“He’s only known this girl for a few months,” continued Harriet. “She’s a dental hygienist.”

A few months. After just a few months. Maybe Jon was properly in love for the first time. And it was fine that Ellen had never properly loved Jon (as she now realized), but it was not fine that Jon had never properly loved her. Why? Because she was the nice one!

“Anyway, we’re sure it won’t last,” said Harriet. Her voice faltered a little, as if she was pulling back now that the damage was done.

Had she deliberately called first thing on a Monday, when any normal person’s defenses are down, to pass on this information just to hurt her? She must have known it wasn’t going to be welcome news, and yet Ellen knew that Harriet was genuinely fond of her.

“Oh, well, I hope for their sake that it does.” Ellen was impressed with the cool, detached tone of her voice. “Listen, Harriet, can I call you back another time? I’m having one of those mornings. I’m out of milk, and I woke up in such a bad mood.”

“Touch of PMT?” said Harriet. She’d always been one of those women far too happy to talk about her menstrual cycle.

“Just got out of the wrong side of the bed,” said Ellen.

She put down the phone and cried. Harsh, jagged, angry sobs. It was ridiculous. It was way out of proportion.

“This is your ego,” she said out loud. Her voice sounded loud, childish and broken in the kitchen. “This is just your ego.”

She could think of nothing worse than to be married to Jon. She did not miss him. It had taken a long time for her to reinstall her personality after he’d systematically taken it apart, making her doubt her every thought.

He was a selfish, pompous, egocentric, nasty man. She did not want to be married to him, but she did not want him to marry someone else. She did not want him, but she wanted him to want her.

It was stupid and immature and yet there it was, she couldn’t seem to wrestle control of her feelings. She cried and cried. It was an orgy of outlandish sobbing and wailing. She wanted to pick up the phone and call him. She wanted to scream, “What was wrong with me?” She wanted to see this girl. She wanted to watch them together. She wanted to listen in on their conversations.

Oh, Saskia. I understand. I know. I get it.

Finally, after much heaving of the shoulders, loud snotty sniffs and sudden fresh flurries of tears, it was over, and she felt remarkably cleansed, exhausted, shaky and pale but fine, like she’d just vomited up the last of a rancid meal.

Good Lord. How peculiar. Maybe Harriet was right and she really did have PMT, although her hormones were normally well behaved and didn’t cause such dramatic waves of feeling.

She picked up her diary to check when her period was due.

She flicked back and forth through the pages, slowly at first and then faster and faster. It wasn’t possible, was it?

Finally she put the diary back down and stared out the window of the kitchen at the sea.

I’m going to stop. I’m over it. I’m done.

Ironically, those were the actual thoughts going through my head when I went for my appointment at the hypnotist’s today.

She didn’t look that great when she opened the door to me. Her skin looked blotchy, and her hair seemed sort of lank, and there was a greasy food mark on her top. I felt quite cheered by the sight of her.

And then, before we had our session, when she asked if I needed to use her bathroom, as she always did, I said yes, because I actually really did.

Out of habit, I automatically opened the mirrored cabinet above her sink. I wasn’t really that interested. I knew exactly what I’d see: the supermarket brand moisturizer, the contact lens solution, the deodorant and razors, the handful of lipsticks and the little bottles of essential oils.

I nearly missed it. I was about to close the cupboard door when something different caught my eye: a long, flat rectangular box.

I picked it up without much interest, and then I felt something snag in my chest, like a sharp hook dragging and tearing at my heart.

It was a pregnancy test. I recognized it because I’d used this same brand myself. Many times.

The box was open.

I opened it and pulled out two long white plastic sticks. She’d already done both tests, wanting to double-check the result.

The little window on both tests showed the same symbol. The symbol I had longed for but never, ever seen.

The hypnotist is pregnant.

Chapter 9

You shall see nothing, hear nothing,

think of nothing but Svengali,

Svengali, Svengali!

—Svengali’s instruction to Trilby O’Ferrall in the classic novel

Trilby, by George Du Maurier

She kept forgetting for minutes at a time and then remembering.

It was only seven hours since she’d done the test. After putting down her diary and staring out the window for at least ten minutes, she had suddenly gone into a frenzy, as if someone else had taken over her body. She’d thrown on dirty clothes, driven into the village and double-parked in front of the local chemist, which was only just opening. The chatty gray-haired lady who normally sold Ellen hay fever medication had kept her face politely uninterested when Ellen asked her for a pregnancy test and double-sealed the top of the white paper bag while talking about the funny weather for this time of year.

Her first appointment of the day had knocked on the door while Ellen was still sitting on the edge of her grandmother’s bathtub, holding both undeniably positive pregnancy tests in her limp hand.