No One Wants You (6 page)

They said that I had missed too much school. They said that I had to go to school again and that it was the law of the land. They said that they had no choice. They could not let me stay with them. They said that a neighbour of my foster-mother’s had complained to the ISPCC (Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) months ago about the ‘goings-on’ in that house and that I had to be sent away. The cruelty officer from the ISPCC had called earlier that day and told them that he would collect me and take me away to a school the next day.

As they said the words, I could sense myself closing down. I had known that feeling of hurt before. My protection was to close down all sense of pain. I did not cry, and neither did I say anything in response. I went to bed and lay there. As I tried to sleep, I was aware of Kit ironing my clothing and packing my few possessions. Eventually I fell asleep.

The next morning, I got up and washed myself thoroughly. Shortly after we ate breakfast in silence, the cruelty officer from the ISPCC came and collected me. Despite tears all round, he took me away from the only people who had shown me any kindness in my life.

Years later, I learned that Kit was the illegitimate daughter of my foster-mother’s sister. She was a kind woman who had her fair share of stress, from carrying the stigma of illegitimacy all through her life. On learning that Kit herself was illegitimate it dawned on me that she was either
unwilling
or unable to adopt me herself, because of her own birth status. She couldn’t have adopted a bastard because it would have raked up her own life history and all her neighbours would then know about it. She would not have been able to cope with someone like me bringing her whole world crashing down on top of her. I would have attracted too much attention.

As we drove away from Kit’s house, I felt very fearful. I had only been told that I was going to a school. I asked the cruelty officer, ‘Where are you taking me?’

‘I am taking you to appear at the court in Kilmallock,’ he replied.

I began to cry.

The cruelty officer was a well-dressed man in a sports jacket and light-coloured trousers. He was a cold, serious type of a man. I felt that he did not like me. He did not try to reassure me in any way.

I had never been to court before, but as far as I was concerned, nothing good ever came out of having to appear at court. I thought I was being sent to jail. Whenever I had heard the word ‘court’ before, it meant that somebody had to go to jail. My little knowledge of courts came from the many men who used to visit my foster-mother. Some of them were shady characters, who often talked about the world of judges and courts of law and being sentenced to jail.

For the entire duration of the car journey I sobbed my heart out. I knew that if a person did something wrong, then they went to court. I knew that if you were sent to jail, you had to be sent by a judge of the court.

I was in a panic that morning. I could not figure what I had done wrong. All sorts of bad things that I had done during my life flashed through my brain. But I thought that it must have been something terrible that I had done recently. If I was being taken to court for something bad that
I
had done a long time ago, why wasn’t I taken at the time it happened?

‘No,’ I thought, ‘it must be something bad that I did recently.’ But I hadn’t done anything.

Kit had dressed me up in all my new clothes. I was wearing my new cream shoes and blue socks, which they had given to me before Christmas. So I knew that it could not be anything to do with my new clothes. I also had my new leather handbag, with my name embossed in gold on the outside, so that everybody could see that it belonged to me.

Then it occurred to me. The only bad thing that I could possibly have done to merit being sent to jail was committing the crime of being too happy at Kit and Tony’s house. For the remainder of the car journey I prayed to God, between long racking sobs, to forgive me for what I had done. If he did not allow the court to send me to jail, I promised him that I would never be happy ever again.

We finally reached Killmallock and the cruelty officer drove the car as close as possible to the front door of the courthouse. He got out from behind the steering wheel, slammed his door shut and rushed around to my side of the car. He opened the door and caught me firmly by the upper arm. His grip was so tight that it hurt me. He roughly pulled me from the seat. My sobbing became screams. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

There were four or five small groups of people standing outside the courthouse and I can remember them all turning in my direction, to see the cause of the commotion. I was half dragged, half lifted up the courthouse stairs, by a vice-like grip on my upper arm, screaming and sobbing at the same time. I felt that I must be the worst living person in the whole world. I felt that I deserved any punishment that I was given. I thought, ‘Only the worst can happen to me now.’

The grip was tightened on my arm, and I was lifted entirely off my feet, as we went inside the courthouse.

‘Will ya stop crying on me?’ shouted my attached cruelty officer, ‘You’ll come to no harm.’

This was the first and only tiny inkling of reassurance that I was to receive from him. But there were many policemen in and around the courthouse, and all I could foresee at this time was a long period in jail. That was to be my punishment for the crime of being happy.

I was hurriedly yanked back downstairs and out around the side of the courthouse. We entered again through a side doorway that turned out to be an office. Inside there were four policemen standing around a desk. Behind the desk was seated a man with a large book in front of him. I had never seen a book with such large pages before.

The cruelty officer pointed to a vacant chair behind the man at the desk. He said, ‘Sit on that chair and do not move one inch and do not let me hear one sound from you. If you as much as move a muscle or squeak, the four policemen will arrest you, and put you in jail and throw away the key. Isn’t that right guard?’

‘That’s right,’ said one of the policemen, supporting the cruelty officer.

I was left sitting in that chair for about four hours. I never moved a muscle or uttered a sound. I wanted to go to the toilet but dared not ask. Eventually I could not hold out any longer. I allowed the contents of my bladder to trickle silently down my leg, over the edge of the chair and away from me. I was terrified that somebody would notice.

My cruelty officer had disappeared and the policemen were busily immersed in intense discussions with the man with the large book. As they talked about grievous bodily harm, public house licences, bicycles without lights, lorries without road tax, tractors without white lights, as well as drunk and disorderly conduct, none of them noticed a long thin stream of urine appear from under the desk and gently
meander
its way across the floor, out the office door. It escaped undetected and away to freedom.

It must have been sometime in the afternoon when my cruelty officer reappeared back in the office. He came over to me and said, ‘Come on you, hurry up, you’re on shortly.’

To be addressed in such a manner was a normal everyday occurrence for me, so I tried to hop down off the chair. As I had not moved a muscle for so long, the back of my bare legs felt as though they had been glued to the chair. When I stood up, the chair came with me. It was attached by dried sweat to the back of my legs. The back of the chair hit me between the shoulders and both the chair and I fell forward on to the ground. As I fell forward, I dislodged a pen and inkstand at the edge of the man’s desk. A large and heavy cut-glass inkwell, full of blue ink, fell on the cruelty officer’s nicely shined brown shoes and the bottom of his beige coloured trousers.

He jumped two feet in the air with shock. It was as if somebody had poured sulphuric acid over his feet. ‘Me shoes are ruined and look at me trousers,’ he shouted.

Two policemen and the man with the big book laughed heartily at the fate of the cruelty officer. ‘Awww, Aww come on lads,’ he moaned with outstretched arms, as if appealing to the policemen.

This comic interlude had lightened their day considerably. For me, I thought this would surely see me consigned to jail for ever.

When the commotion had died down, the ink-stained and embarrassed cruelty officer dragged me roughly out of the office and pinned me against the courthouse wall.

I began to cry again.

‘Shut up, and listen.’

I sobbed harder.

‘If the judge asks you a question,’ he emphasised, ‘you reply, “Yes, your Honour”. Do you understand?’ he queried.

I tried to say yes, but I could not utter any sound, due to my distressed sobs.

‘Do you understand?’ he yelled.

‘Yes, your Honour,’ I replied, in innocence.

‘Don’t get smart with me, young one,’ he snapped.

I nodded, as I still could not raise any sound.

‘Now stop crying because we are going in for your case.’

I gulped back my sobs, and climbed the stairs to the courtroom. The size of the room amazed me. There were men everywhere; men in suits, men behind desks and a great many policemen. There was a man dressed in a black robe sitting on a raised platform. He seemed to be wearing a small curly wig on his head.

I sat beside the cruelty officer, behind a desk, facing this man. As I sat down, the cruelty officer said to me, ‘That’s the judge.’

I sat mesmerised by my surroundings.

A man stood up and in a raised voice announced, ‘State versus Clifford.’

At the time it meant nothing to me. It was only the second time in my life I had heard the name Celine Clifford. I was Celine O’Brien.

The cruelty officer took me by the hand and brought me to the judge. I had to stand in the dock at the judge’s right-hand side, facing the crowd in the main body of the court. I could barely see over the edge of the dock. I was facing everybody in the room. They were all looking at me. I was mortified. I tried to stay down under the ledge so that nobody could see me.

Years later I got a copy of the Substance of Complaint which was under the Children Acts 1908–1941. It read: ‘Application to commit to a certified industrial school Celine Clifford who appears to the court to be a child under the age of fifteen years, having been born so far as has been ascertained on the November 14, 1948 and who
resides
at Ballyculhane, Kilmallock, having been found having a parent or guardian who does not exercise proper guardianship.’

As I was still gingerly peeping around the courtroom, I realised the judge, the cruelty officer and many other men were discussing me, my foster-parents, my school and many other aspects of my life. I did not really understand what they were talking about. I really wished I didn’t have to be there.

In those days there was no such thing as previously taped interviews or videos, so children do not have to go through the trauma of giving evidence in court.

When I heard, ‘And now young lady, what is your name?’ I looked at my cruelty officer, praying for some guidance.

He nodded back at me, as if telling me to answer the question.

‘Yes, Honour,’ I gulped.

The cruelty officer threw his eyes up to heaven.

‘What is your name, young lady?’ the judge bellowed. The sound of the judge’s voice echoed around the courthouse. He sounded so stern. I was petrified.

‘Celine O’Brien,’ I ventured in a tiny, barely audible voice.

‘Speak up, I cannot hear you,’ the judge said, sounding angry. I was so frightened, my throat felt tight. I couldn’t get any words out.

I looked again to the cruelty officer, hoping he might help me. He had his mouth covered with his hand and was looking at some distant point on the ceiling. I realised that he would be no help to me.

‘Celine O’Brien, sir,’ I yelled back at the judge, in the loudest voice that I could raise.

‘What’s the meaning of this?’ the judge demanded, looking around the courthouse.

The cruelty officer jumped up from the desk saying, ‘No, no, your Honour, her name is Clifford, Celine Clifford. Her foster-parents’ name was O’Brien.’

Again commotion erupted. I thought it was all my fault for shouting at the judge and I was sure I was in for some terrible punishment.

During all the arguing, I noticed a tall, thin woman in a beige coat, standing at the back of the courtroom. She was the only woman in a room full of men. She seemed to be following everything with great interest. I tried to catch her eye but she stared fixedly ahead of her, avoiding my occasional gaze. Only once, when we made eye contact, did she allow herself to smile briefly at me.

Did I know her? Did she know me? Who was she? Why was she there?

My attention was brought back to the proceedings in hand before I could even think about answers to these questions. It was established that my name was indeed Celine Clifford. As far as I was concerned, they were changing my name in case anyone would know about me being in jail. I thought it was the right thing to do as I had brought enough scandal on my original family, simply by being alive. I did not want to shame my foster-parents’ good name, so that all their friends would know that I had to be put in jail, for being bad. I felt as if I was to blame for everything that had happened in my life.

I had to answer many questions about intimate parts of my body. Sometimes the same person, sometimes others, repeated these questions until I gave them an answer that satisfied them. I had to describe some of the awful things that men had done to my body, over the last six years. To have to tell people, in public, especially a roomful of men, was horrible.

There was quite a lot more talking around the court and
then
everything went quiet. I looked up to see what was happening.

The judge addressed me directly. ‘Stand up, Miss Clifford.’

I rose from my seat and the lower half of my body began to tremble.

‘I want you to say after me,’ the judge instructed.

I began to cry once again.

‘I swear to remain at Mount St Vincent’s Industrial School for as long as is deemed to be necessary, or as long as directed.’