Sins of the Mother

by Irene Kelly

  ‘Okay. Bye then.’

  I was calm on the outside but inside my emotions raged. I was devastated, enraged and guilty all at the same time. This was my mother, my dying mother, and I knew I should love her and should feel sad that she was dying. But I couldn’t! I couldn’t feel sad and I couldn’t love her. I couldn’t feel anything for her any more. She had demonstrated her contempt for me over and over again. I couldn’t afford to throw away any more feelings on her.

  Outside in the corridor, I hugged Agatha goodbye and she wished me a good journey. Then she looked back sadly towards my mother’s tiny frame engulfed in the huge bed.

  ‘It won’t be long before you’ll be back,’ she sighed.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘For the funeral. It won’t be long now.’

  I held my sister’s gaze as I told her: ‘I’ll never go to that woman’s funeral. Never! I’m not a hypocrite.’

  Back at home, Matt was my rock once more as I vented all my anger and frustration.

  ‘She had her chance, Matt! She had every opportunity and she never said a word to me,’ I railed. He just listened and nodded. He had known she would never apologize.

  Two weeks later, we were in the middle of packing and organizing our move to a new house when I got a call from Agatha.

  ‘She’s in a coma,’ she said. ‘This is it.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘And?’ I asked dispassionately.

  ‘And . . .’ Agatha stumbled, confused. ‘And you’re coming over, aren’t you?’

  ‘Me? No,’ I said. ‘No, Aggie. I have a life. I have other things to do. I’m moving into my new home soon. So no, I’m not coming to the funeral. I can’t forgive her. I can’t forgive her for the things she did because she never once said sorry.’

  There was a long pause then.

  ‘She didn’t say sorry to you?’ Agatha asked slowly.

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘She said sorry to the rest of us.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For everything that happened.’

  ‘She apologized for that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  It was like being punched in the stomach. She’d managed to say sorry to everyone else but me. Eventually I recovered enough to speak.

  ‘Well, that just about sums the woman up,’ I laughed bitterly. ‘I didn’t think she had the power to hurt me any more – and look, she managed it in a bloody coma!’

  She died two days later. By then we were in our new house. It was still a mess and all our belongings were in boxes but we both loved our little three-bedroom semi. It was in a quiet cul-de-sac with a big garden out the back and the high school was just a short walk away. Matt had lots of ideas for decorating and building cupboards – we’d discovered that as well as painting he was capable of doing pretty much any DIY he turned his hand to. He was still painting his own canvasses too and now he had plans to grow vegetables in our garden. When I got the call to say that she had died, I felt nothing but relief. It’s over, I thought to myself. That woman can’t hurt me any more. Now I can let go of all the hate and bitterness and just live my life.

  But it didn’t work like that. The relief was momentary. I didn’t feel better at all. In fact, the demons that had haunted me my entire life came to visit more often and stayed longer each time. Now, I recognized the voice straight away. It was my mother’s voice.

  You think you can escape? she rasped in my head. You think you have it good now? Well, just watch what we’re going to do! None of this is going to last. We’re going to come and find you and destroy you. You’re a horrible, nasty, evil person. You’re bad luck and you know it. Matt won’t stay with you. Who’d want to stay with you? What sort of person are you that you think people want to be around you? Nobody can love you. He’ll leave. And when he does, I’ll be here. I’ll be here . . .

  The depression came back every few months and when it did I couldn’t control it. My mother’s voice came at me all the time, twenty-four hours a day, and after a few days, I was wrecked, wretched and ready to throw in the towel. I stopped eating and sleeping. It felt like the sharp voice stabbed at my soul, splintering it into tiny fragments, and it got harder and harder to put myself back together again. After a couple of years I stopped working, unable to hold down a job for more than a few weeks at a time before going off sick with depression. I couldn’t concentrate on what I was supposed to be doing and I was starting to argue out loud with the voices, which was mortifying. There would come a point when I just couldn’t leave my bed and I was constantly exhausted, all the time. Then I would have to stop working. Eventually, the work dried up for Matt too. He found it difficult to concentrate when I was in low spirits and he usually wound up at home with me, making sure I was okay. The time between each job got longer and longer until he stopped getting work altogether.

  Over the years I did my best to keep the voices at bay but my life shrank when Anna left home. Now it was just me, Matt and Jennifer. I didn’t go out any more. There were times I tried to write my story, but I couldn’t find the words. It was only poetry that seemed to relieve the misery. For some reason I could express in poetry the pain that was locked away in my heart.

  Early in 2005 my father died. Again, I felt nothing but relief when he passed on – I had tried to nurse him when his health failed in his final years and he came to live with us for six weeks, but it didn’t work out. I found out he was hitting Jennifer behind my back and that was that – I told him he had to go and he went back to Ireland. I had tried to do the right thing by him – after all, he was my father – but seeing him and the way he was with Jennifer brought back so many memories. Throughout my life, he had failed to support me or take my side. He didn’t deserve my love when he was alive and I certainly didn’t mourn for him when he died.

  At about the same time, I began to hear stories on the news and from family members about abuse scandals in Ireland. Most of them were based in Catholic orphanages or industrial schools. That same year, I saw an advert in a local newspaper. It was from a solicitor – he was looking for children who had been in various institutions in Ireland. One of them was St Grace’s. The moment I saw that name in the paper my blood went cold. I had tried to put St Grace’s to the back of my mind. There was too much pain associated with that place. But now my curiosity was roused and I called the number at the bottom of the advert.

  ‘I just want to know what this is all about,’ I explained to the polite young man with the Irish accent at the other end of the phone. ‘It’s just that I was at St Grace’s as a young girl.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘My name is Kane McCall and I’m one of the partners dealing with this. Can you just tell me your name please?’

  After I told him, Kane asked me to hang on while he checked his files. A minute later, his voice came on the line again.

  ‘Okay, Irene, I have your name on a list here. It seems we’ve been looking for you.’

  My heart started to race. ‘What do you mean? Why do you have my name?’

  ‘One of the other children who was at St Grace’s with you at the same time remembered you and gave us your name.’

  To this day I don’t know who that person was but I am grateful to them.

  It was a long process but I felt that once we started I didn’t want to turn back. Kane was a lovely man. I gave him a brief description of what happened to me in St Grace’s over the phone that day and he insisted I visit to talk to him face to face.

  When I went to meet him in the centre of town, Kane explained that he worked for a firm of Irish solicitors but was staying in Manchester for a few weeks to speak to people like myself who had been in orphanages in Ireland. Apparently there were a lot of us in the area. That first meeting took so much out of me – I hadn’t talked about St Grace’s since I was a child and I was ashamed and fearful at the same time. I cried and cried – but Kane was gentle and understanding.

  It took a long time because I kept breaking down and I f
elt embarrassed because he was a man, but slowly I managed to describe all the torture I had been through as a child. I described the beatings at St Grace’s, the food, the way we were made to eat our vomit, the constant humiliation like holding out the knickers on the stick, the abuse at the nursery and also the abuse at school. He was quiet for the most part, only speaking occasionally to encourage me to go on. When I stumbled or started to cry he was patient and kind, offered me tissues and told me to ‘take my time’. I didn’t want to give up – once I started talking I knew I had to tell him everything. All of a sudden, I could see those nuns in my head again and I wanted them punished.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I sniffed afterwards, embarrassed about shedding so many tears. ‘I’m sure you’ve heard worse than this.’

  ‘Every story is bad,’ he replied grimly. ‘There’s no one story worse than the other. If you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to, but please know this, Irene: I only want to help you.’

  After we received all the paperwork proving that I was in St Grace’s, Kane submitted my evidence to the Redress Board. A few months later a letter arrived offering me 13,000 euros compensation. Kane explained that it was a low offer because they didn’t acknowledge the abuse that had taken place in the nursery or the classroom.

  ‘I won’t accept that,’ I fumed. ‘I don’t care about the money. This isn’t about the money – this is about justice and somebody taking responsibility for what happened to us in there. They didn’t listen to me as a little girl. Well, they’re going to listen to me now!’

  And that is when I went to give evidence in person. It was unusual – Agatha, Martin and Cecily, who had been in St Grace’s, had all gone through the same process and not one of them gave evidence in person. Peter, too, had been offered a settlement for the terrible abuse he’d suffered in the boy’s orphanage where he’d been sent. That was why he had been so angry when he came out of the home – I didn’t even know any of this until the Redress Board. None of us had talked about it. But they all accepted their offers of compensation and suggested I do the same. They told me I should put the past behind me and move on.

  ‘I can’t move on until they accept the truth,’ I told Emily the night before I was due to appear before the Board . ‘Otherwise all this would have been for nothing.’

  When I told my three older kids about the Redress Board, they all offered to accompany me. I was grateful for their support but worried too, in case it upset them. I had never given them any details of what had happened to me in St Grace’s, but thanks to the revelations in the press, they had begun to get an idea of the levels of cruelty that had been done in God’s name in the orphanages. And they knew that this was important to me. As for Jennifer, she didn’t have a clue what had happened to me as a young girl but I couldn’t leave her out. If nothing else, it would be a nice chance for her to see her siblings. Naively, perhaps, I thought it would all be fine. I thought that with all the support I had from the professionals as well as my family, I could cope.

  However, when I actually gave my evidence to the Board, they told me to my face that they didn’t believe me. The Board members sat on a big long table and I sat with my barrister and solicitor at another smaller table facing them. The main Board member must have been in his sixties and he had a big bushy beard and grey hair. There was a lady and two men sat on the same table and they were all very official, wearing suits. It was very intimidating and she was the only other woman there. I sat there stunned, Kane on one side, my barrister on the other side, as the Redress Board chairman explained slowly and patiently, as if to a child, that these were nuns I was talking about.

  ‘Nuns simply wouldn’t do that,’ he concluded, as if that was the end of the matter.

  ‘Well, if that’s the case, why is there a Redress Board at all then?’ I fumed. ‘If you are saying that I’m lying to you, why bother with all this?’

  There was silence. Finally, I exploded: ‘WHY? Why don’t you believe me?’

  The chairman cleared his throat, shuffled his papers and looked sideways at the rest of the committee members. None would look me in the eye.

  ‘We just can’t imagine that that would actually happen,’ he said. ‘But look, Mrs Kelly, we’re happy to take further evidence if your legal team can provide it before making a final settlement offer.’

  I was crying and shaking when I left. How could they not believe me? After all this time I had kept the truth hidden because I was afraid that nobody would believe me, just like when I was a child. I felt betrayed. Just like the jury in the rape trial, they hadn’t believed me. It felt like I could never win. Nobody would ever believe me. Outside in the corridor, my solicitor and barrister were both livid.

  ‘I’m so ashamed, Irene,’ said Kane. ‘On behalf of all the people in Ireland, I’m sorry for what happened to you and I’m ashamed at how you’ve been treated here today. It isn’t right. This isn’t justice.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ I whispered, wiping the tears from my cheeks. Why can’t I stop crying? I caught sight of my kids now, huddled in that pokey little room they’d been sitting in all day. Oh God, their faces! They looked horrified at how I was falling to pieces in front of their eyes. This was killing me! They had only known their mother to be a strong, confident woman – now they saw me weak and destroyed. The pity and fear in their faces made me despair. That night, I couldn’t eat or sleep. How could they not believe me? I didn’t understand it. I couldn’t think straight, I was just desperate to get home and see Matt.

  The voice crept back into my head like a virus, but I tried to keep it together for Jennifer’s sake. On the flight back to Manchester, I kept myself under control. As long as I could stay strong until I got home, then it would be okay. Then I could see Matt and let it all out. It took all the will I could muster to keep my head up but the moment I got in the house and closed the front door behind me, the voice came at me, louder and stronger than ever: They don’t believe you because you’re an evil, lying little bastard. You don’t deserve to be happy and you never will be. We won’t allow you to be happy. We’re coming for you and we’re going to take you down to hell with us. There’s no point fighting it any more, Irene. Just give up. GIVE UP! There’s no escape.

  No escape.

  There was no escape.

  Finally, I knew it was true.

  No matter how far I ran from my past, I could never truly escape it.

  There was just one option left to me now . . .

  19

  MATT

  The Fall Out

  MANCHESTER, 2007

  What can I do? I don’t know what to do. She’s been downstairs crying for two days solid now and it seems nothing I say is making any difference.

  I padded downstairs to the living room and stood outside the door for a few seconds, listening. The occasional sniff-I knew that meant she was still crying. I wished there was somebody I could call. I didn’t know how to handle this any more. I didn’t know what to do.

  Irene had returned from her trip to Dublin two days ago and, from the moment she got back, she fell into my arms sobbing.

  ‘What’s up?’ I asked her. I was confused – I thought she was meant to be going over there to sort everything out.

  They didn’t believe me, Matt,’ she gasped between sobs. ‘They didn’t believe me! They tried to say the stuff in the nursery didn’t happen. But it did! It all happened!’

  She broke down again and I hugged her tightly to me. It was all I could do.

  ‘Shhhh,’ I soothed, rubbing her back. ‘Come on now, it’ll pass. Let it go. Let it be done with.’

  I thought after one night she would be okay, that she would get a good night’s sleep and put it behind her. But on the second night, it was just the same. She was inconsolable, sobbing like a child in my arms. Oh God, what can I do? I couldn’t take her pain away. I couldn’t stop what she was thinking. Only she could do that.

  ‘I love you,’ I whispered over and over again to her. ‘Things a
re going to be okay. Please, please. Try not to worry about it.’

  ‘I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s the voices in my head,’ she whispered furtively. There was a strange look in her eyes now – hunted, like a scared animal. ‘They won’t stop.’

  ‘What? What are they saying?’

  ‘I can’t . . .’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to talk to you.’

  ‘Please. I want to help.’

  ‘I can’t tell you! It’s all in my head.’

  The next day was the same and the day after that. Each morning as Jennifer left for school, she asked me if Mum was okay and I told her the same thing every time: ‘She’s fine, love. She’s just having a bad day.’

  I didn’t want her worrying about her mother – at fifteen she was still just a child. But deep down, I was at the end of my tether. Now Irene was locked away in her room and she had stopped eating again. It had never been this bad before. For the last ten years, the depressions had come on regularly every four or five months but I knew with each one that she would eventually recover and get herself back on track.

  But this time – I didn’t know if she was ever coming back. Now, when I looked in her eyes, I couldn’t see her. It was as if the woman I knew and loved was actually disappearing. Sometimes, I’d find her huddled under a pile of coats in our bedroom or banging her head against the floor. When she wasn’t crying she was talking to herself and the fear on her face never left. J can’t bear this. My beautiful, brave Irene has survived so much in her life. Now she’s falling apart in front of my eyes!

  ‘What can I do?’ I begged her one day, when I discovered her hiding in the wardrobe. When I spoke it was like she didn’t even see me any more. She looked straight through me.

  ‘Irene! Irene, please.’ I put my hands on her shoulders and my fingers sank through the fabric of her clothes to sharp, angular bones. There was nothing to her any more. ‘Look at me! Irene, what can I do?’