Does Your Mother Know?

by Maureen Jennings

  “First off, I wasn’t making any insinuations. Second, I didn’t make your daughter do anything. I asked her to help me, and she agreed to do so.”

  “Help you with what? Who are you making out to be a criminal?”

  Before I had a chance to shout back at him, which I was on the verge of doing, Joan got off the couch and went over to him. She bent close and began to speak in Gaelic.

  “It’s rude to speak in a foreign language when there’s somebody in the room who doesn’t understand you.” I knew I was getting loud again.

  She hesitated, then nodded. “I apologize. I was only asking him to calm down. You’ve had a shock, and we’re all suffering from frayed nerves.”

  She sat down and took MacKenzie by the hand, holding on tightly the way women do when they expect to receive bad news and are bracing themselves.

  “You’ve got something on your mind, Chris. And we can’t go any further until we clear the air.”

  “All right. This is what I’m thinking. I saw that photograph of you with Tormod and his children. You were about twelve or thirteen—”

  “Thirteen.”

  “Okay. He was quite a lady’s man, as I understand it. In other words, a sleazeball. I’m thinking that he sexually interfered with you and that you came back here to confront him.” She stared at me in horror. I ploughed on. “Perhaps things got out of hand, I don’t know. You would be furious with the man and rightfully so. Sexual molestation causes dreadful psychic wounds.”

  Duncan gaped at me. “It sounds as if you think your own mother murdered Tormod MacAulay.”

  Put like that it sounded ridiculous, but I was already so far out on a limb I couldn’t come back.

  “All I’m doing is trying to get to some truth for once in my life.”

  “But murder ! You are out of your mind, woman. He’s been properly buried, and there’s no police investigation called for.”

  Again Joan laid a restraining hand on his arm. “Chris is a police officer, don’t forget. She’s trained to be suspicious of everything.”

  “Well this takes the cake. Her own mother!”

  I was tempted to yell out at him that the majority of murderers have relatives, mothers, fathers, a spouse, and quite often children. Having a blood relative doesn’t mean you never commit a crime.

  I addressed Joan. “To put it bluntly, did Tormod MacAulay molest you when you were a child?”

  She actually smiled briefly. “No, he didn’t. Never. Not once. I swear that’s the truth.”

  “So you didn’t come back here to confront him?”

  “No. Nothing like that.”

  “Why then, after all these years? What are these bloody demons you’re hell bent on exorcising?”

  “I... I had several reasons for returning.”

  I caught the quick squeeze she gave to MacKenzie’s hand. He was involved for certain, but surely he didn’t fall into the category of “demon,” as in exorcising thereof.

  “But come on, Christine,” Joan continued. “You haven’t spit it all out yet. I can tell. What else have you been thinking about me and Tormod?”

  Now I was the one feeling cornered. I could deflect the question, deny it, which was a kind of lie or, as she said, “spit it out.” I spat.

  “Was he my father?”

  I don’t know what I expected really. A tearful acknowledgement, a tearful denial? Neither. She stiffened, stared at me for a moment, then answered calmly.

  “No, he wasn’t, Chris. And I swear that is the truth as well.”

  I believed her, but I’d also seen the fleeting expression of fear and the glance of surprise from MacKenzie. I wasn’t the only one who had questions, it seemed.

  Joan smiled slightly. “Well then, is that all? You thought Tormod had diddled me and you were the result.”

  “Something like that. It’s not unheard of.”

  “You can put your mind at rest on that score then. I didn’t hate Tormod MacAulay because he’d had his way with me.”

  “How did you feel about him?”

  “It was a long time ago. I can hardly remember.”

  That comment made me hot with anger. “That’s strange. I can remember how I felt about everybody I’ve ever known. I might not be able to tell you what Mr. and Mrs. Cohen looked like, but I can say for sure that I liked them.”

  “Are you asking me if I liked Tormod? Well, I didn’t. Open your ears, Christine. I did not like him. Got that? And that’s all I’m going to say about it. It’s all in the past.”

  Lies if ever I smelled lies, but shaking her wasn’t going to get the truth, so I just sat back defeated.

  She stood up and said in a gratingly cheerful voice.

  “Now we’ve cleared the air, are you going to put me into hypnosis or not?”

  “The air is not cleared, Joan. It still smells.”

  Duncan practically eviscerated me with a look. “Cut it out. Don’t speak to your mother like that.”

  “It’s all right, Duncan. I know my daughter. She just needs a little time. Isn’t that right Chris?”

  “Yes! No... Oh hell, it doesn’t matter.”

  “I tell you what, why don’t Duncan and I go into the kitchen and give you a bit of space. Say, five minutes?”

  That was so ridiculous, I actually laughed. I stood up.

  “I’m going to go outside and commune with the sheep. It may be longer than five minutes.”

  “Of course.” Joan was using her reasonable voice, which she did when she wanted something. I headed for the door. Joan called after me.

  “Whatever comes of this, Chris, I will take full responsibility.”

  Ha! That would be a first, I thought.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I returned in about half an hour. The sheep had been indifferent, but the softness of the air and the quiet of the fields had worked on me. I walked back in and said I would do it.

  It was obvious from his expression that MacKenzie’s faith in the essential goodness of humanity had been grievously shaken by my lack of filial loyalty. However, Joan had enough lightness for all of us. She positively sparkled.

  “Oh, I knew you would. Thank you, Chris. What do we do first?”

  “The session will have to be taped. Do you have a tape recorder and blank tapes?” I asked Duncan.

  “Aye. Will you be needing notepaper as well?’

  “Yes.”

  He went off at the trot and disappeared through a back door that I presumed led to the bedrooms.

  “I don’t know what I’d do without him,” said Joan in a conspiratorial tone. “What do you think of him, Chris?”

  As Yogi Berra said, this was “déjà vu all over again.” What do you think of Joe, Pet? Of Tony? Of Clark?

  “He seems better than a lot of them.”

  She chose to take it straight. “Oh, he is. He’s the best.”

  And I’m betting he’s the reason for the sexy lingerie, not to mention the condoms. The return of the prodigal daughter to the arms of her childhood sweetheart.

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

  “First off, make sure your bladder is emptied. I don’t want you to have to go to the bathroom in mid-session.”

  “Och. I’ll go right now.”

  She passed Duncan as he came back with the tape recorder. They smiled at each other. Both of them in their sixties, he in good shape, she overweight and bruised and battered, but there was no hiding that glow of sexually satisfied love.

  “Here you go. Where do you want me to put it?”

  “She’ll have to lie down on the couch, so I’ll sit to one side and it can be on the floor between us. Is there a microphone?”

  “Yes.” He grinned at me. He was thawing a little. “I go in for the local singing competitions, and it’s good to record yourself.”

  “Did you ever win one?”

  “Placed second last year. I’m hoping for better this time. Oh, sorry, about paper, all I could find was my accounting book. Will
it do?”

  He handed me a blue bound book which had a hard cover.

  “Great, thanks.” I was trying for politeness at least.

  Joan came back. “I’m ready.”

  “Okay. Go and lie on the couch, feet uncrossed, hands by your sides. I’ll sit in the chair.”

  “What about me?” asked Duncan. “Do you want me to leave?”

  “No, it’s better if we have a witness to the authenticity of the tape.”

  “I thought you said it couldn’t be used as evidence?”

  “It can’t, but it might be considered an investigative tool.”

  Joan lay on the couch and, without being asked, he covered her with a blue mohair blanket.

  “Mr. MacKenzie, I’d rather you sat at the table,” I said. “And please don’t move or, of course, talk”

  “No, Ma’am.” He made a mocking salute.

  So much for my being nice to the guy. He couldn’t stand me, that was clear.

  “Will you feel inhibited by having Mr. MacKenzie present?” I asked Joan.

  “I’m sure he’d prefer you to call him ‘Duncan.’ Wouldn’t you, Dunc?”

  “If it makes her feel better to call me Mr. MacKenzie, it’s no matter to me.”

  Okay. And it did make me feel better. The formality was propping up my pretence that I was actually working.

  “To get back to your question,” said Joan. “I’m happy to have Dunc here, but we are only going to deal with the accident, aren’t we? You’re not going to go into anything else, are you?”

  “No, but you can’t always control what comes up.”

  She raised her head. “I thought you said I could.”

  Once again, I held tight to my patience. “You can and you can’t. We won’t know what you’re thinking or remembering unless you tell us, but you yourself might experience things you didn’t expect.”

  She was starting to seem doubtful, and I wondered what she so much wanted to avoid. Could be her entire sordid history, of course, if she wanted to impress the latest boyfriend.

  “Do you want to go on with this or not?”

  She lay back on the couch. “I have to.”

  Her voice was full of emotion, and I could see how close to the edge she was. I leaned in a little. No smell of liquor. I wanted to make sure she hadn’t taken a fast nip of something while she was out of the room.

  I lifted the microphone. “Testing, one, two, three.” I hit the playback button. Fine.

  “All right, let’s start.”

  I pressed RECORD.

  Although few people nowadays think a hypnotist has to have a Svengali-like personality and deep-set burning eyes, there are still common misconceptions. The truth is you simply cannot be hypnotized against your will, but some people are more hypnotizable than others. It has a lot to do with fear of losing control. When we were practising with each other at Quantico, I could only allow myself to go to a certain level of trance. Not for me the imperviousness to a pin prick, which a few — not many I can tell you — experienced. I just went into a pleasantly relaxed state and never lost awareness of my surroundings. I was considered one of the control freaks.

  A fairly resonant voice and calm manner were assets when taking somebody into a trance. I didn’t know how much calm I was going to project, but I sat down and tried to resonate. Joan opened her eyes, startled. Too loud. I tempered my volume and we were off and running. It wasn’t quite as difficult as I’d thought it would be, because I had in fact done dozens of practice sessions and, like riding a bike, the familiar patter came back immediately.

  “Breathe deeply and exhale completely. Every muscle, every nerve relaxes.”

  I went through each muscle group from bottom to top, repeating the command to relax. Calf muscles relax, thighs relax, and so on. After about ten minutes, Joan’s breathing had deepened considerably and she was entering into a light trance. Taking a person down into a deeper trance usually is done by counting in a slow and measured way to a plateau, like taking a boat down a series of canal locks.

  By the time I reached fifty I thought she had gone down pretty deep.

  “I’m going to touch your hand with the tip of my pen. If you feel the touch, just raise your forefinger on that hand. You do not have to speak.”

  I pressed the pen into the back of her hand, hard enough to leave a blue ink mark. She didn’t stir. I pushed a little harder, no response. She was hypnotized.

  I glanced over at Duncan, who was literally on the edge of his seat.

  “Now, Joan. In a moment I am going to ask you to speak, but this will not disturb your state of relaxation. At any time you feel uncomfortable, you can tell me and we will end the session. Okay so far? You can just raise your finger again if the answer is, ‘yes.’”

  She did so and I continued. “I’m going to take you back to this past Friday evening. Just say whatever comes to you. Don’t worry about whether or not it is true or what it means. You will have to talk, but it won’t disturb your relaxed state. Deep breath again. Good. Now, can you tell me where you are?”

  She was slow to answer, licking her lips. “I am outside the hotel in the parking lot.” Her voice was low and breathy, as if talking were an effort, a typical trance voice.

  “Is there anybody with you?”

  “Yes, Sarah.”

  “Why are you meeting her?”

  Her eyelids flickered, and I was afraid I’d been too directive. “Always keep your questions neutral,” the instructor’s Yankee twang leaped into my brain.

  “Continue to relax, breathing deeply.”

  She quieted again.

  “What are you and Sarah doing?” I asked. That was a better way to put it.

  “We’re going to see Tormod.” Joan sighed. “Poor Sarah. The truth was such a shock. I’m thinking we should wait, maybe go tomorrow. I haven’t even seen him myself yet. But she won’t. She says we’ve got to go at once. She’s had too much to drink as well, but if I don’t go with her, she’ll go herself. ”

  “What is the truth that shocked her so much?”

  Damn. Another mistake. Too hot a question. She licked her lips and moved her head so sharply, eyelids fluttering, I was afraid I’d blown the whole session. I slowed down, reinforced the trance again, and waited.

  “Go on, Joan. Just say what you’re doing.”

  “We’re in the car?”

  “Who’s driving?”

  “I am. She wants me to drive faster, but I can’t. She wants to know everything, but she’s crying so much, she doesn’t hear half of what I’m saying.... I can’t believe I’m on the moor again....” Another twist of her head and her breathing got more shallow. She began to speak to some unseen person. Her voice and even her face changed and she acted like a young kid. “If you make me do that, I’ll run away. No, I won’t. Chan eil e tha mo maithir. Chan eil ... ” the last words were pushed from her with so much energy she might as well have been shouting.

  I glanced over at my shoulder at Duncan for a translation and he mouthed. “You’re not my mother.” Joan must have dropped into an age regression, and I gathered the anger was directed at the wicked stepmother. It’s quite usual for subjects in a hypnotic trance to shift time frames and revert to a previous age. Joan was still twitching and restless, muttering words in Gaelic.

  I returned to the patter. “Continue to breathe deeply, relaxing completely. Breathing in... and out... in... and out... ”

  It worked, and she started to calm down. I repeated a few more in s and out s, then I thought we were ready to go on.

  “Joan, we are going to stay with the immediate present. Focus on being in the car with Sarah. It is Friday. You and Sarah are going to see Tormod MacAulay. Tell me what happens when you get there. What do you see?”

  A little smile appeared at the corner of her lips. “The house hasn’t changed a bit after all this time, except he’s got a flower garden in the front. I want to give him some flowers like I used to, so I pick some from his own garden. Sarah i
s banging on the door.... Oh poor Tormod, oh what a shock. He looks so ill. He doesn’t even know it’s me at first. Sarah wants to burst out at him on the spot, but I make her come inside. ‘Alo a Thormoid, ciamar tha thu?’ Then he realizes it’s me and he starts to cry. Just as if he was a girl. He wants to hug me, but I don’t want to.... I make us all sit down at the table. Sarah starts yelling at him at once. She won’t even let him talk, but he feels bad too. ‘Oh no, look at what you’ve done. You’d better get a cloth. Stop it, you’re being a brat. Uh, uh, somebody’s come in. ‘Who is it, Uncle?... Sarah give him a chance.’ Oh poor Tormod. His skin is so yellow. I didn’t know. ‘No, Sarah, you’ve had enough... ” There was a choked-back sob at this point, and tears began spilling from beneath her eyelids. “I’m so sorry.”

  Suddenly, she fell into another severe crying jag, and she opened her eyes and sat up. The trance state was shredded like paper.

  I handed her some tissues and waited until she had calmed down. Duncan, not sure of what to do, was hovering behind me.

  “I think that’s all we can do at the moment, Joan.”

  She looked at me in alarm. “But we didn’t finish. I still don’t know what happened.”

  “You came out of the trance. Something about the memory was too upsetting for you. We never got past you being at Tormod’s. Do you remember what you said?”

  She nodded and wiped her face. “I do. At one point I know I was telling her she wasn’t my mother. Which she wasn’t, the bitch. My brothers sided with my father, too afraid of him probably, and Annie couldn’t have wrapped her tongue around a good word for me if you’d roasted her on a spit. I used to mind Tormod’s bairns for him whenever I could. His house was like a raft in the middle of an icy sea.”

  It was my turn to flinch. I’d once said that to her about why I wanted to live with the Jacksons, and I wondered if she was using those words deliberately. She gave no indication, however, and I assumed she’d just incorporated the expression unconsciously.

  “Was Tormod’s wife good to you as well?”

  A quick blink. “She didn’t like him to pay attention to anybody else.”