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‘Oh my God!’ I screamed. ‘I’m dying! I’m dying!’
Before that moment I had no idea I was seriously hurt, but now I went into shock. Tara did what she could – dragging me through the yard, out the gates and putting me onto the side of the road.
Then she went and got my mother. Mammy came and she started screaming too and that alerted the farmer. Just then Daddy pulled up in a van with two other people I’d not seen before.
‘Look at the child’s leg!’ she shrieked at him. ‘Look at it! It’s destroyed. Look at them bones sticking out. Get out of the van and pick her up!’ Mammy’s screams were more terrifying than anything else – I couldn’t even cry because she was going so mad. But Daddy didn’t say a word. There she was, ripping her hair out, and he just drove off. So the famer put me in his car and drove me to the hospital, Mammy still ranting and raving.
Everything seemed to happen in a blur. We got to the hospital but they told us they couldn’t fix up my leg because they didn’t deal with broken bones. Instead, they put Mammy and me in an ambulance and drove us to another hospital. Here, they cut off my sock and shoe and said to Mammy that they were sorry but they would have to amputate my leg because I’d been too long without blood circulating.
Mammy turned on them fiercely: ‘There’s no way you’re taking that child’s leg! No way!’
So the doctors went away and when they came back they told us we were very lucky because it just so happened that a surgeon from America was visiting and he was a bone specialist. And he was going to try and save my leg.
‘Mammy, am I going to die?’ I asked her as they prepared me for surgery. I really didn’t know what was happening but judging by my mother’s hysterical reactions I reckoned it must be pretty terrible.
‘No, baby,’ she said, though her eyes didn’t look so sure. ‘They just have to put you to sleep for a bit so they can fix your leg back on again.’
‘You will stay, Mammy?’ I begged her. ‘You will stay until I wake up?’
‘Of course, baby. I’ll stay with you.’
I felt reassured at least that Mammy would be there when I woke up and she held my hands as they led me on a trolley into the theatre.
The last thing I saw were the bright fluorescent lights overhead, racing past. Mammy’s worried eyes. And then I was gone.
I came round in a dark ward, lit only by a few dim bedside lights. There were other beds all around me but everyone seemed asleep, except a couple of nurses going about their business in hushed tones.
I looked down to see my whole leg was encased in a hard white material, all the way from my toes to my hip. And Mammy was nowhere to be seen.
I had to stay in hospital for two whole months and I cried the whole time I was there, thinking nobody was ever going to come back and get me. There were other children in the ward too but they all had visitors – nobody ever came to visit me. For the first few weeks I was confined to bed, unable to walk, but as my leg healed I was given crutches to get me back on my feet. I couldn’t use them so I ended up sliding across the floor on my bottom to get around. I knew that if nobody was coming for me I’d have to make my own way home, so once I was out of bed I tried everything I could to escape. Each time the nurses’ backs were turned I was down on the floor and out the door. It drove them mental. Eventually they put me in a room on my own, and tied my hands and legs down to stop me escaping. I cried my heart out then.
Though, really, I didn’t have any reason to complain. In fact it was quite nice in the hospital. We had regular meals, new clothes and the doctor who fixed my leg even bought me a doll, a bribe to try and stop me escaping. I enjoyed playing with the other children on the wards. We’d all be putting bandages on ourselves and each other and there was even a school where we did lessons. They tried to teach me things but I couldn’t learn. I’d never been to school or been made to sit and listen to anything before in my life. I didn’t have the patience for it. All I wanted was to go home. I was missing everyone so much.
Every day I asked the ward nurses: ‘Are they going to come back and get me today? When is my Mammy and Daddy coming for me?’
But no one could answer my questions. I really thought they were never coming back.
One of the nurses had the idea of letting me sit and chat to the older folk in the next ward and that seemed to calm me down. So every day they sent me to the old people where I’d pass a pleasant couple of hours telling them all about Tara, Colin and Brian and all the things we liked to do. Eventually, one day the nice doctor who had fixed my leg came to me and said: ‘You’re going home today, Kathleen.’
I was so excited! My leg was still in plaster but now I’d learned how to use the crutches and I could get about quite well. I said goodbye to all the friends I’d made in my ward and also the old people’s ward, who seemed a little sad I was leaving, but happy for me when I told them over and over: ‘I’m going home. I’m going home!’
The hospital took me back in an ambulance and I asked the nurse in the front to let me know when she spotted our wagons.
Suddenly, she announced: ‘I can’t see any wagons, Kathleen, but I do see a pretty cottage.’
I was confused. We came to a halt and the nurse opened the back door of the ambulance in front of a long drive leading up to a large house in the middle of a skinny lane. The nurse helped me out the back and that’s when I saw my Mammy, Daddy and all my siblings emerging from the front door. A house! We had a new house!
Tara ran the quickest and she was upon me in a flash, cuddling me and kissing me all over.
‘Oh, Kathleen! We thought you were dead! We kept asking Mammy when you were coming home and she always said “soon” but then you never came so we honestly thought you were dead!’
‘I missed you!’ I said. ‘I missed all of you’s!’
Tara seemed fascinated with my leg, now encased in plaster, and she watched, intrigued, as I used the crutches to help me hobble up the drive.
‘We’ve got a house!’ she said proudly. ‘Look, a proper house! Come inside, I want to show you around!’
As I came to the doorway, Daddy knelt down to wrap me in a loving embrace, tears welling up from the sight of me. The others cuddled me too. Mammy was now holding a new little baby who screamed away in her arms.
‘Now just you be careful with that thing,’ she called, pointing to my plaster cast, as Tara led me inside the new house. ‘You mind them stairs!’
There were no hugs or kisses from her. Nothing. I didn’t even stop to ask why nobody had come to visit me in the hospital.
I was just happy and grateful to be reunited with my family. And in a house again. That was just grand!
Chapter 6
A New Home (#u609982a6-788d-5dd7-b273-1f9e8879f02c)
‘Come on! Come on!’ Tara was breathless with excitement. She couldn’t wait to show me around our new home. I shuffled in through the big old-fashioned door with the latch and immediately I could see we had a large open parlour with a fire in the middle.
‘This here is our room,’ Tara beamed proudly, swinging open the door of a room on the ground floor to reveal two beds and a pile of clothes on the floor. I was pleased to see my dresses among them.
‘Let’s go upstairs!’ she shouted. But I was still on crutches and I looked at the steep stairs up to the second floor.
‘I can’t climb that,’ I told her, nodding towards my leg, still in plaster from my hip to my toes.
‘That’s okay – Aidan and Liam will carry you,’ she said, undeterred, yelling for the older brothers to pick me up so I could see upstairs. There was a second room for Mammy and Daddy and the little ones. And next to the bed I saw a brand new cot in the corner.
‘That’s for the new baby,’ Tara said authoritatively. ‘He’s called Riley. Oh, Kathleen, you’re going to love him! He’s just the most beautiful thing in the world!’
Afterwards, Tara showed me the outdoors – we had two acres to the front of the house with sheds all around the walls.
‘That’s for the dogs,’ explained Tara. Now Daddy had been busy while I was away, breeding pups, and the sheds were full of yapping dogs as well as Nellie our greyhound, an Alsatian and a little white terrier.
It didn’t take long for me to settle into our new life and I was so pleased we were back in a house. Of a night me and Brian, Tara and Colin would all curl up together on one bed, as we were all used to doing, even though there were two beds in our room. And during the day we’d go out exploring the fields and woodlands, though at first I couldn’t go very far because of my plaster cast. I was bursting to get it off so I could climb trees again with the rest of them.
It should have been a wonderful new start for us but Daddy was still troubled. And still drinking. One day the Legion of Mary came round with a present – a brand new television set.
‘Ohh!’ we gasped in wonder as we ran our hands over the smooth wooden box.
I’d seen a television before in the hospital but I never imagined we could have one ourselves at home so it was a real surprise.
‘Let’s get this thing working now,’ said Liam, and he set to fiddling about with all the wires at the back. Tara and I jumped around him excitedly while he shooed us away.
‘Get back.’ He swatted at us good-naturedly. ‘Can’t you let a man get on with his work?’
He was still only 15 himself but in our eyes Liam was already fully grown, tall and strong, just like our Daddy.
Finally, he looked up at us, satisfied: ‘Okay now. I think we’re ready. Tara, press that large button at the bottom, will ya?’
Tara did as she was told and at that moment the screen flickered into life and we found ourselves staring at a row of black and white lines.
‘Okay, give me a minute,’ said Liam. ‘I’ll just have to tune it up.’
Between the blasts of white noise we could just about make out the sound of two men talking. Liam twiddled a dial just above the ‘On’ button and eventually an image flickered, disappeared then reappeared and stayed steady – we could see two people sat across from each other on chairs, talking. We all cheered loudly at his success.
‘What’s that feckin’ racket?’ Suddenly we heard Daddy’s angry shouts as he strode in the front door.
‘Daddy! Daddy!’ we all clamoured. ‘Look! We got a television!’
‘No we bloody don’t,’ he growled. ‘Not with that racket.’
And he crossed in front of us, ripped the television free from its wires and flung it straight through the window.
It came down in the garden with a loud crash. We jumped up to look out at the television set, all broken up and smashed on our garden.
That was it. We’d had a television for about two hours. Then it was gone. We hadn’t even managed to watch anything on it.
Daddy’s tempers seemed to be worse than ever in the new house and poor Mammy bore the brunt. There were times he got so mad with her he’d fight her like he would a man, slapping, hitting and throwing her about all over the place. For us it was frightening and we all tried to run out the house whenever we felt the threat of a violent outburst. Now Daddy had a new grievance – the baby.
‘That feckin’ child ain’t mine!’ he’d tell her whenever he heard Riley screaming out from his cot upstairs.
Mammy would sigh, pure exhausted with the constant fighting.
‘Of course he’s yours, Donal,’ she’d reply, just like she’d said a million times before this.
‘No, he’s not. That child ain’t mine. I know he’s not mine.’
During these moments we’d dodge and weave through their legs, hoping to reach the front door to escape out of the house before things could get any worse. If they were fighting near the front door we had no choice but to run upstairs and hide in their room instead, hoping Daddy wouldn’t come up while he was still mad. None of us really thought too hard about what Daddy was saying – we all knew the baby was his too. It was beyond our comprehension to imagine anything else. Daddy was sick, that was the trouble, and his paranoia told him all sorts of things that just weren’t true.
One day Daddy’s rage started early and went on all day long, gaining power and momentum every time he came in the house. There was nothing Mammy could say to calm him down, and by evening he’d already drunk himself into a storm of fury.
‘Why don’t you just admit it, woman?’ he bawled at her, sending plates and cups flying as he swept a heavy arm across the kitchen table.
‘Admit what?’ she yelled back, darting behind the table to get away from him. ‘I ain’t done nothing, Donal. It’s all in your bloody head. You’re just so …’
But she never got to finish her sentence. Daddy flew across the room and jumped on top of her, pushing her back onto the ground. He had his large hands around her neck now and his eyes were like a man possessed – frenzied and demonic. He was pushing hard onto her throat, putting all his weight onto his taut arms, and she was choking, gasping for breath while her eyes bulged with terror. We had been playing by the fire but when we saw them like that we all ran out the house, terrified.
‘He’s going to kill Mammy!’ I whimpered, as Tara and I clung tight to each other in one of the dog sheds in the garden, a place where we liked to hide to get away from their fights.
‘For sure, he’s going to kill her this time!’ Tara agreed. Colin was sat in a corner, making marks in the dirt while Brian kept watch at the opening.
‘We can’t go back,’ Brian declared. ‘We don’t want to see poor Mammy dead in the kitchen.’
Brian was always the grown-up one of us – making the decisions that were best for us all. He was right. We’d seen it for ourselves – Daddy had lost control completely this time and there was no way Mammy could survive this attack. We let the hours pass by and must have dropped off for a while because the next thing we heard was my Mammy’s voice calling all our names.
‘Brian! Tara! Kathleen! Colin! Come on, you lot. Come inside now.’
We all looked at each other in surprise – she was alive!
We scrambled to our feet, shivering from being outside so long and having had nothing to eat for our tea. I was so happy to see my Mammy was alive I ran straight into the kitchen to see her, but when I caught sight of her face I almost recoiled in horror. She had the most terrible red eyes you’ve ever seen in your life – like the devil.
I must have looked pretty upset because Mammy said: ‘Now, don’t be making a fuss there, Kathleen. Have your tea now.’
We sat at the table, eating our bread and drinking tea in silence.
Finally Brian asked: ‘Where’s my father, Mammy?’
‘Your father’s down at the pub,’ she replied, busying herself with the cleaning and washing up.
Some time later, when we were all finished and warming up by the fire, Aidan and Liam came back from working in the fields.
They were talking loudly and being boisterous between them until they caught sight of Mammy.
‘Jesus! Mammy! What did he do to you?’ Liam exclaimed loudly.
‘What did he do to me?’ Mammy spat bitterly. ‘What does it look like he did?’
‘That’s it, Mammy!’ he said. ‘That’s the final straw there. I’m going to kill my Daddy for what he’s done.’
Liam was boiling with rage. He couldn’t bear to see what my father had done – none of us could. We couldn’t look Mammy in the face. It was horrible to see those red swollen eyes.
‘Don’t be saying that now, Liam.’ Mammy shook her head.
‘No, really! I’m going to kill him!’
‘You can’t kill your father,’ she repeated. Now she was stood against the wall as Liam paced back and forth in the room. ‘You better not be touching your father,’ she warned him again. Aidan meanwhile was sat silent next to us, staring into the fire, a look of utter despair on his face. He caught Liam’s eyes – I could tell what he was thinking right there. We all could. He wanted Daddy dead too.
Nothing more was said but Mammy set about getting the older boys their tea. None of us wanted to go to bed that night. We were all too shaken up by what had happened and we needed the comfort of the fire and each other. Liam went upstairs. He seemed in a strange mood but we tried not to pay it any mind. Liam was always trying to protect our Mammy but it often left him battered himself from Daddy’s violent outbursts.
It was late when my father finally staggered in, up to the eyeballs with the drink. He didn’t look at my Mammy. Nobody said a word. He just plonked himself on a stool by the range and sat there, warming his hands and feet at the fire. He couldn’t have been there more than a few minutes before we heard the clump-clump of Liam’s feet overhead. Then he flew down the stairs in a second and before we knew what was happening he came up behind my father and whacked him over the head with a large ashtray.
In a stomach-churning whump we heard the ashtray make contact with Daddy’s skull and then his head split open and blood started pouring out.
‘Liam! No!’ Mammy screamed.
But it was too late – Daddy’s head was oozing thick dark blood. He hadn’t even fallen off his stool – he just rocked back and forth slightly, not saying a word. Then he staggered to his feet as Liam stood back, breathing hard, a look of pure hate on his face.
We could all see he was drawing his arm back to go at Daddy again.
‘Stop, Liam! Don’t!’ Mammy screeched, racing over to Liam and grabbing hold of his arm, pinning it back at his side. They struggled like that for a bit as Daddy swayed from side to side before stumbling out the front door.
‘Let me go, Mammy!’ Liam was shouting. ‘I’m gonna kill him!’
Mammy ran to the door and shut it against my father, then leaned back on it to stop Liam from following Daddy outside.
‘Please, Liam, don’t do this!’ she was crying, pleading with him now. ‘Think of the little ones!’
