The Hypnotist's Love Story (19 page)

Putting that aside, did Patrick even
want
another child? At all? Ever? She thought he did, but now that she considered it, she saw that her beliefs were based on flimsy evidence, such as the fact that he adored his son, and she’d once seen him smile tenderly at a stranger’s baby, and his
mother
wanted him to have more children and he seemed very fond of his mother. Also, he was a lovely man, and lovely men should automatically want more babies because it was a biological imperative that they pass on the loveliness gene.

In fact, it was quite possible he’d smiled at that stranger’s baby because he was thinking,
Thank God that’s all behind me.

She felt a cold chill at the thought. It was ridiculous. She knew so much about him—he was frightened of spiders, he couldn’t see the point of cucumber, he’d once punched a boy called Bruno—but she didn’t know this one essential point.

And let’s assume he did want another child, what would they actually, literally
do
?

Would they move in together? Into her house or his? Get married? She didn’t want to live in his house. The bath was too shallow and the kitchen too small and the color of the living room carpet was bad for her soul. She loved her grandparents’ house and working in this room and falling asleep to the sound of the sea. But maybe it would be disruptive to Jack to move him out of his home? And what about Jack? Was he ready to have a little brother or sister?

A little brother or sister. That gave her another fresh start. The baby was either a boy or a girl. That was already decided. Oh my goodness, she was having a
baby.
She suddenly felt weak with a strange feeling that she thought might be equal parts hysterical terror and blinding joy. A baby.

“Ellen? Could we get started?”

It was her two o’clock. Luisa. She had just returned from using Ellen’s bathroom and was looking at her with a faintly angry expression on her attractive, sculpted face. Ellen had always sensed an undercurrent of barely controlled fury in Luisa. She was a relatively new patient, a daughter of a friend of Julia’s mother. She was seeing Ellen for “unexplained infertility,” and she had made it quite clear that although she didn’t actually believe in “this sort of mind control stuff,” she had got to a point where she was willing to try anything. She said she was also seeing an acupuncturist, an herbalist and a dietitian. Imagine if Luisa knew that Ellen had
accidentally
, clumsily, foolishly, inconveniently become pregnant. The world was an extremely unfair place.

I was in my late thirties when I met Patrick, so I knew if I was ever going to have a baby he was my only chance. It wasn’t like I had to beg him or anything. He said yes straightaway. He even seemed excited by the idea—he kept talking about how he didn’t want Jack to be an only child—but then, as the months went by without anything happening, he seemed to lose interest.

He didn’t want to talk about it and he refused to see any doctors. He didn’t even want to try on the right days. He said, “I don’t want to hear that you’re
ovulating
.” As if ovulating was something disgusting.

In all honesty, he was a bit of a bastard about it.

I forgave him. I understood that it was different for men. They don’t have the biological drive.

He said, “Saskia, my love, if it’s not meant to be, it’s not meant to be.”

Which was true. We had Jack.

Except that it wasn’t true.
He
had Jack. I didn’t have Jack at all. And I wasn’t his love.

Turned out that it
was
meant to be. He was meant to have another baby, just not with me.

“Sorry? What did you say? You’re inviting me to a Tupperware party?” Ellen was on the phone to Danny, the young hypnotherapist she’d been mentoring over the past year.

“Ha! Yeah, right!” shouted Danny. He appeared to be calling from a nightclub. He reminded Ellen of Patrick’s younger brother, Simon. That generation seemed to have a different dialect or accent or something. They all sounded ever so slightly American, and there was an amused casualness about the way they saw the world, as if nothing was beyond them. Maybe it was technology. It put power in their fingertips.

Or was that the way Ellen had sounded when she was twenty-four too? No. She’d never been casual about anything.

“Let me just go outside for a moment,” said Danny.

I’m pregnant, Danny. Pregnant. That means I’m having a baby. And I’ve only been dating the guy for three months. What would you do if your girlfriend told you she was pregnant after only three months?

“
OK, is that better?” The background noise had vanished. “No, what I’m saying is, you know how you’ve got Tupperware parties, right? So I was just standing at the bar and listening to these two women, middle-aged—mothers, I guess—and they were talking about how much weight they needed to lose, and their personal trainers, and how long you need to run on the treadmill to work off a roast potato, and you could tell they were, like,
passionate
about this shit.”

“I’m having trouble following,” said Ellen.

“Hypno-parties! I’m going to run weight-loss hypno-parties! So all these
women can get together and I can give them a group hypnosis session for weight loss. I’d use Flynn’s rapid induction techniques you were telling me about—he wouldn’t mind, would he? These chicks would be in the perfect receptive state anyway. Then a standard script with a few positive affirmations—maybe an aversion suggestion for every time they look at a roast potato or open the fridge? But they’ve got to cook dinner for their kids, I guess. Anyway, I can work out all the details. What do you think?”

“I’m not exactly—” began Ellen.

“It’s perfect! How much do you think I could get away with charging?”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Ellen. “I always prefer to individually tailor treatment to—”

“The money they spend on these personal trainers. I could get them better results.”

“Maybe you could.”

All the women would fall in love with him. He’d been the only male in the Introduction to Hypnotherapy course Ellen had taught, and he was attractive and charismatic but in an understated way that made you think you were the only one to have noticed. When he was doing Ellen’s course, he always took a seat at the far right of the room, and Ellen had noticed the way all the other students unconsciously leaned toward him, like flowers bent by a breeze.

She could hear a girl’s voice in the background now calling out, “Danny! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

I bet you have, thought Ellen. When Danny looked at you, he held eye contact. It was a gift. Not many men could do that without appearing psychotic.

“So, anyway, I’ve got to go, the idea just hit me and I wanted to see what you thought! I’ll call you, OK? How are you anyway, Ellen? Sorry. I never even asked.”

He didn’t sound perfunctory. He sounded like he genuinely cared. Maybe he did. Or maybe he was the ultimate salesman.

“I’m fine, Danny. You go.”

It was later that night and Ellen was slouched on the couch watching
Beauty and the Geek
and using her fingers to eat a plate of roast potatoes, which was all she felt like for dinner.

It wasn’t like it was the first time in her life she’d ever experienced a strong desire for a particular type of food, but now that she was pregnant she felt entitled to label it a “craving.” Perhaps the baby needed potato.

Or perhaps it was just that Danny had mentioned roast potatoes and her subconscious had obediently responded to the suggestion.

She allowed these thoughts and words to cross her mind—
Now that I’m pregnant … the baby … craving—
and felt as though she was doing something slightly illegal. She couldn’t just waltz into that whole complicated world of motherhood without some sort of official entry pass, could she? What was the entry pass? A marriage license? It seemed crazy that as of yesterday the thought of having children was still something far in her future, and then today, after one trip to the chemist, she was craving roast potatoes and thinking about “the baby.” Next she’d be having pickles and ice cream for dessert.

The carbohydrates and the bad television were putting her into a sort of half-comatose state. Her head felt stuffed full of cotton wool.

Baby brain
.

Enough, Ellen!

The phone rang and she put her plate to the side and heaved herself off the couch with a grunt. Now she was even walking like a pregnant woman, with one hand supporting the small of her back. She made herself stand upright. She really was the most suggestible person in the world.

It was her godmother Melanie. That was good. Mel didn’t really like talking on the phone and was always in a hurry to finish up the conversation. She would be quick, and Ellen could get back to the enjoyably stupid beauties and endearingly geeky geeks.

“I just wanted you to know how much I liked Patrick,” said Mel. “I
really, really liked him. And such an improvement on that Jon. Such a self-satisfied prick. I hope you don’t mind me saying that.”

“The self-satisfied prick has just asked someone to marry him,” said Ellen.

“Oh, that poor girl,” said Mel with genuine feeling. “What a lucky escape for you.”

And just like that, Jon was safely locked away in the filing cabinet at the back of her memory where he belonged. Ellen felt a surge of gratitude and affection for both her godmothers. Pip had also called earlier today and left a long, rambling, giggly message on Ellen’s voice-mail all about soul mates and wedding bells, and was she too old to be a bridesmaid? Of course, Ellen’s own mother hadn’t called yet.

“Your mother liked him too,” said Mel.

“Did she say that?” said Ellen.

“Well, no,” admitted Mel. “But I could tell. Speaking of your mother, did she seem herself to you on Friday night?”

“I think so.” Ellen dragged her mind with difficulty to her mother’s behavior on Friday night. Hadn’t Anne been her normal self? Ellen had been so focused on Patrick and herself, she hadn’t really spent much time observing her.

“Why?”

“Oh, nothing, really. She’s just been a bit, hmm, secretive lately, like there’s something she’s not telling us.”

Look, I am currently dealing with a very big secret myself. I don’t have time for my mother to have secrets too. I am meant to be the young, interesting one.
Why couldn’t her mother be dull and staid with the major upheavals of her life safely behind her, like Patrick’s mother?

These were the childish thoughts that crossed Ellen’s mind as she looked longingly at her roast potatoes and the flickering television set.

“You don’t think she’s sick or something?” she said in a sudden panic that she was about to be punished for her selfishness.

“No, no,” said Mel. “How stupid of me to worry you. She’s in perfect
health. She flogged me at tennis just the other week. I’m probably imagining the whole thing, or I’m just desperate for gossip. Ignore me. The whole point of this phone call was to tell you that I really liked Patrick. Now I must let you go. Talk to you soon!”

She was gone. Nobody ever finished phone calls more abruptly than Melanie, unlike Phillipa, who spent at least twenty minutes wrapping up each conversation. If it had been Pip saying she’d noticed something strange about her mother, Ellen would have put it straight out of her mind, but Mel wasn’t the type to imagine things. Her mother must be hiding something. Of course, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. People were allowed to have secrets.

“I myself have a secret,” said Ellen out loud. It was an unusual feeling. She couldn’t remember the last time, if ever, she’d had a secret of this magnitude, one that would give people a little shock.

Just you and me, kid. We’re the only ones who know about this.

She would keep it that way for a while longer.

She was halfway through another roast potato when the phone rang again. This time it was Julia.

“I can’t believe you set me up with a guy who comes up to my armpits!” she shrieked.

“Sorry,” said Ellen with her mouth full. “I didn’t know.”

It was so tempting to make Julia shriek even louder with two little words: I’m pregnant.