The God Squad (25 page)

‘Once a day is enough to wind the watch,’ Margaret said. ‘More often than that and you’ll wreck it.’

For the first few hours, I kept an almost constant eye on the watch and checked with every nurse that passed by to see if their watches corresponded to my own.

That evening, when the ward was quiet, I took the back off the watch to see what was inside. As I was putting it on again, the second hand fell off. I tried desperately to fix it but couldn’t. In exasperation, I left the hand inside the dial and decided to pretend that it fell off while I was asleep.

‘Wake up, sleepy head. What time is it?’ I recognized Margaret Duffy’s voice next morning.

I sat up and looked innocently at my watch.

‘I don’t know what time it is,’ I said, ‘I forgot to wind it last night and now it’s stopped.’

My voice trembled as I handed it to her and I knew I wasn’t going to convince her by my story. I started crying.

‘Did you open the watch?’ she asked.

‘I just wanted to have a look inside. I didn’t mean to break it.’

When she saw how upset I was she agreed to take the watch back and try to have it changed, provided I promised to say nothing about having opened it. During her break she took it back, carefully wrapped in paper from a present brought to another patient, warning me before leaving not to expect miracles.

Later in the day she returned to the ward smiling broadly. She took a new watch from the large square pocket of her uniform and helped me to put it on, remarking that they wouldn’t replace the strap because it had been tampered with.

That night the ward sister examined the wound on my head by gently lifting the sticking plaster that had covered it since my stitches had been removed. There was no need for a replacement plaster and I could touch my head if I wanted to. By now my hair had started to grow and looked just like a tight crew cut. The self-consciousness of being bald was gone and I was looking forward to having a full head of hair again.

But it wouldn’t be that way. The ward sister informed me I would be going to the theatre again. I was shocked and kept repeating that I didn’t want to go. It hadn’t been long since I was there last.

‘Well now,’ she said, ‘if you want to get better . . .’

‘I don’t,’ I said sharply.

‘And I suppose you don’t want to go to the Zoo either?’ I looked at her.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘Nurse Duffy and her boyfriend want to take you out for a day soon, but you can only go if you’re good and if Matron agrees.’

‘When have I to go to the theatre?’ I asked nervously.

‘In the morning.’

‘How could I have to go? The doctor hasn’t even been around and the dressing from the last is just gone.’

She said this operation was the second part of the first one and was only a very minor ‘job’ not to be worried about. The priest would be around later. The routine was familiar. Notification of an operation. Fear of death while undergoing surgery. Then confession. The cleaning of the soul, just in case.

Again, Sister Catherine was given the job of ‘prepping’ me. She screened off the bed and apologized for having to shave my head again. ‘Someday,’ she said, ‘it’ll be all over.’ She lathered my head and shaved it completely, taking great care not to hurt the previous scar which was still
tender. Her hand trembled as the razor removed the freshly grown, downy hair.

‘Why do I have to have operations on my head?’ I asked.

‘I wish I knew,’ she said with sadness in her voice. I could feel her concern for me. She was so different. She was kind, laughed a lot and played games with me. Lifting me in her arms she would carry me out of the ward, to a garden at the rear of the hospital where she’d take photographs of me, seated on a blanket, in front of a circular flower bed. Her mother used to buy clothes for me and she took great pride in dressing me and ensuring I looked well. I always received my medication promptly when she was on duty and consequently seldom became distressed or overanxious. In the times of my greatest stress she made a special effort to alleviate it, always trying to be there as I left the ward for surgery and again when I returned.

Next morning in the operating theatre, the neurosurgeon greeted me by giving my nose a slight twist. When he asked if I was frightened I didn’t bother to respond. A needle pierced the most prominent vein in my arm and within seconds I was drowsy and dizzy. Soon I was asleep and he was making further incisions on my scalp in preparation for drilling through my skull.

Later as the trolley was wheeled back into the ward I was partially awake. Drifting in and out of sleep, I heard the sounds I was familiar with. Men coughing. The news being read on Radio Eireann. Through half-open eyes I could see Sister Catherine walking beside the trolley and felt the softness of her hand firmly gripping mine.

I felt well when I woke, not as sick or as thirsty as I had been previously. The thirst I dreaded so much was speedily vanquished by a cup of warm sweetened tea which Sister Catherine held and allowed me to take at my own pace.
Within a few hours I was sitting up in bed and having a light meal.

I was ten years of age before I celebrated a birthday. Birthdays didn’t happen in the Industrial School and were not bothered about in any of the other hospitals I had been in. In Mother of Mercy Ward, there was a certain amount of excitement when anyone was celebrating a birthday. A request might be played for them on Radio Eireann’s
Hospitals’ Requests
, and there would be more than the usual amount of visitors. It wasn’t unusual to see a relative slip a bottle from a brown paper bag discreetly under the bedcovers of the patient he was visiting. For that day nurses turned a blind eye to what was happening, though next morning the half-empty bottle of whiskey would be confiscated after a search of bedside lockers. Wives fussed more than usual and if the opportunity presented itself would draw a screen around the bed, through the folds of which I could see them embrace and kiss their husbands with great passion and urgency.

I woke early on 19 May 1961 to a chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’ from nurses and some patients. Both night-nurses and day-nurses had gathered around Sister Catherine and Margaret Duffy who were carrying a large parcel. A white envelope bearing my name was sellotaped to it. As it was lifted onto my bed, they asked me to guess what it was, but I was too excited to. It felt light and delicate. As they helped to remove the paper, the shining chrome bars of a birdcage were slowly revealed containing a beautiful, greyish-blue budgie that hopped from perch to perch.

‘What are you going to call him?’ Margaret asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I answered.

‘What about Pedro?’ she suggested, pronouncing the ‘P’ as a ‘B’.

‘OK,’ I said, repeating the name. I was so delighted and
preoccupied with the present that I didn’t notice a card pinned on the wall over my bed. It was Margaret Duffy who drew my attention to it.

I looked up at the long unfolded card and read out
PADDY: TEN YEARS OLD
. The words were printed in bright luminous green.

‘That was made specially for you,’ she said.

‘Who made it?’ I asked.

‘Bernard did.’

‘Who is Bernard?’

‘He’s my boyfriend,’ she said, blushing slightly, as she realized she had given his name unintentionally. ‘You’ll meet him later. You’re coming to the Zoo with us.’

I asked to have everything taken off my locker so I could put the cage as close to me as possible. I stared through the tiny rails, my eyes riveted on the bird fluttering around the cage, chirping and occasionally screeching as he hung by his beak from a yellow plastic swing. The noise was annoying some of the patients who were demanding that the ward sister ‘take that damned bird to hell out of the place’.

‘You should take the bloody child too, and that would solve all the problems,’ one shouted.

The Matron arrived as the ward sister was explaining to those objecting that it was my birthday and they should accept the right of a child to have some fun. Matron walked towards me, looking angrily at the budgie. Then the brightly coloured card over the bed caught her eye. She called the ward sister and demanded that the cage be removed from the ward at once.

‘We are in a hospital, Sister, not a home for pets,’ she said sternly.

The ward sister tried to explain, but the Matron was not interested and said so. I was bitterly disappointed as my
present was taken from the ward. Despite my tears the Matron warned me that she didn’t want to see the bird back in the ward again or the other patients disturbed.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ she said, pointing to the birthday card over my bed.

‘It’s a birthday card, Matron,’ the sister replied. ‘One of the nurses got it made specially.’

‘It will have to come down immediately. It is more like an advertisement for whiskey and it could be upsetting to the older patients.’

She walked swiftly towards the door, turning to warn that she would be back. As the card was removed, the ward sister told me that I could go to her office any time I liked to play with the budgie.

Sister Catherine dressed me in new clothes, saying that she ‘wanted her little man to be looking lovely when he went out’. She carried me in her arms out to the garden where she took some ‘Birthday Photos’. By this time I had great difficulty in keeping still and became very stressed when having a photo taken. The harder I tried to keep steady, the more difficult it became. She looked at the patch on my head where the hair had not grown since my operation, and suggested that I should wear a hat while out. I thought a hat would look silly and when I told her so, she didn’t pursue the matter.

As I waited to be brought out, I wondered how I was going to manage to get around the Zoo. I was worried about travelling in the car, remembering how tense and uncomfortable I had been the last time I had travelled in one. I was confused as to whether I wanted to go or not, but I said nothing.

Margaret Duffy arrived into the ward with her boyfriend Bernard and immediately noticed that the cage and budgie were gone along with the card he had made.

‘Where’s Pedro?’ she asked, angrily. ‘And what happened the card?’

The ward sister told her what happened. Margaret was furious and referred to her as ‘a right bitch’. She laughed at the thought of the card being an advertisement for whiskey.

Bernard looked on, unsure of what was happening. He was a tall thin man with very sharp features and a pale complexion. He had blond hair and deeply set blue eyes. After we had been introduced to each other the ward sister told Margaret that she had reservations about asking Matron that I be allowed out, in case it would result in a refusal. She suggested that they slip out of the hospital with me as quickly and quietly as possible. Bernard lifted me and carried me down the short corridor to the main hall and out the door into his black Volkswagen. There was a sense of urgency about everything from the time we left the ward until the car was out of sight of the hospital.

When Bernard carried me through the entrance of Dublin Zoo the cashier indicated he would not be taking for me. He suggested that instead of having to carry me around they might like to use one of the buggies lined up just inside the gates. Margaret pulled one out and Bernard put me sitting in it. I was most uncomfortable, my stockinged feet banged relentlessly against the polished steel frame and as my spasms became strong and violent, my feet actually entangled themselves behind the footrests, which could have broken my legs were it not for the swift movements of my companions. Eventually I could no longer endure the pain or discomfort of the buggy. Margaret and Bernard agreed to carry me on a rota basis, and whenever we came to a cage where a lot of people had gathered, she politely asked to be excused. Children asked their parents why I had hardly
any hair. Why was I not wearing shoes and why were my feet all crooked? Why did I have to be carried? But the adults and their patronizing smiles were more difficult to cope with than these perfectly understandable questions. Many of them clipped their children around the ear and told them to mind their own business. One child received a tremendous wallop when he said in a loud, musical, Dublin accent, ‘Hey Ma, that fella looks like a monkey, his ears stick out and he has a furry head.’

I wanted to get away from the crowds and be alone with Bernard and Margaret. He went to the shop while she carried me to a wooden bench at the edge of a lake. There were just a few people around and I was much more content. The realization that I was being constantly stared at had dampened my interest in the animals, except for a tiger called ‘Rama’. Bernard took a photograph of Margaret and me in front of his cage, while in the background the tiger devoured what appeared to me to be a horse’s head. The animal’s growling was interspersed with the sound of flesh being torn from bone, as the elegant beast held his meal firmly between two enormous front paws.

Bernard returned from the shop and sat to one side of me, sharing crisps, chocolate and lemonade.

‘What will you do when Mags leaves?’ he said suddenly.

I could feel her jab him furiously in the ribs with her elbow.

I was extremely close to Margaret Duffy and had come to regard her in many ways as a mother figure, someone that I could love, and who would return that love. I had never given a thought to the possibility of her leaving, though deep down I always felt we would be parted by me being moved to another hospital. I was equally attached to Sister Catherine but because she was a nun I felt there was always a barrier between us.