His hair, straight and so black it was almost blue, touched his collar and his eyebrows were thick and straight. Though it was impossible to make out the color of his eyes, they were harsh and urgent and, teamed with the tenseness of his stance, for a split second I had the impression of a gun-slinger, readying himself for a draw.
My skin had prickled at the threat, but he came forward, his manner cool and put together, and the impression became a fleeting trick of the light.
Wiped of all expression, his eyes were exact and penetrating. Like looking into a one-way glass. You couldn’t see who was on the other side, but you knew someone was watching and assessing. As he came closer I saw his eyes were, in fact, whiskey with gold flecks glittering in them, and his nose, lips and jaw were so perfectly chiseled, they were as if cut from glass. He was an extraordinarily stunning specimen of the male species.
I had felt a thrill run through me. It was insane to be so affected by a man who had not even touched you, but God! I wanted him. I felt myself blush. Since coming out of hospital I could not remember ever feeling such an instantaneous and powerful attraction for anyone. My life was already a complicated mess, though. I most definitely did not need to fall headlong into a crush on my hypnotist.
He came forward as if to shake my hand, but he did not. Instead he waved me toward a seat. As I started walking toward it I became hyper-aware of my own body, the way it moved, instinctively, sensuous as a snake, totally unlike me.
But he was professional, precise and detached, and after a while my body stopped trembling with a strange craving for the feel of his skin, his mouth, his teeth. Just once when I had come out of the hypnosis he had looked at me, and desire had hummed between us. It was as if his body was talking to me. I felt it like a tingling between my legs.
Again it was he who coldly terminated the exchange. And after that there were no more such occurrences. He held his distance and made it plain that there was to be nothing between us except the sterile politeness of a professional relationship. We were to be two people who had nothing in common and didn’t particularly like each other.
And yet I felt as if he was the only person in the world I could truly trust. He was my bridge to the past. The only one who could make the memories come alive again. When other people spoke of things that happened I felt no connection to it. Almost as if they were playing a trick on me. Remember when you and your brother put horse shit in a handbag and left it in the street for people to find?
No. I don’t remember. Not at all.
I went to Dr. Kane and told him to make me remember the dung in the handbag incident. He put me under and the whole episode became alive. I remembered all the details in full color. The hay tickling my leg, the smell of the poo, the irrepressible giggles, the trip to the roadside, hiding in the bushes, shhh…shh…the sense of being so naughty, the way we had laughed, rolling on the ground at their disgusted expressions. And then running like the devil. So fast, my ribs hurt and my breath came out in huge gasps. Finally standing in front of Ivana, and her eyes twinkling as she pretended to chastise us.
He gave me back other memories, too. Scenes with my dog, Freya. I saw her running in the sunshine, her shining, and I felt again the deep love I had for her. When I was brought out of my hypnotic state I was shocked that I could have forgotten such a great love.
On another occasion I relived the time I hid behind a sofa and heard my mother tell my father that she was dying. The matter-of-fact way she said it. And Daddy was so shocked he let out a grunt of pain. I remembered being so stunned I could not move.
And I remembered the first day Ivana came to be interviewed for the job of Mummy’s nurse. I was five years old. She was dressed in very dowdy clothes, but her beauty shone through. I thought she was a movie star. We met in the hallway. She was on her way out. I stared up at her.
‘Oh my, wow! What a pretty girl you are,’ she exclaimed.
I became cripplingly shy and dropped my gaze down to my shoes.
She went down on her haunches and told me she had a little boy a little younger than me. He was two years old. ‘Some day I’ll bring him to meet you,’ she said. And then she brought out a box of gobstoppers from her handbag and offered them to me. Her eyes were kind.
I guess she must have pitied me even then. And when I lay in hospital all those months in a body suit because my ribs were so badly crushed, it was Ivana who visited me every day. Every day without fail she came. Always smiling, always encouraging.
Watson, our driver, stopped the car. We were outside Dr. Kane’s practice.
‘Thank you. I’ll text you when I’m ready,’ I said, and got out.
I stood on the pavement for a second and men and women alike turned to look at me as they passed me by. Wealth. It always drew the eye. I rang the bell and Beryl buzzed me in. I walked up the wooden stairs and entered Beryl’s domain.