It started getting very dark on my way back. I couldn’t tell the time, but it felt like I’d been out for hours. Every time I turned a corner a bit more light faded, like doors were shutting at the end of streets. My stomach was twisting with hunger and I was shivering with cold. With every sodden step I told myself it would be worth it to please Mammy and get my money to see the sights of Howth. I wasn’t sure I was interested in seeing that ancient church. I wasn’t sure if worshipping the Blessed Virgin Mary would ever help my prayers be heard and stop the fighting and shouting at home. But there was a castle and a lighthouse and glorious views over Dublin Bay. And we were going by bus!
I’d only ever been to Dublin once before, with Daddy on a Christmas-shopping trip. It was like something out of a storybook, and I’d kept pinching myself and wondering if it was real, because Daddy had never taken me anywhere before. I still don’t know why he did it. It was a complete surprise, and he didn’t shout at me or tell me off once.
Remembering the Christmas trip cheered me up. I’m sure Daddy smiled when we looked at the lights and displays in the shop windows, and he even took me into Woolworth’s for a mug of milk and a pink wafer biscuit. Every detail was etched in my memory, because it was such an unusual thing for Daddy to do. If Mammy let me go on that trip, I was sure she would let me do another one.
At last I was back from the off licence. Falling through the back door with the cider tucked under my dripping cardie, I felt like I’d marched to the top of Howth Castle and defeated a whole army of those Norman invaders Mother Dorothy told us about. I’d never been so glad to get home in my life before.
‘Here you go, Mammy,’ I said proudly, holding out the bottle like a trophy.
‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ she screamed back. ‘You’ve been gone for fuckin’ ages! I’ve been waitin’ hours for my cider! Couldn’t you have gone any quicker, you lazy little bitch’ She grabbed the bottle and thumped me sharply in the ear.
I shrieked with pain and cowered in the kitchen, watching nervously as she twisted off the metal bottle top with her teeth, poured herself a large tumblerful and took a long, slow slug of the cider.
She sat back in her rocking chair, and I was sure I saw her face soften a bit. The deep frown lines between her eyes seemed to fade as the golden liquid slid down her throat.
Steeling myself to take a few steps towards her, with the sound of blood pumping noisily through my smarting ear, I asked gingerly: ‘Mammy, I was wonderin’, could I have some money to go to Howth? Mother Dorothy says we’re all to pay a contribution, as we’re going on a bus and we’re going to see a holy church and…’
‘No way!’ Mammy screeched. ‘Where in God’s name do you think I’m going to get that kind of money from? Do you think I’m made of money? Do you think it grows on trees? You’re such a selfish cow, Cynthia. If I were to pay for you to go gallivanting off to Howth, you’d be taking food out of the babies’ mouths. Tell that interfering nun you can’t go. No way!’
She swigged greedily from her glass and slammed it down. ‘Get yourself to bed. Get out of my sight!’
I stripped off my soaked clothes and lay shivering in bed, hot tears streaming down my cheeks and running into the cold rainwater trickling from my hair.
I thought about telling Mother Dorothy the truth. ‘My Mammy hates me! She won’t let me go on the trip! She says we can’t afford it, but she drinks cider! She smokes lots of cigarettes! It’s not fair!’
Instead, the next day I tiptoed into her office like a poor church mouse, scuttling along quietly so as not to be seen by the other children as I tapped on the door. ‘I’m sorry, Mother Dorothy. My family cannot afford to send me on the trip,’ I muttered. ‘I’m afraid I can’t go.’
Mother Dorothy sighed deeply, as if I was testing her patience to the limit. She looked me up and down several times, scowling and tutting and shaking her head from side to side.
I thought she might reach for her cane, and I started to feel jittery.
‘Very well, the school will make an exception and fund the trip,’ she snapped.
I wasn’t sure what she meant at first and stood there quaking, hanging my head in shame.
‘I said you can go on the trip, child! You do not have to pay. I will let you go for free. Do you understand? Are you not grateful? Well then?’
I couldn’t believe my ears. Mammy just had to provide a packed lunch.
‘Bring some bread and butter and a bottle of water like all the other children,’ Mother Dorothy bellowed. ‘That is all you need, child. Be off with you now! And be thankful! Thank the Lord for your good fortune!’
Mammy liked money, but she didn’t like to spend it on us kids. In fact the more money she had, it seemed, the more alcohol she drank, or the fancier the bottles it came in. Whenever I heard her shouting ‘Where’s the fuckin’ money?’ to Daddy she complained that she had to ‘make do’ with whatever alcohol she
