The Hypnotist's Love Story (38 page)

“Her life is like a soap opera these days, isn’t it?” said Julia.

“Like sand through the hourglass, so are the days of Ellen’s lives,” intoned Madeline in a quite good American accent. Ellen had never heard her put on a voice before to make a joke.

“Remember when she was so calm and Zen? Nothing messy ever happened to her?” said Julia.

“That’s not true!” protested Ellen. “I had messy relationship breakups.”

“No, even your breakups seemed to happen on a higher level of existence than the rest of us,” said Madeline.

“That makes me sound annoying,” said Ellen. She was hurt. It was like she had overheard a conversation that revealed what her friends really thought of her.

Julia and Madeline were too busy liking each other for the first time to notice.

“Oh, not that annoying. Anyway, me first,” said Julia. “The wife’s family?”

“Maybe we should just concentrate on eating quickly and efficiently,” said Ellen, as a waiter appeared at their table with three giant plates balanced on his forearm.

“Let’s skip the movie,” said Madeline. “Let’s just relax.”

“Excellent idea.” Julia settled back in the booth and smiled at Madeline.

Watching them talking to the waiter, confirming what each dish was, leaning back politely to let him spoon out their rice, Ellen saw for the first time that the two of them were actually quite similar. Their carefully relaxed demeanors hid a fragile defensiveness, as if they expected to be criticized at any moment and they weren’t going to stand for it. They both seemed to cling so hard to their chosen personalities.
I am this sort of person and therefore I believe this, I think this, I do this and I am right, I’m right, I’m sure I’m right!

Although, then again, maybe everybody did that to some extent. Perhaps all grown-ups were just children carefully putting on their grown-up disguises each day and then acting accordingly. Perhaps it was a necessary part of being a grown-up. Or perhaps it was just that Ellen felt herself to have a more nebulous, less defined sort of personality than both Madeline and Julia.

Or perhaps this was all a load of rubbish, and Madeline and Julia were just being themselves. Lately, Ellen was becoming increasingly impatient
with the way she never just accepted anything at face value. She couldn’t quite understand her impatience. It was like she’d suddenly turned against a dear old friend for no good reason.

“It must have been so awkward,” said Madeline. “Meeting Patrick’s old in-laws.”

“Do you think they hated you?” asked Julia. “Replacing their beloved daughter?”

“They were lovely,” said Ellen. “They seemed perfectly relaxed about it, but I made a fool of myself.”

“Oh,
no
,” said Julia, as though Ellen was in the habit of making a fool of herself. “What did you do?”

“I saw a photo on the wall of Colleen holding Jack when he was a baby and I—”

“You
criticized
her?” said Julia. “You spoke ill of the dead!”

Julia was terrified of death. Whenever she was confronted with it, she became skittish and weird, as if she could somehow ward it off.

“Does that sound like something I’d do?” said Ellen, as she lifted her spoon to her mouth.

“Shellfish!” screeched Madeline, and knocked the spoon from Ellen’s mouth.

“It’s not!” Ellen indicated the plate in front of her. “It’s the chicken.”

“Oh, sorry, you’re right,” said Madeline. “Carry on.”

“Anyway, I think this whole thing with what you can and can’t eat when you’re pregnant has gone too far,” said Ellen. “The French still eat soft cheeses and drink wine, the Japanese still eat sushi—and their babies are all fine.”

Madeline pursed her lips, as if she wasn’t quite convinced about the quality of French and Japanese babies. “I wouldn’t be taking any risks in the first trimester.”

Julia’s face closed down slightly at the pregnancy talk. “So what did you do when you saw the photo?”

“I cried,” said Ellen.

“You
cried
? You didn’t even know the girl!” Madeline put down her fork, as though she’d just tasted something disgusting; she was clearly mortified on Ellen’s behalf.

“Why would you cry?” asked Julia with interest.

“Pregnancy hormones,” said Madeline wisely. “Although you can’t spend the next six months behaving like that! Couldn’t you, I don’t know, hypnotize yourself or something?”

It was clear just how seriously Madeline was taking this that she’d suggest self-hypnosis. Ellen knew that Madeline thought hypnotherapy was a load of new age nonsense, a waste of people’s time and money, quackery, plain silly, misguided but well meaning; she didn’t know which actual phrases Madeline would use, but she knew from the carefully polite blank expression that crossed Madeline’s face whenever Ellen’s career came up that it would be something along those lines. Ellen had never pushed because she knew Madeline would lie to be polite, and she’d lie badly, and Ellen didn’t see the need to make her uncomfortable. She knew that Madeline was fond of her, and that she would never want to hurt Ellen’s feelings.

Up until now, Ellen hadn’t minded the lack of balance in their conversation. In fact, she’d enjoyed a slightly superior feeling about her maturity in the face of Madeline’s prejudice. Her sense of self-worth didn’t rely on other people’s approval. But now she felt a powerful surge of resentment. Her work was important to her. It was a huge part of her life. Why hadn’t Madeline at least tried to learn more about hypnotherapy? She’d never even asked a single question about her work! What was that about? It was disrespectful. In fact, it was infuriating.

“Have I got something in my teeth?” asked Madeline, flustered. She turned to the mirrored wall. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

Ellen cleared her throat. It would not be appropriate to suddenly shriek,
“Why have we never talked about my job, Madeline?”

What was wrong with her lately? Pregnancy seemed to be stripping away all her emotional maturity. She had all these new raw, out-of-control
feelings. Moments of pure fury followed by hopeless despair. Good Lord. She was behaving like a
client
.

“Sorry.” Ellen smiled at Madeline to make up for her silent shrieking. “I drifted off.”

“Well, I think there must have been more to it than just hormones,” said Julia. “Did it make you feel guilty? Knowing that you were having a baby with her husband? Of course, you’re the expert on repressed feelings.”

Ellen gave Julia a grateful look. Unlike Madeline, Julia had always been supportive and proud of Ellen’s work. Over the years she’d referred dozens of friends and acquaintances to her. Yes, she was a dear, dear friend.

“Are you crying
now
?” asked Julia. “Just remembering it?”

“No, sorry, I just—” Ellen began to giggle hopelessly.

She saw Julia and Madeline exchange looks.

“I know pregnant women go a bit crazy,” said Julia. “But isn’t this excessive?”

“Yes,” said Madeline.

“I hate to think what you did when you met your father for the first time,” said Julia. “You must have needed a sedative.” She put the back of her hand to her forehead. “Daddy, Daddy! My long-lost daddy!”

Madeline chortled and then looked guilty. “Although, I guess, maybe meeting your father probably was quite emotional, was it?”

“Actually,” said Ellen, “I had the opposite problem. I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“Really?” Madeline looked relieved. That was more like it.

“He was just a man,” said Ellen. “A dull, ordinary man. Like your dentist. Or your accountant. Receding hairline. Glasses. I just didn’t find him that interesting.”

“Poor Daddy,” said Julia into her wineglass.

“You know what I really want to talk about?” Ellen put down her knife and fork. “Boxes. Boxes clogging up my hallway.”

“That doesn’t sound especially interesting,” said Julia.

“They’re Patrick’s, right?”
Madeline immediately grasped the situation.

“Yes,” said Ellen. “I asked and asked and he won’t move them. It’s driving me crazy. How do you make a man do something without nagging?”

“That,” said Madeline, “is the billion-dollar question.”

I was watching the late news tonight when it suddenly came to me.

I knew exactly who that man was.

So what did
he
want with Ellen? And why was he so angry with her?

Ellen sat in the car in the dark without turning the keys in the ignition and luxuriated in the sudden silence after the noisy babble in the restaurant. Her ears were buzzing, and she felt overstimulated, as if she’d just been having a crazy drunken night out in a nightclub, not a sedate, alcohol-free dinner with two old friends. For some reason she had found Julia and Madeline a little overwhelming tonight. Their faces in that crowded booth had been so close to hers: Julia’s fine-boned face with the surprising lines around the eyes (surprising because Ellen would always think of her as a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl) and Madeline’s plumper, softer features with the upturned nose and the rosebud lips. Ellen could still smell Julia’s perfume and hear the rhythms of Madeline’s slightly hoarse voice (she had the beginnings of a cold).

“I’m seeing Sam tomorrow night,” Julia had said to her, as they stood on the pavement outside the restaurant, after Madeline had hurried off.

“Stinky? He really did have the flu that time? I knew it! You’ve been seeing him? Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“We don’t call him that,” said Julia. “Anyway, don’t get all excited and start planning cozy little double dates. We’re just friends.”

Ellen could see hope shining bright in Julia’s eyes.

“Stop it,” said Julia, when she saw the expression on Ellen’s face. “Not a word.”
But her arms tightened around Ellen when she hugged her good-bye.

Now Ellen glanced at her watch. As they’d skipped the movie, it was only nine-thirty. There was a good chance Jack would still be up when she got home. He seemed to stay up very late for an eight-year-old, but what did she know?

She knew that Patrick would be entirely respectful if she was to suggest that Jack’s bedtime be changed, but she felt so self-conscious when it came to parenting this self-sufficient little boy, as if she was just playacting. She should have asked Madeline what time her children went to bed. She would have set her straight.

It was so nice to not be going home to an empty house. The lights would be blazing as she pulled up in the driveway. When she opened the door, there would be the smell of tacos or popcorn or some other late-night snack. Patrick and Jack would be watching television together, or playing some game on the Wii, or chasing each other through the house, brandishing the branch that had once hung on her ceiling to remind her to practice mindfulness and had now somehow become a sword or a laser gun or something (they seemed so violent sometimes!). Patrick would ask about the movie. Jack would want to tell her something about his day. They would have hot chocolate and some of the fund-raiser chocolates Jack was meant to be selling for school. Patrick would tell Jack to go to bed about twenty times and he finally would.

Yes, it was so very nice to be going home to the hubbub of the family life she’d always wanted.

But she still didn’t turn the key in the ignition.

Fine. Think it out loud, Ellen.

It would also be quite nice to be going home to an empty house, to calming silence and a hallway free of boxes, to a cup of tea with a book, to a long hot bath without anyone asking if she was coming to bed soon.

It would be lovely, in fact, the way she was feeling right now, to have her
own house to herself, to have her own bed to herself, to have her old life back for just tonight.

She thought of all those nights over the last year when she’d come home alone and she’d fumbled in the dark with her key to unlock the door, and as she’d fumbled, she’d
longed
for someone to be waiting inside for her, someone exactly like Patrick.

She thought about Saskia, so single-minded in her desire to have Patrick back. She’d held on for all those years. She was an attractive, intelligent woman. She could have met plenty of other men, but she only wanted Patrick. It might be crazy, but it was committed.