No One Wants You

by Celine Roberts

  Even though I was in my house, my home, surrounded by my loving children, I felt trapped. That evening I felt, once again, like nothing better than a little beggar girl.

  I left the room because I had to get out of there.

  I went to cook dinner. Cooking has always been my escape. I could create something from the debris of my life. I was doing for other people what I wanted them to do for me. I wanted them to look after me. When I put the children to bed that night, I remember thinking that they were the only precious things that I had in my life. They were the only people in my life that I could really trust.

  The next day my parents and I went shopping. At the Aer Lingus office in Regent Street we booked a ticket for me to return to Limerick to meet my siblings. I would fly back to Shannon with them on the following Sunday. I wanted to buy a pair of black patent shoes for my trip to Ireland. My mother offered to pay for my shoes but I refused to let her.

  My father said, ‘Let her pay for them, she owes you millions.’ I ended up buying a cheap pair, which I would never have worn normally, so the bill would be cheaper for my mother. After the previous night’s upset, that was all I could bring myself to accept.

  SEVENTEEN

  Sibling Rivalry

  SUNDAY CAME AND we all flew in to Shannon Airport. We went through the customs check unhampered. I was beginning to feel nervous. I did not know whom I was going to meet. As we approached the final door before we entered the arrivals hall, I hesitated. My father nudged me gently in the back and verbally pushed me forward with, ‘Go on girl, sure it is only your very own family, what are you afraid of?’

  I emerged into the usual large arrivals area, to see the usual sea of faces, each searching for their own particular person. As I stepped through the door, I was approached by a small group of four people, two male and two female. They had detached themselves from the larger throng. A small noisy over-excited army engulfed me.

  My father caught up behind me. He introduced me collectively to the party as, ‘Here is the long-lost sister.’ He then introduced my brothers and sisters to me individually.

  It was a very emotional experience. There were a lot of tears from me.

  It was so unreal. It was like this family was together and I was on the outside. I did not feel part of a family. When we were getting into a car, my new-found sister Eileen said, ‘Come and get into the back with me, Sis’. I felt chuffed. I felt included for the first time. I felt she was including me in the family.

  It was an emotional whirl.

  I kept experiencing different reactions to my arrival.

  We went to my brother’s house. His name was Tommy O’Sullivan Junior. I met his wife Marion. Also at his house was another sister called Avril. She was wearing a tartan outfit and I thought she looked very elegant. I thought that she did not like the idea of my being there. Of all my siblings, I felt Avril disliked the idea of, ‘the secret existence of an illegitimate older sister’, being exposed. In time, however, Avril and I became quite friendly.

  In general, I found that while I was welcomed to the family, I was not introduced on a large scale to their friends and neighbours. I felt that this was a sign that, deep down, they were still ashamed of me. Their friends and neighbours would always have known Eileen as the eldest of the family, but now they would have to explain to everyone that I was the eldest. Explaining this fact to everyone would have involved many other gory details, so, I expect that they thought better of it. Thinking about it, if the tables were reversed, I would have probably done the same. Even still, the lack of a full acceptance hurt.

  After dinner at Tommy Junior’s house, I was taken to my parents’ home at Janesboro in Limerick. When we got to the area, they made me guess which house was theirs. I guessed the wrong one. It wasn’t at all what I had anticipated. I expected it to be a large private house in its own grounds. The picture I had built up over a week of knowing my father was of a place with kennels for dogs, which I had confused with stables for horses.

  When I actually saw it, I was shocked. I was ushered inside an end-of-terrace council house.

  My father said, ‘Welcome home.’

  There were so many people there. I was introduced to all my siblings’ wives and husbands and their respective children. I was overwhelmed. One woman emerged from the crowd when she saw me, and said to my mother in a loud voice for the entire world to hear, ‘Doreen, how could you deny her, shure she is the spittin’ image of you.’

  My mother responded by looking daggers at her. The woman turned out to be called Tess. She was married to my father’s younger brother, Frank. I got the impression that my mother did not like Tess very much.

  I was to learn later that my mother was very fond of Frank. She told me that when Frank sang at parties, he used to sing a special song to her. He used to sing the song ‘Good Night, Irene’ to her, but he used to change the words to ‘Good Night, Doreen’. I said that Frank was nice and thought no more of it. Frank treated me like a little girl. As time went on and I was flying in and out of Shannon, he would be waiting for me before I boarded the plane. He would always give me a box of chocolates and kiss me on both cheeks.

  On the Saturday night, a family party was held. My father did not like alcohol in the house, but he bought a bottle of Black Tower white wine for me because he knew I liked to drink wine. My entire new family were present. I had met all my nine siblings over the week, four female and five male. From the eldest to the youngest they were Eileen, Avril, Tommy Junior, John, Marcus, Niall, Rosaleen, Michael and Thelma. All were at the party and we had a singsong with no alcohol. I was happy in their midst, and I enjoyed the feeling. I felt some sense of belonging at last.

  On one of the nights we went to Buttevant with my parents and Tommy Junior, to visit Kit and Tony. Kit said to me, ‘I’ve lost my little family.’

  ‘No, never!’ I said, and I really meant it.

  After the party, I flew home to London. I wanted to be at home with my children, but, at the same time, I wanted to be in Limerick with my parents. I wanted to be a child with them. I wanted them to make a fuss of me. I thought that it would be different, I thought that I would be introduced to their friends and neighbours, but I wasn’t. My visit was very closed and restricted to close family.

  * * * *

  It was November 1983. Back in London, I wrote to my family. In my letter I said that ‘I felt love in every part of their home’. I did not know what that meant. But I thought that it was the right thing to say. I wanted to be acceptable to them. I was still at it. I had found my family, they had welcomed me and yet I was still unhappy about myself. I still felt unacceptable. Was it to dominate my life forever?

  Life in London did not return to normal this time. I was on the phone to my parents, well in truth, my father, at every opportunity. He also called me very often. A lot of letters were written by both my parents. They were loving, in word and nature. I was amazed by the letters, especially those written by my mother.

  In contrast, I was ashamed of my own writing. My mother suggested that it was because I was not brought up as well as her other children. It brought back another memory when on a visit, years later, I had met Sister Claude, my old teacher. I had said I was sorry I’d missed so much school and asked her if she had known what was happening to me. She said, ‘I knew you were being dragged up in there.’ I knew she was right. I felt embarrassed about my lack of education and agreed with my mother. I even blamed myself for my bad writing.

  Christmas came and I wanted to buy a lot of presents for my new family. I thought that by buying presents for everyone, I would be more acceptable to them. Top of the list was my father. I bought him an expensive sheepskin coat. They were very fashionable at the time. I also bought many gifts for my mother and something for each of my nine siblings. I bought something for each of my married siblings’ children. It cost me a fortune. I wanted everyone to love me, so I didn’t care. I got a few presents back for the boys, but that was it. I felt a bit disapp
ointed.

  I was still having health problems. I went to see a gynaecologist in January 1984. As soon as I was examined internally, I began to haemorrhage. They said that cauterisation would not be an option anymore. They advised a hysterectomy. I was booked in for February 26, 1984. I would not be able to have any more children. This was a devastating piece of news for me. On the way home from the examination, I was so upset that I rang my parents to let them know. I knew that, with my history, it had to happen sometime, but it was still an awful shock.

  On the Sunday before the operation, my father and my youngest sibling, Thelma, arrived in London. She was 17. My father had told me that she wanted to train as a nurse. I was never asked to help but it was implied that I would be able to open particular doors in the world of trainee nursing for her.

  I thought that this was what families did for one another, so I set about getting her a suitable position as a trainee nurse. I had set up interviews at St George’s Hospital, in Tooting and West Park Hospital, in Epsom. I coached her in what to expect and what the suitable replies would be. She was accepted for both and opted for West Park.

  When my father heard this, he was very pleased. He asked me to look after her, so that she would make a good nurse. That meant that she had to come and live with Harry and myself. I never questioned her coming to live with us, and Harry didn’t mind. I assumed that was how families worked. It was like when my father asked me if I could find him some grapefruit spoons for one of my auntie nuns. It brought me right back to memories of the orphanage and serving the priest his breakfast and how hungry I used to be, but I felt had to help him find the spoons. He was my father after all.

  Thelma was due to begin her new job on Monday. As it was her first day, I had arranged for Harry to drive her to work in the morning and to collect her in the afternoon, when she was finished for the day. All went smoothly until he returned in the afternoon to collect her. She was not there. When he went looking for her he was informed that she had ‘gone home’. When he got home, it turned out she had quit, because it was not what she had expected.

  After all the trouble I had gone to, she had served less than one day. She was firm, ‘I am not going back, and that is that!’

  My father was going home on the following Sunday and a friend of ours who owned a pub, came by the house to meet him. He offered her a job in the kitchen of his pub and Thelma accepted. My father must have told my mother about her daughter’s change of career plans, as some days later I had an irate phone call from her. Mother informed me that, ‘they did not educate Thelma to work as a skivvy in the kitchen of a dingy London bar.’

  I went in for the hysterectomy. Once again my father decided what was right for me. He decided that it would be best if my mother came to look after my children, with Thelma’s help, while I was in hospital. He said that it would bring my mother closer to me. Usually I would have asked Kit to come over and look after Harry and the boys. That is what had happened during my past sojourns in hospital and there were no problems whatsoever. I should have been more assertive and told my father that I could make my own plans. Once again I thought that was what fathers did, so I went along with the arrangement.

  There was consternation between Harry and my mother. Two days after my operation, she rang me at the hospital. She was complaining that Harry had borrowed some money from her, and that she wanted it back immediately. I thought that it must have been a fortune that he had borrowed. Two days later she rang again with the same complaint that he still had not paid back the loan. She would not tell me how much money was involved.

  The next day I took an early discharge from the hospital, against their best advice. Five days after having a hysterectomy, I was at home. As soon as I got into the house, I sat both Harry and my mother down for a confrontation.

  I asked, ‘How much was the loan?’

  ‘Nine pounds.’

  I gave her the money.

  It transpired that Harry had been short nine pounds for petrol and had asked her if she could loan it to him. I suppose Harry meant ‘a permanent loan’ and promptly forgot about it. He probably had no intention of paying it back. It was just his way of asking for the nine-pound deficit, as the petrol was already in the car. I don’t think he expected it to start World War Three!

  I was supposed to be resting in bed but the war continued downstairs. She complained about the food. He had white bread and she wanted brown bread. He had corn flakes and she wanted porridge.

  I was upset. What she really wanted was someone to look after her!

  She caused further disruption by telling my neighbours about how my father and herself were going to build a nursing home for me to run as a business, as they wanted me to have some security in my life. She said my husband was only an uneducated wastrel, without any prospects whatsoever. While my life was based on many lies, I considered those lies as necessary for my survival. I never told lies just for the sake of projecting a snobbish image of myself.

  Instead of helping me convalesce, my mother’s presence made me feel worse. I was so mixed up. Then Thelma thought she should show me a letter she had got from a friend which said that my mother should not be forced to accept me. I was very hurt. I’d had hopes that together we could change the past, but of course, we couldn’t. I began to realise that the years of damage could not be undone.

  EIGHTEEN

  Buying Acceptance

  MY NEW-FOUND FAMILY caused another uncharacteristic change in my behaviour. Over my life I have always had to provide for myself. Nobody has ever given me anything. I have had to be aware of and careful with my financial expenditure. I don’t like saving but I never allowed my money to run amok. But now, if any of my new-found family said that they wanted something, I would buy it for them.

  Avril said, in a throwaway remark, that she needed a new carpet for her home. I sounded her out on what type and colour she would prefer. I bought one in London and had it shipped to her home in Limerick. My parents needed a TV, as they only had a black and white set. I had a small portable colour TV at the time, so that was delivered to Limerick. Videos had just come on the market. My parents said that they would like one, so I sent them a video recorder. They mentioned that they did not have a three-piece suite of furniture, so I had ours consigned to Limerick. On one occasion when they were at my house they admired my stair carpet. ‘Do you want it?’ I asked. It was duly whipped off the stairs and shipped to Limerick.

  My subconscious reasoning for my irrational behaviour at the time was that if I could give them what they wanted, they would accept me and allow me to be part of their family. I would have done anything to be an acceptable part of that family. Anthony still remembers when his BMX bike was shipped off to his cousins in Limerick. Harry didn’t seem to mind. The only time he got really angry was when he had found out about the nursing home story.

  I wanted to be important to them and I wanted them to say to their neighbours and friends, ‘This is my daughter or sister or aunt,’ whichever particular title applied. I really wanted to hear those words being said by my family to someone who was not a family member. I just needed them to be proud of me. But it never really happened.

  I felt that they were ashamed of me and, no matter what I did, I would never be acceptable to them. Within that family I felt an affinity with certain individuals, but as a group, I always was made to feel like an outsider. I should have been considered one of them. Yet that was not to be.

  I was their own flesh and blood yet I was considered as something lower than them. I felt less than human. Just because my parents were not married when I was conceived and born, decisions were lightly made which changed my life utterly, especially compared to the life of my full natural brothers and sisters. All different kinds of things kept bringing this home to me. I can remember first having my hair washed with shampoo at Kit’s home, when I was 12 years of age. Imagine never having had your hair washed with shampoo. It is something everyone in my family took as a basic human right fro
m the day that they were born. I did not know what shampoo was until then. I had never even been properly clean. While I lived with my foster-parents, sometimes I used to wash myself in a pond at the corner of a field near the house. The pond had formed at the juncture of two streams, that flowed along the boundary of the property. The pond feature was probably designed to allow cattle or other domestic animals to get a drink or to wallow in. The bottom of the pond was muddy but you only sank a few inches into it. In springtime I remember it was full of tadpoles but in summer it was always full of green algae. That pond was my only washing facility until I was 12 years of age. The more I talked to my brothers and sisters about their childhoods, the more I would think no shampoo, no toothpaste and no toothbrush. Washing was just one example. Even though only a few miles separated me from my siblings physically, our daily lives were worlds apart.

  My relationship with my new-found family, and in particular my mother, began to deteriorate. When my father was over with me and we were trying to entice the non-too-enthusiastic Thelma into a career in nursing, my mother wrote a letter to my father, which he showed me. It was a detailed letter about how much she missed him. In fact much of the detail was about how much she missed him, especially sexually, in bed. She was angry that he was still in London. He phoned her to try to calm things down but it didn’t help. I felt that her anger was really directed towards me. She was furious, mainly because my father and Thelma had not called her.

  My father put Thelma on the phone to talk to her. When Thelma said hello, she called her ‘Mud’. Afterwards when I mentioned it, she told me that it was a nickname. She told me that they all had nicknames for each other, Tommy was ‘Toss’, Eileen was ‘Shinny’ – it was no big deal.

  It was to me. I was jealous.

  I was insanely jealous.