The First Cut

34 Kirsten

You realize it might take several sessions,” said Laura Henderson, brushing some ash off her white coat, “and even then there’s no guarantee?”

Kirsten nodded. “But you can do it?”

“Yes, I can do it. About ten percent of people aren’t susceptible to hypnosis, but I don’t think we’ll have much trouble with you. You’re bright, and you’ve got plenty of imagination. What did Superintendent Elswick say?”

Kirsten shrugged. “Nothing much. Just asked me if I’d give it a try.”

Laura leaned forward. “Look, Kirsten,” she said. “I don’t know what’s on your mind, but I sense some hostility. I want to remind you that what goes on between us in this office is confidential. I don’t want you thinking that I’m somehow just an extension of the police. Naturally, they’re keeping tabs on you, and when they found out you were seeing me they made inquiries. I want you to know, though, that I haven’t told them anything at all about our sessions, and nor would I, without your permission.”

“I believe you,” Kirsten said. “Besides, there’s been nothing to tell, has there?”

“Hypnosis might change that. Do you still trust me?”

“Yes.”

“And even if we do come up with something, even if the man told you his name for some reason, and you remember it, none of what we discover will be of any legal use.”

“I know that. Superintendent Elswick just said that I might remember something that would help them catch him.”

“Right,” Laura said, relaxing again. “I just don’t want you to expect too much, that’s all-either from the hypnotherapy or from the police.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t. Are you going to get your watch out and swing it in front of my eyes?”

“Have you ever been hypnotized before?”

“Never.”

Laura grinned. “Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t carry a pocket watch. I’m not going to make hand passes at you, either. And my eyes won’t suddenly start to glow bright red. You do need something to fix your attention on, true, but I think this’ll do fine.” She picked up the heavy glass paperweight from on top of a pile of correspondence. Inside, caught in the glass globe, was what looked like a dark green tangle of seaweed and fronds. “Do you want to start now?”

Kirsten nodded. Laura got up and closed the blinds on the gray afternoon so that the only light left shone from a shaded desk lamp. Then she took off her white coat and hung it on the stand.

“First of all,” she said, “I want you to relax. Loosen your belt if it’s too tight. It’s important to feel as comfortable as possible physically. Okay?”

Kirsten shifted in her chair and tried to relax all her muscles the way she had done in yoga classes at university.

“Now I want you to look at that globe, concentrate, stare into it. Stay relaxed and just listen to me.”

And she started to talk, general stuff about feeling at ease, heavy, sleepy. Kirsten stared into the globe and saw a whole underwater world. The way the light caught the glass, the green fronds seemed to be swaying to and fro very slowly, as if they really were seaweed at the bottom of the sea, weighed down by so much pressure.

When Laura said, “Your eyelids are heavy,” they were. Kirsten closed her eyes and felt suspended between waking and sleep. She could hear a distant buzzing in her ears, like bees in the garden one childhood summer. The soft voice went on, taking her deeper. Finally, they went back to that night last June. “You’re leaving the party, Kirsten, you’re walking out into the street…”

And she was. Again it was that muggy night, so vivid that she really felt as if she was there. She entered the park, aware of the soft tarmac path yielding under her trainers, the amber streetlights on the main road, the sound of an occasional car passing by. And she could almost recapture the feelings, too, that sense of an ending, the sadness of everyone going his or her own way after what seemed so long together. A dog barked. Kirsten looked up. The stars were fat and blurred, almost butter-colored, but she couldn’t find the moon.

She was at the center of the park now, and she could see haloed streetlights on the bordering roads. She felt a sudden impulse to sit on the lion. The grass swished under her feet as she walked over and touched the warm stone of the mane. Then she mounted it and felt silly but happy, like a little girl again. She thought of cockatoos, monkeys, insects and snakes, then she threw her head back to look for the moon again, and felt herself choking.

Laura’s voice cut through the panic, steady and calm, but Kirsten was still struggling for breath as she tried to drag herself out of the trance. She could feel the callused hands with their stubby fingers over her mouth, and she was being turned around, pulled off the lion’s back onto the warm grass. The world went dark and she couldn’t breathe. The cloud in her mind hardened and gleamed like jet, blotting everything out. She felt her back pushed hard against the grass, a great weight on her chest, then she burst up to the surface, gasping for air, and Laura reached forward to hold her hand.

“You’re all right,” Laura said. “It’s over. Take a deep breath…another…That’s right.”

Kirsten glanced around her, terrified, and found she was back in the familiar office with its glass-enclosed bookcases, filing cabinets, grinning skull and old hat stand.

“Will you open the blinds?” she asked, putting a hand to her throat and rubbing, “I feel like I’m at the bottom of the sea.” She was still gulping for breath.

Laura pulled the blinds up, and Kirsten walked over to look out hungrily on the twilit city. She could see the river below, a slate mirror, and the people walking home from work. It was just after five o’clock and the streetlights had come on all over the city. She stood there taking in the ordinariness of the scene and breathed deeply for a couple of minutes. Then she sat down opposite Laura again.

“I could do with a drink,” she said.

“Of course.” Laura fetched the Scotch from the cabinet, poured them each a shot and offered her cigarettes. “Are you all right now?”

“Better, yes. It was just so…so vivid. I felt as if I was really living through it all again. I didn’t expect it to be as real as that.”

“You’re a very imaginative woman, Kirsten. It’s bound to be that way for you. Did you learn anything?”

Kirsten shook her head. “No, it all went black when he turned me around and dragged me to the ground.”

“He did that?”

“Yes, of course he did.”

Laura tapped a column of ash into the tin ashtray. “That’s not what you said before.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you remember? Before, you could only remember up to the point of the hand coming from behind. You said nothing about being dragged down.”

Kirsten frowned. “But that’s what must have happened, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but this time you actually relived it.”

It was true. Kirsten had remembered the sensation of falling, or of being pushed, onto her back on the ground, and the soft warmth of the grass as it tickled the nape of her neck…then the darkness, the weight. “I didn’t see anything, though,” she said.

“Perhaps not. I told you this might take several sessions. The point is that you’ve made progress. You remembered something you didn’t remember before, something you’d buried. It might not be much, and it might not tell you anything, but at least it proves that you can do it, you can remember.”

“There’s something else, too,” Kirsten said, reaching for her Scotch. “It’s true that I didn’t see anything new this time, but you’re right, I did get further than I’ve been before. It’s not just images, visual memories, but there are feelings, too, that come back, aren’t there?”

“What kind of feelings do you mean? Fear? Pain?”

“Yes, but not just that. Intuitions, inklings…it’s hard to describe.”

“Try.”

“Well, what I felt was that I did see his face. I don’t mean now, today, but when it happened. I know I saw him, but I’m still blocking the memory. And there was something else as well. I don’t know what it was, but there was definitely something else about him. It was almost there, like a name on the tip of your tongue, but I resisted. I couldn’t breathe, and it was so dark I just had to come out.”

“Do you want to carry on?” Laura asked, offering the bottle again. “You don’t have to. Nobody can make you. You know how painful it can be.”

Kirsten tossed back the last of her Scotch and held her glass out. The experience had terrified her, true, but it had also given her something she hadn’t felt before: a resolve, a sense of purpose. Her cold hatred had crystallized into a desire to see her attacker. It was all connected, in some strange way, with the dark cloud that weighed down her mind.

When she finally spoke, her eyes were shining and her voice sounded strong and sure. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do want to carry on, whatever happens. I want to know who did this to me. I want to see his face.”