No One Wants You (29 page)

I thought I was going to die and I wanted to go back to London. Every time that I said this to my father, he would persuade me to stay by saying that my mother wanted me to stay and that she loved me. When he was at home, she pretended that we were the best of friends. One time, in his presence, he told my mother and I to hug each other. In that embrace I knew that she did not want to be anywhere near me. I could feel her physically cringe when I hugged her.

With all the physical work that I had to do, I was exhausted. There were so many rows between my mother and I. It was obvious to me that she did not want me there. My father wanted to believe that my mother wanted me to be there. He saw my mother from a different point of view. He could think no ill of her.

While I was in Limerick, some gypsy caravans parked in a field nearby. One day some gypsy children came to the door with a small tin can and asked my mother for some water. Mother refused to give them water and ran after them brandishing a brush. I was shocked and I was angry. ‘How could you refuse somebody a drink of water?’ I screamed at her. She just looked through me and said nothing.

Ronan used to talk and play with the gypsy children. They used to have great fun together. He used to think that they were very funny, the way they used to say, ‘Waaather’. They used to copy his English accent. One evening, in front of some neighbours, Ronan asked my mother for a ‘cup a tay’. She was so embarrassed that she nearly died of shock, but Ronan got such a reaction from her that he kept it up for days. I used to hear the deep belly-laughs from them all and think that it was so innocent. I used to look at the gypsy children and think how badly dressed and unkempt they looked. They were weather-beaten and looked like they never washed themselves.

I suppose I saw myself in those children and, in her response to them, my mother’s rejection of me.

After three weeks of misery I plucked up the courage to return to London.

NINETEEN

No Celebration

WHEN I GOT
back to London, I was so relieved. I was thrilled to see Anthony. Ronan was also very happy to be home with his dad and his brother. It felt strange to be back, but I was glad to be in my own home. Thelma was still there and part of me wanted her to stay but another part would have liked to get back to just the four of us. It wasn’t so bad because she’d got a new job and wasn’t in the house that often.

Life went back to normal. I did not have to cope with a hysterical mother who did not want me in her sight.

My father was uncomfortable with my coming back to London after only three weeks, as he knew I was off work for six weeks. He still had tunnel vision regarding my mother. He phoned me about twice a week and I called him more often. Much more often! My phone bill became appreciably high. Consequently we ran short of cash to pay some of the domestic bills.

Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative government had introduced the controversial poll tax. There was a lot of opposition to paying it at the time, from all corners of the political spectrum. It was just another bill as far as I was concerned, and I wanted to pay it. I had no argument with any British government, be they Tory or Labour. Whatever any of them did was all right by me. I was not particularly
interested
in politics as I had enough going on in my life, just to survive. But I would not hear a bad word said against whatever political party was in power or against the Royal Family.

As far as I was concerned, the British establishment had treated me very well. They had accepted me unconditionally and they did not ask about my parental status.

I was made to feel welcome in Britain. I was treated with respect from the very first day that I turned up on its shores searching for a new life.

But in this instance there was no cash to pay the poll tax. After a ‘board meeting’ between Harry and I, it was decided that Harry would ask his brother Paddy for a loan so that we could pay the tax. Harry rang him up and explained the situation. Paddy agreed to meet Harry under the railway bridge on our road and give him the money. When Harry came back with the money, he said that he’d had to endure a lecture from his brother. Paddy had told him that he knew that the money was not for the poll tax, but because I was making far too many phone calls to my father in Ireland.

I was raging. Somebody visiting or babysitting had told him. They could quite easily have seen a phone bill lying around the house or Harry may have told them that I was calling my father a lot.

It was then I decided that I had to leave that house. I decided that I wanted a change. I wanted a new house. Harry just went along with the decision to move while I started to look for somewhere else to live. I put the house on the market. I justified it to myself by saying that it was not my real choice to live there in the first place. The Roberts had left a bad taste in my mouth. I wanted to shake myself free of them as much as I could.

Harry and I looked at an end-of-terrace house in Surrey.
We
both decided that it would be suitable, so we made an offer of £46,000 and it was accepted. Our old house sold for £43,000 shortly afterwards.

I was happy to move out and we all, including Thelma who was still with us, moved into the new house on December 8, 1984. No changes had to be made to Anthony’s school or Ronan’s nursery arrangements.

I just wanted some peace and quiet in my life.

* * * *

After things had settled down a bit and I was starting to feel better, we went to Ireland to visit Kit and Tony. Going to Thelma’s 21st party in Cloughaun GAA Club was also on the cards. Thelma had got caterers from Shannon Airport for the party and there was going to be a big crowd. We had come over by ferry with the boys and I picked Thelma up at the airport on the Friday. We brought her up home and my father came out to welcome us all, but my mother stayed at the door. I was helping the boys get out, as Thelma went ahead into the house. She was hugging and kissing my mother and the boys were waiting behind her. My mother completely ignored them, even though poor little Ronan, who was only four and a half and was looking for a kiss. I didn’t say anything, but I was furious. My father made us a cup of tea but we all felt uncomfortable. I told Anthony to take Ronan to Auntie Avril’s as we were staying there that night and she lived nearby. We left ourselves soon afterwards.

I went out that night with all my sisters for a drink at The George Hotel. It was quiet enough but I was glad to be there. It made me feel part of the family.

The next day I went shopping before the party. All the children were being looked after in Avril’s house. That night I got into my new clothes and we went up to the GAA Club.
Everyone
was in the bar watching the Barry McGuigan fight. My mother and father were greeting people at the door but I think my dad was more interested in the fight. I ignored my mother because of the day before. I just didn’t want to talk to her. She didn’t react. We went on into the main hall and helped ourselves at the buffet. We were sitting with some of my brothers and it felt a bit strange to be out in public with them all for more or less the first time.

I was starting to relax a bit when my father brought my mother over to try to force a reconciliation, but I could see she wasn’t interested. She said she didn’t want to talk to me. I’d had enough and saw red. I said I didn’t want to talk to her either, as she had hurt my children, who had done nothing to her, and that I wouldn’t put up with it. I was really angry. She had thrown me on the scrap-heap and had made it plain that she wished I’d never been born, but I wouldn’t allow her to hurt my children. She hated it. She forgot all about her pose as ‘a grand lady’ and lunged at me to slap me in the face. Niall, my second youngest brother, jumped up and pulled her back. He hustled her away before I could even say anything.

My Uncle Frank came over, put his arm around my shoulder, and said, ‘The last generation didn’t sort it, but the next one will.’

I was fuming and said, ‘Over my dead body. This is not going to be passed to another generation.’

Later that night my father talked me into going out to the car, with both him and my mother, to try to talk things through. It was a disaster. My mother slapped me across the face and he was crying. We were all so angry. I said things I didn’t even mean, like, ‘I’ll make you regret you ever had me.’ Nothing was resolved and I just wanted to go home.

It was the beginning of a breakdown in communications. There was less and less contact after that.

* * * *

Once we got back to London I just decided to focus on my own family, as they were the ones I could really trust. We all went back to our normal routines. It was actually relaxing to go back to work and just do everyday things like taking Anthony to school. My life seemed to be getting back to normal, but then my father rang up and suggested that they both come over for the weekend, to see their two daughters. I think my father really wanted to try to patch things up. I didn’t really want Mother to come over but at the same time I was so grateful that they were making the effort. So I said I’d be delighted if they came over. Nobody had told Thelma what happened at her birthday so she just thought it was a normal visit. Ronan got really excited at the idea of his grandparents coming over to see
him
again. I tried not to think about how mother had ignored him the last time and just kept agreeing that we’d have a great time.

Harry, Ronan and I went to Heathrow Airport to collect them. Ronan was off school that day because he was not well. He had what I thought was a tummy upset.

He seemed fine when we were greeting them but then he fell asleep in the car on the way home. That did not strike me as unusual or significant in any way. He often slept in the car and I just thought he was tired from all the excitement. When I mentioned to my mother that Ronan was a bit sick, she responded, ‘Why didn’t you tell us and we would not have come?’

To myself I said, ‘That is why I didn’t tell you, because I wanted you to come.’ Despite everything that had happened at Thelma’s 21st, I still longed for their acceptance.

We tried to do some tourist things on Saturday but there was a bit of an atmosphere and Thelma ended up having to work, which didn’t help. We got through it somehow and at least Ronan was feeling better.

On the Sunday we all went to mass and then on to a market to buy Christmas presents. The day went really well.
Ronan
was completely back to normal and the boys were delighted with the presents from their grandparents.

My parents returned home to Ireland the next day. In a way I was relieved to see them go, but in another way I wanted them to stay. All things considered, the weekend had gone really well and it had helped to get us all back talking to each other. We had even tentatively spoken about planning a visit to Ireland. I thought that things were looking up.

Later on that week, when I was taking Ronan home from school one evening, I noticed that he was dragging his right leg a little bit. ‘Did you fall at school, or did anyone kick you or hurt you?’ I asked immediately.

‘No,’ he said. I thought that he was walking ‘funny’. I asked him if he wanted a piggyback.

He said, ‘No.’ He was a very independent little boy. He just walked on in front of me as usual. The next day he seemed fine and was walking perfectly.

It seemed to be a one-off and over the next few weeks we got caught up in the madness before Christmas. I was really looking forward to it because that Christmas I was not working. On Christmas Eve Anthony was serving midnight mass, so I wanted us all to go as a family because it was Anthony’s big night. That included Thelma, especially as I wanted her to take photos of us all together. But she didn’t turn up. I was really upset because it was one of my few Christmas holidays off duty and it would have been lovely to have photos as a memory of Anthony’s special night. It was just one of those nights. I had bought a new outfit for Ronan but he would not wear it. He wanted to wear a pair of corduroy pants that my sister Eileen had bought for him. Eventually we all set off, without Thelma, but with Ronan’s new pants. I remember praying to let my brother Tommy Junior and his wife Marion have a baby because I was so lucky to have
two
children. I was asking God to let them have at least one.

Christmas Day arrived and the boys had got everything they wanted from Father Christmas. I saw the wonderment in Anthony’s and Ronan’s eyes as they opened all their presents. It was really lovely to see their faces. I wished that I had a movie camera to capture their excitement.

We went to our good friends for Christmas dinner. While we were there, Ronan got a little bit sick. He vomited and I thought that it was strange because he had not eaten much Christmas dinner. Besides that, Ronan always loved his food. He was even known to ask for seconds!

The next day, Boxing Day, he vomited again. I became really worried because it was so unlike Ronan, as he never used to get even a cold. Even then I put it down to all the different bits and pieces he had eaten, like sweets and chocolate, but I was concerned because he didn’t have diarrhoea, which would have indicated an upset stomach – I knew that the two usually go together.

When Christmas was over I decided enough was enough, and I took him to the doctor for a check-up. The doctor said that it was just a bug and that it would probably clear up. But the vomiting did not stop fully. He would vomit one day but maybe not the next. Then he started to vomit in the mornings. I immediately brought him back to the doctor. He was due to go back to school, so I was anxious that any illness would be cleared up, as I did not want him to miss classes.

The doctor decided to send him to the Infectious Disease Unit at St George’s Hospital. I asked the doctor if he thought it might be a virus. ‘When do children not get viruses?’ he replied, with an air of tiredness about him. He thought that he had another panicky mother on his hands.

I went off to St George’s with Ronan. They kept him in overnight and checked him over as much as possible. They
did
not consider that he had anything infectious so they moved him to ‘Pygmy Ward’, the paediatric unit, for further examination. I stayed in with him.