The Girl Nobody Wants: A Shocking True Story of Child Abuse in Ireland (20 page)

I became depressed and I felt sad for myself. I told Daisy that she would be the next one to go, but she said, ‘Don’t you worry, I won’t leave you.’ Then we both went looking for Simon and when we found him we said that we were the three musketeers and that we would stick together forever and we all promised each other that we would never leave the home without each other. I looked at Simon and Daisy, and I said all for one and one for all, and then we all shouted it out together as loud as we could, letting all the staff and nuns know how we felt about each other. Then we marched through the house, shouting out as loud as we could that we would never leave without each other.

But the next day, one of the nuns came into our room and she told us that Chris was going to be leaving the institution soon and then she left the room smiling. At that moment, I decided that I would run away, I just couldn’t stick it any longer, but Daisy didn’t want to go, so I decided to take Simon and another little boy and girl from the home with me. And the next morning, we left early, we should have been going to school, but I knew it was my only chance to get away before anyone realized we had gone. I had decided to head home back to daddy, and as we walked along the road, we all held hands and we headed up along the Waterford road and in the direction of daddy’s village. I had decided that we would hitchhike, as daddy’s house was a long way away, and I knew that by just walking it would have taken us a whole day to get there.

We walked and walked; and after a couple of hours, a car pulled up and a man gave us a lift part of the way and eventually we made it to daddy’s house. We walked up along the cobbled path towards his house and I couldn’t believe it; he was there and he was as shocked to see me as I was to see him, and he cuddled Simon and me. We went into the house and we sat down, then I began telling him all about the nuns and staff and what they had been doing to us over the years; but within a couple of hours, the police came knocking at the door and daddy hid us all in the kitchen. They had come to the house to tell daddy that we were missing, but as they entered the house, they realized that they had found us; and after they spoke to daddy, they took us all back to the home.

As soon as we got back, a member of the staff took me into the dining room and gave me a beating that I will never forget and I thought I was going to die. However, I was so used to the beatings that she had to hit me harder and harder so that she could get some kind of reaction from me and the satisfaction of seeing me twitch with pain. After the beating, she dragged me to my room and she left me lying on the floor. I was too upset to get up and I just lay there for hours, trying to think of ways that I could get them back. But it didn’t matter as she had locked the door and I couldn’t get out of the room. And I had to spend two weeks there, with all the windows and the door locked shut, and I had no company. The air in the room was hot and stale and for days I tried to open the window, but I couldn’t as they had screwed wooden blocks to the window frame so that I could not open it and run away. And they kept the bedroom door locked shut from the outside and they only opened it to allow my brother and sister in at bedtime, so they could sleep; and then in the morning, after they went to school, the nuns would lock the door again and I would be all alone once more.

One day, while I was locked in the bedroom, I began to have pains in my belly and, as the pains got worse, I shouted for the staff to open the door and to help me. I banged on the bedroom door, but no one came, so I lay on my bed and I waited for the pain to go away, but it never did. And within a couple of hours of me lying down on my bed, I fell asleep; and when I woke up, I thought I had wet my bed, but as I looked down I realised that I had started to bleed from between my legs. The bed sheets were soaked with blood and I became frightened and scared, so I got up and I ran over to the bedroom door; again, I shouted for the staff, but still no one came. I sat back on my bed and I prayed to God, but nothing happened.

I sat there and I thought I was going to die, the blood kept dripping out of me and I used my clothes to soak it up, and I kept my legs closed together, hoping it would stop the bleeding. I screamed out loud, begging for someone to help me, but still no one came and I began to cry, as I didn’t want to be alone when my life finished; but I was alone, so I curled up on the floor and I waited for my life to end. Hours passed and it was now evening and I was still alive, but my hands were covered in blood, I looked a mess and my clothes were covered in blood too. I looked up at the window and it was now dark outside, then I heard the noise of keys rattling as a nun came to the door to give me my dinner.

And as she opened the door and walked in, she dropped everything; all she could see was me standing in front of her covered in blood and she thought I had done something to myself. I stood looking up at her and then I told her that I was dying, and she almost fainted as I explained to her that I was bleeding from between my legs and that it wouldn’t stop. She looked at me and then she said that it was nothing and that I was a stupid bloody girl and then she walked away.

I begged her to stay and help me, but she just walked away, locking the bedroom door behind her. And all I could do was listen through the door as she walked down the stairs. I picked the food up off the floor and ate what I could and then sat on my bed, not knowing what to do. I was still bleeding when one of the nuns came back and opened the door again, and as I looked up, Daisy came into the room and, as she looked over at me, I began to cry and all she could see was my blood-covered body and clothes. I told Daisy that I was bleeding and that I was going to die, but then she smiled at me and she told me all about periods. I had no idea what she was talking about, as no one had ever told me about periods, growing up, having sex or even about where babies came from, and most of it was all a big shock to me.

Daisy then left the bedroom and when she returned she handed me a sanitary pad, and she said that it was the only one that she had and that the staff and nuns would not give her any more for weeks. She said that I had to put it between my legs and, when it was all wet and dripping with blood, I had to keep using it again and again. ‘That’s disgusting’, I said and I told her that I couldn’t, but she said that the nuns and staff would get angry if we asked them for more pads, so I used the pad and it felt strange; and when it got all wet, I put it on the side to dry out and then I used it again. But after a couple of days, it fell apart, so Daisy had to go and steal one for me.

I couldn’t believe what I had to do and I was so embarrassed about my periods that I hid them from the staff and nuns for almost a year, before finally telling them that I needed pads. But they already knew and they didn’t care if I asked for a pad or not. I was too embarrassed at having to wash out the pads that I just couldn’t do it any longer, and even then they only gave me one a month and I had to steal more if I needed them.

CHAPTER 9

Getting Them Back

Now the time had come for me to go to secondary school and the only school available to me was an all girls’ school run by the nuns, but I didn’t want to go as I hated school and everything to do with it. I hated the place, the people and even the lessons; no one had ever tried to educate me properly, and I was always behind in lessons and the nuns always made me sit at the back of the classroom like a dummy, ignored by everyone and out of the teacher’s way. And now it was too late for me and I was not interested in school anymore; I still had to go to school, and once there I still had trouble sitting at the back of the classroom all day with nothing to do and it was driving me mad. Plus the nuns were getting fed up with me and they made it obvious, with them giving me dirty looks whenever our eyes would meet in the class.

The only two men allowed inside the school grounds was the maintenance man and the headmaster Mr Williams, and Mr Williams absolutely hated me and every single girl in St Josephs. Over the years, everyone had forgotten that I had parents and it seemed like everyone around me hated me and thought of me as an inconvenience to them, and no one ever had time for me. I had been put in the home and in my position because of my parents’ inability to look after me and not because I was a bad person, but no one seemed to understand that, and they all blamed me for the position I was in. Mr Williams especially hated me, because I didn’t care about anything or anyone anymore, and the fact that I had no respect for him or his school made my situation even worse.

Every morning when I arrived at the school, the nuns would make me pray. They would make me pray for forgiveness, for all the sins that I had committed against them, and they would tell me to stand up and pray, but I wouldn’t; I would stay sitting in protest against all the praying they made me do over the years. I was sick of praying for myself and I was sick of praying for them, I had been praying for the last eight years and now I was sick of it. So I decided that the day had come and I was going to tell everyone what I thought of them, and I did. I told the nuns that I was not going to pray for them anymore and I told them that I hated them and their school, and their stupid way of life.

The nuns were shocked and furious with me and, from that day on, they would find any excuse, no matter how small, to send me to Mr Williams; and it was just so they could get their own back on me. And once I was alone in Mr Williams’ office, he would shout at me, saying that I was an ungrateful, worthless little girl that didn’t deserve anything, and he would make me write lines as a punishment, knowing full well that I was unable to read or write properly. And if the nuns told him that I had been a very bad girl, he would take me into his office and lock me in a broom cupboard for the rest of the day that was in the corner of the room.

I would have to stand in the small dark space and I would have to knock on the cupboard door if I wanted to go to the toilet; and if he didn’t answer or open the cupboard door, I would have to stand and wait in the cupboard until home time. Then, just before he left his office to go home, he would unlock the door and let me out and I would have to run to the toilet before I wet myself. Almost every day the nuns would tell him that I was a bad girl and I just couldn’t take it anymore.

So, one day at lunchtime and before they sent me to Mr Williams again, I decided that I had had enough, so I got my bike out of the bike shed. I was going to ride out of the school and home; but as I got my bike out of the shed, Mr Williams ran towards me, shouting at me as he got closer, ‘Where do you think you’re going, Lily?’ And he shouted at me to put the bike back in the shed and to get back inside the school. I didn’t reply to him and I kept walking with my bike, as if I hadn’t heard him, and he shouted again, ‘If you walk out of that gate, you’re going to be expelled.’ I smiled to myself. I was so happy to hear him say that, that I almost turned around and said thanks. But instead, I just kept walking out of the schoolyard, pushing my bike with me.

He was furious and he shouted at me again, ‘Stop’, but I didn’t; I got on my bike and I began to peddle. He was in such a temper that he ran over to the car park and then he got into his car. I looked back at him and I began to peddle as fast as I could, as I knew he was going to come after me. I managed to get a head start on him and I rode along the road and through some red traffic lights, knowing that he couldn’t follow me until the lights turned green.

Then I rode between two cars and they skidded to a halt, just missing each other and me as I cycled between them and out the other side, without them squashing me. The two drivers shouted at me and beeped their horns, but I just kept peddling. I knew Mr Williams was close behind me, but I never looked back, I just knew I had to get away from him as fast as possible. I rode up and over the pavement and I cut across the corner of the road, trying to get some distance between us and I could hear his car skidding as he turned the corner and began to gain ground on me.

So I rode through another set of red lights, peddling even faster and he had to stop for the traffic lights again. I carried on peddling and I could see the convent up ahead. I knew that if I just kept going, I could reach the gates before he could catch up with me and I did. I rode through the open gates and I headed for the front door, dropping my bike and running the last few yards towards the front door, screaming as loud as I could for the nuns to open the door. I never looked back, but I heard his car pull up and then him running up behind me. But as he got closer to me, the front door of the convent opened and I ran inside.

He was furious and he wanted to kill me, but one of the nuns stood in front of him and she politely told him to step away from the door. He went crazy and pushed his way past her and then he ran inside, chasing me through the hall and into the kitchen, then he ran around the kitchen table after me. I stopped at one side of the table and then I made horrible faces at him, sticking my tongue out at him and laughing up into his face from across the table, while the nun shouted at him, ‘Mr Williams, you can’t do that to a child. Get out now’, she said.

Then I shouted to the nun, telling her that he was locking me in a broom cupboard at school and he was keeping me there all day every day. He looked over at me and he shouted at the nun that I was a horrible, nasty little girl and that I was now expelled from the school. She said, ‘Yes well, good, that’s fine and now get out of the house.’ He was furious and he continued shouting and swearing at the nun, telling her that I was the devil’s child and that he wanted to kill me. However, the nun shouted back at him and eventually he had to leave the convent, and I never went back to school again and the nuns gave up on me ever going back again.