Living With Evil by Cynthia Owen (ap literature book list txt) 📗

It sounded crazy, but I nodded. It seemed that if I went to the places she told me to and said certain things, phrases Mammy taught me, I’d be given the goods we wanted.

It all seemed very weird, but I didn’t bother arguing. I felt exhausted, and I just nodded and repeated what she told me, as if I was a puppet.

I was glad to get back out of the house. I was concentrating hard, because my head hurt. At the first address, I knocked nervously on the door, not convinced that Mammy’s plan would work. It seemed so odd. The man who answered went all red in the face and twitchy when he saw me. He ushered his wife out the back and, to my amazement, without me saying a word, he gave me a bag of things before shooing me away and slamming his door shut in a hurry. At the second place, the man scowled at me and told me to ‘get lost’ as he thrust a bottle of sherry at me.

A few of the men just looked startled, but they kept their cool. ‘My mammy sent me, she wants to know have you anything going spare?’ I asked. ‘My mammy said have you anything you’re throwing out?’ They all handed me things, and not one of them asked for any money.

I died with shame on one street, because some of my classmates were passing in their neat clothes and with fancy ribbons in their hair, but I still said my lines. Going home empty-handed was not an option. I was afraid Mammy would explode and hit me, so I had to keep coming out with these embarrassing phrases.

Sometimes all I had to say was: ‘My granny sent me, she wants to know do you have anything for her…’ I wouldn’t even finish my sentence before the men scuttled off to fetch me a bag and send me on my way.

I ended up laden down with food and drink, and sometimes I was also given a thick brown envelope to hand to Mammy or Granny.

I was ordered to go through the strange ritual every day after I had been taken to the scary building.

Eventually, as I stood in front of the men, month after month, watching them squirm, I had to accept that what happened in the scary place was definitely no nightmare. It was very real, because these were the same men who terrified and hurt me in that creepy old building.

Sometimes when I was taken there, I was so drowsy I could barely remember a thing afterwards. Phrases rang in my ears for ages, and I was reminded of them when I least expected it, like when I was sitting in a class or helping change the babies:

‘She’s my favourite! I like her, she’s the best.’ I was always sore and thick-headed for many days afterwards, but the words pierced through the fog, making me tremble and worry. I remembered these words when I faced the men the next day, but they barely spoke to me when I was asking them for my ‘shopping’. It was their turn to be horrified as they thrust out their sweaty hands and sent me on my way with Mammy’s requests.

One night, Mammy came into the creepy building with me. She touched me like some of the men did. I felt so sick, and everything went black. Some time later, I saw she had the biggest bundle of cash in her hand I had ever seen. I was scared to walk beside her when we went home, but I had no choice. ‘Hurry up, Cynthia!’ she scolded. ‘Get a move on!’ My legs felt like lead, and I felt as if I was floating all the way home, with Mammy’s snarling voice pushing me along, warning me not to stop and to just ‘act normal’.

When I gave Granny the brown envelope the next day, she said, ‘Thanks, Cynthia, love,’ and gave me a sweet smile. She took some of the notes out and put them in another envelope, then told me to walk the few miles to Killiney to donate money to the nuns who looked after the African babies.

I thought how kind she was. I knew babies were starving in Africa, because Mother Felicity had told me often enough, pointing at half-eaten sandwiches at school. I knew Granny didn’t have much money, so I thought she was a great lady to make a donation to the black babies.

Around this time, I had my first period.

I was sitting up in bed one Saturday morning and had pulled back the black blanket from the window to let in a shard of light, as I wanted to cut up some paper.

Mammy didn’t allow me to play with scissors, so I’d smuggled a pair upstairs and hidden them under the bedclothes.

Suddenly I felt as if I’d wet myself. I peered tentatively under the blankets, and gasped when I saw fresh blood.

I was very frightened because I thought I’d cut myself badly with the scissors, so I confessed to Mammy what I’d done and she ordered me downstairs to the kitchen sink to wash myself.

I tore up an old rag and mopped up as much blood as I could, but it wouldn’t stop flowing. Now it was dripping down my leg, and I was starting to panic. Where was it coming from?

‘Mammy!’ I screamed. ‘I can’t stop the blood! Please help me!’

‘You must have got your “things”,’ she said in a disinterested voice. ‘Go into your sisters’ drawer and get those things they wear and put one in your knickers.’

I had seen the white towels in my sisters’ room before. I knew that they were some kind of pad you put in your knickers, but my mammy didn’t explain anything to me and I had no idea why I was having ‘things’ or what they were.

I stuffed the pad in my knickers and asked