Sins of the Mother

by Irene Kelly

  Soon after he got out of prison, Matt moved back into my house and for a short while everything was magical.

  Then I fell pregnant.

  Matt

  Felicity was nearly a year old when her mother told me she wasn’t mine after all. Of course, I didn’t believe her but she wanted to move on with another bloke and she didn’t fancy the inconvenience of having her baby’s father locked up. It was devastating. If it wasn’t for Irene I might have fallen apart completely. But Irene was faithful – she never stopped visiting and she wrote to me all the time. At first I struggled to read her letters, but this time I worked hard to improve my literacy. Just being able to finish a letter gave me a huge sense of accomplishment, something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

  Gradually, letter by letter, page by page, I fell in love. Irene’s loyalty, love and devotion shone through. There wasn’t a day that she didn’t think about me and it meant so much to know that, even when I was away, I mattered. Nobody had ever put me first like this or had such faith in me – it was as if she could see the person I was inside, the person I wanted to be, not the person I had been up until that point.

  By the time I came out of prison three years later, we were a couple and for the first time in my life I felt that I had somebody on my side who truly loved me, cared for me and wanted the best for me. What I didn’t have was money and that’s what I needed. So a week after I got out of prison I did a job with a couple of friends. We turned over a pub for £7,000 with a pump-action shotgun and a .38 revolver. I didn’t tell Irene anything until two days later when I asked her to hold some money for me, but she didn’t ask me any questions.

  When she told me she was pregnant I was shocked. It was the last thing I was expecting. For a few days afterwards I kept myself to myself, unsure how to react or what to do. In some ways I was pleased and excited, but I was frightened too. Losing Felicity had broken my heart. I couldn’t bear to go through that again. But there was something different about Irene. I knew she would never betray me.

  When I finally plucked up the courage to tell my family about the baby, I knew the moment the words came out of my mouth that I was really happy to be a dad again. I knew I would do it right this time. This child had a chance.

  17

  IRENE AND MATT

  Escape

  IRENE

  I was devastated that I had fallen pregnant so quickly. Matt and I had only just started living together – we were still in the honeymoon phase – and, though I loved my kids madly I honestly thought I was done with having children. My youngest, Anna, was nearly eight years old and I was relieved to have got past the early years with all of them, the intense, full-on, non-stop caring that comes with having babies and very young children. It’s draining, it’s difficult and it takes all your time and energy. But Matt wanted a child. I could see that. Even though he was shocked when I first told him, behind that I saw a glimmer of excitement. He had lost contact with Felicity when his girlfriend turned her back on him; he didn’t want to lose this child too. I knew he yearned to be a father and I felt that I couldn’t deny him.

  But the news was not well received by our families. Matt’s family thought he was crazy, tying himself down to an older woman and, worse, a mum-of-three. On my side, my mother insisted our relationship was just a fling. She thought that eventually I would get back together with Paul, the man who had cheated on me and beaten me up for eight years! Until Matt got out of prison, I had been round at her place a couple of times a week to help her with the cleaning and the shopping. I felt it was my duty. By now Agatha had moved out of the area, Frances lived nearby but she worked full time, while both Cecily and Emily had moved to England with their new husbands. So whenever I was round there, Mammy bent my ear about Paul, and no matter what I said she wouldn’t listen when I told her there was no way we were getting back together.

  After Matt got out of prison it got so bad that I stopped going round to shop and clean for her for a while. My arms had been aching a lot recently and it was the perfect excuse to stay away. Matt couldn’t understand how I could be so nice to her anyway after everything she had done to me.

  ‘Why do you keep helping her?’ he asked, mystified. ‘She doesn’t deserve your help. She doesn’t appreciate a single thing you do for her.’

  It was true – my mother was curmudgeonly and ungrateful for the most part. She never thanked me for my help, she barely spoke to me half the time. I couldn’t explain it – I suppose I was waiting for her to tell me that she loved me. I thought that if I did enough for her, if I helped her, she would finally come round, she would admit being horrible to me as a child and apologize. Then she would tell me that she had always loved me. That was why I went round there, that was why I kept doing things for her. But I hadn’t banked on how poisonous that old witch could be. I hadn’t counted on her truly nasty nature.

  One Saturday, not long after we told our families about the pregnancy, Matt and I were curled up in front of the TV in the living room when there came a hammering on the front door. Philip and Anna were with their father for the weekend but Justin, who had refused to go to see his dad, was in his bedroom. I had wondered about this at the time, but I didn’t force him – I thought that maybe it was a phase. Until now he’d loved spending time with his dad every weekend.

  Matt and I exchanged worried looks. Who’s trying to beat the door down? Is it the police?

  There was more banging on the front door, then a voice: ‘COME OUT OF THERE, YOU BASTARD!’

  Paul! What was Paul doing here? The thumps at the door came harder now – there wasn’t enough time.

  ‘Move!’ I quickly shoved Matt off the sofa. ‘Go out the back door and over the garden fence. You’ve got to get out of here!’

  ‘What? What are you talking about? I’m not going anywhere.’

  Matt couldn’t see the problem but I had heard Paul’s voice and, after years of living with this man, I sensed danger.

  ‘He’s drunk, Matt! He’s not going to stop. Look, just go now and I’ll sort it out, whatever it is . . .’

  At that moment, Paul slammed into the door, the lock broke and my ex-husband fell into the corridor. Matt jumped up and I pushed him out the back door, then I stood in front of it, blocking Paul’s way to the garden. At the same time, Paul flew into the living room, his face puce with rage.

  ‘Where is he?’ he spat. He saw me blocking the way to the garden. ‘Let me through, you bitch!’

  ‘Paul! Stop! Stop it! What the hell are you—?’

  Thump! His fist made contact with my nose – the sudden impact stung and my eyes watered from the pain. Paul pushed me back onto the sofa then ran out into the garden.

  ‘He’s not there!’ I yelled after him. ‘just get the hell out of my place!’

  ‘I’ll kill him!’ Paul raged, nostrils flaring like a bull. ‘I’ll fucking kill him!’

  ‘If you don’t leave, I’ll call the police.’ I strode into the kitchen and held up the receiver. ‘I’m warning you, Paul!’

  ‘How can you defend him?’ Paul raged.

  ‘GET OUT!’

  ‘How could you, you stupid bitch?!’ and with that he stormed out.

  Two minutes later, Justin came downstairs. I sat down shakily at the kitchen table, lit a cigarette and dabbed at my bloodied nose with my hanky.

  ‘Mum,’ he said quietly. ‘Are you okay?’

  For a boy of twelve, he was very sensitive and caring.

  ‘Yes, son,’ I said. ‘I’m fine. Don’t worry.’

  Justin sat down opposite me and started to fiddle with the tablecloth.

  ‘Mum . . . erm . . . I know why Dad came round looking for Matt.’

  ‘Really? Well, come on then – spit it out!’

  ‘Gran,’ he said simply. ‘It was Gran.’

  ‘Oh no!’ I felt a tight little knot forming in the pit of my stomach. ‘No no no! What did she do? What on earth did she do?’

  ‘Well, she asked me last week. She asked me
to tell my daddy that Matt was beating up me and Philip and locking us in our rooms.’

  ‘What? Why would she do that?’

  ‘She told me that if I said that, Dad would get rid of Matt and you and Daddy would get back together again. But I wouldn’t do it, Mum. I don’t want Daddy back, and besides, Matt is very good to us and I’m not going to tell lies about him. So that’s why I didn’t go to see Daddy today. I didn’t want to do what she told me.’

  I put my arms out to my son then – he got up from the table and let me give him a cuddle. What a strong, brave boy I had raised! I was so proud of him at that minute.

  ‘But Philip . . .’ he whispered into my ear.

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know. Don’t worry. We’ll make everything right again. Don’t hate your brother for this. It’s not his fault.’

  Later that night, when Justin was in bed, Matt snuck back in over the garden fence.

  ‘My mother used Philip to try to get rid of you,’ I told him with a heavy heart. ‘She persuaded Philip that if he told his father you were beating the boys, Paul would see you off and then I would take Paul back. She tried to make Justin do it at first but he refused – that’s why he wouldn’t see his father this weekend. But Philip obviously took the bait.’

  ‘What a nasty thing to do!’ he exclaimed. ‘Using your own children against you! It’s . . . it’s . . . I just don’t have the words, Irene! That woman is evil. Pure evil!’

  ‘I know . . .’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t think I can take any more.’

  Philip came home on Sunday looking miserable. I knew right away he regretted what he’d done. I had already decided I wouldn’t come down hard on him – after all, he had only been a pawn in my mother’s wicked games. He was a good kid but he missed his daddy – more than any of them, he longed to be with his father. Even when Paul let him down – when he failed to show up for a visit or forgot his birthday or failed to take his calls – he still wanted him more than he wanted me. Philip blamed me for ‘chasing his daddy away’ – how could I tell him the truth? He was ten, a child – I knew he would only hate me if I told him about his father’s behaviour. But Philip wasn’t allowed to tell lies. It simply wasn’t acceptable and I grounded him for a week.

  On Monday morning, a white envelope landed on the mat addressed to Justin. I could tell from the swirly handwriting it was from my mother. Justin opened it at the kitchen table and, as he did so, lots of little fragments of photographs fell out. I reached out to touch them and realized with horror they were all pictures of Justin that had been cut up into tiny little pieces. Pictures of him as a baby, at his christening, riding a bike, taking communion, his first school photo. They were all the pictures I had given my mother, the most precious and important moments of my son’s childhood.

  He passed me the letter. It was just one line long: ‘I want nothing more to do with you.’

  That made my mind up.

  ‘We’re not going to survive this,’ I said to Matt after we’d seen the children off to school that morning. ‘If we’re to have any chance at this relationship, we have to leave this country. There’s too much against us here. We’re not free.’

  ‘Are you kidding? This is our home!’

  ‘But you’ve seen it, Matt. She’s evil. She won’t rest until she’s destroyed us completely. Look what she’s doing to my children! I won’t stand by and let her do this to them or to us. Either she’ll be the death of me or I’ll be the death of her. One way or another, one of us will die!’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’

  ‘Come on, Matt, we need a fresh start, we need a chance to make it work. You don’t want this life either. You told me so! If we don’t do this now, I don’t think we’ll make it.’

  A few weeks later, I found myself standing on the deck of a passenger ferry, looking back at the city I had lived in my whole life. The wind whipped my skirt around my ankles as I breathed in the tangy sea air. Freedom beckoned – I could finally taste it, for real this time! Matt had gone over to Manchester the week before to find us a house while I prepared the children for the move. They were fearful and sad to leave their father and the only life they’d known, but I did my best to assuage their worries.

  ‘After all, we won’t be on our own,’ I reassured them. ‘Your aunties Cecily and Emily are there too.’

  Cecily and Emily were both in Manchester and they helped Matt to find a private landlord while I sold off our furniture to raise a deposit.

  The boat pulled out of Dublin port and I stood there, gripping the handrail, tears stinging my eyes. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.

  ‘What’s wrong Mammy?’ Philip asked. ‘Why are you crying? Are you sad?’

  I looked down at my son then and smiled. ‘No, son, these are happy tears,’ I told him. ‘I’m happy.’

  He gave me a puzzled look and then ran off to join his brother and sister, on the other side of the boat, who were spitting competitively into the sea below. They were having a ball, running around the deck, exploring the different parts of the ferry. What an adventure for them! What an adventure for us all! As we crossed over the Irish Sea, I felt the tension and misery I’d carried for so long slipping off my shoulders. Free, I told myself. I was finally going to be free.

  The first year in England was a struggle, but a happy one. We got ourselves secured in a rented home in the suburbs up north and settled the kids in a good local school. Matt started a course in painting and decorating while I tried to make preparations for the arrival of my fourth child, a little girl. Yes, this was a new place, an unfamiliar country, and there was so much we had to adapt to. Each night, we went to bed exhausted but happy.

  At least the neighbours kept to themselves – you didn’t have everyone wandering into your home all the time, poking their noses into your business. In England there was a greater sense of space and I felt like a human being for the first time, a real person. I didn’t have to put on a front, I didn’t have to pretend to be tough, to prove to the outside world that they couldn’t hurt me. I could be the softer person I was inside. Matt, too, could be his own man, free from the expectations of the criminal world he had moved in before. In England he could live a quiet and an honest life as a devoted family man.

  But the best thing about being in England was that I was finally free of my mother. I didn’t have to see or speak to her and it didn’t matter what she said about me because she was hundreds of miles away. In England, she had no hold over me. We kept in touch now and again – she came over when the baby was born to help out, though she was far more interested in Cecily’s kids than mine. Matt was charming to her – she never saw how much he hated her underneath. As long as he only had to see her once in a blue moon, he didn’t mind putting on a show. Besides, after our little girl was born, he was head-over-heels in love. Jennifer was a beautiful baby, but more than that, she represented our future. Matt was crazy about her and crazy about being a father.

  So when the police came to arrest him, we were both devastated. The fact was we just hadn’t moved away quick enough and a week after he had got out of prison he had been involved in a robbery. I was really upset with him about this – I’d told him when I was visiting him in prison that I wasn’t planning to spend my whole life coming to see him locked up. But there was nothing I could do about it now. He was extradited back to Dublin and locked away again.

  I could have fallen apart but by now I felt strong. I packed up the family and followed him to Dublin, knowing full well that we would return to England after his release. I had no worries about my mother any more – I knew that we had an escape plan once Matt had done his time. Besides, we told everyone we were married now so they couldn’t split us apart. The truth was we couldn’t get married because Matt had been living under a false name but it didn’t matter, we were wedded in our hearts and that meant more than any little scrap of paper.

  Matt

  ‘Manchester? Where’s Manchester?’ I asked alarmed when Irene first brought up the sub
ject of moving. It might as well have been on the other side of the world! Until that moment I’d never even considered leaving Ireland for good. On the ferry on the way over I was sick with worry. I didn’t know anything about this place and I’d never met Irene’s sisters Cecily and Emily. Leaving all my family and everything I knew behind was hard – and yet, I felt ready for a new start. More than that, I wanted to give my unborn child a stable home life, a secure childhood and the chance of an education – all the things I had missed out on as a child. I had no idea what was waiting for me in England but I knew one thing for certain – it had to be better than what I was leaving behind . . .

  There was a warrant out for my arrest by the time we left, so I went over on the ferry using a false name and we set ourselves up in a new home. I thought then about what I really wanted out of life. When I first met Irene, I was sick of my life. I had no faith in myself, my family or anyone else. All I had was heroin. I’d been in prison fourteen times already and I was on the run again, locked in a vicious circle.

  Irene knew about the heroin, of course, she wasn’t stupid, but she didn’t know the extent of my habit. I’d always take it while I was in other people’s houses or under the cover of shelter, in a derelict building or quiet doorway out of the rain. I never did it near her house. She made it clear from the start that she was against drugs but, back then, it was like an epidemic. So many friends of mine were addicts. She told me I had to come off the smack but it wasn’t that simple. I couldn’t see a way out. Now, four months after our arrival in England, I told Irene I was ready for the next step.

  ‘You can do this,’ Irene urged, as we lay side by side on the bed one night, holding hands. Her belly stuck straight up in the air and I kept my eye on the top of the mound for telltale signs of a kick.

  ‘You don’t need the drugs,’ she went on. ‘You don’t need that life. You have so much more now. You can do this, I know it. I believe in you.’