Kind of Cruel Read Free

sky-blue vases filled with flowers in three of the room’s four corners. A white rug with a thick blue border takes up most of the wooden floor. On one side of it, there’s a maroon leather swivel recliner chair and matching footstool, and on the other, a brown distressed leather sofa next to a small table piled high with books and magazines about hypnotherapy.
    This last detail irks me, just as it annoys me when I go to the hairdresser and find piles of magazines about hair and nothing else. The symbolism is too crass; it smacks of a desperation to ram home one’s professional message, and always makes me think, ‘Yes, I know what you do for a living. That’s why I’m here.’ Do I really need to immerse myself in exclusively hairy thoughts while I wait for a suet-faced teenager to ram my head into a basin and pour boiling water over it? What if I’d like to read about the stock market, or modern ballet? I wouldn’t, as it happens, but the point is still valid.
    Hypnotherapy is, admittedly, marginally more interesting than split ends (though, in fairness, at least my quarterly visits to Salon 32 leave me in no doubt that an actual service has been performed).
    ‘You’re welcome to have a look at the books and magazines,’ Ginny Saxon says, more enthusiastically than is warranted. Her accent is what I think of as ‘media’ – it doesn’t belong to anywhere, and tells me nothing about where she’s from. Not the Culver Valley would be my guess. ‘Borrow as many as you like, as long as you bring them back.’ Either she’s putting a lot of effort into her act or she’s a nice person. I hope she’s nice – nice enough that she’ll still want to help me even when she realises I’m not.
    Pretending to be a better person than I am is exhausting; having to make a constant effort to produce behaviour that doesn’t match my mental state.
    Ginny holds out a magazine called Hypnotherapy Monthly . I can’t not take it. It falls open at the centrefold, home to an article called ‘Hypnotherapeutic Olfactory Conditioning Examined’. What was I expecting: a full frontal shot of a swinging stopwatch?
    ‘Have a seat,’ says Ginny, indicating the swivel recliner and footstool. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting an hour.’
    ‘You haven’t,’ I tell her. ‘I’m Amber Hewerdine. My appointment’s for now. The other woman said I could have her slot, and she’ll come back later.’
    Ginny smiles. ‘And then she said?’
    Oh, God, please don’t let her have heard our entire conversation. How thick are these wooden walls? How loud were we?
    ‘I didn’t hear anything, don’t worry. But from what little I know of her, I’m guessing she said more than what you’ve told me.’
    Don’t worry? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Last night I asked Luke if he thought a person would only train to be a hypnotherapist if they enjoyed messing with people’s minds, and he laughed at me. ‘God help anyone who tries to tangle with yours,’ he said. He didn’t know how right he was.
    ‘She said, “Either I’ll come back at four, or I won’t”,’ I tell Ginny.
    ‘Made you feel like an idiot for sticking around, did she? Relax. She’s the idiot. I don’t think she’ll come back. She chickened out last week as well – booked an initial consultation, didn’t turn up for it. She hadn’t given me any notice of cancellation, so I billed her for the full amount.’
    Should she be saying these things to me? Isn’t it unprofessional? Will she bitch about me to her next client?
    ‘Why don’t you tell me why you’re here?’ Ginny unzips her ankle boots, kicks them off, curls herself into a ball on the leather sofa. Is that supposed to make me feel less inhibited? It doesn’t; it irritates me. I’ve only just met her. She’s supposed to be a professional. How does she dress for a second appointment – camisole and knickers?
    It doesn’t matter; there isn’t going to be a second appointment.
    ‘I’m an