The Hypnotist's Love Story

While they are at dinner with Julia and Patrick’s friend Stinky, Patrick mentions a case in the US where a judge told a man in court that he should be flattered by his ex-girlfriend’s attention. She later murdered him.

Ellen had hoped to set Stinky up with Julia but imagines Julia will never be interested because Stinky is bald, chubby, and shorter than she is. Stinky admits he knew Saskia and liked her. He says he thinks love is a type of “madness” and admits he used to obsess about his ex-girlfriend. Ellen “still found everything about Saskia more interesting than frightening” (116).

Saskia wakes up on the beach wearing her red dress. After she left Maureen’s, she drove around Sydney to every place she’d been to with Patrick. She moved to Sydney from Tasmania several years ago and learned everything she could about the city. Being with Patrick, she reflects, was the most blissful time of her life. Her father and mother were in love, too, but Saskia’s father died when she was young and her mother raised Saskia on her own. Saskia knows she made Patrick happy; she thinks, “I’m not stupid. I didn’t imagine it” (119). Saskia realized, though, that she was living in the shadow of Colleen, especially Colleen’s wishes about Jack’s upbringing. As she reflects, a man with a boogie board addresses her. That afternoon, Saskia buys a wet suit and a boogie board.

Ellen feels tired and out of sorts on Monday morning. Over breakfast, she sees photos in the paper of Rosie’s marriage to Ian Roman. Seeing that Rosie married him despite her reservations makes Ellen “feel pointless and incompetent” (121). Harriet, her ex-boyfriend Jon’s sister, reports that Jon is getting married. Ellen realizes she never properly loved Jon, but she’s still hurt that he probably never loved her, either. She realizes this preoccupation with Jon resembles Saskia’s preoccupation with Patrick. Surprised at how emotional she’s being, Ellen tries to pinpoint when she last had her period.

Saskia, before her appointment, uses Ellen’s bathroom and sees the drugstore pregnancy test. She realizes, “The hypnotist is pregnant” (125).

Ellen feels the day going by in a blur. She and Patrick have only been together for three months. She is worried about how Patrick will react. Ellen works with a patient, Luisa, whom she is treating for infertility and thinks about how angry Luisa would feel to learn Ellen got pregnant unexpectedly.

Saskia wanted to have a baby with Patrick, but never conceived. He said it wasn’t meant to be, but she thinks, it wasn’t meant to be with her.

Danny, Ellen’s protegee, comes up with the idea of having hypno-parties to help women lose weight. Ellen finds this a dubious idea, but Danny is very charming.

Her godmother Mel calls to chat with Ellen and says that Anne has been acting secretive. Mel likes Patrick. Julia calls and tells Ellen she went out with Stinky. Julia, too, likes Patrick. Ellen wonders why no one told her at the time that they didn’t like Jon.

Patrick calls and says Saskia showed up at his office, crying about babies. She gave him a letter, which he refused to read. He asks Ellen if she would like to take a weekend getaway to Noosa. Ellen thinks she could tell him then, away from their day-to-day lives, and “they would come up with a correspondingly clean, elegant solution” (136).

Saskia feels devastated. She behaves like a professional at work, but then goes to Patrick’s office on her lunch break and bursts into tears. She feels there is nowhere for her rage to go because Patrick no longer sees her. She says, “It’s like I am smashing my head against an enormous, impassive silent cliff face, over and over, until I’m dripping with blood. Nothing I do will change his opinion of me. Nothing I do will make him see me again” (138).

Ellen’s mother surprises her with a visit and a bottle of wine. Ellen considers not mentioning her pregnancy. Anne says she sensed a kind of coldness about Patrick. When Ellen mentions being unhappy with Jon, Anne tells her not to rewrite the past to make herself a victim. Ellen blurts out that she’s pregnant.

Saskia calls in sick and goes to the beach with her boogie board. She’s bad at it, which is frustrating. She thinks about her mother and how she still misses her. Her mother wouldn’t approve of how Saskia fell apart after Patrick broke up with her. Four weeks after her mother died, Patrick ended things. Saskia doesn’t have other family or friends; she thinks, “I didn’t have enough other people in my life to cover the loss of this many people at once […] I didn’t have backup. I didn’t have insurance to cover a loss like this” (145). She can’t get the hang of the boogie board, and it seems to reflect how she can’t find love.

On the flight, Patrick tells Ellen he met Saskia at a professional conference in Noosa. She was active and enjoyed bushwalking, but then she developed an unexplained pain in her leg. Doctors couldn’t say why. Ellen realizes her client Deborah Vandenberg has the same problem, and Deborah must be Saskia. Ellen likes her and has enjoyed their chats. She bought a pair of boots because she had admired them on Deborah—i.e., Saskia. Patrick says he’s glad Saskia can’t find them, and Ellen realizes she told Deborah where she was going when she called to reschedule their appointment. She doesn’t tell Patrick, afraid to destroy his sense of calm.

Saskia has booked tickets on the same flight and thinks they’re like a jolly threesome, all off to Noosa for the weekend. She remembers meeting Patrick at the conference and taking him to her room to make love. He’s even booked the same hotel.

Ellen reflects on her discussion with her mother, who hinted that Ellen didn’t have to keep the baby. This made Ellen realize she wants it, but she “didn’t just want a baby. She wanted the whole kit and caboodle. The husband. The daddy. The man holding her hand in the delivery room” (155).

Patrick asks Ellen to hypnotize him to sleep. Doing so makes her feel like she’s a good witch, a sorceress. She helps him relax, then suggests that he will be able to handle whatever life throws at him. Ellen thinks she may be crossing an ethical line, though not like Saskia. Nonetheless, she dreams that night that Saskia is accusing her.

Saskia sees Ellen and Patrick in the airport, collecting their luggage, and reflects on her sessions with Ellen. She enjoys their chats and thinks they could have been friends. When Ellen asked her to remember a perfect moment, Saskia thought of pancake breakfasts with her mother. She doesn’t know how to explain the ache in her leg. She thinks of that ache as a permanent reminder of the person she was, who was active and happy, compared to the sad, out-of-shape, obsessive person she is now. Saskia feels like a witch trying to snatch back the happiness she once had.