Dying to Survive (18 page)

Later on that morning the gardaí came to my grandparents’ house and arrested me on outstanding warrants for theft. Once again I was sent to Mountjoy and in a strange way I was relieved. Even after all that had happened, I wasn’t sure if I would have the strength to stay away from Derek and the gear. I had a feeling that going to Mountjoy would be a blessing in disguise.

Chapter
11

    ANSWERED PRAYERS

T
hey say that things have to get worse before they get better and that was certainly the case for me. I had reached a new low in my addiction and was facing another stint in Mountjoy, after which I would be released and the whole cycle would begin again. I needed help, but didn’t know where to look for it. I’ve never been a spiritual person and it never occurred to me to seek help from that direction. But that is exactly the place from where help came, just when I most needed it.

After one week in custody I was brought to court to face my warrants and I had no doubt in my mind that I would be given a hefty sentence. The Dublin District Court was full of activity, with solicitors and gardaí buzzing up and down from the courtroom to the holding cells. The holding cells were bursting at the seams with prisoners awaiting sentences.

After being informed by my solicitor that I could get a sentence of anything up to two years for each charge, as I had previous convictions, I resigned myself to the fact that I was getting locked up. Then I heard somebody mention my name. I looked outside of the holding cell and I saw a priest. ‘Here I am,’ I shouted to him, confused as to why the priest was looking for me and feeling like I was seeing an apparition.

‘Hi, Rachael, my name is Father Adrian,’ the priest said gently. ‘I know we’ve never met before, but a nurse in Beaumont Hospital gave me your mother’s number. She said that you were very sick and that you needed help to overcome your addiction.’

Father Adrian was exactly what I expected a priest to be like. He was a beacon of light and full of humility and I felt immediately reassured by his presence. ‘I got in touch with your mother and she brought me here to see you,’ he continued. I still couldn’t comprehend what was going on and I was conscious of the other prisoners sitting behind me, trying to hear what Father Adrian was saying.

‘Now, have you ever heard of a place called Community Cenacolo?’ I shook my head. ‘It’s a community in Italy run by a nun called Sister Elvira. She is an amazing woman and she has helped thousands of people to get clean. Would you be interested in going over?’

‘Emm, I really don’t think I’ll be going anywhere today, Father,’ I replied. ‘I have a load of charges and I’m just about to get sentenced.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll do my best and I’ll try to sort something out.’

‘I’ll go to Italy with ye, Father,’ shouted one of the girls sitting beside me. Father Adrian just smiled and he was gone. I began to wonder if I had dreamed him up.

_____

Just before my name was called to stand in front of the judge, my old friend Garda PJ Walsh from Ballymun came marching over to me. ‘Who’s this priest?’ he said.

‘He’s a friend of the family,’ I told him.

‘Right, are you willing to go to Italy?’

‘Yeah, if the judge gives me bail.’

‘But you’re already serving a sentence.’

‘I know. I’ll put in for temporary release.’

‘This is what I’ll do then,’ said PJ. ‘I won’t object to bail and I won’t say anything about you serving a sentence, but I’m fuckin’ warning you, if you fuck up one more time I’ll personally give you a good hidin’ myself. D’you understand?’ said PJ as he jokingly showed me his fist. But I knew that he was deadly serious about me messing up.

‘Yeah, thanks, PJ,’ I humbly agreed.

PJ was as good as his word. He stood in the witness box and he never objected to bail. He told the judge that I came from a good family whom he had known for the past eight years. I was a young girl who had gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd, he said. He had witnessed my addiction spiral out of control and he thought that my life depended on me going to Italy.

I couldn’t believe my ears. But when I thought about it, PJ always did have a soft spot for me. When he was finished in the witness box, it was Father Adrian’s turn. He told the judge all about the community and how strict it was and about how it was my only hope.

But the judge wasn’t having any of it. ‘This girl stands before me with a list of charges and outstanding warrants and she has also been sent forward to the circuit court for burglary of a phone shop. Give me one good reason why I should send her on a tour around Italy. No, no, no. She’s not going and that’s it. Put her back into custody and I will deal with her tomorrow,’ demanded the judge.

And this is how things went for three days. I went from custody to court as everyone fought for me to be released. The judge was adamant that I not go to Italy. I had been given too many chances already, he said. But my solicitor wouldn’t give in. She told him that this would be my last chance; if I didn’t go to Italy now, I would never get clean from drugs. She assured him that he would receive monthly reports on my progress. In the end the judge reluctantly agreed. He put tight bail conditions on me that depended on my staying in the community for one year.

_____

It was Friday afternoon and I wasn’t out of the woods yet. I had my charges out of the way, but now I had to apply for temporary release from Mountjoy Prison. My mother and my grandmother had, in blind faith, booked me onto a flight to Italy for eight o’clock on the Saturday morning. As soon as I got back to Mountjoy Prison I put my application form in for temporary release. The hours passed and I paced my cell hoping that things would go according to plan. But nine o’clock came and went and I was certain that I was going nowhere. After asking the officers if they had heard anything about me being released, they told me that it was too late. My heart sank. Fuck it anyway, I thought. I had got my hopes up for nothing. It would be impossible to get clean in prison and there was no chance of me getting clean on the outside.

I spent the rest of the night with the other prisoners, many of whom I knew from Ballymun, reminiscing about the good old days when we went to raves and before the heroin had us in its grip. And for a split second I felt as though I could see myself from outside my body. I no longer stood out like a sore thumb: I was just like all the other prisoners upon whom I had once looked down my nose. I looked like them and I acted like them. I had lost all my pride and my inhibitions. I had become a horrible, selfish person who abused my family and any friends I had. And for the first time in my life I could clearly see just how sick I was.

That night I prayed to God, begging him to help me. ‘Please God, give me one more chance. I promise I’ll do my best this time.’ I drifted off to sleep and as usual I dreaded what the next day would bring.

Looking back now, I may have been at rock bottom with my addiction and about to face a lengthy spell in Mountjoy, but I’m not really sure that I was ready to give up drugs. I now know what being truly ‘ready’ is: deciding of my own will that I wanted a life free from drugs, that there was a life beyond heroin. Then, I was simply desperate for a way out of the degradation of prostitution and thieving and the wreckage of my life. And it looked as if my prayers had been answered.

_____

My cell door opened the next morning. ‘C’mon, Rachael, it’s your lucky day. You’re getting tr,’ shouted one of the officers.

‘What? How come? What time is it?’ I said, hopping out of my bed, still half asleep and convinced that they were making a mistake.

The officer explained, ‘Your mother put a block on you being released before now. Herself and your grandmother are outside waiting for you, so hurry up.’ My mother had obviously been afraid that if I had been released earlier, I would just have made a run for it back to my old life. Perhaps she was right. I grabbed my belongings as quickly as I could before the officers found a reason to keep me locked up.

As I hurried out of the prison I could hear the other prisoners shouting across to one another. ‘Here, Elaine, are ye listenin’? D’ye ever see the fuckin’ likes of it? Getting
TR
at four o’clock in the fuckin’ morning! Ye’d wanna be a fuckin’ rat to pull that one.’ But I couldn’t care less what the other prisoners thought of me. My prayers had been answered. I was taking this opportunity with both hands and making the best of it.

_____

I was so sick after my flight and the withdrawals that I hardly knew what was going on. I found it strange that my mother had come with me—usually she would get somebody else to do her dirty work, like Laurence or Mick. I watched her carefully, trying to figure out what her motive was. Had she finally realised how much I needed her to be my mother, or was she just trying to get rid of me again? Either way, I didn’t care. Like a child I was just happy that she was with me, regardless of her reasons.

Father Adrian gave us directions to meet the people from the community in a little hostel in Turin. Two men arrived late on Saturday night wearing military jackets and looking like they weren’t to be messed with. I said my goodbyes to my mother and my grandmother as they handed me into the care of these strange men. I had no idea of what I was getting myself into, but nothing could be worse than where I was coming from.

I had fallen asleep on our way to the community and when I woke up I could feel my withdrawals kicking in. This was the part that I dreaded the most. For me, the withdrawals were what I lived in fear of every day: I had never left myself long enough without heroin to feel the severity of going cold turkey. I wouldn’t rest until I had enough drugs to keep the sickness at bay. I had taken ninety mls of methadone before I left Mountjoy: it was still in my system and keeping me going but the dope sickness had started and the rest was in the post.

I was informed that I was being taken to a house called Savliganno. When we arrived I was greeted with a firm handshake by my appointed guardian angel, Dubrilla. She appeared to be in her early forties, with shoulder-length grey hair and tanned skin. I guessed she was eastern European. With Dubrilla there was no beating around the bush. ‘You are very welcome to the community, but don’t for one minute expect it to be easy,’ she said. ‘All of your belongings will be taken from you and you won’t get them back until the time is right.’ She approached me with a cup of tea. ‘Drink it. It will help you sleep. You will realise yourself that in Community Cenacolo there is a reason for everything. Now it’s late, so you should try and get some rest.’

Less of the fuckin’ attitude, I wanted to say to her, still with the prison chip on my shoulder. But I used my head and I did as she said.

I felt as though I had only closed my eyes and opened them again when I saw Dubrilla standing by my bunk bed. She was staring at me. ‘I thought you were dead. You have mascara all over you,’ she said while she touched my face.

Ah, fuck off away from me, I thought, wanting to throw a tantrum. ‘It’s too early, Dubrilla,’ I said.

‘You have already slept over by three hours. It’s nine o’clock and you have to get up.’

‘I can’t move, Dubrilla. I’m in bits,’ I protested.

‘I know, but if you lie in bed you will feel worse. Look how beautiful the day is,’ she said as she opened the blinds. ‘I want to show you something.’

I dragged myself out of the bed and I went to where she stood. ‘
Bellissimo,
eh?’ she said, pointing to the view. We were surrounded by the Alpine mountains and the sun blistered down onto layers of golden cornfields. ‘We have our own greenhouse and we grow our own vegetables,’ she enthused. I had more interest in the man on the moon than in her little pep talk. I just wanted to jump back into bed, close my eyes and never wake up.

‘Oh look! There are the girls going for their walk,’ she said. I followed her pointing finger and saw at least twenty women walking in a perfect line of twos. ‘They’re walking the rosary,’ she said.

‘Come again?! What do you mean, “Walking the rosary?”’

‘Every Sunday we go for a walk and say the rosary. And now that Lent is coming, we will be doing it a lot more. It’s really nice,’ she said, staring at the girls with a smile on her face.

‘Why are they in twos?’

‘Because Jesus always sent his disciples out in twos.’

Ah, this is just fuckin’ great, I thought. I’ve just walked myself into a mad cult. I had heard of places like Community Cenacolo, where everyone spoke in tongues and prayed over vulnerable addicts, putting the fear of God into them and brain-washing them. As if reading my mind, Dubrilla grinned, ‘Don’t worry, we won’t force you into doing anything. I’m sure that you will do it when you are ready. But it will be expected of you to work, just like everybody else. For the first week, while you are sick, you will work with me in the factory. We make car parts,’ she said. ‘Then you will work in the garden. The fresh air will make you stronger. So let’s go! I will give you some clothes.’