The belt buckle cut into the tender skin on my thighs and smashed across my knuckles when I tried to defend myself.
He left me crying in a crumpled little heap on the cold floor while he ate his tea, swore at Mammy about the state of his boiled ham and cabbage and went to the pub saying, ‘Fuck the lot o’ you.’
I couldn’t sit down comfortably for days afterwards. I didn’t even bother showing Mammy, because I knew she would show no sympathy and wouldn’t even offer me a plaster.
I knew she didn’t care about me, and that I was her least favourite child. The only time she spoke to me was to order me about, tell me to do the housework or to insult me.
‘You’re trouble,’ she’d tell me. ‘You’re the awkward one. Get out of my sight. Don’t you know, Peter is my favourite? I don’t like you, Cynthia! Didn’t I tell you that already?’ Then she’d cackle like a witch or give me one of her funny false smiles, which scared me.
She regularly told my siblings and relatives I was bad, and seemed to delight in doing so. ‘That child is trouble. Don’t trust her, she’s an evil little bitch. She’s a lying little cow. A devil child.’
I didn’t know why Mammy said those things, and nobody seemed to argue with her or defend me. I didn’t blame them, I was just very confused about why Mammy hated me so much.
I worked hard and listened to what the priests in church and the nuns at school taught me about being a good girl. Living in a strong Catholic community, it was drummed into me all the time that ‘bold’ girls were sinners, and I knew what happened to sinners: they would burn in hell.
‘Be sure your sins will find you out,’ Mother Dorothy would say at school. From a young age, I’d tremble in my seat, imagining the flames of hell licking up my legs because I’d forgotten to say my prayers or had missed church on Sunday again.
I didn’t cause problems, I tried to avoid them. Yet I always seemed to end up in the most trouble. I couldn’t work it out. I’m sure I gave Mammy no reason to hate me.
Sometimes she was nastier to me when she had been drinking a lot. I knew drinking was her favourite pastime, and that other mammies didn’t stay in bed all day, but I didn’t blame the drinking for the way she treated me, because Mammy always drank. I didn’t know any different.
Daddy usually had a reason for beating me, but Mammy seemed to pick arguments out of thin air and turn the whole house upside down in a split-second.
It didn’t seem to make any difference what I said or did, she always had it in for me, and twisted everything I said into an argument. She’d smack me round the head all the time, so I was often scared of asking the most basic questions, even when I got older. Throughout my childhood, I thought twice about most things I said, afraid of her reaction.
‘Mammy, please can you buy some soap?’ I asked once. I picked my moment carefully, while she was looking calm, doing her knitting and listening to Johnny Cash on the radio.
‘What do you want soap for?’ she shouted, throwing her knitting needles down and clouting me round the ear. ‘You’re a dirty little bitch, who are you washin’ yourself for?’
I had no idea what she was on about, I just wanted soap because I didn’t want to be smelly. I didn’t understand how I could be called dirty for wanting to clean myself with soap.
Mammy used the word ‘dirty’ a lot. She also called me a ‘filthy whore’, and often told me that my private parts were ‘filthy’ parts of my body. She made a fuss of dressing or undressing in front of me, and if I walked into the bedroom when she was in her bra or nightdress, she shouted: ‘What are you looking at, you dirty bastard!’
Of all us kids, everybody said I looked the most like Mammy. People would see me in the local shops and say: ‘You’ve got to be Josie Murphy’s daughter - you’re the image of her!’
Later on, I would wonder if, for some strange reason, that was why she hated me so much. Did I look too much like her, despite my blond hair? Was that why she had it in for me? It didn’t make sense, but there had to be some reason.
I remember unsuspecting relatives and neighbours often used to say, ‘Poor Josie, she’s got her work cut out!’ They seemed to feel sorry for Mammy because she had lots of kids and not much money.
I didn’t really understand why they said she had her work cut out though, she barely did any work at all. I think they thought she was stuck in the house, working her fingers to the bone, but I knew that wasn’t true.
Daddy worked really hard though, and he seemed to be well respected too. Even though he was always dressed in shabby old clothes, he still made a good impression, like you couldn’t ignore him when he walked into a room. He didn’t scare me as much as Mammy, but I was still afraid of his temper, and I always tried not to make him angry.
He drank for hours every single night, but he didn’t get drunk as often as Mammy. And at least he worked; even at weekends he did extra jobs to get more money. He always put food on the table, as well as plenty of cigarettes and alcohol for Mammy, and in return he spent every night in his favourite pub lounges at the Club, McDonagh’s, Hogan’s, the Arches or the Queens in Dalkey. Mammy didn’t complain. I think she was glad to have
