Do or Die

by Rita Harling

  I escaped into the bedroom and waited to see if he would calm down. He didn’t. He came through the bedroom door with a large scissors in his hand. I was so scared. Sheer panic shot through me. I had no idea what he was about to do. He grabbed me and cut through my clothes until they were in ribbons on the floor. He left the room and I sat on the bed and cried.

  A few minutes later Brian reappeared in the doorway and said that he was sorry. I couldn’t even look at him. He came and sat on the bed beside me and put his arm around me and kept saying that he was sorry. He told me to get ready and go and meet my friends and that he would say no more about it. I remained sitting on the bed until I heard my mobile phone ring again, so I decided to take my chances and get ready to meet my friends. Brian said no more as I got ready and left the house.

  When I eventually got to Karen’s house, it was nearly 10.00 p.m. Both Karen and Martina had been waiting patiently for me. They had arranged to meet some of their cousins in a pub on Hanlon’s Corner in Cabra. The rest of the evening went well; we all shared a few drinks and a few laughs.

  It was nearly closing time and we had just ordered our last drinks of the evening when I noticed that Martina was looking at me with shock written all over her face. I was confused and saw that she was signalling me to look in the direction of the door. When I looked through the circular window, I could see Brian staring back at me. He did not acknowledge me or wave to say hello. He just stared at me and he did not look happy. It was so strange and disconcerting. I stayed in my seat. Karen and Martina were agitated by Brian’s sudden appearance. They were really worried about me. It was a really freaky thing to do.

  We wondered how long Brian had actually been standing there watching me. We decided to finish our drinks, and we all made our way onto the street, where we would hopefully find a cab to take us home. When we left the building, I immediately heard Brian’s voice calling me. Karen linked my arm, and guided me away from him. He had been sitting outside in a jeep with his friend Peter Joyce. God only knows how long they had been there. I had no idea why he was there or what his intention was. I had told the girls just how hard it had been for me to get out of the house that night. Seeing Brian had put them all on the defensive. It was obvious that he was trying to freak me out. It just emphasised to me and to them how controlling his behaviour had become.

  Karen’s cousin was feisty. She marched up to Brian and told him to leave the area and to leave me alone. I was grateful for their concern, and for Karen’s cousin’s reaction. I thought to myself there is going to be World War III when I get home. Then I became even more alarmed when I realised that Brian was supposed to be babysitting. If he was here, who was looking after my children? Karen’s cousin and Brian were screaming abuse at one another. Peter Joyce did not get involved. He just watched. Karen hailed a cab and Martina and I piled in with her. They both knew that I was really worried about the kids, so they dropped me home first. When I got into the cottage I found my niece Emma there.

  I thanked God that the kids were not alone. However, Emma told me that she was there under protest. Brian had gone looking for Emma late that night. He found her with a group of teenage friends close to where she lived. Brian asked her to babysit, but she had refused. She said that Brian told her that she had to and demanded that she got in the car. Now he was bullying my family members. I felt bad that Emma had experienced this type of bullying from Brian. She must have felt awful and must have been embarrassed that her group of friends had seen Brian speaking to her like this. I wondered who had been minding the kids while Brian went out to find Emma.

  I went to bed and waited for Brian to come home. Emma stayed the night. In a strange way I found some comfort in that as I knew that Brian would not strike me in front of her. After all, it was about control and Brian would not have wanted my family to know the full extent of his hold over me. An hour or so had passed and there was no sign of Brian coming home, so I guessed that he must have stayed out with Peter Joyce. I awoke the next morning to find him in the kitchen playing with Conor. He acted like nothing strange or out of the ordinary had happened the night before.

  Brian was like a ticking time bomb. A time bomb that could go off at any moment without any warning or for no reason. All day, every day you had to brace yourself for an explosion of violence, hate and pure insanity.

  I had to sleep in a truck one night in my bra and knickers when he locked me out of the house. There was snow on the ground and it was freezing. The house was so isolated that I had no one to run to. Some nights I thought about boiling the kettle and pouring it over him as he slept, but I couldn’t do that — although the thought was nice.

  I often woke up in the middle of the night to find Brian straddling me. He tried to suffocate me with pillows. He would push down hard on my face, and I would try wrestling from beneath, gasping for air, until he would give up, for whatever reason. I don’t know why he did this. It just made me think that he was a psychopath.

  On one occasion, I decided to get Robyn to photograph my damaged and bruised body. I had purchased a disposable camera. I wanted photographic evidence of what he had done and what he was putting me through. It must have been awful for my daughter to have to take those photos of her mother. Robyn photographed my back, arms and legs. I also photographed the piles of my blonde hair that he had yanked out. I put the clumps of hair on the black marble fireplace so that they could be seen more clearly in the photograph. I had the photos developed and hid them away in books. I had obviously thought about having him prosecuted at a later stage, and thought that these photos would have provided some evidence.

  Around this time I attended one of the women’s refuge centres. I made my visit there as quickly and as secretively as I could. I had read a lot of women’s reviews on these centres. They all seemed to have had positive experiences. Unfortunately, I did not. I left the centre clueless. I spoke to a woman for about half an hour or so, explaining my situation to her. It was like a counselling session, where I poured out all of my heartache and pain. I was like a child looking for a plaster to be placed on a scratch, making it better so that the pain would go away. I thought that this woman was going to give me an instant solution to my problem. The more that I spoke to her, the more I could hear myself describing my life as it was at that moment, and I hated myself for being in that situation and for being me. However, after talking to her, I left the refuge centre and went back to the cottage — back to my nightmare situation. I was afraid, and prayed that Brian had not discovered my visit. I never went back to the centre; at the time I was too afraid he would find out. I was also afraid that he would see my cry for help as his victory and think that he had succeeded in breaking me.

  Chapter Four

  THE SUNDAY DRIVE

  The mood in the house was always set by Brian’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde personality. You never knew what to expect from him — each day was different than the last. If he was happy you were thankful that you were going to have a good day. But his happy days were few and far between. The kids and I were happy when he was not at home. We carried on as any other normal household would, until we heard the key in the lock and the slide of the patio door. Then we jumped to attention as if preparing for defence. I would feel myself get anxious. My heart would race and I would draw deep breaths while I waited to see which way I would be greeted.

  Brian started picking on me one day and I was feeling worn out by his persistent barrage of verbal abuse, as he moved around the house banging and breaking anything that got in his way. I knew that the level of abuse could escalate into something more violent, so I made a run for it before it peaked. I made my way out to the car and strapped Conor in the back, while Robyn climbed in beside her brother. I started the engine and reversed out of the drive. I had no idea where I was going. Brian heard the engine and I could see his face through the living room window. He dashed out the front door. I could see him in the rear view mirror as he chased after the car along the road. I don’t know how, bu
t he caught up with me and pounced onto the car holding on to the sunroof, which was open. It was like something that you would see in a Hollywood film. It was like he was possessed.

  Brian was so determined to get the better of me that he would go to any lengths, even if it meant sprinting down the road, chasing a moving car and jumping onto it. He kept shouting at me through the windscreen to stop the car. I wouldn’t. I kept my foot on the excelerator and continued down the road. My visibility was bad, as Brian’s frame was blocking my view, his body sprawled across my windscreen. He was swaying from side to side. The kids were remarkably quiet in the back — I think they were in shock. An odd time Robyn let out a disbelieving: ‘Oh Mam!’ I just told her that it was OK. I continued driving in the hope that Brian would fall off at some point. He didn’t. Somehow he was able to pull his body upwards, and as I continued to drive, he managed to get himself through the sunroof. I turned to find him sitting beside me laughing. I continued driving. I was still in shock at what he had just done.

  He asked me where I was going. I told him I was going to Finglas garda station. He was laughing hysterically now, which made me more determined to reach my destination. When we arrived at the garda station, I got out of the car. I told him to get out and follow me in. I asked him if he would prefer if I brought the gardaí out to him. He was still laughing uncontrollably and just refused point blank. He was quick to point out that he had done nothing and that I had no bruises to show the gardaí. He said that I was wasting my time going in there, as they would only laugh at me. I thought about it for a few minutes before I got back into the car and made my way home. He had called my bluff. I should have seen it through.

  Brian had many ways of intimidating us and using us. One of the things he loved to do was take us out on a Sunday drive. He would pack us all into the car and head off in a random direction. We hated it. We dreaded ‘The Sunday Drive’. Really what Brian was doing was using us as a front: the happy family out for a drive. He was in fact staking out premises, which he later would possibly burgle.

  I often found myself abandoned in the middle of nowhere because Brian had thrown me out of the car. He would throw me out because I objected to what he was doing. It was also another way for him to mentally abuse me. He loved playing games and this was just another sick way to mess with my head and make him feel in control. Then he would drive away with the kids in the car, and leave me to walk for miles before returning for me.

  On one occasion I remember he abandoned me in the middle of the countryside, somewhere close to Mullingar, in Westmeath. He sped off and left me walking in the direction that we had come from. I was nervous wandering the country lanes, as the landscape seemed barren and lonely. I had no way of contacting anyone for help and I had no money to get a bus or a train. I just prayed that he would return for me. He didn’t always come back, so I never knew how long it would take me to get home to the kids.

  Once he threw me out of the car at the bottom of Bay Lane. He leaned across me and opened the door. He then lifted his feet up from the pedals and kicked me out of the car. I fell into a ditch. I had to walk the rest of the way home to find that, once more, I was locked out as he sat in the living room, laughing out the window at me. The kids sat there with frightened looks on their little faces. Even though it was only a twenty-minute walk, it felt like miles.

  By this stage Robyn despised him. I could see it in her eyes. It was heartbreaking. But I didn’t blame her; I felt the same way. Why wouldn’t she hate a man, who she had once considered a father figure, after seeing all the things he had done to her family? For someone so young, Robyn had witnessed so much violence and abuse: mental, physical and psychological. He was an evil monster, one sick bastard. Every time Brian went out at night I prayed to God that he would be caught.

  Conor’s first birthday had gone by, and the year seemed to have passed me by quite quickly. Before I knew it, we were into the New Year. The weather was cold and the dark nights were long My health was improving and I was feeling a lot stronger. It was 2000: the millennium. There had been some changes in Kilshane that year. The cottage adjacent to ours had been renovated and we had new neighbours. The kennels at the back of the cottage stood on about an acre of land. The owner had built a bungalow on the land and was going to live there permanently. They were good neighbours, although I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with them. I knew that they sympathised with me. They couldn’t but have been aware of the beatings that Brian was giving me. Betty the lady that lived in the bungalow attached to the kennels, had witnessed the abuse first hand. She had tried to stop Brian from drowning me in the paddling pool the previous summer. On another occasion, she was alerted by Robyn crying in the back garden and came to investigate. She found Brian holding me in a headlock and twisting my arms behind my back.

  Caroline, the woman next door, didn’t take any crap from Brian. He tried his best to antagonise her but she wasn’t afraid of him. Whenever she had an issue with Brian she would confront him. There were a few arguments between the two of them. I also argued with her occasionally, even though I knew that Brian was in the wrong. Really all I wanted her to do was go, so that the argument was not carried back into the cottage — where I would have to take the brunt of it.

  He started a lot of arguments with the neighbours, making it harder for me to have contact or to build friendships with them. That made his job a whole lot easier. He could continue battering me, knowing too well that I would not run to them. It was another way to keep me isolated and to ensure I didn’t have support close by.

  Brian also tried to terrorise Aidan, who was the owner of the kennels. Aidan was not afraid of Brian, and there were often cross words between the two men. The two of them had been friends in the beginning. Brian and I had often gone for a drink with him at the weekends. I liked Aidan. I could understand exactly where his hate for Brian came from. After they fell out, Aidan had to purchase a security dog. The security dog wandered around the grounds of the kennels patrolling them at nightime. Aidan got the security dog because of the threats that Brian had made against his business. Aidan did not trust Brian and he was right not to.

  I could see a pattern forming with Brian — he never seemed to be able to sustain friendships. Every friend that he ever made while we were together always fell by the wayside. The friendships never lasted because Brian would have destroyed them in some cruel way. Brian destroyed everything that he came in contact with. He lost interest in things and people very quickly. I often wondered how his mind worked. Some days you would be having a perfectly normal conversation with Brian, and as you looked into his eyes at times it seemed that someone had turned a switch on and he would become a completely different person. He would become hostile and dismissive. The physical change in his face would always be obvious. When this happened you automatically knew at that moment to say no more.

  Since leaving Kilshane, I have visited my former neighbour, Caroline, on a couple of occasions. We chatted and remembered the old days. Caroline told me that she used to feel sorry for me when she heard Brian battering me. She said she could hear the commotion through the adjoining walls. Unfortunately, she was powerless to do anything.

  By that time Brian had broken me and robbed me of my smile. I felt that I had lost my soul. I was no longer the happy-go-lucky Rita. I was an emotional wreck left with no optimism and no prospects of fulfilment or happiness. I felt trapped. Inside I was screaming. It’s a very, very scary place to be. I was so exhausted as I tried to cope with my emotions and deal with my situation. When you feel like that, you feel like your brain just wants to shut down so that the mental anguish will go away. You try to understand why this is happening to you and what it is that you have done wrong. You begin to dislike yourself for turning into this submissive weak woman. You don’t trust yourself to make decisions about anything, especially when you feel that you must have had the poor judgement to choose such a violent partner. How could I trust myself now with anything?

 
; Chapter Five

  THE TONY SOPRANO OF FINGLAS

  Brian was still collecting pallets and young Joey was helping him. I became very fond of him and so did the kids. He would play with Robyn and rough house with Conor on the floor. We called Joey, ‘Joey the Lips’, because he had huge rosey-red lips that any girl would die for. Joey would get really embarrassed when we jeered him about it. He was such a good-looking kid, and was always immaculately dressed.

  I always told Joey that if Brian ever asked him to do anything that he thought was wrong that he should say no and that I would back him up. Brian was getting increasingly out of control — thieving all around him. I knew that he would pressure Joey into doing something against the law I didn’t want Joey staying at the house. It was all right for a while, as Joey’s dad had recently passed away, and Brian seemed to be company for him. Young Joey had a lovely family. His mam was a pleasant woman, and his sisters were always happy and very polite. However, I knew that Joey was not getting on well with his brother, and sometimes there would be a tricky situation at home. It seemed to be typical stuff that brothers fought and argued about. I know that Joey would not have wanted to stay at the house had he known what Brian was capable of. Poor Joey; if he had known what the future held, he would have run a mile.