I was just about to bite into my bread when I felt curious eyes looking my way. It reminded me of the first day I started school. What were they looking at? I immediately thought about my hair. I knew it was messier than normal. It was sort of matted up the back where the itchy rash had bubbled up. Did it look terrible? I glanced around to see why the other girls were staring at me, and my eyes fell on their packed lunches. Instead of carrying their food in a plastic carrier bag, they had colourful tins and tubs. Inside, they had neatly cut sandwiches wrapped in tin foil, bottles of lemonade, homemade oatcakes, crispy apples and squares of chocolate.
I looked down at the grass and saw Mother Dorothy’s heavy black clogs stomping towards me out of the corner of my eye. ‘Eat up now, children!’ she ordered. ‘When you’ve finished your lunch, those of you whose mammies and daddies have allowed you to bring spending money can form a queue at the icecream van.’
My tummy felt scraped out it was so empty. I always had Shredded Wheat or Weetabix for breakfast, with sugar sprinkled on top if there was any left in the packet, but breakfast had been hours ago.
I was starving hungry, but my throat felt like someone had pulled it out, tied a big knot in it and shoved it back down my gullet. It felt so bad I couldn’t even chew, let alone swallow. Why had Mother Dorothy told me to bring bread and water when everybody else had treats and goodies? I felt so embarrassed I just wanted to go home.
Watching the other girls run off giggling to the icecream van made me feel so left out I wanted to cry. It wasn’t fair. Why did things always get worse when I hoped they’d get better? It simply wasn’t worth even hoping things would turn out all right, because they never did.
Chapter 6
‘Please Stop, Daddy’
‘Cynthia, you’re to take your brother Martin to school with you tomorrow. I’ve enough to cope with without lookin’ after him as well!
Tell those nuns I’m sick. I’m too sick to look after him. If he’s not with you there’s nobody can look after him!’
Martin was just two years old. I looked at him strapped in his stripy nylon pram and felt full of pity. His face was caked in dirt, and he had food stains around his mouth. He was wearing a lilac-coloured sweater that would suit a girl much better, and he had on a pair of faded brown trousers I’d seen go in and out of the cupboard under the stairs lots of times.
‘But, Mammy, what will I do with him? What about my lessons? The nuns’ll wallop me if I don’t pay attention!’
I didn’t normally dare answer Mammy back, but this seemed like a terrible idea, especially because I’d been in big trouble at school lately.
Since taking our First Holy Communion, Mother Dorothy had been taking the whole class to attend regular confession.
We’d been taken yesterday, and Mother Dorothy warned us all the way there that we had to confess every one of our sins. ‘I don’t want to hear any nonsense about you not having committed a sin. You are all sinners. The only way to avoid burning in hell and eternal damnation is to confess your sins.’
I felt panicky when I was led to the confession box, where Father O’Brien sat hunched up in the half-light inside. I didn’t know what to say, but I knew I had to come up with something convincing. It wasn’t like the mock confession in the classroom, where Mother Dorothy punished me for my confession. This was private, so I didn’t have to worry so much about the consequences. But I still had to come up with something.
I quickly invented three imaginary sins in my head and whispered them as quietly as possible. ‘I’m sorry, Father, for I have sinned. I stole 10p from my mother’s purse.
‘I’m sorry, Father, for I have sinned. I stole a copy book from the school office.’
Father O’Brien shook his head solemnly after my first two confessions, repeating them after me in a disgusted voice.
‘I’m sorry, Father, for I have sinned. I cursed my mother,’ I ended.
‘What did you say to curse your mother?’ he quizzed me angrily. I felt very uncomfortable, because he spoke very loudly and his voiced echoed around the confession box.
‘Well then? What was this curse you used against your mother?’
I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. I had to say the first curse that came into my head. It was the one I’d heard Mammy and Daddy say most often: ‘Fuck off,’ I muttered apologetically.
‘You sinful child!’ he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘You must pray to the Virgin Mary to save your soul. Pray for twenty extra minutes at bedtime and say ten Hail Mary’s and two Our Father’s!’
I left the confession box with my head bowed in disgrace, and a pair black shoes and the hem of a nun’s habit loomed into my line of vision.
I looked up in horror. Mother Dorothy had been standing outside and had clearly heard every single world. Her skin had turned the colour of a ripe plum, and she was so angry she was visibly shaking.
‘How dare you! You wicked child!’ she blustered, strands of spit wobbling precariously between her lips, like a spider’s web caught in the wind.
She grabbed my ear and dragged me to the front of the church, shouting all the way down the aisle: ‘You are not fit to sit with the rest of the children! You are a sinner! You are forbidden from talking to the other girls!’
Back in the classroom, she was still apoplectic
