Sins of the Mother (28 page)

Bess listened with her head tipped to one side – as if she really could understand me. Her eyes were full of love.

In my head, I heard myself reply:
But you got her help just in time! She needed so much more than you could ever give her. You couldn’t fix her, Matt. You couldn’t change what
happened to her as a child.

We had spent so long running from the past and yet it was with us all along. I had almost let it destroy my beautiful Irene from the inside.

The last week without her had been hard. Every night I’d tossed and turned, unable to sleep without her beside me. In the mornings I opened my eyes expecting to see her next to me and my
heart always sank when I remembered she was in the hostel. Now I glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was 5.45 p.m. – I had better get going. I had arranged to meet Irene for a walk at 6
p.m. that evening. So I attached the lead to Bess, who barked enthusiastically, and we walked the short distance to the hostel.

For a second, I almost didn’t recognize the woman who met me at the entrance. I had braced myself to see the Irene I had left here a week before – petrified, frail and confused. But
this wasn’t her. This woman’s cheeks were round instead of sunken in, her head was up, her hair clean and shiny, and her clothes actually clung to her body instead of hanging in sad
folds. But it was her eyes! Her eyes were completely different.

‘Wow! Irene!’ I couldn’t help smiling, and the funny thing was that this time she smiled right back. I hugged her. She was solid, not a fragile collection of bones.

I stood back to admire her and then, because I couldn’t think what else to say, I said it again, ‘Wow!’

‘What?’ she said. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s your eyes, Irene.’ I couldn’t believe the difference. ‘The bags have gone from under your eyes. I can see life back again.’

Irene stood there nodding.

I went on, ‘You were dead, Irene. Basically you were the walking dead – there was nothing in your eyes. What a change! Your eyes are bright, your face is filling out. You look
well!’

We walked together down the busy main road and then turned left onto a quiet street where there was a little park to let the dog off for a run. When we got to the entrance of the park, I leaned
down to unhook the lead from Bess’s collar and she bolted away. We both watched her as she bounded excitedly across the grass. I turned to look at Irene and, in that split second, I caught a
sparkle in her eye and she smiled at me. My heart soared.

‘I’ve got hope again, Matt,’ she said quietly. ‘This has been a good time for me. I can see now there is a way through this. I’ve got hope again that I can be happy
and free of pain one day.’

‘You nearly died, Irene.’ I couldn’t look at her now. ‘Your body had actually started to shut down.’

‘I wanted to die,’ she replied, her eyes now fixed on Bess who criss-crossed the park in search of adventure. ‘I was so tired that the thought of dying was the only relief I
had. I’d shut my eyes and see myself as a little girl with rosy cheeks in this beautiful meadow with all these wild flowers, birds and rabbits. I was free. I was happy. There was no other
human being there, it was just me. I wanted to go to that place, Matt. I wanted to be that happy little girl sitting under the tree with all the rabbits and the birds.’

It was hard for me to hear this but I knew it was true. I had seen the way she had disappeared into herself. I knew that, no matter how much I loved her, I wasn’t enough to keep her alive.
She had to want it too.

The hostel, it’s been so good for me,’ she went on. ‘I’ve had a complete rest and I’ve been able to let out all the pain. It was like my heart was broken, Matt.
I’ve cried so much since I’ve been here but it’s been a good crying – and the counselling has been brilliant. I know this is hard work but it’s work I’ve got to
do because, really, I don’t want to die. I don’t want to leave you, I don’t want to leave my children or my grandchildren, and I don’t want to give up fighting.’

I just listened as she spoke, the way I had always done, without interruption, without judgement.

She went on, ‘A week ago I was in a lot of physical pain. It was so hard to just walk. Every bone in my body ached. At night, I didn’t sleep – the pains in my stomach were
horrendous and I’d stopped going to the toilet. The medication they’ve got me on now, it’s increased my appetite. That’s why I look better. I’m eating more.’

We stood there a while longer as Irene talked about the hostel and the people who were helping her – I could sense that the danger was over. She had come back from the brink.

That night I reassured Jennifer that her mum was on the mend – she seemed very relieved but, still, I didn’t tell her all the ins and outs of what was happening. How could I tell our
teenage daughter her mum had wanted to die?

When Irene returned three days later, she was pleased to be home but also grateful for the continuing support from her psychiatric team. She still had intensive daily counselling at the hospital
and regular meetings with her psychiatrist. It was paying off – she no longer locked herself away in cupboards or banged her head against the wall, and she spent a great deal of time writing
her poems and her diary. Now, when I offered her a slice of toast, she agreed to half. After a week, she was eating a whole slice and after four months she was up to a healthy nine stone. I had my
Irene back again!

Then her solicitor got in touch – they had sent her psychiatric reports to the Redress Board in support of the evidence she gave at the trial and the Board had increased
their offer of compensation by a few thousand euros. But there was still no admission of the nursery abuse. Irene rejected the second offer and, six months later, she returned to Dublin to appear
before the Board again. I was terrified that this would jeopardize her recovery but she was determined and I couldn’t do anything except support her.

‘I won’t be called a liar,’ she said to me the night before she left. This time Jennifer had to stay at home because she was sitting her exams, so Irene was going over on her
own.

‘What does the psychiatrist say?’

‘She told me that I wasn’t the only woman to say these things. We can’t all be liars. Everything that’s happened to me has happened to others too – if they call me
a liar, they call us all liars. Well I won’t stand for it.’

I had to admire her – the old fighting spirit was back. After all the pain and the trauma of the past six months, she wasn’t going to be beaten down.

Still, on the day she was due to give her evidence again, I was a bundle of nerves. I couldn’t sit still for a second and lucky Bess got three walks that day as I tried to burn off all my
nervous energy. I didn’t know how Irene would react if they rejected her evidence a second time – was she stronger now? Could she cope? It was so hard to say. In the past six months she
had made real progress with her counselling but there were still tough days, days where she couldn’t face the world, couldn’t get out of bed. She was writing a lot of poetry now, which
I knew helped her, but I was terrified that another rejection would tip her over the edge again.

I was on tenterhooks that evening, desperate for and yet dreading her phone call at the same time. I couldn’t concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds before getting up to check
and recheck the clock on the kitchen wall. Why was time dragging by so slowly?

Finally, at 8 p.m., she called.

‘How did it go?’ I asked straight away.

‘I don’t know,’ Irene replied thoughtfully. If she was upset, it didn’t show.

‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’

‘Well, I said my piece. I went in there and I told my barrister that I didn’t want him to speak on my behalf, I wanted to speak for myself. And I did – even though I was
nervous, you know, really nervous. I told them, “Look, you can call me a liar all you want but I know the facts. I know what’s happened to me. I was there. And I haven’t come here
looking for money. You can shove your money. I want an apology, a public apology.’’’

‘What did they say?’

‘They said, “Oh, so you’re expecting us to go public and say we’re very sorry, Irene?” I said, “No, I want those nuns to take responsibility for what they did
to us because they’re getting away with murder. Not one nun has been arrested, not one nun has come forward,” and “yes, these things did happen.” They’re still denying
it!’

‘Oh wow! Irene, you really gave it to them!’ I was so impressed. It must have been so hard for her to get up and say those things to the Board.

‘I did, Matt. I did. So then they said. “Well, we’re sorry.” But they didn’t sound sorry. They said it very matter-of-factly. And then they said they believed me
because they had seen more women who had said the same thing.’

‘They believe you, Irene. That’s brilliant!’ It was a huge relief to hear that. I couldn’t imagine the people on that Board had any idea how much Irene’s sanity and
our home life relied on that.

‘Yes, the barrister says we’ll get another offer now. But it’s not about the money – I just want somebody to take responsibility for what happened.’

‘Well, maybe they will now.’

‘I hope so.’

Irene was home the next day and I was waiting with a cup of tea and a big hug – I was so proud of her! Just a week later she accepted an offer of 22,000 euros
compensation which she couldn’t give away quick enough. She gave it to the kids and treated the grandkids.

I overheard her on the phone to Anna one night, who felt bad about taking her mother’s money.

‘Don’t be silly,’ Irene was saying. ‘I WANT to give it to you.’

Silence as she listened. I knew all the kids felt the same about this; their mother had gone through hell for this compensation. What right did they have to take it off her? But as I explained
to them myself, it was never about the money for Irene. She could never have spent it on herself anyway, even if she wanted to. Irene didn’t want anything to do with the money. As far as she
was concerned, the money was tainted – it represented a childhood destroyed by evil.

Now she was quite cross.

‘Look, Anna,’ I heard her from the kitchen. ‘If it’s my money to do what I want with then what I want to do is spend it on my children and my grandchildren. I don’t
get that sort of opportunity every day so really you’ve got no right to tell me I can’t.’

It was only after she had spent it that we found out it was hush money, meant to buy her silence. Until the Redress Board published their report in 2009, we didn’t know
that by accepting the money she could never speak publicly about what happened to her. That she could never identify the people who did it or even the place where it happened. When they signed all
the papers for the compensation, she was aware of the fact that she was signing away her right to a private prosecution but she had no idea the contract included a confidentiality clause which
prevented her going public. She thought that when the report came out all the evidence would come out too and the nuns would be punished. She was wrong.

Under the terms of the compensation package, no nun, priest or member of staff in the orphanages could be publicly named or identified. The Catholic orders had done a deal with the government,
which meant they couldn’t be prosecuted. So when the Ryan Report came out detailing all the abuses in 250 institutions and involving thousands of children, it didn’t name the abusers
either. The nuns and the priests that had terrorized children for decades – beating them, raping them, torturing and humiliating them – they all got away with it.

Irene, like so many who gave evidence, felt betrayed. If I had lost faith with the Catholic Church before then, I hated them afterwards. They had failed to live up to their own teachings and
then, when they had been found out, they’d tried to cover it up. It was disgusting and hypocritical. What right did they have to tell anybody else what to do any more? They were finished.
Morally bankrupt.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. The fact was that, by their actions, these nuns and priests had created a generation of very damaged individuals. When these people
got their compensation and they realized they weren’t going to get real justice, they killed themselves. We watched it happen in front of our eyes. There were men and women we knew, like
Irene, who had gone through the rigors of the Redress system, bringing up all that pain again, only to be told that nobody would get punished. It was too much and they overdosed on drugs or drank
themselves to death. The tragedy played out over and over again.

It was far from the end of the story for us, either. Irene was still battling her demons and, unknown to us, our own daughter was suffering too.

When she was a little girl Jennifer was by my side the whole time; we were inseparable. She followed me about like my shadow, helping me with all the little jobs around the
house, never leaving my side. I was so charmed by her and thrilled to be able to teach her and help her develop her talents. It wasn’t a selfless act – it fed my own soul to nurture
her.

There was an unspoken agreement between Irene and myself – we were leaving the past behind so our daughter didn’t need to know about our old lives and, in time, she learned not to
ask. As Jennifer got older and excelled in school I became stricter, keen to push her as far as she could go and help her avoid the troubles that childhood can bring. I returned to Ireland
occasionally for family funerals but I never stayed long and I never took Jennifer. She was innocent and I wanted her to stay that way as long as possible. Occasionally she went to stay with her
Aunt Emily on Irene’s side, but I didn’t want her mixing with my family too much.

Neither Irene nor I had had a proper childhood so we were determined to give that to Jennifer. We thought she was happy, we thought she had everything she could possibly want. But as time went
on and she began to push at the boundaries, it became harder and harder to explain that we were only trying to do our best for her. I wanted to give her freedom as an adult – freedom to
choose her own place in the world. But she definitely didn’t see it that way.