The Girl Nobody Wants: A Shocking True Story of Child Abuse in Ireland (23 page)

CHAPTER 10

Going Home

I was going to be old enough to leave the home soon, so I made the decision to go back home to London England, as I wanted to be with my mum, and I asked the nuns if I could send a letter to my sister who lived in London and they said yes. I couldn’t send a letter to my mum, as she couldn’t read. I was sending a begging letter from me to her, begging her to take Daisy, Simon and me into her house if we left the institution. And the other reason I sent the letter was because the nuns were at the point of splitting us all up, and I was afraid that I would never see Simon alive again.

In the letter, I pleaded with my sister to send a letter to the nuns if she agreed to take us, and I wrote to her once a week every week for months, hoping she would reply; but nothing, no letters, no phone calls, not a thing from anyone in my family. In my last desperate attempt, I wrote to my mother, telling her that I hated her for sending us away when we were small children and I said that I never wanted to see her again, but it didn’t work and no one ever replied.

The penny finally dropped, no one wanted us, and I felt so sad and I did not know what to do next. We were abandoned, unwanted children. Finally, I approached the head nun of St Joseph’s and a member of the social services, to see if they could do something for us and they said yes. They said they would send my mother an official letter on headed paper, asking her if she would take us in, as we were now at an age to be considered for release. God, it made us sound like prisoners and it was not far from the truth. The nun sent the letter off to our mother in London, explaining that her three children were now twelve, thirteen and fourteen years old and they were now ready to go home to her.

My mother received the letter and after getting someone to read it to her, she thought it might be a good way for her to get more money out of the government, London’s Brent council and the social services. She thought she could get more child benefit and a raise in her unemployment benefit and income support if she brought us over, and then told the social services that we were staying with her. So she took the letter the nuns had sent her, she went to Brent social services with it and she asked them if they could help her and they said, ‘Yes, of course we can’; they said that if we were all staying with her then they would arrange all the extra benefits for her. And because she was unable to read or write, she asked London’s Brent social services to send a letter back to Ireland, and she asked them to arrange everything for her and they did. They sent letters to the head nun at the institution, and between all of them they made the arrangements with the courts for us to be released and sent to England, and all done without anyone ever stepping a foot inside a courtroom or speaking to us.

We never knew a thing about what was going on, until two days before we left the home when the nuns told us that we were all leaving together. God, we were so happy. I had always told Simon that I would never leave the home without him and now I was going to keep my promise to him. The nuns were happy we were leaving, so they gathered up all the children that were left in the home and they had us all stand together while they took a group photo of us. And we could tell that the nuns and staff could not wait to get rid of us; and for the rest of the day, the nuns walked around as if God himself had arrived.

The day came and at 6 am a social worker arrived at our house; the staff had already packed our bags and the nuns were all waiting downstairs for us, while a member of the staff got us ready. After almost ten years at the home, we were finally leaving and I had butterflies in my belly. I was so excited, but also afraid at the thought of what might happen to us when we walked outside. We slowly walked down the stairs and towards the front door and, as I got to the door, one of the nuns handed me a small single suitcase; after all those years, all I had was a single suitcase that was half-empty, I didn’t even have enough belongings to fill it. I didn’t even want the thing, but I took it, just so that I could get out of there as quickly as possible.

I looked at the nuns and I laughed at them as I walked past them and out the front door to freedom; and once outside, even the morning air smelt different. I know it was probably because it was six in the morning, but it didn’t matter to me; it still smelt different and I liked it. I screamed as loud as I could and then Simon, Daisy and I got into a waiting car and, within a couple of seconds, the car drove off. I looked back through the car window and I could see all the nuns walking back into the house and not one of them bothered to turn around and wave goodbye to us; and I was so happy as they walked back into their prison.

On the way to the ferry, the social worker drove like a lunatic. He could not have gone much faster without causing an accident and we all slid from one side of the car to the other as he drove around the corners like a mad man. Then we all fell back into the seat as he sped up and headed towards the docks; he was driving like he had the devil in the back of the car, but it was only us and we all thought it was funny. God only knows what the nuns must have told him, because all he kept doing was to look at us through the rear view mirror and then mumble to himself something about the devil, God and late. And he clung on to the steering wheel as if his life depended on getting us to the docks and out of Ireland forever and he never once spoke to us.

It took a while to reach the docks; and when he finally pulled up, he swiftly opened the door and told us all to get out. The nuns had given us absolutely nothing, no money and no food or water, only the tickets for the ferry and the train back to London England, but we didn’t care, we were so excited about getting on the ferry that we forgot all about everything else going on. We moved out of the way of the car and the driver got back in and then he drove off, leaving us standing in the middle of the dock road.

We didn’t know what to do, so we walked up towards a big crowd of people that were standing around and I spoke to a man in a uniform who was a boarding officer. I showed him the tickets the nuns had given us and he allowed us to walk on to the ferry. Once on board, Simon and myself spent most of the journey playing tag, running around and causing a nuisance to all the other passengers; and after a while, the ferry staff asked us to calm down a bit and they kept an eye on us for the rest of the journey. Daisy just sat down for the whole journey, as all the things Simon and I got up to were embarrassing her.

When we arrived in England, we had to go through customs and it was all a bit too much for us; we got confused with the whole situation, and a couple of police officers noticed us. They walked over to us and they took us out of the queue and over to one side, then they helped us with our things until we got out of the departure area and into the exit hall, where we met our sister’s husband Fred and one of our brothers, Chris. They had both travelled from London to pick us up and to take us back to our mother’s house in London. I was so happy to see Chris, but I hardly recognised him as he had changed so much and grown up.

After we all said hi to each other, we headed towards the train station and we got on the next train to London. The journey was going to take over seven hours, so we all sat down and we talked for a while, then I told Chris and Fred that we had not eaten all day, so they both got up and they went and bought us a few bits to eat from the buffet car on the train. Then Fred came and sat down beside me, he took out some playing cards from his pocket and then, smiling at me, he asked me if I remembered him. I looked at him and I said no. We played cards together and he gave me a lot of attention playing tag and had, with him chasing me up and down the length of the train. I was having a lot of fun, but Chris just sat on the seat with a very serious face and he hardly moved an inch.

After a while, I sat back down again and Fred and I played snap with the cards again, then Fred went and got me a hot chocolate drink. I thought it was nice of him and I continued playing cards with him, while he moved closer to me and eventually he sat right next to me. He was very nice to me and I could not remember the last time anyone gave me as much attention as he gave me then. After a while, I got up and I headed to the toilets; but as I walked off, Fred got up too, and he followed me along the train, trying to play had with me as I walked through the carriages.

Then he ran in front of me and he began to run in and out of the toilets, opening and closing the toilet doors and just playing around, and as I got level with the toilet, he pushed the toilet door open and then he pushed me inside. He then ran into the toilet and forced his body up against mine, forcing himself between my legs; and before I had a chance to push him away, he stuck his tongue into my mouth. And with that, I just stood back and looked him straight in the face and suddenly it all came rushing back to me, and I instantly remembered who he was and what he had done to me many years before back in London, when I was a child.

The very second his hands touched me, everything started to rush back and I was shocked and I felt sick. I moved back away from him, thinking this is the same man that abused me. Oh my God, I could not believe it, I had only been out of the institution for a few hours and already someone was trying to touch me and sexually abuse me all over again. Words could not explain how shocked I felt and I had trouble speaking. I pushed him away from me, I opened the toilet door and I ran back down the train towards Chris, Daisy and Simon, and I sat down next to them. Chris looked at me with a very serious face and I could tell that something must have happened to him on the journey up to meet us.

My mind was racing and all I could do was think back to what Fred had done to me when I was a child, all those years ago back in London; it was the same person and he had tried to touch me again, here right now on the train. What the fuck’s going on? I thought. Why me, what have I done to deserve this? I sat on the seat, held my head with both hands, pushed my head back against the back of the seat and I took a deep breath; and I would not move off the seat and neither would Chris. The dirty bastard must have tried to do something to Chris on the train, I thought to myself, and for the rest of the journey I didn’t move an inch.

I never once got off the seat and all I could think about was what he had done to me all that time ago when I was a little girl. It had all come back to me, every last thing that he had done to me. Straight away, I knew I did not want to go back to England and all I wanted was to go home back to Ireland and back to Willows. I felt sick and my belly felt like someone had just punched me hard into it. I had no one to help me, no one to turn to and all I wanted was to go home, but I couldn’t. I felt like I wanted to pull all of my hair out of my head with frustration. And all Fred did was sit opposite me and look at me with a dirty smile on his face.

When the train arrived at Paddington station, my head was still hurting and it felt like it was going to burst, my mind was racing through all the things that had happened to me when I was just a baby. And as I got off the train and I began to walk along the platform, my head began to spin, I had to stop, and then I vomited. I stood still for a moment and everyone stopped and looked at me. I lifted my head and I told everyone that it was the lack of food on the train that had caused me to be sick and that I would be ok in a moment.

But all I could do was think about what was going to happen to me if I went back to my mum’s house with Fred. I wiped the sick from my mouth with the back of my hand and, as we walked out of the train station, Fred said that we were going to get a cab to mum’s house, as it would be quicker than taking the underground train. We all said ok and as we got into the cab, Fred sat next to me and I almost screamed; but instead I just froze, and I could feel myself turning pale at the shock of him rubbing his body against mine as he sat down next to me. Him sitting next to me was the last thing on earth that I wanted and all he did was go on about me coming over and staying with him and Tracy at their house. I said nothing and I never once looked at him; all I wanted was to get out of the cab and as far away from him as possible.

When we arrived at mum’s house, we all got out of the cab and walked towards the house, not knowing what to expect. The door opened, and as I walked through the front door and into the living room, all my other brothers and sister were standing in the room waiting for us. And I could see Jim, my step dad, and his two children, my step brothers that my mother had given birth to while we were in Ireland, all standing in the middle of the room, waiting to greet us.

Then within an instant, everything that Jim had done to me came flooding back. I recognised him straight away and my heart almost exploded with the shock of having to face him again. My mind was racing and I was thinking through all the things that Jim had done to me when I lived with him and mum; and within a second, I must have gone through everything that happened to me a thousand times, everything flashed inside my head at the speed of light. And within that single moment, I had the sensation of my head being pushed under the water and the choking feeling that I felt as I swallowed water from the cold bath. Even the taste of the mustard that Jim had forced into my mouth all those years ago came rushing back to me and I felt sick.

I looked around for a place to sit down and in the corner of the room was a wooden stool. I walked over to it and sat myself down and looked over at Fred and Jim. Then my hands began to shake and I could feel myself turning pale again; cold sweat ran down my face onto my lap, and I felt like I was going to faint. I had completely forgotten all about everything that the both of them had done to me, but now I couldn’t stop thinking about what they had done to me over ten years ago; I was right back where it all started in London, and now I was sitting opposite the same people who had abused me back then. And now they were both standing in front of me, telling me how happy they were for me to be back with them and how they had all missed me so much. I felt sick, I felt like I wanted to die, and I wished I had been back in Ireland with the nuns.