Hypnotized

by Georgia Le Carre

  ‘Hello, how terribly sweet of you to come all the way from London,’ she trilled.

  ‘It was kind of you to ask us, Lady Swanson.’ I nodded toward Beryl. ‘This is Beryl Baker, my assistant.’

  She smiled charmingly. ‘But of course, I remember you.’

  ‘You have such a beautiful home,’ Beryl gushed.

  ‘Yes,’ she said with a little laugh, ‘we rather like it, but it can be frightfully dreary down here, you know. No proper restaurants or theaters and freezing pipes all winter.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind. It’s so beautiful,’ Beryl said. Her little face was quite red with excitement. ‘Oh, and thank you so much for inviting me.’

  ‘Not at all. I’m delighted to have you both here.’ Lady Swanson leaned forward, her eyes sparkling as if she was excluding the rest of the room, and sharing an intimate secret that only Beryl and I were privy to. She was a socially expert individual of the highest order, obviously. ‘Was there a lot of Friday traffic on the roads?’

  ‘No. It was fine,’ I said, hiding my amusement.

  Beryl was still nodding vigorously in agreement when I cast my eye out for the waiter. He was walking toward me with a straight back and a tray with a glass of wine and my whiskey placed on a napkin square.

  Beryl and I accepted our drinks and Lady Swanson said, ‘You must let me introduce you to my husband.’

  We followed her toward a large, gilded grandfather clock where a rotund, balding, florid-faced man was standing stiffly next to a stout woman with a pink face, fat, heavily bejeweled hands, and a snooty tilt to her nose. Her lipstick had bled into the leathery creases around her mouth.

  ‘Darling,’ Lady Swanson said, ‘this is Dr. Kane, the hypnotherapist I was telling you about. The one that’s treating Vivi.’ She turned to me. ‘Dr. Marlow Kane, my husband, Lord William Elliot Swanson.’

  So that was little Olivia’s nickname—Vivi. Totally unsuitable.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, his bushy gray eyebrows raised, as he took my hand and pumped it heartily. I could imagine him in a waxed jacket, gun in hand, whistling for his dogs.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, and listened while Lady Swanson introduced the woman with the greasy lipstick. She had a double-barreled last name that I did not bother to remember. She looked at me vaguely—a subtle method of telling me I belonged to an inferior class.

  ‘And this is Beryl Baker, his assistant,’ Lady Swanson said. With that piece of information the woman’s eyes completely glassed over.

  At that point the butler caught Lady Swanson’s eye. She nodded and excused herself. Lord Swanson nodded blankly at Beryl and turned to me. ‘Did you have much trouble getting here?’

  I sighed inwardly. ‘No. It was fine.’

  ‘No traffic? Don’t people leave London like lemmings at the weekend?’ he boomed.

  ‘Not this weekend.’

  ‘Jolly good.’

  And with that the conversation was apparently over. He smiled at us in an expansive if dim way, and nodded us away.

  I steered Beryl away. Olivia’s father was dull and not particularly bright, but his birthright as the male heir of the Swanson fortune meant that he was deferred to so sycophantically that he had no idea how uninteresting and stupid he really was. All these people who bowed and behaved as if the sun shone out of his ass were happy to go along with the illusion of his greatness because it kept their importance in the scheme of things secure.

  We were drifting toward the tall, mullioned windows when a familiar voice said, ‘Hello. So glad you could make it.’

  We turned around to face Olivia. She was wearing a velvet black dress with a high neckline and black lace sleeves. Her glossy hair was up in some sort of chignon that made me imagine taking it down and twisting it around my fist as I rammed into her.

  ‘Hi,’ Beryl grinned.

  ‘I see you’ve met Daddy,’ she said softly, her silvery eyes straying from me to Beryl.

  ‘Yes. He seems…very nice,’ Beryl said.

  Olivia’s expression said that she did not believe Beryl thought any such thing, but all she said was, ‘I’d like you both to meet my siblings.’

  First was her sister, Lady Daphne.

  She had inherited her mother’s beautiful eyes and she had very good skin. Otherwise she was, unfortunately, the spitting image of her father. She was only nineteen, but incredibly, she had already cultivated the critical, calculating hauteur of a dowager. Her voice was a sarcastic, assessing drawl and her cold gaze dismissed and traveled away from us even as she said, ‘How do you do?’

  An awkward silence ensued as soon as the introductions were done. Olivia quickly herded us away and introduced us to a sleek man standing next to a painting of a dour ancestor, his eyes glazed with boredom. He was wearing a double-breasted, navy wool pinstripe suit, the pocket square, stuffed not folded, and the tie a different pattern but still working together perfectly. The tie knot was a gentleman’s knot, small, tight, four-in-hand with a dimple. Obviously a polo playing, champagne guzzling city boy.

  Beryl said something quietly in Olivia’s ear and both ladies excused themselves. I presumed they were on their way to the powder room. My eyes nearly swiveled around to turn and watch her go.

  ‘So you’re the hypnotist?’ Jacobi Gough Swanson drawled, eyeing me curiously over the rim of his champagne glass.

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Mummy seems to think you’re rather wonderful.’

  ‘It’s not certain that will be her deathbed opinion yet.’

  ‘I have no doubt you’ll do very well,’ he said suavely, but some quickly hidden expression in his eyes made me wonder if Olivia had a secret enemy in him.

  ‘I don’t suppose you hunt?’ he asked.

  ‘As a matter of fact, I do.’ But not foxes, I added in my head.

  His lips twitched unpleasantly. ‘Good. You can join us tomorrow.’

  ‘Thank you, but we’ll be leaving right after breakfast.’

  ‘Perhaps next time.’

  ‘Sure, why not.’

  ‘So what’s it like being a hypnotist?’ There was a smug chuckle in his voice.

  ‘Not much different from selling hundred-year Mexican government bonds denominated in euros, or ten-year Swiss bonds at negative yields, I suppose,’ I said quietly.

  His eyes narrowed. I had just pulled his superiority rug out from under his feet.

  ‘Does that mean it’s not going well with Olivia?’ he asked coldly.

  I looked him squarely in the eye. ‘Olivia’s case is complicated. Not that I am at liberty to discuss it with you.’

  He appeared suddenly amused. ‘Is that code for my sister’s bonkers?’

  So he was jealous of his stepsister. ‘No. It could be code for don’t believe all you are told.’

  He widened his eyes sarcastically. ‘What fun! A mystery.’

  I refused to be baited. I smiled coldly. I knew his type. He was an unpleasant, selfish, spoilt brat, and I didn’t like him, so it was weird that it was he who should then give me the biggest clue of all to solving the mystery that was Olivia.

  ‘Do you think she’s making it all up?’ he asked.

  ‘Why would you think that?’

  ‘Well, it’s a bit careless to lose one’s memory twice in one’s lifetime, wouldn’t you say?’

  I frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Didn’t anybody tell you?’ he sneered triumphantly. ‘The first time my sister lost her memory was when she was five years old.’

  Alarm was crawling in my belly. ‘Under what circumstances?’

  ‘She fell down the stairs, hit her head, and completely trashed five years worth of memories. Had to start from scratch. Of course, I know only the barest facts. I was only three.’ He delivered his speech with an aloof, deadpan expression, his mouth hardly moving, keeping his upper lip very stiff.

  I stared at him, shocked. Why had no one told me?

  ‘Are you familiar with the effects of closed head injuries?�
� he asked cordially, as if he was asking if I had read the weather report for tomorrow.

  I nodded curtly. Depression, personality changes and psychiatric issues.

  14

  Marlow

  More rattled than I wanted to admit, I glanced away from him and saw Olivia and Beryl returning.

  ‘We’ll be having dinner in a minute,’ Olivia said. ‘And Ivana was wondering if you’d like to take Lady Calthrope in.’ I followed her glance to a tight-lipped, bone-thin woman in her mid-sixties seated on one of the sofas.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, just as dinner was announced.

  I walked over to Lady Calthrope and she looked up at me with pale, hooded eyes. ‘Are you taking me in?’ she demanded.

  ‘Unless you don’t want me to,’ I said.

  She raised a thin, blue-veined hand imperiously. I grasped it and helped her up. She stood for a moment staring boldly at me. ‘So you’re the American hypnotist.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She linked her hand through my arm and without the least trace of embarrassment said, ‘That’s good. I was rather afraid you might be one of those ghastly Americans.’

  There was nothing to say to that so arm in arm we followed the tasteful procession in to dinner. The State Dining Room was everything a State Room should be: blended strawberries wallpaper, seventeenth-century ceiling murals, a dining table that spanned from one end of the room to the other, massive chandeliers, heavy gilt mirrors, museum-size paintings, and a stunningly carved marble fireplace. We took our seats amid the flowers and candelabras.

  I looked for the waiter and nodded at him. He returned speedily with my American measure of whiskey.

  I had Lady Calthrope on my left, which, according to etiquette, meant that I was to talk to her until the first course was cleared away. There was no sharing platitudes with her—it was more like bouts of blunt trauma with an eccentric twist. Between rounds I glanced at Beryl and she smiled or raised her eyebrows at me from across the table, but I quickly realized that she was sitting next to a man who had decided that no conversation at all was possible with her. After a few failed attempts to engage him, poor Beryl was spooning her buttery leek and Stilton soup in stony silence.

  Although I was intensely aware of Olivia sitting three guests away on my left, I never let my gaze travel to her. When the places were cleared, as custom required, I turned to converse with the guest on my right.

  The Baroness Wentworth was a straight-backed woman with sharp blue eyes and pale lipstick. She smiled mildly at me. ‘So, you’re a hypnotist.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said politely, and catching the waiter’s eyes, nodded.

  She glanced sideways at me. ‘Is it dangerous to look you in the eye?’

  ‘I wouldn’t recommend it,’ I said gravely.

  She giggled. ‘You don’t mean to say those frightful stage hypnotists are fakes?’

  I shrugged. ‘It depends. If you see inconsistencies, then it’s a fakery. If you don’t, it isn’t.’

  ‘Inconsistencies such as?’

  ‘If a hypnotized person picks up a glass of water that he has been told is battery acid and drinks it then he is not hypnotized. He is either pretending or a shill. If he refuses to drink it then he is, because he genuinely believes it is battery acid and it will harm him.’

  She turned fully toward me. ‘How fascinating. And how does one become a hypnotist?’

  ‘I wasn’t always a hypnotist. I began as a neurologist.’

  ‘I like clever people and I’ve always made a beeline for them.’

  I glanced at Beryl. She was now being ignored by the gentleman on her other side. Her shoulders were sodden with disappointment and humiliation. All around me bits of foreign conversation swirled. An old boy was talking about getting pissed in the Bullingdon Club, a woman had been served a nice fat red Margaux at lunch the day before, someone else was discussing his stock of rare breeds in his organic farm, another had spent fifty thousand pounds at an auction but could not remember what he bought. The hubris and rudeness of this group of people was just too much.

  Beryl was a sweet person who had arrived in such high spirits, so excited to be in the presence of the ‘cream of society’. But the haves had thoroughly snubbed a have-not. I was furious on her behalf and I was damned if I would let these stuck-up bores treat her as if she was a non-person.

  I picked up my glass and to the open-mouthed horror of the Baroness I excused myself, and, standing up, sauntered over to where Beryl was sitting. The entire table had fallen silent with shock.

  I looked at the man on Beryl’s right. ‘I’d like to exchange places with you. I believe I’m offering a far more advantageous seating choice. You’ll be sitting next to a Baroness no less.’

  There was a horrified gasp from one of the ladies on my left.

  The man gaped like a caught fish. He looked around him and then incredulously at me.

  ‘Surely you don’t mean for me to move halfway through dinner?’ he asked as if doing so would be tantamount to committing a cardinal sin.

  My eyes and jaw were answer enough.

  Without another word and with stony-eyed resentment he pushed his chair back and walked around to my seat. I took his place and winked at Beryl. ‘I thought you looked a bit lonely,’ I said.

  She grinned suddenly, her whole face lighting up. Around us servants were busy moving plates and cutlery to accommodate the switch.

  I glanced up to catch the waiter’s eye and met Olivia’s eyes instead. For a second we stared at each other then I moved my gaze along and met Ivana’s regard. Her expression was carefully veiled. Only a mask of social politeness was on display. She raised her eyebrows slightly at me. It was impossible to say what she intended to convey with this subtle gesture.

  After dinner the men and the women separated as if we were still stuck in Edwardian times. Without the sexual tension provided by Olivia or the warmth of Beryl I became quickly and intolerably bored. I consumed another dose of Lord Swanson’s fine Scotch and left. I couldn’t stand the smell of their cigars or their unsubtle attempts to turn me into an outsider by constantly referring to the charmed circle of people they all knew. I was an outsider. God, was I glad that I wasn’t a member of their exclusive club.

  I made my way back to my room. Someone had come in, drawn the curtains, and added fresh logs to the fire. It looked cozy, but it was actually chilly. There was a distinct draft coming from somewhere. I retrieved the tooth glass from the bathroom and poured myself a glass of whiskey. I drank it by the fire staring at the dancing orange flames and considered the events of the evening.

  What her brother told me put a whole different slant onto Olivia’s amnesia. I had to get to the bottom of it soon. There was very little time left before Olivia was going to insist on knowing exactly what was going on.

  I felt the drink seep into my brain cells, relaxing me. I was starting to feel drowsy when there was a knock on my door. Surprised, I went to open it.

  Young, haughty, dismissive, precocious Daphne was standing in the deserted corridor. I raised my eyebrows. She was the last person I expected to see outside my door. She had been such a bitch. ‘All well?’ I asked.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, opening the door wider.

  She sailed in. I closed the door and leaned against it.

  ‘Dinner was pretty filthy,’ she said with her back to me.

  ‘I thought it was excellent.’

  She swung around on one heel, like a dancer. ‘Are you sleeping with her?’

  ‘Whom did you have in mind?’ I straightened away from the door, my face expressionless.

  ‘My half-sister, of course,’ she replied, with a pleasant smile.

  And I knew then without a shadow of a doubt that she hated Olivia with the fierce hatred that comes from excruciating envy.

  I crossed my arms. ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but no.’

  She smiled shyly, but her eyes were filled with malicious delight.
‘I saw her watching you.’

  ‘I don’t make a habit of sleeping with my clients. Far too confusing for me, let alone them.’

  She smiled again, this time in that cold, aloof manner of hers. ‘What about their sisters? Have you slept with any of them?’

  I stared at her. She was totally different from the girl/woman I had met in the Green Saloon. This was the Daphne Swanson with her well-bred spine exposed, without the pretensions or the aura of fake hauteur that her social set deliberately cultivated to place them apart from mere mortals. Here was the real Daphne, the central figure in her own drama.

  ‘I can’t say I have,’ I said mildly.

  She bit her lower lip. ‘Would it be too awful to start tonight?’

  My eyebrows shot up, but before I could answer there was another knock on my door.

  She blanched, but in a flash she ran into one of the cupboards and shut the door on herself.

  Bemused, I opened the door. Beryl was standing outside. Her cheeks were flushed and she looked glazed about the eyes. Why, she was as drunk as a skunk.

  ‘Oh good, you’re still awake,’ she slurred. ‘I was hoping you’d be.’ She proceeded to sway unsteadily into the middle of the room right where Daphne had been standing. She turned around and almost lost her balance.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  She waved her hand and smiled benevolently. ‘I feel great. I just wanted to thank you for what you did tonight at the dinner table.’ She raised her forefinger and wagged it at me. ‘You rescued me.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ I said quickly.

  ‘No, no, no,’ she argued shaking her head. ‘No one else would have done such a thing. You’re a good man, Dr. Kane. A really good man. And handsome, too. You’re really handsome, you know. If I was twenty years younger…’

  I looked at her with amusement. She was going to be mortified in the morning. If she remembered, that is.

  ‘It’s a lucky woman who gets you,’ she continued.

  I shifted away from the door. ‘Where have you been all this while?’ I found it hard to believe she had been accepted into the club and had been getting sloshed with them all this time.