I had thrown a glass bottle at Eve after a squabble. On seeing blood on her face, I had dashed out of the cottage to hide
somewhere in the garden. For decades I had believed I had wandered in a daze
for 10 minutes or so before returning via the back door.
However, I have since realized that the light had radically changed
between my dash out of the cottage and my return. Not only that, but Eve had
already been stitched up and was laying on Mum’s lap. I had not
encountered a family member the entire time Eve was in hospital. So where had I
gone?
I naturally ask Mum about that day but she is by now terminally
ill and incoherent. It felt wrong to pursue this line of questioning for
implying she had been neglectful. I cannot question my older siblings in fear
of creating a family feud. I have to accept I may never find out where a
four-year-old ‘me’ had gone during those four hours.
However, I would soon find the answer to the mystery in an
unexpected place.
Answers within my Novels
For decades I had feverishly been writing what I believed to
be psychological thrillers. However, I would later discover recurrent elements
within my story-lines that would inform upon an early childhood trauma: broken
glass, blood, disfigured faces, characters fleeing north to a hideout and
abject shame recur over and again.
This discovery had occurred due to a series of incidents.
Several times, I describe fictional characters fleeing north
after causing an injury with glass and hiding out alone in a small enclosure. Indeed,
I recall dashing north from the cottage before my memory goes blank. Our back
garden contained a boarded-up swimming pool, garage, swings and a small
caravan. The enclosure of my ‘fictional’ hideout always matches that of the
caravan. In one novel, a character boards an empty train carriage after causing
an injury with glass. Both enclosures contain benches and a small window looking east.
 |
| Storyboard showing what happened on the day of Eve's accident (from Mirror Image Shattered) |
Another novel describes a character hiding alone in a grotty
bedsit after causing injury with glass. The room has the same layout, a
bench-like bed with a window looking east. How had I not noticed these
recurrences before?
This is how I worked out where I had gone to during the
missing 4 hours of that day. A 4 year old child had dashed into the back garden after seeing blood on her twin’s
face and then she hid in the caravan.
Somatic Memory
But what did I do during all this time? I may have tranced
out or fallen asleep due to shock. One thing I do know was that I had not
encountered a family member. This is consistent with my
novels. All characters that flee remain alone.
When I returned to the cottage, the once-sunlit kitchen was
now gloomy. Mum was already seated with Eve on her lap. Eve appeared as
white as linen, unconscious from the anesthetic and a black scar near her hairline.
My first sight of her had spurred a potent concoction of
emotions. Naturally I was deeply ashamed at what I had done.
But then I had also seen a man’s face rise in my chest. A man’s face. This
seems odd, but I would later learn it was a sensory or ‘somatic’ memory of
something I had experienced a year previously. I didn’t figure this out at the
age of 4.
A somatic memory is a bizarre experience: I didn’t actually
‘see’ the man’s face in the literal sense, but I had a strong impression of a
man’s face in my chest as I had looked upon Eve. The image was as clear as a
photograph. With this, I felt terribly sullied.
This excerpt from my book Mirror Image Shattered describes what I thought the man’s face represented.
“As I had believed I had destroyed the lives of Mum
and my twin, I had become the weirdo on the bus that Mum typically spurned. A
man’s face had appeared in my chest and became part of me. This and Dad’s
psychotic illness must form the basis for the callous characters of my novels
years later. A stranger now exists inside of me and the cottage was no longer
my home.”
But the man in my chest wasn’t a figment of a cast-out
stranger of wrongdoings. The man had been real, only I hadn’t realised at the
time.
The following part describes how Eve’s anesthetized
body provided the key to uncovering the secrets to my toddlerhood.
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