My Mother's Children: An Irish family secret and the scars it left behind.

by Annette Sills

  Her eyes widened. “Go on.”

  “Remember the girl in the letter called Kathleen Slevin who smuggled Dad and Tess’s letters.” I clasped my hands together. “Well, I’ve only gone and found her.”

  “You haven’t.”

  “I bloody well have. It was amazingly easy. In the letter Dad mentioned she was from Bohola, a small village not far from his home place. Slevin isn’t a very common surname in Mayo so I looked in the Irish Yellow Pages and found a couple of entries in Bohola. The very first one I rang was Kathleen’s nephew. He gave me the number of Margaret, Kathleen’s daughter. I rang her and explained why I wanted to talk to her mother. She was lovely and Kathleen was actually in the house with her at the time.”

  “No way!”

  “So Margaret went and spoke to Kathleen then she rang me back ten minutes later. Margaret said Kathleen wasn’t great on the phone so she wouldn’t put her on but that Kathleen remembered Tess well from her days in the home. She said she’d be happy to meet up the next time I was in Mayo.”

  Karen grinned. “You’ve already booked a flight, haven’t you?”

  I nodded. “Next week. I’m going to stay with Julia. Kathleen’s in her eighties now so she might not remember much but I’ll give it a go.”

  She clutched her fists to her chest and cocked her head to one side. “Oh Carmel, I’m so very excited for you.” Her phone rang again. “For God’s sake!” She took it from her pocket, frowned down at the screen again but this time she didn’t answer it.

  “You sure everything’s OK?” I asked.

  She cleared her throat. “It’s the buyer of the house again.”

  I drew my head back. “Buyer? So you’ve sold the house? Oh my God, that’s fantastic news! You’ve been wanting to move for forever. You said in your text that you had news and I’ve been going on and on about myself all this time. I’m so sorry. So have you found somewhere else?”

  She caught my eye briefly then looked away. “Kind of. I’m moving to Rome with Alexia.”

  Chapter 14

  I met Karen for the first time when we were eleven years old. She stood, sullen-faced, in the classroom doorway in Oakwood High. Mrs Burns gestured sternly at her to take the empty desk next to mine. I’d clocked her in the playground on her first day, one of the few mixed-race girls in year seven, the only girl taller than me. She’d recently moved down from Scotland and joined the school mid-term. Two weeks in, she’d been moved out of her class into mine after almost being expelled.

  Slowly, she made her way down the rows of desks, head held high, eyes focussed on the back wall. Two fat bunches of golden curls tied with red ribbons stuck out from behind her ears and an embroidered green bag threaded with silver swung from her shoulder. When she sat down next to me, I could see she was fighting back tears. Her blue eyes shone like jewels against her dark skin. Throughout the lesson she rubbed at the red marks on her right palm when she thought no one was looking.

  As we gathered our things after the bell rang, I said I liked her Wham pencil case.

  “Andrew’s my favourite,” I added nervously.

  “No way!” She had a throaty Scottish voice that sounded a bit dangerous. “George is my dream ticket.” Her face brightened. “My Auntie Joyce is getting me and Mum tickets to see them live in London next month.”

  I wasn’t sure what a dream ticket was but I skipped home that day repeating the words in her accent, rolling the ‘r’ in a ‘dream’ around my tongue the way she did.

  We quickly became friends. I hung around with a couple of girls but I’d never had a best friend. I never invited anyone home as I was scared of them finding out about Tess not being well.

  I was over the moon when Karen invited me to Hillingdon Road for tea a couple of weeks later. Her mum Dee was out. Karen made Findus Crispy Pancakes followed by Angel Delight and we listened to, “I’m Your Man,” in her bedroom. A huge CND wall-hanging covered the window where curtains should have been, dreamcatchers dangled above her bed and incense candles burned on the dressing table. I thought it was the coolest room ever. Picking at a loose thread on the patchwork quilt, I tentatively asked Karen if being caned had hurt.

  She shook her head. “Not as much as Julie Kawalski’s stitches.”

  I put my hand over my mouth, trying not to laugh. “Julie defo won’t be calling you names again, that’s for sure.”

  Julie Kawalski was in Karen’s former class. She had targeted Karen with racist taunts from the day she walked through the school gates. Pudgy and lank-haired, Julie lived on the Nell Lane Estate with her fat parents, a rake of skinhead brothers and a litter of pit bulls. One day at break she called Karen one name too many and Karen snapped. Catching hold of Julie by a pigtail, she slammed her into the school railing. Julie caught her head on an iron spike and had to be taken to the Infirmary by the deputy head to have five stitches. The next day Julie’s dad, two brothers and one of the pit bulls turned up at the school baying for Karen’s blood. She was moved out of Julie’s class and caned, the last girl ever to receive corporal punishment in the school. Years on, she still maintained it made her feel like Ruth Ellis.

  She once told me the episode was life-changing. Karen was born in Manchester, not Scotland. But when she was a toddler, Dee had fallen on hard times and left Manchester to return to the tiny village outside Glasgow where she was raised. After their initial shock and horror at having a mixed-raced grandchild, her grandparents doted on Karen. They were both teachers in the local secondary school and well respected and Karen suffered surprisingly little racist abuse growing up in the village. During that time she’d had no contact with her dad or any relatives from Nigeria so she said she didn’t really identify as black. It was only when she was targeted by Julie Kawalski that she started looking in the mirror and asking questions about her identity. She said everything changed after that.

  Karen and I had things in common and we bonded quickly. We were both outsiders and the children of immigrants. We were waifs and strays, jetsam bobbing around the streets of South Manchester with no stable home life. Tess was struggling to cope with Dad’s death and spent a lot of time in bed, crushed by depression. The few cleaning jobs she had were long gone and we got by on benefits cheques. Karen’s home life wasn’t much better. Dee was rapidly descending into alcoholism. No matter how bad Tess was feeling, at the end of the day she always managed to put a meal on the table for the three of us. But at Hillingdon Road the fridge was always empty. After school Karen would often have to go in search of Dee for money for food. She was usually in the Spread Eagle or the Royal Oak in Chorlton. If her luck was in, the pair of us would count out the pennies then skip to the Chinese chippy for chips and scrapings with curry sauce and cans of Iron Bru. We shared everything we had, which was never much. Any money I got from relatives in Ireland went on sweets and copies of Smash Hits magazine from Etchells newsagents for both of us.

  At fifteen we were clubbing. With our wages from our Saturday jobs at the Kellogg’s factory we made our own clothes: taffeta tutus and silk bodices from the cut-off basket in Leon’s fabrics in Chorlton. We shopped for cheap accessories in Affleck’s Palace in town, we backcombed our hair and saved up for twelve-hole Doc Martens boots. Some of the clubs used to let us in for nothing because the bouncers said we looked good on the dance floor. They called us “Ebony and Ivory” and “Chocolate and Cream”. I once asked her if we should go in if they were calling us names like that, but she said she didn’t give a toss as long as we got to dance the night away for free.

  I often stayed over at Hillingdon Road after our clubbing nights. Tess never let me stay out that late, but Dee was usually trashed and never noticed what time we got in. Karen had a lock on the inside of her bedroom door. When I asked her why, she said it had been there when they moved in. But something happened one night to make me think otherwise.

  Desperate for a pee, I woke up in the early hours. As I made my way across the landing to the bathroom, I bumped into a man coming out of
Dee’s room. Burly and ginger, he was fastening his belt. He looked familiar and he took one look at me then scarpered downstairs like a startled guinea pig. The room to Dee’s room was open. She was sitting on her bed. A red kimono fell from her bony shoulders revealing tiny breasts, stockings and suspenders. She was putting bank notes into a small black purse.

  The next morning Karen and I were lying in bed, hungover. I told her I dreamt I saw Julie Kawalski’s dad on her landing.

  “Oh him,” she laughed. “He’s a regular.”

  She scrutinised my face for a reaction but I looked away. I didn’t want to show her how shocked I was. Neither of us ever mentioned the episode again. Six months later and four days after Karen’s sixteenth birthday, Dee died of chronic liver failure.

  We spent the next two years in each other’s pockets. Karen had a proper grown-up life. She got a nine-to-five job at the Council Housing Department and stayed on in Hillingdon Road. She coped with her grief by keeping busy. The pair of us redecorated the place from top to bottom, scouring south Manchester for second-hand bits of furniture and painting her bedroom black. We had parties most weekends and brought boys back. Only now and again did she speak about Dee but not talking about stuff was normal at the time. I don’t think I ever spoke about the pain of losing Dad. In my eyes Karen was the strong silent type. Then one day I found some counselling leaflets in a kitchen drawer. When I asked her if she was seeing someone, she snatched them off me and told me to mind my own business.

  When I went to Manchester Poly we pulled away from each other. I was living at home with Tess and Mikey and swotting, and she was reading Spare Rib, getting involved in women’s groups, attending every anti-apartheid march going and sleeping with both men and women. She despised a lot of my student friends. She asked why they were in the Socialist Workers Party and living in “poverty” in the Crescents in Hulme while Mummy and Daddy were sending them fat cheques from the Home Counties. I invited her along to some student parties but she got into so many arguments I stopped. One day she told me I was turning into a middle-class twat and I told her she was bitter and jealous. Our friendship cooled for a while after that but we still kept in touch. Later on, when she was a working single mother in her thirties, she got a first-class degree in psychology. She was studying for her Master’s when we were both living in Old Trafford and that was when our friendship got fully back on track. It was like the intervening years had never happened and we saw each other all the time.

  But now, without a word of warning, she was leaving the country.

  The café was starting to get very busy.

  I picked my jacket up from the sofa. “Rome. Wow, Karen. That’s huge news.”

  “I got a private buyer for the house.” She slipped her phone into her bag. “I applied for voluntary redundancy at work and they got back to me a few weeks ago.” She smiled weakly. “At least I won’t have to listen to those bloody trains at the bottom of the garden anymore.”

  I stood up. “So you’re going with Alexia in September?”

  She winced then stood up too. “Actually I’m off in a few weeks. I’ve got a place on a training course to teach English as a Foreign Language at a college over there. Then Alexia and I are going to explore Italy for a bit before she starts uni.”

  An awkward silence hung in the air as we walked out of the café into the corridor. One of the library staff was having words with someone from the homeless camp and they were blocking the exit.

  As we waited to pass, I shook my head and turned to her. “What the hell, Karen? We’ve been friends for nearly thirty years. Why the fait accompli? Why didn’t you mention anything before?”

  She reddened. “I suppose I didn’t want you to persuade me otherwise.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it. You don’t give a toss what I think about anything anymore.”

  “That’s not true. You’ll always matter to me, Carmel.”

  “Look me in the eye and be totally honest with me. Are you back with Simon Whelan? Are you running away to Italy with him?”

  “What?” She stepped back, blinking rapidly. “No. Of course not.” She gave a nervous laugh. “Why would you think that?”

  I examined her face then shrugged. “Dunno. All the secrecy, I suppose.”

  “I’m not running away with anyone. I simply want a change of scene. I’ve been trying to sell the house for years and I’ve never lived abroad.” She gestured around the library. “My life’s getting a long overdue make-over and new beginning like this place.”

  I started to walk away and she hurried after me.

  “Rome’s only a two-hour flight away,” she said, her voice trembling. “We can always Skype and you can come out and visit.”

  When I turned round, I was shocked to see tears in her eyes. Like Joe, she rarely cried.

  She stepped forward, pulled me towards her in a hug and I let her. “I’m so very sorry for the way I’ve treated you. You so deserve to find your sibling.” She pulled away and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Please be careful though, won’t you? Don’t build this unknown person up too much in your head. You might be disappointed like I was with my dad. Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  We walked across the square to the tram stop and said goodbye under a swollen mass of pewter clouds. A few minutes later as the tram trundled away, I watched her stride across St Peter’s Square and disappear down the passageway between the library and the town hall. It would be over a year before we spoke or saw each other again.

  Chapter 15

  I picked up the copy of the Manchester Evening News from the mat and headed into the kitchen. I looked at the wall clock. Three-quarters of an hour before the taxi was due. It was a bank holiday so the flight to Knock would be busy. A burst of adrenalin rushed through me. I was both excited and nervous about my trip and the possibilities it might unearth. I was also looking forward to being back in Mayo. I hadn’t been back since Tess passed away. I couldn’t wait to wake up to those breath-taking views of Clew Bay from the spare room in my Aunt Julia’s house.

  I slipped my passport, Ryanair ticket and car-hire documents into my new travel wallet. I ran my fingers over the soft red leather. Joe had given it to me when he got back from a business trip to Madrid a few days previously. We spent a perfect evening together. We ordered a seafood curry takeaway from Coriander, our favourite Indian, and opened the oaked Rioja he’d brought back. We ate and drank by candlelight and snuggled up to a film. He apologised for being an arse recently, told me he loved me and didn’t mention the baby issue. We had sex on the sofa. Good, bonding sex that made me feel cocooned and safe again.

  Then the previous night he’d flown at me again for no apparent reason. I was packing for my trip in the bedroom and he was changing out of his work suit. I noticed he’d lost weight. His once fleshy torso had hollowed out and his arms seemed skinnier. His face looked gaunt too, as if he was ailing for something.

  I still hadn’t found the right moment to tell him about Tess’s baby and the real reason I was going to Mayo. We’d both been busy. He’d been in Madrid and I’d been at a conference in Bristol. But I’d decided I was going to tell him everything over dinner that evening.

  Karen was on my mind a lot and so I told him about her leaving.

  Joe didn’t seem particularly interested. He acted like it was something in my world that didn’t concern him.

  “I still can’t believe she never told me,” I said, reaching into my wardrobe for a couple of thick jumpers, “Not even about selling the house.”

  “You’re not her keeper!” he snapped, looking on in disapproval as I squashed the sweaters into my holdall. A regular traveller, he meticulously folded and rolled to fit everything into a cabin-luggage-sized case. It really got on my nerves. “Why do you have to be so negative? Why can’t you be happy for her?”

  “I am happy for her. I just don’t like the way she did it without saying anything, that’s all. We’ve been friends for yea
rs. She should have told me.”

  “Sounds to me like you’re jealous,” he said, throwing his shirt in the laundry basket and zipping up his track-suit top.

  “What?”

  “Well, I am,” he said. “Starting a new life in a new country and leaving this shithole behind. Who wouldn’t be?”

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” I yelled, picking up a pair of jeans and throwing them after him as he left the room.

  The front door slammed shortly afterwards. I sat on the bed with my head in my hands, bewildered. What the fuck?

  Joe and I had been together for almost twenty years and, though we had our ups and downs, he’d never been as cruel as he had been in those past months. I was started to feel scared and paranoid. Yes, he annoyed the hell out of me sometimes, but I loved him. I didn’t know what I’d do if he were to leave me as well as all the others

  The forecast for the west of Ireland was clear skies and sun. For once I was looking forward to the plane landing at Knock airport without being buffeted by fierce Atlantic winds and brutal rain. I had a busy three-day itinerary. After I’d picked up the hire car I was going to drive to Tuam to visit the site of the Mother and Baby home. After that I was going to Westport to Aunt Julia’s.

  Julia was Dad’s youngest sister. We were close. We spoke on the phone and Skyped regularly, and I visited a couple of times a year. I hadn’t yet told her the reason for my visit. I had no idea if she knew anything about Tess and Dad and the baby. In 1960, when it all happened, she was living in America. It was too big and emotional to tell her by phone. I wanted to sit down with her in the Chesterfield chairs in front of the open fire, glass of red in hand and talk it through. I’d arranged to meet Kathleen Slevin at a hotel near her home in Bohola the following day.