Mammy snapped me out of my thoughts, pushing me on to the single bed, shouting very loudly, ‘D’you hear me? You’re a freak! Stay up here until I say!’
She pulled the thick curtains tightly across the black blanket on the window.
‘Stay up here, you freak! I don’t want anyone to see you.’
I heard Mammy stamp downstairs, leaving me sprawled on the bed, wide-eyed with shock.
I couldn’t believe I was having a baby and that I was a freak, and my baby would be disabled, whatever that meant.
I thought about singing in school, and how happy I was in my new class. What would happen now? Would I have to stay locked in this room until the baby came, or would Mammy take me to hospital, like she did when Margaret had Theresa? I’m a freak. I’m having a baby. The baby will be a freak. Those words spun around in my head.
I loved babies. I loved all the beautiful newborn babies I had seen, but I didn’t want to have a baby myself. And if I had to have a baby, I didn’t want one who was a freak. It wasn’t fair.
I hardly slept that night, even though Daddy didn’t go anywhere near me. I had scary dreams about ugly monsters. I was trapped in a big witch’s cauldron with lots of scaly monsters, and they were kicking me all over.
The next morning, I went to school as normal. Mammy was fast asleep when I woke up, and Daddy had gone to work, so I sorted out the little ones and took myself to school, with thoughts about the baby nagging away inside me.
I was pleased to be out of the house and happy I wasn’t going to be locked in the bedroom until the baby came. I didn’t know how long the wait would be, and I didn’t want to be stuck in the house for days, or years, or however long it might be before the baby appeared.
I didn’t know how babies were made or how they arrived. Maybe it would be like Mother Dorothy said. Maybe I would go up a lane and come back pushing a pram?
I didn’t tell my friends I was having a baby. I wanted them to be my friends and sing and dance with me and watch my little comedy shows. I wanted everything to stay the way it was before the baby was in my tummy.
From then on, whenever I felt the kicks, I ignored them. If I felt sick, I didn’t say anything. My tummy started to get a lot bigger than normal, but I just put up with it. What else could I do?
I had horrible thoughts about the thing inside me, and how scary it looked. I was afraid it might kill me as it banged about inside me. What was it doing to my insides? Some days, I wondered if having a baby in my stomach was like when you had a bug in your stomach. Maybe it would just go one day, and suddenly I would get better? I thought that would be the best thing.
Mammy would be pleased about that too, because she was very angry about the baby. She was shouting at me all the time, calling me a freak every time she looked at me. I wondered if I was turning into a monster like the baby. Maybe that was why Mammy kept calling me a freak.
She was fighting with Daddy every night too, but when he came upstairs to bed, swearing and cursing after being kicked and slapped by Mammy, Daddy ignored me. It was as if he was terrified of even brushing against me.
It was winter, and when the snow came I wasn’t allowed to go outside, because Mammy said she was afraid I would fall.
One Friday night, all the neighbours and the children off the street were out playing in the snow. I watched out the window when Daddy came home with the housekeeping money. Someone threw a snowball at him, so he went into our backyard and got his work shovel.
Our neighbour was hiding behind his wall, and my dad threw a shovelful of snow over the wall at him.
I saw everyone enjoying themselves, running in and out of the gardens and laughing. It was so unusual for Daddy to join in the fun.
I felt so envious and left out, I cried. I didn’t want to be stuck inside with Mammy. It was as if I was in trouble for having the freak inside me. I didn’t know why Mammy was worried about me falling. She had never worried about me hurting myself before.
I craved milk all the time and kept drinking it, but that night Mammy wouldn’t let me have milk with my dinner.
She told me if I drank milk, my boobs would get bigger and ‘people would notice’. I was so upset I sobbed again. I hated being different, it was horrible. I just wanted to play in the snow and drink milk like all the other children.
After that, Mammy started hiding milk from me, and one morning I felt so desperate to drink a glass I got up early and stole a pint from the neighbour’s doorstep.
On another morning, I crept downstairs early to try to find some milk before Mammy hid it, and was delighted to find a bottle standing on the kitchen table.
I grabbed it quickly and gulped it down greedily, but the second it hit my throat I started to retch. It tasted disgusting, and it was full of big slimy lumps. I staggered back upstairs, retching and heaving, to find Mammy laughing
