Free Living With Evil by Cynthia Owen Page A

heard her climb into bed after me. I felt safe next to her, and I enjoyed feeling her warmth in the bed. The shouting downstairs never felt so loud or so scary when Esther was there.
     
    It wasn’t long after my sister left that Daddy started sleeping in the single bed with me. It seemed strange, but I said nothing. I was only eight-years-old.
     
    ‘You’re to sleep in the single bed again tonight, d’you hear me?’ Mammy said in a voice that wasn’t to be questioned or argued with, but I didn’t like it. It was very uncomfortable as there wasn’t enough room for us both. Daddy got too close and moved in that funny shuffling way that frightened me.
     
    Mammy hardly ever looked at me when she spoke. Her sunken eyes looked like they had a fine yellow film stuck on them. I never asked her anything much, and I didn’t dare question her on this, but something didn’t seem right.
     
    I was starting to accept that Mammy wasn’t interested in me at all. She’d told me loads of times that she didn’t like me, and that I was her ‘least favourite’ child, and now I started to think it must be true. Not going to my Holy Communion had shown me she didn’t care about my feelings at all.
     
    Sometimes, when her relatives from the north of Dublin or England visited, she got herself dressed up in her prettiest dress and went to the pub wearing her red lipstick and swinging a black patent-leather handbag. I’d seen her potter round the garden too, planting geraniums and gossiping with neighbours over the garden wall.
     
    Occasionally, very rarely, she and Daddy disappeared together in the evening. They said they went to where Daddy worked. They said he had ‘business’ to attend to, but they always came back staggering like they had had lots of drinks, with Mammy draped over Daddy’s shoulders and laughing, just how I imagined they must have looked when they were courting.
     
    Whatever they did there, it seemed to make Mammy giddy and happy for a little while. It was the only time she didn’t seem to hate Daddy, and he seemed happy too, because he bought Mammy sherry afterwards, and gave her extra housekeeping money. Those moments didn’t happen very often at all, but I’d seen enough to know that Mammy could leave the house if she wanted to.
     
    That meant she just couldn’t be bothered to come to my Holy Communion, didn’t it? She could have put up with people ‘looking down their noses at us’ in church if she’d wanted to be there on my big day. She’d told me she hated me lots of times, but I always hoped she didn’t mean it and that she just called me a ‘bitch’ and a ‘liar’ and a ‘devil child’ when she was tired or cross. But Mammy had stayed in bed on my First Holy Communion. She must really hate me to miss my special day like that.
     
    After a while, Mammy changed her mind and told me that I was to sleep in the double bed now. I didn’t understand. Why was she telling me to sleep in the bed with Daddy? Why did she want me in her place if she hated me so much and thought so little of me?
     
    I was nervous, but I knew not to argue with Mammy about anything. I undressed slowly, feeling sick and scared as I climbed into the big, sagging bed for the first time.
     
    It was cold inside, and I wrapped my arms around myself to get warm. I could smell smoke and sweat and Daddy’s Old Spice aftershave, and it wasn’t nice at all.
     
    I didn’t feel comfortable, what with the cold and the smells and the rough feel of the dirty covers on my body.
     
    It was dark in the room, but I could see spots of blood on the bedlinen and strained my eyes to make out what the unfamiliar stains on the bottom sheet were. I wondered what it was that stuck to the grey cotton and made it feel stiff and nasty. I wasn’t comfortable at all, but as I lay there all alone I forced myself to think of something nice, to try to stop myself feeling so worried and afraid. What was I worried about? Surely being allowed