Living With Evil (8 page)

There was an old nail jutting out of the wooden headboard on her bed, and when I ran in to show her the dress I ‘accidentally’ tore it on the nail.

‘Oh, Mammy! What am I to do? There’s no time to sew it up. Daddy and Esther are waiting and...oh I suppose I’ll just have to wear that other dress after all…’

Mammy started calling me a clumsy cow, but it was early in the day and she didn’t shift from her bed to stop me changing, just as I expected. Moments later I was dashing out of the house in the new dress. I waved to the neighbours and called out to every friend I spotted all along the route to the Church of the Assumption in Dalkey. This was my big day, and I wanted everyone to see me in all my finery.

The church was packed out, and whispers whipped off the stone floor and up and down the wooden pews. The priest chimed the little bell to signal it was time for us take our First Holy Communion, and my tummy knotted with nerves.

When I finally took the bread it melted in my mouth. Time stood still as I shimmered in my dress and smiled bravely at the congregation, just like all my classmates. I jutted out my chin proudly. I had been right. Nothing had spoilt my day, not even the fact I was the only child without her mammy watching. I pushed that thought straight out of my head. It didn’t matter. Daddy and Esther were here.

After church, I played in the street outside our house for a bit. I knew all the other children who had made their First Communion with me were having big family parties, but we never had parties, even for birthdays. Once, my Uncle Frank, a baker who was married to my mum’s older sister, Mag, brought round a cake for my birthday, but Mammy never did anything for me. She usually sent me to the Golden Gift Shop in the village to buy a present if it was one of my brothers’ birthdays, but when it was my turn I was only allowed to buy a card. Then Mammy would make me write in it myself: ‘Happy Birthday to Cynthia’.

I had already told myself not to expect a present or a card for my Communion. Then I couldn’t be disappointed. I figured the best chance I had of enjoying my day was to stay out of the house for as long as possible. That way Mammy couldn’t say anything nasty or hit me. She couldn’t make me take the dress off. And she couldn’t make me do any chores.

So I hung around outside and joined in a game of ‘two balls’ with my friend from round the corner. It was one of my favourite games, throwing the balls up against the wall one after the other and chanting, ‘Ten girl’s names that I should know, wish me luck and away I go’. I had to say ten girl’s names without stopping and go on to nine boy’s names, eight colours, seven flowers and so on, and when I made a mistake it was someone else’s turn. None of my friends asked me why I was out in the street on my Holy Communion day playing ‘two balls’ in my long dress, instead of having a family party. I loved them for that.

Later, I was allowed to watch telly while Daddy went to the pub. It was a very old set and was often broken, but today really was my lucky day because it was working and I was allowed to choose what I wanted to watch. Mammy always liked to watch the news. She hardly ever went out of the house, and I think it was her way of keeping up with what went on in the neighbourhood. She couldn’t read the newspapers, but she loved to gossip about local goings-on, and so she watched the local news whenever she could.

But today she was still upstairs, and I was still in the dress and was choosing what to watch on telly. I sat neatly on the sofa, crossed my ankles and clutched my handbag and gloves on my lap, feeling like a proper little lady.

Little House on the Prairie
,
Heidi
and
Pippi Longstocking
were my favourite shows, and I was delighted to find that an episode of
Heidi
was just starting. It was as if she’d been waiting for me to come in!

Heidi was running across a beautiful open mountainside with rosy cheeks, wearing a fresh cotton dress and shiny shoes, laughing and smiling without a care in the world.

In that moment, I imagined I was Heidi. I had the dress and the shiny shoes, didn’t I? I jumped up and looked in the mirror above the fireplace. I wanted to check if I really looked like Heidi, and I grinned as I climbed up onto the arm of a chair to see my reflection.

All day I thought I’d looked my best, but I watched my grin slip as I realized the girl in the dusty mirror didn’t have neat plaits and sparkling pearls for teeth like Heidi. Her hair was tatty and dirty, and her teeth were covered in black and yellow smudges.

‘Cynthia, will you get up here and take that bloody dress off?’ Mammy yelled. ‘Didn’t I tell you not to watch TV when I’m upstairs? Get up here now if you don’t want a beating! Where’s your father? Has he gone off to the pub, the drunken bastard…’

I was back to being Cynthia Murphy, and suddenly the sour, stale smell that hung in the air caught in my throat. I wanted to be sick. I would never be like Heidi, and I would never be happy. It wasn’t even worth dreaming about.

I cried when I heard the news that Esther was leaving home - she had got a job and was off to start a new life in Wales. I looked at my feet and sniffled. There must have been about seven or eight of us in the house at that moment, but I felt very lonely, as if Esther had already sailed away and I was left all alone with nobody to care for me.

‘I’ll come home for visits, and you can come and visit me, Cynthia,’ Esther told me kindly. She smiled, but I thought she looked sad too. I thought of all the times she took me down to the harbour to watch the boats bobbing on the sparkling sea. She took me there in the summer holidays, and on sunny weekends too.

I loved the summer, but I hated being stuck in our cramped and gloomy house with no sunlight coming in. The hot weather meant we could spend hours outside every day. Esther took me to the park too, pushing me high on the swings. I felt like a little butterfly, flitting through the air, as light as a feather.

The weight I felt pressing on my shoulders at home was always lifted a bit when I was outdoors. I didn’t even realize how heavy my shoulders normally felt until I was outside and felt the knots in my neck slip open, one by one. I loved being able to breathe fresh air. I loved going to the beach and splashing in the sea, and I loved the tingly, clean feeling I had when the sun dried my back as I sat on the sand. I never felt so clean as I did on the beach.

Esther taught me how to swim. She held my hand walking home, and she taught me how to look left and right when I crossed the road. She talked to me, asked me questions and listened to my answers. I could ask her things like ‘What is your favourite colour?’ and she would think about it properly and give me an answer, instead of swearing at me or telling me to ‘shut up nagging’. Then she’d say: ‘What’s your favourite colour, Cynthia? Tell me, why do you like yellow?’

I knew I was really going to miss Esther, and I had a little ache in my chest whenever I thought about her leaving. Instead of us watching the boats together, she would be crossing the sea to another country, leaving me behind. It wasn’t long now. I knew I had to get used to it, but I could hardly bear the thought.

For a little while now, Esther and I had been sharing the single bed while Mammy and Daddy had the double bed on the other side of the front bedroom. Mary and Martin sometimes slept in that room too, sharing the big blue cot that once belonged to me and Peter. There were never enough beds to go round in our house. Every bed had pillows at both ends so you could top and tail, and you never knew when the sleeping plans might change.

I loved the time I had sharing that single bed with Esther. I loved it when I heard her climb into bed after me. I felt safe next to her, and I enjoyed feeling her warmth in the bed. The shouting downstairs never felt so loud or so scary when Esther was there.

It wasn’t long after my sister left that Daddy started sleeping in the single bed with me. It seemed strange, but I said nothing. I was only eight-years-old.

‘You’re to sleep in the single bed again tonight, d’you hear me?’ Mammy said in a voice that wasn’t to be questioned or argued with, but I didn’t like it. It was very uncomfortable as there wasn’t enough room for us both. Daddy got too close and moved in that funny shuffling way that frightened me.

Mammy hardly ever looked at me when she spoke. Her sunken eyes looked like they had a fine yellow film stuck on them. I never asked her anything much, and I didn’t dare question her on this, but something didn’t seem right.

I was starting to accept that Mammy wasn’t interested in me at all. She’d told me loads of times that she didn’t like me, and that I was her ‘least favourite’ child, and now I started to think it must be true. Not going to my Holy Communion had shown me she didn’t care about my feelings at all.

Sometimes, when her relatives from the north of Dublin or England visited, she got herself dressed up in her prettiest dress and went to the pub wearing her red lipstick and swinging a black patent-leather handbag. I’d seen her potter round the garden too, planting geraniums and gossiping with neighbours over the garden wall.

Occasionally, very rarely, she and Daddy disappeared together in the evening. They said they went to where Daddy worked. They said he had ‘business’ to attend to, but they always came back staggering like they had had lots of drinks, with Mammy draped over Daddy’s shoulders and laughing, just how I imagined they must have looked when they were courting.

Whatever they did there, it seemed to make Mammy giddy and happy for a little while. It was the only time she didn’t seem to hate Daddy, and he seemed happy too, because he bought Mammy sherry afterwards, and gave her extra housekeeping money. Those moments didn’t happen very often at all, but I’d seen enough to know that Mammy could leave the house if she wanted to.

That meant she just couldn’t be bothered to come to my Holy Communion, didn’t it? She could have put up with people ‘looking down their noses at us’ in church if she’d wanted to be there on my big day. She’d told me she hated me lots of times, but I always hoped she didn’t mean it and that she just called me a ‘bitch’ and a ‘liar’ and a ‘devil child’ when she was tired or cross. But Mammy had stayed in bed on my First Holy Communion. She must really hate me to miss my special day like that.

After a while, Mammy changed her mind and told me that I was to sleep in the double bed now. I didn’t understand. Why was she telling me to sleep in the bed with Daddy? Why did she want me in her place if she hated me so much and thought so little of me?

I was nervous, but I knew not to argue with Mammy about anything. I undressed slowly, feeling sick and scared as I climbed into the big, sagging bed for the first time.

It was cold inside, and I wrapped my arms around myself to get warm. I could smell smoke and sweat and Daddy’s Old Spice aftershave, and it wasn’t nice at all.

I didn’t feel comfortable, what with the cold and the smells and the rough feel of the dirty covers on my body.

It was dark in the room, but I could see spots of blood on the bedlinen and strained my eyes to make out what the unfamiliar stains on the bottom sheet were. I wondered what it was that stuck to the grey cotton and made it feel stiff and nasty. I wasn’t comfortable at all, but as I lay there all alone I forced myself to think of something nice, to try to stop myself feeling so worried and afraid. What was I worried about? Surely being allowed to sleep in the big bed meant I wasn’t in the bad books for a change? Maybe it was meant to be a treat?

I desperately tried to imagine myself at the beach, my favourite place, to make myself feel less scared. I pictured myself jumping in the waves, with Mammy holding my hand and Daddy smiling on the beach. Nobody was shouting. Nobody was arguing. Nobody was calling me names or hitting me. I could smell fresh air, and I could taste tangy salt in the sea breeze. I was clean and I was happy. The scene was very hard to imagine, and my head hurt as I desperately tried to cling on to the image. It felt so unreal and so unbelievable I just couldn’t hold it, and the picture slipped away, leaving my head full of dark clouds, like it usually was. Even dreaming of happiness was impossible, and I slowly dropped off to sleep, feeling as terrified as ever.

Daddy’s buckle hitting the hard lino woke me up. The clank of the metal triggered a reaction in my brain even when I was in a deep sleep. It was a sound that always came before a beating, but when I peeped through my half-closed eyes I knew straight away that I wasn’t going to get a beating. I remembered I was in the big bed, and I told myself it had to be some kind of privilege, even if I didn’t know why I was there. Nobody was going to beat me, Daddy never beat me in bed. Bed was the one place you were safe from a beating.

I sighed sleepily to myself when I heard Daddy get into the bed. I was lying on my side, and I felt the mattress give a little ripple beneath me as he tucked himself in behind me. It had to be past midnight, because Daddy never came home from the pub until that time. I shut my eyes tight and pretended to be fast asleep.

Daddy was breathing very loudly. Even when he tucked himself up close to me when I had slept in the same bed as him before, I hadn’t heard him breathe so loudly. I wasn’t used to feeling him quite so close.

In the daytime, he never came near me. I’d never sat on his knee or even held his hand. The only time he touched me was when he grabbed hold of my arm to hold me still while he beat the back of my thighs with his leather belt.