Games People Play by Chris Niblock

Author:Chris Niblock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: erotic, crime, murder, short stories, historical, psychological
Publisher: Chris Niblock

2: Emily on the Edge

Sometimes my patients bring me things. It’s usually chocolates or a few flowers. Occasionally, it’s a memento from their past; an ornament perhaps, or a faded photograph; a small gift they want me to have or memory they want to share with me.

Emily – it’s not her real name – brought me a picture; an exquisite little watercolour in a polished wooden frame, wrapped in hessian and tied up with string. She handed it to me shyly like a schoolgirl bringing an apple to her teacher, then took several steps back and watched anxiously from a distance as I unwrapped it.

‘This is very exciting Emily,’ I said. ‘Like a birthday.’

She attempted a smile but as always with Emily, at the last moment the corners of her mouth turned down and it became a grimace.

It was a small picture; approximately ten inches by six, set into a larger, bevelled card mount; a landscape in which a wooded escarpment rose majestically out of a lush valley. In style it was reminiscent of a Turner seascape; an impression heightened by the storm clouds the artist had painted which seemed to break like waves on the ridge. There was a dark, brooding quality about the scene that was almost gothic in its intensity. An atmosphere at once magical, and yet strangely disturbing for reasons I’m still unable to explain.

Emily was . . . is, suffering from multiple personality disorder. In the past, she would have been diagnosed as schizophrenic. Even now, her condition is not recognised as such by many in my profession. Her given name, the one on her birth certificate, identifies her as a thirty-four year old mother of two; a former nurse, married to a computer programmer. And, most of the time, that is who she is. But there are other times, and I’ve witnessed them myself, when, without warning, her voice will take on the squeaky tones of an eight year old; an obnoxious little girl called Tilly who is strident and argumentative – quite the opposite of Emily’s own personality – that is to say, her dominant persona. And it’s not just her voice that changes. Emily’s whole being seems to shrink in size. Her mouth puckers up defiantly; her shoulders are drawn in and her hands, which normally rest in her lap, gesticulate, point and scratch to emphasise the outpourings of her vicious tongue. Only the eyes seem to grow larger; an effect produced by the dilation of her pupils when Emily is in this transformed state.

The child Tilly has no respect for adults and claims to have brought herself up, after being orphaned at an early age. I’ve had great difficulty in controlling this alter ego of Emily’s and had my face raked by her fingernails on more than one occasion whilst trying to subdue her. These episodes when Emily becomes Tilly can last anything from a few minutes to an hour at a time and come on without warning, causing great distress to her family.

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