The Hypnotist’s Love Story

by Liane Moriarty

  The warm feeling vanished.

  He hadn't found me attractive at all. He was just one of those nice, friendly people who liked everyone. It made sense. The nice people next door would know other nice people. They tend to congregate.

  Or possibly he had found me attractive, but in a slimy, sleazy I'm-happy-to-cheat-on-my-girlfriend-if-you're-up-for-it way. He was probably the sort of man who smiled at every woman like that, just in case he was in with a chance.

  And then I thought: Where the fuck am I going to go now?

  The fortieth birthday party in the house by the harbor had begun to seem so real I'd almost been looking forward to it.

  I had nowhere to go. Once upon a time there were people I could have called. It's amazing how friends can slip through your fingers, how your social network can vanish like it never existed. If you don't have a family, if you live in a city designed so that you don't need to connect with anyone, and you drive everywhere, so there is nowhere to walk and nod hello, so you can do all your shopping in soulless supermarkets with blank-faced teenagers scanning your groceries while they look right through you as if you don't exist, because you don't, not really.

  If I lived in a town like the ones I once wanted to design, there would be somewhere I could go where I wouldn't feel alone, somewhere open and light where I could drink a cup of coffee and read a book in a place that encouraged conversation.

  Which is all such self-delusional crap, because I could not bear to live somewhere lovely, where I would be forced to talk to people every day, a whole town of horrendously nice people, smiling their sunny smiles at me when I just want to buy a small carton of milk without anybody asking about my weekend.

  I'm not lonely. I'm just alone. I choose to be alone.

  I know exactly what I need to do if I want to step back into society. I could watch The Wire and talk to Lance about it, and then I could offer to lend him a DVD series, and then one day I could say, "Do you and your wife want to come over for dinner sometime?" Didn't I meet his wife once? I could say, "Do you want to have a drink one night after work?" to any number of people in the office. I could have said yes to that work party a few months back. I could have said yes to the people next door. I could even get on the Internet and meet men who want a relationship, or at least sex.

  I am not socially disabled. I am reserved, sometimes shy--but not in a debilitating way. I could do it. I did it when I moved to Sydney and didn't know a soul. I participated. I said yes to invitations. I smiled and asked questions and made the first move.

  But now I can't be bothered to do it again. I'm too old, and this is the crux of it--it's not fair. I shouldn't have to be in this position again.

  I can't bear the pretense, the fraudulent cheeriness, like when I spoke to the people next door. I would be pretending all the time, because you have to fake it in the beginning--that's the way it works.

  But once I had a real relationship with real friends. Once I was a mother and a wife and a friend and a daughter, and now I am nothing.

  And if I moved on, if I lived a regular life, it would be like Patrick had got away with it, and he was right: We weren't meant to be together.

  I drove to Ellen's house, and my regular feeling, that permanent sense of pain and loss and fury, felt even worse than usual because it had disappeared for a few seconds.

  I was just going to leave the plastic bag with the ingredients at the front door--no need for a note, they would know they were from me--but as I was about to go back down the footpath, I saw she had a little miniature stone owl, with glasses, sitting up on the cornice above her door, and I thought, I bet she keeps her spare key under the owl.

  And I was right.

  Chapter 17

  DON'T THINK OF A DOG!

  You thought of a dog, didn't you? That's why it's so important to be careful with your language when you're structuring your suggestions. It's what's known as the law of reversed effect. The imagination ignores the word "Don't" and just hears "Dog."

  --Excerpt from Ellen O'Farrell's Introduction

  to Hypnotherapy two-day course

  Colleen's parents came out onto their front porch as soon as Patrick drove the car into the driveway.

  "That's them. Frank and Millie." Patrick spoke in an odd, strained voice and waved, smiling with his teeth clenched.

  Jack threw open the car door and ran to his grandparents. Ellen and Patrick watched as he hugged them. It seemed like he was going to be the only one acting naturally today.

  "Right," said Patrick, and they got out of the car.

  "Quick!" called out Millie from the doorway, beckoning to him, as Jack disappeared inside with his grandfather. "Come inside, you two, where it's nice and warm!"

  "Hi, Millie! Yes! Good idea!" called back Patrick in a jolly tone Ellen had never heard him use before.

  Good Lord, she thought.

  "Hel-looo!" she cried out, in a desperate rush to demonstrate to Colleen's parents she was a friendly, nice person and so very sorry for their loss.

  (Oh, God, why had she called out "hello" in that echo-ey voice? Like she was shouting to them across a mountaintop? She sounded deranged.)

  Millie was right. The house seemed especially cozy and warm after the chilly visit to the graveyard. There was soft music playing, and Millie led Ellen to a comfortable seat right next to a log fire.

  "What can I get you to drink?" she asked. She was a tiny birdlike woman, wearing a younger person's outfit of jeans and a white jumper that hung on her thin frame. You could see that once she'd been beautiful, and there was something about her, a look of resigned acceptance, that said, I know I'm no longer beautiful and I couldn't care less.

  Her husband, Frank, was thin too and very tall, like an elderly, stooped basketball player. Ellen saw how grief had dragged at their faces, like faded claw marks.

  They seemed like shy people, but they were all smiles, gracious and welcoming, chatting about the traffic and the weather. It broke Ellen's heart. If only they weren't so damned nice.

  "What Ellen really needs is a dry cracker," said Patrick. "She's feeling nauseous. The, ah, pregnancy, you know." Did she imagine that he'd lowered his voice on the word "pregnancy" like it was a shameful disorder?

  "I'll get you one straightaway," said Millie.

  "I had some ready at home, but then I forgot to bring them. I'm so sorry to be a nuisance," Ellen babbled, as if asking for a cracker was a huge inconvenience, when what she really meant was that she was so sorry to be there at all, inconveniently alive and pregnant, taking their daughter's place.

  "When I was pregnant with Colleen I ate dry biscuits all day long," said Millie, as she handed over the plate. "But then when she was pregnant with Jack the lucky girl didn't get any nausea at all."

  She smiled at her grandson. "You were such a well-behaved baby, Jack, even before you were born." She turned back to Ellen. "Not that I mean your own little baby isn't well behaved."

  As Millie spoke, Ellen caught sight of a framed photo on the wall of Colleen holding Jack when he must have been about six months old. She was smiling adoringly down at him, while Jack gnawed on the leg of a toy rabbit.

  That's when it happened.

  She burst into tears, choking on her cracker, spraying crumbs, causing everyone to stare at her with alarm and astonishment.

  What are you doing? It was as though her body had done something unmentionable in polite company, like an explosive fart. Stop it, she ordered herself, but the tears kept sliding down her face.

  It was a combination of the adoration on Colleen's face in the picture, the exquisite relief of eating the cracker, the warmth of the house after the cold mountain air, Millie saying, "Your little baby," the strangeness and stress of the graveyard visit, the fact that she was meeting her father for the first time the following day--oh, who knew what it was, except that her emotions had never embarrassed her like this before.

  "Hey now," said Frank, and he came over to where she was sitting, squatted down on
his long spidery legs and rubbed her back in gentle circular motions.

  Lucky Colleen to have grown up with a lovely father like Frank.

  "What's wrong, Ellen?" asked Jack.

  He'd looked to his father, but Patrick was no help. He had the stunned expression of someone whose girlfriend has just knocked over a priceless vase. He'd kept up a steady stream of conversation ever since he'd walked in the house, his voice light and chatty but with a panicky undertone, as if he was trying to distract someone from jumping off a cliff by talking about ordinary things while he waited for the police. Ellen had never seen him talk so much, and she saw that these visits were a huge effort for him, and that he was determined to ensure there were no conversational gaps or uncomfortable silences that might allow for horrible displays of grief. Now she'd upset the delicate balance he was working so hard to maintain.

  "So sorry," she finally sniffed. "It must be my hormones."

  Hormones, hormones, hormones. It was all she talked about lately, and yet, she'd never believed in blaming her body for her behavior! She'd always believed that the mind-body connection was more likely to operate in the other direction: the mind affecting the body, not the body affecting the mind. If a client had described this irrational behavior and then tried to blame it on hormones, she would have said (in such a soothing, know-it-all tone!), "I suspect this is your body's way of trying to pass on a message from your subconscious."

  Patrick finally recovered enough to move over and hug her.

  "You're probably just exhausted from the drive," he said, speaking in his normal voice, and the relief of feeling his arms around her and breathing in his familiar Patrick scent nearly made her cry again.

  "So sorry," she said shakily.

  "Don't think anything of it," Frank and Millie soothed.

  She worked hard to redeem herself over lunch, following Patrick's bright, chatty lead. They bounced the conversation rapidly back and forth across the table, without letting it drop once, like a frantic game of hot potato. When they were ready to leave, she noticed that Frank and Millie looked drained. They probably wished the two of them had just shut up for a second.

  "We hope to see you next month, my dear," said Millie, and she put her hand on Ellen's arm. For one dreadful moment Ellen felt more tears threatening, but she fought them back with sheer force of will.

  Nobody said anything as they drove out of Katoomba. Jack seemed to be slumbering in the backseat. Finally, Ellen couldn't bear it any longer.

  "I'm sorry about my unexpected weeping back there," she said, as if the word "weeping" would turn it into a charming, rather fascinating little incident.

  "It's fine," said Patrick. "Seriously. Don't worry about it."

  That's where she should have left it.

  "They must have found it so difficult," she said. "Meeting me, and the new baby."

  "Yes," he said. "Although of course you were the one doing the crying!"

  The sting was so sharp she caught her breath.

  "I'm sorry," he said almost immediately, taking one hand off the steering wheel to reach for her. "That was meant to be a joke. A really stupid joke. Whenever I see Frank and Millie I feel guilty for being alive when Colleen is dead. I find those visits really hard. Awkward."

  No kidding.

  "Yes. I found it very awkward myself," she said. I sat on your dead wife's grave! These grass stains will never come out!

  "I'm sorry," he said again, putting his hand back on the steering wheel. "Really. You were wonderful today. I'm so grateful to you for coming. I just wish..."

  His voice drifted away, and then he stopped talking and frowned at the road ahead, as if driving now required all his concentration.

  What did he mean? I just wish you hadn't cried? I just wish Colleen wasn't dead? Ellen silently boiled and bubbled with different emotions she couldn't even properly define: shame, resentment and something like fear. This is not me. I am not like this.

  She broke the silence when they stopped at a red light. "So, I guess you won't have time to move those boxes tonight."

  Even while she was saying it, another part of her looked on, coolly observing and shaking her head. Oh, Ellen. You feel guilty about embarrassing him with your tears, so this is your childish way of pointing out that he's not perfect either. You're picking a fight because you want to make something happen.

  "I told you I've got to work this afternoon," he said.

  "So maybe we can make next weekend the new deadline?" she said, and her tone was light and humorous, but just like his joke, it had that fine thread of steel running through the center of it.

  "Don't nag me, Ellen," he said, and as she turned to look at his profile she saw that he was clenching his jaw so tightly his cheek was hollow.

  "Nagging? How am I nagging?"

  "Not now. Not here," he hissed, turning his head slightly to indicate Jack in the backseat, as though she'd deliberately picked a fight in front of his young, impressionable son.

  They didn't say another word for the rest of the drive home. Ellen spent the entire time reliving that weekend in the mountains with Jon, deliberately lingering over the memories of their lovemaking. It was the most passive-aggressive thing she'd ever done.

  By the time they got home the air in the car was stuffy with silence.

  "I'll see you later," said Patrick shortly, before driving off and leaving Ellen to take Jack inside. She would have to remember to cancel her coffee with Julia before she got started on homework.

  "What's this?" said Ellen as she opened the screen door.

  There was a foil-wrapped package sitting next to the front door. She bent down and picked it up. It felt warm.

  Her breath quickened. Saskia.

  It was an impulse decision. I walked into her kitchen with the plastic bag full of ingredients and it was like I was returning home from the supermarket. I thought, Why not cook some biscuits for them?

  I enjoyed being in her kitchen, using her mixing bowl, her spoons, her baking trays. I have a feeling most of the things in her kitchen probably belonged to her grandmother. I remember her saying that she hadn't changed anything much when she inherited the house. "I have sort of retro taste," she told me once. I'd made some remark about liking the carpet. I guess that's something we have in common; apart from Patrick, of course.

  I felt strangely peaceful, like I had every right to be in this house, as if I were Ellen, and Patrick and Jack were out somewhere and I was planning on surprising them with freshly baked biscuits, like I used to do when Jack was little and they went out to the park. I imagined them coming home, the sound of the key in the lock, the pounding of Jack's footsteps down the hallway.

  Ellen's kitchen reminded me a lot of my mother's--perhaps that's why I felt so inappropriately comfortable, because I felt like I was in my childhood home. I remembered being a little girl, standing on a kitchen chair, one of Mum's aprons tied around my waist, helping her cook. I'd always imagined doing the same thing with my little girl one day.

  In fact, I did do the same thing with Jack, except I never bothered with the apron, and I didn't stand him on a chair, I just let him sit up on the bench top next to me. He loved it. Flour in his hair, sticky fingers, eggshell in the mix. I let him use the beaters once and he lifted them up and splattered the entire kitchen with cake mix.

  How would I have explained myself if they'd come home early?

  I know this seems strange, but I cannot bear my nonexistence in your lives. If I could just move in with you, maybe? If I could just sit quietly in the corner over there and watch you live? So, anyway, how was your day in the mountains? Biscuit, anyone?

  They didn't come home, but somebody did stop by.

  I was just taking the biscuits out of the oven when the doorbell rang.

  I jumped. Guiltily. I haven't completely lost my mind. I know that you're not meant to walk into someone else's house and start making biscuits.

  After the bell rang, someone started banging on the front door.
r />   My first thought was that it was Patrick, something about the angry tone of the knocking, even though that didn't make sense, because why wouldn't he just walk straight in?

  And then I thought maybe it was the police. Someone had seen me take the key and called them. A friendly neighbor, perhaps. Ellen is the sort to have a friendly neighbor.

  I put down the tray and crept down the hallway, past Patrick's boxes piled up all higgledy-piggledy. Poor Ellen; her house doesn't have quite the same spiritual feel to it now, with all these dusty boxes. I wonder if she hates it, or if she is above such earthly matters. If I know Patrick, they'll be sitting there for a long time.

  I looked out the side window near Ellen's front door and I could see a man. He'd shoved his hands in his pockets and stuck his jaw out, like he was preparing for a confrontation. He was in his forties. There was something premium-looking about him, something that said money: Maybe it was the suit, or the longish, carefully tousled haircut, or just the way he was standing with his feet firmly planted, the stance of a man who was used to being in charge.

  I was intrigued.

  A customer in need of a hypnotic fix?

  An ex-boyfriend of Ellen's? He didn't seem her type. I'm sure Patrick isn't her type either--he's too ordinary and blokey. She should be with a pale and interesting poet, and give me back my hale and hearty surveyor.

  A lover? Perhaps Patrick wasn't the baby's father. That would be perfect. Could this visitor, this really quite angry-looking man, be a spanner in their works?

  I opened the door.

  Chapter 18

  It's funny that people call hypnotherapy "new age." Hieroglyphics found on tombs indicate that the Egyptians were using hypnosis as early as 3000 BC.

  --Excerpt from www.EllenOFarrellHypnotherapy.com

  Listen to this, Madeline."