As I arrived I heard the pitiful strains of ‘Suffer Little Children’. The coffins were being brought in now.
When I saw the small white coffin at the back, I knew it was for the baby, and I started to gasp for breath. It was like I had an invisible hand over my mouth and was being suffocated. I wanted to be sick.
I tore out of the church in a panic, carrying Michael with me. He was three-years-old, and Mammy had made me bring him. I could hear people tutting, saying how badly I was behaving. They were trying to get in, and I was forcing my way out. But I had to leave. I listened to the service from outside, where loudspeakers had been put up around the church, then staggered home in a daze, wondering why life had to be so very cruel, and what would be the next horrible thing to happen.
The next day at school, Mother Dorothy looked at me with icy eyes. ‘You are a disgrace,’ she told me. ‘You are a terrible sinner, child. It is typical of you! You could not even pay your last respects to that family! Be sure your sins will find you out!’
She beat me mercilessly with the cane for not singing in the choir, just as she had threatened. Even when I protested that I was distraught about losing all my friends like that, she carried on beating me.
‘You’re lying,’ she bellowed, froth foaming from her lips. ‘Another child in this school saw a lot more than you did on the night, and she managed to get herself into school.’
I bit my lip, but not because I was afraid. I was seething with anger. I remembered the time Mother Dorothy had hauled my lovely friend Margaret up to the front of the class and ridiculed her for not having brushed her hair. When Margaret said her Mammy had brushed her hair that very morning, Mother Dorothy laughed and mocked. ‘How old are you? Nearly thirteen? What a big baby you are having Mammy brush your hair!’
I was so furious I wanted to slap Mother Dorothy’s face. How dare she humiliate Margaret like that? She had such a short life, and Mother Dorothy caused her untold misery, just like she had me. I would never let her destroy me.
It took me a very long time to get over the fire, and bedtimes became even more frightening. A rumour went round the town that the fire had started when one of the kids dropped a cigarette down the back of the settee, and I’d lie in bed at night imagining Mammy dropping one of hers when she was drunk.
I told Mammy my fears, but she didn’t listen. ‘Always thinking of yourself, Cynthia,’ she said. ‘What about that poor family?’
She made me read out newspaper articles she’d clipped out of Daddy’s papers, and told me not to be so stupid when I complained and said it upset me. ‘You need to read them, Cynthia,’ she said. ‘You need to cry. Why don’t you cry, Cynthia?’
It seemed to really bother her that I didn’t cry, but I felt frozen inside. I could tell my reaction disturbed Mammy though, because she wouldn’t let it drop.
I’d tell her to leave me alone, but she shoved the pictures of the little white coffins under my nose and taunted me time and time again. I couldn’t cry. I was paralysed with grief, but Mammy said I was a heartless bitch. She said that to other people too, but I knew it wasn’t true. If anyone came to the house, she forced me to read out the clippings, and when I didn’t cry she scoffed, ‘Here, see. Didn’t I tell you she was a heartless bitch?’ She never let it drop, ever.
Mammy had told me to ‘shut and stop complainin” so many times that I had become quite good at stopping myself from crying. Another thought struck me one day, and it frightened me. If I started to cry, how would I stop? Would I cry for my baby too? I didn’t want to do that, it was too hard, and it would cause too many arguments.
Finally, one time when Mammy shoved those photos under my nose and ordered me to cry, something snapped. I flew into a wild rage, smashing cups in the sink, throwing shoes at the walls and knocking down pictures.
‘There now - is this what you want?’ I screeched. ‘You wanted me to react - are you happy now?’ But still I didn’t cry.
Mammy just laughed at me, and then she took great delight in telling any visitors to our house that I had gone crazy and smashed it up, just because she asked why I didn’t cry for that poor family.
One night, when I was lying in bed unable to sleep, she crept upstairs with a matchbox containing a horsefly.
She knew I was scared of those straggly-legged insects, and she dropped it on top of me, laughing hysterically and saying, ‘Why don’t you cry, Cynthia? Why don’t you cry!’
Bedtime had always been terrifying, but Mammy’s behaviour added a frightening new dimension. Daddy was still hurting me in bed as much as ever, and I was still being dragged to that awful building.
It had become a never-ending torture I just had to survive it as best I could. Mammy’s violent friend, the ‘thug’ still attacked me regularly too.
Now, Mammy’s erratic behavior was turning me into a complete nervous wreck. I had never known what to expect from her, but now she was getting even more unpredictable, as if she was losing her mind completely.
I was petrified of her killing herself, or killing all of us in our beds. I feared we would die in a fire, just like the family down the
