He came over, knelt beside me and took my hands in his. “You’d make a brilliant mother, I know you would.”
I shook my head. “No, I wouldn’t. I’d be anxious and overprotective and scared all the time. That’s not good for any child.”
I slipped my hands from his, placed them on his shoulders and looked directly into his eyes. “I have to be honest with you, Joe. I just don’t know if I have it in me.”
Chapter 12
I met Joe Doherty on a day cratered in the minds of most Mancunians. It was Saturday, the 16th of June, 1996. The day the IRA bombed our city.
The skies were cobalt blue and cloudless when Tess and I caught the early bus into town that morning. We were on a mission to find an outfit for her for a wedding. Rose O’Grady’s eldest Sinéad was getting married the following Saturday at St John’s Church in Chorlton, followed by a reception at Chorlton Irish. Tess, Mikey and I had all been invited.
That weekend the city had been infected by a serious case of football fever. The Euros were in full swing, England versus Scotland was being shown in the pubs that afternoon and Russia versus Germany was being played at Old Trafford the following day. The hangover of the football hooliganism of the eighties still lingered and when we got into town just after nine a large police presence hovered everywhere. Vans blocked side streets and officers in short sleeve shirts and helmets stood on corners, radios at the ready. A group of German fans got on the bus at Deansgate and a couple of England shirts at the back splayed their arms like wings and started to hum the Dambusters tune.
Tess shook her head. “Gobshites,” she said and I laughed.
We got off at the Arndale bus station and headed across the road for Marks and Spencer’s and the reduced rail. We soon found the perfect outfit, a fuchsia trouser suit and white satin blouse. With her slender figure and ash-blonde hair piled high, Tess received a lot of admiring glances in the changing room. She was in great form that day. She didn’t get invited many places and she was excited about the wedding. I watched, enchanted, as she charmed the shop assistants, making them laugh. On days like that when the mist of her illness lifted, she filled the world with colour and light. It was a joy to see but at the same time it pained me because it gave a glimpse of how different life might have been if she was like that all the time.
We left the store via the Corporation Street exit at about ten. The streets were humming with shoppers taking advantage of the good weather. Father’s Day gifts filled shop windows. I felt a yank on my heart. Eighteen years on, I still missed Dad desperately. When we stepped outside, Tess said she wanted to go to Kendals on Deansgate for some lipstick to match her outfit. So off we went. Neither of us remembered seeing the white van parked on the double yellow lines on the corner of Cannon Street. Or the flashing lights or the parking ticket slapped on the windscreen. It was only later that evening as we watched the news unfold on TV that we realised we’d walked right past the bomb itself.
We’d been in Kendals for about twenty minutes when a burly security guard with dreadlocks and a gold front tooth started telling everyone to evacuate. His face had an expression of mild annoyance, like someone had interrupted him when he was on his break. Tess had wandered off and I looked around, unable to see her anywhere. I walked up and down the aisles of the make-up department in the mist of perfume and women in white frocks, some of whom were also heading for the exit. I wasn’t unduly worried but then I heard someone say something about a bomb being defused in the Arndale and I started to panic. I ran up and down shouting out Tess’s name with the security guard at my heels yelling at me to leave. Eventually I found her at the front of the store by the revolving doors. She was chatting to a man of about my age in a khaki shirt and jeans.
I glared at her. “Thanks,” I said. “She’s mine.”
Tess tutted and patted the stranger’s arm. “She’s terrible for wandering off, so she is.”
I gritted my teeth and grabbed her elbow. The three of us squeezed into the revolving doors, the last to leave the store.
The man gave me a coy smile. “She was getting worried. My parents are Irish too. From Cork.”
He had a soft London accent and he sounded a bit Marc Bolan. In the confined space I could smell apple-scented aftershave and mints. I looked closely at his reflection in the glass door. A round face with boyish features, all spaced pleasantly apart, startling blue eyes and a steady gaze. His face was slightly tattered, suggesting a lot of late nights, which I liked, and he had a sturdy frame. But he was at least two inches shorter than me. For a woman of five feet ten those inches mattered. I’d only ever dated one man shorter than me and it was uncomfortable, like wearing the wrong-sized shoes.
The three of us were spat out into sunshine and chaos. Policemen with sweat pouring down their faces were shouting and waving the crowds away from the Arndale. Cars and buses were turning round and retreating and a group of teenage girls in crop tops and shorts with Walkmans were linking arms and running down the middle of the road.
“I’m Joe Doherty, by the way,” he said as we joined the flow of people.
I linked arms with Tess. “Carmel Lynch and this is Tess.”
He walked alongside us on the edge of the pavement, his body turned slightly as if shielding us.
“I was never in Cork.” Tess’s voice was high-pitched and nervous. She gripped my arm, her eyes darting around.
Strangers exchanged worried looks, others fixed their eyes on the ground. We quickened our pace. I caught Joe Doherty looking at me. He smiled shyly and seemed nonplussed by what was going on around us. Behind him on the other side of the street I saw a young bride running down the pavement holding her wedding dress off the ground. Her groom and a young bridesmaid were running along either side of her.
I pointed and Joe Doherty turned and looked.
“Cold feet?” He smiled as a mounted policeman trotted past, waving and telling us to get a move on.
I opened my mouth to reply but the words never came out. An unearthly roar reared up behind us, the force of the blast raising the three of us off the ground. Joe and I stumbled forward and managed to steady ourselves but Tess flopped onto the pavement like a rag doll. In the seconds that followed the world was cloaked in silence, broken only by the sound of falling glass. Shop windows shattered everywhere and crystal rain came teeming down. A horse whinnied somewhere then the shrieking of sirens, car alarms and screams all followed.
I felt a ringing in my ears and I was shaking. Joe picked Tess up. A large shard had lodged itself in her forehead. She was shaking too, her breathing shallow and blood was streaming down her face. He carried her down the street and I ran alongside holding her hand. The police who were preparing for hooligans earlier were now everywhere, frantically leading us away from the blast. We later learned they’d been warned about a second bomb. I saw one officer was leaning over a pregnant woman looking like he was having a panic attack but trying to hide it. We stopped for breath after about a hundred yards or so. Joe and I turned round. A mushroom of white smoke covered the dazzling blue sky and bits of paper floated over the Manchester skyline like dying doves. We locked eyes and love raised its head from the ashes of destruction and hatred.
We continued along Deansgate and I witnessed small acts of kindness on every street corner: a homeless man cradling an old man’s bleeding head in the doorway of the Sawyers Arms, two young England fans carrying a buggy with a baby in it for a struggling mother, a group of taxi drivers in turbans turning their black cabs into makeshift ambulances. Dust clogged the air and carrier bags of shopping and Father’s Day gifts were abandoned everywhere. On the corner of John Dalton Street one of the taxi drivers spotted Tess and shouted out that he was going to the Infirmary. Dazed, the three of us got in. Two bloodied Russian fans sat opposite. One was moaning and holding his gashed leg under his knee with both hands.
“I was buying socks,” said Joe, staring straight ahead, “I forgot to bring a spare pair. I was supposed to meet Jan and Stefa
n. They’re over from the Dusseldorf office. We were going to watch the Scotland game together.” He shook his head. “I’ve no idea where they are.”
I realised he was in shock and put my hand on his. The young Russian let out another moan and Tess grabbed my arm. “What about Mikey?”
As the taxi pulled away, I saw a battalion of Marks and Spencer’s staff, dust-covered middle-aged women in navy, marching down the road followed by a line of shoppers. Further on, I gasped at the sight of bodies scattered in the road, all slim females, one with her white dress ripped off.
“Mannequins,” Joe said. “Blown out of shop windows.”
At the Infirmary we were treated by a pretty young nurse from Mayo. Aiofe Kelly had alabaster skin and tar-coloured curls and as she took down a box of dressings from the medical cabinet, I could see she was crying. I went over and put my arm around her.
“Sorry.” She wiped her eye with the back of her hand then nodded at the gap in the cubicle curtain where an older nurse was standing with a clipboard. “The charge nurse sent me over to your ma. ‘She’s one of yours,’ she says to me. ‘Your lot did this so you can treat her.’” Aiofe sniffed. “I’ve worked with that woman for ten years.”
We knew immediately it was the IRA. In my university years I’d read up on all the Irish history I’d never been taught at school. I read about De Valera, Collins and Markievicz, names I’d never heard in any of my history lessons. For a while after I was angry about all the British atrocities heaped on the Irish in the past. I sang rebel songs in lock-ins in Levenshulme, learned the names of all the hunger strikers and developed a crush on Martin McGuinness that I kept to myself. My relationship with Irish nationalism had its ups and downs over the years but that day, as I watched the walking wounded flood into the hospital waiting room and wiped blood from my Irish mother’s face, all I felt was rage.
Joe queued at the hospital phone box and called his parents and the Old Trafford hotel where his work colleagues were staying. They’d been on their way into town in a taxi when the driver was alerted about the bomb over the radio car and the taxi turned back. I asked him to ring the house to see if Mikey was there but there was no answer.
Joe accompanied us back to Brantingham Road in a taxi and the three of us watched the news unfold on TV. I stared in disbelief at the images of our city centre in tatters. Over two hundred injured but no fatalities due to the efficiency of the police evacuation. Tess chain-smoked in her armchair and every five minutes she asked where Mikey was. I had no idea. He was sixteen and probably hanging out with his friends or some girl. He’d said nothing that morning about going into town. She got more and more agitated and paced up and down in front of the gas fire, spots of blood seeping through her bandaged head.
She wrung her hands. “How can I ever open my mouth in the shops in Chorlton again?” she said. “I feel ashamed to be Irish.”
I put my arms around her. “Don’t be daft, Mam. Half of Manchester is Irish.”
Deep down I felt ashamed too, though. And I was going to have to end it with Martin McGuinness.
Joe joined me in the kitchen where I was making a brew and some cheese-and-ham sandwiches. I was struggling with a jar of chutney. As he took it from me, our fingers touched, and a current passing through me.
He opened the jar effortlessly and handed it back. “Is Tess OK?” he asked.
I looked down and sliced open a packet of ham. “She gets bad with her nerves sometimes.”
He asked no further questions and we buttered bread rolls together in silence, the sun warming our faces through the window.
Mikey sauntered through the front door just after six.
I ran into the hall. “Why didn’t you ring? Tess has been going out of her mind with worry.”
He was at that age when he thought of nobody but himself and I felt like slapping him.
When he walked into the living room Tess burst into tears and flung her arms around him.
He looked at her bandaged head. “What happened to you?” he asked.
When she finally let go of him, we told him about the bomb. He said he’d been at his friend’s house on the PlayStation all day and hadn’t heard a thing. Shortly afterwards Tess went upstarts for a lie-down and the three of us sat in the kitchen drinking beer.
Mikey gulped his down and frowned at Joe. “Who are you?” he asked, as if he’d only just registered his presence.
Joe laughed. Those were the days when Mikey was a loveable cheeky teenager. He had yet to turn into the drug-and-drink-addled yob that would give us both so much grief and heartache in the years to come.
“So that’s my messed-up family,” I said to Joe when Mikey left us and went upstairs to his room.
He slugged back his beer and smiled. “I think they’re great.” He moved to the chair next to me, his face suddenly grave. “There’s something I need to tell you, Carmel.”
I swallowed. “Go on.”
“Tess was shoplifting in Kendals. I saw her put three lipsticks in her bag.” His face broke into a grin.
I threw my head back and laughed. “She’d better have got one for me!”
“Well, I was about to ask her to get me some socks but they started evacuating.”
We laughed long and hard, the tension of the day loosening and falling off us like a suit of tight-fitting clothes. Then we locked eyes for a second time. I’d forgotten all about the missing inches. In my eyes Joe Doherty was ten feet tall.
He fiddled with the ring on his can of beer and asked me if I was seeing anyone.
I shook my head and as he leant in to kiss me a siren wailed in the distance.
Chapter 13
The following week I started my search for my sibling in earnest. I knew there’d be no point contacting the order of nuns who ran the home. The Bon Secours sisters were publicly denying all knowledge of a mass grave. They said that all documents from the home had been returned to Galway County Council after the home’s closure. This came as no surprise. When the Magdalene Laundries and paedophile scandals surfaced, the Catholic Church pulled up its drawbridges and operated a similar vow of silence. I had to look elsewhere.
So I emailed TUSLA, the family agency in Ireland which held the birth, death and adoption certificates of all the former residents of the home. I sent on Tess and Dad’s details and an approximate date of birth for my sibling. After that I wrote to the local historian who was in possession of the death certificates of all the children who’d died in the home. Statistically, the chances of my sibling being among them were very slim but I needed to know. My gut instinct told me Tess’s baby had been adopted. The thought that I had a brother or sister out there in the world, a doctor in Dublin, a labourer in London or a hairdresser in New York, sent a river of excitement coursing through my veins. Losing Dad, Mikey and Tess had left me feeling disconnected, like a great chasm had formed between me and my past. The idea that I might have another sibling, possibly the sister I’d never had, filled me with hope. My third plan of action was to track down Kathleen Slevin, the young maid in the home who’d smuggled out Tess and Dad’s letters. Hopefully she was still alive. She be in her late seventies or early eighties by now if she was.
Like a detective in TV crime drama, my project consumed me. I was constantly thinking about possibilities and looking for my next lead. I found it hard to concentrate at work. I started leaving my phone on during lectures in case I got a call from Ireland. One time, when an Irish number came up on my screen I rushed out of the room in a fit of excitement. On my way I tripped over my bag, to the hilarity of my second-year students. I was disappointed to hear my Aunt Julia’s voice on the other end of the line. It was the only time I’d been less than delighted to speak to her. Fortunately, Tallulah Phillips wasn’t in the lecture hall at the time. She’d probably have told her mother about my fall and Bryonie might have asked her if I’d been drinking or made another comment about university lecturers and their inappropriate behaviour. Luckily though, I was getting no vibes f
rom Tallulah to indicate that Bryonie had told her anything about what happened at the Irish club that night. It looked like I’d been overanxious and, as was often the case. I’d been fretting about nothing at all.
On Thursday night I took myself off to a spa hotel in Cheshire with some vouchers Joe had bought me for Christmas. We’d stayed at Crewe Hall for our tenth anniversary, a stunning listed building that dated back to the seventeenth century. We’d walked around the landscaped gardens hand in hand, taken a dip in the pool and dined well. We were penniless and living in Cranley Road then, so a night away was a real treat. I’d asked Karen to join me this time but she’d already committed to a leaving do in Chorlton for a friend from work. Joe was out with friends so he couldn’t come. I was happy to go on my own, but I spent very little time in the spa. I ended up staying in my room all evening with room service for company, engrossed in yet more research on the Mother and Baby homes. Then I stayed up into the early hours reading an excellent book about the illegal adoptions that took place in homes all over Ireland.
The next morning I was standing in the grand hall at reception waiting to check out when I got a phone call from Ireland on my mobile. It was a major breakthrough and I couldn’t believe my luck.
I was desperate to tell someone. I didn’t want to tell Joe. Things were still frosty between us after our discussion about having kids and I knew the story about Tess’s baby would spark off more arguments. I was going to wait for the right time to tell him. Mary was at a conference in Milan so I couldn’t talk to her. Deep down, the only person I really wanted to tell was Karen. She’d known Tess most of her life. So I swallowed my pride and texted her.
My Mother's Children: An Irish family secret and the scars it left behind. Page 7
