The Truth About The Lies

Mother couldn't cope looking after her children on her own. Dad was working away from home and her drinking was out of control. She decided that my place should be in the family home looking after Gerard, he was only seven months old. I was kept from school for four months, to look after my younger brother and to cook the meals for my brothers and sisters coming in from school. If I didn't do as was told the beatings got worse. Mother wasn't what you call a small built woman, she was around thirteen stone and the beatings from her were more pronounced by her bulky build and her leering smile and alcoholic breath. The bruises that were very apparent throughout my small frame was extremely evident, she knew that if I were to go to school there would be investigations to the marks on my face, arms, legs and especially my back and sides where she would lunge and kick me. I don't know what she told the school about my absences, but there came a time that if I didn't go to school she would be charged. That meant another beating for me. Time passed till I was about ten, mother believed herself to be a witch, reading books on black magic and the occult. She would get me out of bed, Monica, Bernadette and Edward too, deciding that she would perform spirit of the glass. This consisted of a large table with letters of the alphabet cut out of white paper with a yes and a no. She would put salt around the outside of the circle of the letters of the alphabet, to keep evil spirits from entering into the home. Then she had all of her children including myself put our finger on the glass in the middle of the table, asking if there was anybody there. Mother was completely drunk and in charge of this event, which was ritualistic for months on end. Put it this way, the whole experience terrified all of us, but mother felt she was in control, even when the letters on the table spelt out devil and names I'd never heard of before. Every time she had finished with the spirit board, she would tell all of us kids at five o'clock in the morning to go and wash our faces with the morning dew on top of the grass in the front garden to cleanse our souls. Lovely woman, I think not.