Living With Evil (24 page)

Something told me to look inside the bag again, to say goodbye. I started opening it and reached gently inside, because I wanted to touch her when I said goodbye. I felt her inside the bag, and it was such a shock. She seemed so cold. She needed to be wrapped up warm.

I walked back along the lane to get some newspapers to wrap her in. I’d seen them in the lane earlier.

I gathered them up and went back to the bag. I started to place the newspaper around her as gently as I could.

As I did so, I heard something fall out of the bag. It was a knitting needle. I gasped, and then something else in the bag caught my eye.

It was the bloody lump that came out of me after the baby. It looked disgusting, and it terrified me. There were sanitary towels in there too.

I wanted to say goodbye now. I wrapped the newspapers around the lower part of my baby’s body and I said it, my heart aching with sadness. ‘Although I have to leave you alone in this lane way, I will take you with me in my heart.’ I said the words in my head, and I told myself that I would pretend that I had picked her up and taken her with me in my arms. I wrapped the bag up as I had found it, bound up like a parcel. I didn’t want Mammy to know I had opened it again.

I held the bag to me tightly, trying to cuddle my baby through the plastic, and then I sat with her for a long time, crying and talking to her. I told her that, someday, no matter how or when, I would get my Mammy for what she had done to my baby.

As I cried I kept asking the same question over and over again: ‘How could you do this to me, Mammy?’ I tried to peel myself away from the bag, but it was breaking my heart.

How could I leave her there alone? And what if she was never found? Would she lie there alone for ever?

I’d have to hide her now and come back for her the next day. ‘I’ll come back for you tomorrow,’ I whispered.

Mammy would get impatient waiting for me, and she would punish me severely for taking so long. I had to go now, so I told the baby I was not leaving her for ever, I was just leaving her there for the night. I would come back and get her the next day, and take her home with me.

I decided to go back to the alcove and push the baby in the bag under the gateway to hide her. First I picked up the bag and the knitting needle and then put a few more newspapers on top of the baby to keep her warm.

When I saw the needle in my hand I shuddered. I felt sick at the thought of putting it anywhere near the baby, so I poked it into another bag of rubbish that was left beside the gateway.

My bag wouldn’t fit under the gateway now, so I threw it over the wall and then felt instantly afraid, because I hadn’t done exactly what Mammy had told me.

I looked up at the sky and noticed it was getting bright and the birds were singing. I panicked and ran out of the lane, hoping Mammy would not be too mad with me.

I ran in the direction she had told me to, and it brought me out opposite the Dun Laoghaire police station.

Mammy was nowhere in sight. I was angry that she had left me on my own, and I started running down the main road, calling out ‘Mammy’ until I spotted her in the distance.

She was furious I had taken so long, and I remained upset she had walked away, leaving me on my own.

We argued on and on, about the bag and the baby and Mammy leaving me on my own. I was eleven-years-old. I didn’t want to be left in a strange lane way on my own. It scared me. I didn’t want to leave my baby in the dimly-lit lane way on her own either. It didn’t seem fair at all. I felt so very sorry for her, lying in the dark inside the bag, all alone without a mammy.

The arguments went on, and the walking went on. My whole body ached. I longed for my bed, and when I finally got there I collapsed, my mind and body drained and battered.

It was evening time again when I woke up, because I could smell the dinner cooking.

I was tied to the single bed, with nylon stockings holding my wrists to the bedposts.

I started screaming, and Mammy appeared at the doorway.

She told me my baby had been found, because she had heard it on the news.

‘Shut up and come downstairs for your dinner,’ she said in the next breath. Untying my hands, she added, ‘Act as if nothing has happened.’

I did as I was told. I didn’t know what else I could do, and I didn’t have a drop of energy left in my body for a fight.

The evening passed in a blurry haze. I heard the little ones in the house cry and chatter as normal, and I saw Mammy sit in the rocking chair and drink as usual, while Daddy was in the pub.

I tried to act normal too, and I think I did a good job, because nobody asked me anything about what happened the day before.

The next morning, I got the younger ones dressed and fed and myself ready for school. Mammy came down and handed me a packet of thick sanitary towels and a sanitary belt. I’d never seen a belt like it before, and Mammy explained how to use it, to keep the towel in place in my knickers.

My tummy felt all wobbly and sore, and when I looked in the mirror I was shocked. I looked like I hadn’t slept for a month, and my clothes were hanging off me.

At school I acted as normal as possible though, and nobody asked what was wrong with me or why I’d missed the previous day. It was a typical, unremarkable school day. We did sums and read books, and I was very surprised by that.

Inside, I felt very different, like I had never felt before. I was burning up with fury and fear, and I had lots of dark thoughts smouldering in my brain.

I didn’t trust Mammy at all any more, and I wasn’t going to do as she told me. I hated her. I hated what she did to my baby. I hated how my baby looked in that bag, all wounded and covered in blood.

It wasn’t right, and one day I would tell people what Mammy did to my baby. I would get Mammy for what she did.

When I was bigger and stronger I would get all the people who did bad things to me and my baby. I made a promise to both of us.

After I walked home from school that night there was a programme on television called
Garda Patrol
. It was relating the story of how the baby was found. I sat transfixed, hanging on every word but knowing I could say nothing.

It showed the laundry bag, and told how two eleven-year-old boys had found the baby on the way home from fishing. The presenter said that the mother of the child could be in need of urgent medical treatment, and this confused me.

If I urgently needed medical treatment, then why had I gone to school that day, and why was I now sitting watching the television?

I didn’t understand what he was saying. He urged the mother of the baby to come forward. This made me angry.

I felt as if it was obvious who I was, and I wondered why I had to come forward. I was really tired, so why didn’t they come and get me? Surely they knew who I was?

Mammy kept me off school for ages after that. I was locked up in our house for weeks, until well after the Easter holidays.

The days all merged into one. Mammy tried to act the same as ever, but she seemed agitated and nervous, and she shouted and watched the news all the time. Nobody mentioned the baby. Nobody came knocking on our door.

Daddy carried on like nothing had happened, still forcing me to ‘get here now’ in bed at night, even when I was still sore and bleeding.

It was as if everybody had forgotten about the baby, and what happened that night.

One day, I heard Mammy whispering with Granny. ‘Are you talking about my baby?’ I asked.

Mammy looked me straight in the eye. ‘What baby?’ she asked.

‘You know what baby, Mammy. My baby. The baby we left in the laundry bag,’ I said.

I started crying. It hurt me just to say the words.

‘What baby?’ Mammy asked me. ‘There never was a baby. You’re crazy, Cynthia, you’re mad! Stop crying! Shut up!’ Granny didn’t argue or say anything to contradict Mammy.

It was the same every time I mentioned the baby. I was sure I wasn’t mad, because the feeling in my heart never changed. I felt like I’d lost something, like a part of me was missing. I knew I’d had a baby and she had been taken away from me. I saw what Mammy did with my own eyes.

I would wake up during the night and my heart would be pounding. My arms would ache to hold my baby, and the feeling of emptiness was overbearing. I could hear my baby crying, and the sound haunted me and gave me terrible nightmares.

The more I mentioned the baby, the angrier Mammy got. I was much more frightened of her now than I had ever been, sure she was the one who was mad, not me, but as the months rolled by I started to get confused and forget things.

My memories dimmed, but Mammy’s taunts that I was mad and talking rubbish got louder and clearer. Was there really a baby? I knew the truth. No nightmare could ever be that bad. My baby was real, but Mammy was never going to admit it. How could I ever get her back for what she did?

It was the dead of night, and I woke in terror to find Mammy clawing at my face. She was raking her long fingernails down my cheeks, calling me a ‘little whore’.

I screamed out: ‘Please, Mammy, no!’ but she carried on scraping and cursing and scaring me.

I was so sleepy I felt barely alive.

‘Please, please, no!’ I cried. I lost all control and started lashing out at Mammy, begging her to stop.

She dragged me out of bed, and I sobbed when I realized she was taking me to the building.

My body was sore, and my head wasn’t working properly at all. It was aching and pounding, and my limbs felt like lead weights. It was just weeks since I had the baby, and all I wanted to do was sleep.

Instead, I was subjected to another long night of torture in that creepy old building with those leering, disgusting men.

I now was more terrified than ever of those men in that building. Two of them had threatened me one day, telling me I’d be dead if I didn’t keep my mouth shut. I knew they meant about the baby but, just like Mammy, they didn’t admit it. Nobody talked about it, not really.

There was also a time when one of the men had even come to the house and taken me out in his car.

I begged Mammy not to make me go, but she pushed me out the door and told me to shut up.

‘See how easy it is for me to get you on your own,’ the man snarled. He drove me to a piece of wasteland and pointed to a desolate spot in the ground. ‘If you don’t keep quiet I’ll bury you alive right there.’

When he brought me home I was shaking from head to toe. I was so scared I couldn’t breathe properly, and I kept imagining that place he’d taken me to, and how terrifying it would be to be buried alive.

All I wanted to do was lie down, and I crawled upstairs, hoping for some peace and quiet.

Mammy was rampaging around the bedroom. I wanted to shut my eyes and get rid of the horrible thoughts in my head, but Mammy wouldn’t let me.

She was tearing up anything of mine she laid her hands on - my clothes, some precious photos of my friends I had hidden in a drawer, and the few schoolbooks I owned.

‘Please stop, Mammy!’ I pleaded, but she didn’t stop until she was gasping for air and looked utterly exhausted.

I thought she might be drunk, because she was swaying and slurring her words.

I’d heard Daddy yelling at her lately, telling her not to drink so much, but she had started sending me to the shop more than ever, asking me to buy a bottle of sherry.

Sometimes I refused because of what I heard Daddy say, and she flew at me in a fury, beating me in the face or smacking me with the wooden broomstick, then throwing me out of the house.

If I bought the sherry, Daddy belted me and called me a ‘stupid cow’. I couldn’t win, and I felt totally muddled by all the conflicts around me.

Mammy had started keeping me up late in the evenings a lot too. It was as if I was one of the grown-up children now. One night she was sitting by the fire drinking heavily and encouraging me to drink when she suddenly said, ‘Watch me, Cynthia!’

Her eyes were rolling, and she took out a sharp sewing needle from her knitting bag.

‘Watch me, Cynthia!’ she said. ‘Watch me kill myself!’

I screamed in shock. She was raking manically at her wrist with the needle, and blood began oozing from the cut.

‘Mammy, please, no!’ I cried. ‘Please don’t do that!’

I had to grab the needle off her and hide it while she ranted and raved and at last slumped into a drunken doze.

The sight of blood and the needle made me feel sick. I had seen Mammy with blood and a needle before. I knew what she was capable of, and she terrified me.

I was too scared to go to bed in case Mammy cut herself again, but I didn’t want to be downstairs when Daddy got in, or he would explode with rage. In the end I crept upstairs and lay in bed tossing and turning, petrified that Mammy might find the needle and kill herself.