All of Me (40 page)

But then I had the extra pressure of wondering:
Is the child in those pictures me?

Ria wasn’t telling, however. She didn’t come out very often except to paint. Whenever Dr Laine did come across her she would always be told the same things: ‘Bad things happen, children get hurt, people are bad.’

I honestly thought that would be as much as we would ever know about Ria. Then the
Oprah
cameras came to town and she was one of the people the producers selected to interview. I don’t know if it was the fact it was a different person asking or whether she’d just had enough of biting her tongue, but Ria told us more in that short piece of film than we’d learnt in ten years. It was on camera, for example, that she revealed she was twelve years old – finally we had an age.

And it was on camera that she was asked if she’d ever been abused and she pointed to her painting, put her finger to her lips and said, ‘Shh.’

What a breakthrough! It’s amazing when the other personalities can shock you.

I wasn’t the only one shocked by this bombshell. The body went into protection overdrive and it took me five or six attempts to watch that segment of
Oprah.
The first time I was sitting there with Aimee and the moment Ria came onto the screen, Ria entered the room as well. The same thing happened the second and third times. Eventually I managed to sit through it without switching but I can see why the body wanted to protect us. It just brought our hideous past that one step closer.

While the body has a responsibility towards all of us, as the dominant personality I realised I had responsibilities too. Aimee was my number one priority, obviously. After that, however, I had a duty to care for the other personalities. Painting had done wonders for Ria, Missy and I think Bonny, so rather than curtail it I needed to take it further. After a few months, I decided to make a bespoke art room. If that’s how the personalities wanted to communicate then I would give them the best facilities possible.

And it would also save Missy from destroying the dining room with her mess!

I knew it was a good thing for the body when I realised we’d all chipped in. I remember going out to buy an easel in the January sales, but I think it was Bonny who bought the canvases and proper paints. Then it was a group effort after that to prepare the little box room upstairs. We took out everything that didn’t need to be there and turned the place into as close to a proper studio as we could. Not only did we have room to paint and to pose and reflect on our work and relax, there was also room to mess around and hang some work. Gone were the days of not being able to eat breakfast because the table was covered in drying masterpieces.

Debbie was impressed. From suggesting a spot of daubing as a way to pass the time as a family, she’d begun to photograph every painting and write notes on how they made her feel. ‘You’ll be exhibiting in no time,’ she said.

I looked at my early attempts at a landscape and couldn’t help snigger. ‘Not outside this house I won’t.’

She was right though. From setting up the art room in January to our first public showing took about two months. I still don’t know how we had the nerve to even think about it. I’d like to blame one of the others but I was the one who made the calls looking for exhibition space.

With Debs winding down her visits as her training drew to a close, a family worker called Shirley had been appointed by social services to spend a bit of time with us. I remember seeing an article in the
Croydon Advertiser
about a new vegetarian restaurant, Pepperton’s, so I went along with Shirley to try to pitch our show. Even as we stepped in the front door I thought,
What on Earth am I doing here? You’ve only painted a few pictures of grass and trees.

But it was the alters I was there for. They had done the work that deserved to be shown.

I’d decided that since no one ever signed their paintings we’d go under the name ‘Kim Noble’. That was the obvious choice. I devised a little hieroglyphic that looks like ‘KN’ and put that on most of the paintings. Of course, when we turned up at Pepperton’s, Shirley instinctively called me ‘Patricia’ in front of the woman.

Bang went the lovely relationship we’d built up. Suddenly there was this awkward atmosphere as if I was some kind of fraudster. In the end I had to explain how Kim Noble had DID, how I was one of her alters and how many others had contributed the artwork. Saying it aloud drove it home more than I’d appreciated.

If I’d had to explain that to a stranger on my own behalf I don’t think I would have bothered. I’d never uttered those words before in my life. Telling this woman in a restaurant seemed a bizarre way to break my silence. And yet, it was for the good of the body, I could see that. I didn’t even think twice:
Anything to help the others.

It worked. The woman selected a few of our pictures and they went up on the walls. It wasn’t exactly Tate Britain but just six months after we’d started slapping paint on the back of wallpaper, a few of us were being seen by the general public.

It didn’t always work out. Dr Laine’s husband, Andrew, took our portfolio into a London gallery and, while admiring, the verdict was: ‘Tell Kim to come back when her style has settled’! The Fairfield Hall in Croydon also paid us compliments but couldn’t show our work because it lacked a community angle.

Okay,
I thought,
we’ve tried the free route. It’s time to put our money where our mouth is.

The Burgh House in Hampstead, London, had an impressive space and a good reputation for attracting visitors. After a tour of the gallery space I knew it was worth a gamble.
This is a venue worth paying for.
From messing around on our dining room table to paying to stage our first proper solo show had taken less than a year – and I couldn’t have been more thrilled.

The prospect of seeing our early work collected and mounted properly in Hampstead created such a frisson of excitement around the house. Even though I was the one making the arrangements and counting down the days in the diary, I’m sure the other personalities felt it too. I couldn’t imagine the body letting their work be exhibited like this without letting them know. Pepperton’s had been one thing but this, I felt, would be the real deal.

I was right. I’d seen my alters’ work lying around the house and a few of them I’d even admired on a restaurant wall. But nothing prepared me for the sight of everyone’s art mounted and properly presented at the Burgh House. It truly took my breath away. For the first time in my life I felt genuine pride. Even seeing my own landscape up there alongside the figures of Bonny, Missy’s abstracts and Ria’s scenes of degradation wasn’t as embarrassing as I’d feared. And, I realised, as I took in the different styles on show, it was our first public announcement that Kim Noble had DID. Until that moment I hadn’t appreciated how heavily the pressure weighed on our shoulders.

It was a very emotional time. I was wandering around, really studying the paintings with fresh eyes, learning new things about each artist. I felt a real closeness to them that I’d never really appreciated looking at them individually at home. Not having any training, our work comes from the heart, not the head, and standing there in a gallery for the first time, I realised that part of every personality was up there on canvas.

I truly got the sense that,
Here we all are together in one room.

This was not only the nearest I will get to ever meeting them, but it was the nearest thing to integration we will get. That feeling never goes away. That’s why I still love exhibitions today.

If my emotional response had taken me by surprise, the press’s interest in the exhibition really knocked me out.

As quickly as we’d gone from amateur to semi-professional artist, we’d rocketed from private DID sufferers to appearing in the culture section of broadsheet newspapers and on websites accessible the world over. Not everyone got every detail right but I was amazed at the level of attention.

I don’t know if it’s a facet of my general dissociation, but I wasn’t at all fazed by the publicity. I’m a shy person normally but speaking about my painting doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Having people know about my personal circumstances isn’t a problem either and I never once felt hounded. I suppose it helped that people only referred to Kim Noble. Whatever they say, whatever they write, I am not Kim Noble.

Dr Laine was blown away by this unexpected development in our lives, and once Debbie had returned to Durham to pursue her career she found us another art therapist from Springfield – Ami. This time we did actually work through the therapy side for a while, but mainly it was great to have another pair of eyes cast over our efforts. Despite my natural reticence I think Ami must have seen or heard something she liked because one day she said, ‘How would you feel running a group with me at Springfield?’

Ami had completed a placement at Springfield Hospital while doing her training and she was now a qualified working art therapist. We spoke about the wonderful space and the possibility of running a social art group where people with mental health problems, physical disabilities and learning difficulties could all meet to chat, drink tea and paint. We both agreed that a mixed group could be so beneficial.

I worked at Springfield for more than two years and, as their first artist in residence, also got to display plenty of our pictures. If I saw a spare square of space in a corridor I’d go straight over to the hospital manager offering to fill it. As a result I entertained for the first time the idea of actually being an artist.

At the early exhibitions I would have to say my pictures, along with Missy’s, proved the most in demand. At Springfield, however, a surprising candidate for the most popular artist was Dawn. As, one by one, other alters had joined our art group and new and varied works appeared on an almost daily basis, I was most pleased to see Dawn had found her way to the paint room. I’ve never felt so sorry for anyone as I do her. I think her paintings show her confusion: she specialises in word pictures – shapes and colours with poems and messages laced around the picture. I hope it’s a calming outlet for her.

Dawn’s connection to Aimee – or Skye – is obvious. Another personality called Suzy seems to have as much of a fixation on motherhood as Dawn but I don’t know why – and I’m glad I don’t. Suzy is always interesting. For several years all she would paint was a mother with a baby. Week after week, canvas after canvas, all she would produce was the same image over and over. At one point we had fifteen of them filling up the room. It was actually a very powerful sight even if no one knew why she did it. Then one day I noticed the easel was covered by a gold curtain.

What on Earth’s this?
I wondered as I gingerly lifted the drape. That’s when I realised it was by Suzy. Yet I almost had to do a double-take because there was the mother, exactly the same as usual, but where was the baby? It was missing. At first I thought she hadn’t finished but considering the elaborate way she’d dressed the painting that was unlikely.

No,
I thought,
whatever problem Suzy had I think has been worked through.

If just one alter was finding solace in her work that was amazing. Suzy still paints but ever since then she has only dabbled in celebrity portraits. She’s our very own Andy Warhol – celebrities, athletes, the more famous the better. Simon Cowell, Oprah, Marilyn Monroe. The only exception to my knowledge was a portrait of Aimee when she was young.

I’m sad that Aimee never took to painting but the art room has become a really important part in all our lives. I feel it’s my responsibility to give the other personalities an environment where they can come out and express themselves so whenever I haven’t got anything else to do I’ll wander upstairs and just sit at the easel. Rarely these days do I actually paint myself but I just like to give one of the others the opportunity to pop out and work on something. If Aimee’s in the house she usually comes to sit with me because she loves hanging out with the others, especially the younger ones.

Judy has always gotten along well with Aimee – despite her reservations about me and her abandonment issues – and now they’re nearly the same age I think the bond’s even closer. After our appearance on
Oprah,
a Japanese TV company filmed us at the house. It was a very professional operation with lots of hidden cameras around the living room. I knew about them, obviously, but the idea was that anyone switching wouldn’t and so would just act naturally. I was about to find out how it felt to be an animal in a David Attenborough film.

Dr Laine was sometimes there to support the personalities who came out. With lunch approaching, though, I knew we didn’t need to do much before Judy showed up for her meal. My last words to Aimee before the switch were, ‘Remember you’re being filmed. Best behaviour at the dinner table!’

I may as well have been speaking another language. Judy arrived and within two minutes they were trying to name as many words for a boy’s willy as possible! And all of it’s captured on tape for all of Japan to see.

Judy’s paintings are really interesting and she knows it. I occasionally leave notes out for the others and she is the only one who responds rudely. I know she really resents always having to share her exhibitions with this person called Kim Noble who she’s never even met. She’s said that to plenty of people. Of course, she said the same sort of thing to our publishers about this book. ‘Why are you writing about Patricia? You should write about me – I’m much more interesting!’