No One Wants You (34 page)

Once when he introduced me to his cousin he said, ‘This is Celine, this was our love-child that we kept hidden away.’ He had kind of laughed as he said it. It was as if he was trying to explain my long absence and my sudden appearance, and that it was all at once acceptable. But to me it was not acceptable. I was not just hidden away; I was consigned to a life of degradation from which, as a small child, I could not escape.

My father was gone. My mother and my siblings had the closeness of the family to support each other but I felt excluded.

After the funeral I went back to my mother’s house. She allowed me to undress her, get her ready for bed and generally look after her. It was the first time I thought that she might accept me. It was as if a heavy weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

It felt very strange indeed. I stayed in my brother Tommy’s house and went home a few days later. I wondered what the future would hold for my mother and I now.

TWENTY-THREE

New Answers

AFTER RONAN’S DEATH
and then my father’s, I really tried to bring some normality into my world. I just wanted to be doing normal, everyday things – like looking after Anthony and Harry, and working normal hours. But instead, I thought that I was going off my head.

Then Tony, who used to ring quite often after Kit’s death, died suddenly one day. We were all so shocked. I was not prepared for his death at all. I screamed and screamed when they told me he was dead, ‘Tony is dead and they bought me my first shoes.’ I was hysterical. His death was one of the deaths that really shocked me. He had gone for a walk with his dog, come back and sat down to have a rest. His sister found him dead just afterwards. I couldn’t stop screaming. I was back there again in Charleville, with the first new shoes I had ever owned.

I couldn’t stand it. Everything felt bad. My finances were disastrous. The sex side of my marriage was depressing me. I hated it. Previously when I was working nights, it was to escape the sex. I didn’t see it as Harry’s fault. He had a strong sexual appetite and, while I tried to accommodate him, I was unable to enjoy it. Now that I was not working nights, he wanted sex daily.

I had to get away. I decided to further my education. I
applied
to do a foundation course at King’s College, University of London. I was adamant to prove that I was not the stupid child that the nuns at the Mount Industrial School had said I was, when they denied me any further education at the age of 13 years. They said I was only good for peeling potatoes and carrots, and cleaning toilets.

I was accepted to do the course. With the sound of those educational judgements still ringing in my ears, I presented myself in the university halls for the first time. It was a big, old building and instead of a sense of awe, I had a feeling of pride as I walked the corridors. I was not nervous. How far I had come. From having no education as a child, I now wanted to be part of a university.

It felt good.

Even the language was different and alien to me. During the first lecture, the professor discussed how he would be giving us salient points, references and bibliographies. The terminology excited me. I wondered what the meaning of those new words could be. I couldn’t wait to get home and look up the meaning of a ‘salient’ point.

I was to bury myself in a university degree course in gerontology for the foreseeable future. I loved it. I could be me. It became my focus. I really used to study whenever I had spare time, be it late into the night or on my days off from work.

It became my sanity. I needed it because I was continually ambushed by my past. One time I was back in Waterford for a visit and I was at a dance with Harry. A friend came up to me and said they wanted to introduce me to a man and his wife from my home in Limerick. It was his eyes I recognised. It was the neighbour who had raped me all those years ago. He didn’t even look uncomfortable. I pretended everything was fine, but when Harry came over to meet them I was terrified he would invite them for a visit. I got through it somehow, but when we were walking away
Harry
asked me, ‘Aren’t you going to give them our address?’ We’d had other people over to stay in London and he thought it was the same thing. I just said no and kept walking. I’ve never been back in Waterford for a proper holiday since then, only for a day here and there.

I really loved studying for my degree and in a way I was almost disappointed when I graduated in 1993. I had done my finals and passed with credit. I had my presentation at Birkbeck College, University of London.

On the day, I was allowed to have two guests present. Anthony was one guest and I decided that I had to have my mother present. It was probably a subconscious urge for me to demonstrate to her how well I had done in life. I also wanted her to know firsthand of my academic achievement, above that of any of her other children. It was to prove to her that, despite her abandonment, I had proven myself to be better than any of them. I had come from a feeling of no worth to a feeling of proving myself beyond my wildest dreams. I wanted her there because I wanted her to be proud of me.

The day arrived but she was so bewildered over the whole event, I made no impact whatsoever. I felt that because she always dressed so elegantly, and certainly rose to every occasion, she might buy something new for my graduation. But she didn’t. In fact she almost dressed down for the occasion. She wore an old outfit, which she had often used for shopping trips.

The entire ceremony was way above her head. When the formal part was over, at a small reception I introduced her to one of my professors. As they talked briefly, I sensed her trying to take the glory of my triumph as she told the professor how she had educated ‘all her children’. She was not proud of me; she was just playing one of her games. I did not mind, I was well used to it by then. I knew Anthony was proud of me and I realised that she would never be, no matter what I achieved. But deep inside, one other person
was
proud of me. I was sort of shocked to experience it. I was proud of myself. It was a very new experience for me.

After my conferring, my mother never stayed at my home again. I think it was because she did not have to monitor what I said to my father any more. When my father was alive, it was as if I was a serious threat to their relationship. In case I came between them, in any possible way, she had to supervise him. She was not going to allow us to be alone together. If we did escape her vigilance and have a few moments together, she was not far away.

After my father died, I never stayed in my mother’s house again. It was as if anyone to whom I was acceptable was gone. There was no reason for me to go there again.

Whenever my mother or my siblings came to London, they all stayed at Thelma’s place. She was living over the pub they ran as a successful business. It reinforced to me that they were all part of a family and I was not.

A two-year period passed when I did not see my mother. We had no contact by phone either. Then one Friday in May, 1996, I was out shopping in the West End. When I returned home there was a message on the answer phone from Thelma to say that my mother had had a heart attack. In her message she made light of the fact, by saying that it was probably one of her pleas for sympathy. Even at this stage I was not used to Thelma’s sense of humour. She had left the phone number of the hospital in Limerick. I rang the hospital immediately and introduced myself as a ward sister, using my confident self-assured ward sister’s tone of voice. I wanted no beating around the bush, or being left on hold, this time.

‘Has she had an arrest?’

‘Yes.’

‘You obviously got her back then?’

‘Yes.’

‘My mother has had a previous history of heart trouble. Should I come home?’

‘Well, you and I both know that you should be thinking about it.’

‘That is all I want to know, thank you.’

I searched the travel agents frantically for a flight to Shannon. There were none available. There was one available to Dublin, so I took it.

Before I left for the airport I rang my cousin Tommy O’Sullivan, who lived in Malahide on the outskirts of Dublin, and told him what had taken place and why I was flying to Dublin. Tommy was a cousin on my father’s side of the family. He said that he would collect me at the airport and that I could stay at his house until the following day.

During the journey to Dublin my head was in a ‘tizz’. It was full of ‘what if she dies and I am not there’. I had a million questions and here I was to be stuck in Dublin overnight.

I remembered an old saying that Kit used to use, ‘If “ifs” and “ands” were pots and pans, there would be no need for tinkers.’

Tommy met me and wanted to take me home to his house.

‘No, I will get a cab from Dublin to Limerick,’ I said

‘That is all the way across the country, it will cost a bloody fortune.’

‘I don’t care what it costs, I am going to Limerick tonight.’

He must have realised that he was dealing with a hysterical woman, so without giving out to me, he calmly said that he would drive me to Limerick himself. I have never forgotten that generosity and have always found him and his family to be very accepting of me. I had done nothing to deserve their acceptance, but once I appeared on the scene I felt whole-heartedly acceptable to their family.

We arrived at St John’s Hospital Limerick at 3 am. Tommy Junior and Avril, my sister, were there. When my mother saw me she was somewhat disoriented. She thought that I was
over
in Ireland on holiday. She was a bit phased out with everything that had happened.

When I saw her, I knew that it was the end. She had a myocardial infarction. In other words she had suffered a major heart attack. She was very frail-looking and had no fight left in her. There would be no going back, no getting well for her.

We all left the hospital at 4 am. My cousin Tommy drove off back to Dublin and I went to stay the night at Tommy Junior’s house.

The next day, Saturday, Darren my nephew was being confirmed in the Catholic Church. It was a big family occasion and everyone was invited but I didn’t go. Instead I went to the hospital and stayed with my mother. She drifted in and out of sleep all day. I had polite small talk with her. She was not well enough to have any deep conversations. I had loads of questions to ask her. I wanted answers.

One of the times as she drifted off, she mumbled, ‘Ronan is with me.’

You never saw such speed. I sprang out of my chair to her side, ‘What, where, where?’ I realised she was hallucinating and sat down in my chair, with a slow exhale of breath.

Her cardiologist came to see her.

I said to him, ‘My mother looks very precarious. She is very erratic.’

He said, ‘You’re right, she has been bad for a couple of years.’

I wasn’t prepared for how ill she really was.

I said to him, ‘This is it?’

He pursed his lips and silently nodded assent.

During one of her lucid moments I asked her if she would come and live with me in London where I could look after her. She said she would. I felt she was being her usual self. She would say anything to get out of a difficult situation.

I asked her if she wanted to talk about anything. I asked
her
if she wanted a priest. My perception of what she might want to talk about and hers might have been different.

The priest came.

She asked to see him alone. He left without speaking to me. She never told me what she had said to him. I never saw him again. The Irish clergy were never very empathetic towards me.

I left her for a short time and joined the other family members for lunch at the confirmation celebrations. After eating, I went straight back to the hospital. I felt that I wanted to be with her until the end. I knew that she would die. It was only a matter of a few short hours and I did not want her to die alone.

About 7 pm that evening, I went back to Tommy Junior’s home to freshen up before the long night vigil to come. While I was at his house, I was informed that Avril had phoned to say that the nurses at the hospital had said that our mother needed rest.

I wanted to get back to the hospital but Tommy Junior thought that it was better not to go. I went along with that decision, grudgingly. I was sure that she was going to die in a few short hours.

My head began to race. Were my siblings conspiring against me, to prevent me from being with my dying mother? Why didn’t they want me to be there? Did they not realise that I would know what a dying person would need? As a nurse, I know that when someone is just about to die, it can make such a difference to have someone there with you as you slip out. Rest was little use to her at this stage. I wasn’t going to prevent her from resting; I just wanted to be with her when she died. Was I the only one who knew that she was dying? Maybe they thought that I might be a bit hysterical or over the top.

I went to bed, but no sleep came. At 4 am, the phone
extension
in my room rang. I grabbed it immediately. It was the hospital. They told me that my mother had died. I was raging. I felt that Avril, alone, or in collusion with some of my siblings, had prevented me from being where I wanted to be. I should have been assertive, jumped in a cab and gone back to the hospital. I wasn’t with her when she died because I didn’t want to antagonise my siblings. I kept it all in and told Tommy Junior and Marion she was dead and we went to the hospital.

I remember thinking, ‘Oh God, she is gone.’

I was angry that she had brought ten children into the world and that she had died alone.

I came out of the ward, rushed down the stairs on my own and shouted, ‘It is all so bloody unfair.’

I wanted more time, to say what there was to say.

I told her that I loved her, many times.

I wanted her to tell me that she loved me.

She never said it.

Her body was taken to the undertakers on Sunday evening. She was buried next to my father at Mount Oliver’s Cemetery, on the Tuesday.

I came home to London on the Wednesday. I took the whole week off work to recover.