The Hypnotist's Love Story (52 page)

“And then her mother died.”

“Yes,” said Patrick. “And then I finally told her. I think I had this stupid idea that she wouldn’t be that upset, that I was almost doing her a favor, because she could find someone who loved her properly. I was shocked by her reaction, and I guess I didn’t take it seriously. It was like I thought, But you can’t
really
have loved me because I haven’t even
been
here. You know what I mean?”

“I think so,” said Ellen. She was a bit breathless. The more Patrick had talked, the faster he had walked, and she’d been struggling to keep up with him.

“Sorry,” said Patrick. “Let’s sit down for a few moments.”

They walked up to the softer sand and sat down together facing the sea, their shoulders touching.

“I think that’s why I kept putting off taking out the restraining order,”
said Patrick. “Because, deep down, I knew I’d treated her badly, even though I didn’t admit it, even to myself. I’d start driving toward the police station and I’d think, Geez, the woman
toilet trained
my kid. She put her career on hold so she could take care of him. I’m in debt to her. And then I’d think, Oh, she has to stop
eventually
. I should have taken her more seriously. I should have done something straight after Noosa, as soon as I knew you were involved. When I think what could have happened last night, to you, or Jack, or the baby.” He shuddered.

“It might not have made any difference,” said Ellen. “Even if you had been to the police.”

Patrick lifted one shoulder in a “Who knows?” gesture.

“Anyway,” he said. “Enough of Saskia.” He lifted his chin and looked at the starry sky. “Please God,
enough
of Saskia.”

“Yes,” said Ellen, thinking of Saskia’s white face and wondering what she was doing right at the moment, if she had friends or family visiting her at the hospital, and what was going on in her strange, mixed-up mind.

Patrick took a deep breath. “Anyway, the reason I suggested a walk was so I could talk to you about last night and that, ah, thing that I said. About Colleen.” His tone had changed completely. He spoke stiffly and formally, as if he was taking part in unfamiliar legal proceedings.

“All right,” said Ellen. Her stomach knotted, and she found that she actually didn’t want him to speak about it. Words would just tangle things up further and make them feel worse. How strange. She had always thought words were the answer to everything; after all, she treated people with nothing but words.

Keep those lines of communication open!
That’s what she always told her clients experiencing relationship difficulties. And now she couldn’t think of anything worse than talking. This must be what it was like to be a man, his heart sinking each time a woman said, “We need to talk,” thinking,
Just shut up, woman!
as she revealed her soul in all its naked glory when he really wanted her to keep it covered up.

“The thing is—” began Patrick.

Ellen said, “Is that your mother?”

She could just make out the figure of Maureen picking her way carefully across the sand as if watching out for land mines.

“Phone call for Ellen!” Her voice, surprisingly clear, floated down the beach. “She says it’s urgent!”

I
n the end, Tammy left at the same time as Lance and Kate. She’d invited herself along to the movies with them. It was clear that they were all three going to become friends. I’d forgotten how Tammy had that childlike ability to make instant friends. She’d done the same to me years ago.

A nurse came in to see me, just as they were all standing up to go. When she opened the door, everyone was laughing at something Kate had just said, and the nurse apologized and said, “I’ll come back when your friends are gone.”

She thought I was a normal person with normal friends who were fond of me, who had rushed straight to my bedside when they’d heard I had an accident. She didn’t know that Lance was someone I worked with but had never seen socially, who, to be honest, I’d never really even noticed as a person, and that his wife was a complete stranger to me, and their visiting me was really sort of odd, and that Tammy was someone I’d lost touch with for three years, and that none of the people there knew the truth about how I’d broken my pelvis.

The really strange thing was that Lance, Kate and Tammy seemed determined to continue this performance. They all had plans to visit me again. Helping me through my six weeks of forced bed rest had become a project for them. I wondered, had they all signed up for some sort of self-improvement movement doing the rounds on the Internet—random philanthropic acts?

Lance was going to bring me a portable DVD player so I could finally watch
The Wire
series. “You’ve got no excuse now,” he’d said, with a gentle, teasing note in his voice that made me think he possibly, bizarrely,
liked
me.

Also, Kate was coming back to teach me how to knit, of all things. This had come about because Tammy had said that I should use this time to do something I’d always wanted to do but never had the time for—like learning Spanish or whatever. I said that I’d always wanted to know how to knit, which was sort of half true. It was something that I’d always
said
I wanted to do anyway, without really ever having the intention of doing anything about it. But as soon as I said it, Kate’s eyes lit up with the same evangelical glint that Lance got when he talked about
The Wire
, and she was now all set to give me knitting lessons.

And it had somehow transpired that Tammy was going to live in my townhouse while I was in the hospital. Since she’d come back to Sydney, she’d been staying with her sister, who was driving her crazy, and so offering her my place had seemed the obvious thing to do. She was going to pick up clothes for me and bring them back after I had the operation on my ankle the next day.

I wondered what she’d think of my home. No books or pictures or photos on the fridge. If I’d known she was coming, I would have styled it in preparation. The bottle of wine I’d been drinking and the packet of painkillers would still be sitting on the kitchen table. Apart from that, every surface was bare and extremely, weirdly clean. The fridge and pantry were filled with functional food: milk, bread, butter. No biscuits or cakes, no treats at all. She would notice how I’d changed, remark on it. She used to
visit me when I was living with Patrick and tease me about my domesticity: the cut flowers arranged in vases, freshly baked biscuits always ready in the tin. Now my home looked like it belonged to an obsessive-compulsive loner, a serial killer.

After I’d eaten my dinner—it was described on the docket placed on the tray as a “light” meal, but it was actually the most substantial meal I’d had in months; I normally ate a bowl of cereal for dinner—I put my head back against the pillow and listened to the industrious sounds of the hospital: quick footsteps down hallways, the clunk of trolleys, voices rising and falling.

Most people would have felt lonely, suddenly alone in a hospital room, but I didn’t. I found the noises strangely comforting. This was my village. The village for sick, sad, broken people like me.

The pain began to roll in again, and like a well-trained rat, I automatically clicked for more morphine.

I wondered, as I habitually did, what Patrick and Ellen and Jack were doing right at that moment, whether Jack’s arm was giving him a lot of pain, whether Patrick had been to the police about me. But the morphine made me lazy. My wondering was idle. I had no desire to actually be there, watching them.

And then my mind drifted away from them, to Kate, Lance and Tammy, and whether they’d enjoyed the movie, and if they’d gone out to that Korean restaurant they’d talked about, and I imagined Lance and Tammy doing their Baltimore drug dealer impressions while Kate rolled her eyes.

I think I actually laughed out loud before I fell asleep.

“I didn’t catch her name, I’m sorry,” said Maureen, as she handed Ellen the phone. “Sorry to interrupt your walk, but she sounds like she’s crying.”

“Of course, of course.” Ellen took the phone nervously. What now?

She cleared her throat. “Hello?”

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.