All of Me (39 page)

In the end, though, it was Bonny who was surprised.

A metallic clattering noise the following Saturday had been bothering Bonny for the entire time it had taken to prepare dinner. In the end she couldn’t bear it any longer.

What on Earth is going on up there?
she wondered, marching up the stairs.

As she reached Aimee’s room the noise grew louder. It sounded like tiny little hammers punching away: thud, thud, thud.

No idea,
Bonny thought, and opened the door.

Her mouth fell open as she stared at Aimee typing with one-fingered gusto on a shiny pink typewriter.

Bonny couldn’t hide her anger. ‘Who said you could open that?’

The wind knocked out of her sails, the little girl could barely spit out an answer.

‘I-I-I …’

‘Yes?’ Bonny asked sternly. ‘I can wait all night.’

‘I was out with Ken this afternoon,’ Aimee managed, ‘and he bought it for me.’ She was close to tears. ‘Is something wrong?’

Bonny didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

‘No, darling, there’s nothing wrong. Nothing at all.’

B
ecoming the dominant personality was a daunting prospect. Of course, I wanted to spend as much time ‘out’ as possible but with that came the responsibilities of keeping the body’s day-to-day life on track, which in turn would prove we were capable of looking after our daughter. Looking after Aimee was the first thing I thought of when I woke up and usually the last thing at night – assuming I was the one who took the body to bed! Most of the time they were routine upkeep thoughts: must buy this, must do that, must take her there. Every so often, though, the dark cloud hanging over our happiness as a family would return and I would remember:

Aimee only lives here on a ‘placement’.

Just writing it now makes my blood boil. Back then, knowing each check-up was due after six months made me feel even worse.

It’s not in my nature to make a fuss, to bang a drum or feel comfortable being the centre of attention. But if that were the difference between being treated as a foster parent to my own daughter and winning her back, then I would have to bite the bullet. After some research on the internet I made a call to a lawyer and by the end of the day wheels were put in motion. You’d think that would have made me feel better but, try as hard as I could to relax, I felt worse than ever. Again and again the same idea kept floating into my waking thoughts:

What if I lose? What if I’ve just made it worse?

In the early days Dr Laine was concerned that the pressure of dealing with everything on top of realising I had a daughter to care for might be too much. The last thing she wanted was my retreating – like Kim, Hayley and Bonny – and chaos to descend again, so she scrabbled around for as much support as possible. When the official channels ran dry she looked closer to home.

Debbie McCoy was a trainee art therapist doing an internship at Springfield Hospital. Dr Laine suggested she might like to spend some time with us as a support worker. Debbie would find it useful for her studies and we would benefit from having a friendly ear. I welcomed any help so I agreed – although if I’d known she was an art therapist I might not have been so keen. My experiences at San Martino’s and Arbours hadn’t exactly lit my fuse.

Debbie started coming over a few days a week and we’d just have tea and chat or watch television. It was nice to have a break from worrying about Aimee on my own. I could relax knowing that if there was a switch and one of the kiddie personalities came out, there was still an adult in the house. These days I’m confident that all the alters have Aimee’s best interests at heart but I didn’t know that then.

We were sitting in the front room one night and Debbie asked Aimee if she liked painting.

‘I’m not very good at it.’

‘Of course you are,’ Debbie said. ‘Everyone can paint.’

I think I must have snorted at that because Debbie looked at me. ‘Yes, Patricia, even you can paint.’

You didn’t see my efforts at Arbours!

Debbie disappeared upstairs and came down with an old roll of wallpaper we’d finished with and a pot of Aimee’s poster paints.

‘Come on then, let’s see what you can do.’

It was all a bit of fun, splashing colours and shapes on the back of the wallpaper, and Debbie never let on that she was studying art therapy. I didn’t really get any pleasure out of my results but it was just nice to be doing something while we chatted away about the usual old nonsense. Best of all was noticing how happy Aimee was for us to be doing something together. There’s no replacement for that bond.

I don’t think Aimee or I looked likely to win any prizes but we kept it up for a few weeks or so because without the pressure of therapy I realised it really was a bit of fun. There are worse ways to spend an evening than doodling away with a glass of wine in your hand, and maybe the telly on in the background for Aimee while we giggled and gossiped. The only downside was the cleaning up every day. At the end of the session we’d wash the brushes and pots up and leave our latest masterpieces on the table to dry.

Coming down the next morning and seeing our work in the cold light of day was always a bit disappointing. I pinned a few of Aimee’s up on the wall but mine went straight in the trash. No one needed to see those again.

One day, though, I trotted down ready to chuck mine as usual and I stopped. There were more pictures than I remembered – and some of them were very good. Distinctive lines, striking colours and very vivid, detailed scenes.

I don’t remember Debbie leaving these.

I checked my watch. Had there been a switch? Was it actually evening, not morning? Had Debbie brought these paintings to show us?

No, it’s eight o’clock.
The sound of Aimee thundering around upstairs as she got ready for school confirmed it.

So when had Debbie brought these? I picked one up and studied the small figures in it.

And why would she bring such disturbing images into my house?

Realising that the other personalities had started to paint was a complete shock. Aimee and I had only picked up the brushes for something sociable to do. Neither of us at that stage showed any aptitude for it – although I was beginning to enjoy the soothing act of actually painting. And yet here were a couple of pictures that were actually very good.

First a personality who can speak Latin and French. Now one who can paint!

Every day with DID there are new and wonderful surprises.

The only problem was the content. I really wanted to show Aimee what had happened but the last thing I wanted her to see was this. I couldn’t be sure but it looked to me like a picture of a child being bullied by a tall man. I rolled the picture up and thought,
I’ll see what Debbie thinks.

Over the next few nights several more paintings appeared. There were a few more unpleasant scenes, which I kept from Aimee, but also some nice ones too.

‘It looks like there’s more than one of them doing it,’ Debbie suggested. ‘Maybe you should show them to Dr Laine?’

Of course! I rolled them up ready to present them at our next session. Now it was Dr Laine’s turn to play detective.

The next morning I made a point of coming down early enough to intercept any paintings I didn’t want Aimee to see. I opened the dining room door and couldn’t help gasping.

What the hell’s happened here?

There was paint all over the table, and on the chairs and on the floor. Everything was speckled in red and black and white.
And, my God, look at the walls!

Where’s that bloody dog?
It had to be him. Somehow he’d got the paints open and had a field day chewing them.

‘Arthur!’

Then I took a closer look at the table. There, on a strip of wallpaper as usual, was an incredible sort of Jackson Pollock dot print drying. Arthur was a clever dog – but not even he was up to this.

I examined the picture. It was entirely abstract but it wasn’t random. Someone had put a lot of thought into it.

Two personalities who can paint,
I thought.
Maybe I should get practising. I don’t want to be left behind.

Over the next couple of nights, and days when Aimee was at school, more pictures appeared. Some were disturbing and obviously painted by the first personality. Others were red, white and black abstracts, so I knew where they’d come from. Then another style appeared. These were people, quite intricately shaped, so much so in fact they seemed almost skeletal. This time there was a note next to the work. It was by Bonny.

Incredible,
I thought.
Three different people and three starkly individual styles.

Knowing that Bonny had recently told Dr Laine that her brain was ‘scrambled’, it was comforting to see she had discovered an outlet. I didn’t know what she was trying to say with her figures but I was sure there was a message. That, as I recalled, was the point of art therapy: to express your feelings, memories and fears without words. (Later, Bonny painted one piece which I had no trouble interpreting: ‘I’m Only Another Personality’. It tells you how she was feeling when she accepted DID and perhaps began to fade.)

The impetus behind the Pollocks was just as cloudy as Bonny’s inspiration. Unfortunately, there was only one possible interpretation of the other paintings – and it was one I didn’t want to hear.

Dr Laine was like a Sherlock Holmes of the art world. By a process of showing the paintings to whoever came out at her sessions, she gradually established who was doing what. More importantly, through dialogues about the paintings and their content, she was able to delve further than ever before into a lot of the alters’ pasts. Even though many of the artists had been around for a while, and were no strangers to the therapy sessions, Dr Laine was still amazed by the level of new insights the work led her towards. It’s one thing hearing someone’s stories, experiences and fears, yet quite another to see the result of their imagination exposed on three-by-two-feet canvases. I think even Dr Laine, although no art expert, was surprised at the new revelations. And I, of course, lapped up every fresh morsel of information. It really was a wonderfully exciting time.

Bonny we knew, of course. The abstracts, however, were created by a personality I hadn’t heard of before. The problem was, even after a session we were none the wiser. Missy – or ‘MJ’ as she sometimes refers to herself – is an elective mute. I think she’s a younger personality, possibly in her low teens, and she’s physically capable of speech but for some reason – whether mischief, illness or fear – she chooses not to use it. Years later I’m still at a loss to explain the thoughts behind her work. What I do know is that since she doesn’t want to talk about her inspiration, it’s unlikely to be good.

Hearing from Dr Laine what Missy had probably been through, I decided to forgive her the regular mess in our dining room.
But,
I thought,
it can’t go on like this. I need to make a plan.

The artist behind the disturbing images obviously had a message to convey. Dr Laine tracked her down as a twelve-year-old girl who was clearly still traumatised by the things that she had either seen or experienced herself. The paintings – of adults and children engaged in sexually explicit behaviour – told us a lot. Her responses to basic questions told us a lot more:

‘What’s your name?’ Dr Laine had asked.

‘Pratt.’

‘Pratt?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded and looked around, terrified.

‘Who are the people in the paintings?’

‘These things happen.’

‘Are you in the paintings?’

‘Bad things happen. These things happen. Children should be protected.’

It was heartbreaking stuff to be told. I can’t imagine how harrowing it must be to have experienced it. Even the poor girl’s name – ‘Pratt’ – told its story. I can picture a scenario where a normal little girl got so used to being ordered about by some abusive nickname – ‘Come here, Pratt’, ‘Do this, Pratt’ – that she grew to believe that was what she was called.

‘I can’t call her that,’ I told Dr Laine, who agreed. In the end we decided on ‘Ria’. I don’t know where it came from but hopefully it gives her some dignity.

Hearing stories about what had happened to my body was one thing – as I’ve said, it’s comparable to reading about something hideous like the Bulger case or Madeleine McCann’s abduction. Your heart bleeds but you don’t have that firstperson experience. It might have been my body that had been abused but with no personal recollection of that I was always going to be on the outside looking in. That remained the case, obviously, but there’s no denying Ria’s paintings brought me closer to the epicentre. As the saying goes, every picture paints a thousand words. I defy anyone to look at her work and not bleed inside at the idea of those acts happening to a child. You can’t not be moved by them, and of course I was.