All My Fault: The True Story of a Sadistic Father and a Little Girl Left Destroyed

by Audrey Delaney

  When I was called back a week later for another audition, I thought it was a mistake. This time, I was told to bring two sets of clothes with me and both had to be Irish made. Ma was always very supportive of my desire to dance, and she was proud as punch when I got the call back. She made sure that I had all the outfits I needed, and we both headed off for the audition. This time round my confidence was high and my heart was fully in it. I did the audition and a few weeks later Ma got a call telling her I’d got the job. Myself and a good few other kids would be singing a song about chicken. The song went like this:

  You can do a lot with chicken.

  Chicken in a sanger.

  You can do a lot with chicken.

  Chicken Maryland.

  You can put it in a stew.

  It’s full of goodness too.

  You can do a lot, do a lot, do a lot with chicken.

  I only appeared on screen for a few seconds but getting picked was still a great feeling of accomplishment. I think I got paid about £60 for it too if I remember correctly. Plus, I got to go to RTÉ and I was excited about what stars I’d get to meet there. I had my heart set on seeing Mr Spring and Mr Sprong. They were cartoon characters from an advert for the biscuits Jacobs Kimberley Mikado and Coconut Creams. I obviously didn’t get to see them but I still got to feel like a mini celebrity for the day.

  Dancing and singing allowed me to hide the dirt inside me from the outside world, or so I believed. This was the only explanation for why the people from RTÉ had hired me for the advertisement. Obviously they couldn’t see the real me, otherwise they’d never have put me on telly. When I was singing and dancing, an invisible barrier surrounded me and allowed me to hide the real me. It was a great feeling. I could disguise myself and, for a short while, I could pretend I was clean and normal, just like everyone else.

  *

  Dancing was a form of escapism which distracted me from my secret life, which at times threatened to consume me.

  Da was continuing to visit my room at night in order to abuse me. I would lie in bed, rigid with fear wondering if he would leave me alone. I was so afraid to fall asleep, as believe it or not, I felt I would be more vulnerable if I was asleep. Because he worked in an office, his hands were smooth and soft, but compared to those of an eight-year-old’s, they were huge. His large fingers would probe my vagina roughly, and he would thrust them into me as he rubbed his erection against my back, breathing heavily in my ear. My body was so tense and tight that I couldn’t help but gasp with pain as he roughly grabbed me, but I quickly learned to zone out of my physical situation by a variety of different means.

  By this stage, I had learned to pretend to be asleep and try to clear my head of all thoughts except for those about dancing.

  At other times, I’d pick away at the wallpaper on my bedroom wall, slowly peeling it away in miniature strips, as he abused me.

  It was a simple form of distraction. I would have done anything to distract my mind from the monster my father had become.

  But, of course, peeling the wall paper also got me into trouble.

  I had come to look on my bedroom not as a place of sanctuary but as a place of torture.

  I didn’t care what it looked like and was content to leave it untidy with clothes and toys left strewn all over the floor. I would go so far as to say that walking through it was like walking through a minefield. Ma was always asking me to keep it clean. But I hated the fucking place. Why would I want to keep my room tidy when I despised it? I didn’t want to spend time there. It was a dirty place in my eyes anyway—with or without all the junk littering it. I associated it with depravation and humiliation.

  I did what I could to make it a safe place for me.

  When Puddens was born, I used to drag his cot from the boys’ room into mine, so I could go to sleep with him beside me.

  It gave me a lovely warm feeling inside having him nearby. I was always very maternal. Da always moved his cot back to the boys’ room though. I don’t know why he did this when I clearly liked having him there. With Puddens beside me, I didn’t feel lonely anymore.

  I always lay on my left side at night, facing the wall, so that when I needed to escape things I could just reach over and start picking at the wallpaper.

  I couldn’t stop my father from abusing my body but even as a young girl I managed to escape mentally by not looking at what he did—it was a way of travelling to a different world.

  I didn’t take in any of the noises or things that happened to me. In many ways, peeling away the wallpaper was my private drug.

  I can recall lying there as Da abused me and discovering that our house had clearly been owned by loads of families before us ’cause underneath my floral layer of wallpaper there were old layers and patterns that fascinated me. I liked imagining the different families and the different rooms that matched each layer. I’d use the patterns to make up stories in my head—the flowery pattern, the stripey one; they all had a different story. With each layer, I was uncovering a different life, and the best part was that it wasn’t my life so I could make it as nice and adventurous as I liked.

  But every morning, more and more bits of discarded wallpaper would be scattered all over my bed like flecks of confetti, until eventually there was a big, circular bare patch left on the wall. As obvious as it was that I was responsible for it, I denied it to Ma. I swore blind it wasn’t me. I knew she knew it was me and she knew that I knew but I still wouldn’t admit it. Looking back, I was just daring her to catch me doing it; I was practically begging her.

  I now believe that I was trying to force Ma to come into my bedroom to catch Da.

  Peeling the wallpaper was my way of saying, ‘Why don’t you look in on me at night, Ma? You know I’m up to no good in here, peeling the wallpaper away. Catch me. See who’s in here with me. Take the time. Come on in and see what I’m doing.’

  I’m not sure if I really wanted her to catch Da with me though. In fact, I know I didn’t. I knew her heart would have been broken. I wasn’t sure if I could handle that.

  I didn’t want to break up our family. I knew there was something wrong with Da though I wasn’t exactly sure what it was.

  More than anything, I didn’t want Ma to be hurt. I loved her so much, I wanted to protect her. I was also frightened of what might happen. So I just continued peeling away the wallpaper and dancing.

  *

  Coming up to Christmas during my second year in the school, Billie Barry held more auditions for the Christmas pantomime in the Gaiety. Only the very best would make the grade. There were hundreds of kids auditioning and each one seemed even better than the last. The actress and singer Maureen Potter was in the panto. I thought she was great, so performing with her would be a dream come true.

  Ma had been bringing me and my brothers to pantomimes since we were tiny so I knew what a big deal it was and how good you had to be. They were choosing kids for both the main roles and for understudies in case the main kids ever got sick. I’d have been over the moon to be picked as an understudy and to get to the stage for even just one night out of the whole run. I’d have sacrificed anything for the chance. I even swore I’d go to Mass. For a long time now, I’d been getting away with not going. On Sunday mornings Ma would go up to Fairview church and get Mass out of the way early so that she could spend the afternoon baking and cooking for the big roast dinner. We were all told to go when we got up but I usually either played sick or just wandered up the lane for an hour and then came back. I hated Mass but for a chance to be an understudy in the pantomime, I was prepared to do anything.

  The auditions finally arrived and, like the ones for RTÉ, they narrowed us down to a small group of hopefuls. Then they called out our names. I’ll never forget it. A big group of us were standing in the middle of the hall, all practically biting our fingernails down to the cuticles with the nerves. I thought I was hearing things when they called my name out. I was going to be in the Gaiety with Maureen Potter and I was part of the tea
m, not just an understudy. My brother Fergus was picked as well but because of his age he had to share the role with another little lad. But it was doubly exciting that the two of us had gotten through. I couldn’t stop hugging and kissing him and his big blue eyes got even bigger because I was squeezing him so tightly. I’d even managed to get away with my promise to God that I’d go back to Mass ’cause I’d sworn I’d go back only if I got to be an understudy; I had made the full team so that was different.

  Making the full team also meant extra classes. You did your normal tap classes with Billie Barry and then you were sent for extra training in the hall next door where Billie Barry’s daughter Lorraine taught modern dancing. Now, this style of dance was much cooler. I was in my element and what made it even sweeter was that the classes were free. The rehearsals for the Gaiety were then separate to the modern-dance classes so I was spending loads of time every week doing the thing I loved.

  Alongside Maureen Potter, the rest of the cast seemed lovely. All the girls were head over heels in love with this new, up-and-coming singer called Johnny Logan, who later went on to win the Eurovision for Ireland. They thought he was gorgeous. I barely noticed him though because I had a crush on Jonathan Ryan, the guy who played my father on stage. There was just something really lovely about him.

  *

  When the panto kicked off, we were on stage every night of the week and twice on Saturdays and Sundays. Even as the weeks went by and I got used to the routine, I still realised how lucky I was to be there and I never once took it for granted. It went on from October to just past Easter and I didn’t miss one show. The reason I remember it going on until Easter is because Maureen threw a big Easter party for the kids at the end of the run and she even bought us all eggs.

  It was a fabulous few months. The kids were only on stage for the first half of the show, and after that it was just the adults. I’d have loved to have stayed for the whole thing but there were laws about how long children were allowed work for. I could see why they needed understudies, though, because some of the kids ran out of energy as the shows went on, or got sick, so there was always a bit of swapping going on. I didn’t want to miss a moment of the glory and fun but there was one particular night when I really thought I had blown it for myself.

  I was on stage one night during a love song—I think it was ‘The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face’. Johnny Logan started singing and myself and another girl in the panto had to sit at his feet, looking up at him and listening attentively. It was the only song that we didn’t have to dance to. We just had to sit still and do nothing. Now it wasn’t that I didn’t like Johnny—I did—but I could be a bit of a devil at times. I don’t know what got into me this one night but I just couldn’t help myself. Johnny was wearing a pair of knee-length panto-style trousers and it was too tempting not to start plucking at the hairs on his legs. I knew I was hurting him and that he was struggling to sing but here I was in the Gaiety, with the spotlight on me, and poor Johnny at my mercy. It was too much of a high to pass up on. So I just kept plucking away at the hairs on his legs. The girl sitting the other side of him saw me and started giggling as she started on his other leg. It was the funniest thing ever. The conductor in the orchestra pit saw what we were at and started narrowing his eyes at us, so we calmed down a bit but by then the song was nearly over.

  I knew I was in big trouble.

  At half time I was waiting for them to kick me out of the show altogether. But nobody said a word to me so I was kept in stomach-knotting suspense until the following night. The wait was terrible. I don’t remember who gave out to me. It wasn’t Johnny anyway. It could have been our choreographer. But I got a stern warning and reprimanded something awful. They let us stay in the end though. They had plenty of kids to fill my space so they could easily have kicked me out. I was so happy and relieved.

  You might ask why I engaged in such behaviour. The truth is that I did it to attract attention. The abuse at my father’s hands was now an almost nightly occurrence. My actions were all aimed at drawing attention to myself in the hope that someone would rescue me. It was my way of screaming for help without raising my voice. I was no longer a child because he had stolen my childhood.

  *

  The very last night of the pantomime was heartbreaking. My co-stars had become like a family to me over those few months. I can remember buying goodbye presents to give to Maureen and Jonathan. I bought Maureen a cheap little ornament. I was a little shy about giving it to her so I waited until she was alone before going up to her.

  ‘Here Aunt Maureen, I got you a goodbye present,’ I said.

  Her eyes widened and she oooh’ed and aaah’ed as if I was giving her a piece of treasure that she’d been searching for her whole life.

  ‘That’s absolutely beautiful. I am so delighted. Aren’t you very clever picking up something I’ve been wanting for ages,’ she said.

  ‘It was only cheap and it should have been in a pair. But I only had money for one,’ I explained.

  ‘Ah, but I have the other one at home and now I can put the two of them together. Thanks so much.’

  She was a nice woman. She had that old-fashioned way about her that was sincere. I have nothing but fond memories of her. There were times that I wished she was part of our family. When you are a child you believe that some adults can solve your problems. I know now they can’t but when I was a child I still believed in the goodness of people.

  The other person I bought a present for was Jonathan— the man who played my father on stage. He was just so nice to me and I guess, for a while, he filled this little hole I had in my heart. I bought him a fake-leather belt. It was only when he went to put the belt on that I realised I’d gotten him a kids’ belt.

  ‘Sure can’t I pierce a hole at the tip of the belt,’ he said laughing. ‘I am going to wear it every day from now on.’

  As the hours ticked by that night I got more and more upset at the thought of it all coming to an end. Several years’ worth of sadness swelled up inside of me. It was one of the saddest nights of my life and I don’t think anyone understood how I felt. The cast had been my family for the last few months; Jonathan was my stage da, Maureen my stage aunt, and the rest of the cast were like brothers and sisters. When we were on stage nothing bad could happen. The singing and dancing was like a magical spell that transformed me into a good, clean person. Every night, hundreds of people watched me, with the spotlight shining down on me, and every night they applauded me—no one ever saw my dirty soul. The magic worked. All they saw was the singing, dancing, smiling me. Not the real me, the worthless, empty, no-good me whose Da did what he did because she let him.

  At the end of the show, as the crowd were applauding us, Jonathan picked me up and spun me around. He was wearing the belt on stage and I was thrilled. I put my arms around his neck, not wanting to ever let go of him.

  ‘I’m going to miss you so much,’ I cried, clinging on to him tightly and soaking his shirt with my tears.

  ‘I’ll miss you too, don’t forget that. Sure didn’t I wear the belt and all for this special occasion?’

  I was crying so hard my throat hurt but I welcomed the pain as some sort of relief. I just didn’t want the night to end.

  *

  I continued to dance for another year or so until shortly after we moved house again, this time to Castleknock. I was in the car with Da one Saturday when I decided never to go back to the classes again.

  Da was giving another little girl and her mother a lift to a class and he made some comment about what a beautiful child the girl was and that he’d be free to take her to classes.

  I froze when he said those words. I knew what he wanted and I wasn’t going to let him have it.

  I was not going to let him break into that world. It was something I had for myself; something that he couldn’t pollute.

  I never went back to the Billie Barry School after that. I wanted to keep it as something he hadn’t touched— something happy and pure.
And so I stopped dancing.

  Chapter Four

  In 1979, my family moved from Fairview in north Dublin because Da said he wanted to live in a more upmarket community. We moved to Castleknock, which is an affluent part of Dublin and lies close to the Phoenix Park.

  I remember the day when I first saw the house he bought and thinking it was a mansion. It had lots of bedrooms, a big kitchen and a games room, and was situated in the centre of Castleknock village. It oozed of money. You might say it had ‘I’m successful and rich’ stamped all over it.

  The house move was a turning point in both his and my life for a number of reasons. I didn’t want to leave Fairview. I loved my friends there, and I loved the area. I hated moving to Castleknock but a part of me believed that the new house would bring with it a new hope, and that Da would stop coming into me. I wasn’t to know that Da had other ideas. At that point I associated my home in Fairview with the horrors of sexual abuse and bodily degradation. It was a place where my childhood had been stolen by a father who plundered my body. I hated the bedroom where my father visited me at night to abuse me. I hated the furniture, the carpets and the wallpaper in my bedroom. It was for this reason that I never bothered to keep my bedroom tidy. It was always in a state. I never cared about keeping it clean because it was always a sordid, dirty, horrible room to me anyway. I preferred to keep it dirty, because that was the way I felt about it.

  On the other hand, I didn’t want to leave my friends and to leave behind everything I knew.

  It was from this point onwards that I began to be consumed by an overwhelming sense of insecurity and low self-esteem. I also suffered from severe anxiety.

  I never spoke to anyone about it until years later but the ongoing abuse affected every aspect of my life.

  I wondered whether my family would be torn apart if Da was caught. These feelings consumed and haunted me. I was afraid that if I told anyone, my family and I would be separated. This was a very big fear of mine and it coloured my behaviour.