Sins of the Mother (17 page)

I’d had enough of being weak and pitied – I was growing up and I wasn’t going to be pushed around any longer. I even started to dress differently. For so long, Mammy had told
me I was ugly and looked like a boy, so I decided to dress and act like a boy. I cut my hair short and I wore men’s suits instead of skirts and dresses. In my dark, three-piece suits and big,
clumping hobnailed boots, I felt powerful and strong. And with a little bit of money in my pocket I was more in charge of my own destiny than ever before.

But two weeks after I started work at the paintbrush factory, I was given the sack.

‘I’m sorry, Irene,’ the floor manager told me, scratching his head. ‘I’ll have to let you go.’

My heart sank – now Mammy really was going to kill me!

‘Why?’ I asked, confused. ‘I’m a good worker, Mr Cox, the best on this floor. What have I done wrong?’

‘It’s nothing you’ve done,’ he sighed. ‘You’re just too young. You’re thirteen.’

This didn’t make sense – the factory owner knew I was thirteen when I started. In any case, it was my birthday tomorrow.

‘I’ll be fourteen tomorrow,’ I told him.

‘Yes, I know,’ he said. ‘I’m sacking you now but you can start back again on Monday.’

Thank God for that! It didn’t seem to make sense to me but Agatha explained later that the factory owners had to pretend they didn’t know when you were underage. As soon as I turned
fourteen, it meant I was properly legitimate and they could put me on the payroll.

As the months passed, I started to exercise my newfound independence. Now, each weekend, I went out drinking in pubs and clubs with Agatha. Since she didn’t have any money, I would buy her
drinks for her. Alcohol helped numb the pain I felt inside, it made me feel invincible and let me forget about my miserable past. At home, I tried my best to protect the younger ones from the worst
of Mammy’s temper, and now, when Mammy took an overdose and put herself in the hospital, all us older ones rallied round to make sure the house still ran smoothly and that Cecily and Emily,
our two younger sisters, stayed with us at home instead of being taken to the orphanage. Now Agatha acted like their mammy, showering them with hugs and kisses and putting them to bed at night, and
I spent my wages on buying them sweets and clothes. The little ones, they were my only weakness.

To the world outside, I was somebody else, a hard girl. I didn’t let anybody get the better of me, in fact, just the opposite. If I thought somebody was going to have a go, I’d get
in there first, calling them names, threatening to punch their lights out. I didn’t have many friends, I didn’t let people get close. Out in the world, there was nobody to help me,
nobody to fight for me, so I did it all myself. And I was prepared – I sewed pockets into my suits and carried knives in them. That way, I was ready for anything.

It was worse when I’d been drinking, and most weekends I was drunk most of the time. When I’d first started drinking I was on sherry, but then I moved on to wine and lager, and then
spirits like whisky and vodka. Before long, I had adapted my lifestyle to accommodate as much drinking as possible, leaving the house on Friday night and not returning until late Sunday evening.
Some nights I just drank right through till the morning and, at other times, I’d go and stay at Debbie’s house. We’d remained friends throughout this time, and she also worked at
the factory.

Debbie stuck by me during all the nights I nearly came to blows. Most of the time I was lucky and I got away without a proper fight, though I didn’t really understand why. I would be all
up in someone’s face, really going for it, and they would just melt away. It was rare that anyone squared up to me. I asked Debbie one night why she thought other people refused to fight me.
She paused before answering, as if trying to pick her words carefully. ‘It’s your eyes.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, there’s this strange look that comes over you. You look mad, proper mad, and the other person gets scared. I’ll be honest with you – they think you’re a
bit touched. That’s why they won’t fight with you.’

‘Well, that suits me just fine,’ I replied nonchalantly, though I found her words unsettling.

Was I mad? I knew there was something strange about me, for sure. And this was brought home to me just a few weeks later when I nearly killed a girl. I was out as usual on Friday night in a club
drinking and dancing with Debbie and her three brothers. At the club there was a group of sisters who came from the other side of Dublin – the Shaughnessys – I recognized their faces.
The four of them were known about town as tough characters themselves, the kind of hard-faced girls you didn’t mess around with. But it seemed this one Shaughnessy girl reckoned herself a bit
and she had a fancy for my friend’s brother Adam. But Adam wasn’t interested in her – in fact, he spent most of the night chatting to me. For a while she just stood at the other
end of the bar, throwing me evil looks, but then around midnight she walked up to me and whispered in my ear, ‘You’re nothing but a dirty slut.’

I didn’t have time to think or react. A red mist came down and, a second later, I launched myself at her. I didn’t know why she had called me a slut but I didn’t care. All I
knew at that moment was that I wanted to kill her. I felt a tug on the back of my collar – the bouncers picked us up and threw us onto the pavement outside. But I wasn’t finished.
Before she had a chance to move, I scrambled to my feet and threw myself on top of her, grabbing her by the shoulders and slamming her head back against the pavement. Screaming and shouting erupted
all around me now, hands pulled me away, the girl’s eyes rolled backwards and a dark red pool of blood grew like a crown around her hair. Sirens blared somewhere down the road.

‘Get out of here!’ Debbie shouted, dragging me away from the scene. ‘Go on! Go!’

I took off, running up the road, and managed to grab onto the bar at the back of a double-decker bus. I sat down on the bus, shaking like a leaf.

That night I lay in bed, terrified I had killed the girl.
What has happened to me?
I’d lost control completely. All that rage inside – it was only just below the surface and
it had come out in a way that I knew was dangerous. I had to avoid confrontation from now on – it was the only way to avoid killing somebody.

The next day I was a nervous wreck, fully expecting the Garda to knock on the door at any time to take me away to the cells. But nobody came. The following Monday at work, I
sought out Debbie who told me the Shaughnessy girl had to have the whole of the back of her head shaved and stitched up. But no one told the police it was me who did it.

‘You could have killed her,’ she whispered, tears in her eyes.

‘I know, I know,’ I told her. ‘I won’t fight again. I’ll make sure I find another way out.’

‘You better not, Irene, or you’ll end up in prison.’

So I learned another way – I learned how to talk my way out of situations, to avoid confrontation. The one person I couldn’t avoid was my mother. When she was back
from one of her many stays in the psychiatric hospital, she was as mean to me as ever. If she hated me before I stood up to her, she despised me now and took every opportunity to exercise her
mental cruelty over me, telling me how I was an ugly person, inside and out. Ugly, mean and evil. I would breeze past her if she was in one of these moods and just mutter, ‘Oh, blow it out
your arse!’

‘What? What did you say to me?’ she’d fume, clearly working herself up for a fight. But I always pretended I didn’t give two hoots about what she said.

‘Nothing, Ma. I didn’t say anything,’ I’d sigh, going about my business. She’d be following me from room to room, jabbing at me with her finger, trying to get close
enough to rile me.

‘You did, you evil little cow!’

‘Okay, I did then.’

And with that I’d just get the hell out of the house. I was rarely home and that seemed to suit us both. I tried not to let her see how much she affected me. I knew that it made her more
mad to think that she couldn’t get to me. I didn’t let her know the truth, that she hurt me deeply.

By now Fran and Peter had left home and I was close to the end of my tether. I couldn’t take much more but I was afraid to leave too in case she started picking on Cecily or Emily. It was
like an unspoken pact between me and Agatha – the two of us created a shield around them, protecting them from our mother. If I left, Agatha couldn’t do it on her own.

One day in June, shortly after I turned fifteen, I got into a fight with Mammy that pushed me to the edge. She was vile to me, as vile as she could possibly be, calling me all sorts of names and
telling me how she wished I’d never been born. I felt the red mist come down and I knew in that minute I had to get away. I had to leave or I’d kill her for sure. So I ran out of the
house. I ran and I ran, with just one word spinning round and round in my head: ‘Freedom!’ At last, I was free from her and I wasn’t ever going back.

‘Irene!’ Martin’s voice stopped me in my tracks. ‘Irene! Stop! Please come back.’

I spun round – I couldn’t ignore the breathless, desperate shouts of my thirteen-year-old brother.

‘You’ve got to come back.’ He had reached me now and I could sense his fear. ‘Please come home, Irene. Mammy says she’ll beat the living daylights out of me if you
don’t.’

My heart sank. Of course I couldn’t let that happen.

‘Please . . .’

‘Alright,’ I interrupted him. ‘You don’t have to ask again. I’ll come back. Don’t worry. Just . . . just go back and let her know I’ll come home. I need
a few minutes, okay? I just need some air.’

Martin ran back home and I stood there, staring after him. I stood there for a long time, letting my breath return to normal, trying to calm myself down. Finally, when I felt I was ready, I
walked home. I came in the front door and, a second later, it slammed behind me . . .
OWWWW!

An immense pain exploded across my back, J
esus Christ! What the fuck was that?

I turned round and saw my mother standing there with one of the heavy metal chains from my dad’s lorry. She brought her arm up to hit me with it again so I quickly clambered to my feet and
scurried away down the corridor. She came after me – her arm rose and brought the chain down again, whipping me across the back.
Owww! FUCK!!
A searing pain reverberated
through my whole body.

In shock and fear, I ran, just to get away from another impact. But she ran after me, chasing me all the way down the end of the hall. I was cornered – there was nowhere to go. In a flash,
something inside me snapped. I turned to face her, drew back my hand and hit her full in the face. She dropped the chain and her hand went to her cheek. She stood there, panting and holding her
face. I had never hit my mother before now but this was it, there was no turning back. I pushed my face into hers, so close that I spat into her mouth.

‘You will NEVER EVER raise your hand to me or these children again!’ I roared. ‘Do you understand? Because, I swear, if you ever hit me again I will kill you stone
dead.’

For a moment, we stayed like that. My chest heaved with fury; she held her cheek, too startled to move or speak. I meant every word and she knew it. If she had made a move right then I would
have killed her without a thought. After a while she turned away and retreated to the living room.

Now I had beaten her in every way – she was no longer stronger than me and, after that day, everything changed. I was the strong one now and I could do what I liked. She never hit me again
and I stopped her from hitting any of the others too. Dad was next to useless. He just left my mother to get on with it, never interfering if she was picking on one of us. Though he never raised
his hand to any of his girls, he didn’t care what my mother did to us.

The next time she told us she was going to kill herself, I grabbed all her pill packets, threw them on the table and slammed the whisky down in front of her.

‘Go on then,’ I snarled. ‘Do it! Do us all a favour – take the lot and do a proper job this time!’

Mammy’s eyes narrowed. ‘That’s the devil in you again, Irene. You’re pure evil, you are.’

‘Yeah, yeah. Come on, old woman – get on with it and kill yourself already.’

13

IRENE

The Demon Arrives

‘I don’t want to leave!’ Agatha yelled over the cacophony in the club. It was past one in the morning and the rock and roll band was just getting going, but
I’d had enough. Agatha had dragged me along to a new club where she had arranged to meet a fella she liked. But the music was loud and dreary the club was dull and I didn’t know a soul
besides Agatha. So by 1 a.m., I was ready to call it a night. Now eighteen, I had ditched the men’s clothes and, just like so many girls my age in 1977, let my hair grow long. I’d even
had a couple of boyfriends, but nothing serious. Tonight I was dressed in a pair of tight stonewashed jeans with a white, off-the-shoulder jumper. I gave Aggie a look of exasperation.

‘Just give us another half an hour,’ she pleaded. ‘Then we can go.’