No One Wants You

by Celine Roberts

  I did ask her about her time in the home for unmarried mothers, in Bessboro, where I was born, but she dismissed my question with a wave of her hand and a look of annoyance. She would not give me any glimpse into her life while she was pregnant with me. She would rather talk about when my father was young. I feel there was a great sexual attraction between them.

  Her health problems were a large topic of conversation and she would expand on them at length. By this stage, it was too late. I could not feel any empathy for her problems because she had been the cause of all of mine. Also, my mother, while mellowing, remained detached.

  After the tea and sandwiches, I accompanied my father to the local shop for the daily paper. He brought up the subject of finance once again. I steeled myself for another touch for a loan of some kind. He asked me if I had sorted out my finances. He said that he was aware of the problems I had regarding all the money that I had spent on them.

  As usual, I said that I had the problem sorted. What I did not tell him was that I was heavily in debt to the bank and would be paying off loans for many years. Thanks to my considerate bank manager, he had tidied up all my financial affairs neatly and spread my repayments over a long-term loan. This took the worry and stress off my shoulders.

  After making me feel secure about my finances, my father then told me that he himself was having further financial problems. He told me that he had taken out a large loan and was unable to finance the repayments.

  I volunteered to help. He didn’t even have to ask if I would help. I said that I would help him with his monthly repayment and so I took on an extra financial burden that I could not afford. I realised that with all the expensive clothes that I had for the wedding, I must have been setting myself up for such a request. I sent him a cheque by post every month.

  We were based in Buttevant for the rest of the week of the wedding. I felt back in my family fold, but it was not the same without Kit. Yet I was happy there. There was no rancour or bitterness. No arguments.

  I did see my parents once more during the week. I took them out to eat at The Texas Steakhouse in Limerick.

  The entire meal was very civilised. I had changed.

  I was not going to let my parents play such an important role anymore.

  The death of my son had shattered my life.

  We returned to Buttevant where Tony had packaged the top tier of the wedding cake for the return trip to London.

  Back in London, I found it difficult to cope with everything and anything. I couldn’t function properly and things didn’t get better. One day, when Harry’s brother was in the house, I announced in all seriousness that I was unable to cope. I said that I was going to seek help through the aid of a counsellor.

  With equal solemnity and in a low voice, in case anyone might hear him, Paddy Roberts said, ‘Ohhhhh, you don’t want to be goin’ an tellin’ your business to those kind of people.’

  But this time I was determined to do what was right for me.

  TWENTY-TWO

  His Departure

  FROM THE TIME of the wedding, an arid period developed between my parents and myself. I had found a counsellor and possibly our sessions affected my relationship with them, but there were no more long conversations over the phone, on either side.

  I was still helping my father out. We kept this secret between ourselves. But, little by little, I began to realise that my father seemed to be spending the money. I was upset about the fact that he had tapped me for financial help, for a loan that I had no evidence that he was in fact repaying. I stopped buying things for them that I thought they might like.

  I next saw them in August of that year, when Harry’s brother Michael died in an industrial accident at his workplace. He was buried in Ireland and we went there for the funeral.

  My parents also came to the funeral. We took them out to dinner one night. Everything went smoothly, Mother was calm and Father seemed happy enough. We did not have a lot of time with them and we politely said our goodbyes. No hugs or touching this time.

  I didn’t know that this was the last time that I would see my father alive.

  If I had known, I certainly would have been more tactile. We spoke by phone infrequently after that.

  A few months later, on a Sunday evening, November 3, 1991, after I returned from church, Harry said that Marion, Tommy Junior’s wife, had phoned. I thought that it was strange, because Marion never called me. I called her back and she said, ‘Your father got bad at mass this evening.’

  I knew from her voice that she was really upset. She said that he was in hospital and she gave me the telephone number. I rang it immediately. I got through to accident and emergency and they asked me to hold on. I had to listen to upbeat rock music, while I tried to stay calm.

  The sister eventually came on the phone. I could tell from her responses that it was serious.

  ‘Did he have a cardiac arrest?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I posed a negative question, ‘He didn’t make it then, did he?’

  ‘No.’

  I was so shocked and upset, I just felt the phone slide out of my hand.

  Anthony was in the hall beside me, deciphering my one-sided phone call. He realised what had happened. He hit the wall so hard in anger that he broke a bone in his hand. The sister put me on to my mother.

  She said to me, ‘Oh, my darling has gone.’

  She was very upset.

  I felt sad for her and for myself.

  I felt that there was so much unfinished business between my father and me.

  I felt cheated. I had never got any answers. I had never found out things that I wanted to find out. I wanted to talk to them both about how it all went disastrously wrong for us.

  I wanted to talk about the euphoria of meeting them and the breakdown of our relationship. I wanted to explain my feelings of inadequacy, of being unacceptable and of not fitting into their family. I would never get to say those words now.

  I rang Thelma and told her. I expected her to be hysterical at the news because she was the ‘apple of his eye’. I was surprised at her reaction, but then I realised she must have been in shock.

  Anthony and I flew to Ireland as soon as we could. Tommy Junior met us at Shannon. It transpired that my father was at evening mass when he had a heart attack. He was dead on admission to hospital.

  Tommy Junior and Avril went to the undertaker to make all the arrangements for his burial. I went to a florist to order wreaths. I wrote, ‘Sadly missed by your eldest daughter, Celine.’ But in my heart I wanted to say that I felt cheated, that our time together was so short and because my mother was so bitter. I felt she had not allowed us to develop a proper father-daughter relationship and now that could never be.

  Each grandchild threw a yellow rose into his grave, including Anthony. Anthony adored his grandfather. They often used to talk about maths and numbers together. He really looked up to him. All those kids loved my father.

  As the days passed, I realised that his death was not as earth-shattering as I would have expected. It did not impact on my life to any great extent. What was going around my head were the unanswerable questions, the nagging doubts. I wanted to take a lock of his hair, but the opportunity did not present itself, so I don’t have a personal memento.

  On the day he died, I was not the same person that tracked him down and found him. When I first laid eyes on him, for the first time in my life, as he walked towards me at the airport, he looked like a god to me. He was so special. Although his death would be an enormous loss in my life, there was no loss that could compare to the death of my son. At the same time, my father’s death did feel very final. This was the end. I could not question it any more. If any more questions did arise, my opportunity or window in time was gone.

  In the cemetery he was buried next to his younger brother, Frank. He once told me that they had been great pals and had done everything together, up until the time they got married.

  I didn’t cry that day, not even
as the grave was being filled in. As we walked away, I looked back at the grave and thought that I should be crying but I couldn’t. No tears would come.

  All the mourners went to Cloughaun Football Club where refreshments were available and everyone who knew him spoke well of him. To the large crowd, even in death, I was not introduced to anyone as his daughter. It was as if I was still to be hidden.

  Once when he introduced me to his cousin he said, ‘This is Celine, this was our love-child that we kept hidden away.’ He had kind of laughed as he said it. It was as if he was trying to explain my long absence and my sudden appearance, and that it was all at once acceptable. But to me it was not acceptable. I was not just hidden away; I was consigned to a life of degradation from which, as a small child, I could not escape.

  My father was gone. My mother and my siblings had the closeness of the family to support each other but I felt excluded.

  After the funeral I went back to my mother’s house. She allowed me to undress her, get her ready for bed and generally look after her. It was the first time I thought that she might accept me. It was as if a heavy weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

  It felt very strange indeed. I stayed in my brother Tommy’s house and went home a few days later. I wondered what the future would hold for my mother and I now.

  TWENTY-THREE

  New Answers

  AFTER RONAN’S DEATH and then my father’s, I really tried to bring some normality into my world. I just wanted to be doing normal, everyday things – like looking after Anthony and Harry, and working normal hours. But instead, I thought that I was going off my head.

  Then Tony, who used to ring quite often after Kit’s death, died suddenly one day. We were all so shocked. I was not prepared for his death at all. I screamed and screamed when they told me he was dead, ‘Tony is dead and they bought me my first shoes.’ I was hysterical. His death was one of the deaths that really shocked me. He had gone for a walk with his dog, come back and sat down to have a rest. His sister found him dead just afterwards. I couldn’t stop screaming. I was back there again in Charleville, with the first new shoes I had ever owned.

  I couldn’t stand it. Everything felt bad. My finances were disastrous. The sex side of my marriage was depressing me. I hated it. Previously when I was working nights, it was to escape the sex. I didn’t see it as Harry’s fault. He had a strong sexual appetite and, while I tried to accommodate him, I was unable to enjoy it. Now that I was not working nights, he wanted sex daily.

  I had to get away. I decided to further my education. I applied to do a foundation course at King’s College, University of London. I was adamant to prove that I was not the stupid child that the nuns at the Mount Industrial School had said I was, when they denied me any further education at the age of 13 years. They said I was only good for peeling potatoes and carrots, and cleaning toilets.

  I was accepted to do the course. With the sound of those educational judgements still ringing in my ears, I presented myself in the university halls for the first time. It was a big, old building and instead of a sense of awe, I had a feeling of pride as I walked the corridors. I was not nervous. How far I had come. From having no education as a child, I now wanted to be part of a university.

  It felt good.

  Even the language was different and alien to me. During the first lecture, the professor discussed how he would be giving us salient points, references and bibliographies. The terminology excited me. I wondered what the meaning of those new words could be. I couldn’t wait to get home and look up the meaning of a ‘salient’ point.

  I was to bury myself in a university degree course in gerontology for the foreseeable future. I loved it. I could be me. It became my focus. I really used to study whenever I had spare time, be it late into the night or on my days off from work.

  It became my sanity. I needed it because I was continually ambushed by my past. One time I was back in Waterford for a visit and I was at a dance with Harry. A friend came up to me and said they wanted to introduce me to a man and his wife from my home in Limerick. It was his eyes I recognised. It was the neighbour who had raped me all those years ago. He didn’t even look uncomfortable. I pretended everything was fine, but when Harry came over to meet them I was terrified he would invite them for a visit. I got through it somehow, but when we were walking away Harry asked me, ‘Aren’t you going to give them our address?’ We’d had other people over to stay in London and he thought it was the same thing. I just said no and kept walking. I’ve never been back in Waterford for a proper holiday since then, only for a day here and there.

  I really loved studying for my degree and in a way I was almost disappointed when I graduated in 1993. I had done my finals and passed with credit. I had my presentation at Birkbeck College, University of London.

  On the day, I was allowed to have two guests present. Anthony was one guest and I decided that I had to have my mother present. It was probably a subconscious urge for me to demonstrate to her how well I had done in life. I also wanted her to know firsthand of my academic achievement, above that of any of her other children. It was to prove to her that, despite her abandonment, I had proven myself to be better than any of them. I had come from a feeling of no worth to a feeling of proving myself beyond my wildest dreams. I wanted her there because I wanted her to be proud of me.

  The day arrived but she was so bewildered over the whole event, I made no impact whatsoever. I felt that because she always dressed so elegantly, and certainly rose to every occasion, she might buy something new for my graduation. But she didn’t. In fact she almost dressed down for the occasion. She wore an old outfit, which she had often used for shopping trips.

  The entire ceremony was way above her head. When the formal part was over, at a small reception I introduced her to one of my professors. As they talked briefly, I sensed her trying to take the glory of my triumph as she told the professor how she had educated ‘all her children’. She was not proud of me; she was just playing one of her games. I did not mind, I was well used to it by then. I knew Anthony was proud of me and I realised that she would never be, no matter what I achieved. But deep inside, one other person was proud of me. I was sort of shocked to experience it. I was proud of myself. It was a very new experience for me.

  After my conferring, my mother never stayed at my home again. I think it was because she did not have to monitor what I said to my father any more. When my father was alive, it was as if I was a serious threat to their relationship. In case I came between them, in any possible way, she had to supervise him. She was not going to allow us to be alone together. If we did escape her vigilance and have a few moments together, she was not far away.

  After my father died, I never stayed in my mother’s house again. It was as if anyone to whom I was acceptable was gone. There was no reason for me to go there again.

  Whenever my mother or my siblings came to London, they all stayed at Thelma’s place. She was living over the pub they ran as a successful business. It reinforced to me that they were all part of a family and I was not.

  A two-year period passed when I did not see my mother. We had no contact by phone either. Then one Friday in May, 1996, I was out shopping in the West End. When I returned home there was a message on the answer phone from Thelma to say that my mother had had a heart attack. In her message she made light of the fact, by saying that it was probably one of her pleas for sympathy. Even at this stage I was not used to Thelma’s sense of humour. She had left the phone number of the hospital in Limerick. I rang the hospital immediately and introduced myself as a ward sister, using my confident self-assured ward sister’s tone of voice. I wanted no beating around the bush, or being left on hold, this time.

  ‘Has she had an arrest?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You obviously got her back then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My mother has had a previous history of heart trouble. Should I come home?’

  ‘Well, you and I both know that
you should be thinking about it.’

  ‘That is all I want to know, thank you.’

  I searched the travel agents frantically for a flight to Shannon. There were none available. There was one available to Dublin, so I took it.

  Before I left for the airport I rang my cousin Tommy O’Sullivan, who lived in Malahide on the outskirts of Dublin, and told him what had taken place and why I was flying to Dublin. Tommy was a cousin on my father’s side of the family. He said that he would collect me at the airport and that I could stay at his house until the following day.

  During the journey to Dublin my head was in a ‘tizz’. It was full of ‘what if she dies and I am not there’. I had a million questions and here I was to be stuck in Dublin overnight.

  I remembered an old saying that Kit used to use, ‘If “ifs” and “ands” were pots and pans, there would be no need for tinkers.’

  Tommy met me and wanted to take me home to his house.

  ‘No, I will get a cab from Dublin to Limerick,’ I said

  ‘That is all the way across the country, it will cost a bloody fortune.’

  ‘I don’t care what it costs, I am going to Limerick tonight.’

  He must have realised that he was dealing with a hysterical woman, so without giving out to me, he calmly said that he would drive me to Limerick himself. I have never forgotten that generosity and have always found him and his family to be very accepting of me. I had done nothing to deserve their acceptance, but once I appeared on the scene I felt whole-heartedly acceptable to their family.

  We arrived at St John’s Hospital Limerick at 3 am. Tommy Junior and Avril, my sister, were there. When my mother saw me she was somewhat disoriented. She thought that I was over in Ireland on holiday. She was a bit phased out with everything that had happened.

  When I saw her, I knew that it was the end. She had a myocardial infarction. In other words she had suffered a major heart attack. She was very frail-looking and had no fight left in her. There would be no going back, no getting well for her.