All My Fault: The True Story of a Sadistic Father and a Little Girl Left Destroyed (2 page)

I was the first girl born to the family and I’m sure my Ma was delighted to have a little sister for my older brother, who was three years old by the time I arrived.

When I was three years old, Ma gave me and
Mark
a little baby brother called
Fergus
. The baby was a happy, placid baby and very easy to take care of.

My childhood memories start when I was about three. Some people might argue that you can’t remember things that happened when you were that young, but I believe that you can. You may not remember whether it was winter or summer, whether you were in the hall or the sitting room, or even the exact details of the particular memory, but the emotions that go hand in hand with it are what you carry forward.

Memories of such times are very clear to me. I can remember certain events. And when the feelings are bad ones, they’re even harder to forget.

I can’t remember when exactly Da started calling to my room at night; all I do know for sure is that the bad feelings started when I was about three years old or a little older. I was very young when he started to abuse me. I can recall images of him, sneaking into my room.

He used to get into bed beside me and tell me stories about Granny as a little girl, and how she got lost in a fairy ring down the country and that she wasn’t able to get out. He also told me stories about Granny going to school on a cow. I loved hearing the stories, but I didn’t like when he would put his hands into my knickers and fondle my private area. As he talked, his fingers were constantly fiddling around my vagina, and it hurt me.

For a long time I thought it was normal for fathers to touch their daughters ‘down there’; it was like a goodnight kiss or a hug. I’d been so damaged and my mind had become so warped that I remember thinking, how do other kids Da’s do it to them, especially when there was more than one girl? It was such a normal part of my life.

The only difference between a goodnight kiss and what my Da did was that it didn’t feel nice; it hurt and felt dirty. I figured that if you had to wash your hands every time you went to the bathroom, then there definitely was something dirty about ‘down there’. That would also solve the question of why none of my friends spoke about their fathers touching them there. So I said nothing. That is how it started. While I was still a baby it started with him touching my private area and it progressed over the next few years, gradually getting worse and worse. When I look back now as an adult I can see that I had no choice in the matter; we accept as normal the environment that parents create for us, and he created an environment of sexual abuse from the start. He groomed me as his victim from the beginning. I didn’t have a hope.

*

In the very early days, I remember it being just Ma, the two boys and me most of the time. Da was home very little and when he was in a bad mood, a similar atmosphere swept through the house. Da earned the money and paid the bills while Ma cooked, cleaned and looked after all of us. In those days, everything was done by hand so housework was ten times harder than it is now. I’ll never forget the day Da brought home the twin-tub and put an end to having to hand-wash the terry nappies in a bucket of water.

Da thought he was the best husband in the world when he presented Ma with such an advanced kitchen appliance. He was smiling so much I’m surprised his face didn’t crack. From then on, all Da’s presents had domestic themes. Now my Ma, like most women, was in favour of any household appliance that would make life easier for her, but when they were being given to her as gifts every birthday and Christmas, I think she wasn’t too happy.

We moved from Ballsbridge to Fairview on the north side of Dublin when I was about three. That was in 1970. At the time, this was a move up in the world.

The new house was a three-bedroom semi-detached with a garage. It was a corner house. There were ten houses on either side of the street in this small cul de sac. At our end of the estate, there was a big wall surrounding an orchard. This was a place of wonderment to us kids. Over the years, most of us had a go at robbing apples from the canon and his housekeeper who lived there.

The Fairview house was very respectable. It had a good-sized front room, a sitting room and a small kitchen as far as I remember. Ma was delighted with it and glad to see the back of the old, damp redbrick in Ballsbridge.

I made my very first friends in that estate in Fairview. I was peering through the gates of my house, out on to the street and beyond, when a row of curious little faces came into my line of vision. They were all about the same age as me.

All were full of chatter and asked me all sorts of questions the way children do. They were fascinated by my blonde hair and blue eyes and kept poking their skinny arms through the grates in the gate to touch my hair and see if it not only looked different to their own brown hair but felt different too. These girls were to become the core of my primary school gang.

My clothes that first summer in Fairview consisted of teeny weenie shorts, skirts and dresses that only barely covered my knickers. It was an age of innocence that wouldn’t last long. God when I think about it, my father must have loved it.

Fairview was a great place to grow up. I was at my happiest there, despite all that was going on behind closed doors. I loved my little friends. We were a close group. When you have a big bunch of kids growing up together there’s bound to be some arguments from time to time, but if we fought one day, we were friends again the next. And there were always ways of wheedling your way back into your friends’ favour. Like, if you were lucky enough to have a birthday party coming up you could hold it over the others by saying, ‘If you don’t play with me then you’re not coming to my party tomorrow.’ It was more a case of using your persuasive powers than being mean. But no matter what, we all went to each other’s parties.

Our birthday parties were pretty simple back then. I don’t remember getting expensive presents from my friends, actually I don’t think we gave presents at all. The whole thrill of a party was that you became one year older and got to feast on all the sweets and fizzy drinks you could stomach. You were just so happy to be allowed play together and eat sugary treats. And whether you wanted it or not, you always got a slice of the birthday cake, wrapped in a napkin, to bring home with you.

Ma never let us down when it came to cakes and parties. The table would be crammed with popcorn, sponge cakes, fairy cakes and, my favourite treat of all, Rice Krispie buns. Even as an adult, it doesn’t feel like a party to me until the Rice Krispie buns appear.

The all-important blowing out of the candles was the peak of excitement. Usually one of my brothers would sneak up behind me and blow the candles out with me which meant my wish wouldn’t come true. So after some squabbling and Ma trying to pull us apart, the candles were relit and my brothers well warned.

Afterwards, we played all sorts of games like musical chairs or musical statues. They often ended in tears, though, with someone crying because they hadn’t won or swearing blind that they hadn’t moved when everyone knew they had.

Looking back, the summers seemed sunnier, warmer and longer when I was a child, but then it didn’t matter too much what the weather was like, we still carried on with our games, inside or outside. We always called to each other’s houses but I often waited for someone to call on me first. If it was raining outside, I enjoyed sitting on the couch, watching TV. But as soon as I got outside, it was hard to get me back in. I played all sorts of games with my friends: cycling, skipping, pushing our dolls’ prams, What Time is it Mr Wolf? Red Rover Red Rover, rounders, hide-and-seek.

*

While I acted like a normal little girl, I wasn’t one. I was always tense and, looking back on those days, I believe I was afraid. Even during the day, I never knew what lay around the corner. I remember going to Mass one Sunday with Da. Ma wasn’t with us that day.

My body temperature raised and my face started burning when I saw him positioning himself, standing at the back of Fairview Church. Two younger girls were standing behind him. I saw him put his creepy hand behind his back and grope one of the children. I prayed she wouldn’t say anything.

I didn’t recognise her, and I thanked God for that, but I recognised that he seemed to have no fear. The little girl had a horrible experience in Mass that day.

I wasn’t sure whether I felt worse watching him do it to another girl or when he did it to me. Doing it to me at least kept it hidden, but when he did it to someone else in front of me, I froze.

That was the first time I remember seeing Da touching anyone else besides me. At the time, I didn’t understand why but I felt physically sick.

I didn’t know if the little girl realised what was happening to her but I assumed she must have felt dirty, because I always did when he did that to me. My childish brain really couldn’t make sense of this action. I thought it was something that daddies did with their little girls—not with other children.

I can recall seeing her face drain of colour. At the same time, mine was red and boiling. I couldn’t wait to get out of the church. Ma always made us carry tissues up our sleeves, so on my way out, I took one and dipped it into the holy-water bowl. I dabbed my hot face with it, hoping that it might cool me down and also that it might wash away some of my shame and terror. Da just walked out of the church like nothing had happened. I think he must have enjoyed himself and that was all that mattered.

I remember being tired a lot after school. I would come home a lot of days, lie down on the couch and that was it, I’d sleep for the afternoon. This was a continuing habit of mine throughout my school years. I never got much sleep during the night and then during the day I couldn’t stay awake. This was a symptom of my body clock being all over the place. Most kids would fall asleep shortly after being put to bed, but not me. I hated going to bed because I knew Da would soon follow.

In the beginning, I’d lie in bed waiting for him, my muscles rigid with tension. Then, as soon as the door opened, I’d relax every muscle in my body, not with relief, but so that he might think I was asleep and leave me alone. This was a useless exercise which never stopped Da. When he would finish, I’d come back to life and stay awake all night. How could I possibly go to sleep? My mind was contaminated with feelings of being dirty. I would lie awake for hours mulling dark thoughts over in my head.

I usually fell asleep in the early hours of the morning only to be awoken again shortly afterwards. I would be so exhausted the following day that I needed long naps to mentally recharge.

*

My earliest memories of school are from when I was six. I don’t remember junior infants or senior infants too well, but I do remember first class in St Mary’s National School in Fairview and have fond memories of my teacher Mrs Ray. She was exactly the type of teacher all kids love. She was very child-orientated and I don’t ever remember her giving out to anyone. On their birthday, every student got a present. I distinctly remember the yellow, stretchy headband she gave me to keep my long blonde hair off my face. I kept that headband for years afterwards.

I had a great time in that school despite what was happening to me at home.

I managed to do all of my school work and I came to love reading and writing. I found maths pretty simple, so all in all, school was good. At the beginning of first class, I clung to Mrs Ray’s every word and did whatever I could to please her. Any attention she gave me was like a ray of sunshine in my life. If she ticked my homework with a red pen, which meant ‘very good’, I was over the moon. But as the year went on her approval stopped being enough to keep me happy. I felt increasingly stressed and different to the other children. The feeling of emptiness intensified. I was depressed but at the age of six I had no understanding of what this even meant.

Even though I had lots of friends it didn’t stop this feeling of dirtiness that often welled up inside. I was never sure how to describe it but I felt empty on the inside and blackened to the core. This feeling never left me. It was something that I felt every day of every waking hour. It was only in later years that I came to understand this feeling but at the time I didn’t. It was just something that I learned to live with. It started to interfere with my feelings about school and I realised that school wasn’t going to fill the void inside me. Because I wasn’t sleeping much at night, I also was feeling very tired in class and I was unable to concentrate much.

It was a friend who discovered how easy it was to get out of class and this was the start of us going on the hop, or ‘mitching’ as we called it. It was also the beginning of the end of a normal life for me.

*

Bunking off school was my way of taking control and rebelling against what was happening, though at the time, I think I did it just because I could.

I never knew from week to week what day or time my friend would come knocking on Mrs Ray’s classroom door. But once I heard the knock, I’d start packing. At first, I managed to get out once a week, then it was twice a week and before long I wasn’t going in some days at all. Sometimes I got false notes from somewhere that said I was sick. It was too easy.

I used to hang around Main Street in Fairview instead. One of the side streets had rows of large three-story houses with big steps leading up to their doorways. If I was early enough I was able to steal the milk that had been left on their doorsteps. I never normally drank milk but this milk was different; because it was robbed it seemed somehow more precious and I used to gulp it down greedily. This became a daily thing and, just like the mitching, it was a great buzz.

I used to rob empty lemonade bottles from crates at the back of different shops so I could make some money. I would go into shops to sell the bottles back to the woman behind the counter. I think I got about 1p a bottle. I did this in a few different shops and when I’d gathered enough money I’d buy Fizzlesticks, Toffee Logs, Black Jacks and Fruit Salads. My favourite was the quarter mixes from the big clear jars with the black lids that had a mixture of Apple Sours, cough sweets and Bull’s Eyes.