I couldn’t understand why they would pass the time of day with him after everything we’d been through over the years.
Despite everything that had happened they still felt sorry for him. They used to call in to see him every now and then, or if he came to visit their flats they wouldn’t turn him away. Johnny knew how to manipulate them and they were confused.
On the one hand, they felt angry and on the other, they felt a loyalty to him because he was their father. On one occasion Johnny called around to the house. Molly was visiting me at the time with her baby who was just six-months old.
Johnny was drunk and abusive as he always was after one too many drinks. He began to verbally abuse poor Molly for no reason whatsoever. She was in the back bedroom at the time and her baby was lying in the centre of the bed. Johnny got so angry that he started to thump the bed with his fist and the baby flew up in the air each time he hit it.
Molly was distraught. She took a run at him and landed on top of her father on the bed. Then she started punching him in the face, just like he’d punched her for all those years. She’d had a good teacher. She knew exactly when to pull back her arm and how to aim for his jaw or his eye socket.
“Leave my baby alone you bastard,” she screamed at the top of her voice. “It’s over now,” she sobbed as she punched his face with all her might—again and again and again, until he was crying like a pathetic child.
“It’s over,” she shouted and there was deep-seethed anger in her voice. “You can’t hurt me anymore.”
By the time she’d finished Johnny’s face was covered in bruises and he had cuts all over it too. But more than anything his pride was hurt.
The trouble didn’t end there however. Keith, Molly’s boyfriend, was never one to take things lying down and he was furious when he’d heard what had happened.
“That bastard, Molly,” he said. “I’m going to show him.”
Before Molly could stop him Keith grabbed a hammer from the back garden and drove off to find Johnny who had sought refuge in the pub.
I got a phone call from Molly as soon as he had left.
“Oh Ma,” she sobbed. “What are we going to do? Keith’s going to kill Da. I know it.”
I literally didn’t know what to do. Part of me wanted Johnny to die and the other part was thinking of Molly and how guilty she’d feel for the rest of her life and that broke my heart. I phoned for an ambulance and gave them the address of Johnny’s girlfriend.
Keith returned an hour later, he was fuming with rage and there was blood all over the hammer. As it happens Johnny didn’t die that night but he received 170 stitches in his head. Keith had stormed into the pub and attacked him with the hammer. He’d beaten him over the head continuously. It’s a wonder he wasn’t brain damaged for life.
Johnny phoned Molly when they released him from the hospital.
“If you stay with that man I’ll disown you,” he shouted down the phone.
Of course, Molly had no intention of leaving Keith and Johnny didn’t speak to her for four months after that. Eventually he gave in and to this day he has never raised a hand to her. He knows better now because she has a man who will stand up for her and Johnny Smith is really just a coward.
A few months after however he picked on poor Aoife who has always been a softie. She’d forgiven him more times than I can remember. He called around to her flat one day looking for a lift to the pub.
“I have to meet a mate,” he said to her, “and I need a lift urgently.
“I’m sorry Da, I can’t,” said Aoife, who was six- months pregnant at the time. “I’m not feeling well today.”
Like that he had punched her in the face and she fell to the floor with the impact. It didn’t matter that Aoife was now a woman who was expecting his grandchild.
Johnny didn’t care and he never apologised. Luckily the baby was okay and a few months later I had another grandson.
The irony is that she was actually hurt that Johnny never came to the hospital to see the new baby.
“You’d have thought he’d want to see his own grandson,” she said to me afterwards but then Aoife has never been one to hold grudges.
I worry about her but then I worry about each and every one of my girls in different ways. I know the scars they have cannot be seen on the outside and I fear that what they have been through will affect their own relationships in years to come.
Molly did a self-assertiveness course a while ago and she felt all the better for it. I was proud of her of course but I would love all of them to go to counselling because I think it might help them to stand up to Johnny.
chapter thirty-six
ONE DAY MOHAMMAD phoned me unexpectedly from the Mediterranean. “Hello Frances,” he said in his warm accent. “How are you doing my sweet? Frances, I’m thinking of coming to Ireland for a few weeks to see you. What do you think? Is it a good idea or not?”
I was so pleased that he wanted to come over that of course I encouraged him. I hadn’t seen him for a few months and I missed him. But as soon as I put down the phone I began to worry. What would Johnny do if he found out?
Johnny had been living with Sarah ever since we separated, they were now considered a couple and were regularly seen about town together. Despite the fact that he had a girlfriend, he still continued to plague me with phone calls and I never knew when he might turn up to the house.
I decided however to take a risk and invite Mohammad over. I had been the recipient of his hospitality for years and I wanted to repay him. Besides I thought, “Why should I let Johnny ruin my relationship? He controlled my life for 22 years and that’s enough.”
Helen came with me to the airport on the day that he arrived. The two of us had planned out an itinerary for his three-week stay. We wanted him to enjoy himself.
The three weeks passed all too quickly. It was the summer time and I took him to see all the sights of Dublin. We visited Trinity College, Christ Church and the art galleries. He took me out to dinner in nice restaurants and we drank in bars in the city centre.
I couldn’t relax however. I was constantly looking over my shoulder to see if Johnny happened to be walking up the road. Many a time I was convinced I’d seen him and I made Mohammad duck behind a wall or stand in a doorway until I was sure the coast was clear. I knew word had got out that Mohammad was visiting me and I was sure he would be looking for us about Dublin; that was Johnny’s style. What’s more I knew for certain that he’d kill both of us if we encountered him. My lover tried to calm me down. “Don’t be worrying Frances, my little flower,” he used to say and I’d still blush when he gave me compliments.
In the end we got away without meeting Johnny. Looking back I’m convinced he was scared; he didn’t want to meet another man—a man who would stand up to him and probably be able for him. Johnny only ever took on those he knew to be weaker than him.
At this stage, I have resigned myself to living in Dublin with or without Mohammad. The best I can do is try to see him a couple of times a year and live in the knowledge that there is man out there who loves me for who I am and will never cause me to fear him.
chapter thirty-seven
TO THIS DAY the blood runs to my toes whenever I see a man with grey hair on the street. When I first met Johnny he had striking jet-black hair, but he’s older now and it’s long ago turned grey. He was a different person back then and so was I.
Mind you I’m a lot better than I was. People tell me I look ten years younger than I used to. I colour my hair now and wear a bit of make-up. I look after my skin and wear pretty clothes. I take pride in myself.
I still live in the same house and I now work as a receptionist but I have more freedom than I used to. I can now make plans to go on holiday or meet my sisters for a drink. I can go for a walk in the sunshine if I feel like it. I have a life, but I’m always looking over my shoulder. I still don’t sleep properly at night because the fear is always there. I know Johnny so well that I wouldn’t put anything p
ast him. I know now that if I were to move to some other part of Dublin, or Ireland for that matter, he’d find out where I was and make life hell for me.
Johnny is an obsessive character and I am his obsession. My only hope is that one day he’ll be locked up. Besides all the pain and suffering he has put me through, he is an out-and-out criminal and he’s stolen more money in his lifetime than you or I could imagine.
He phoned me up a few months ago. “I’m in spot of bother,” he said as if we were the best of friends. “I need somewhere to stay for a few days. Do you think I could stay in the house?” he begged me. “Please I’ll give you £300 and a leather jacket.”
I put down the phone and laughed. Then I cried.
I try to laugh about him all the time; make light of the years of suffering and pretend it doesn’t hurt. The girls and I joke about Johnny amongst ourselves, we have to do it to stay sane; it’s our way of coping. But the truth is the pain is always there and I fear it always will be.
It was my birthday a few months ago and he phoned me. “How are you?” he asked like he’d seen me the week before. “I miss you,” his voice trailed off with emotion. “I know it’s your birthday, Fran, I’ve been thinking; would you like to come out with me for a date? I’ll take you somewhere nice and buy you something pretty to wear, what do you think, Fran, will you come? You know you’re the love of my life?” he said. “You’ve always been the only woman for me.”
It didn’t matter that we were legally divorced at this stage and had been for the last five years, in Johnny’s eyes I will be his until the day that I die. He actually told the girls recently that I was going through a “mad phase” and that sooner or later I’d let him come back.
Although I still live in fear of him, the truth has set me free and I am a different person because of it. I used to think that I was the only battered wife in the country. I knew other women had abusive husbands but I honestly thought that no situation was as bad as mine. It’s only in recent years and from talking about Johnny to other people that I’ve discovered the other horror stories out there.
To those who have never experienced abuse my story must sound unbelievable. But believe me no woman is immune. They say that one in five in Irish women are battered wives.
What’s more it’s a phenomenon, which crosses every race and class boundary. That stranger on the bus who doesn’t look you in the eye, that woman who works alongside you in the office, the lady who serves you in your local newsagents or your friend or even your sister, could all be battered wives. It is now I realise that it is our silent suffering, which allows the victimisation to continue. And although the physical scars heal it is the mental torture, which leaves the deepest wound, a wound which is only truly understood by those who have lived through it.
I would hope that in some small way this story may help those who have been or who are battered wives and who know what it is like to live in daily fear as I did. Believe me, there is hope. If I can make a new life, then so can you.
In Fear of Her Life: The true story of a violent marriage Page 17