No One Wants You (2 page)

I never saw the Communion dress again.

What must have been many months later, my foster-mother and I were coming out of Sunday mass in Kilmallock Church. The churchyard was packed with people but I saw her catch hold of a man tightly by the arm. When he turned and saw who was gripping him, he tried to escape. Her grasp tightened. I moved behind my foster-mother clasping the folds of her long woollen coat, as if for protection. I peered out around her, staring up at him, sick with fright.

It was the man who had raped me.

‘Ya never gave this little girl the First Communion money that ya promised her.’

‘Eh, eh, I have no change on me now at the moment. I gave my last few coppers to the collection at church.’

‘It’s not change she wants!’ she spat venomously at him, as her grip tightened painfully.

‘I’ve only a pound note on me now, for a few pints, later,’ he winced.

‘That’ll do grand,’ she said, as she leaned threateningly closer to him.

‘Aw, shag ya, there yar’ so,’ he said, with anger in his voice, as he grudgingly handed her a crumpled green-coloured pound note.

He pulled his arm from her vice-like grip and disappeared in the throng of people. She compressed the note in the palm of her hand and smiled to herself.

‘Let’s go home, Child,’ she said, as she marched off, with me shuffling close behind.

That day I was traded for a pound note.

ONE

My Foster Family

I WAS BORN
, at about 6 pm, in the Sacred Heart Home for Unmarried Mothers at Bessboro, Blackrock, County Cork, Ireland, on November 14, 1948. I was premature by three weeks and my weight at time of birth was 4 lb. 12 oz. My name was registered as Celine Clifford.

In Ireland in the 1940s, when a young unmarried girl was found to be pregnant, it was impossible for her to keep living her normal life. She could not have her baby and rear her child as a single mother. The culture of the time prevented it. It was considered shameful for any young girl to get pregnant while unmarried. If one was a good Catholic parent, it was considered a slur and a disgrace on the entire family if one’s daughter became pregnant. A pregnant girl’s own people would have put her out.

To take care of such situations in the Ireland of saints and scholars, homes for unmarried mothers existed. These were institutions where a girl could have her baby, and then have it fostered or adopted, usually by Americans. Then she could rejoin some part of Irish society, but usually not in her original position, as if nothing had happened. These homes for the unmarried were places of detention, more like prisons than homes. They were a source of income for the order of nuns that lived there.

In my case, Cork Corporation paid the home £1. 2s. 6d. per baby, per week, as a maintenance fee. Bessboro was owned and run by nuns of the English Order of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary. Mostly Irish women entered this Order. It was their proud boast that ‘the girls’ spiritual lives and the future of their babies were well taken care of’. I am an example of the latter and ‘my future’ was not taken care of by anyone.

Entrance to this home, was usually arranged by the clergy, at the behest of the girl’s mother. Once the pregnant girl entered through the doors she was not allowed to leave, unless strict conditions were met. After her baby was born, each girl had to stay and work for a period of three years, to help with the running of the home and self-supporting farm. During this time the babies were breastfed for 12 months. After three years, the babies were sent out to foster homes or orphanages or adopted.

The homes earned a lot of money if a baby stayed there for three years. If a girl could arrange to pay the nuns £100, which was a huge amount of money at the time, she was free to leave the home, ten days after the birth. Their babies were then immediately made available for adoption.

There was one other way of escape without the baby. If a girl’s family could arrange payment of £50, her baby would be sent to a foster home in the city, and the girl would be free to go. No girl could keep her baby or go home with her baby, no matter what her family paid.

While researching my history, a nun told me that my mother walked out the gates with me in her arms on April 18, 1949. This seems to go against the rule that no mother was allowed to leave with her baby. I have to accept that fact, but I don’t know how true it is. It is very difficult to get any valid documentation from these organisations, even now.

At that stage I would have been almost five months old.
I
have no idea who paid for my mother’s liberation from that place. On that same date I was fostered or ‘boarded out’ as it was known in those days. That day, my mother who had breastfed me for five months, gave me away to someone else.

As she walked away, she closed her heart to me, for ever. Every baby smiles when being held by its mother. I wonder if we ever bonded as mother and daughter.

As a total coincidence, on that same November 14, 1948, another young mother was giving birth to her first child, in somewhat better circumstances, at Buckingham Palace in London. Her name was Princess Elizabeth Windsor. The Princess named her precious newborn son, Charles Philip Arthur George.

For two people who were born on the same day, we would be fated to lead vastly different lives. His to be one of absolute privilege, mine to be one of utter deprivation.

An extremely poor, old-aged, childless couple, who lived in a remote area of County Limerick, fostered me. The fostering arrangement was made through Limerick County Council as my foster-parents had already done a bit of fostering. I had a foster-brother living in the house with me. I don’t know what age he was when I arrived, but he had a terrible time. My foster-father used to beat him so hard, for no reason at all, and they would lock him in a room for days. I remember trying to hide bread and give it to him because he was starving. I felt so sorry for him. When I got a bit older I didn’t see him so much because he was working.

We lived in what was then called a cottage, but would be better described as a shack. It consisted of two rooms, a large central room with a small bedroom at the end. There was a tiny porch-sized area, attached at the rear of the building, where turf for the fire was kept and through which access was provided to the backyard. The roof of the main building was rough slate. From inside you could see the rough wooden
beams
, holding sods of clay that were packed close to the stone as soundproofing against the monotonous din made by the incessant Irish rain. The central room had a large fireplace, and this was where almost all of the daytime and night-time social gatherings took place. The house was built on about an acre of land.

I later discovered that a Catholic priest, a nun and a medical doctor, who were all close friends of my grandmother, on my mother’s side, were instrumental in making arrangements for this fostering. I was now to be called Celine O’Brien.

By the time I arrived, my foster-mother was in her sixties and her husband was perhaps ten years older. They were a totally unsuitable couple to foster a five-month-old baby girl. But nobody cared. If abortion had been available, I would have been a prime candidate. Everyone wanted me out of his or her world. Alive, I was an embarrassment to everyone.

At an early age, I was told by my foster-mother, that she was paid £300 to keep my identity secret. In 1949, £300 was a huge sum of money and would have purchased a large amount of secrecy. The reason for such secrecy, I was later told, was that my father had two sisters who were nuns. As my existence could cause serious scandal to this very important family, and particularly to the two nuns and the Catholic Church, my fate was sealed.

One of my earliest memories is being told, ‘No one wants you.’ It seemed that this piece of information preceded almost every conversation that I had with both my foster-parents until I was 13 years of age.

I got the message early on. I believed that it must be true; I thought whatever adults said was the truth. I considered it normal that nobody wanted me, but I could never understand why.

I always felt afraid.

My foster-mother ruled the household. Physically, she was of medium height and looked like a man. She was very overweight and had a double chin that seemed to rest on her chest and wobbled like a jelly as she spoke. She even walked like a man.

One of my earliest memories is of hiding when I heard her coming. I could always anticipate her arrival, as I would hear her before I saw her. On her good days she always whistled or hummed a lively tune; on her bad days she was completely silent. When she was walking, her heel hit the ground first and the large flat sole of her foot followed on remarkably quickly. To me it always sounded like a sharp slap. She always walked quickly, with urgent short steps, as if she was in a rush to tell someone some important news. When I heard the distinctive whistling or humming and ‘slap slap’ sound of a pair of shoes, at any distance, a chill would run through my body.

She was not an intelligent woman, but she made her living by being cunning. One time when neighbours of ours, an old brother and sister, died, I was sent to the house to steal the pillows from their beds. I was scared to go but I was more afraid of what would happen if I didn’t come back with the pillows. When I came back and handed them over, my foster-mother ripped them open. She thought there might be some money hidden in them but there wasn’t, so she slapped me in the face.

Rationality is supposed to be what distinguishes human beings from the animals of the world, but my foster-mother could not be described as in any way rational. I don’t think she had any brain cells. She could not think and could only react to situations. But because she was a stupid person she thought she was intelligent.

She was also a bully and she could always detect other people’s vulnerability. She bullied all of us at home, but even when she met a stranger she knew immediately whether
they
could be bullied or not. If they were confident and assertive, she was very polite to their face and was over-helpful in every way. I think these people thought she was a bit of a ‘lick-arse’ but they put up with her because she could be useful.

With no education, she was virtually illiterate. I never saw her read a book or paper. The only thing she knew how to do was count money. She never bowed to anything or anyone though, except someone whom she deemed to have ‘book learning’. If she thought somebody was educated, she avoided them. She did not engage with the local teachers or bankers, as she considered them to have ‘the better of her’. The local parish priest was also a challenge to her but, while he was educated, he was half afraid of her. She was a big woman and had an awful loud voice that she was not afraid to use. She had an obsession about physical size. Her husband was small and the parish priest was also no giant. She could not understand, and this was a complete and utter blank with her, how any man who was smaller than her, could be more intelligent. This was the cause of many rows in the house. If she was trying to explain her version of an event or when she wanted something done, if my foster-father asked a question or suggested something different, he usually got a punch on his head. This would be quickly followed by a dismissive verbal lashing, ‘Ahhh, for Jaysus’ sake, Bie, you’re only a little ludramawn, how would you understand anything?’

She never called anyone by their name. Everyone was called ‘Boy’, whatever their sex, but being originally from Cork and using the vernacular, mixed with a Limerick lilt, it sounded like ‘Bie’ (rhymes with pie) or in the plural ‘Bize’ (rhymes with size).

‘Come here, Bie.’

‘I’ll tell you now, Bie, you do what I say or you’ll be trun’ out.’

‘’Tis only a load a bollix, Bie.’

‘’Tis tenne paz seven, Bie, you shoulda been up ages ago.’

She had one advantage as far as the parish priest was concerned. She was at the centre of the local sex scene. She knew everything and anything of a sexual nature that happened in the area. The personalities involved gravitated towards her. When I was very young I remember standing in the back room staring at my foster-mother’s bed, which looked like it was moving. She just said that ‘foxes had got into the bed’. The parish priest used her to find out information about certain individuals. It was a control thing. As long as he knew who was involved, he was prepared to allow her to continue about her business.

She also knew where the priest was vulnerable. If she was talking to someone, and the priest approached, she would say in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, ‘Backs to the wall, Bize, the Mallow bus is comin’.’ It was her way of letting him know that she had discovered that he was homosexual.

Someone once asked her what she meant and she explained, ‘All dem educated bize in Mallow, is queers, you know.’

As far as she could figure it, anyone male and educated and who also embraced the Church, acted as if they were homosexual, because they always had ‘certain airs and graces about dem’.

I was to find out that she was also ruthless and evil.

My foster-father was a grumpy, small man. He worked for local farmers, on a casual basis, as a farm labourer. He was totally dominated by his wife and was also illiterate. He had no status in life other than that which he was allowed by his wife. As I got older I began to think that it might be why he got drunk as often as possible.

When he got drunk, it gave him false courage and he would try to beat anyone who was less powerful than him. In that part of the country, it was common to have a bellows to
get
the fire burning. This bellows had a strap, which my foster-father used to beat me with when he was drunk. Once he had sated his drunken anger, he would usually go to bed and fall asleep.

From as far back as I can remember, I was always afraid in that house. At first it was the little things. Like when the community nurse called, to bring vitamin pills for me, I was told to say that I slept in a room of my own. I felt uncomfortable telling lies to the nurse, as I never had a bed of my own, never mind a room. My foster-parents slept in the bedroom at one end of the kitchen.