The Girl Nobody Wants: A Shocking True Story of Child Abuse in Ireland (28 page)

My baby was now six months old and because of him, I was able to make a few new friends with some of the local young girls and nobody ever took any notice of me bringing my baby into the local pubs with me. Most people were happy to see me with my baby and they would all treat me very nice; and the girls would play with my baby, picking him up and feeding him for me. They would change his nappy for me as if he was one of their own, and it made me feel very happy.

Then, after a couple of weeks of me getting to know my new friends, they invited me out for a drink with them to a local pub for a girls’ night out, so I went and I took my baby with me. It wasn’t much, just the same few girls, but it felt great being invited out by them and I felt happy. The girls made me feel like I was one of them, and as the evening went on a few of the girls got a bit drunk and they began to act a bit silly; and then one of them said that she wanted a photo of us all together with the baby, but none of us had a camera. However, one of the girls said that her brother had a camera back at her mum’s flat and she lived right next door to the pub; and because I was the only one not drinking, she said that it would be better if I went to her mum’s and got the camera from the flat. They said that they would all look after my baby for me while I got the camera and she told me the flat number and her brother’s name and off I went to get the camera.

It was only 7 pm, but it was already getting dark and a bit cold outside, so I wrapped myself up and I went off to her mum’s. Thinking nothing of it, I knocked on the door and her dad answered. ‘Is Tony in? I need to get a camera from him’, I said. And he said, ‘Yes, but he is in bed.’ ‘That’s ok. Can I go and get the camera from him, because his sister told me to get it.’ ‘Ok’, he said. Then he told me to come in and go up the stairs to his room.

I walked up the stairs and, as I knocked on his bedroom door, I walked straight in; the room was pitch black and I couldn’t see a thing, so I put my hand against the wall, I felt for the light switch and within a second I found it and switched the light on. He was lying on the bed fully dressed and he was almost asleep; I stood in the doorway looking at him and then he lifted his head and looked over at me. And before he could say a word to me, I said, ‘Do you have a camera? Your sister said you have one.’

Then I recognised him, he was the same man who had tried to talk to me back at my sister’s house six or seven months earlier, when I was pregnant and miserable. And I remembered the look that I had given him back then and, within an instant, I felt my face turning red with embarrassment. He looked puzzled, and then he said yes, but he didn’t know where it was; so I said, ‘Not to worry. But if you find it, can you bring it down to the pub, as I am having a drink in there with your sister?’ He said, ‘Yes, ok’ and then I said ok and I walked out of the room, closing the door behind me. As I left the flat, I smiled to myself and then I walked back down to the pub, hoping that he would bring the camera down to us.

And within twenty minutes, he was standing at the entrance of the pub looking in. I stood up and waved to him to come in and as he walked towards me I smiled at him; he smiled and sat down next to me. ‘I found the camera’, he said, and we all just laughed. I said thanks, he handed me the camera, and then he said that he had to leave as he had some things to do and then he had to go training; then he got up and left the pub. He seemed nice and now that I had become friends with his sister, I hoped that we would be seeing each other again, and I had an idea that we would. And because I was spending more time hanging around the area, it wasn’t long before we bumped into each other again.

I was walking along the street with my baby in my pushchair when someone on a huge motorcycle beeped their horn as they went past me; and as I looked over, I realised that it was Tony on the bike. I smiled and then I waved at him, and he did a u-turn in the road and stopped his bike next to me; then we said hi to each other. He asked me how I was and, for a moment, I felt like I wanted to tell him everything about my life, but I just said that I was fine and before he left I asked him if he wanted to come to the pub later that evening; and he said yes, then he said goodbye and rode off.

Later that evening, I went to the pub with the girls and I sat there waiting for hours and I thought he wasn’t going to turn up, but I never told the girls that he was coming just in case he let me down. Then a couple of hours before closing time, he walked in and we all spent the rest of the evening talking and having fun together; and once the pub closed, we all said our goodbyes and I walked off home, pushing my baby all the way home on my own. I didn’t mind walking by myself because I was happy, but it was a long way home, about three miles and the evening was cold and dark; but I always walked home on my own, so it didn’t bother me.

The next day, I spent a couple of hours hanging around with Tony’s sister and she told me a few things about him; she said that he spent most of his time working and travelling around Europe on his motorcycle. And when he was home in London, all he ever did was go to the gym and train with weights. Then she said that she would get him to come down to the pub again that evening, and I spent the rest of the day just waiting around for the evening to come.; and this time, he arrived a little earlier and I felt happy that I had someone to talk to.

We spent most of the evening talking to each other about all sorts of things and I completely forgot all about everyone else sitting around me. And as we all left the pub at closing time, Tony asked me why I was always walking home on my own. Then he said that he didn’t think it was very safe for someone as young as me to be walking home on my own, with a baby in a pushchair. I said I was fine and that I had been walking home on my own for a very long time and nothing bad had happened to me yet.

Then Tony asked me about my boyfriend and why he wasn’t walking me home, and I said that my boyfriend was off doing his own thing. Then I said bye and I began to walk home. ‘Would you like me to walk you home?’ I turned around and Tony asked me again, ‘Would you like me to walk you home?’ ‘No thanks’, I said. ‘I will be fine.’ But before I could get any further along the street, Tony said, ‘Come on, I will get you a cab. You can’t be expected to walk all the way on your own and your baby needs to get home.’ I said, ‘No, I will be fine’, but he had already stuck his hand out and he was stopping a black cab. ‘Come on, I will help you with the pushchair.’ And he opened the door of the cab and helped me push the pushchair into the back of the cab, then we both got in the back and we chatted all the way back to my hotel.

On the way back, I asked him more about himself and then I asked him his age; he said that he was twenty-six years old and that he worked for a film studio, working on generators and film equipment, and it sounded like he was good with his hands. But he didn’t seem to want to tell me too much about himself, and he seemed to be the type of person who kept his affairs private.

When we arrived at the hotel, he helped me out of the cab with the pushchair and within a second he was back in the cab. I said thanks and he said, ‘No problem, you’re very welcome’, then he closed the door, the cab drove off and he was gone. I walked into the hotel and up to my room, and when I opened the door, Tim was sitting on the bed waiting for me. I looked at him and he asked me where I had been all night and I told him that I was at the pub with the girls. He looked at me and then he spent the rest of the evening playing with our baby and I went to bed.

The next day was the same as all the rest, with Tim going out early and me being left alone with my baby; so as usual, I went around to the girls. But I didn’t see Tony, he must have been at work or something. I spent the next few days doing the same things as usual and I wandered from one sister’s house to another; and in the evenings, I went to the pub to see my friends.

Then one evening, as I was about to walk home, Tony came walking along the road. I smiled at him and, as he got closer to me, he smiled back at me and he stopped and asked me how I was. And after a couple of minutes talking, he asked me if he could walk me home and I said yes. The walk back to the hotel took about 45 minutes and, for most of the time, he asked me things about my baby and myself; and he said that he could not understand why I was still walking home on my own, so late at night. Then, as we got to the door of the hotel, he said goodbye and then he was gone again. And I thought to myself, ‘That’s life’ and I went up to my room feeling very sorry for myself. I liked Tony and even though he had just left I felt like we were a thousand miles apart.

The next day, I went back around to my sister’s, but I didn’t see Tony anywhere. For the next couple of weeks, I continued going to my sister’s flats day after day, hoping to bump into him, but he just didn’t seem to be around the area; so I decided to go and see Tony’s sister at her mum’s flat. I wasn’t missing him, but I was wondering what he was up to, but he wasn’t there either; so after a couple of hours, I asked her about him, and she said that he was off somewhere in Europe, riding around on his motorcycle. ‘Ah that’s nice’, I said and at the end of the evening I went home.

When I opened the door to my room, I walked in and I was all alone again. I sat on the end of the bed and I looked over at my baby, then I picked him up out of his pushchair, I put him on the bed next to me, and we both fell to sleep. When I woke up, it was three in the morning and Tim still hadn’t come home, so I got into bed and I closed my eyes, wishing that my life was different; but it wasn’t. This was it, this was my life and I had to make the best of it.

For the next few weeks, I hardly saw Tim as he spent most of his time hanging around with my family, and his behaviour towards me made me feel fed up all the time. Then one afternoon, as I was walking along Kilburn high road, I saw Tony ride past me on his bike; it was easy for me to spot him because he had the biggest motorcycle I had ever seen. It was a Honda Goldwing and he had music playing on it, and he must have seen me too because he stopped in the middle of the street, did a u-turn and pulled up next to me and we both looked at each other. Him on his bike and me with my pushchair and I had butterflies in my belly. We both spoke at the same time and then we both laughed as he asked me how I was. And after a quick conversation, we arranged to meet up later at the pub, and then he said that he had to go and he rode off and I walked home happy.

That evening, I went to the pub and after an hour Tony walked through the door and he sat next to me; and from that moment on, he would meet me every evening and escort me and my baby home. Then, after a couple of weeks, he began to buy me things that I needed for the baby, like nappies and food and I liked it. At first, I said no to him and I told him to stop buying me things, but I was beginning to like him even more than I thought I would and I was happy that he was helping me. But I still wasn’t sure how he felt about me and every time he left me outside the hotel I felt sad and lonely and I missed him.

He never once tried to do anything inappropriate and he never once said a word out of place; he would just make sure that my baby and I had everything that we needed and that we got home safely, then he would say goodnight and leave us standing outside the hotel. So I decided that I had to do something to see if he liked me the way I liked him and I decided to meet him in the pub on my own. And the next day, I asked one of my sisters if she would look after my baby for me while I went out and she said yes.

So off I went to the pub and I waited; then just before closing time and just as I expected he came through the door to walk me home. I jumped up and, before he could say a word, I told him that my sister was looking after the baby for the night, so we can walk home together. He smiled at me and he said ok, but instead of him walking me in our usual direction, he stopped at the end of the street and he asked me if I would like to go home on the back of his bike and I said yes. He said that his bikes were parked in his garage just across the road, so we walked over to his garage and I stood back as he opened the garage door; then he walked into the darkness and for a moment everything was silent. I stood still and I wondered what he was doing, and with a loud screech of the bike engine, the garage lit up from the bright lights of the bike, and then he backed the bike out of the garage.

It was the first time that I had seen his bike at night and almost every part of it had a light on it. He smiled at me and then he asked me to walk around the bike and into the garage with him, and in the corner of the garage was a custom chopper motorcycle. I stood and looked at the bike, as he smiled and told me a few things about it and I could tell that I had competition; then he put a crash helmet on my head and he told me to climb on the back of the Goldwing motorcycle.

He closed the garage door, then he got on the bike and as we set off the whole bike seemed to come alive with lights, and music seemed to be coming from every part of it. God, I felt like I was so special. He shouted back at me to see if I was ok and I leaned forward, hitting him in the back of his head with my crash helmet, and I said yes. Then I told him that I didn’t need to go straight home as no one was there and I told him that my sister was looking after the baby all night. We set off and, within a couple of seconds, he pulled up at the junction to the main road and he moved his left hand towards some controls on the bike and then we rode off up the road. And as we rode along, the radio on the bike came on and I sat back to the sound of Dire Straits, ‘Brothers in Arms’ coming through a sound system that seemed to fill the whole street with music. I couldn’t help but smile to myself and after a couple of seconds Tony said, ‘What do you want to do?’ ‘Anything’, I said. ‘But I don’t want to go home.’ It didn’t matter to me what we did as long as we didn’t go back to the hotel, as I was sick of being there on my own.