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

stay warm, because Mammy had told me that was what I should say, and it was winter, after all.

Mammy was the only one who really knew what was happening, so I did everything Mammy told me to do. She was my mammy, and she knew about babies. She was the only one who could really help me, so I followed her orders and didn’t complain or ask any questions that might make her angry with me. I needed her to help me, even though I felt very uneasy around her.

She still took me up to the building though. She gave me whiskey or sherry first, to make me ‘feel better’. Sometimes I had so much I felt very dizzy. My mind was spinning and I couldn’t think about anything, but I did hear some of the men talking about my shape.

It was as if I was only half there, but I could clearly hear them saying things about my big chest and round tummy.

They said they liked it, but I wondered why. I thought I looked horrible, because I felt horrible, but they seemed to like it a lot. They wanted to touch me more. I was very glad Mammy gave me the alcohol. I didn’t want to be there at all, and in a way I wasn’t.

Mammy stuffed the bundle of money in her pocket as usual and helped me walk home. My legs ached and my ankles felt squishy and bloated. I wanted to be sick and I wobbled when I walked. I would never have made it home without Mammy. I needed my mammy, but her presence still made me scared and confused. Why was she putting me though all this? I wanted it to stop. Maybe Mammy would make it stop now I was having a baby?

Chapter 14

Noleen

It was Tuesday, 3 April 1973, and I was eleven and a half years old. The Easter holidays were coming up and I was looking forward to getting an Easter egg.

Mammy and Daddy sometimes left eggs at the ends of our beds, and we all gobbled them down as soon as we woke up, knowing that, if we didn’t, somebody else would.

I went to school as normal that day, sitting at the back facing the wall, wearing my smock coat, with Mother Dorothy looking down at me.

I was glad the holidays were coming up, and I wondered how long this thing would go on for. I wished the baby in my tummy would just go away, and then I could go swimming again with my friends, and Mammy would stop calling me a freak.

I wanted to ask Mammy some questions, but I was frightened to. Every time she looked at me lately she scowled and shouted or slapped my face sharply, so I said nothing.

‘My friend is coming over tonight, Cynthia,’ Mammy told me at bedtime. ‘You’re to go in the back bedroom with him.’

Each time I heard those words I wanted the ground to swallow me up. I knew who that was going to be. It was that awful thug.

The last time he came over he punched me in the face and laughed when I cried. He hurt my tummy when he forced himself on me. I was worn out tonight and just wanted to sleep. I always prayed he would stagger in and fall asleep on the bed so I could be left in peace. But he never did. It would be the usual chaos and violence and sheer terror.

I lay in bed panicking. I couldn’t hide behind the door or under the bed like I had sometimes. My tummy was too big, and my legs ached so much I needed to lie down.

I needed the toilet too, and before Mammy’s friend came in from the pub I crept downstairs cautiously in the dark.

Feeling my way across the backyard and into the outside toilet, I stepped cautiously through the old wooden door.

As soon as my feet hit the cold concrete of the toilet floor I wet myself. I sat down on the toilet feeling shaken. I’d never wet myself like that before, and it startled me.

My stomach was feeling tight and sore, and I felt weird inside. I had a strange sensation down below too, like something pushing down inside me. It scared me. I wanted my mammy.

I crept inside and went up to Mammy in her chair by the fire.

‘Mammy, I’m sorry,’ I blurted out. ‘Mammy, I’ve wet on the toilet floor. My stomach is sore and...’

Mammy jumped out of her chair, fetched a light bulb and went outside to put it in the toilet. I scuttled after her, thinking it was odd, because we hardly ever had a bulb in the toilet, and Mammy never normally leapt out of her chair like that.

She looked at the floor, and so did I. Now I was even more confused. I hadn’t just wet myself, there was watery-coloured blood on the floor. It frightened me, and I thought Mammy would shout, but she just told me to go into the sitting room and sit by the fire. I sat staring into the fire, feeling mesmerized by the dancing flames.

I knew that Daddy was in the house as I had heard him earlier with Mammy. But it was just Mammy’s voice I heard now. She was muttering under her breath. I blinked sharply, peeling my gaze away from the fire.

I overheard Mammy’s whispered words: ‘We will have to kill her as well as the baby, we will have to kill her in case she tells what happened.’

I looked at the flames dancing in the fire, and heard the words dance in my head. They were all jumbled up and didn’t make sense.

Then it all went very quiet until, moments later, Mammy reappeared. ‘Go upstairs to bed,’ she commanded.

I crept up into the front bedroom, the weight of my tummy slowing me down. I felt very relieved Mammy had stopped hissing and muttering. She had threatened me with all kinds