Living With Evil (25 page)

After a while, Daddy came in drunk and fell fast asleep very quickly, but I still couldn’t sleep a wink. I didn’t want Mammy to kill herself. She scared me and I didn’t like her, but she was still my mammy, and I didn’t want her to die.

I crept back downstairs, and a horrible smell hit me the moment I walked in the sitting room.

It was gas. I’d smelled it that strongly once before, when Mammy had threatened to kill herself and had switched on the gas without lighting it. I never believed she really meant to do it though.

I ran to the kitchen to switch off the cooker, and jumped with fright. This time Mammy was lying slumped on the floor in front of the oven. The four gas rings and the oven were all fully switched on, but nothing was lit.

I could barely take it in. Mammy had really tried to kill herself, and all of us in our beds. I thought about the family upstairs. There were seven of us in total in the house that night. How could she?

I switched off the gas, opened the back door and tried to rouse her.

She was murmuring now, and I could see her cardigan rising and falling on her chest.

She wasn’t dead. Thank God she wasn’t dead.

The next day, I was furious and demanded an explanation. ‘We would be better off dead,’ was all Mammy said, over and over again. I felt so miserable I didn’t care whether I lived or died, but I was outraged she might have killed my siblings in their beds. Who did she think she was?

I was twelve-years-old now, and in my last year of primary school. I never got a minute to myself, but I thought that was a good thing, because I liked to be busy.

If ever I did stop to think, horrible thoughts came into my head, and I didn’t want to think horrible thoughts.

They confused me and frightened me, but I couldn’t escape them. I had constant nightmares, but when I woke up screaming I couldn’t tell myself it was all over and had just been a bad dream, because it wasn’t.

In the dark at night, in the depths of my nightmares, I heard men’s voices saying, ‘She’s my favourite!’, ‘Get over here, you!’

I could see Daddy with a nasty smile on his face, Mammy was cutting her wrist and lying with her head in the oven.

I woke up screaming and sweating so many times. The only relief I got was realizing nobody was actually touching me in my bed at that very moment, but then I’d lie there feeling terrified of what Mammy was doing downstairs.

I always went to check, and many times I caught her with the needle again, moaning she was ‘better off dead’.

Mammy didn’t do anything useful in the house at all now. She seemed to live in a world of her own, lying in bed or drinking endlessly in the chair.

Mary was now eight, Martin was six and Michael and Theresa were both two-years-old.

I loved my little brothers and sisters and did everything I could for them, washing and dressing them, feeding them and taking them out at the weekends to Sandycove or the park.

Martin finished school at twelve thirty, while my class worked on until two thirty, and Mammy made me sit Martin by my desk for those two hours, as he was too young to walk home alone and she wouldn’t come and collect him.

I felt embarrassed having to mind him. It reminded me of when I’d first had to take him into class when he was two, when Mammy said she was sick. Now I knew she just couldn’t be bothered to look after him.

I thought she was mean and selfish, but I didn’t want Martin to suffer, so I let him sit with me, even though he distracted me in the classroom and the teacher shouted at me when I made mistakes because of him.

Some of the other girls rolled their eyes when he made a row or scratched his head, but they could look all they liked. He was my little brother and I was taking care of him. I’d toughened up, and I had far more things to worry about than what the other girls thought of me. I couldn’t really care less about them.

Mammy never went out of the house in daylight now, and she didn’t like it if I went out either. My friend Eileen asked me to go to the youth club with some other girls from the neighbourhood one night, and I begged Mammy to let me. I’d been before, with my big sisters, when they had been forced to drag me along even though I was too young, but I was old enough to go on my own now and I pleaded desperately with her to be able to go.

I was thrilled to bits when she agreed, and got myself dressed in my cleanest clothes and gave myself a good wash with a bucket of water I took upstairs to the bedroom. I even did my hair, making it look all blond and fluffy.

I heard the knock at the door and made my way downstairs, my heart racing with excitement. But it sank like a stone when I heard Mammy get there first.

‘Fuck off! She’s not comin’ out!’ she yelled, before slamming the door in my friend’s face. I stood on the stairs burning with shame and anger, but Mammy burst out laughing, as if she’d played the best trick ever.

The following week she agreed that I really could go to the youth club, as long as I took Mary and Martin with me. I felt so desperate for a bit of fun and freedom I took them, and sat the pair of them in the corner with a bag of crisps while I chatted to my friends for a while, until the little ones got too bored. My friends didn’t seem to care what Mammy was like, they didn’t mention her or make any remarks at all. They were great for that.

The next day, I dawdled to school, sending the younger ones on ahead. That way I could get a few minutes’ peace. I didn’t care if I was late. I didn’t care if my teacher made a show of me or sent me to Mother Dorothy to be caned. It was worth it to have some precious moments to myself.

The sun was breaking through a cloud and the birds were singing. It was spring 1974, and I was surviving. My teacher had a fit when I sauntered in. ‘You’re late!’ she shouted, stating the obvious. ‘So what?’ I said back, shrugging my shoulders to show I didn’t care.

Often I was late because I was busy sorting the little ones out on my own. There was nothing I could do about it. I didn’t care if I got told off. Worse things could happen than being told off or threatened with a stick.

I knew that, and I pulled my hand away, as always, when Mother Dorothy stood me in front of Mr Greeny later that day and tried to ‘teach me a lesson’ for being persistently late and giving cheek. She could froth at the mouth and go purple and explode for all I cared. She couldn’t kill me or lock me in prison, could she?

My friends loved it when I defied the teachers. I still got my work done, which seemed to irritate Mother Dorothy no end. I was learning, I was having a laugh and I was surviving, that’s what mattered to me. There was a dark memory box in my head somewhere, full of lots of horrid thoughts. I could feel it lodged at the back in a very black corner, but I didn’t ever want to bring it out into the light. Lots of men were still hurting me. I couldn’t stop them, but nobody could force me to think about the baby and how she died, could they?

I didn’t want to keep thinking about her. It made me too sad and confused. It was best to try and think about other things - but my plan didn’t last for long.

On 11 March 1974, I was lying awake in the front bedroom. It was late at night and Daddy was in the double bed across the room. He still terrorized me every night, whether he touched me and hurt me or whether he fell fast asleep. Just being in the same room as him disgusted and frightened me, and I never, ever had a good night’s sleep, even when he was snoring soundly.

I was on alert all the time, and tonight I was wide awake and listening to Peter outside, shouting goodnight to his friend Derek. Derek was my good friend Margaret’s brother, and their family lived just down the road.

A short while later, I heard a loud bang, followed by another. I lay there fretting, and the next thing I remember is seeing blue lights flashing on the bedroom wall.

Soon I could hear fire engines too. Their sirens were blaring up and down the street.

I jumped out of bed and pulled back the blanket on the window. Derek’s house was on fire! I could see bright orange flames climbing up the walls and leaping from the windows.

I was so shocked I ran over to Daddy and shook him awake, shouting, ‘Wake up, Daddy! Derek’s house is on fire. Do something! Help them!’

He woke up and spat, ‘Get back into bed and shut your mouth, you little bitch.’ I couldn’t believe how cold and uncaring he was. Even though I was only twelve-years-old, I could tell a terrible tragedy was unfolding, but my daddy simply reacted with anger.

I ran downstairs, frantic, and found Mammy and Peter outside. Lots of neighbours and all the men who lived around us were out trying to do something to help, but Mammy told me firmly to stay indoors. I went back inside, feeling terrified and upset. Margaret was a very good friend of mine, but I knew the whole family well. There were eleven kids, and nearly all of them were the same age as the kids in my family, so each Murphy child had a friend in the family. We’d played on the street together for years, and we understood each other, because we all came from a big family.

I couldn’t bear the thought of them getting hurt.

After what felt like hours, Mammy came back in and told me everyone was safe, and I finally fell asleep, thanking God with all my heart for saving my friends.

Margaret was a year older than me and had started at the Technical College in Dun Laoghaire, where I would go in a few months’ time. She told me everything I needed to know. They gave you free books, and the uniform was cheap, and I knew she would look out for me once I started in September. I was looking forward to it.

The next morning, Mammy told me not to go to school, and I heard arguing upstairs while I was made to stay downstairs. After a while I made out what the arguing was all about: something awful had happened and I had to be told, because if my Mammy didn’t tell me I would find out as soon as I left the house.

I ran upstairs and demanded to know what was going on. Mammy just looked at me blankly, and told me straight away that the whole family had died in the fire, except Louise, Collie and Anthony.

I stood rooted to the spot in horror as the details spilled out. Louise was seriously ill in hospital. She had lain herself over Collie and Anthony, who were hiding under the bed, and saved their lives.

It didn’t sound real. A picture of my dead baby floated around in my head. I could see my friend Margaret too, laughing and joking and looking all smart in her new school skirt and jumper. Now she was dead and gone, just like my baby, the baby I thought about in the dark at night but was never allowed to talk about.

Mammy kept me at home in the week running up to the funeral.

I cried all the time, when I was on my own, and didn’t know how to cope with so many deaths all at once. Mammy and Daddy never said one word to comfort me and, to make matters worse, Mother Dorothy kept sending my schoolfriends to the door with messages demanding I return to school and threats that she would beat me with the cane for being absent.

Mammy told them to tell her I was far too upset to attend school, but Mother Dorothy sent them back with another message: if I wasn’t at the funeral to sing in the school choir she would give me a hundred lashes.

I shuddered. I knew the choir box was upstairs in the church, and that would mean looking down on all those coffins.

The thought of all that grief and sorrow made me stiff with fear, but when the day of the funeral came I felt drawn to the church. I had to pay my last respects, and I raced in and pushed myself through the crowds at the last minute.

As I arrived I heard the pitiful strains of ‘Suffer Little Children’. The coffins were being brought in now.

When I saw the small white coffin at the back, I knew it was for the baby, and I started to gasp for breath. It was like I had an invisible hand over my mouth and was being suffocated. I wanted to be sick.

I tore out of the church in a panic, carrying Michael with me. He was three-years-old, and Mammy had made me bring him. I could hear people tutting, saying how badly I was behaving. They were trying to get in, and I was forcing my way out. But I had to leave. I listened to the service from outside, where loudspeakers had been put up around the church, then staggered home in a daze, wondering why life had to be so very cruel, and what would be the next horrible thing to happen.

The next day at school, Mother Dorothy looked at me with icy eyes. ‘You are a disgrace,’ she told me. ‘You are a terrible sinner, child. It is typical of you! You could not even pay your last respects to that family! Be sure your sins will find you out!’

She beat me mercilessly with the cane for not singing in the choir, just as she had threatened. Even when I protested that I was distraught about losing all my friends like that, she carried on beating me.

‘You’re lying,’ she bellowed, froth foaming from her lips. ‘Another child in this school saw a lot more than you did on the night, and she managed to get herself into school.’

I bit my lip, but not because I was afraid. I was seething with anger. I remembered the time Mother Dorothy had hauled my lovely friend Margaret up to the front of the class and ridiculed her for not having brushed her hair. When Margaret said her Mammy had brushed her hair that very morning, Mother Dorothy laughed and mocked. ‘How old are you? Nearly thirteen? What a big baby you are having Mammy brush your hair!’