The Hypnotist’s Love Story

by Liane Moriarty

  Rosie closed her eyes.

  Ellen watched Rosie's chest rise and fall and let her own breathing fall into the same rhythm. She spoke rapidly and smoothly, imagining her words pouring into Rosie's mind like liquid from a jar.

  "I'm wondering if you can visualize a wall. And I'm sorry to tell you that it's painted apricot. But the good news is you're repainting it an exquisite blue. Your paintbrush is moving up and down in rhythmic strokes. Up ... and ... down. Up ... and ... down."

  Too complicated? Ellen had found she needed to be careful with her metaphors. Men often got too literal. A man might say afterward, "You should have had me paint an undercoat first." Women tended to go off on tangents. One of her earliest clients had said that she loved to sunbake, so Ellen did what she thought was a pretty safe induction about lying on a tropical beach. Afterward, the client admitted that she'd spent the whole time trying to choose which swimsuit to visualize herself wearing.

  Ellen watched Rosie's eyes move rapidly behind her eyelids and noted the tension in her body: her shoulders up, her hands gripping the sides of the chair, her fingers pressing hard into the leather. A cloud moved across the sun outside the window and a beam of light caught the diamonds of Rosie's chunky engagement ring.

  "Each time you see that paintbrush move, notice your body sink into a deeper feeling of relaxation. You'll probably find your breathing is starting to flow in rhythm with the paintbrush. Up ... Down ... In ... Out. Up ... and ... down. In ... and ... out."

  She watched Rosie's tiny, pixielike black boots fall outward in a V-shape. "Watch their feet," her mentor, Flynn, used to tell her. "That's the giveaway."

  "The wall is nearly finished. By the time it's entirely blue ... or perhaps a little while later ... you will be enjoying the most glorious state of relaxation you have ever experienced."

  Rosie's mouth drooped, her face sagged and her head lolled to one side. If some of her clients knew how they looked when they were in a trance they would be horrified. It was something that Ellen had never mentioned to anyone, not even other therapists. It felt like something deeply personal she shared with her clients.

  OK, Ellen, just exactly what are you going to do with this blue wall you've got in front of you?

  But she knew. Sometimes her work felt clumsy and forced. Other days, like now, it felt natural and fluid. She was in a light trance herself. She was in the "zone."

  "Rosie, you have the power to turn that wall into a deep rich blue curtain like you might see on a stage. And behind that curtain somebody important is waiting for you. I don't know who, but it's someone with great wisdom, someone you trust implicitly. You're pulling back the curtain and that person is waiting for you. Maybe they're stepping forward to hug you."

  She waited and watched.

  "Are you with that person?"

  Rosie lifted her right index finger: the signal they'd agreed upon for "yes."

  "Now, it's my belief that this person has something to share with you. They might be able to tell you why you're finding it hard to give up smoking, or give you the resources or strength you need to break this habit. I'm going to be quiet now while you listen to what they have to say."

  A cloud moved across the sun again, and the room filled with warmth. Ellen could feel her own chest rising and falling in perfect rhythm with Rosie's. Rosie's face remained impassive, but she was chewing at her lip.

  After a few seconds Ellen spoke again.

  "Rosie," she said. "I'm wondering if you would like to share with me what you've learned. It's entirely up to you."

  For a moment Rosie said nothing and then she spoke. Her voice was a husky, slow monotone.

  "I don't want to marry him," she said. "That's why I don't want to give up smoking, because I don't want to be married."

  Ellen's eyebrows shot up, and her eyes went to the cluster of shimmering diamonds on Rosie's finger.

  "I don't really like him all that much," said Rosie.

  "So, this is my son, Jack!"

  Patrick stood in Ellen's hallway with his hands resting on his son's skinny shoulders.

  "Well, hi, Jack! How are you?" Ellen sounded exactly as she'd been afraid she would: like a librarian at story hour.

  "Good, thanks." The boy glanced briefly up at Ellen and then looked away again. He had his father's slightly almond-shaped pale green eyes. His thick blond hair was long and messy, cut over his ears like a 1960s rock star.

  "Good! Well, so ... great! I'm hoping you like sausage sandwiches." To her joyous relief, Ellen had discovered some sausages in the freezer before they'd arrived.

  Jack didn't appear to have heard her. He had his chin down and was tugging at the front of his T-shirt as if he was checking the fabric for strength.

  Patrick cleared his throat. "Ellen asked you a question, mate."

  "No she didn't."

  "Yes, she did. She asked if you liked sausages. You love sausages, don't you!"

  Jack shrugged his shoulders away from his father's hands. "I don't love sausages, actually, Dad. Also, she didn't ask if I liked sausages. She said, I'm hoping you like sausage sandwiches. That's not a question. It's like a sentence. See? She said, I'm hoping you like sausage."

  "OK, well..." began Ellen.

  "I love pizza. You said I could order a pizza tonight."

  "I said maybe we'd order a pizza tonight, but if Ellen has made sausage sandwiches for you, then that's what you're having." Patrick gave Jack a stern, paternal and somewhat panicky look.

  "I haven't actually made them yet," Ellen hastened to say. "You can have pizza, Jack, if that's what you prefer, of course you can."

  "Yeah. Thanks, that's what I'd prefer." Jack sighed gustily, as if someone was finally talking sense. "So, can I watch my DVD now?"

  "Jack. Please. You don't need to watch your DVD straightaway. That's not good manners."

  Ellen saw that Patrick's cheeks were sucked in as if he was clenching his jaw. He was desperate for Jack to make a good impression on her. Her own nerves vanished.

  "It's all right," she said to Jack. "My DVD player isn't working, but you can watch it on my laptop if that's OK."

  "Yeah, that's OK," said Jack kindly. "I can work your laptop." For the first time he tilted his head up to look at her properly.

  "You must be disappointed about your friend being sick," she said to him.

  "Yeah," he said impatiently. "Hey, will you please hypnotize me? Also, could you teach me how to hypnotize my friends? Like, so they do whatever I command? That would be so cool! They could be my slaves."

  "That's sort of unethical," said Ellen.

  "What?"

  "OK, let's get that DVD on." Patrick clapped his hands together.

  "You're acting really weird, Dad." Jack frowned.

  Patrick gave Ellen a self-conscious grin. "Weirder than usual, hey Jack?"

  Jack shook his head gravely. "Seriously, Dad."

  They headed down the hallway and Jack stopped to touch a fingertip to the silver metallic polka dots on the orange wallpaper. He looked back up at Ellen. "This is a cool house."

  "Thank you." She was so smitten she only just managed to stop herself from calling him "darling."

  Twenty minutes later Jack was sitting in Ellen's living room with the laptop on his knees, headphones over his ears, his eyes fixed on the flickering images on the screen and his big chunky sneakers up on Ellen's beautifully restored retro coffee table.

  Patrick didn't tell him to take his feet off the table, and Ellen didn't know how to ask him to take his feet down without sounding like an evil stepmother. What did a few scuff marks matter?

  "Well, he's gorgeous," she told Patrick when they were sitting at the dining room table. She had laid out a platter of sourdough bread and dips and big green olives. They could see the top of Jack's head where he sat watching his DVD through the dining room door. She lowered her voice slightly even though he obviously couldn't hear them.

  "He has his moments," said Patrick. He cleared his throat and smiled a
t her. "You're the first woman I've introduced him to since his mother died."

  "Well, that's an honor: But wait, didn't you introduce him to Saskia? I mean, you said you lived together for a couple of years. So she must have lived with Jack too."

  She hadn't thought about that before. Saskia had known Patrick's little boy as well.

  Patrick's nostrils twitched as if he'd just smelled something unpleasant. He spat an olive stone out into the palm of his hand. "I don't count her."

  Ellen was unsettled. He couldn't just pretend Saskia had never existed. He must have loved her once, in the beginning. And Ellen was not the first woman he'd introduced to his son. That was factually incorrect. She didn't like that.

  "How old was Jack when Saskia lived with you?"

  "He was a toddler, I guess."

  "And did they ... get on? Was he upset when she left?"

  "He doesn't even remember her," said Patrick dismissively, which didn't answer her question at all. His eyes lost their focus on her, and he suddenly called out, "Jack! Get your feet off the table!"

  How could he see that Jack had his feet on the table from here? Or had he noticed before and not bothered to say anything?

  "Excuse me." Patrick stood up and went into the other room.

  When he came back he was all set for a new subject. "So, how was your day today? You had a couple of clients, you said. Were they good, ah, sessions?"

  If she knew him better she would have said, I haven't finished talking about Saskia and Jack, but she was always struggling to contain her possibly voyeuristic interest in his ex-girlfriend. After all, he didn't seem to want to know anything about her ex-partners.

  So she told him about her session with Rosie and how she'd discovered that the reason she didn't want to give up smoking was because she didn't really want to get married. Of course, Ellen was careful not to reveal any names, or the fact that the cancellation of the wedding would probably make the social pages of the Sydney papers. She thought it was an interesting topic of conversation that showed her in a good light.

  Patrick listened intently, and then he squinted at her, as if he were trying to see through sunlight. It made him look older. He had deep lines on either side of his eyes, she guessed from all that outdoors work as a surveyor.

  He said, "She's calling off the wedding? Because of you?"

  "Well, I don't know exactly what she's going to do next. That's up to her. I guess I just helped her see how she really felt."

  "But imagine how that poor bloke is going to feel. Are you sure it's not just a case of cold feet? Or maybe she's just looking for an excuse for why she can't give up smoking?"

  Ellen felt irritated. She had been expecting fascination and even awe over what hypnotherapy could achieve. She scratched at a spot on her wrist. (Irritability always manifested itself as an itchy feeling on her right wrist, in the exact spot where she had suffered dermatitis as a child.)

  "I don't make my clients do anything," she said. "I help them to bypass the critical factor and directly access their unconscious minds. My client had what's called a mini 'satori.' It's the Zen word for enlightenment."

  Ellen thought back to the end of her appointment with Rosie. After she had come out with the revelation about her marriage, Ellen had given her a posthypnotic suggestion: "When you come out of this trance you will feel calm and in control as you make your decisions about what you want to do next."

  When Rosie had emerged from her trance, she had blinked and immediately held up her hand to look at her engagement ring. She'd slid the ring from her finger and held it up to the light with her fingertips, looking at it curiously like it was a strange and unpleasant scientific specimen. Then she smiled at Ellen and said, "You know what? I don't even like the ring."

  "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply any criticism," said Patrick. "I guess I just identify too much with the man."

  "It's OK," said Ellen. This was the first time there had been the slightest hint of tetchiness between them. It had to happen, she told herself. There was no need for alarm.

  "I saw one of those stage shows once," he said. "You know, where they call people out of the audience to hypnotize them. I have to admit, and I hope this doesn't offend you, but I'm assuming stage hypnotists are very different from, you know, proper hypnotherapists like you, but the thing is, I sort of hated it."

  Ellen smiled at his guilty expression.

  "That's fine," she said. "It's completely different from what I do."

  "I hated the stupid looks on their faces." He demonstrated by slumping back in his chair and letting his chin drop to his chest. He straightened back up and took a sip of his wine. "They looked so pathetic. It was like he'd drugged them and he could make them do whatever he wanted."

  "He couldn't really. They were still in control. He just helped them lose their inhibitions," said Ellen.

  "I like to be in control," said Patrick. "That's why I've never been a big drinker, and I've never taken drugs. I want to be in the driver's seat all the time, so to speak." He paused, took another olive and then delicately placed it back down on the plate in front of him. He kept his eyes fixed on the olive. "That's what I hate most about this thing with my ex. She's in control. She affects my life and I don't get any say in it and there's not a thing I can do about it. So I'm sorry if I sometimes seem a bit weird about her. It's just that when we're talking about her, it's like she's in the room with us."

  He looked up at her with the same pleading, desperate expression of the many clients who came to her seeking a solution they didn't really believe she was capable of providing, and Ellen experienced a sudden tiny shock of sympathy. It had been all false bravado on that first night when he'd told her about his stalker. Of course he was damaged by it: He was a stalking victim! It had been incredibly insensitive of her not to even think about this before. She had been so interested in Saskia and trying to understand her motivations she hadn't even properly considered the potential impact on Patrick. She was behaving as if only women felt real emotions, as if men were somehow a less complex life form.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "When I was asking all those questions about Saskia I hadn't thought about how she's the last person you want to talk about. I mean, the way this must affect you--it must be--well, obviously I've got no idea what it must be like."

  Patrick was still looking at her, straight in the eyes. There was some complicated feeling he was trying to convey to her. Perhaps he was having his own mini satori.

  He leaned forward. She leaned forward too. Good. He was going to share. This was going to take their relationship to a new deeper, more spiritual, more profound level.

  "Do you want to go upstairs for a few minutes?" he said.

  "And I think he's going to tell me something profound and meaningful, and it turns out he just wants a quickie! With his son right there. Sex was the furthest thing from my mind!"

  "It's always the first thing on their mind," said Ellen's friend Madeline.

  They were talking on the phone. Ellen was filing paperwork in her office and she could tell by the hissing and clattering that Madeline was cooking, probably something elegant and organic, and probably with a floral apron tied around her pregnant waist. Madeline was glowingly pregnant with her second child. She and Ellen had shared a flat when they were in their twenties, back when Madeline would have fallen about laughing at the thought of ever wearing a floral apron.

  Ellen would have called Julia, but she'd found that Julia's interest in hearing about Patrick had ever so slightly cooled as the relationship progressed. Even before Julia's divorce, she had always been the sort of friend you called when things were going badly rather than when they were going well. Now that Patrick was officially Ellen's "boyfriend," there was just the tiniest hint of contempt in Julia's voice when Ellen mentioned anything about him, unless it involved his crazy ex-girlfriend; she loved hearing about Saskia. It wasn't that she didn't want Ellen to be happy; it was just that she didn't think there was much to say about happin
ess.

  Madeline, on the other hand, was the sort of friend who cared deeply but was hopelessly inept when things were going badly, who panicked and changed the subject fast if someone's voice so much as trembled with emotion.

  Now Ellen frowned at the dismissive tone in Madeline's voice. "That's not true. That's a cliche," she said. "I've been out with men who never think about sex. Anyway, I'd just that moment had this revelation that I needed to stop thinking of him as a man, and think of him as an individual, as just another human being."

  "Just because he felt like sex doesn't mean he's not human."

  Madeline seemed to be missing the point.

  "Yes, but with his son in the house?"

  "Well, if you're going to live with him, then you might have to get over that."

  "Don't parents wait until their children are asleep?"

  "Wasn't the whole point of this story something to do with the expression on his face?"

  "Yes, that's right. So when I declined his charming offer, he got this look on his face, and I think it might have been a sulky look."

  "What do you mean you think?"

  "Well, the expression was only there for a flash. I think those people who specialize in detecting lies call it a 'micro-expression.' After that, he was fine. We had a lovely dinner, and afterward we played Monopoly with his little boy and that was fun. But I kept thinking about that face he pulled, that micro-expression, and I thought: Is this a sign? Am I going to look back one day and say that was the moment I should have got out? Because that's what micro-expressions do. They reveal your true self."

  "Ellen, this is the most stupid thing I've ever heard. The poor man is so enamored with you he wants sex every second of the day, and then when you turn him down, he shows the briefest look of disappointment--"

  "I know, I know, I'm awful. Overanalytical. Hysterical. It's just that I want this one to work, Madeline, I really want this one to work."

  "Well, of course you do," said Madeline crisply.

  So it's serious. The hypnotist has met Jack. As far as I know, that's the first woman he's introduced to Jack since me.

  I wonder what he thought of her.

  She doesn't really seem like a kid person. Too spiritual and floaty. Children like earthy, real people who get down on the floor and play with them. I can't imagine someone who talks about "light filling your body" sitting in a sandbox.