My friends loved it when I defied the teachers. I still got my work done, which seemed to irritate Mother Dorothy no end. I was learning, I was having a laugh and I was surviving, that’s what mattered to me. There was a dark memory box in my head somewhere, full of lots of horrid thoughts. I could feel it lodged at the back in a very black corner, but I didn’t ever want to bring it out into the light. Lots of men were still hurting me. I couldn’t stop them, but nobody could force me to think about the baby and how she died, could they?
I didn’t want to keep thinking about her. It made me too sad and confused. It was best to try and think about other things - but my plan didn’t last for long.
On 11 March 1974, I was lying awake in the front bedroom. It was late at night and Daddy was in the double bed across the room. He still terrorized me every night, whether he touched me and hurt me or whether he fell fast asleep. Just being in the same room as him disgusted and frightened me, and I never, ever had a good night’s sleep, even when he was snoring soundly.
I was on alert all the time, and tonight I was wide awake and listening to Peter outside, shouting goodnight to his friend Derek. Derek was my good friend Margaret’s brother, and their family lived just down the road.
A short while later, I heard a loud bang, followed by another. I lay there fretting, and the next thing I remember is seeing blue lights flashing on the bedroom wall.
Soon I could hear fire engines too. Their sirens were blaring up and down the street.
I jumped out of bed and pulled back the blanket on the window. Derek’s house was on fire! I could see bright orange flames climbing up the walls and leaping from the windows.
I was so shocked I ran over to Daddy and shook him awake, shouting, ‘Wake up, Daddy! Derek’s house is on fire. Do something! Help them!’
He woke up and spat, ‘Get back into bed and shut your mouth, you little bitch.’ I couldn’t believe how cold and uncaring he was. Even though I was only twelve-years-old, I could tell a terrible tragedy was unfolding, but my daddy simply reacted with anger.
I ran downstairs, frantic, and found Mammy and Peter outside. Lots of neighbours and all the men who lived around us were out trying to do something to help, but Mammy told me firmly to stay indoors. I went back inside, feeling terrified and upset. Margaret was a very good friend of mine, but I knew the whole family well. There were eleven kids, and nearly all of them were the same age as the kids in my family, so each Murphy child had a friend in the family. We’d played on the street together for years, and we understood each other, because we all came from a big family.
I couldn’t bear the thought of them getting hurt.
After what felt like hours, Mammy came back in and told me everyone was safe, and I finally fell asleep, thanking God with all my heart for saving my friends.
Margaret was a year older than me and had started at the Technical College in Dun Laoghaire, where I would go in a few months’ time. She told me everything I needed to know. They gave you free books, and the uniform was cheap, and I knew she would look out for me once I started in September. I was looking forward to it.
The next morning, Mammy told me not to go to school, and I heard arguing upstairs while I was made to stay downstairs. After a while I made out what the arguing was all about: something awful had happened and I had to be told, because if my Mammy didn’t tell me I would find out as soon as I left the house.
I ran upstairs and demanded to know what was going on. Mammy just looked at me blankly, and told me straight away that the whole family had died in the fire, except Louise, Collie and Anthony.
I stood rooted to the spot in horror as the details spilled out. Louise was seriously ill in hospital. She had lain herself over Collie and Anthony, who were hiding under the bed, and saved their lives.
It didn’t sound real. A picture of my dead baby floated around in my head. I could see my friend Margaret too, laughing and joking and looking all smart in her new school skirt and jumper. Now she was dead and gone, just like my baby, the baby I thought about in the dark at night but was never allowed to talk about.
Mammy kept me at home in the week running up to the funeral.
I cried all the time, when I was on my own, and didn’t know how to cope with so many deaths all at once. Mammy and Daddy never said one word to comfort me and, to make matters worse, Mother Dorothy kept sending my schoolfriends to the door with messages demanding I return to school and threats that she would beat me with the cane for being absent.
Mammy told them to tell her I was far too upset to attend school, but Mother Dorothy sent them back with another message: if I wasn’t at the funeral to sing in the school choir she would give me a hundred lashes.
I shuddered. I knew the choir box was upstairs in the church, and that would mean looking down on all those coffins.
The thought of all that grief and sorrow made me stiff with fear, but when
