No One Wants You Read Online Free PDF Page B

scratching my vaginal area he would say to me, ‘You are scratching there because you want it again, don’t ya?’
    I hated him saying things like that to me.
    I hated him.
    * * * *
    Men continued to visit the house on most nights. But now, instead of serving drinks, I became the attraction. Word got around the area that anybody who wanted to have sex with a very young girl, who had not yet reached puberty, could come and pay money to my foster-mother. She ensured they would all be accommodated. They would pay her money and then she would tell me to go out into the field with these men.
    They had their pleasure with a young girl and then left me there in a heap on the ground.
    It was all done in silence. I was told, ‘If you tell anyone, the purple prick will hurt you more.’ They had the power. I thought they could actually kill me.
    I cannot count the number of times that it happened to me. It happened in fields, in cow barns, in hay sheds, anywhere that presented an opportunity. An unknown number of faceless men, with forgettable names, in hidden places, for what seemed like an eternal number of years. There was no one to rescue me. I was born in the wrong place at the wrong time, to the wrong parents. It could have happened to anyone, but I was the unlucky one.
    As I write this, I am distraught just thinking where and how often it happened to me, at such a young age.
    You cannot breathe.
    You cannot think.
    You cannot scream.
    You cannot see.
    You cannot struggle.
    You cannot escape.
    I cannot escape the memories.
    My life continued. I was ten when I made my confirmation. I went to the church alone that time and there was no breakfast or fuss. I was wearing a white dress, with black shoes and white socks. When I went up to the bishop I said my name was Celine O’Brien, but the nun corrected me and said Celine Clifford. I didn’t think anything more about it at the time. I just went home after the ceremony and it was just like any other day.
    I spent most days looking after my foster-mother and doing everything in the house. I was the skivvy, but it was better than the night-time. At one stage I was taken to hospital. I’m not sure when. I think I was nine or ten and I was terrified. When the nurse came around with the doctor they leaned over my cot-style bed, which had bars on either side. I must have got myself into bed because I had left my knickers on. She told me to take them off and I remember looking at the light-shade, with the rays of light dancing off it, and I was so frightened. I took them off and felt embarrassed. I didn’t know why I was there and there was nobody to tell me. I had no one to help me. On the night I was taken away in the ambulance I’d been wearing a royal blue coat and I was bleeding. When I was taken back to the house a week later I had different clothes on. They had to stop the ambulance on the way home because I got sick. I still don’t know why I was there. I never will know why I was there.
    Years later, when I went back to try to find out, I did see a copy of my chart. All it listed was my date of birth, my pulse rate, my temperature and the words ‘it is small for its age’. There was nothing else. I was sure that it would all be written down. It wasn’t. There was no reason to explain why I was bleeding. They may have spoken to the police but nothing happened and there are no other records.
    The district nurse did visit every year and she had to write a report. I remember I was cooking dinner one time she came and was ill another time. I found out later that all she ever said on the reports was that I was ‘underweight’. It was always the same vague note.
    I get flashbacks of these gruesome events. They bring me to a place that nobody else can come with me. They bring me down within myself. They bring me so low that I can be there for days on end. I find myself reliving those awful thoughts alone.
    My attendance at school fell to almost zero. Nobody from the school