Scars that Run Deep (12 page)

‘I'm not sure I do.'

‘Well, that explains it, you are not ready for girls as free and attractive as Noeleen.'

I trusted Mando as a friend. I was a fool, too naive and gullible to see him as he really was, a chancer who was prepared to cheat and to lie to get whatever he wanted.

I couldn't get Noeleen out of my mind. I was certain I was in love with her, and with every girl that went out with me after that.

Looking back to those easygoing days of my late teens, in the late 1950s and fabulous 1960s, I can only laugh at how utterly gullible and incredibly naive I really was when it came to dating young women. So scared was I of committing mortal sin, I was quite simply too timid to venture too far in
pleasing or giving pleasure to girls I dated, such as beautiful Noeleen. Though in truth, I hadn't a clue regarding sexual matters, or indeed of the female anatomy. How to please a woman was a mystery to me.

For eight tough years I had lived on a daily diet of constant prayer and punishment. Fear of committing sinful acts in the company of females was all due to my fears I harboured as an orphan for eight years inside Artane. In Artane I had so many reasons to fear committing sin, as the punishment was a painful beating. Fear was the key to keeping the very strict rigid brutal system in place, for the Christian Brothers to keep strict control at all times of the boys' army of 900. The system worked but ruined my childhood, and marked my adult life.

AS JUNE APPROACHED,
there was only one thing on my mind: my holiday, which I had saved very hard for.

At that time I was taking stick from everyone and for anything that went wrong in the bakery. Mando was the funny man with the dancing feet, and a smooth talker if ever there was one. He would simply borrow or beg to get any money he needed. He knew, as did others, that I had money saved. Mando would and did pawn the suit off his back, and anyone else's as well.

Mando was a slick mover. I found myself almost trapped in his company during 1959. He was in lodgings in the same house as me. I found working with him good fun, but being in the same house was a bit too much. Even though I had introduced him to the Cashins, I hoped he would leave.

On the first day he stayed in Cashins there were four lodgers at the table when the soup was served. Mando didn't think much of the soup, and while Miss Cashin was out in
the kitchen he hurried up to the toilet with it, quickly flushed it away, and returned to join us. Miss Cashin came in to enquire if we had enjoyed the soup. Mando was first to answer, ‘It was beautiful, ma'am,' and gave her a winning smile. I will always remember the look on his face when Bridie responded swiftly and poured him out a second helping of the soup. He never got the chance to flush it either.

Mando and our new van driver, Regan, were after the money I had saved to go to the Isle of Man. When Mick Bradley heard I was going by boat to the island he quickly offered to pay the airfare for me. I accepted, and was delighted. When Regan heard, he moved quickly to borrow fifteen pounds from me, and offered to drive me to the airport. What amazed me at the time was that men who were so mature and settled – some were married and had nice homes to go to after work – were begging and borrowing whatever money I had worked so hard to save. I never received any money back, as they had promised.

I fell in love with the Isle of Man the first moment I set foot on its soil. It reminded me of a paradise island in the sun that I had seen in the school cinema. I was overwhelmed by its beauty, its gardens, and most of all its beautiful glens. The names of Glen Mona, Glen Myra and Laxey Glen bring back fond and cherished memories.

I went alone to the island, but once there I seemed to find company without really looking for it. Perhaps it found me. I entered a waltz competition, and I had an English partner, from Redcar in the north of England. We did well on the dance floor, and I still treasure the photographs of the occasion. She was a good few years older than me, but nevertheless, I dated her, and it all helped me to enjoy the wonderful island. I sat in my room in the guesthouse, thinking that the English people were really human after all!

One breathtaking evening I was making my way up the steep climb known as Darby Hill when a young woman came alongside me, rather breathless. ‘Have you the time, please?' I stopped, gave her the time, and thought nothing of it. A few moments later, nearer the brow of the hill, I heard her voice. As I turned to see who it was, she was upon me. ‘Hey, Irish, we're going the same way. Mind if I walk with you?' She smiled warmly as the evening sun kissed her long golden hair.

‘Call me Pat,' I said, and added, ‘I'll be delighted to walk with you.'

She stroked back her hair and said, ‘Call me Gloria. I come from Redcar, in England.' I was curious. ‘Have you an older sister here?' She faced me and said, ‘Yes, I have. She's in the dance championships.'

I loved the Isle of Man and the folk I met. England and its people filled my mind now! While I was away on my first
holiday in the Isle of Man in the summer of 1959 I realised certain things about myself. These things were quite significant in my behaviour as a young adult. As I look back I can see that I was so inadequately prepared for life on the outside of the most feared Christian Brothers Boys' Industrial School in Ireland.

To be quite frank, prisoners in Mountjoy Jail would not have had to endure the hardship, the physical and sexual abuse and punishment we kids had to suffer every day of the week inside Artane, not more than two miles from the country's famous prison! It's very difficult for me to come to terms with this fact, that the country's criminals in prison were far better treated in their daily prison life than we Artane boys were in ours.

As an Artaner, I believed every word the Brothers said, as though it was the Gospel of the Lord. The hypocrisy was rampant: we were told that all sexual acts were a mortal sin; yet many of us were subjected to the most horrific sexual abuse. We institutionalised kids in their care simply feared breaking their laws, their rules.

Those in power, working for the Catholic-run state, the Free State Republic of Ireland, lied to me as an eight-year-old and they turned a blind eye to child sex abuse in their very own run schools and institutions. I and many thousands of other kids left these church- and state-run institutions poorly educated, inadequately prepared for life so far removed from
their holy Catholic world of prayer and punishment where the mere mention of the word sex was strictly forbidden.

After eight years of Latin hymns, singing and devotions, I became institutionalised. It would take many years, very many in fact, to come to grips with the real world far removed from the one I was sentenced to as a child of eight. I could not come to terms with life in the real world, a world where women had their place alongside men, a world where men and women came together as one, as a couple, as a partnership, as lovers, as husband and wife. All I had been told was that sex was a mortal sin. Even thinking about it was a sin. Touching women was forbidden territory, along with touching your own body.

The trip to the Isle of Man in the beautiful summer of 1959 was the beginning of my realisation of just how institutionalised I had become, and just what Artane had done to me.

The Isle of Man was a great eye opener for me. I came in contact with many people from England, young people, and I found them all to be really nice, particularly the young lady from Redcar who danced with me in the competition in the Villa Marina. It was like being in another world: I just loved it.

I toured the island from Douglas to Glen Mona, Glen Allen and to Laxey. Sitting eating strawberries and cream in
the Rushen Abbey, I just simply wanted this holiday to go on and on.

On a coach tour one beautiful evening the driver pulled into a lay-by and said, ‘On your right, folks, you will see a cross, it is a grave and inscribed on the headstone are the words “Here lies the remains of some mother's son”.' On the return journey I penned a long poem titled ‘Some Mother's Son', after I'd heard the story from the coach driver of how and where the boy was found. On my flight home I harboured visions of travelling the world. I sure had itchy feet and I longed to see England and meet old school pals like Stevo and Oxo!

The Christian Brothers fostered a Republicanism and a hatred for England and all things English, particularly their sport, soccer. In their eyes, a game of soccer was a mortal sin and we were forbidden to play it – this rule was enforced with a brutal iron fist. Yet I harboured dreams of going to Old Trafford to see my hero Bobby Charlton and to visit as many soccer clubs as I could once I set foot in England.

I would return to the Isle of Man to work, and came back on many occasions to holiday there with my family. That first trip away from Ireland gave me a window on the world at large. It opened up my closed mind to the possibilities of travel. I was hooked.

IN 1960 I
was not getting anywhere in the bakery. I was losing my girlfriends as fast as I could find them.

In the lodgings I shared with Mando I was spotlessly clean – always dusting, polishing, and tidying up things that were out of place, forever putting things back and hanging up coats. I was very domesticated!

Mando was now the foreman of the small bakery, and I was his deputy. But it was not doing at all well. I realised that to get on I'd have to go abroad. I was becoming ambitious and I was no longer prepared to remain on low wages for ever. I was working all sorts of hours, which were very unsociable, and I began to get a burning desire to travel.

Mando came up with a plan of action. He told me on so many occasions how he knew England well. He wanted me to travel to Liverpool with him – a giant step for me to take. He told me that if I didn't like Liverpool he'd have me back without a bother. His plan was that he would take a week's
sick leave and that I was to take a week off to simply try it. If it didn't work, he promised he'd have me home and back at work in a week.

On the boat journey to Holyhead, I listened to the playing of traditional music, as there were many fine young musicians and buskers on board that night. I watched many people with tears in their eyes seated uncomfortably on the floor or on suitcases. By the time I got on to the train I felt as though I had already been away for a week.

Mando knew all the ropes. I stood in the employment exchange with him. He had briefed me on how to answer their questions. As it worked out, I was given twice as much money as he was. We were sent to a big bakery outside the city; after a few days we were both given a sub – an advance on our wages. At last I had some real cash.

The house where we stayed was in a very run-down and dangerous area. Mando suddenly began to take a deeper interest in my wellbeing but, as always, with strings attached. He wanted my money for safe-keeping. Well, I knew my money was safer where it was – in my shoes.

One night Mando decided to retire to bed early. I was sitting up, listening to his advice and his new plans when suddenly the door burst open and two men stood in front of us. I froze. Mando jumped out of bed and realised that he was naked and his clothes were on a chair near the two intruders. The silence
was broken when both of them roared with laughter, pointing at Mando. Mando shouted at me to give them something. Without even thinking I took Mando's coat from a chair and offered it to them. ‘You want something? Please take it and leave us alone. We won't rat on you.' I was scared stiff, but decided to join them in their laughter. One of them came towards me and put out his hand. ‘Shake, Irish. You're fun! You sure are some fun guy, I tell you.' I never took my eyes from him. I shook his hand and watched as the other chap moved towards Mando, who seemed to be frozen to the floor in the nude. Mando was suddenly being hugged by the guy. While he did all he could to cover himself up, the men hurried away.

On another occasion, it must have been four or five in the morning when I jumped out of the old double bed I shared with him. I was burning with a dreadful itch. I turned on the light and was horrified to see my body covered with bites and awful-looking lumps. I watched as Mando woke up shouting, ‘Put off the fuckin' bleedin' light, for fuck's sake, Paddy! You're shagging blinding me.'

The next morning Mando got out of bed almost tearing at his flesh. ‘I'm flea-bitten, for Christ's sake!' He was swearing like a raving lunatic now, and then he noticed that I was in an even worse state than himself.

It was our fifth day in Liverpool. Mando had had enough of the filthy lodgings, and I had told him I would rather go back on the boat than remain there one more night. I arranged to meet him in Lime Street Station, as he gave me a story about a business matter he had to attend to. He advised me to get on the London train before it was due to pull out if he didn't catch up with me. He would make the train, he assured me. And I, like a fool, believed him.

Well, I should have known Mando. I had a terrible experience on my first night in London – what I'd have given to have had Mando with me then!

Alone in a compartment on the way to London from Liverpool, I couldn't help but wonder where I would sleep that night. As the train finally eased into the station, I realised that I was totally alone for the first time in my life. I felt naked and utterly scared.

As I put down my suitcase on the pavement outside the station, someone asked, ‘You waiting for someone?' The man who spoke to me had a smooth, posh-sounding voice and wore a nice fancy suit. I told him that I was alone and the man said, sympathetically, ‘I'll put you up for the night and see you're okay in the morning.'

I thanked him at once and gladly got into his car. Within minutes I was in his flat. It was well appointed, and the
lighting was soft and low, and very seductive. I was shown to a bedroom that had a large double bed in it and red curtains, which made the room feel very warm and luxurious. I had never seen such comforts before; comfort to me was sitting by the fire in Bridget Doyle's house in Barnacullia or in Bridie Cashin's place in Fairview, sitting by the open fire, listening to
Songs our Fathers Loved
on the gramophone.