I held my breath as I held out my hands. I was trembling so much I struggled to keep steady as she had ordered, and the more I shook the more angry Mother Dorothy became.
I recoiled in shock when I stole a glance at her. She was purple with rage and was actually frothing at the mouth as she towered over me with the cane raised high.
I shut my eyes and bit through my lip as the poker-hot pain shot from the palm of my hand and through every vein and nerve in my body.
Everything jangled inside me, and my whole arm felt numb.
‘Hold your hand out again, child. Do it now!’
I tried really hard to lift my shaking arm and hold my hand out flat, but the mixture of pain and fear racing round my body made me pull it away the next time Mother Dorothy brought the cane down.
Now she was raging at me even more, shouting and screaming and showering me with froth from her mouth. ‘I do not tolerate sinners! Have you no respect? Have you no fear of God?’
It felt like I stood there for hours as Mother Dorothy ranted at me again and again to hold my hand out, but each time she brought the cane down I instinctively pulled away.
‘Twenty lashes!’ she screamed. ‘Thirty lashes! Forty lashes!’ but I still couldn’t hold my hand out straight. Even through the pain and shame I could tell this wasn’t going well for Mother Dorothy. I could hear other children letting out gasps and whispers as they sat glued to the awful spectacle.
Eventually Mother Dorothy threw me outside the classroom and told me she would deal with me later. ‘There will be severe consequences,’ she warned, which I learned meant being called more bad things like ‘evil child’ and ‘wicked little madam’, receiving several sharp slaps across the face, or being marched back down to one of the lower classes so I felt ashamed in front of the younger kids.
Some of my classmates thought I had deliberately defied Mother Dorothy, forcing her to count up in tens until she got to a hundred and looked like she would explode. It happened time and time again, and afterwards they always told me I was really brave.
I did develop a bold and rebellious streak as the years went by. But the truth was I felt terrified of being hit and I couldn’t bear the terrible pain it caused. ‘You’re wrong, I’m a coward,’ I told them, but they didn’t believe me.
After that very first caning I ran home from school in tears at the end of the day and told Mammy how horrible Mother Dorothy was. I wanted Mammy to see the angry red line across my palm which was still hot and smarting, but she barely looked at me.
‘You must have done something terrible to make a holy nun so mad at you,’ was all she said, giving me a clip round the ear. I stumbled towards the bedroom door feeling shocked and dazed. ‘Don’t leave empty-handed!’ my mother called after me from her bed. ‘Take my dirty cup downstairs with you, you lazy bitch!’
I tried to tell Daddy too, but he didn’t seem to want to listen either. ‘You must have deserved it! Why can’t you behave yerself ? If those nuns come knocking on this door I’ll beat you myself and you’ll have even more to whinge about!’
I stopped telling them about school after that, and they never asked me anything. They didn’t go to any parents’ meetings or open days like other mammies and daddies, so I guessed they had no interest in what I was learning or doing all day.
Anyway, they had another baby now, so my school was the last thing they’d care about. My little brother, Martin, was born when I was nearly six-years-old and Mary was just two. He was Mammy’s eighth child and, like Mary, he was a beautiful baby.
I worried about how we would cope with another child in the house. I could see how we struggled already, and I feared a new baby would only make matters worse, causing more fights and arguments. It meant that, despite the treatment I was getting from Mother Dorothy, I still preferred to be at school than at home.
I liked the smell of chalk dust, pencil shavings and freshly cut paper, and I was relieved to get away from the smell of stale cigarettes and dirty toilets that hung around at home.
I loved the quiet time best of all, when the teachers ordered us to sit in silence and read a book. Other kids groaned, because they found it boring, but even when I couldn’t read a word on the page I lapped up the chance to have some unbroken peace.
At home I never knew when a fight or an argument would break out, but in those reading times at school we always had at least ten minutes to ourselves, and I absolutely loved it.
Mammy told me I had to come home to eat at lunchtime. ‘People will be talking about what you’re are eating. I don’t want people talking,’ she said, but I worked out that the real reason was that she didn’t want the bother of making pack-up lunches. Instead, whichever kids were around picked up the bread and meat on the way home and shared it out.
Sometimes, when I was a bit older, I was allowed to go to Granny’s. I loved those lunchtimes. Granny gave me a smile and a cuddle as I stepped inside, then fed me sandwiches and warm, sweet tea. I didn’t mind that her house was even dirtier and colder than ours. I sat on the mucky floor lapping up Granny’s tales about the Black and Tans or the Easter Rising, and basking in the warmth of her kindness.
I always wished I could stay longer at
