Dead Scared

‘CAN YOU TELL me about the dreams?’ Evi asked.

Jessica had left her chair and was at the window. Two weeks ago, she’d been a young girl with a history of anxiety and eating disorders who’d been struggling to cope with being away from home for the first time and the rigorous academic demands of the university. Now she seemed a seriously disturbed young woman, exhibiting behaviour that was making Evi think about hospitalization.

‘We all have bad dreams, Jessica,’ she said, when her patient didn’t reply. ‘I’m not going to get all Freudian on you, but I do think they can point towards what’s worrying us.’

‘Do you?’ asked Jessica, without turning round. ‘Have bad dreams?’

The question caught Evi by surprise and she answered without thinking. ‘You have no idea,’ she said.

Jessica had turned on the spot and was looking Evi full in the face now. ‘What do you dream about?’ she said.

‘Something that happened to me just over a year ago,’ said Evi. ‘I can’t give you details, because other people were involved, other patients, but it was a very difficult time. It became a very frightening time. And although it’s over now, I still dream about it often.’

‘Do you ever want to talk to someone about it?’ asked Jessica.

‘I do talk to someone about it,’ replied Evi. ‘And you have very cleverly turned this conversation into one about me. I’m going to turn it back again, if that’s all right with you.’

The girl seemed calmer now. She sat down again, her hands rubbing her upper arms, as though for warmth. She really was horribly thin. Evi waited.

‘I’m scared of clowns,’ said Jessica, after a moment.

‘A lot of people are,’ replied Evi. ‘It’s a very common phobia.’

‘But really scared,’ said Jessica. ‘I can’t see a picture of one without feeling cold.’

‘And are clowns what you dream about?’

‘I think so.’

Evi waited. Nothing. She raised her eyebrows. Still nothing.

‘You think so?’ she prompted.

‘I can’t really remember,’ said Jessica. ‘That’s the weirdest thing. I know I’m in a fairground. I can remember the lights spinning and the music. I was lost in a fairground, you see, when I was about four. I just got separated from my parents in the crowd. When they found me I was beside one of those mechanical laughing clowns in a big Perspex box. I didn’t speak for a week.’

‘That would have been a terrifying experience for a four-year-old,’ said Evi. ‘Being lost in an unfamiliar place that was noisy and crowded, and then coming face to face with a clown. And, you know, coming to university is putting you in an unfamiliar place, away from your parents for the first time. It’s not surprising that your mind is harking back to a scary experience you had as a child.’

‘You’re probably right,’ said Jessica. ‘It’s just … not knowing what happens in the dreams is the worst thing.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I remember lights, music, laughing and bright colours. Swirling things like those horses on poles … but nothing else.’

‘Perhaps that’s all you can remember from what happened to you as a child.’

‘So why do I wake up exhausted?’ said Jessica. ‘And sore, like I’ve been beaten up in the night. Why do I wake up screaming?’