I was used to being in control of my own mind — mostly.
Of course, like everyone, I ‘lost it’ every now and then. Usually with Neil, or the kids. But generally I was pretty much in control.
As a teacher, control is important. I don’t mean in a repressive way. When you’re stood before thirty or so kids who are shouting at each other, shoving and laughing, passing notes and generally doing everything they can to put you off, it’s important to be able to control a classroom appropriately. And it’s even more important to be able to control yourself.
Apart from the obvious feelings I was experiencing from seeing visions in my living room, and from brutalising girls in my sleep, I was also trying to deal with the feeling of fear. Fear of losing control completely. I had been pushing the feelings down. But I knew that lurking somewhere within me was the real fear that I might actually not be able to combat or stop what was happening to me. I wasn’t sure how to deal with this enemy, because the enemy seemed to be my own mind. And I had no idea how I could fight that.
‘You need a “constant” to hold on to,’ Neil had said to me once.
He’d said it during an argument. We were arguing about the guttering. During heavy rain, water poured over the gutter and slammed down onto our living-room window. I told him it needed sorting out and he said he’d look at it — which I naturally took to mean he’d fix it. Months later, and we still had Niagra pounding at our window when it rained.
‘You were going to fix it!’ I reminded him.
‘I was going to look at it,’ he reminded me.
And so the argument progressed.
I became more and more wound up and angry with him because he seemed to be totally relaxed and unconcerned — and I wanted him to be angry too!
‘How can you be so calm?’ I didn’t scream it — but it was close.
‘Because I always hold on to a “constant”,’ he said.
At the time I think I was ready to kick him really hard somewhere very soft. He smiled at me before I followed through.
‘You need a “constant” to hold on to,’ he said. ‘So that you can pull yourself through shitty situations.’
I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the argument, or something more serious (like us). I held onto the kick and threw instead a well placed ‘what the fuck are you talking about?’
‘Although we’re having a shitty argument,’ he said ‘I know that you love me — and that I love you. That’s my constant.’ Another smile.
At the time it killed the argument dead and wrapped an emergency blanket around my angry heart.
Looking back, I’m surprised I didn’t knock him out for being so arrogant.
I thought about my current situation and deemed it shitty enough to require a “constant”.
But knowing that I was loved by my family and friends, although wonderful, wasn’t enough to pull me through this. Because I was fighting something from within I felt I needed something from within to bring to the battle. But there didn’t seem to be anything in me that was constant at the moment. Since the skateboard attack everything seemed chaotic. That was the whole point. There wasn’t a “constant”.
Except that there was.
My sense of smell.
The one thing that had happened right from the start of all this, and had remained with me throughout, was my heightened sense of smell. Every aroma and every scent on the wind had hit me with an intense rush, sometimes good, sometimes bad. I was convinced that I had even been able to smell things that wouldn’t ordinarily be picked up by other people. Perhaps only animals.
And every time I dreamed, or had the visions or experienced whatever it was I was experiencing, the sweet, sickly smell was there too, pulling at my senses. It was even possible, I thought, that the smell was a precursor to the dreams — that maybe the smell was the thing that opened up the dark curtains of my mind to the horrors not so deep within.
If I could find a way to control my sense of smell — that would provide my “constant”.
I certainly wasn’t going to go back to the doctor. He had said that my sense of smell would return to normal over time.
‘Just enjoy it while you’ve got it,’ the doctor had said. ‘Only don’t get too close to anything unpleasant.’
Doctors and policemen… I had thought at the time …what wankers. Unkind, I know, but I wasn’t myself then.
And I obviously still wasn’t.
I remembered reading about antique vinaigrettes (not the salad dressing). Little silver ornamented bottles for carrying around sweet smelling perfume, like potpourris or smelling-salts or something like that. People wore them around their neck in the days when sewage was a more common sight in the street. Just so they would always have something pleasant to smell. Obviously things like that were necessary back then.
I could surely make my own. A small bottle of perfume, or maybe a little bottle of whiskey with the lid off. That way I could really numb things if I needed to.
Garlic might do the trick. I had read in one of my magazines that Roger Daltrey would eat a clove of garlic to clear his sinuses if he had a cold. If garlic was strong enough to clear a cold it could be just the aroma I needed to clear my head.
I wondered what would happen if I had a cold. Surely my sense of smell would be wiped out by that. If only I had a permanent cold.
A cold…
I ran upstairs as quickly as I could. In the bathroom sunshine poured through the frosted glass windows. Twisted shards of sunlight mottled the tiled walls. In better times it would have looked beautiful. I couldn’t have cared less. Instead I yanked open the bathroom cabinet, pushed aside the empty paracetamol boxes and found the little blue jar with the green screw-top lid. “Vicks VapoRub”. Absolutely bizarre and extraordinarily effective for clearing the sinuses. And what a smell.
I remembered Mum gently dabbing it under my nose when I was little and had a cold, so I bought a jar for Michael when he came down with the sniffles.
I unscrewed the lid and immediately the smell surrounded me. I knew that, with my heightened sense of smell, I wouldn’t need much of it. I dipped my forefinger in and scraped it over the surface, then under my nostrils. I breathed in deeply through my nose. A little too deeply. I felt my head spinning and I grabbed hold of the sink to stop myself from losing my balance. The giddiness passed and I took the jar downstairs.
I put it in my handbag. Maybe I would buy another jar as well. Just to be on the safe side.
Sense of smell sorted — “constant” found.
Now I needed to gain control of my mind.
That probably wasn’t going to be as simple as rubbing “Vicks” under my nose. I needed something a little more drastic.
I wondered if it was possible to compartmentalise my mind. Split it into sections and close parts of it off. If I could do that, I could shut off the part with the horrors in it and just use the “summer and light” bits.
I’d heard about a young woman who’d had a personality disorder (probably yet another story in yet another of those magazines I read). She’d had multiple personalities. Apparently she would unknowingly slip into any one of dozens of different personalities to deal with daily problems and issues. The problem was that she had so many, she wasn’t in control of her life anymore.
I thought this through. By my reckoning, I already had a couple of personalities. I was a mild mannered teacher by day. And a murderous maniac by night (and obviously at any other time of the day not of my choosing).
The point was, I had no control over my life. And I had no control over when the murderous maniac would take over the mild mannered teacher. I needed someone else. Another me that the murderer knew nothing about.
I had no idea whether it was even possible to develop another personality. I was also aware that most people with multiple personalities regarded it as a problem — not a solution.
I decided that if I was going to actively develop another personality I might as well try to make it a good one.
I needed a name.
Agatha came to mind.
Not Agatha. I wanted it to be anonymous. Not strong, but not weak either. A name befitting a personality that was quiet and unassuming. I didn’t want to stand out.
Anne.
I’d had an Auntie Anne. She was quiet and gentle and had a beautiful soft Scottish accent. She had always reminded me of The Queen. I loved my Auntie Anne.
My new personality had a name.
Anne was to be soft and strong. Determined but humble. Small but sturdy. I would probably forgo the Scottish accent.
I wrote a list of all the things Anne would do — the way she would live her life. I filled three pages. I gave her a background, parents, brothers and sisters. I gave her a job. Wrote down all the things she liked to eat and drink. Her hobbies and interests.
I made her a widow. I wanted her to have the strength of someone living on their own. Someone who had seen sadness and trials, but had come out the other side. Still strong and still gentle.
Anne was older than me. I made her 52 years old. Wise and still vibrant. Anne loved life. And she loved the smell of “Vicks VapoRub”.
My insides were fizzing. I felt like I was full of energy and spent thirty seconds skipping around the living room and kitchen, flapping my arms like a demented windmill. Shadows from the suns rays piercing through the blinds and hitting my whirling body made the whole room dance with me.
I could see no problem with multiple personalities.
I wondered if that was a problem in itself.
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