Patrick had been so grateful, and he was such a good subject; that was the thing. He was like Julia. He had the ability to focus and visualize. He was more imaginative than he knew.

She got him to imagine himself climbing to the top of a mountain. He was carrying a backpack filled with the worry and the fury and the stress that the horrible client was causing him, and as he climbed the mountain he gradually discarded each one of those negative emotions, until he finally took off the backpack completely, and then he reached the summit, where he took in deep breaths of pure relaxing mountain air, and with each breath he went deeper and deeper into himself.

And as she’d watched his forehead smoothing and seen his chest rise and fall as he breathed in so deeply, it felt as if they were together at the top of that mountain, breathing the same air. She’d talked about how that clean, crisp mountain air was going to help him take clean, crisp decisive action. “You’ll do exactly what you need to do to get your life under control,” she’d said, “whether it’s calling your solicitor, or delegating paperwork, or moving those boxes that you’ve been wanting to move. You will systematically de-clutter your life, so that by the end of the week you’ll feel completely in control, able to breathe, energetic and exhilarated, as though you’re standing on that summit with your arms held high!”

You cannot be hypnotized into doing something that goes against your intrinsic values or, in fact, into doing anything that you don’t want to do.

She’d explained that so many times to her clients.

Patrick wanted to move the boxes. He wanted to get through his paperwork. He wanted to call the solicitor. He freely admitted that he was a procrastinator when it came to unpleasant tasks.

Her own self-interest didn’t change the fact that he would feel great once he’d moved the boxes.

“Bribe him with sexual favors,” Julia had said at dinner the other night.

“Refuse sex until he moves them,” said Madeline.

Surely a gentle suggestion during an enjoyable hypnosis session was better than nagging or yelling or manipulating him with sex. That was so 1950s.

Also, she had not instructed his conscious mind to forget her suggestion about moving the boxes. So he should be fully aware of what she’d said. She would ask him about it. “Did you mind me mentioning the boxes last night?” she’d say, lightly, casually.

Once he’d moved them, of course. No point mentioning it until it actually happened.

“Bye, Ellen!” Jack came running into the kitchen carrying his schoolbag.

“Did you get your lunch?” asked Ellen.

She’d taken over the making of school lunches when she’d seen what Patrick had been giving him every day: a slapped-together Vegemite sandwich on limp white bread (who ate white bread anymore? Wasn’t it sort of against the law?) and a green apple. “He should have protein with every meal,” she told Patrick. He’d protested, saying that he wasn’t so sexist as to expect her to take on making Jack’s lunch just because she was a woman, and he’d been in charge of Jack’s lunches for years, and anyway, Jack wouldn’t eat anything else, and wasn’t Vegemite sort of protein-ish? But she’d insisted, surprised at her forcefulness. As soon as Jack had moved into her home she’d felt like his diet had become her responsibility. It had something to do with the sight of his heartbreakingly skinny little boy body. Every time she managed to get him to eat something healthy she found herself deeply satisfied, her mouth virtually chewing along with his, as if some innate, biological need was being met. At the end of each day she would mentally list everything that Jack had eaten during the day, as though she was presenting a report on his diet to somebody. It certainly wasn’t for Patrick; it must be for his mother. This is what I fed your son today, Colleen: a good mix of complex carbohydrates and protein.

Today she’d made him a tuna rice wrap and a little container of fruit salad to have with yogurt. Jack took the lunch she gave him from the fridge without noticeable enthusiasm.

“You could pour the yogurt over the fruit,” she told him.

Jack looked at her blankly.

She sighed. Perhaps he was still worried about Armageddon, or else the poor child was missing his Vegemite sandwich. Her attempts to give him a healthy diet didn’t appear to be paying off; he looked exhausted.

“Are you feeling OK?” she said to him. “Maybe you should stay home today?”

“Nah,” said Jack. “I’m going to Ethan’s place after school.”

She met Patrick’s eyes over Jack’s head. If she insisted Jack stay home, he would make a point of agreeing with her. He backed her up anytime she made the slightest show of authority.

“Well, an early night tonight then.”

“Definitely.” Patrick ruffled Jack’s hair in that rough, loving Dad way. “And no more looking at the computer without adult supervision. We’ll research spy clubs.”

Jack rolled his eyes.

After they left for school, Ellen looked at her diary to check what appointments she had booked before the ultrasound.

Luisa Bell.

How sadly inappropriate that on the day she was going for her first ultrasound she was treating someone for “unexplained infertility.”

Or maybe it was happily appropriate. She would put her heart and soul into doing what she could for Luisa.

A wave of nausea swept over her, and Ellen looked around for her “wellness stone.” It was the pleasingly shaped white stone she’d found on the beach soon after meeting Patrick. She’d decided to use it as part of the self-hypnosis she was trying to handle the morning sickness or the every-minute-of-the-whole-bloody-day sickness. The idea was that every time she rolled the stone across her stomach her subconscious would help the wave of nausea to recede. The only problem was that she couldn’t find the stone. The last time she’d seen it, Patrick had been tossing it up in the air while he walked around the house swearing to someone on the phone. The conversation had sounded too serious for her to say, “Hey, give me back my wellness stone!”

She sighed and made herself a cup of ginger tea instead, while she imagined her mother snorting, “Wellness stone indeed; drink your tea!”

An hour later Luisa walked up the path and nearly collided with Patrick, who was barreling out of the front door down the footpath with his arms stretched around a box of random items he’d announced he was donating to charity. He stepped aside for Luisa, nodded grimly at her, and kept walking toward the car. His brow was sweaty and his eyes were crazed. Ever since he’d got back from dropping Jack at school he’d been working at a frenzied pace, as though he’d been set an impossible deadline he was determined to meet.