I had interviewed Sarah a couple of times before to help write articles and found her interesting to talk to, although the last time we had talked before the life-changing phone call, over lunch at a nearby pizzeria, she had learned more from me than I did from her. She never lets slip anything she did not intend to tell me, and while the interview was supposed to focus on her professional life, and I am not one to probe, not being a journalist, even so I realised on departing that I knew nothing about her private life, not even such basics as whether she was married, or had children. And I had no idea how old she was. She could be anywhere between thirty and fifty, but she frequently makes me feel young and inexperienced even though she could easily be the same age as me.
On the other hand she can exhaust you by listening to you, extracting more than you ever meant to say and also guessing much of what you leave unsaid.
For reasons that afterwards were not quite clear to me I actually volunteered to offer a room in my house to one of her charges, although I did add that I would prefer not to start with a psychopath or a drug addict. She made a casual comment that stuck with me, saying that maybe I needed someone to shake up my cosy world, as I seemed to have it all a little too much under control, although she said it with a laugh that made it easy to pass off as a joke.
A peculiar aspect of the meeting was that I could not account for how late I got home. As far as I could recall the conversation could not have lasted for more than an hour and a half, and yet by the time I got in the door it was beginning to get dark, leaving at least an hour unaccounted for.
Oddly, when I try to recall the details of middle of the conversation, much of it is rather foggy. I can remember the last part, with my uncharacteristic offer, so much against my approach of not getting involved, but before that I can only recall odd phrases, making little sense and lacking context; phrases of the type 'you may find that listening to my voice ...' and 'you have a choice as to whether you do this immediately or in a few days' time'.
What was that all about? Perhaps the wine was stronger than I'm used to. Whatever the reason I had an obscure sense that something vital changed in the course of what was, after all, a very ordinary meeting.
Maybe it just bugs me not being able to recall the detail of the conversation as a writer. I rely on a stock of remembered words, striking but natural phrases with the cadences of real life, to make dialogue in my work credible.
In a way you can't blame him, after all how many wicked sexy hypnotists can he have met? Of course I tried telling her all this mesmerism is overkill; a little bit of suggestion normally does the job - but that's Sarah for you.
When Sarah called me a couple of weeks later, I have to admit I was at first worried that she had taken me up on the offer, but she quickly reassured me that in fact she wanted to find a place for her niece who was studying at university nearby and had been let down at the last moment with her accommodation.
I was so relieved that I wasn't being asked to put up a social case that I was rather hasty in agreeing and did not really ask any of the questions you normally would if agreeing to let someone stay in your house. I had the oddest impression that she was silently laughing at me, even though I couldn't say why. When she then told me to watch out for her niece I started to tell her, even feeling a bit annoyed, that she would be safe with me.
"Oh, I am sure of that," she cut in, with a little chuckle, before adding, "I meant it the other way round".
But she did not expand on that and I somehow did not wish to invite further mockery by asking.
Well thank you, Sarah. But then again it's true; I'm not safe, as poor sweet Nick is beginning to find out.
