She’s yelling now. ‘I need help. Please. I need help.’
The last I remember is when I throw up.
Later in my room, I look round to see if she’s still there, but she’s gone. I don’t check under the bed or in the wardrobe or in the bathroom this time because I know she’s gone. If she was still here, I’d be able to smell her – coconut – that’s her smell. I pick up my pad and draw the girl with the dark hair and smiley brown eyes. I hope she comes back, but I hope she doesn’t ask about my pictures. That’s a secret I’ve got to keep, or the bad voice will come back.
Chapter 25
Bradford
The waiting room was calm and relaxing, just as Angus had described it all those years earlier when he’d needed the service of Dr Mahmood. It seemed serendipitous that Sebastian Carlton’s expert had been the same psychiatrist that got Corrine’s son through his darkest hours. Perhaps she could do the same for Corrine. The fish tank gurgled away in the corner, the fish colourful and lazy as they whiled away their time. Corrine had been reluctant to come here, but after another night of bad dreams, Fergus had convinced her to attend the appointment Professor Carlton had arranged. ‘It’s long past time you dealt with this, Corrine. If I’d been less inclined to grant you your every wish, I’d have insisted on it years ago.’
It wasn’t her husband’s words that convinced her through, it was the deep furrows across his brow, and the worry in his eyes combined with her own desperate need to confront the fears that receiving those damn sketches had reactivated. That had been why she’d agreed to this. Although she knew the facts of her tragic little childhood, she couldn’t remember them and that made it feel as if it had all happened to someone else – it took the sting from it – the hurt and her logical mind told her that’s why she wakened up sobbing and sweating with disconnected images floating like jigsaw pieces in her head. Just out of reach of her logical mind.
Corrine started when the door opened, and Dr Mahmood pooped her head out. ‘I’m ready for you now, Dr McGuire.’
The question wasn’t whether Dr Mahmood was ready for her, it was if Corrine was ready for this. She doubted it. Still, she rose, and followed the other woman into a room that smelt of vanilla, the result of a candle on the psychiatrist’s desk. Hesitating, unsure where to sit, Corrine glanced round, taking in not only it’s shabbiness, but also the doctor’s attempts to humanise it, with paintings on the walls and a bookshelf filled with an eclectic taste in fiction and non-fiction. To one side there was a lounge chair that faced a comfy armchair with a coffee table in between. With Dr Mahmood positioning herself with a notebook and recording device on the armchair, Corrine walked over to the lounger which was at present in its upright position. Placing her bag on the carpet beside her, she sat. The silence seemed to go on forever, during which time Corrine attempted, unsuccessfully, several times to fill the void.
As one of life’s natural chatterers, probably to make up for the years of muteness as a child, Corrine was uncomfortable with silence. Desperate to find a way to break the unnerving space that filled the room, her eyes flitted around before finally settling on her hands, which were clasped in her lap. The knuckles were almost white, so tightly was she flexing them. Swallowing, she forcibly untightened them and with a small laugh, looked at Dr Mahmood. ‘It’s not often I’m at a loss for words, but you must understand, this is all so very new to me.’
Once she started to speak, the rest of her words tumbled out as if the act of breaking the silence had unbound her. ‘For a long time, I’ve been aware of gaps in my memory. Gaps from childhood mainly and there was a period of a couple of years as a child when I didn’t speak. I understand that this is my reaction to an extreme trauma, but I want to get to the bottom of it. Although I have been told of the incident’ – Corrine paused – ‘or to be completely precise – incidents, that triggered my trauma, I can’t remember them.’
Leaning forward, Dr Mahmood, with a reassuring smile that made Corrine’s heart slow down, nodded. ‘I’m glad you’ve come to me, Corrine. Trauma doesn’t just fix itself. We need help to deal with the aftereffects and the way they manifest themselves. And I’m happy to help. I just wonder, why you feel the need to explore this now. Has there been a further trigger? Or are the symptoms increasing?’
‘Both.’ Corrine was aware that the word had broken from her lips in a plaintive squeal and the very action of uttering it and acknowledging through that one word the extent of her inner pain, was a relief.
Dr Mahmood poured her a glass of water and pushed the glass towards her. ‘Can you tell me a little more about what you’re going through now, and we can work out a strategy to treat you.’
After what felt like hours, Corrine sat back in the chair and said, ‘That’s it. I know various things that happened to me … but I don’t remember them. I think the time is right to start to address these blanks.’
‘Would you be prepared to try hypnosis? Through hypnosis I can take you back to specific parts of your life, safe in the knowledge that you’re in control of how long you stay in your memories. You see, they haven’t gone or been eliminated. They are there in your subconscious and it’s the effort your mind is taking to suppress them that’s causing you all this pain – the sleepless nights, the nightmares, the headaches, the worry.’
Corrine nodded.
