On November 14, 1980, we held a christening for Ronan. He was baptised into the Catholic faith, at a 6 pm mass at St Bartholomew’s Church in Norbury, south-west London. I employed a folk-singing choir for music and hymns. Anthony’s class at his school were preparing for First Communion. They were encouraged to attend any religious ceremonies, as part of their preparations. So Anthony arranged for them all to come to Ronan’s christening. They had a ball. They thought it was one big party. After the service, we held a christening party at our home in Glencairn Road. At least 80 people were squashed into our house for the celebrations. There was a bar set up in the breakfast room. It was fully stocked with bottles of all kinds of spirits. While pregnant, I used to amuse myself by buying all sorts of strange and different kinds of bottles of spirits. I knew we would need them for a christening party. But instead of looking for a person’s favourite tipple, I would base my alcoholic purchase on the pretty colours of the liqueurs. Also, every time my friends went abroad, I would give them money to bring me back some duty-free alcohol, for my baby’s christening party. My friends had really been good to me and I had ‘oceans of booze’ for the party.
Anthony had two goldfish called Starsky and Hutch, who lived in a glass bowl, on the mantelpiece, in the breakfast room. When the bar was being set up for the party, Anthony saw that Starsky and Hutch had been moved about from one room to another. As the furniture and carpets were moved he felt that the fish were becoming agitated. He insisted that they be left precisely where they had always lived. He got his way. They were installed in their usual home, on the mantelpiece.
It turned out to be a great party, which I enjoyed immensely, as Ronan was the centre of attention. Quite a few people became drunk, due to the plentiful supply of booze. At some stage, the music volume was increased and dancing started. The party did not end until 3 am. After the last person had left, everyone went to bed.
Next morning I was awoken early to hear the screams of an angry Anthony. He was baying for blood. ‘My goldfish, Mum, they are both dead.’ I jumped out of the bed and ran downstairs, only to find Starsky and Hutch floating belly-up in their bowl. We never did find out exactly what killed the goldfish, but, during Anthony’s subsequent investigations, somebody told him that his uncle, Paddy Roberts, had given them a ‘drop of brandy’ to see if the fish would get drunk. I do not know if Anthony directly accused his uncle of the murder of his pets, but for years after the goldfish incident, Anthony was very wary of Paddy Roberts’ behaviour at our house, and he always watched him carefully from a distance.
For many years after that party, I had a collection of bottles of alcohol of many different colours, which I could not throw out or find anybody who could bring themselves to drink them!
THIRTEEN
Maternal Woes
A NEW YEAR, 1981, and I had pains in my tummy. They performed an ultra-sound scan on me. The scan indicated a possible cancerous growth. I was taken to theatre directly from the scanning department, for explorative surgery. When the surgeon operated, he found the cause of my pain to be an ovarian cyst. He removed the cyst. He also removed my appendix. This all happened under a general anaesthetic. I felt ashamed. I was on night duty when it happened and my boss was ringing home from 2 am to 7 am, when Harry finally woke up to go to work. He came in to see me later that day. It was a help but I was in bad form. I was sick of having operations.
The surgeon told me that he had removed my appendix as a precaution. He said that he did not want me to be unnecessarily anaesthetised any more, and that he was concerned at having to reopen the old scar tissue too often. He jokingly suggested that because my stomach had been opened so often, I should probably have a zip inserted!
Later that year I found that I couldn’t maintain my balance while standing. Many checks were carried out on me. They discovered that I had damage to the bone structure of my inner ear. This damaged bone structure was infected and this is what triggered my lack of balance. They treated the infection with antibiotics. I was allowed home from hospital, with an arrangement to return for the surgical removal of the damaged and decayed bone in my ear. Three weeks later, I returned to St Thomas’s Hospital for my ear surgery. The correct name for my ear operation is called a tympanic graft.
The system at home was being held together with the help of many of my friends. This operation turned out to be a painful, uncomfortable and totally unpleasant experience from start to finish. It brought back painful memories from my childhood, particularly when the surgeon asked, ‘Did your parents never take you to a doctor for treatment to your ears as a child?’
I untruthfully answered, ‘Yes, of course they did.’
He wasn’t convinced and asked, ‘How could any doctor have missed something as serious as this?’
I jokingly replied as best I could, ‘He was an old doctor in the country.’
But deep within myself I was angry that this entire surgery was unnecessary and could have been avoided. It was due to neglect.
I was discharged after two weeks. This time I was told to return for reconstruction surgery on my ear, about six months later. This further surgery was to replace the now missing bone with synthetic plastic bone. Their aim was to restore some hearing to my damaged right ear. Hearing loss was 100 per cent in this ear after the surgery.
I was at home, but I was feeling shattered both mentally and physically. I went to my GP feeling extremely low and depressed. My head was reeling. I could not understand why I was having so much trouble with my body. Was I still being punished for being bad or any one of the other negative attributes showered on me, by other superior people over the years? I had many memories coming back to me, haunting me, from my childhood. I remembered once going into the school and my ear was full of pus. The nun simply turned my head sideways and let it pour out on to the desk. She didn’t do anything else. I even had to clean it up.
I used to try to laugh the operations off to all my friends. ‘How do you cope with all the operations and pain?’ some people would ask. ‘I am just an old crock,’ I would reply, and make light of it, as best I could. But, within myself, I could not laugh it off. I really wanted to die. Every time that I visited my GP, I had some medical tale of woe to relate to him. At this time my GP put me on a course of antidepressants. Valium was the fashionable choice. I was 33 years old. I should have been in my prime.
When I came home after the ear operation, I was too weak to climb the stairs. I had a single bed set up in the dining room for myself. I had lost a lot of weight at this time. I weighed just under six and a half stone. I was really weak, both mentally and physically.
Two days after I arrived home, two friends of Harry’s, a nun and her mother, came to stay for a week. I could not believe it! I had to get up from my bed and cook dinner for them every evening and breakfast for them every morning. They used to sit and talk with Harry, reminiscing about the ‘good old times’ on the farm in Ireland. They never once offered to wash the dishes or help me with the children. They felt sorry for Harry who had this sick wife, who was unable to cope with life.
I could not wait to see the back of them. I put up with this treatment because I thought that one had to respect or at least defer to nuns, especially, because to me, all these people were educated and superior to me. They were also part of a family. They were everything that I was not. If the nun had a mother in tow, that had to be acceptable as well.
The only family that was ever really mine, and that I could really say were my family, were my two sons. Nobody could ever claim that Anthony and Ronan were not my family. That was very important to me.
Even the Valium did not work. Nothing took away the ever-developing psychological pain in my head.
I returned to my work on night duty after two weeks of ‘recuperation’ at home. In hindsight, I think a lot of my trips to my GP were questionable. Questionable in the sense that it made it easier for me to avoid having sex. Each incarceration in hospital gave me space to avoid having sex with my husband.
I found that the sexual side of my marriage continued to be painful and unpleasant. I felt the only good thing about sex was that I had two beautiful children from it.
Sex for sex’s sake was repugnant to me, but it was very important to Harry. He wanted to have sex every night. To him, sex seemed to represent love. To me, it was something I wanted over with, as quickly as possible, as I received no enjoyment or pleasure from it. I often heard my friends and colleagues at work talking about being ‘turned on’ by sex. I had no idea what they were talking about. I had never experienced an orgasm. I was so ‘turned off’ by sex, that I read books or watched television while it was taking place.
I said some horrible things to him and wished he was dead. It must have been hard for him but he didn’t react. Even though I said those things to Harry, I always believed that it was my fault that I could not enjoy sex. I believed that he had a right to use my body sexually and also that he was not responsible for the fact that I could not feel anything sexually, as a result of what had happened to me during my childhood. I had never openly discussed the sexual abuse with Harry. I had asked Father Bernard, before I got married whether or not I should tell him. He said that it would serve no useful purpose to tell Harry all the gory details. I do not know what criterion he based his advice on but I chose to take it. If I’d told him; I don’t think we would have ever got married. Illegitimacy was enough to handle.
One evening, Kit rang from Ireland, to ask how I was doing. As usual, in her phone calls she pleaded, ‘Come on home for an auld holiday, shure ’twill do you good. The Cork air is in good form at the moment.’ I told Harry that we were going to Kit’s home in Ireland for a ten-day holiday. ‘Right,’ said Harry, ‘No problem.’
It suited Harry because every time we went to Ireland by ferry, we would include a visit to Harry’s parents in Kilkenny. They lived close to the ferry port on the Irish side, and we always spent a few days with them.
Two weeks later we loaded Harry’s Ford, with everything necessary to keep two adults and two children clothed, and with enough gifts for all the people we would visit, during a ten-day stay in Ireland. Off we headed to catch the ferry to Ireland, at Fishguard, in Wales. We landed at Rosslare, County Wexford, on the south-east coast of Ireland a few hours later. Harry was born and reared only 25 miles from Rosslare, so the first place that we always visited was his parents’ home.
Harry’s parents were not demonstrative or tactile people. The most I would get on meeting them was a handshake, and a weak, unfriendly handshake at that. They did not grasp your hand, and shake it enthusiastically in welcome. I always felt like shivering in revulsion at their handshake. When they shook hands with me, I felt immediately that they did not like me. I like a handshake to be grasping and warm and welcoming.
The first time that I met his mother, I kissed her in greeting. I immediately felt really stupid, as I realised that it was not something which they normally did. I also realised that Harry never kissed his mother either.
While Harry’s mother was not tactile or demonstrative to me, I felt she was kind to my sons, or maybe it was because they were Harry’s sons. We usually stayed two or three days there, before we moved off somewhere else. Harry’s two married sisters and one married brother, along with an aunt of his, lived in the same area as his parents. We would frequently visit one, or all of them, during our stay in Kilkenny.
By midweek we had all piled into the car again, and headed for Kit’s house in Buttevant, County Cork. A visit to Kit and Tony was in total contrast to Harry’s parents. We all hugged and kissed each other on meeting. Once we arrived, I had to do nothing for the children. Kit took over completely. She looked after my sons so well that she spoiled them rotten. They wanted for nothing. Either Kit or Tony, or both of them, packed the kids up, fussed them, took them places and had special foods ready for them. There was normally a big meal ready for us all when we arrived. There was always loads of food. Tony would say in his Cork accent, ‘Ah go on and eat it, sure it might not fatten you at all.’
A holiday with Kit and Tony was usually spent visiting their neighbours and going on shopping trips to the town of Mallow or Cork City. There would also be a day trip to Blarney or Killarney. On this particular trip I was driven in a different emotional direction. While I was still feeling very frail and unwell, I contacted Sister Bernadette, my religious minder, and maternal go-between. I wanted to see my mother.
My son Anthony was now almost seven years old and he had a brother. I decided that I wanted my sons to know their maternal grandparents – both of them.
I had this fantasy that if my parents saw my children they would want to accept them. I thought about this concept first in terms of my mother only, as she was the only parent that I had access to, however limited. But then I thought that my father should also be part of the equation. He was out there somewhere. I had no idea where he was but he became part of the fantasy. I thought that if he saw my sons, then he also would want to accept me.
So I decided that both of my parents would meet my sons. I decided that I would arrange it somehow, however difficult it would be to set up, or whatever length of time it took. I decided that if my parents saw my sons, they would love them. They would cherish them, and somehow I stretched the fantasy so that they would ultimately love me. It was a crazy idea to have, but it was what I believed.
I spoke to Sister Bernadette on the phone and requested a meeting with my mother. She said that she would do her best to arrange it. She asked me to call her again, two days later. I duly called her back and she said she had arranged for me to meet with my mother, at two in the afternoon the following day, in the lobby of Cruise’s Hotel, in Limerick City.
I was apprehensive after the call. I was thinking, ‘Another meeting with my mother, is this a good idea, as the previous meetings did not go so well?’ I began to plan, in my head what I would say to her. I especially had some demands on behalf of my two sons. Number one on the list was that I wanted my sons to meet BOTH their maternal grandparents. They had already met Harry’s parents, so I wanted both of my parents to complete the grandparent set. I wanted reassurance that if anything happened to me, one or both of them would look after my sons. I believed that if they could see my two lovely little boys they would want them and be willing to take care of them, if I was not able to. Even though Kit and Tony were the ones my children loved, I still hoped that my parents would become real grandparents to their grandsons. I really wanted to test them out.
I told Kit what I had arranged and, while she never tried to stop me going, I felt her disapproval. She said, ‘If she did not want you when you were born, it is hardly likely that she will want you now.’ I knew that Kit had experienced her own maternal rejection, and while we never had any in-depth discussions about her past, her comments weighed heavily on my mind.
However, over the years I had become quite stubborn, not assertive, just stubborn. If I wanted something, I would go after it. How I achieved it did not matter, be it underhand or above board, whatever had to be done, had to be done. There were no rules in my life. Whatever it took to survive was fair game. This was to be no different. I kept the appointment. The following day at two o’clock, Harry, Anthony, Ronan and I all piled out of the car and into the foyer of Cruise’s Hotel. Sister Bernadette glided up to us from nowhere, like a spider hiding in the corner of its web. She kissed all four of us in greeting. I gave her a present of a black cardigan. She probably said thanks, but I was scanning the area looking for my mother. She asked us to sit down in a secluded corner, adding that my mother would be along any minute.
I ordered tea, sandwiches and soft drinks for us all.
Sure enough, after a few minutes had passed, my elegant, blonde-haired mother approached us. She was dressed in a tweed coat, with brown leather gloves, brown leather handbag and brown leather, high-heeled shoes.
She kissed Sister Bernadette first.
Then she kissed me very lightly – barely a touch really – on the cheek.
I felt she was looking at me with silent disapproval, because I had brought her here in the first place. I ignored this and proceeded to introduce Harry. I said, ‘This is my husband, Harry,’ to which she replied formally, ‘I am pleased to meet you.’
I followed on with, ‘These are my sons, Anthony Joseph and Ronan Gerard.’
She acknowledged Anthony’s presence by asking him if he was going to school and whether he liked it. Anthony chirpily replied, in an English accent, that he liked school. He also volunteered that he was a member of the cub scouts.
Suddenly I lifted Ronan and more or less threw him into Mother’s lap. Ronan settled down and made himself at home, before my mother could do anything. Harry was, by now, standing some distance away from us. He gave a loud shout and there was a bright flash. I had asked him to take a photograph, if he could manage to get us all together. I was really grateful to him for taking that photograph. It was the first photograph that I had of my mother and myself together. I had told Harry to just take it and not to ask permission first.
Even though she had looked relaxed enough with Ronan, as soon as she realised what had happened, Mother rose from her seat like a frightened rabbit and almost threw him back to me. It was as if she had been contaminated by being in the same picture as us. She stood bolt upright, as if getting ready to make a dash for the door. Sister Bernadette jumped in, like a referee at a boxing match, to restrain and calm her. She looked so shocked and was glaring so intensely at Harry that he blurted out, ‘Ah, sure I don’t think that old camera is working properly anyway.’
No One Wants You Page 16
