Sins of the Mother (18 page)

So I turned back to the bar and ordered another vodka and orange. Just then a tall fella with slicked black hair elbowed his way to the front of the queue and flashed me a cheeky smile.

‘Hello there!’ he shouted over the din. The band was well into their second set now and taking no prisoners. It was a loud, crashing kind of rock music with no discernible melody and
the lead singer seemed to be wailing like he was in pain. The bloke nodded towards the stage and grinned. ‘These lads are having a whale of a time. Do you think they know how bad they
are?’

I smiled wryly and rubbed my arms. They ached more than usual today.

‘Hey, you look like you could use a drink,’ he said. ‘What’re you having?’

‘I’m alright, thanks. I’ve got me own coming.’

‘Great. It looks like you could use another.’ He shouted at the bar lady, ‘Two more of whatever she’s ordered! No wait – make that three.’

Then he turned back to me. ‘I’m Tom by the way.’

Somehow we managed to have a conversation over the terrible music, but I spent the whole time watching the clock, and when it got to 1.30 a.m. I told him I was leaving with my sister.

‘Aw, not now!’ Aggie moaned when I tapped her on the shoulder and nodded towards the door. ‘Just give us another hour.’

‘I’ll make sure your sister gets home alright,’ Tom offered to Aggie. ‘You go off dancing.’

It seemed like an ideal solution – I was so desperate to escape, I agreed to let Tom walk me home. All the way back, Tom talked and talked. He told me all about himself, his family and his
work on a construction site. We were talking so much, I barely noticed the direction we were heading but suddenly I realized we were walking along the canal path and there was an eerie stillness in
the air around us. I was momentarily confused.

‘Wait a minute.’ I stopped walking. ‘This isn’t the way to my home . . .’

Tom clamped his hand round my mouth and pushed me to the floor. I was stunned. I tried to struggle but he was a big guy and he had his full weight on me. Out of the blue, he punched me in the
face. Then again in the stomach. For a moment, I was poleaxed and just lay there in shock. Then his hand went to his ankle and the next thing he had a hunting knife and he was holding it up to my
throat.

‘Now don’t you go screaming or nuttin,’ he hissed in my ear. ‘Just shut up and don’t fucking move or I’ll cut your bloody throat open.’

With that he pushed the tip of the knife into my neck and I felt the edge of the blade nicking my skin. I froze and then he pulled down my jeans and ripped off my knickers and forced himself
inside me. Oh Jesus, the pain shot up me like a white hot poker. Every time I moved I felt the knife’s point digging deeper into my neck. Laughing, he straddled me, pushing the knife up to my
throat.

‘You’re going to die,’ he rasped.

Oh no! No no no!
This was sex before marriage – it was unforgivable. Now I would go to hell, now nobody would want me. I would spend my life alone and miserable.

‘Just slit my throat,’ I begged him. I didn’t want to live any more, I didn’t want to live . . .

I don’t know how long I was lying there, crying in the dark, before a group of young partygoers stumbled over me on their way home. They called the police who took me to the hospital
– hysterical, bloodied, beaten and with half my clothes ripped off. There, I was sedated and then taken to the police station for questioning.

At some point in the night, my father turned up. I guess the police must have called my parents but I didn’t remember giving them my home details. I was shivering with shock still when
they brought him in to see me. I couldn’t work out what he was doing there. He didn’t offer any word of comfort or affection. He just stood in the doorway, his face impassive, hopping
from one foot to the other. I felt his eyes boring into me but I couldn’t meet them, I felt so utterly ashamed.

‘There’s no point you being here,’ I told him in a lifeless voice. ‘Just go away.’

‘I can’t go,’ he shrugged. ‘I’ve got no cigarettes.’

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a half-empty packet of cigarettes and a five-punt note: ‘Here – take this and go.’

Eventually, around mid-morning, the police dropped me home and I went straight to the bathroom. There I drew a bath of scalding hot water and lay in it, scrubbing myself with the brush until my
skin was red raw. Agatha tried to talk to me but I was too tired and ashamed to speak to anyone so I put myself to bed. The next day the doctor came out again and gave me another injection. The
drugs were so powerful, I could barely move for the rest of the day, though in my head, I was tortured by terrifying flashbacks of the rape.
Why? Why hadn’t I stopped it?
I asked
myself over and over again.
Why had I let this happen to me? I should have seen it coming. I should have run away. It was all my fault.

For the next two weeks I retreated into myself. When I closed my eyes at night, I was instantly transported back to the canal path when my attacker overwhelmed me and forced me
to the ground. Then I couldn’t sleep. I could feel his skin upon mine, feel his breath close to my ear and hear his heavy, sickening grunts. During the day, I couldn’t face anybody,
though my family were now taking it in turns to stay in the house with me. It was Martin’s idea – he was devastated for me and he even tried to comfort me and put his arms round me but
I couldn’t accept his love. I couldn’t even look at him because at sixteen – nearly seventeen – he was more like a man than a boy.

My mother knew what happened but she was no help – she never left the house much anyway. I was so deeply ashamed with what had happened and the way she acted made me feel worse.
No one
will want you now
, my mind tormented me.
And no wonder – you’re ugly, worthless and stupid! You’ve brought this all on yourself. You should have done something to stop
it. You should never have let him walk you back home, you fucking eejit. You deserved it – you’re an ugly, worthless piece of shit and you should never have been born.

It felt like there was a monster in my head, a demon trying to destroy me from the inside. During all these years of heavy drinking I’d successfully managed to bury the insecurities and
fears that plagued me deep down. But now there was a demon’s voice inside my mind and he came at me loud and clear every minute of every day. I was helpless to prevent his destructive words
from permeating my brain. I’d been so violated, I had no defences left. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat and I could barely stand to be in my own head any longer. There was no
relief – from morning till night the voice taunted and ate away at me:
You worthless, ugly piece of shit. No one will want you. You’re nothing, you’re nobody. You don’t
deserve to live.
On and on and on it went until finally I knew there was nothing else for it.

One morning, when everyone was out of the house except for Martin, I snuck out of my bedroom and into the bathroom. There I sat down on the toilet and picked up the bottle of bleach which always
sat next to the cistern. In that bottle I saw my salvation, I saw relief, a way to end the pain. That was all I wanted now, an escape from the madness that coiled itself round my brain like a boa
constrictor, squeezing all the sanity from my mind. The snake in my head had wound itself tight inside my skull, refusing to let go, but somehow, somehow I had to get away. I couldn’t bear to
live like this any longer.

I shook the bottle – it was nearly half full, plenty for my needs – and unscrewed the cap. As I did so, I heard a pummelling on the bathroom door.

‘IRENE!’ Martin yelled. ‘IRENE! LET ME IN FOR GOD’S SAKE!’

I tried to ignore the increasingly desperate shouts but, just as I was lifting the bottle to my lips, the door came crashing open and Martin fell in.

‘STOP! IRENE! STOP RIGHT NOW!’ He made a grab for the bottle and managed to knock it out of my hand and to the floor.

‘NO!’ I yelled in frustration and the tears sprang to my eyes. Martin had me by the wrists then and was yanking me out of the bathroom and back towards my bedroom. The next thing I
knew I was back in bed and the doctor was leaning over me. He injected me again and I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

When they admitted me into the psychiatric hospital I weighed just five stone. For the next six months I was lost, drugged up to the eyeballs on a dizzying mixture of
anti-psychotics and antidepressants. I could barely walk from one end of the corridor to the other, let alone carry on with my normal life. There was no counselling, no therapy, just a lot of drugs
that left me dribbling and incapable, like a zombie. I was barely alive.

One day, the doctors sat me down and said the drugs didn’t seem to be working and offered me electric shock treatment instead. The mention of it triggered a memory. I recalled that shock
treatment had been given to my mother when she was unwell. It terrified me, the thought of turning into her. That night, as I lay awake, looking at the bright white moon from my bed in the ward, I
resolved to get better on my own. I was not going to turn into my mother and I was not going to let my rapist win. One way or another I would get back to my senses, enough to put that bastard
behind bars.

The next day, when they came to give me my meds, I only took half and I threw the other half down the toilet. That day, my mind – though still tormented – was clearer than it had
been in weeks. The next day I did the same thing. A week later, my father came to take me home for the Christmas holidays. For the first time in years, I felt pleased to see him.

‘Mammy never came to visit,’ I observed as we rode the bus back home. ‘In all the time I was in the hospital, she never came to see me.’

‘Ah, you know your mother. She’s busy all the time.’

I didn’t buy it – if I hated my mother before, I despised her now. After all these years of demanding our pity and sympathy for her own illness she had never once shown any
compassion or care about mine. My bitterness towards her was hardening into a physical lump in my chest.

As soon as I got home I threw my pills in the fire, determined to fight my way back to normality on my own. I was meant to return to hospital the next day and when I didn’t the nurses came
to the house with a straightjacket. As soon as I saw them at the door I bolted upstairs and hid under the bed.

‘Don’t let them take me!’ I whimpered to my family when they came to fetch me. ‘Please. I’m getting better here. I won’t ever recover if you leave me in that
place.’

And fortunately, for the first time in my life, my father stood up for me and agreed not to send me back. I don’t know why – it was the only kind act I’d known off him. Perhaps
it was because, with me not around, there was less money in the house. Perhaps he really did care. I’m not sure.

It was in the first week of January, while I was signing on at the labour exchange, that the police came to find me to tell me they had arrested my attacker and asked me to
identify him in court. It was terrifying but I was determined not to let this man win. I wanted to see him behind bars. So I went to court and, as soon as I set eyes on him, my heart started to
race.

‘Is this the man?’ the police officer asked me solemnly. I nodded.

‘And can you tell us what he did to you?’

From somewhere deep inside I found the courage to look Tom straight in the eyes and say, ‘You raped me and beat me black and blue and held a knife to my neck.’

In the months leading up to the trial, the police were at my door every week. They wanted to ensure I was going to go through with it. This was an open and shut case, they told me, they had
enough forensic evidence from the hospital to prove I’d been raped. Of course I wasn’t going to back out, I reassured them. I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I let him go free
and he raped another girl. Three months later, the case came to court – it took all the strength I had to give my evidence, to relive the rape in the witness box in front of all those people.
It was horrible and shameful but I was determined to stay strong. All the while Tom sat in front of me, smirking. Then came the turn of the doctor – he said there was no question in his mind
that I was ‘forcibly entered’ and his report showed I had internal bruising which could only have come from a violent rape. On the second day I was sent home by the judge who thought I
might find it too upsetting to hear Tom’s evidence and on day three the jury was sent out to consider their verdict.

Finally, after three nail-biting hours, we were called back in. The court was dead silent as the foreman of the jury was asked to read out the verdict, firstly, on the charge of rape.

‘Not guilty.’

What? WHAT?
My world collapsed. I couldn’t catch my breath.

On the charge of grievous bodily harm: ‘Guilty as charged.’

The grievous bodily harm charge carried a maximum penalty of seven years. The judge gave him three months, having already spent three months on remand.

The police and prosecutors were mystified. How could this have happened? How was it possible for the jury to hear all the evidence and find him not guilty of rape? I just nodded politely as they
offered me their apologies – I was horrified.

They didn’t believe me. The jury didn’t believe me! It took me right back to the times when, as a child, I’d tried to tell my family and the doctor about the wicked things they
did to us at St Grace’s. They didn’t believe me then and they didn’t believe me now.
Why? Why didn’t they believe me?
But this time I knew I wouldn’t try to
kill myself – no, I didn’t want to go back to the mental hospital. There had to be another way.

I’d met Paul on a night at my local pub – he was tall and handsome, the sort of bloke all the girls wanted to date. We got chatting in a big group – I knew
his face but I’d never spoken to him until that night. He told me he worked cash-in-hand collecting scrap with a horse and cart, which earned him good money, and in his spare time he liked to
box. He seemed steady, straightforward and kind – a nice man. From the word go, I told him all about the rape and the court case. I was terrified that because of what had happened to me, no
man would want me – but Paul reassured me that he would stick by me. On our second date he told me we were going to get married. I just laughed but he said he was serious – apparently,
he’d seen me before and had always wanted to ask me out. Still, I didn’t take him seriously. I never thought anybody would want me. People said I was pretty but I still only saw the
‘monkey face’ of my childhood when I looked in the mirror.