My Mother's Children: An Irish family secret and the scars it left behind.

by Annette Sills

  Chapter 6

  My brother entered the world with the same drama he left it. He ripped out of Tess onto the lime-green lino in our kitchen in Brantingham Road on St Patrick’s Day 1980. I was six and Dad had just left for work. Tess was kneeling in front of me attaching a hedge of shamrock to my school jumper, my head already a flotilla of green, white and gold ribbons.

  She held me at arm’s length to admire her handiwork. “Now then,” she said.

  As she stood up she gave a low moan. Water was cascading between her legs. She grabbed hold of the table to steady herself and knocked the remaining shamrock onto the floor. My fell mouth open and I watched the precious plant that had come all the way from Mayo float in the pool at her feet like lilies on a pond. With no explanation I was ordered across the road to fetch Rose O’Grady from Number 42.

  Rose was a staff nurse at Manchester Royal Infirmary. Everything about her was wide and bountiful, her hips, her smile, her generosity of spirit. Yet she was married to the most curmudgeonly man ever to leave Ireland. Thin, unsmiling and monosyllabic, Tommy O’Grady spent most of his time in the pub or the betting office while Mary slaved away at the hospital then reared their five children at home. She was a loyal friend to Tess, one of the few in the Irish community who didn’t shun her when her mental-health problems took their toll. In the weeks after Dad died, when Tess’s depressive episodes pinned her to her bed, Rose came round every morning to check that Mikey and I were fed, dressed and in school. She put food in the cupboard, checked we did our homework and during Tess’s spells on the psychiatric ward she took us in. She and Tess were in and out of each other’s houses for fifty years until her death from breast cancer in 2010.

  By the time I got back from Number 42 with Rose, Tess was on all fours roaring and shouting.

  Rose ran the Souvenir of Knock tea towel under the tap and dabbed her forehead.

  “What a wonderful day for a child to come into the world,” she said breezily. “If it’s a boy, you’ll have to call him Paddy.”

  “Shut your fucking hole, Rose!” Tess banged a fist on the lino. “I’ll do no such thing! I may as well put a ball and chain around his leg!”

  Rose laughed then I looked away in horror as she knelt down behind Tess and lifted up the back of her housecoat.

  “Not long at all,” she said with a worried expression.

  Tess let out another roar that sent me scuttling into the hallway in terror. Rose yelled at me to go back over the road and tell Conor, her eldest, to take me to school.

  Walking to school with Conor O’Grady was only slightly less terrifying than watching my mother give birth. Fifteen and sullen with a jet-black widow’s peak, deep-set eyes and a collection of Motorhead T-shirts, Conor had a slanty way of looking at you that sent a shudder down my young spine. A decade later at his sister’s eighteenth birthday party, he asked me for a dance. He was home on leave from the army. His head was shaven, making the widow’s peak more scarily prominent, but he looked impressive in his uniform so I said yes. He told me he and his father weren’t speaking at the time. Tommy, a fervent Republican whose grandfather had fought in the 1916 Easter Rising, was appalled at his son’s decision to join the British Army. But, to be fair to Conor, Thatcher’s Britain in the eighties was hardly bursting with career opportunities so it was probably a choice between the army or the dole. Anyway, Conor shuffled me round the dance floor at Chorlton Irish like he was shifting a wardrobe then plied me with Pernod and Black. Later on, we ended up outside in the ginnel by the car park where he yanked up my skirt, grabbed my knickers and stuck his fingers inside me, calling me all manner of filthy names. I bit and kicked and managed to get away. I was ashamed and blamed myself afterwards. I never told a soul apart from Karen. Conor was later posted to Belfast where he lost both legs in an IRA ambush. Tommy wept for days at the cruel irony of his son’s fate and Conor ended up living back with his parents in Brantingham Road. I saw him now and again on his mobility scooter with a huge St George’s flag flying off the back. He was morbidly obese with a long grey ZZ Top beard. Conor O’Grady was obviously not right in the head from very early on. But I never imagined he’d end up on the front page of the Manchester Evening News doing the terrible thing he did. I was just glad his lovely mother wasn’t around to witness it.

  Mikey was an enormous baby with hamster cheeks and white-blonde curls. He fed off Tess like a suckling pig. As the years went by, friends and family said his reckless nature was at the root of some of her mental-health issues. He sucked her dry and worsened her condition, they said. But I knew otherwise. Mikey was her reason for getting up every day. She loved him feverishly and shamelessly and he could do no wrong in her eyes. And yet I can’t remember ever resenting their closeness. I adored my brother. It was impossible not to.

  Mikey was a risktaker and a cheeky chappie with an irresistible smile. Throughout his childhood he leapt off roofs, fell out of trees, performed Evel Knievel stunts on his bike and did all kinds of risky stuff that landed him in the children’s A&E at the Infirmary on a regular basis. The staff were constantly amazed that he avoided serious injury. Sporting injuries followed in his teens. He was good at all sports and a keen City fan. But it was on the rugby field he shone. With his ham-shank thighs and shoulders the width of a van, he dodged his opponents on the field with the same skill he dodged danger off it. He won a sporting scholarship to St Bede’s, a Catholic fee-paying school in Whalley Range, while I languished in mediocrity at Oakwood High, the local comprehensive. Oakwood was a non-denominational school as was Priory Road, our primary. Tess avoided the local Catholic schools which was unusual for an Irish family at that time. But she made the exception for St Bede’s as she knew Mikey desperately wanted to go there.

  He flourished and, despite his working-class background, became the golden boy at the school due to his sporting talents and roguish charm. But, by the time he got to sixth form, Tess and I sensed he was moving away from us. Semi-pro by then, he’d started to frequent the posh wine bars of Altringham and Hale with his wealthy peers. He spoke a lot about his goals and ambitions at that time. He wanted to go to London University and study something sports-related. But his big dream for as long as I could remember was to put on the white jersey and play for England.

  One filthy winter morning in 1998, the three of us were having breakfast in the kitchen at Brantingham Road. Tess was standing by the sink in a pink housecoat and curlers, a bunch of letters in one hand, cigarette in the other. Mikey was wolfing down Weetabix from a mixing bowl at the table, his long hair hanging down the sides of his handsome face like dog-ears. He rolled his eyes and tutted as I put the Pogues’ “Thousands Are Sailing” on the CD player for the hundredth time.

  I danced around the kitchen, toast in hand. “Pure genius,” I said. Shane McGowan was a poet who spoke volumes to me about what it meant to be Irish in England. I adored him.

  “Genius, my arse.” Mikey lifted his spoon and a slither of milk missed his mouth, landing on his Oasis T-shirt.

  Tess stubbed her cigarette out in the sink and handed Mikey a letter. “I think you’ve been waiting for this.”

  Snatching it from her hand, he ripped it open, read it then leapt to his feet.

  “Yes! Fucking yes!” He lifted Tess into the air and twirled her round the room.

  I took it from him. “Bloody hell, Mikey! You did it!”

  I was awestruck. At barely eighteen he’d been chosen to play for the England Under-21’s.

  Tess was flushed and smiling when he put her back down. “Well done, son,” she said, smoothing down her housecoat, “But wouldn’t you ever try for the green jersey and play at Lansdown Road?”

  The euphoria drained from Mikey’s face. She could do that sometimes, slice into your happiness without really meaning to.

  He shrugged. “Yeah, Mam. I’ll play for Ireland. Of course I will.”

  “But why wouldn’t you? Your blood, your history, everything that makes you run around that field is Irish.”r />
  We both stared at her, open-mouthed, taken aback by the authority and clarity with which she’d spoken. The moments like that when she stepped out from behind the mist of her illness were rare and precious and made me pine for the mother she could have been.

  “Not me, Mam.” He snatched his parka from the back of his chair. “I’m English. I’ll play for England thank you very much. And anyway, I don’t see you worshipping at the shrine of the old country much. You haven’t been back for years.”

  After he’d gone Tess lit another cigarette and stared out of the window at the rain hammering on the shed roof. I went over and put my arm around her.

  “Take no notice of him, Mam. I’ll take you back to Ireland if you want. We could visit your village. I don’t remember ever going when we were kids.”

  I felt her stiffen then she patted my hand.

  “You’re a good girl, Carmel.”

  I caught up with Mikey on the street a few minutes later. Rain was still heaving down and gusts of wind pushed me along the pavement, leaves skittered underfoot.

  “Hey, tosser!” I punched him on the arm. “What was all that about? You were vile to Tess back there.”

  He frowned and dug his hands into his pockets as I hurried to keep up with his long strides.

  “You take her to Ireland then,” he said. “You’re always going on about what a great place it is.”

  “I would if I had any money. Anyway, she’s got a point. You could play for Ireland. Look at the Irish football team. Half of them are second-generation Irish.”

  “What the fuck?”

  He stopped and stared at me like I was an alien or, at the very least, a foreigner.

  I put my hands on my hips. “Look, Mikey, I hate to break this to you but you’re half Irish.”

  “I’m no Tony Cascarino. I’m English. I’m no Plastic Paddy.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “But I am. I was born here.”

  “I meant don’t say ‘Plastic Paddy’. You know I hate that expression. You sound just like Sheila McEvaddy.”

  Sheila was a cousin on Dad’s side from Mayo who had stayed with us for a few months. Fresh out of Trinity College Dublin, she had a trainee solicitor’s job in town, wore Chanel perfume, Calvin Klein jeans and had notions. She spent most of her stay with us perched on the edge of the couch, looking like there was a bad smell in the room.

  One night after much beer at a ceilidh in Chorlton Irish Club, she announced, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many Plastic Paddies in one place in my entire life.”

  My jaw dropped and I folded my arms across my chest. I was gobsmacked she would say such a thing. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  She looked taken aback. “Well. People pretending to be Irish when they’re not.”

  “You mean second-generation Irish celebrating their culture? Excuse me, Sheila. The parents of a lot of people in this room may have left Ireland but it doesn’t mean their children can’t identify as Irish if they want to.”

  “I suppose so.” She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, looked at the ground and shortly afterwards made a quick exit to the bathroom.

  I’d read somewhere that it wasn’t the English who coined the term “Plastic Paddy”. It was the middle-class Irish, the brain-drain like Sheila who came over in the eighties. Apparently, they did it to distance themselves from the working-class wave of emigrants like Tess and Dad who settled in the fifties and sixties. Of course, English people used the phrase to slag anyone who felt anything other than English. But in both cases the message was the same: “If you’re second generation you can’t be Irish so you must be English.” And that is a sentiment I never really understood.

  Following years of identity confusion, I settled on an in-between place. It was like balancing on a seesaw. I could tip either way and dip into both cultures. I championed the Manchester rave scene of the late eighties but felt the pain in every Christie Moore song. I went to the St Patrick’s Day parade in town every year but got more excited about Guy Fawkes Night. I read more Irish writers than English but did my degree dissertation on Shakespeare. As the child of immigrants, I felt lucky. The in-between place I inhabited was rich and varied. I had choices. I could embrace one, both, or neither of the cultures in which I was raised.

  “OK – the last thing I want is to sound like Sheila McEvaddy!” Mikey said with a laugh, his handsome face buried in the fur rim of his parka.

  My brother had chosen to identify as English. And it would have made no difference to Tess if he’d chosen to identify with a sect in Outer Mongolia. She would have idolised him just the same.

  We turned round at the sound of shouting. Tommy Carroll, Mikey’s old friend from Priory Road Primary, squealed to a halt on his bike a few yards ahead of us. Mikey ran over and deftly manoeuvred his bulk up onto the handlebars. Shaking my head, I watched them zigzag down the road for a hundred yards or so. Then a white Ford Escort appeared out of nowhere doing at least forty. It was heading straight for them and I covered my face with my hands and bit my lip. A horn blared and tyres screeched.

  A few seconds later I peeped through my fingers to see the pair of them disappearing around the corner into Egerton Road, hollering and laughing.

  “You stupid English bastard, Mikey Flynn!” I yelled, my heart swelling with love.

  But the luck of the English that had followed my brother since he was a boy was soon about to run out.

  Chapter 7

  Fierce winds weaved themselves around the city and rain needled the windscreen. I was late. If I didn’t make it to the appointment it would be weeks, possibly months before I got another. A traffic diversion in Whalley Range added to my woes and I took the long route via Fallowfield and Rusholme. I put Classic FM on the radio for some relaxing tunes but instead got a news report about migrants in the Calais jungle breaking through security fences and heading for the Channel Tunnel. David Cameron was saying that all economic migrants posing as asylum seekers would be caught and detained and sent back. When had Britain suddenly become so unkind towards immigrants? I thought about Tess and Dad setting off for the boat to Holyhead. We were a far more welcoming place back then.

  I pictured Dad writing the letter after a long shift on the building site, his damp work clothes spread out like a scarecrow in front of a coal fire in the room he shared with the Roscommon boy. He was barely twenty. He’d not long been transplanted from the rural landscape of Mayo with its craggy mountainous backdrop and lush green fields to a strange and grey industrial city. Though surrounded by his own in Manchester, he must have felt pain and longing after leaving his friends and family and landscape behind. Or maybe not. Maybe all he felt was excitement at the new life he was about to encounter and a sense of freedom. I wished he was around to ask. I could sense his love for Tess in every line of the letter and his hopes and dreams for their future together. It was a love that never waned, even at the most difficult times when she wasn’t well. He was her rock and her stability and his untimely death swept the ground from beneath her feet. Her already fragile mental health deteriorated quickly after he died and the shock of the blow left us all floundering. I tried to recall the details in the letter and form some kind of timeline and narrative about what happened.

  Tess would have been barely sixteen in September 1960. At a guess she was about seven months pregnant and detained in some kind of Mother and Baby home or maybe one of the notorious Magdalene Laundries, in a town called Tuam. I shuddered. I knew that Catholic Ireland of that era wasn’t kind to girls and women who fell pregnant outside marriage. I’d seen documentaries and read about the laundries and the Mother and Baby homes run by nuns. Women and young girls were hidden away and forced to give their babies up for adoption. Viewed as sinners and a stain on society, they endured prison-like regimes and were used as slave labour during their pregnancies and beyond, doing unpaid laundry, needlework and lacemaking for up to twelve hours a day. Punishments I read about included shaven heads, bread-a
nd-water diets and beatings.

  Some of the homes weren’t just for unmarried mothers either. Women and girls who’d committed petty crimes or girls whose families had too many mouths to feed often ended up there. I remember Eileen O’Dowd from school once telling me her nan had been locked up for two years in a home in Dublin for stealing a chocolate bar from the local shop when she was ten. The women inside often had very little contact with the outside world, which would account for Tess and Dad’s letters being smuggled in and out.

  I shook my head. Had Tess really been in a place like that? Poor, damaged Tess. Had she and Dad really given up their firstborn for adoption? But they were loving, devoted parents to me and Mikey. They were starting a new life in Manchester and leaving Catholic Ireland behind. Why put Tess through the anguish of having the baby in the home then giving it up to the nuns? Why not run away and keep the child? It didn’t add up. Or perhaps their baby simply hadn’t made it.

  The signs were scattered throughout my childhood. Things were starting to come back to me. All those nights Tess sat up knitting baby clothes. Was she knitting for the baby she had given up for adoption? Was she making it warm clothes because she felt she’d left it out in the cold? The way she always kept us at arm’s length from the Catholic Church. There were no pictures of the Sacred Heart or the Virgin over our fireplace. With the exception of Mikey and St Bede’s, we never attended the local Catholic schools like all the other Irish families. We never went to Mass either. I thought back to the day of the O’Dowd baby’s naming ceremony. Thirty years on, it was etched in my memory like a scar. Tess went there to plead with Eileen’s parents to baptise the baby. She was obsessed with the fact he was a “bastard”. In her poor splintered mind was it because she’d given birth to a “bastard” child herself? There was no knowing the damage that her experience in one of those homes could have done to her mental health. Then there was her intense, almost obsessive love for Mikey. Was her firstborn a boy and she saw Mikey as a replacement? It would explain so much.