-aged and seedy. I took the flower out and crushed it in the palm of my hand, and then I knocked, quite loudly, on the front door, even though I knew she wasn't home. I knocked again, angrily. I seemed to be making some sort of a point. I'm here!

  Then I shrugged as if we'd had an appointment and she'd let me down. I stepped off the porch and noticed a path running straight down the side of the house and onto the beach.

  I went down it and took my shoes off and walked barefoot on the cold sand.

  Imagine that. Walk out your back door and you're on the beach.

  I wonder if she appreciat
es it. She doesn't seem like a particularly sporty type. I can't imagine her sweating or puffing. I guess she sits cross-legged and meditates and chants. Or she does yoga. Salutes the sun and all that crap.

  The beach was deserted and silent, except for the lap of the waves and the occasional squawk of a seagull; still too early for the joggers and power walkers and dog walkers. It was high tide and the pearly sky seemed to hang very low.

  Without stopping to think about it, I took off all my clothes and ran out into the ocean and dived straight under a wave.

  The water was so shockingly cold it made all the air rush out of my lungs. When I came back up, I screamed out loud, and dived under again and again. I opened my eyes each time I went under and saw swirling eddies of sand and shafts of filmy light.

  Forget him.

  Let him go.

  Be free of him.

  The words came into my head, crystal clear, each time I went under, as if mermaids were whispering messages in my ear.

  Afterward, as I walked naked along the beach toward my clothes, with the early morning sun gently caressing my shoulders, I decided to have coffee and read the paper at one of the cafes. Suddenly I felt a strange feeling that I hadn't felt in a long time, and it took me a few minutes to work out that it was happiness. Plain, simple happiness. I'd forgotten how much I liked swimming in the sea. It's been ages. The weather had to be scorching and the water had to be practically tepid for Patrick to swim. "You wuss!" I used to yell at him from the water, and he'd lift a hand in ironic acknowledgment without even looking up from the paper.

  His mother told me once that he'd always been funny about water temperature. She had to write him notes to get him out of school carnivals. When he was in the shower, his brother used to throw cups of cold water over him and he'd scream like a girl. "Big girl's blouse," his dad would say.

  I wondered if the hypnotist has met his parents yet. His mum was fond of me. One Christmas, after she'd drunk too much punch, she told me that I was like a daughter to her.

  I might listen to the mermaids and have a night off from Patrick and the hypnotist. I might go to that work party tonight after all. I might wear the red dress I keep putting off wearing.

  And on the way there, I might drop by on Patrick's mum. Just to say hi. I could show her that I've moved on.

  "So you're a hypnotist, Ellen," said Patrick's mother. "I must admit I've never met a hypnotist before."

  "She's a hypnotherapist, Mum," Patrick corrected her.

  "Oh, I'm sorry!" His mother looked stricken.

  "It's all right!" both Patrick and Ellen rushed to reassure her.

  Maureen Scott was an off-the-shelf mum and grandma. She had the nondescript, colorless hairstyle, the softly sagging face, the formless figure, the pastel-colored, elastic-waisted clothes.

  "My mum is a lot older than yours," Patrick had said when they were driving over. "She's a different generation."

  "How old is she?" Ellen had asked.

  "She's turning seventy this year."

  Ellen's mother was sixty-six, only four years younger, but Ellen hadn't pointed it out and now she was glad; Maureen did seem as if she was at least twenty years older than Anne. Whereas Ellen's mother was all sharp lines and angles, Maureen seemed without definition. She could imagine Maureen as one of Anne's patients. Anne would be brisk and condescending, and tell her to take calcium to avoid osteoporosis and have regular mammograms, as if these old lady problems were a long way in front of her.

  "So a hyp-no-therapist," repeated Maureen carefully. "Now I'm just so interested to hear more about this, Ellen." She passed Ellen a tray with a picture of the Sydney Harbour Bridge containing a dish of French onion dip and rows of Jatz biscuits.

  "We'll have to watch ourselves," said Patrick's dad. "She might hypnotize us over dinner." He clapped his hands and chuckled.

  George looked disconcertingly, comically, similar to Patrick. Ellen had to stop herself from staring. She didn't think she'd ever seen a parent and child who looked so alike. If Patrick hadn't been in the same room, she might have suspected he was playing a joke on her and pretending to be an old man with a not especially convincing disguise. George's hair was white instead of brown but seemed to be cut in an identical style, and Patrick's eyes looked out at her from a more wrinkled face. Everything was the same: the shape of his nose, the jawline, the set of the shoulders, even the way they sat in their chairs cradling glasses of beer in big hands, their legs stuck out straight in front of them.

  "They're actually clones," said Patrick's brother in her ear, as he reached down beside her to place a coaster in front of her. The coaster had a picture of Ayers Rock on it.

  Patrick's younger brother, Simon, was small and dark, with a neatly trimmed goatee like a fashion designer. He was only twenty-four, and looked to Ellen like he should have been taking drugs in a nightclub instead of passing around drinks in this redbrick bungalow with the crucifix hanging above the television that was silently playing a game show and the china cabinets stuffed with knickknacks and collector plates.

  "Ellen is going to teach me how to hypnotize my friends," said Jack without looking up from his spot in front of the television, where he was lying on his stomach and playing with a small computer game.

  "I can teach you, mate," said George. He picked up a teaspoon and let it swing back and forth between his fingertips. "You're ... getting ... sleepier."

  He slapped his knee. He was one of those self-applauders.

  "Yeah, right, Grandpa," said Jack.

  "I bet Ellen's never heard that joke before," said Simon.

  "George!" said Maureen. "I'm sure there's more to hypnotizing people than that!" She looked anxiously at Ellen. "That is--is there?"

  "A little bit." Ellen smiled. The French onion dip was made from sour cream mixed together with a packet of dried French onion soup. It took her right back to her school days.

  "Sometimes I feel like I've been hypnotized after I've been watching too much television," said Maureen. "I feel like I'm coming out of a daze."

  "Well, that actually is a form of hypnosis," said Ellen.

  "Is it really?" said Maureen, looking gratified.

  "Ellen helps people give up smoking or lose weight," announced Patrick. "Things like that. She helps high-powered business executives overcome their fear of public speaking."

  He was quoting verbatim from one of Ellen's brochures. She hadn't even known he'd read it.

  She felt like their relationship had reached a new level today: a deeper, more complex, more profound level. Their lovemaking in the shower this morning had been so extraordinary she kept wanting to tell people about it. The man at the fruit and veg shop had said chattily, "What have you been up to today?" and she'd wanted to say, "Well, actually, I had a particularly enjoyable sexual experience in the shower this morning! Thanks for asking!" Afterward, they got back into bed and talked, and Patrick had apologized for snapping at her and said that Saskia made him feel so crazy at times that he'd even thought about counseling.

  "So, you help people with public speaking. I have to do talks in front of clients for work," said Simon, who was a website designer. "I always think I'm not nervous at all, but then this weird thing happens."

  He stood up to demonstrate. "It's like an involuntary spasm in my left leg."

  He made one knee knock against the other one.

  "Huh!" said Patrick. "The same thing happens to me. Except for me, it's more like this." He stood up and made his leg twitch.

  "You boys look like Elvis impersonators," chortled Maureen.

  Jack had rolled over onto his back to watch. "I'm great at doing speeches," he said. "That doesn't happen to me. Does it happen to you, Grandpa?"

  George shook his head. "Nope. You must get your nerves of steel from me."

  "Nerves of steel," murmured Jack to himself. "I have nerves of steel."

  "What about you, Maureen?" said Ellen.

  "Actually, I'm rather good at speeches," said Maureen unex
pectedly. "I've been doing the speech at our tennis club Christmas party for over forty years. It normally goes down quite well."

  "Mum tells a good joke," said Patrick, sitting back down and picking up his drink.

  "Most mothers are hopeless at telling jokes," said Simon. "Not ours."

  Both men looked proudly at their mother. Maureen beamed.

  "Sometimes they're pretty dirty," said George. "My wife tells a good dirty joke."

  "Oh, I do not," giggled Maureen.

  "I've got a joke! Knock knock!" cried Jack.

  There was a knock on the door. Everyone laughed.

  "I haven't said the punch line yet," said Jack, offended.

  "Someone knocked when you said 'knock knock,'" explained Maureen. "We were laughing at the coincidence. I wonder who that could be. I'm not expecting anyone. Are you boys expecting someone?"

  "Probably some door-to-door salesman," said Patrick. "Bet they'll try to get you to change phone companies."

  "Well, I just don't know," said Maureen, without moving, as if they really needed to work this puzzle out first.

  "Might be one of those Jehovah fellows." George didn't move either.

  The person knocked again.

  "I just can't think of anyone who would visit at this time," mused Maureen. "It's such a funny time. Just before dinner."

  "Man! This is the craziest thing that has ever happened to us!" said Simon with such authentic astonishment that Ellen thought at first he was serious. "This is life on the edge! This is--"

  "I'm going to answer the door." Patrick put his hands on his knees.

  "I'll get it." Jack leapt to his feet and ran out of the room.

  There was the sound of the door opening and then the unintelligible sound of a woman's voice.

  "Probably some beautiful woman desperately trying to track me down," said Simon behind his hand to Ellen. "Happens a lot."

  "Happens a lot in his dreams," said Patrick.

  They could hear Jack talking at length.

  "I think he's telling the mystery visitor the knock knock joke," said Simon, grinning.

  "Well, I suppose I really should--but I just can't think who it would be!" Maureen left the room, patting down her hair.