by Irene Kelly
Justin drove and Philip sat next to him upfront while I squeezed in the back with Anna, with Mum between us. Mum seemed her usual self – she hadn’t made any special effort to dress up; she wasn’t wearing a suit or any make-up. She just had on her usual jeans and jumper. Nobody said much as we drove – it was another lovely sunny day and I was enjoying soaking up the sights of Dublin. It had been ages since I’d last been here. It was still early in the morning and I noticed we had joined the throng of early morning commuter traffic. But while most of the cars were heading into Dublin, it seemed we were heading out. We drove out of the main suburbs until the houses started to fall away, replaced by country roads and large country houses.
After about half an hour we pulled off the road and up a driveway towards a large property set in very big and well-kept grounds. In the centre of the driveway was a lovely water fountain – the whole place looked like a very grand country house. Beside me I suddenly felt my mother’s shoulders stiffen and I noticed that her face had set hard. I turned to look at Anna. The gravel crunched under the tyres until we came to a stop outside the building.
Now I could see there were other cars here and people milling around. I hoped this would just be over quickly so we could go back to the house and have fun again. Everyone looked so serious. We all got out of the car and Mum told us to wait while she spoke to her lawyer. She was off then, chatting to two very smart-looking men in dark suits.
‘Just stick with us, okay, and try to be patient.’ Anna put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. ‘This could be a long day.’
I nodded to show I understood. I was grateful that Anna was trying to keep me informed but in truth I didn’t have a clue what was going on. I wanted to ask her more but I had a feeling that she wouldn’t tell me even if I asked.
‘Right, they want us to go through here,’ said Mum when she came back. I could tell straight away she had been crying – her eyes were all red and puffy, but she didn’t give anything away. Instead she waved us into the building. At first we were shown into a large conference room with a big brown table in the middle surrounded by black leather chairs. We waited there as Mum went off to speak to her lawyer again.
While she was gone a lady in a smart grey trouser suit with a clipboard approached us. ‘The hearing is about to start,’ she said in low, confidential tones. ‘Let me show you the room for family members.’
This time we were led out through a pair of patio doors into a little courtyard and through a long corridor. The lady with the clipboard led us into a small and stuffy little conference room with no windows. It was just the four of us so after a while we all relaxed and sat down on the black leather chairs. I hadn’t seen Justin or Philip in ages so we passed the time by catching up.
An hour later Mum was back in the room – she looked worse than before. Her eyes were really red now and she had a drawn, pinched look on her face. Anna immediately got up and put her arm round her: ‘Are you alright, Mum?’
‘Yes.’ Mum shook her off. ‘I’m fine. Don’t fuss.’
They sat down and spoke in whispers I couldn’t really hear. I still didn’t have a clue what was happening. Fifteen minutes later the woman in the grey suit popped her head round the door. ‘Are you ready to go?’ she asked my mum, and that was it, Mum was gone again. That was how it went all day long. In and out, in and out, while we all just sat in that small, stuffy room with no windows. Every time Mum came back in she looked more upset and exhausted.
It was such a confusing and intense day and because everyone was so solemn and serious I felt I couldn’t ask what was going on. It didn’t feel right – like asking who was in the coffin at a funeral. That made me angry. How come everyone else knew what was happening but not me? I was fifteen years old, I wasn’t a baby, and yet it felt like I was being kept in the dark. As usual.
At lunchtime we had sandwiches brought to the room. Mum joined us but she barely touched her cheese sandwich. I saw the others were now looking really concerned and they tried their best to keep her spirits up but it didn’t help much. Mum looked so sad, like a lost little girl. At one point she sat down next to me and I offered her a weak smile. I didn’t know what else to do or say.
‘You know, when this is all over I’ll use the compensation to treat all of you,’ she said to me. ‘I’ll get you something nice.’
I didn’t know how to reply – I didn’t know she would be getting money for this.
By the middle of the afternoon I couldn’t bear to look at Mum any more. When she came back in after another round of interviewing, she looked so withdrawn and wrung out she had literally shrunk in front of us. It was a shocking sight. My sister and brothers rose as one and went towards her but it looked like Mum had had enough. She waved them away and collapsed on the nearest chair. Her face was ashen and her fingers trembled.
‘I’ll get you a coffee, Mum,’ said Philip.
‘Mum, are you okay?’ Anna went to sit beside her and took her hand.
I felt helpless and a little scared. What the hell is going on? I thought we were on a nice holiday – now everything is so awful and scary. What on earth happened to Mum in the orphanage to make her look like this?
‘You doing okay?’ Anna asked me after Mum went back in. I nodded, but inside I felt wretched.
‘Don’t worry,’ she went on. ‘It’ll be over soon. Mum’ll be alright in time. It’s just . . . upsetting for her, that’s all.’
‘What’s going on? What’s this all about?’ Now I had to know. It felt like everyone was keeping me in the dark.
But Anna just clamped her lips shut and her eyes fell to the floor. ‘Mum will tell you in her own time,’ she said after a while. ‘It’s really not for me to say.’
I could have screamed at that point – it was so frustrating but there was nothing I could do so I just whiled away the time sketching.
Thankfully, by 3.30 p.m. it was over and we piled into the car for the drive back to Anna’s. Nobody said much on the way home – Mum needed some peace and quiet, we could see that, so we didn’t talk. I was in bed early that night, and grateful for the chance to finally close my eyes and forget about the whole day.
The next morning Mum went to visit Philip for a few hours while I stayed at Anna’s, and in the evening Justin gave us a lift to the airport for our late-night flight home. I was sad to leave my sister and her family. It had been a short, confusing trip, not at all as I’d imagined it. The hotel had been such a lovely surprise, and of course I loved catching up with my family, but then everything else had been horrible and nothing was clear to me.
Mum was acting like nothing was wrong and, on the flight home, she was her normal self. Quiet but composed. But as we flew over the Irish Channel, something niggled at me and I couldn’t help myself, I had to know.
‘Mum, you know the hotel?’
‘Mmmm?’
‘Why did we go there?’
‘The Redress Board paid for it – they paid for the flights too.’
‘Oh – did you get things sorted out with them, Mum?’
‘Erm, no,’ she said, gripping the arms of her seat and staring hard out of the window. ‘No, not really.’
It was nearly midnight when we arrived back at Manchester airport and we quickly caught a taxi back to the house. I was shattered and went straight to bed. The next day I got up early as usual and came downstairs in my slippers and dressing gown to make a cup of tea. Mum was still slumped on the sofa, fast asleep and fully dressed.
4
IRENE
The Bad Luck Girl
DUBLIN, 1964
‘Monkey Face! Come here, Monkey Face!’ I could hear my sister Frances shouting for me from the front doorway of our tenement block. I didn’t reply. Ha! I thought to myself. She thinks I’m outside but I’m not. I was sat right at the top of the stairs, looking through the railings at my feet dangling below me. And I’m not coming down! She can shout all she likes but I’m not coming down and I’m not going to reply either.
I liked it up here – it was quiet and peaceful, one of my favourite hiding places. My other secret hiding place was called the cubbyhole, a bare concrete cupboard just outside our flat where we put all our coats. I liked to climb inside there and bury myself under the coats. I figured that if I made myself as small and as still as possible then I was practically invisible which meant that nobody could see me. And if nobody could see me, nobody could hurt me. Particularly not my mother.
My mother had never been happy with me, not from the very moment I’d been born. She never tired of telling me that she went into labour with me on Good Friday, and the pain made her cut herself with the breadknife. Bad luck, she said. I was nothing but bad luck – and my three older siblings were forced to agree. She was a cruel woman, my mother, but I loved her. So while I ducked her blows I still did my best to make her happy, helping her out with the cleaning and making tea for her. Anything to make her love me.
Today the cubbyhole hadn’t felt like it was far enough away to be safe so I had retreated to the top of the stairs in our tenement block and hidden myself behind the tall black railings. My legs were so thin I could slot them between the railings and dangle them in the air beneath me, pressing my face into the wrought-iron bars. No one ever looked up from the hallway so I felt secure up here as long as I didn’t make a lot of noise. Now I hummed softly to myself as I rocked back and forth on the palms of my hands, admiring my shiny black patent shoes. I loved my shoes; they were the nicest pair of shoes I’d ever seen in my life. I smiled at them now as I pointed my feet one at a time.
‘Would yous stop mucking around now?’ Frances called out from downstairs, pacing about in the courtyard outside. ‘Just come back inside, would ya?’
Frances was the eldest out of the six of us – I was five years old and she was ten. Then there was Agatha, nine, Peter, seven, and Martin was a year younger than me at four. Cecily was still just a babe in arms. Our eldest brother Aidan lived with my granny on my father’s side and we rarely saw him.
I held my breath as I waited for Frances to give up hollering and go back inside. She wandered around the bottom of the stairwell, called for me a little more, then finally shrugged and returned to the flat where I could hear my mother screaming. As the door banged shut I breathed a sigh of relief – I was tired of all their name-calling and their bullying. There were times I just needed to get away and be on my own.
‘My name is Irene,’ I whispered to myself. ‘It’s not Monkey Face or Skinny Malinky or Cry Baby. Or Bad Luck Girl. It’s not any of those. It’s Irene.’
It was my mother who had started up with all the names – she always used to say I was such an ugly child I belonged in the zoo. It hadn’t taken long for the names to catch on and somehow the name Monkey Face stuck. Other times she said I was so skinny that if you lost your key you could fit me in the keyhole. They all laughed – I just wished she knew how much it hurt.
My mother Vera was actually a very beautiful woman herself – at thirty years old she was tall and slim with large blue eyes, high cheekbones and bleach blonde hair that hung to her tiny waist. She always dressed in tiny miniskirts that showed off her lovely figure. Today she had hit me again. I didn’t understand it – she never seemed to hit my siblings as much as she hit me. And I never knew what I’d done to deserve it – it came from nowhere and seemed to have no reason for it. She pulled my hair, slapped me and threw things at me. She did it with the others too but nowhere near as much. And they were never called horrible names. For some reason Mammy always saved up her really savage attacks for me. Today she had whacked me on the side of my cheek, leaving a stinging red handprint on my face. I put my hand up – it still felt warm.
‘You stupid feckin child!’ she’d erupted. She had struck me so hard the force actually sent me spinning on the spot. Immediately I started crying.
‘Oh, what are you bloody crying for now? Jesus! You’re such a cry baby!’
At that, Frances and Peter, who were sat at her feet, started to chant: ‘Cry baby! Cry baby!’
‘I’m not a cry baby!’ I stammered, wiping my tears with the back of my sleeve.
‘You are too!’ Peter said and blew a raspberry in my direction. ‘You’re a stupid eejit cry baby!’
Aye, he’s right,’ said Mammy, swigging on her bottle of Guinness. ‘You’re a bloody cry baby and I regret the day you were born.’
Her words hurt me more than her hand ever could. My stomach shrivelled inside me and I turned cold with horror. I ran out of the flat and up the stairs to my hiding place.
Now, an hour later, and I was still up here. I’d calmed down a little but not all that much. At least the tears had stopped. I shifted my weight around – the cold stone floor had numbed my bum. I was far too thin – I knew that – but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Food was hard to come by in our house and it was a daily struggle to ignore the constant hunger that clawed at my insides. Tonight was a good night; there was bread and dripping for tea. On a bad day there was nothing and if Peter didn’t steal something we went to bed hungry. The stairwell of the block was very dark now with just a little light shining out of the windows of each flat onto each landing. I heard my stomach growl but I wasn’t ready to go back downstairs.
We all lived in a small, sparse flat with just the two rooms, both with bare walls. The first room was the biggest; on the right-hand side was the window that overlooked the Liffey and underneath it was the settee. Past that was the fire and past that was the cooker. In the same room was a double bed where all us children slept. My mother slept in a small room at the back of the flat.
They’re not your real family, I told myself for the hundredth time that day. She’s not your real mammy. One day your real mammy and daddy will come and get you and take you away. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my reed-thin arms round my legs now. I didn’t even know my daddy – Mammy said that he was working away in England but I never saw him. And according to what she said he never sent money home to us either. At night when she’d had enough drink and pills to soothe her violent temper she’d lie sprawled on the bed and curse him out.
‘Never sends money back for us!’ she’d spit viciously. ‘What does he expect me to do? How does he think I’m supposed to feed you all?’
I wanted to go to her then and put my arms round her. I wanted to do something to make her feel better but it seemed I couldn’t do anything right. One time I tried to hug her and she threw me off her as if I was a cockroach that had crawled onto her body.
‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?’ she’d shrieked, disgusted.
‘I just want to help, Mammy.’ My voice trembled with fear.
‘Help? HELP?’ she’d erupted. ‘You can start feckin helping by cleaning up around here. Go on! Do the feckin washing-up!’
My eyes filled with tears as I slunk off to the large ceramic sink filled with dirty dishes. Don’t cry, I told myself over and over. Don’t cry.
And don’t bloody start your feckin weeping again!’
Mammy groaned. ‘Jesus, you drive me mad, you really do!’
I tried my best but the tears wouldn’t listen and I started to cry again. All I wanted was to love her and for her to love me. But she didn’t love me. She really didn’t and she didn’t make any attempt to hide it.
Now I sighed and got to my feet – I knew I’d have to go back inside to say the rosary at 6 p.m. or I’d be in really big trouble. So I dusted my dress down and walked back into the flat. Luckily, nobody seemed to notice me as I came in that evening. They were sitting on the bed, talking. There was Frances with her thick, curly chestnut hair which hung down her back. She was the pretty one. Next to her on the bed was Agatha, who was well built with wiry, strawberry blonde hair and on the end, Peter with his mop of dark brown hair. He was a handsome lad but he had a quick temper and was always ready to defend our mother. I was hoping they might have left some bread and dripping for me and luckily there was a slice left on the cho
pping board. I looked around before I took the hard hunk of bread and started gnawing on it.
At 6 p.m. on the dot Mammy made us kneel to say the rosary with her – she’d been brought up by the nuns in the convent so she was very religious, making us say our prayers every night. It always made my knees sore but I never complained – none of us ever complained. We just got on with it, racing through the words as quickly as possible in order to get up off the cold floor and into bed: ‘I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord . . .’
Afterwards, I crawled under the covers of the bed with the rest of my siblings, all of us huddled under a big pile of coats for warmth, and fell asleep to the sound of their soft breathing. Sometimes, after a long day, my arms would ache. It was something I’d had all my life though I didn’t know why they ached. Mammy always joked that I was lucky to be alive and she’d tried to throw me out of the window when I was a baby. The way she said it, it was to make other people laugh, but deep down I could never really tell if she was joking or not. That nasty little laugh at the end. Did she really try and throw me out of the window? I tried not to think about it. Instead, I closed my eyes and told myself: ‘Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow my real mammy and daddy will come and get me. And they’ll never call me names.’ I smiled to myself then and let the fantasy take me completely.
A couple of months later, just after my sixth birthday, we were given a new house in a council estate on the outskirts of town, again just opposite the River Liffey Moving day was frantic – lots of the local families helped us put our furniture on a cart to get it across town. Compared to the tenement block, our new home was paradise. It was very clean and enormous – there was a living room, scullery, a separate toilet, bathroom, and upstairs there were three bedrooms. The front bedroom had two double beds and a single bed in it – that’s where all us children slept – the middle room had a double bed and a wardrobe for my mother and the smaller room also had a double bed in it. The place wasn’t decorated but it was large, clean and, best of all, there was a big back garden which led onto farmland.
