The Girl Nobody Wants: A Shocking True Story of Child Abuse in Ireland (24 page)

Then my mother came into the room and she gave me a big hug, whilst at the same time handing me a door key and whispering to me to lock my bedroom door when I go to bed later. ‘What?’ I said. I looked at her in disbelief at what she had just said to me and I closed my hand tightly around the key, before anyone noticed what she had just given me. I wanted to laugh out loud with the shock of what she had just said to me, but I just stayed silent. And I thought to myself, ‘This can’t be real, can it? Can this really be happening to me all over again?’ She then let go of my hand and walked away, while smiling over in the direction of Jim. I quickly put the key into my pocket and then I walked around the house, looking at everything, just to stay out of everyone’s way.

Nothing had changed, the situation I was in was like as if I had stepped back in time and I was looking at myself in the past. I felt like I was being abused all over again, and I was. Just the look on Fred and Jim’s faces was enough to hurt me and they both knew it. It was getting late now, so everyone settled down for the night; I said goodnight to everyone and went upstairs to my bedroom, making sure that I locked the bedroom door behind me. Still feeling sick and wishing I were back at the institution in Ireland, I got into the bed and wished it had all been a dream and wished I had been dead. I still had all my clothes on and I wasn’t going to take them off for no one. I thought to myself that in the morning I will get up and head back to Ireland, before anyone could stop me leaving, and eventually I fell to sleep, still holding the door key tightly in my hand.

However, when I woke up in the morning and even before opening my eyes, I could smell a stench of damp, stale air in the room and I knew that I was still in hell. I opened my eyes and I looked around the room, then I got up, walked towards the bedroom door and listened. The house was very quiet, so I walked closer and unlocked the door, hoping that I would be on my own; but as I walked out of the room and down the stairs, I could see mum standing in the kitchen, and she was cooking something.

I continued down the rest of the stairs and, as I walked into the kitchen, I could see that she had three pig’s feet sticking out of a pot and the whole room stunk of cabbage. ‘I’m cooking you a pig’s trotter for your dinner,’ she said, looking excited as she shook the pot from side to side and then dug at one of the pig’s feet with a huge fork. I looked at her and I told her that I was not going to unpack my suitcase, and that I was going back to Ireland right now. But she just kept prodding at the pig’s feet and she said that she wanted me to stay for a while as it would soon be Christmas, and she said that we would all have a great time being together as a family for the holidays. I couldn’t stop looking at the pig’s feet sticking out of the pot and, for some strange reason, I felt like I wanted to stay for Christmas; so I agreed and I told her that I would only stay until Christmas had finished and then I was going right back to Ireland. She said ok, but then she told me that I had no return ticket, so I would have to stay with her forever, unless I went to Brent council’s social workers and ask them for a ticket back to Ireland. She seemed happy for me that I wanted to go back to Ireland, and she even told me where to find the social workers and how to get the tickets out of them.

So I put on my coat and I headed off, following her instructions; and after a couple of hours of waiting around the council offices, a social worker agreed to see me and because of my age he agreed to contact my social workers back in Ireland for me. And after an hour, both social workers agreed to supply me with the tickets to go back to Ireland, but only on the condition that all three of us who had come over to England went back to Ireland together.

I agreed and headed straight back home to tell Simon and Daisy, but Daisy said that she didn’t want to go back to Ireland; she said that she was happy in England and she wanted to stay forever. But really, I knew that she was being pressurised by our older sisters to stay in England; that is why she said no to me, and that’s the real reason why she wanted to stay in England. I told her that I thought we were only in England for a two-week holiday and not to stay forever, but she knew that I was lying, and that I knew we had to stay for good. Plus she said that she wanted to stay as she was having fun. I hated her for saying that and I went back to the council office, and I told the social worker that Daisy didn’t want to go back to Ireland, but I still did. But he told me that we could only go back together or not at all, and his decision was final.

I headed home again and I gave up trying for now; and for the next few days, I just walked around the streets feeling sorry for myself, wishing that I were back home in Willows, safe in my bedroom. Nobody in London was bothered if I was around or not and I felt lonely because over here everyone just walked past me as if I was invisible.

Then one evening, while I was in the living room watching TV, Jim came in from the pub and he was drunk. He walked straight past me and went into the kitchen, and then he came back out and asked me to make him an egg on toast. I had never made egg on toast before, but it sounded like fun and I had seen the nuns back in Willows make it before; so I put water and then an egg into a saucepan, then I put it on the stove and I lit the gas. But as soon as the water started to boil, I took the saucepan off the stove, put the egg into an eggcup and gave it to Jim, but I had forgotten all about the toast. He grunted thanks at me and then he broke the top off the egg, but the egg was still like water and it splattered out of the eggcup and onto his clothes. He went mad and shouted at me, calling me all kinds of names and then he said that I was useless and no good to anyone.

I ran back into the living room, I hid behind the sofa, and I waited for a while until he had calmed down; then I got up and I sat back down. He then said to make him a cup of tea, so I got up and I went back into the kitchen, but I used the water straight out of the kettle without boiling it and it was only warm and I only dipped the teabag into the cup for about five seconds, so the tea looked like milky water. I had never made tea before and again he went mad when I handed it to him, calling me names and shouting at me like I was nothing; then he got up and chased me out of the living room and he shouted at me again. But this time, he told me to go away and to never come back, so I went up to my bedroom, locked the bedroom door and went to bed, hating all my family and everything about my life.

The next morning, I was woken by my bed shaking and I couldn’t work out what was going on; then suddenly and even before I had a chance to open my eyes, I felt a hand move under my bedcovers and someone touched the top of my right leg and then they moved their hand over my belly. Quickly, I opened my eyes and it was Jim, he was kneeling down next to my bed and he was touching me; and even though he knew that I had woken up, he continued to move his hand down my belly and into the top of my knickers. I jumped up and, as I turned around, he was still kneeling next to my bed and he was wanking himself off. I shouted at him to stop and, without saying a word, he stood up, walked out of my room, and went down the stairs and into the kitchen; then he sat down at the table next to my mother.

I got up and followed him down the stairs and into the kitchen; I looked at him sitting in his chair as if nothing was wrong, then I stood next to my mother and I said to him, ‘Jim, could you please keep your dirty perverted hands off of me please? You’re a disgusting filthy pig.’ Then I told my mother that he had come into my room and I had caught him kneeling down beside my bed, and he was rubbing his hands all over me and he also put his hand into my knickers and touched me between my legs while he had a wank.

But to my shock, she just smiled at me and she totally dismissed what I had said to her, as if I was telling her a joke, and Jim just laughed at me as mum took his side and told me to go away and to stop being stupid. I shouted at her and then I asked her how he got into my room as I had locked my bedroom door from the inside; but all she could do was smile and shrug her shoulders at me, while she ate a slice of toast. Shivers went down my spine and I felt like I wanted to cry. I was so upset that I just turned around and left the room, then I picked up my coat and I left the house without saying another word to them both.

My belly was empty and I was hungry, but I didn’t want to stay in the house any longer. So I walked along the street and after a while I found myself walking towards my sister Tracy’s house, and all the time I was thinking about how bad things were and I was wondering if everybody in the world was as bad as Jim, Fred and my mum. Then as I walked along the pavement, I heard someone shout my name from a distance; and as I turned around, I could see that it was Simon and he was running as fast as he could to catch up with me. I had forgotten all about him, I thought he was still asleep at mum’s house; but as he caught up with me, he said that he had heard everything that I had said to mum and he said that he wanted to spend the day with me. ‘Ok,’ I said, ‘but first I need to find a local doctor’s surgery, as I have a bad pain in my head that won’t go away,’ and then we both went off looking for a doctor’s surgery.

But it wasn’t long before we found ourselves playing around in Queens Park underground station. We had never been in an underground station on our own before, so we decided to have a bit of fun and we went down the escalator and then we got on an underground train. We never intended to go far and the train was very shaky; so after only four stops, we decided to get off and head back, but when we looked around we found ourselves back in Paddington train station and we knew where we were. So we decided to explore the station, and after a while, we found the biggest set of escalators that we had ever seen and we went up and down them for about two hours, but then we became bored with them. So we thought it would be fun to slide down the metal panels that went down the middle of the escalators, from the top all the way down to the bottom.

I was so excited that I couldn’t wait to slide down them and we both scrambled and pushed at each other as we climbed on to the top of the escalator casings. And when we reached the top, we both laughed and we shouted at everyone to get out of the way, as we began sliding down the stainless steel panels. Simon went first and I grabbed hold of his jumper, and as we slid down I began to spin out of control, and it was great, I had never felt anything like it before.

Then we began to go faster and faster and we realised that we couldn’t stop. I screamed with excitement as I loved every second of it; but as we hit the last panel, I flew up into the air and two workers just managed to catch me by my legs as I flew through the air, and they just managed to break my fall before I hit the floor. Then as they put me down, they asked me if I was ok, and I just laughed at them as I walked off. I could see Simon, he was lying on the floor and he was laughing to himself, and then he asked me if I wanted to do it again and I said yes. So we just turned around and ran up to the top of the escalator and we did it all over again; we spent the next few hours using the escalator panels as a slide, and by the time we left the underground station we were as black as coal from the dirt in the station.

We headed back towards mum’s, but I said that I was not going in; and as I walked away, I told Simon that I would be back for him in the morning, and then I went off looking for a doctor again and I soon found one. I went inside and, after talking to the receptionist, I managed to get an appointment for the next morning to see the doctor, so I left the doctor’s and I walked off towards Tracy’s house. As I walked up towards the front door, I could see that someone was peaking through the living room curtains at me. I knocked on the door and, within a second, Fred opened the door and said ‘Hi’. I looked up at him, but I couldn’t smile at him and I didn’t even want to look him in the face, but I had to and I asked him if my sister was in and he said yes. I walked in past him, I went through into the kitchen, and she was standing next to the sink washing some vegetables. I didn’t want to tell her about what had happened earlier at mum’s house, so I just said hi, and we spent the rest of the day talking and cleaning around the house.

But all I could really do was think about what had happened to me earlier at mum’s house and I knew I did not want to go back to mum’s ever again. When evening came, I made a couple of excuses so I could hang around and I kept making excuses until it got too late for me to head back to mum’s. And then Tracy asked me if I would like to stay for the night and I said yes, thanks, and we spent the rest of the evening watching TV; then Tracy said that I could sleep on the couch and then Fred and her went off to bed.

But I couldn’t sleep and I felt uncomfortable on the couch, so I walked up the stairs and went to the toilet; but as I came out of the toilet, Fred was standing in the hall waiting for me. And within a second, he thrust both of his arms out and grabbed me by my breasts; and within an instant, I thought to myself, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got nowhere to go, to get away from him,’ and then I thought to myself that everyone around me was a pervert. I had left my mother’s house because of one pervert and now I am here with another one standing in front of me.

I pushed him away as hard as I could and then I ran down the stairs and out of the house and I headed back towards mum’s house, hoping that everyone would be asleep by the time I got back; and they were, so I went straight up to my bedroom and I locked my door. Then I checked the window, making sure that it opened just in case I had to use it to escape from Jim; then I put a chair up against the bedroom door, so I would hear Jim as he pushed the door against the chair as he tried to get in. But nothing happened that night and the next morning, as I walked downstairs and into the kitchen, my mum said that some social workers were coming around to visit us, and they were going to give her some money for three new beds and a TV for us kids.