His eyes snap wide as though spring-loaded and his tone suddenly changes. Spinning around in his chair, he presses his lips together and crosses his legs. I hear a harsh feminine voice.
“Now Bobby don’t tell lies.”
— “I’m not a blabbermouth.”
“Did he touch you or not?”
— “No.”
“That’s not what Mr. Erskine wants to hear.”
— “Don’t make me say it.”
“We don’t want to waste Mr. Erskine’s time. He’s come all this way…”
— “I know why he’s come.”
“Don’t use that tone of voice with me, sweetie. It’s not very nice.”
Bobby puts his big hands in his pockets and kicks at the floor with his shoes. He speaks in a timid whisper, with his chin pressed to his chest.
— “Don’t make me say it.”
“Just tell him and then we can have dinner.”
— “Please don’t make me say…”
He shakes his head, his whole body moves. Raising his eyes to me, I see a flicker of recognition.
“Do you know that a blue whale’s testicles are as large as a Volkswagen Beetle?”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“I like whales. They’re very easy to draw and to carve.”
“Who is Mr. Erskine?”
“Should I know him?”
“You mentioned his name.”
He shakes his head and looks at me suspiciously.
“Is he someone you once met?”
“I was born in one world. Now I’m waist-deep in another.”
“What does that mean?”
“I had to hold things together, hold things together.”
He’s not listening to me. His mind is moving so quickly that it can’t grasp any subject for more than a few seconds.
“You were telling me about your dream… a girl in a red dress. Who is she?”
“Just a girl.”
“Do you know her?”
“Her arms are bare. She lifts them up and brushes her fingers through her hair. I see the scars.”
“What do these scars look like?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes it does!”
Tipping his head to one side, Bobby runs his finger down the inside of his shirtsleeve from his elbow to his wrist. Then he looks back at me. Nothing registers in his eyes. Is he talking about Catherine McBride?
“How did she get these scars?”
“She cut herself.”
“How do you know that?”
“A lot of people do.”
Bobby unbuttons his shirt cuffs and slowly rolls the sleeve along his left forearm. Turning his palm up, he holds it out toward me. The thin white scars are faint but unmistakable.
“They’re like a badge of honor,” he whispers.
“Bobby, listen to me.” I lean forward. “What happens to the girl in your dream?”
Panic fills his eyes like a growing fever.
“I don’t remember.”
“Do you know this girl?”
He shakes his head.
“What color hair does she have?”
“Brown.”
“What color eyes?”
He shrugs.
“You said you hurt people in your dreams. Did this girl get hurt?”
The question is too direct and confrontational. He looks at me suspiciously.
“Why are you staring at me like that? Are you taping this? Are you stealing my words?” He peers from side to side.
“No.”
“Well, why are you staring at me?”
Then I realize that he’s talking about the Parkinson’s mask. Jock had warned me of the possibility. My face can become totally unresponsive and expressionless like an Easter Island statue.
I look away and try to start again, but Bobby’s mind has already moved on.
“Did you know the year 1961 can be written upside down and right-way up and appear the same?” he says.
“No I didn’t.”
“That’s not going to happen again until 6009.”
“I need to know about the dream, Bobby.”
“No comprenderás todavía lo que comprenderás en el futuro.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It’s Spanish. You don’t understand yet what you will understand in the end.” His forehead suddenly creases as though he’s forgotten something. Then his expression changes to one of complete bafflement. He hasn’t just lost his train of thought— he’s forgotten what he’s doing here. He looks at his watch.
“Why are you here, Bobby?”
“I keep having these thoughts.”
“What thoughts?”
“I hurt people in my dreams. That’s not a crime. It’s only a dream…”
We have been here before, thirty minutes ago. He has forgotten everything in between.
There is an interrogation method, sometimes used by the CIA, which is called the Alice in Wonderland technique. It relies upon turning the world upside down and distorting everything that is familiar and logical. The interrogators begin with what sound like very ordinary questions, but in fact are totally nonsensical. If the suspect tries to answer, the second interrogator interrupts with something unrelated and equally illogical.
They change their demeanor and patterns of speech in midsentence or from one moment to the next. They get angry when making pleasant comments and become charming when making threats. They laugh at the wrong places and speak in riddles.
If the suspect tries to cooperate he’s ignored and if he doesn’t cooperate he’s rewarded— never knowing why. At the same time, the interrogators manipulate the environment, turning clocks backward and forward, lights on and off, serving meals ten hours or only ten minutes apart.
Imagine this continuing day after day. Cut off from the world and everything he knows to be normal, the suspect tries to cling to what he remembers. He may keep track of time or try to picture a face or a place. Each of these threads to his sanity is gradually torn down or worn down until he no longer knows what is real and unreal.
Talking to Bobby is like this. The random connections, twisted rhymes and strange riddles make just enough sense for me to listen. At the same time I’m being drawn deeper into the intrigue and the lines between fact and fantasy have begun to blur.
He won’t talk about his dream again. Whenever I ask about the girl in the red dress, he ignores me. The silence has no effect. He is totally contained and unreachable.
Bobby is slipping away from me. When I first met him I saw a highly intelligent, articulate, compassionate young man, concerned about his life. Now I see a borderline schizophrenic, with violent dreams and a possible history of mental illness.
I thought I had a handle on him, but now he’s attacked a woman in broad daylight and confessed to “hurting” people in his dreams. What about the girl with the scars? Could he possibly have known Catherine? Is she the girl in the red dress?
Take a deep breath. Review the facts. The fact that Catherine and Bobby are both self-mutilators isn’t enough to link them. One in fifteen people harm themselves at some point in their lives: that’s two children in every classroom, four people on a crowded bus, twenty on a commuter train and two thousand at a Manchester United home game.
In my career as a psychologist I have learned unequivocally not to believe in conspiracies or listen for the same voices my patients are hearing. A doctor is no good to anyone if he dies of the disease.
I’m back in Jock’s office, listening to him rattle off my results, which I don’t understand. He wants to start me on medication as soon as possible.
Clicking a stopwatch, Jock makes me walk along a line of masking tape on the floor, turn and walk back again. Then I have to stand on one foot with my eyes closed.
When he brings out the colored blocks I groan. It feels so childish— stacking blocks one on top of the other. First I use my right hand and then my left. My left hand is trembling before I start, but once I pick up a block it’s OK.