The Girl Nobody Wants: A Shocking True Story of Child Abuse in Ireland (10 page)

I had never been hit like that before, by anyone, and I was shaking like jelly. I got up off the floor, went back into the room and I walked over to the table. I sat back down and picked up a spoon, but I was still shaking and as I tried to eat my breakfast, it shook off the spoon and went all over the table. I began to cry and I picked the food up with my hands and put it into my mouth, hoping that she wouldn’t hit me again, and none of the other children spoke a word until we had all finished breakfast. Even then, it was only to ask for permission to leave the table; and one by one, we all walked out of the dining room and into the hall where some of the staff were waiting for us. We all stood in front of the staff and they said that it was time for us to go to school and they told us to go and get our things. But then one of the staff turned to me and said, ‘You and your sister Daisy can’t go to the same school as the others. You’re still too sick and you won’t be able to walk all the way to the school, so you have to stay at the house and later a nun will take you to the convent with her and you will be schooled there instead.’ She was right, I felt sick and I could hardly stand up, so I sat on the stairs and waited for the nun while all the other children got ready and then went off to the main school.

After a couple of hours, the nun who was going to take us arrived at the house and we went off to the convent with her. On the way, she told us that she would only be taking us today and from tomorrow we would have to walk to the convent’s school on our own. So we had better remember the way and not mess around or be late, or we would be in a lot of trouble with the head nun. But she was walking too fast for us to keep up with her and we had to run along behind her. I was still feeling sick, and I began to cough and I told her that I had to stop, but she just kept walking and telling me to hurry up or we will be late and then we would all be in big trouble with the head nun.

Once we got to the convent, the nun took us into a room in the back of the building, and inside, sitting on one of the chairs in the room, was Simon, my baby brother. I shouted, ‘Simon’ and I ran over to him, throwing my arms around him and almost squashing him with joy. He shouted, ‘Lily, Daisy’ and then he began to cry and we cried too because we were so happy to see him. After a few seconds, one of the nuns came over to me and she said that from now on Simon was going to be staying with Daisy and me at our house. She said that he was too small to stay with the other boys and he needed us to look after him, as they did not have the time to care for him and she said that he was now our responsibility. Then she told us all to sit down and to start counting from number one, so I walked over to a chair, I sat down and looked over at Simon and he was smiling. We began to count, one, two, three, four, five; it was great having Simon with us and he was smiling and counting at the same time. Simon continued looking over at me, then he wiped his lips and his face with his hands and he began to cry again. ‘It’s ok’, I said. ‘We won’t leave you.’ And from that moment on, he stuck to me like glue and he would never leave my side.

After school, Daisy, Simon and I had to walk home on our own, and off we went and it was great. We all held hands and we skipped along the road, while telling each other all about the things that we had done at school and about what had happened to us over the last few months. Then I asked Simon if he knew what had happened to our other brothers, Chris and Ted. And he said that the nuns had put them into two different houses, that he wasn’t allowed to see any of them and that he didn’t know what houses they were in. ‘Ok’, I said, ‘It doesn’t matter’, and we continued to walk home.

When we got back, we met up with all the other children in our house and we all went into the sitting room and I told everyone about Simon my baby brother; then one of the nuns came into the room and she told us to do some homework. But it was only dinnertime and I could see bread, butter and some jam on the table; so instead of doing my homework, I went over to the dinner table and I sat down and began to eat. But for some reason, one of the nuns came up behind me and she gave me a terrible beating around my head, knocking me off the chair and onto the floor. I got up and I began to cry, and as I looked up at her, she told me to go to my room and to stay there until the next day. But my head was throbbing and I could hear a humming noise in my ears, so I told her what was happening inside my head; but instead of her helping me, she continued to shout at me and then she chased me out of the room and up the stairs until I got to my room. I screamed and I shouted back to her that I had not eaten a thing since breakfast when Sister Ann hit me around the head, and then I slammed the bedroom door shut and I sat on my bed crying.

It wasn’t fair, I thought to myself, I had done nothing wrong, nothing at all. About half an hour later, my sisters and Simon came into the room and we all talked and played until it was bedtime; then Simon got into my bed with me and we cuddled up and fell asleep together, just like we used to back at daddy’s and mummy’s houses. The next few days were all the same; we got up, had breakfast and then we went to school. But one day, one of the nuns told us that we would have to go home for our lunch because we couldn’t stay and have lunch in the convent anymore, as they didn’t have the time to feed us.

So Daisy, Simon and I began to walk home on our own and about halfway home I walked across the road and Daisy followed me, then I turned to her and said, ‘Where’s Simon?’ ‘I don’t know’, she said. So we both turned around and looked for him. He was still standing on the pavement at the other side of the road. I shouted to him, ‘Quickly, cross now while no cars are coming’, but the road was wide and he kept saying no and that he was frightened. ‘Quickly, now’, I said. ‘It’s ok. Quick before it’s too late.’ He looked at me and then he ran, but it was too late and at that moment a brown-coloured car came along the road. I shouted again, ‘Quick’, but it was too late and the car hit him and then the car skidded to a stop.

I looked over at Simon and he was lying in the road and, all of a sudden, the road around him began to shimmer in the sunlight. I walked towards him and, as I got closer to him, I realised that it was a pool of Simon’s blood that was shimmering in the sunlight and he wasn’t moving. ‘He’s dead’, I shouted. ‘He’s dead.’ And then Daisy and I both ran over to him. I looked down at him as he lay in the road and his body was all twisted and he was covered in blood; and as I stood looking down at him, his blood began to spread along the road and around his body. I screamed and I began to shake with panic from the shock of seeing his blood drain from his body. ‘Quickly’, I said and we both ran up towards our house, screaming for help.

As I got to the house, I pounded on the front door and I screamed for someone to help us; and as I kicked the door, one of the nuns opened it. She shouted at us to stop and she screamed at us to be quiet and stop shouting, but I couldn’t stop and I kept shouting and I told her that Simon was dead, ‘He’s in the road dead’. Then another member of staff came out of the house and she told me to shut up, then she grabbed me by my hair and dragged me into the house and I smashed my knees on the steps as she dragged me inside. ‘Sit down and eat your dinner’, she said. I looked at her in shock; I couldn’t believe what she had just said to me.

So in a panic, I explained to her what had just happened to Simon and she told me to stay at the table while she went off to look for him. I got up and followed her to the door and I watched her as she walked past Daisy, who was still outside the house. Daisy looked pale and I tried to go out to her, but another member of the staff dragged me back inside and closed the door, and then she told me to sit down and to eat my dinner; but I couldn’t, I was too upset. So I just sat and waited for the staff to come back and within a couple of minutes she walked back through the door saying that Simon was gone and that someone had taken him to hospital.

I began to cry, saying that he was dead, but the staff told me to shut up and to eat my dinner; but I didn’t want the dinner and I told her that I couldn’t eat it, and with that she turned around and gave me a wallop around the head. She shouted at me that the food was not to be wasted and that she had not spent all day cooking it just for the fun of it. Then she screamed out loud at me, saying that I was an ungrateful child and that I could not see Simon until I ate all my dinner. I felt sick thinking about what had just happened to Simon, and each time I put the food into my mouth I gagged and I had to stop; but she said eat, and with the next mouthful I vomited the food back onto the plate and all over the table. She was furious and she made me spoon the sick up off the table and put it all back onto the plate; then she made me eat it all again, and she stood watching me until the very last spoonful went into my mouth.

Then she told me to get back to school, and as she opened the door, she pushed me outside and I fell to the ground. I closed my eyes and put my face down against the dirt and I began to cry. I knew that I had to be strong for Simon, so I lifted my head and I looked around, and Daisy was sitting on the step next to me and she was still crying. I picked myself up off the ground, I walked over to her and then we cuddled each other and we both held hands as we walked off back to school.

As we walked along the road, I told Daisy that it was just the two of us now and we had to be strong and stick together. But on the way back, we had to walk past Simon’s blood that was still in the road; and as we got closer to the spot where Simon had been lying, some people were standing there and they were talking about the accident. I walked up to the people and I asked them if Simon was ok, but they told me to go away and they just kept talking to each other. I walked back towards Daisy, shaking my head from side to side, and then we continued walking back to school; but we still didn’t know if he was dead or alive.

When we got back to the classroom, I asked the nun if Simon was ok, but she just looked at me and said, ‘Sit down, you have work to do.’ And for the rest of the day, we just had to sit and do our work. We never knew if Simon was dead or alive and it was like nothing had ever happened; the nuns just got on with what they had to do and nothing else seemed to matter to them. They never showed us any feelings and they always made us feel bad if we showed feelings towards each other.

After school, we had to walk back past Simon’s blood to get home and I was shaking with fear as we walked towards the spot of the accident; and as we got closer, I looked down at the road and the blood was still wet and sticky, and it had been splattered along the road, as cars drove through it. And I could see tyre tracks going up and down the road, where they had driven over the blood and spread the blood along the road surface, and I began to cry. Daisy held me tight, telling me that it was all going to be ok and that Simon was going to be at home when we got back, but I knew he wouldn’t be; he had been hit so hard by the car that he was dead. I walked along thinking about what had happened at lunchtime and I wished that I hadn’t shouted at Simon to run across the road, but I had and it was too late to change anything.

I cried all the way home and I was wishing that Simon would be at the door when we got back, but he wasn’t. I walked into the house and I asked one of the staff if Simon was dead, and she looked down at me and she said, ‘No, he’s alive and he’s in the hospital.’ I was so happy, ‘I want to see him’, I said. ‘No’, she said. ‘It’s entirely your fault that he’s in the hospital’, and then she began to hit me around my head. Then Sister Ann came into the room and she told the member of staff to go out of the room. ‘I’m in trouble’, she said. ‘It’s all your fault that Simon got run over and now I have to explain what happened to the school governors. Now go to bed as I can’t stick your crying all the time.’

Sister Ann called the staff back into the room and she told her to get me out of the room and to put me to bed. I walked out of the room and up the stairs to my bedroom and it felt like forever walking up the stairs on my own, and I kept turning around to see if Simon was behind me, but he wasn’t. I walked into my bedroom and Karen and Jenny were sitting on one of the beds, waiting for me. I told them both about the accident at lunchtime and then they told me that the nuns had told them that Simon was still alive and that one of the nuns and a priest had gone to the hospital to see him. They said that he had broken his arm and he had hit his head on the road, but he was going to be ok. I was so relieved, I sat on my bed and I put my head down onto my lap. I was so happy, but also very sad because he was all alone again and I couldn’t help him and I began to cry. It would be six weeks before Simon was able to come home from the hospital and in all that time the nuns never allowed us to go and see him and no one ever told us if he was ok or not.

And for the whole six weeks, Sister Ann and the staff told me that I was an evil little girl and that it should have been me that got run over and squashed that day and not Simon. They all made me feel very sad and my sisters tried to stick up for me; but if they said anything to the nuns, they would slap them around their heads with a wooden spoon, and then they would make them miss their dinner to teach them a lesson for butting in and getting involved.

When Simon finally came home, we all ran over to him and we began to examine him; he still had stitches in his head and mouth, a plaster cast on his arm and, in his hand, he had a container full of little stitches that a nurse had removed from a big scar on his leg. He looked broken and his hair had been cut short so that the doctors could drain fluid from his skull, after his head had hit the road. We all surrounded him, giving him kisses, and we told him that we loved him and that we were very sorry for what had happened to him. He just laughed and he said that he was ok, and we spent the rest of the day playing with him and giving him things that we had found around the house and school; ‘little secrets’ we called them, most of the stuff was rubbish, but to us it meant a lot because it was all we had.