Sins of the Mother

by Irene Kelly

  ‘You better not, Irene, or you’ll end up in prison.’

  So I learned another way – I learned how to talk my way out of situations, to avoid confrontation. The one person I couldn’t avoid was my mother. When she was back from one of her many stays in the psychiatric hospital, she was as mean to me as ever. If she hated me before I stood up to her, she despised me now and took every opportunity to exercise her mental cruelty over me, telling me how I was an ugly person, inside and out. Ugly, mean and evil. I would breeze past her if she was in one of these moods and just mutter, ‘Oh, blow it out your arse!’

  ‘What? What did you say to me?’ she’d fume, clearly working herself up for a fight. But I always pretended I didn’t give two hoots about what she said.

  ‘Nothing, Ma. I didn’t say anything,’ I’d sigh, going about my business. She’d be following me from room to room, jabbing at me with her finger, trying to get close enough to rile me.

  ‘You did, you evil little cow!’

  ‘Okay, I did then.’

  And with that I’d just get the hell out of the house. I was rarely home and that seemed to suit us both. I tried not to let her see how much she affected me. I knew that it made her more mad to think that she couldn’t get to me. I didn’t let her know the truth, that she hurt me deeply.

  By now Fran and Peter had left home and I was close to the end of my tether. I couldn’t take much more but I was afraid to leave too in case she started picking on Cecily or Emily. It was like an unspoken pact between me and Agatha – the two of us created a shield around them, protecting them from our mother. If I left, Agatha couldn’t do it on her own.

  One day in June, shortly after I turned fifteen, I got into a fight with Mammy that pushed me to the edge. She was vile to me, as vile as she could possibly be, calling me all sorts of names and telling me how she wished I’d never been born. I felt the red mist come down and I knew in that minute I had to get away. I had to leave or I’d kill her for sure. So I ran out of the house. I ran and I ran, with just one word spinning round and round in my head: ‘Freedom!’ At last, I was free from her and I wasn’t ever going back.

  ‘Irene!’ Martin’s voice stopped me in my tracks. ‘Irene! Stop! Please come back.’

  I spun round – I couldn’t ignore the breathless, desperate shouts of my thirteen-year-old brother.

  ‘You’ve got to come back.’ He had reached me now and I could sense his fear. ‘Please come home, Irene. Mammy says she’ll beat the living daylights out of me if you don’t.’

  My heart sank. Of course I couldn’t let that happen.

  ‘Please . . .’

  ‘Alright,’ I interrupted him. ‘You don’t have to ask again. I’ll come back. Don’t worry. Just . . . just go back and let her know I’ll come home. I need a few minutes, okay? I just need some air.’

  Martin ran back home and I stood there, staring after him. I stood there for a long time, letting my breath return to normal, trying to calm myself down. Finally, when I felt I was ready, I walked home. I came in the front door and, a second later, it slammed behind me . . . OWWWW!

  An immense pain exploded across my back, Jesus Christ! What the fuck was that?

  I turned round and saw my mother standing there with one of the heavy metal chains from my dad’s lorry. She brought her arm up to hit me with it again so I quickly clambered to my feet and scurried away down the corridor. She came after me – her arm rose and brought the chain down again, whipping me across the back. Owww! FUCK!! A searing pain reverberated through my whole body.

  In shock and fear, I ran, just to get away from another impact. But she ran after me, chasing me all the way down the end of the hall. I was cornered – there was nowhere to go. In a flash, something inside me snapped. I turned to face her, drew back my hand and hit her full in the face. She dropped the chain and her hand went to her cheek. She stood there, panting and holding her face. I had never hit my mother before now but this was it, there was no turning back. I pushed my face into hers, so close that I spat into her mouth.

  ‘You will NEVER EVER raise your hand to me or these children again!’ I roared. ‘Do you understand? Because, I swear, if you ever hit me again I will kill you stone dead.’

  For a moment, we stayed like that. My chest heaved with fury; she held her cheek, too startled to move or speak. I meant every word and she knew it. If she had made a move right then I would have killed her without a thought. After a while she turned away and retreated to the living room.

  Now I had beaten her in every way – she was no longer stronger than me and, after that day, everything changed. I was the strong one now and I could do what I liked. She never hit me again and I stopped her from hitting any of the others too. Dad was next to useless. He just left my mother to get on with it, never interfering if she was picking on one of us. Though he never raised his hand to any of his girls, he didn’t care what my mother did to us.

  The next time she told us she was going to kill herself, I grabbed all her pill packets, threw them on the table and slammed the whisky down in front of her.

  ‘Go on then,’ I snarled. ‘Do it! Do us all a favour – take the lot and do a proper job this time!’

  Mammy’s eyes narrowed. ‘That’s the devil in you again, Irene. You’re pure evil, you are.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Come on, old woman – get on with it and kill yourself already.’

  13

  IRENE

  The Demon Arrives

  ‘I don’t want to leave!’ Agatha yelled over the cacophony in the club. It was past one in the morning and the rock and roll band was just getting going, but I’d had enough. Agatha had dragged me along to a new club where she had arranged to meet a fella she liked. But the music was loud and dreary the club was dull and I didn’t know a soul besides Agatha. So by 1 a.m., I was ready to call it a night. Now eighteen, I had ditched the men’s clothes and, just like so many girls my age in 1977, let my hair grow long. I’d even had a couple of boyfriends, but nothing serious. Tonight I was dressed in a pair of tight stonewashed jeans with a white, off-the-shoulder jumper. I gave Aggie a look of exasperation.

  ‘Just give us another half an hour,’ she pleaded. ‘Then we can go.’

  So I turned back to the bar and ordered another vodka and orange. Just then a tall fella with slicked black hair elbowed his way to the front of the queue and flashed me a cheeky smile.

  ‘Hello there!’ he shouted over the din. The band was well into their second set now and taking no prisoners. It was a loud, crashing kind of rock music with no discernible melody and the lead singer seemed to be wailing like he was in pain. The bloke nodded towards the stage and grinned. ‘These lads are having a whale of a time. Do you think they know how bad they are?’

  I smiled wryly and rubbed my arms. They ached more than usual today.

  ‘Hey, you look like you could use a drink,’ he said. ‘What’re you having?’

  ‘I’m alright, thanks. I’ve got me own coming.’

  ‘Great. It looks like you could use another.’ He shouted at the bar lady, ‘Two more of whatever she’s ordered! No wait – make that three.’

  Then he turned back to me. ‘I’m Tom by the way.’

  Somehow we managed to have a conversation over the terrible music, but I spent the whole time watching the clock, and when it got to 1.30 a.m. I told him I was leaving with my sister.

  ‘Aw, not now!’ Aggie moaned when I tapped her on the shoulder and nodded towards the door. ‘Just give us another hour.’

  ‘I’ll make sure your sister gets home alright,’ Tom offered to Aggie. ‘You go off dancing.’

  It seemed like an ideal solution – I was so desperate to escape, I agreed to let Tom walk me home. All the way back, Tom talked and talked. He told me all about himself, his family and his work on a construction site. We were talking so much, I barely noticed the direction we were heading but suddenly I realized we were walking along the canal path and there was an eerie stillness in the air around us. I was m
omentarily confused.

  ‘Wait a minute.’ I stopped walking. ‘This isn’t the way to my home . . .’

  Tom clamped his hand round my mouth and pushed me to the floor. I was stunned. I tried to struggle but he was a big guy and he had his full weight on me. Out of the blue, he punched me in the face. Then again in the stomach. For a moment, I was poleaxed and just lay there in shock. Then his hand went to his ankle and the next thing he had a hunting knife and he was holding it up to my throat.

  ‘Now don’t you go screaming or nuttin,’ he hissed in my ear. ‘Just shut up and don’t fucking move or I’ll cut your bloody throat open.’

  With that he pushed the tip of the knife into my neck and I felt the edge of the blade nicking my skin. I froze and then he pulled down my jeans and ripped off my knickers and forced himself inside me. Oh Jesus, the pain shot up me like a white hot poker. Every time I moved I felt the knife’s point digging deeper into my neck. Laughing, he straddled me, pushing the knife up to my throat.

  ‘You’re going to die,’ he rasped.

  Oh no! No no no! This was sex before marriage – it was unforgivable. Now I would go to hell, now nobody would want me. I would spend my life alone and miserable.

  ‘Just slit my throat,’ I begged him. I didn’t want to live any more, I didn’t want to live . . .

  I don’t know how long I was lying there, crying in the dark, before a group of young partygoers stumbled over me on their way home. They called the police who took me to the hospital – hysterical, bloodied, beaten and with half my clothes ripped off. There, I was sedated and then taken to the police station for questioning.

  At some point in the night, my father turned up. I guess the police must have called my parents but I didn’t remember giving them my home details. I was shivering with shock still when they brought him in to see me. I couldn’t work out what he was doing there. He didn’t offer any word of comfort or affection. He just stood in the doorway, his face impassive, hopping from one foot to the other. I felt his eyes boring into me but I couldn’t meet them, I felt so utterly ashamed.

  ‘There’s no point you being here,’ I told him in a lifeless voice. ‘Just go away.’

  ‘I can’t go,’ he shrugged. ‘I’ve got no cigarettes.’

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out a half-empty packet of cigarettes and a five-punt note: ‘Here – take this and go.’

  Eventually, around mid-morning, the police dropped me home and I went straight to the bathroom. There I drew a bath of scalding hot water and lay in it, scrubbing myself with the brush until my skin was red raw. Agatha tried to talk to me but I was too tired and ashamed to speak to anyone so I put myself to bed. The next day the doctor came out again and gave me another injection. The drugs were so powerful, I could barely move for the rest of the day, though in my head, I was tortured by terrifying flashbacks of the rape. Why? Why hadn’t I stopped it? I asked myself over and over again. Why had I let this happen to me? I should have seen it coming. I should have run away. It was all my fault.

  For the next two weeks I retreated into myself. When I closed my eyes at night, I was instantly transported back to the canal path when my attacker overwhelmed me and forced me to the ground. Then I couldn’t sleep. I could feel his skin upon mine, feel his breath close to my ear and hear his heavy, sickening grunts. During the day, I couldn’t face anybody, though my family were now taking it in turns to stay in the house with me. It was Martin’s idea – he was devastated for me and he even tried to comfort me and put his arms round me but I couldn’t accept his love. I couldn’t even look at him because at sixteen – nearly seventeen – he was more like a man than a boy.

  My mother knew what happened but she was no help – she never left the house much anyway. I was so deeply ashamed with what had happened and the way she acted made me feel worse. No one will want you now, my mind tormented me. And no wonder – you’re ugly, worthless and stupid! You’ve brought this all on yourself. You should have done something to stop it. You should never have let him walk you back home, you fucking eejit. You deserved it – you’re an ugly, worthless piece of shit and you should never have been born.

  It felt like there was a monster in my head, a demon trying to destroy me from the inside. During all these years of heavy drinking I’d successfully managed to bury the insecurities and fears that plagued me deep down. But now there was a demon’s voice inside my mind and he came at me loud and clear every minute of every day. I was helpless to prevent his destructive words from permeating my brain. I’d been so violated, I had no defences left. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat and I could barely stand to be in my own head any longer. There was no relief – from morning till night the voice taunted and ate away at me: You worthless, ugly piece of shit. No one will want you. You’re nothing, you’re nobody. You don’t deserve to live. On and on and on it went until finally I knew there was nothing else for it.

  One morning, when everyone was out of the house except for Martin, I snuck out of my bedroom and into the bathroom. There I sat down on the toilet and picked up the bottle of bleach which always sat next to the cistern. In that bottle I saw my salvation, I saw relief, a way to end the pain. That was all I wanted now, an escape from the madness that coiled itself round my brain like a boa constrictor, squeezing all the sanity from my mind. The snake in my head had wound itself tight inside my skull, refusing to let go, but somehow, somehow I had to get away. I couldn’t bear to live like this any longer.

  I shook the bottle – it was nearly half full, plenty for my needs – and unscrewed the cap. As I did so, I heard a pummelling on the bathroom door.

  ‘IRENE!’ Martin yelled. ‘IRENE! LET ME IN FOR GOD’S SAKE!’

  I tried to ignore the increasingly desperate shouts but, just as I was lifting the bottle to my lips, the door came crashing open and Martin fell in.

  ‘STOP! IRENE! STOP RIGHT NOW!’ He made a grab for the bottle and managed to knock it out of my hand and to the floor.

  ‘NO!’ I yelled in frustration and the tears sprang to my eyes. Martin had me by the wrists then and was yanking me out of the bathroom and back towards my bedroom. The next thing I knew I was back in bed and the doctor was leaning over me. He injected me again and I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  When they admitted me into the psychiatric hospital I weighed just five stone. For the next six months I was lost, drugged up to the eyeballs on a dizzying mixture of anti-psychotics and antidepressants. I could barely walk from one end of the corridor to the other, let alone carry on with my normal life. There was no counselling, no therapy, just a lot of drugs that left me dribbling and incapable, like a zombie. I was barely alive.

  One day, the doctors sat me down and said the drugs didn’t seem to be working and offered me electric shock treatment instead. The mention of it triggered a memory. I recalled that shock treatment had been given to my mother when she was unwell. It terrified me, the thought of turning into her. That night, as I lay awake, looking at the bright white moon from my bed in the ward, I resolved to get better on my own. I was not going to turn into my mother and I was not going to let my rapist win. One way or another I would get back to my senses, enough to put that bastard behind bars.

  The next day, when they came to give me my meds, I only took half and I threw the other half down the toilet. That day, my mind – though still tormented – was clearer than it had been in weeks. The next day I did the same thing. A week later, my father came to take me home for the Christmas holidays. For the first time in years, I felt pleased to see him.

  ‘Mammy never came to visit,’ I observed as we rode the bus back home. ‘In all the time I was in the hospital, she never came to see me.’

  ‘Ah, you know your mother. She’s busy all the time.’

  I didn’t buy it – if I hated my mother before, I despised her now. After all these years of demanding our pity and sympathy for her own illness she had never once shown any compassion or care about mine. My bitterness towards her was hard
ening into a physical lump in my chest.

  As soon as I got home I threw my pills in the fire, determined to fight my way back to normality on my own. I was meant to return to hospital the next day and when I didn’t the nurses came to the house with a straightjacket. As soon as I saw them at the door I bolted upstairs and hid under the bed.

  ‘Don’t let them take me!’ I whimpered to my family when they came to fetch me. ‘Please. I’m getting better here. I won’t ever recover if you leave me in that place.’

  And fortunately, for the first time in my life, my father stood up for me and agreed not to send me back. I don’t know why – it was the only kind act I’d known off him. Perhaps it was because, with me not around, there was less money in the house. Perhaps he really did care. I’m not sure.

  It was in the first week of January, while I was signing on at the labour exchange, that the police came to find me to tell me they had arrested my attacker and asked me to identify him in court. It was terrifying but I was determined not to let this man win. I wanted to see him behind bars. So I went to court and, as soon as I set eyes on him, my heart started to race.

  ‘Is this the man?’ the police officer asked me solemnly. I nodded.

  ‘And can you tell us what he did to you?’

  From somewhere deep inside I found the courage to look Tom straight in the eyes and say, ‘You raped me and beat me black and blue and held a knife to my neck.’

  In the months leading up to the trial, the police were at my door every week. They wanted to ensure I was going to go through with it. This was an open and shut case, they told me, they had enough forensic evidence from the hospital to prove I’d been raped. Of course I wasn’t going to back out, I reassured them. I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I let him go free and he raped another girl. Three months later, the case came to court – it took all the strength I had to give my evidence, to relive the rape in the witness box in front of all those people. It was horrible and shameful but I was determined to stay strong. All the while Tom sat in front of me, smirking. Then came the turn of the doctor – he said there was no question in his mind that I was ‘forcibly entered’ and his report showed I had internal bruising which could only have come from a violent rape. On the second day I was sent home by the judge who thought I might find it too upsetting to hear Tom’s evidence and on day three the jury was sent out to consider their verdict.