The Hypnotist's Love Story (22 page)

Patrick was distracted by the approach of the flight attendant. He twisted his head to look. “Should we have a drink? Except we’ll have to pay for it, so it doesn’t seem as decadent. That’s the problem with these cheap flights.”

It couldn’t just be a coincidence, could it?

She nearly said it out loud, to test the possibility. “Huh! That’s funny, I have a client who has exactly the same problem.” Except she knew it wasn’t a coincidence, and she knew he would know it wasn’t.

Deborah.

What was her last name?

Deborah Vandenberg.

She could see Deborah Vandenberg’s face so clearly. She ran late for her very first appointment. She had seemed a little odd, a little shifty-looking, but then, many of her clients seemed odd and shifty at their first appointments. It was because they had never seen a hypnotherapist before and didn’t know what to expect. They kept looking about warily, as though they suspected someone was about to play a practical joke on them.

“I’ve had this pain in my leg,” she’d told Ellen, and ran her palm down the length of a long, slender blue-jeaned thigh.

She told Ellen that sometimes she had to sit down to cook dinner. She told her about a “smarmy doctor” who asked if she’d been experiencing any “stress” lately, and she’d been so furious at the implication that she could be imagining the pain that she’d walked out without saying another word.

Deborah was Saskia.

Saskia was Deborah.

All this time obsessing over Saskia and she’d already met her, she’d talked to her,
she’d been in her house
.
She was tall and striking. Interesting-colored eyes. Hazel. Almost gold. Like a tiger’s eyes. (Ellen noticed eyes. It was because she’d been brought up in the shadow of her mother’s violet eyes.) Well dressed. Articulate. She would never, ever have picked her as a stalker. She had not had a definite picture in her head of Saskia, but she’d been imagining her as small, with squinty eyes, a scurrying insane little mouse of a person. (Why did she think tall people couldn’t be crazy? Because they looked like they ruled the world? Because she admired them and coveted their legs?)

She felt Patrick’s hand on her arm. “Ellen? Did you want a drink?”

The interesting thing was that she quite liked her. Deborah—Saskia. She’d enjoyed their sessions. Their chats. She’d admired her boots once, and Deborah—Saskia—had told her about how they were actually comfortable as well as beautiful, and Ellen had gone out and bought exactly the same pair, spending more money than she’d ever spent on shoes.

She was wearing those boots right now.

“
No, I’m fine,” she said to Patrick, tucking her boots under her seat.

So did Saskia really need help with her leg? Or was that just an excuse? And what exactly was her objective? Did she just want to observe Ellen? (In the same way that Ellen would have quite liked to have secretly observed Jon’s new wife-to-be, the dental hygienist, except that she would never actually make an appointment, because she wasn’t
that
interested, and, more to the point, how embarrassing if someone found out.)

Patrick sighed and stretched out his legs.

“The best part of leaving Sydney is knowing that I don’t need to worry about Saskia suddenly turning up anywhere. I didn’t even bring my mobile phone. I gave Mum and Jack the number at the hotel and your mobile number. I hope that’s OK, I meant to ask you.”

“Of course it’s OK.”
Oh, no, no, no.

“
So that’s the last thing I’m going to say about that woman for the rest of the weekend. I’m not going to talk about her, I’m not going to think about her, I’m
not going to see her. We are now entering a Saskia-free zone.”

Oh, God.
Ellen tapped two fingers rhythmically against her forehead. If it wasn’t so awful it could nearly be funny. Or at least slightly amusing.

“What’s the matter?”

“I just remembered something. Something I meant to do before I left.”

She had told Deborah, or Saskia, exactly where they were going this weekend. She had even told her where they were
staying
.

She’d called her the other day on her mobile phone to ask if they could reschedule their Monday appointment. “I’m unexpectedly going away,” she’d told her. “For a long weekend to Noosa.”

“I’m envious,” Saskia had said, in her cool Deborah voice. “I love Noosa. Where are you staying?”

“I think my partner has got us booked at the Sheraton,” Ellen had answered. Partner! She’d called Patrick her partner! Why had she done that? She didn’t even like the word. It was because Deborah seemed like the sort of woman who would find “boyfriend” too juvenile a term. But why had she even needed to mention Patrick at all? For some reason she had wanted Deborah to know that she was in a relationship. Because Deborah had seemed like an attractive professional fortyish woman who would be in one of those elegant relationships involving vineyards and boating and really high-quality sex, with no accidental pregnancies. She had wanted Deborah to think that she was in one of those relationships too.

So because of her foolish, unprofessional desire to impress a
client
(whom she should not have wanted to impress in the first place), she had helpfully let Saskia know that they were going away for a romantic weekend to the same place where she and Patrick had
met.

She glanced at Patrick. He had leaned his head back against the seat and let his face relax.

“I don’t even realize how tense she makes me until I get away,” he said without opening his eyes.

Ellen dropped her head and hit the heel of her hand against her forehead
in silent anguish. Instead of making life easier for Patrick, she’d actually aided and abetted his stalker. Her mouth went dry and she lifted her chin. Saskia wouldn’t
follow them all the way to Noosa
, would she? She couldn’t, for example, have booked tickets on
this very flight
?

Ellen unbuckled her belt and lifted herself slightly up in her seat to glance over the top at the faces of the passengers sitting around them. People avoided her eyes, or had their heads bent reading or talking. Only one little girl sitting on her mother’s lap and sucking crazily on a dummy stared back curiously. Ellen plonked herself back down, repressing a hysterical desire to giggle or cry.

Now she was going to spend this weekend lugging around not one but two major secrets. At any moment she could open her mouth and instantly wipe that relaxed expression off this poor man’s face.

He opened his eyes, and the sunlight pouring in from the window made them look very green. “You OK?”

“I’m great.” She patted his knee and turned to look out the window at the wing of the plane. “I’m just great.”

So I managed to get myself on the same flight as them.

They walked straight past me. Patrick was in front, frowning at the seat numbers on his boarding pass. Ellen was walking behind, looking dreamily about.
I don’t need to frown at my boarding pass because my “partner” will find our seats. I’m so new age and happy and pregnant.

She’s going away with her “partner.” I hate that word. It’s so Sydney. What’s wrong with “boyfriend”? When he was with me he was my boyfriend. I was his girlfriend.

And we’re all off to Noosa for the weekend. A jolly threesome.

I dropped the boogie board when she said “Noosa.” Just when I think there are no new ways for him to hurt me. Why Noosa? They’ve got a whole country full of places for a romantic weekend away and he chooses Noosa.

I thought my memories of that week were safe. I thought nothing could touch that time. I feel like I can remember every minute. Every taste, every sound, every smell.

I can still feel the exact shape of my room key in the palm of my hand and taste the exact combination of salt and ice and alcohol in my mouth from the margaritas we drank as we stood together in the hotel lift, looking up at the flashing floor numbers, both of us knowing that we were going to my room to make love for the first time. I can still see the sunburned face of the young boy who wheeled in the clunky trolley with breakfast the next morning: the smell of fresh coffee and bacon. I can still see the croissant flakes scattering the front of the newspaper we read in bed.

He’s even staying at the Sheraton. Why would he book there? I can’t help but wonder if it’s because his memories of that week are just as special, and he thinks—he could be so
stupid
sometimes—that he can get back that happiness with someone else.

He can’t. He can’t just delete me from all his memories and replace me with another woman.

That’s why as soon as I got the call from the hypnotist I knew I had to go. I had to be there. I have to let him know that I’m there too. I’ll always still be there.

I’ll choose the perfect moment to let them know that I’ve come along. He’ll be angry but that’s OK. I’d rather his fury than his indifference. I’d rather he was yelling at me than not to exist at all.

Patrick was in the bathroom cleaning his teeth, and Ellen was already in bed watching a movie they’d paid for and eating chocolate from the mini-bar.

The room was perfectly lovely. King-size bed with crisp white sheets, big fluffy towels, soft shadowy lighting and neutral colors.

Exactly like other hotels where she’d stayed with other men.

“Where did you stay when you were here last?” Ellen had asked as they were going up in the lift.

“Here,” Patrick had answered, his eyes on the numbers of the floors flashing above them.

“So this was the hotel where you met Saskia?”

“Well, I knew it was good,” said Patrick, and then he laid a finger across her lips. “We’re not mentioning her name this weekend, remember?”

So poor Saskia had to hear that Ellen and Patrick were going to stay in the same hotel where they first met. For heaven’s sake, it was no doubt the same hotel where they’d made love for the first time. What would hearing that have done to her twisted mind?

Ellen looked at the door and thought of horror movies. They would order room service and Saskia would dress up as a staff member and wheel the trolley in with her head lowered and the music would be letting the audience know that something really terrible was about to happen, and then, just as the music reached its terrifying crescendo, she’d suddenly
leap
at them with a carving knife held aloft and—

“Did you remember toothpaste?” Patrick put his head around the door.

“Yep. There’s some in my makeup bag.”

He was still too polite to go through her stuff without permission.

And she was having his baby.

Too soon. Too soon.

“
Well, of course you’ll have the baby,” Anne had said.

“Not necessarily,” Ellen had replied, surprised by her mother’s definite tone. She had assumed Anne would say something more along the lines of
I’ll support you whatever you decide, and what form of contraception were you using anyway?

“It depends on what Patrick says. And you know, I’m … pro-choice.” It was an American phrase. For a second, she wasn’t even sure she’d picked the right team. What was the other side called? Pro-life. Well, she was all for
life
.

Anne snorted. “You’re thirty-five, not sixteen. You’re desperate to have a baby—”

“What? Where did that come from? I am not desperate to have a baby.”

“I saw the expression on your face at Madeline’s baby shower, when you were holding what’s-her-name’s baby—and I have to say that was a particularly ugly baby.”

“Mum.”

“He looked like a little toad. Anyway, my point is that you do want to have children, and you’re financially secure, and you like the father, you might even love the father. If you had an abortion, and then you found you couldn’t get pregnant, you would never forgive yourself. Of course you’re having the baby. You just tell him you’re having a child, neither of you meant it to happen, but it has, and it’s not 1950, so he doesn’t have to marry you, and he can be involved as little or as much as he likes. It’s all very simple. He will have legal obligations in regard to child support, but if I were you, I wouldn’t worry too much about that. You’ve got your grandparents’ house. You’ve got me and your godmothers. You don’t need his money.”