It was after yet another row with Joseph that I was sitting in my little pink haven one day with the radio blaring. The music faded and the news came on. The newsreader was going through all the top stories and I remember her saying the words ‘child abuse’. I froze. Every bone in my body tensed up and I felt my fists clenching involuntarily. The words had struck a cord with me. I tried to push them out of my mind and pretend I hadn’t heard them. But it was too late. A door had been reopened somewhere in my mind— one that I had sealed shut a very long time ago.
Once this door opened, it seemed I lost control of my memories. Whereas I was once able to block them out, now they assaulted me on a daily basis. Everywhere I turned the word ‘child abuse’ kept popping up. I heard about priests, fathers, uncles. It seemed to be everywhere. I’m not sure if this was a new thing or if it was just registering with me for the first time—I honestly don’t know. But I slowly acknowledged what this phrase ‘child abuse’ meant. Then I absorbed the words ‘child sexual abuse.’ This was overpowering. I couldn’t deal with it and I went into a state of denial.
*
After we lost the gym, I was in and out of jobs for a long time, unable to hold anything down for very long. I felt like, to add to all my other problems, I now had no sense of purpose. Nightmares, migraines, flashbacks, money troubles. It was like a twisted funfair ride that just went round and round in circles and I couldn’t make it stop. My problems were like a disease that had invaded my body and there was no cure for it. I was convinced it was terminal so what was the point in living? It was time to take action.
So not for the first time in my life, I made a pathetic attempt to end it all. I bought some alcohol and drank until my senses were nicely numbed. I took a knife that I used as a potato peeler and I began cutting into my skin. It didn’t do much damage so I replaced it with a serrated bread knife. I couldn’t press it down hard enough though. Both arms were left with mere skin abrasions. This wasn’t the first time I had tried to slit my wrists. I had made a feeble attempt before. But it was the same scenario. I was left with a few scratches—silly looking slices on my wrists mocking me for being too chicken to go deeper. Then I heard the dogs barking and it dawned on me; if I died who would feed the dogs? It was a silly thing to focus on but it brought me back to my senses. Here I was again, several years later and the only thing that had changed was that things had gotten worse.
I spent the next two weeks getting as out of my head as I possibly could. I had hit rock bottom. I knew I couldn’t sink much lower. I had barely enough money to buy food never mind keep me stocked up on ecstasy and alcohol. You could say that they took over my world. If it wasn’t alcohol it was drugs. I couldn’t have a drink without a line of cocaine. I became dependent on anything I could get my hands on, simply to live with myself. I was the worst company for myself and I was in a very lonely place.
I felt exposed and raw. Could everyone see how crazy I had become? I became even more agoraphobic and I withdrew from the world. I was all alone in a very dark and lonely room and I desperately needed to grasp someone’s hand in the dark if I was going to make it out of there alive.
So I decided to do the unthinkable. I don’t know where I found the courage but I sat down and started writing a letter to Joseph. I told him all about the abuse. I just wrote down everything that came into my head. I’m not sure how much sense it made. But I told him about the years of abuse at the hands of Da in the most basic language I could. The pages were soaking from my tears and the ink was running down the page by the time I had finished writing.
Joseph was away that evening so when I had finished writing the letter I ran out to a phone box. I dialled his number, my hands shaking so bad I could barely hold the receiver.
‘Joseph,’ I said, ‘I need you to come home.’
I had never told him what to do before so he listened carefully, instinctively knowing something serious was up.
‘Don’t come into the sitting room when you get back. Go into the kitchen and read the letter I’ve written to you and then come in to me in the sitting room.’
I hung up and went back to the house. I was terrified. How would he react? Would he shout and give out to me? Tell me it was my fault?
All I could do now was wait.
An hour later, I heard the dreaded sound of his key in the door.
‘Audrey, where are you?’
‘Just do what I told you. I can’t talk to you until you do,’ I shouted back tearfully.
While he was reading the letter, I couldn’t stop dry retching. I hadn’t eaten in days.
‘I’m shocked,’ Joseph said when he came into the sitting room. ‘I certainly wasn’t expecting this.’
I didn’t know what to say next. He took me in his arms, which was exactly what I needed from him, and we spent the night crying and talking. It’s the first time I remember crying for myself and feeling sorry for myself. I felt so vulnerable.
Not only had I opened a door to my past but I had also allowed somebody else to step into it with me. I could hear the little girl inside me thanking me for finally listening to her cries. I heard the sweet voice I had heard in my bedroom all those years ago, and I recognised it instantly. But the adult me was terrified and kept asking if I had done the right thing.
I didn’t know what we were going to do next. When I say ‘we’, I mean me and Joseph because I felt that by telling him everything I had somehow won the old Joseph back and we were a team again. All our past differences would fade away. He would understand everything and it would be his goal to make things right for me. I had a sense of belief for the first time in my life about what partnership really means.
At first, Joseph wanted to kill Da. He even made for the door a few times, saying he was off to find him, but he never got any further. I didn’t want Da dead though. I wanted answers. I wanted huge gaping holes in my memory filled in. I wanted to know if someone had abused Da when he was a child and if it had been a case of history repeating itself. But all I really wanted at the end of the day was for someone to hug me and make all the pain go away.
I wanted that so much. I deserved so much.
Behind Joseph’s anger, I think there was also a sense of relief. He now knew there was a reason for the way I had acted over the years. That was it. Problem solved. We would sort out my issues with the past and then we’d get a happy-ever-after ending to our relationship.
‘This is what we’ll do,’ was Joseph’s favourite sentence over the next few weeks as we mulled it over in our minds.
But I still hadn’t said the words ‘My da sexually abused me’ out loud yet. I had written them down on a piece of paper. And I wasn’t sure if I was ready for the next step. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to swing the door on the past wide open just yet.
Chapter Ten
After a few weeks of talking things over till there were no words left to say, Joseph suggested that we should share the massive burden we’d been carrying with someone else. He insisted on bringing my brother Mark into the picture. In the end, I hadn’t much choice but to agree. I knew that there was no talking Joseph out of it. But I also knew in my heart that it was time. I couldn’t hold it all in anymore—the pain in my gut, the guilt, the sense of shame. The longer I kept this secret, the more I felt my head swelling with the pressure of it all. I needed to let it all out before it killed me. I needed help. I had to tell the boys and my mother. Surely Ma would be able to help.
So we decided to tell Mark first. When I say we, it was really Joseph who would be doing all the telling. I still couldn’t vocalise any of it. So it was arranged that Joseph and Mark would meet for a drink, while I stayed at home, drinking on my own. Again, waiting for the key to turn in the lock. It felt like I had spent my whole life waiting.
I was so frightened that Mark would be angry with me; that he wouldn’t believe me—or even worse, that he would blame me. I need not have worried. When the two of them came home, Mark walked right up to me and gave me a big hug.
‘Jesus Audrey, why didn’t you tell me sooner?’ he said.
He seemed shocked but who could blame him after hearing that news?
‘We have to tell Ma,’ he said.
‘I want to but I’m not sure if I have the nerve. I need you to help me.’
Mark was very understanding.
‘It’s all clicking into place for me now Audrey. The memories. Da calling into your room every night, him spending ages up in the attic. It all makes sense now.’
‘I’m just so glad that you believe me and that I don’t have to prove anything to you.’
I had dropped the bomb and I knew there was no going back now. I just felt so scared—scared of the unknown. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for the next hurdle—telling the rest of the family. I felt overwhelmed by shame and responsibility; I didn’t want to hurt them and shatter their world with this revelation. I couldn’t stop thinking about Ma and my brothers. Was I right in doing this to them? Would I not be better just to keep my mouth shut and spare them the pain?
I felt like I was losing control. Everything was moving too fast.
My little brother Dan was celebrating his 21st in two weeks’ time so myself, Joseph and Mark decided we would let him celebrate in peace before we dropped the bombshell. We didn’t want to spoil his party. I had to make up an excuse to get out of going to his party. I felt so bad but I just couldn’t face everyone. Over the last few years, as the memories had begun trickling back, I’d avoided Da as much as possible, and at this point I would have been happy to never lay eyes on him again.
My little brother’s 21st came and went. He was gutted I didn’t go and I hated not telling him the truth but I knew it was for his own good. I left it about a week after the party before ringing up Ma.
‘Hiya Ma. It’s me. Audrey.’
‘Are you all right love? I haven’t heard from you in ages. You’re not sick are you?’
I think Ma was convinced that after all the years I’d spent going in and out of hospital, that the doctors had finally found something terribly wrong with me.
‘No Ma. I’m not sick. But I’ve been having problems that I can’t talk about over the phone. Can you come up and see me?’ I asked.
‘Is it serious? Can you not tell me over the phone? I’ll be out of me mind with worry otherwise.’
‘No Ma, I have to say this to your face. It’s not something to be talked about on the phone.’
Ma agreed to come up later that night. Mark drove her over to Celbridge and then he and Joseph went for drinks, leaving us to it.
I sat across from her in the sitting room, with a bottle of wine by my side for Dutch courage and a second one chilling in the fridge as back-up. I wrung my hands nervously for about ten minutes while I tried to say the words aloud. Ma sat staring at me, her face looking anxious, tired and drawn.
‘Ma,’ I finally said, ‘Da abused me…sexually.’
Ma didn’t say anything for a minute or two. It was like she was trying to digest what I had said and make sense of it. Then, slowly, every last drop of colour began to drain from her face.
‘When? Where?’ she cried. ‘How come I never knew? When did he do it?’
‘Lots of times, Ma. I don’t remember when it first happened it was so long ago now. I was only small.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I don’t know. I…I don’t know. ’Cause it was always there. I didn’t know it was wrong at first and by the time I did, I was too scared and I didn’t want to hurt you.’
I started rambling, grappling in the dark for excuses that would put an end to her never-ending list of questions. But I didn’t have a one-sentence answer for her. It wasn’t that simple.
The phone suddenly rang and interrupted our conversation. I knew straight away it was Da.
‘Yeah she’s okay,’ said Ma, ‘I can’t talk to you right now. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Your dinner is in the fridge so just take it out and heat it up.’
I wondered did Da suspect the game was up? Or did he think that I had been diagnosed with some terrible illness and that was why I had been so desperate to talk to Ma?
‘I never knew,’ continued Ma when she had hung up on Da. Ma didn’t need to tell me this. I knew she had never known, never suspected.
Joseph and Mark came back from the pub a few hours later. By this stage, my head was spinning from a mixture of the drink and all the crying, so I don’t really remember what exactly happened next. I felt so terribly sad. I had never seen Ma cry before, and I couldn’t bear to see her so upset. I know a conversation took place between Mark, Joseph and Ma, but I don’t remember what we decided to do next.
The next day I begged Ma not to go. I needed her to hold me and somehow make it all better. She stayed one more night and when she was leaving the next day, she said to me, ‘I have to ask your da to his face. I need to say it to him.’
It wasn’t that she didn’t believe me, she insisted, she just needed to hear him say it. Mark brought her home and stood right behind her when she confronted Da. I was told afterwards that Ma had asked Da straight out if he’d abused me.
‘No…I mean yeah…I think so,’ Da responded. And then after a long pause, ‘…maybe once or twice. I can’t really remember.’
That was all Ma needed to hear. Da left the house that night. He went quietly—like a scared rabbit—probably hoping and praying that everyone would soon calm down and he’d be back home before long. When he’d packed his bags and left, Ma and Mark sat Fergus and Dan down and told them everything. They said they weren’t surprised once they had been told what had happened. It was like they’d been given the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle and suddenly everything made sense. Da hanging around in my room every night.
The night my brothers were told, I called over to the house to see them. I had to make sure they were okay. My heart ached for them. I didn’t want to cause them any pain. We all ended up crying, hugging and drinking into the early hours of the morning. Not one of them doubted what I had said, and I was so grateful for this. Everyone immediately accepted it as true, and it was so important for me to hear this. My brothers said that they hadn’t realised it but they had been holding their stomachs in for years and now that everything was out in the open it was like they could breathe again. The only problem was that the air was full of pollutants that half choked you with every breath.
Da rented a room in a house a couple of miles away from Castleknock. He tried to get in contact with me and my brothers, either by writing us letters or sending requests via Ma. I wasn’t having any of it though. I have no idea what thoughts were going through his head at this point. I’m sure he was feeling sorry for himself and worrying about what would happen next. I doubt he ever expected it to go much further.
The Christmas season arrived when we were in the midst of all this hurt and anger. We celebrated it without Da, with a sense of dirt and shame hanging over us in place of the Christmas decorations. The festive season just seemed to highlight the black hole we’d been wallowing in.
We didn’t know where to go from here. Someone suggested that the Rape Crisis Centre might be able to offer me some advice, so I made the call. I have heard loads of stories from other people about the great work this centre does, and I would encourage others to use it, but in my case I felt like I was more confused by the end of it all.
With me floundering, Joseph took it upon himself to decide what we should do next, but losing control had been my biggest fear all along. I didn’t want to be pushed into making a decision I didn’t feel ready for.
The tension simmered over to boiling point and a lot of fights broke out. I felt like the situation was of my own making in a way and yet I felt I didn’t have any control over it anymore. Ma tried hard to make things right, but it was beyond her control.
About four months after Ma first confronted Da and he moved out, he decided to return home.
This prompted my brothers to leave the house straight away. They slep
t on sofas and floors in mates’ houses as none of them had the money to pay deposits on houses.
So Da was back.
I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. I felt so worthless and felt that he was getting the upper hand.
When Da moved back into the house in Castleknock, he contacted a counsellor who dealt with sexual abusers.
Ma then paid for me to see a counsellor. My counsellor was a nice woman but I wasn’t yet ready to confront my past so I got fuck all out of it. Except for the inconvenience of having to travel all the way from Celbridge to the south side. I’d come home feeling raw.
I never told the counsellor the intimate details of the abuse and in time I started to wonder if it was all worth it. Had I not been better off before I confessed the abuse to anyone? Had Ma and my brothers not been better off too? Maybe if I just pretended everything was okay and that I’d prefer to sweep it all under the carpet, everyone would be able to get on with their lives without this dark cloud hanging over them.
*
I was still in the middle of the counselling when I found out that I was pregnant. It was unplanned but I was delighted. But the counsellor recommended that I stop the sessions. She didn’t think it would be good to go too deep into things as the stress of it all could harm the baby. I was happy to stop anyway.
I was very low at this point. I remember I was crossing the road in Celbridge one day when a truck came hurtling around the corner at breakneck speed and for a split second I wanted to step out in front of it and put an end to everything. It would mean my family would be able to close the can of worms I’d opened. The only thing that stopped me that day was my unborn baby. I knew that I had to struggle on for its sake.
At some stage or another, Da’s family were told about the abuse. A chosen few were selected and all was revealed to them and them alone. The only member of the family not to be told was Nanny Delaney. It was agreed that at her age the news could kill her.
All My Fault: The True Story of a Sadistic Father and a Little Girl Left Destroyed Page 10
