‘Move now! Get here now!’ he shouted. His voice was so fierce and angry it triggered me into action. I moved closer to him, and I felt my body start to tremble as he pulled me across his lap.
I tried to shut my eyes so tight it would make everything numb and black, but it didn’t work.
I felt a rubbing and pushing up my back and my bottom. My face was pushed down into the blankets but I could hear the kids downstairs laughing and chattering as they played with their presents.
Mary was only small and she’d chosen a plastic doll as her gift. She was thrilled with it, and I tried to picture her happily playing with it to take my mind off what Daddy was doing to me in the bed.
I thought about the Apache Indian doll Mammy had bought me. I loved cowboys and Indians films, and she’d let me pick out this doll with an embroidered face, leather clothes and threaded plaits.
Suddenly the images of the presents and the smiling children and the tinsel downstairs vanished.
That agonizing shooting pain I had felt before had taken over my mind and body again.
I was paralysed by it, and by the fear. I was going to break in two. The smell of the turkey hovered over the bed. I wanted to be sick. Daddy had spoilt Christmas. I thought he loved me. I still wanted him to love me. But he couldn’t love me that much if he hurt me and frightened me like this, could he?
I tried not to cry when I put my clothes back on and struggled downstairs. Mary was giggling and giving her dolly a hug. I didn’t want to spoil her day, so I sat on the sofa quietly watching, shuffling nervously on my sore bottom.
It felt as if the front bedroom belonged to another world. It was like I’d just stepped out of a scary film and walked back into real life. But real life was scary too. I could still feel the acute pain, even though my heart felt cold and dead.
Mammy glared at me. I’d forgotten to bring the plate back down, and I thought for a second she was going to order me back upstairs to get it. I looked back at her, tears welling up in my eyes, but she just looked away.
She couldn’t know what Daddy had just done, could she? Maybe I should tell Mammy what Daddy did after all. I couldn’t bear the thought of being hurt that way again. It had to stop, but what could I say, and how would Mammy react? I had no idea, but I knew I had to try.
Chapter 8
Telling Mammy
I loved New Year’s Eve. It was my favourite time of year. All the boats out at sea would sound their foghorns at midnight and the church bells would ring in the New Year.
We called it the Boats and the Bells, and when I was smaller I remembered Mammy would tell me to hurry up and go to sleep so that she could wake me up at midnight to hear the celebrations. Then I was allowed to run outside and wish the neighbours a Happy New Year.
This year, I didn’t feel excited at all. I was only eight-years-old, but nothing seemed to make me feel excited any more. When Granny called round to tell me one of her stories it cheered me up, but not much.
Even my blue piano didn’t make me happy. I looked at it stowed in the corner, untouched for days. It had a layer of dust on it already. I didn’t want to play it, and I didn’t want to sing. What Daddy did on Christmas Day made me so very sad.
My head hurt all the time. I had asked Mammy for pills the night before it was so bad, but she shouted at me. ‘No, Cynthia, I might have a hangover tomorrow! You can’t have my painkillers.’ The foghorns sounded out as noisily as ever when midnight struck, but my own head felt so foggy the booming sound didn’t inspire me like it normally did. It was just a noise in the distance, another sound bouncing aimlessly around in my head.
‘What’s your New Year’s resolution going to be this year, Cynthia?’ asked one of our neighbours in the street.
All the other kids were chattering and shouting out their resolutions, like learning to swim, doing their homework or helping their mammy make bread.
I had so many things I wanted to change in my life, I didn’t know where to start. ‘I don’t know - wash the dishes for Mammy!’ I offered, while inside I thought: Tell Mammy. Pluck up the courage to tell Mammy what Daddy does in bed. Ever since Christmas Day I had been trying to be brave enough to tell her how much he hurt me, but I was terrified. I thought back to when Mammy called me a ‘dirty bastard’ for walking in on her getting dressed. She had just been in her bra, and she looked ashamed and tried to cover herself up. Would she think I was dirty? When Mother Dorothy had told me off for wearing smelly knickers Mammy had screamed, ‘Don’t go talking about the filthy parts of your body! I’ll wash your mouth out with soap and water, you filthy little bitch!’
I looked at the other kids, making up their resolutions like I used to. I had to tell Mammy, I just had to. I didn’t want to be sore and in pain. I wanted to have fun and be happy and normal like other kids. I had to see if it was possible. I had to tell.
I spent many weeks agonizing over it. There was nobody else I could talk to. I couldn’t tell my friends. It would be too embarrassing. What if it was normal and I was making a big fuss about something everybody did? What if
I
wasn’t normal? What could they do to help?
I definitely couldn’t tell Mother Dorothy. I didn’t know if what Daddy did was sinful, but I felt dirty afterwards. It felt wrong. I thought that Mother Dorothy would beat me for being dirty, or tell me I was a liar and a sinner. Being caned with Mr Greeny was the last thing I wanted. And what if she confronted Daddy? Having a nun knocking on our door to talk to him about it was unthinkable; that would bring me untold misery. There was Granny, I suppose, but I wanted to be happy with Granny. She was my escape. I couldn’t tell her. What if she told Mammy? She’d have a fit about me talking about what went on in our house behind her back.
Daddy had started to hurt me in the mornings sometimes too, especially Sunday mornings when Mammy was still fast asleep. One Sunday morning, he was pushing himself on me in the single bed, while Mammy lay across the room in the double bed. I didn’t struggle, because I had learned that it hurt more if I did.
I was tracing my finger along a curved pattern on the faded wallpaper to focus my mind away from what was happening to me, when I suddenly heard Mary and Martin playing at the bottom of the stairs.
They were whispering so as not to wake Mammy and Daddy, because at the weekend the little ones weren’t allowed downstairs alone when Mammy and Daddy were still in bed.
‘Give it to me! It’s my turn!’ I heard one of them hiss.
Suddenly, a thought flashed into my head: If I can hear them at the bottom of the stairs, then perhaps Mammy can hear what Daddy is doing to me on the other side of the room?
The thought made my heart leap with hope. It meant Mammy could find out what was happening without me having to find the words to tell her.
I let out some of my stifled sobs one by one, and I turned my head and watched Mammy closely. She stirred a little. I saw her eyelids flicker, and I was sure she was awake.
I kept watching her intently, looking at every little movement she made. My legs and my back ached. It was agony between my legs, but I didn’t struggle. I let Daddy carry on hurting me, and all the time I was willing Mammy to wake up and see what he was doing. Please, Mammy! Please wake up, a little voice in my head screamed. Please hear him. Please stop him!
My eyes bored into her face. She stirred again, and her breathing wasn’t like the normal long, slow pants she made when she was deep in sleep. It sounded like her daytime breathing. She had to be awake.
She stirred again, then I watched in horror as she pulled her blanket over her face and turned her back on me, her eyes clamped shut.
My mind raced: ‘She’s awake and she knows what he’s doing! She knows I’m crying in pain, but she’s letting him do it. It must be normal! She’s awake, and she knows what he’s doing!’
But maybe I had imagined she was awake. Maybe she heard nothing and saw nothing. Afterwards, Daddy sent me to the shop to buy the Sunday papers.
My thighs were stinging as I walked through the main street in the village. It was a beautiful sunny day, birds were singing in the sky and families were out together going to and from mass.
As I turned a corner I felt a trickle of wetness fill my knickers. It was the horrible stuff Daddy put in my hair sometimes, and round my mouth. I felt so very dirty, and so very confused.
I looked at the other little children, chatting and smiling, and I wondered how they could look so happy after their daddies had just done what my daddy had done. Weren’t they in pain? Didn’t they feel dirty to have wet knickers and a stinging bottom? How could they smile?
I didn’t have any answers, and in time I decided I had to go through with my New Year’s resolution. However risky it was, I had to speak to Mammy. I had to pluck up the courage to talk to her and tell her how sad I felt, and how sore I was. I had to do something, because I couldn’t think of anything else. It was mixing round in my brain all the time, taking all my energy and making me feel ill.
Mother Dorothy was giving out steam to me all the time too. One Monday morning, I couldn’t concentrate at all. My brain felt fuzzy. When Mother Dorothy asked me a simple sum I got it wrong. I hid in the toilet at break time fretting, wondering if I was going mad.
I just needed five minutes to think and gather my head together, but the door banged moments later. It was the thud of Mr Greeny!
‘Come out of there!’ Mother Dorothy bellowed.
I slunk out of the cubicle. ‘Sorry, Mother Dorothy, it won’t happen again,’ I said, not knowing quite what I was apologizing for. I was going crazy. I had to talk to Mammy.
A few days later, Mammy was standing alone in the kitchen, scrubbing carrots. This was my moment. I just had to spit it out, and then Mammy would help me and I wouldn’t go mad, I was sure of it. She called me nasty names and she lost her temper and gave me plenty of beatings, but she wouldn’t want me to suffer this badly, would she? She was my mammy, and she wouldn’t want Daddy to hurt me so much I thought I was going to die. I didn’t know why Daddy did it, but maybe Mammy could help explain things?
Horrible doubts still wriggled around in my head about how she would react. What if she called me a dirty bitch, or even hit me?
But then, how hard could she hit me? I was sure none of Mammy’s punches and slaps could hurt me as much as Daddy hurt me. I had to tell her. I was desperate for the the agony to end.
‘Mammy…’ I stuttered. ‘I have something to tell you.’ She ignored me and carried on scrubbing the carrots by the sink, which was overflowing with dirty dishes. I noticed her fingers were red raw, and a cigarette was hanging out of her mouth. She didn’t look happy, but I had to get this over with.
‘Mammy, can I tell you something?’
‘What is it now? Can’t you see I’ve enough to do? That dirty bastard of a father of yours has pissed all over the pots again. Fuckin’ filthy bastard.’
‘Mammy… I don’t like what Daddy does.’
‘What? Nor do I! Useless bastard!’
‘No, Mammy, I mean I don’t like what Daddy does to me.’
‘What? You’re talking nonsense, Cynthia. What Daddy does to you when? I don’t like what your da does most of the fuckin’ time.’
‘Mammy, I don’t like what Daddy does in bed.’ I could feel my cheeks burning, just like they had done when Mother Dorothy hauled me to the front of the class and pointed out the lice in my hair. It was so humiliating. I hoped Mammy didn’t ask me to say any more.
‘Now what are you talking about, Cynthia?’ she moaned, rolling her eyes and scrubbing faster at the carrots.
‘I don’t like it when he gets too close…when he…touches me.’
She dragged on her cigarette, and some ash fell into the sink. I watched it dissolve in the dirty dishwater, and I felt as if some of my stress and suffering had melted away too. I’d said it. I’d actually told Mammy.
She said nothing for a moment, and I looked at her face expectantly. Her green eyes were as cold as marbles. ‘Oh come on, Cynthia, it’s all in your imagination,’ she blurted out. ‘It’s just your father moving around in the bed because he’s drunk!’ She turned her back on me and went to fetch something from the far end of the kitchen.
I stumbled into the living room and slumped onto the sofa. I felt like I’d been crushed. My ray of hope had gone. It was as if I was slowly dying from the inside. Mammy wasn’t going to help me. I was all on my own, and I felt so terribly lonely.
My mind went back to that Sunday morning when she was lying in the double bed on the other side of the front room. My instincts had been right. She had been awake, and she did know what he was doing. She had deliberately turned her back on me, just like she had done at the sink just now.
My mind was churning again. Was it because what Daddy did was normal? Maybe. But even if it was normal, now she knew I didn’t like it and I wanted it to stop, why didn’t she help me?
For some reason she didn’t want to stop it. She didn’t want to help me. She didn’t even want to talk about it. I was devastated.