The Hypnotist's Love Story (16 page)

And then Jack opened the door. Of course I’ve seen him, more often than Patrick knows, but I haven’t got this close to him since the day I left. I could have approached him many times, but I never wanted to confuse him or upset him.

He smiled at me. The loveliest open smile. His beautiful eyes are still exactly the same. And then he started chatting with me, perfectly naturally, telling me about how I’d knocked at the same time as he’d said “knock knock” to tell a knock knock joke, and what were the chances of that happening, like one chance in a thousand, in a million? And I was laughing when Maureen appeared and she had a polite, perplexed expression on her face, and it vanished as soon as she saw me. She looked horrified, as if I was a home invader.

And then Patrick appeared, his face so ugly with anger, and then his dad, all serious and frowning, as if there had been a car accident, and Simon, all grown up, no pigtails, not even looking at me, just grabbing for Jack’s hand as if he needed to rescue him from me.

Nothing I said could make any difference. They just wanted me to go.

I wanted to scream: But I loved you all! You were my
family
!

“We loved her,”
said Maureen to Ellen. “We really did.”

“Can we please change the subject to something more interesting?” said Patrick, but everyone ignored him.

They had finished dinner and Jack had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room, and Ellen thought that everyone had maybe drunk a little more than they normally would have following the stress of the Saskia incident, and their tongues were loosening up nicely.

“Of course, we were upset when Patrick broke up with her. I felt absolutely terrible for her,” continued Maureen. “She didn’t have any family here, you see, she grew up in Tasmania, so we were like her family.”

“I’m sure Ellen doesn’t want to hear all this,” said Patrick.

“I don’t mind,” said Ellen, which was the understatement of the century.

“People fall out of love,” said George. “You can’t blame him for how he felt.”

“I
know
that, George,” said Maureen irritably. “It doesn’t stop me from feeling for the poor girl.”

“She needs to let Patrick be now,” said George. “This has gone on long enough.”

“She was like a mother to Jack.” Maureen ignored her husband and talked directly to Ellen.

“You should have let her keep seeing Jack,” said Simon to Patrick.

“How many times do I have to say this? She never
asked
to see him,” said Patrick. “As soon as I said I wanted to end it, she just went crazy, completely, certifiably crazy.”

“Her heart was broken,” said Maureen.

“Whatever, I didn’t think Jack was safe around her.”

“Also, her mother had just died,” said Maureen.

“Yeah, your timing sort of sucked,” said Simon.

“She was very close to her mother,” said Maureen to Ellen. “They spoke
on the telephone every single day. My boys would go crazy if I tried to speak to them every day! Although, of course, I’m sure it’s different with daughters.” She looked wistful for a moment. “Do you speak to your mother every day, Ellen?”

“No.” Ellen smiled, although they did actually e-mail or text or have some form of communication nearly every day.

“Saskia’s father died when she was very young, you see, and she had no sisters or brothers, so her mother was all the family she had,” said Maureen. “She took her mother’s death very hard.”

“It was a month after her mother had died,” said Patrick. “Her mother had been sick for a whole year. How much longer was I meant to wait? I didn’t think it was fair to her to keep pretending.”

“A month is nothing,” said Simon.

Ellen privately agreed.

“Listen to Mr. Sensitive here. You broke up with your last girlfriend by
text message
!” said Patrick.

“It was a very caring text message. Anyway, I wasn’t living with her.”

“When Patrick first went into business for himself, he was very busy, obviously, and Saskia started working part-time so she could look after Jack.” Maureen was directing all of her conversation at Ellen. “She really was a wonderful mother to him.”

“
Colleen
was his mother,” said Patrick.

“Well, of course she was, darling, but Colleen wasn’t there.”

“Which wasn’t her fault.”

“Of course it wasn’t, I’m just trying to be fair to Saskia, and to say that she did a wonderful job.”

“Colleen would have done it better. And Colleen wasn’t crazy.”

“You never dumped Colleen,” said Simon. “So you don’t know.”

“I do know,” said Patrick. “I
do
know. And anyway, I would never have dumped Colleen.” There was a perceptible tremor of emotion in his voice that caused a hush around the table. Ellen saw that everyone was trying not to look at her. She felt Maureen’s excellent roast lamb and baked potatoes
sitting lumpily in her stomach.
Well, naturally he’s still in love with his dead wife. The damned girl had to go and die before she had time to get boring or annoying.

Patrick’s father took a deep breath and smiled at Ellen without quite meeting her eyes. “Well, I want to hear more about the hypnotism business.”

Ellen smiled weakly. They had already talked at length about the “hypnotism business” over dinner.

“I read somewhere that Hitler used hypnosis,” said Simon.

“Most politicians are experts at conversational hypnosis patterns,” began Ellen, automatically. She was asked this question all the time when she did speaking engagements. “Simple things, like repetition—”

“There’s an ad on TV at the moment,” said Patrick, looking down at the table. “I don’t know what it’s for, but it’s got a man in a swimming pool and someone’s old bloody bandage is floating in the water and it gets stuck to his mouth, and he pulls it off and throws it away, with this sort of all-over shudder, like, get it off,
get it off
.”

“I know the one. It’s for a car,” said Simon.

“What’s an old bandage got to do with cars?” Maureen frowned.

“The point is that every time I see Saskia’s car in the rear-vision mirror, or I get another one of her letters ranting and raving about God knows what, or an e-mail, or a text, or I have to listen to her voice on my answering machine, or she delivers a
bunch of fucking flowers
—I’m sorry for swearing, Mum, but—
roses
, to my work, I feel like that guy in the ad, I just want to get it off,
get it off
.”

“She sent you roses?” said Maureen. “She sent flowers to a man?”

“So that’s why I don’t want to hear that Saskia was a great mother, or that my timing sucked when I broke up with her,” said Patrick. “If I did wrong by her, I have paid the price. I have paid and paid and
paid
.”

With that, he stood up from the table and left the room.

“Oh, dearie me,” sighed Maureen.

“Welcome to our family, Ellen!” said Simon brightly.

“He started up with Saskia too soon after he lost Colleen,” said Maureen. “That was the problem. Much too soon. He never grieved. Men are terrible grievers. Whenever they feel anything bad they just try and stomp it down.”

“Whereas women talk and talk everything to death,” said George.

“Talking helps!” said Maureen. She turned her attention back to Ellen. “After we lost Colleen, Patrick got this thing in his head that he had to be a good provider for Jack. He was obsessed with it. He threw himself into work. That’s why Saskia ended up doing so much for Jack. Patrick was working all the time.”

“Mum, I think we’ve probably shared enough with Ellen for one night,” said Simon.

“Maybe you’re right,” said Maureen. She stood up and began to stack plates, and without looking at Ellen she said quickly, “Tell me, Ellen, are you a Catholic by any chance?”

Simon snorted.

“I’m not actually,” said Ellen apologetically.

“Oh! Well, that’s—and do you mind me asking what religion you are?” Maureen took her husband’s plate. “Not that it matters, of course, I was just curious.”

“Well, I’m not really anything,” said Ellen. “I wasn’t brought up in any particular religion. My mother is a staunch atheist.”

Maureen looked startled. “A staunch—? You mean, she doesn’t believe in God? Not at all? But you do, of course?”

“Isn’t there some rule about not discussing religion or politics at the dinner table?” said Simon.

“I guess I’m more of a spiritual person than my mother,” said Ellen. “I’m very interested in Buddhism, for example. I like its philosophies—practicing mindfulness, that sort of thing.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve heard that’s all very ‘in’ at the moment,” said Maureen. Ellen could sense that she was losing points.

“Ommmmm,” chanted George. He placed his palms together under
his chin and bowed his head. “That’s what you Buddhists do, isn’t it. Ommmmm. Ommmmm.”

“George! She’s not an
actual
Buddhist,” said Maureen. She gave Ellen a frantic look. “That is, are you, darling?”

Simon rocked with laughter.

“I just find it interesting,” said Ellen meekly.

“Well!” Maureen squared her shoulders, as if to say that one must soldier on whatever life throws at you. She tapped a finger to her mouth. “Do you like babies, Ellen?”

“Mum!” Simon slapped a hand to his head.

Ellen caught the roguish glint in Maureen’s eyes. She knew exactly what she was doing.

“I adore babies,” she said firmly.

“Lovely,” said Maureen. “Me too.” They understood each other perfectly.

“Having one for dessert, are we?” said George.

Maureen rolled her eyes. “We’re having apple crumble with cream and ice cream.”

“Maybe just a very small portion for me,” said Ellen.

“Oh, you’re as thin as a rake,” scolded Maureen. “I’ll get you a nice big plate.”

Later that night, Ellen and Patrick lay in her bed, flat on their backs, both of them sucking on antacid tablets. At Maureen’s insistence, Jack had stayed with her for another night. Patrick had carried him from the couch into her spare bedroom, and he hadn’t woken at all. Then Patrick and Ellen had caught a taxi back to her place because they’d both had too much to drink.

“I’m sorry about tonight,” said Patrick.

“It was fine,” said Ellen. “I think your family is lovely.”

It was true. There was something about the Scott family that made her feel surprisingly comfortable, as if she’d sat at that dining room table and passed around baked potatoes many times before.

“I shouldn’t
have let that conversation about Saskia go on like it did,” said Patrick. “I just get resentful when they seem to be on her side.”

“I know,” said Ellen, rolling over to touch his shoulder. It felt rock hard, as though all his muscles were contracted. She kneaded his flesh with her fingers, trying to ease his tension. “I understand.”

“And I should never have yelled at Saskia in front of Jack,” said Patrick. “I just felt this sort of crazy fury when I heard her voice. I thought for a while there that I could just accept her in my life, like a disability. But now I seem to be going in the opposite direction. It’s like I’m reaching the end of my tether. Sometimes I think I could kill her. I understand now how people get to that point. The point of murder. I could kill her.”

“Please don’t,” said Ellen. She stopped massaging him. It didn’t seem to be helping. “I don’t want to see you in jail for conjugal visits.”

“I’d make sure I didn’t get caught,” said Patrick. He removed another tablet from the roll he was holding on his chest and chewed it grimly.

Ellen glanced with concern at his face. He saw her looking and smiled.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I’m just joking. Anyway, I would get caught. I’m the sort of person who never gets away with anything. I do an illegal right-hand turn and the cops are waiting around the corner.”

“Speaking of the police—”

“Yes, I know.” Patrick’s jaw shifted convulsively. “I just—I don’t know. I’m just not sure if that’s the way to go.”

He obviously didn’t want to go back to the police again, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint his reasons. Was it just his fear that Saskia would do what she’d threatened and make accusations against him? Or something more than that?

“Think about it,” she said.

“I will.” But she could tell that he wouldn’t.

She yawned, suddenly and hugely. “I can’t believe how tired I feel.”

“I’m going to be awake for hours,” said Patrick. “With my thoughts going around and around like a merry-go-round. Could you just hypnotize me to sleep?”

“Ha,” said Ellen.

“Seriously. Can you do that?”

“Hypnotizing your partners isn’t considered such a good idea, you know, ethically,” she said, feeling prudish. It had come up before, in previous relationships, but mostly the requests had been flippant and she’d been able to brush them off.

“I won’t report you,” said Patrick. “I just want to switch off all these thoughts in my head.”

Her heart went out to him. She wavered. “I thought you didn’t really like the idea of hypnotism. You said you hated the idea of losing control.”

“That was before I met you. I understand more about it now. And I trust you.”

Ellen thought of her mentor, Flynn, an old-school hypnotherapist in his sixties who hated stage hypnotists with a passion, and believed that the only way to protect his professional integrity was to never, ever practice his craft outside the therapist’s office. She thought of the cool young guy she was mentoring, Danny, who proudly told Ellen that he used the hypnotic handshake to help pick up women in bars (with huge success, apparently, so Ellen knew that it didn’t matter how strenuously she disapproved). If she ever told Flynn about what she let Danny get away with, he’d be horrified, like a grandparent who thought she was spoiling her child. She guessed that on the ethical spectrum she was somewhere in the middle of Flynn and Danny.

“I suppose there wouldn’t be any harm in just doing a relaxation exercise,” she said.