The Hypnotist’s Love Story, Page 34

"You were in a hypnotic state," admitted Ellen.

  He didn't say: I would never have said that.

  "So it was like I was sleep talking," said Patrick slowly.

  "Sort of," said Ellen. "You were somewhere between asleep and awake."

  "So when we do these hypnosis sessions, do you ask me stuff?" said Patrick. "You ask me stuff about Colleen? Is that why you do it? So you can go ferreting about in my head?"

  "Of course not," said Ellen. The phone began to ring. She wondered if she should use it as an opportunity to escape from this conversation, which did not seem to be going well. She looked down and saw that she'd been scratching at her wrist so hard that there were little flecks of blood.

  "Let them leave a message," said Patrick.

  They sat there looking at each other while the phone rang and rang.

  The morphine made everything melt. The ceiling softened and swirled; the white blanket covering my body rippled like water.

  When I closed my eyes to get away from the melting room, I saw images from my life slapped in front of me like playing cards, one after the other, in rapid succession.

  Patrick, waiting for me outside the movie theater, deep in thought, looking so sad, and then his face changing, lighting up, when he saw me arrive; my mother, when her hair was still blond, driving me home from school, looking at the road ahead and laughing over something I'd said; the kids who moved in next door, looking up at me with their trusting, nonchalant eyes; Lance from work, standing in my office, eagerly handing over The Wire DVD series.

  I opened my eyes and remembered I had a job and that I should probably let them know that I wouldn't be coming in for a while.

  I called on the phone next to my bed. Nina answered, and when I heard her familiar, cheery voice I had a sensation of horror, as if I was in a dream and I'd walked into the office naked. The game was up. They were going to find out the truth.

  I heard myself say, "Nina, it's me, Saskia."

  "Oh, hey, Saskia, I didn't know you were out this morning. Look, I've been wanting to ask you about--"

  "Nina," I said. It felt like I was talking underwater. I gripped the phone hard. I must have waited too long to speak because she said, "Are you still there?"

  "I hit rock bottom," I said.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "I don't know what to say to you," said Patrick. His eyes looked glassy. "My head is too full of last night. I have no memory of saying that, that thing about Colleen."

  "I shouldn't have mentioned it," said Ellen. She was desperately disappointed with herself. Her mobile phone began to ring somewhere in the house.

  "Can we talk about it later?" asked Patrick. "I want to go to the police station while Jack is asleep and make that report."

  "Of course," said Ellen. "Actually, let's just forget I ever--"

  "We're not going to forget it," said Patrick. "We're going to talk about it later." He smiled at her and the unexpectedness of it made her want to cry. "I promise, we're going to talk about everything at length later and we're going to fix it."

  "Right."

  Now her office phone was ringing again.

  "Sounds like someone needs to talk to you," said Patrick.

  "Yes," said Ellen, and then the air rushed from her lungs. "Oh, God, I forgot. I completely forgot."

  "What?"

  Ellen looked at the clock above Patrick's head and tried to will the hands to move backward. It was two-thirty p.m. "That journalist. I was meeting her at a cafe at eleven this morning."

  She imagined the journalist sitting in the cafe, tapping her fingers and irritably checking and rechecking her watch. She was already ill-disposed toward Ellen. Now she would think that she'd deliberately not turned up. She would think that she had something to hide.

  "Reschedule," said Patrick. "Tell her there was an accident. It's not your fault."

  "Yes," said Ellen, because of course that was logical, but she already knew that it was going to be a disaster, and when she listened to the messages on both her office phone and mobile, she knew she was right.

  "I'm waiting in the cafe you suggested," said Lisa, with a faint emphasis on the word "you," and the sounds of the cafe in the background adding to Ellen's guilt. "I'll be filing this story this afternoon, so if I don't hear from you soon, I'll assume you have no comment, and you're not interested in responding to the issues raised by your former clients."

  As Ellen hung up, the phone immediately rang again, and she snatched it up, desperate for the chance at redemption. It was her mother.

  "I've been trying to call you all morning," she said accusingly. "I really need to talk to you."

  "I can't talk," said Ellen. "I'll call you back."

  The phone rang again. It was Julia, her voice low and throaty. "Guess who just left my bed."

  "I can't talk right now," said Ellen again. This was becoming like some sort of awful comedy. "I'm sorry."

  She hung up.

  "Breathe," said Patrick, standing at her office door.

  "Shut up."

  She called the journalist's mobile number. The phone went straight to voice-mail. Ellen tried to keep the panic out of her voice as she left a message.

  "My stepson had an accident," she said. "I've been at the hospital."

  Her voice didn't sound authentic. It sounded forced and fraudulent. She felt like she was lying, because she'd never called Jack her "stepson" before and because she hadn't been at the hospital with him, she'd been at the hospital seeing Saskia.

  Patrick mimed deep breaths at her. Ellen waved him away.

  The guilt she was feeling was all out of proportion: She hadn't murdered anyone. In fact, she hadn't actually done anything except forgotten an appointment.

  As she completed her message--I'd still love the opportunity to talk to you! ("love the opportunity"; she sounded like a telemarketer)--she heard the doorbell ring.

  Patrick went downstairs to open the door, and Ellen's heart sank as she recognized the client's voice. It was Mary-Kate turning up late as usual for her two-thirty p.m. appointment. Mary-Kate certainly deserved a paragraph in the article exposing Ellen. The journalist could calculate how much Mary-Kate had spent over the last few months without any progress. Then they could mention how much Ellen had spent on those boots she'd only worn once.

  I'm a bad person, thought Ellen. A bad, bad person.

  (He'll never love me the way he loved Colleen.)

  (He'll eventually leave me and I'll be a single mother like Mum.)

  (Without a job.)

  (And to top it all off, in five very short years I'll be forty. Forty!)

  "Mary-Kate," she called out, filled with decisiveness. She walked briskly down the stairs as Patrick ushered Mary-Kate inside. "I'm very sorry but I can't see you today. In fact, I can't see you again."

  Mary-Kate looked startled. Ellen registered that there was something different about Mary-Kate today. Her face didn't look as doughy as usual. Also, she was carrying a bunch of flowers, and she was wearing a long buttercup yellow scarf.

  "I'll just check on Jack before I go out." Patrick raised his eyebrows questioningly at Ellen over the top of Mary-Kate's head, his tired eyes clearly trying to communicate something along the lines of, Are you sacking all your clients now? He gave a minute shrug and disappeared up the stairs.

  "Is everything OK?" asked Mary-Kate.

  "Not really," said Ellen. "I think there's going to be an article in the paper tomorrow that's going to destroy my reputation."

  "Which paper?" said Mary-Kate immediately, as if she was going to rush out and buy a copy.

  "The Daily News," said Ellen. "I'd really rather you didn't read it, to be honest, but look, my point is--"

  "Well, let's see what we can do about it," said Mary-Kate. "Oh, and by the way, these are for you." She handed over the flowers.

  "Thank you." Ellen stared at the flowers. They were yellow, like Mary-Kate's scarf. "I really don't think there's anything you can do, although I appreciate--"
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  "Tell me everything."

  "Pardon?"

  "To the extent that you can do so without breaching confidentiality, tell me everything that has happened."

  "I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand."

  "I'm a barrister," said Mary-Kate. "I specialize in defamation law."

  Chapter 24

  But I have a little boy.

  --Colleen Scott's first words upon being told that

  she had only a few months to live

  I dreamed that Lance from the office was sitting next to my hospital bed, together with a pale, red-haired woman I didn't know.

  "No, Lance, I still haven't watched The Wire," I said, for my own entertainment.

  "That's OK," he said. It wasn't a dream. Lance really was sitting next to my bed.

  "Are you in a lot of pain?" said the woman. "My cousin broke her pelvis years ago. She said the pain was worse than childbirth."

  "I haven't experienced childbirth," I said. Who was this woman?

  "Me neither," she said. "It's the universal pain benchmark, isn't it? It's like you can't talk about pain unless you've experienced childbirth. Although, apparently, passing a kidney stone is worse."

  "We should be taking her mind off the subject of pain," said Lance.

  "I was trying to show empathy," said the woman. "I always say the wrong thing at hospital visits." She glanced at me and said, "I'm Kate, by the way, Lance's wife, if you can't place me. We met at last year's Christmas party."

  "Of course," I said, although I wasn't sure I could remember meeting her before. Didn't I usually find an excuse for not going to the Christmas party?

  "We just thought we'd stop by," said Lance.

  "We're on our way to the movies," said Kate.

  There was silence. I couldn't think of anything to say. I didn't understand why they were visiting me.

  Then I said, "What movie are you seeing?" at the same time as Lance said, "I've got a card from everyone at the office."

  He handed me a white envelope with my name on it.

  "And chocolates." Kate held up a box and waved a hand in front of it like a game show hostess. "And trashy magazines. Oh, and grapes. Very unoriginal."

  I tried to open the card, but I couldn't seem to manage it, my hands were shaking too much.

  "Let me do that," said Lance gently.

  "Would you like a chocolate?" said Kate.

  "Maybe later," I said.

  "Do you mind if I have one?"

  "Kate," said Lance.

  "Sorry," she said.

  "You can have one," I said.

  I looked at the card Lance had given me and read some of the scribbled messages.

  Saskia! No need to throw yourself down the stairs just to get out of the Eastgate project! Get well SOON! Malcolm

  Thinking of you, Saskia, will be in to visit soon, Lots of love Nina xx

  Dear Saskia, you poor thing! Keep your spirits up! J.D. (I'll be in with chocolate brownies on Saturday)

  "Is there anything you need us to pick up for you?" said Kate, who was helping herself to a second chocolate. "I remember you saying that your family is in Tasmania, so..." She glanced briefly at Lance as if she was worried she was saying the wrong thing. Lance cleared his throat awkwardly and looked up at the blank television screen next to my bed. Kate kept talking.

  "My family is in Brisbane, so I understand what it's like, you know, other people have sisters and mothers and cousins and whatnot. Really. It's no trouble."

  I stared at them. At Lance. He had kind, sleepy eyes and big shoulders, as if he worked out. I don't think I'd ever properly looked at him before. I looked at his wife. She was extremely thin and flat-chested--"gamine" my mother would have called her, with very short hair and big eyes like a woodland creature. She was sitting at a strange angle on the chair, still eating my chocolates. Maybe I did remember talking to her at the Christmas party, about a holiday she'd taken to Cradle Mountain. I'd left the party early to sit outside Patrick's house in my car. I saw him come home and carry Jack inside, asleep on his shoulder, his head lolling.

  I thought of Jack again and his broken arm, and Ellen telling me that I should move away from Sydney, and what would these two nice people visiting me think if they knew what I'd done last night, what I'd been doing for the last three years, and I felt a plummeting sensation.

  "It's a shock, isn't it, when something like this happens," said Kate. "Your life is going along one way, and then, wham, you get thrown a curveball." She jerked her head to demonstrate herself avoiding a curveball and half the chocolates went flying from the open box on her lap.

  "Kate," said Lance. He crouched down to pick up the chocolates.

  "Oops," said Kate.

  "I'm not..." I was trying to say: You don't understand. You think I'm a normal person like you, but I'm not.

  The words dried up. It was as if my entire personality had disintegrated. I was still breathing, my heart was still beating, but I was no longer here. The brisk professional Saskia that Lance had known, and the crazy Saskia that Patrick had known, had both vanished. I had no idea what sort of person I was: funny or serious, quiet or loud. If I stopped wanting Patrick, what did I want? What was I interested in? Did I exist at all? These two odd, sweet people were looking at me as if I did exist, but my very existence seemed questionable.

  "Boogie boarding," I said suddenly.

  "Oh, yes," said Kate amiably, as if that was a perfectly normal thing to say out of the blue.

  "I thought Nina said you fell down a flight of stairs." Lance frowned. "She said you were walking in your sleep."

  I had no memory of telling Nina that, but it was logical.

  "Boogie boarding is an interest of mine," I said, and then I thought, Did I just say that out loud?

  "Me too!" said Kate. "Well, not that I've ever actually been boogie boarding, but I'd like to try it, or, well, to be accurate, I'd really like to try proper surfing, on a proper surfboard. I've been meaning to have lessons."

  Lance snorted and Kate slapped him on the arm and looked at me brightly.

  "Looks like they've got you on some pretty good painkillers, have they then, Saskia?" said Lance.

  "Don't be rude," said Kate. "She's making perfect sense."

  "I didn't say she wasn't," said Lance.

  "Whose phone is that?" said Kate.

  I recognized the sound of my mobile phone. Kate lifted up my leather bag. "Should I answer it?"

  I looked at the bag. How was it possible that I still had my bag? After all that had happened? For some reason it struck me as amusing that I still had my bag. I laughed out loud.

  "I really want some of what you're having," said Lance.

  "I'll answer it." Kate burrowed in my bag and pulled out the phone.

  "She didn't say she wanted it answered," said Lance.

  "Saskia's phone!" Kate stood up and walked away from the hospital bed with my phone pressed to her ear. I heard her say, "Well, yes, she is here, but, now don't worry, she's fine, it's just that she's actually in the hospital at the moment."

  "Sorry," said Lance. "Kate can be a bit..." He shrugged, unable to find the right word to describe his wife. "Sure you don't want a chocolate?"

  "All right," I said. I took a chocolate and watched Kate chatting animatedly. A few minutes later she came back and put the phone next to my bedside table.

  "That was your friend Tammy," she said. "You were meant to be meeting her for a drink tonight? Anyway, she's on her way here. I gave her directions."

  "We should get going." Lance slapped his hands to his knees and half rose from his chair. "We don't want to tire you out, Saskia."

  "I guess we should." Kate looked at her watch. "Although we've got plenty of time. We could wait until Tammy gets here if you want the company, Saskia?"

  I had every intention of saying something like, Oh, you'd better not miss your movie, but the words that came out of my mouth were, "Please stay."

  "Of course," said Lance and Kate at the
same time.

  It was early evening and Ellen's house was unexpectedly full of people.

  Patrick's parents and brother had come over to sign Jack's cast and give him get-well gifts and, to Ellen's mild irritation, although she couldn't explain why, so had her own mother. Anne had given Jack the book of Guinness World Records, which had proved to be a huge hit.

  They were all crammed around Ellen's dining room table eating sausages that Patrick had cooked on the barbecue. Patrick had come back from the police station in a better frame of mind. The police had praised him for his Stalking Incident Log: a ring folder full of meticulously kept records of Saskia's actions over the last three years, including printouts of e-mails, letters and descriptions of "incidents." (Ellen had flipped through it, marveling at Patrick's terse comments: "12:30 a.m., 27 July: S banged on front door, demanding entry, ignoring repeated requests to leave.") Patrick had been told that an interim Apprehended Violence Order would be issued and that Saskia would be given the option to appear in court to contest it. She would also most likely be charged with trespass. It seemed that this time, whoever had been on the desk at Patrick's local police station had given Patrick exactly the right level of respectful, authoritative sympathy. He was no longer seething. He had the look of a man who was finally about to be vindicated after a long fight for justice.

  Ellen had her mobile phone on the sideboard within hearing distance. She was waiting for a phone call from Mary-Kate, who was going to try to get the newspaper article stopped. Ellen wasn't holding out much hope. It seemed highly unlikely that Mary-Kate--stodgy, morose Mary-Kate--would be able to take on someone as powerful and shiny-toothed as Ian Roman.

  "I'm not making any promises," Mary-Kate had said, after she'd listened to Ellen's story, using a small leather notebook to take down cursory, decisive notes. "But as soon as I leave here, I'll file for an interlocutory injunction. There's not a chance in hell we'll get one--the courtshave this thing about freedom ofspeech, so you basically can't ever get one--butI'm aiming to convince the Daily News's lawyers thatwe will. It's clear the story's motivated bymaliceand sounds like it'd really flush your reputation down the toilet. But anyway, I'll go in tough."

  "I thought you were a legal secretary," said Ellen faintly.

  "Nope," said Mary-Kate, most unbarrister-ish.

  A memory resurfaced now of Mary-Kate saying she worked in the "legal profession." Ellen had just assumed she was a legal secretary. Would she have been more patient and respectful with Mary-Kate if she'd known she was dealing with a barrister? Shamefully, the answer was yes.