Reading about my birth mother was … odd. She was angry, aggressive and violent. She was unable or unwilling to articulate any of the terrible experiences we had suffered. It was clear that Dad was frustrated with her. She could not understand that he was there to help her. She did not display any sign of affection or softness, except to me. I could glean from his notes that the longer Dad spent with Denise, the less he liked her.
Dad decided eventually that Denise and I must be separated. I had begun to progress and was no longer whispering. I was starting to show ‘normal signs of curiosity’ consistent with my age. At that stage, Denise had occasionally let go of my hand, and in the sessions in Dad’s office, she would allow me to play with the toys in the corner, but never took her eyes off me. In consultation with the team, Dad concluded that I would never be able to develop naturally under Denise’s shadow. Her violence and aggression were often mimicked by me. The plan was a trial separation at night when we were asleep. Denise’s parents gave their consent, even though it wasn’t technically needed. She was a ward of court.
Denise was heavily sedated on 15th May 1981. We had been in the unit for over a year at that stage. Denise would have just turned twenty-six. I was placed in a separate room next door to hers with Jean, and a nurse was to stay in a pull-out bed in Denise’s room. Dad slept upstairs. Nurse Crawley was primed to give Denise further sedation if required that night, but that she was not, under any circumstances, to reunite us.
Everyone in the unit was on high alert, but Dad said nobody could have predicted what happened. Mum and Dad were awake most of the night, but Dad eventually drifted off to sleep about 5 a.m. At 5.30, Denise’s screaming started. Dad did not intervene. Twenty minutes later, the nurse began to scream. When he entered her room, Denise was already half dead. She had banged her head repeatedly off the wall with such ferocity that she suffered a brain haemorrhage. She died later that morning in hospital without regaining consciousness. The nurse had tried her best to restrain her, but Denise had unnatural strength. Nurse Crawley was distraught, as were Mum and Dad.
An inquiry was held. Dad was exonerated, although he expressed terrible guilt. Dad wrote that Denise’s parents, although devastated, may have been relieved. Their visits over the previous fourteen months had been extremely difficult for them and had become more infrequent as time went by. Denise’s father had given up coming altogether. Denise saw all adult men as a threat. Their daughter was gone long before she died. She had never allowed her mother to hug or hold her. She recoiled from her father. Dad was the only man she ever saw. In retrospect, Dad thought that a female psychiatrist should have been appointed to take the Norton case, but he was the only person with the appropriate experience of dealing with deeply traumatized patients at the time and took us on as a special project. Aunt Christine had said that men made all of the decisions in those days.
Jean took over my primary care and development. On the morning of my mother’s death, I too had woken and fought my way into Denise’s room. I saw her unconscious body and her bloodied head. Jean grabbed and hugged me and tried to soothe me, but I kicked and screamed and fought and escaped her grasp and curled up beside my dying mother until the ambulance came to take her.
I barely ate or spoke for the first three months after Denise’s death. Denise’s parents no longer visited. They did not want to see me. They officially declared they would not be taking me home in the event that I would be released. I was a ward of court. Gradually, I became more attached to Jean; not in a physical sense, but I would confide my worries in her. I told her that Mummy had gone with Toby and that I was afraid I would be on my own. Dad noted individual sessions with me and, over time, ‘despite Mary’s deficiencies’， he speculated that I might be rehabilitated.
The Eastern Health Board issued a press release announcing that Denise Norton had tragically committed suicide. No details of the circumstances were given. Mum and Dad’s names were withheld too. The newspapers of the time said that Conor Geary now had a death on his hands. He might as well have murdered Denise.
Even though Dad was exonerated by the inquiry, he knew that his reputation in the small field of Irish psychiatry was irreparably damaged. By mutual agreement, he resigned his position.
It was Mum’s idea that they should adopt me. They had been married for five years by then and Mum had fertility issues. She would not be able to have children of her own. Dad saw a chance to redeem himself with me. He said in his notes that raising me might go towards ‘assuaging the shame’ he felt over Denise’s death. In consultation with the Eastern Health Board and the Adoption Board, it was agreed that Mum and Dad could formally adopt me. ‘It was pushing an open door,’ Dad wrote. ‘Jean and I were the only adults Mary had responded to, and despite my handling of her mother’s case, I was still a senior psychiatrist and kept up my licence. Jean was a medical doctor. Who better to manage such a damaged child?’ That’s what he called me. A damaged child.
Mum had applied to take over a GP practice in Co. Roscommon and Dad would opt out of practice and instead work on research from home. The adoption papers were signed on 30th November 1981. I was given a new name: Sally Diamond. I was reborn and moved to Roscommon town with my new parents.
I wished I had Mum’s notes from that time. I scoured the house looking for anything she had written, but I remember Dad destroying a lot of stuff in the incinerator after Mum’s death.
I gave Angela Dad’s notes to read too, after I had read them. She said she found them deeply disturbing. I was fascinated by them. It was like reading or watching a documentary on somebody’s life in a faraway place at a faraway time.
I wanted to know where Conor Geary was. ‘S’ had to be him. ‘S’ knew who I was and where I was and he had been in my life from birth to age five. The guards had compared the writing on the short note signed ‘S’ with Conor Geary’s handwriting in dental files they had from nearly forty years ago and found no comparison but who else could it be? I knew he must be alive.
I wanted nothing to do with Toby now.
In February 2018, I began intensive therapy with Tina, a psychotherapist in Roscommon. She was a little older than me, with dark hair greying slightly at the temples. She wore orange lipstick and white nail polish. We sat in matching armchairs. From the first session, she insisted that I look at her face when I talked to her. The first few appointments were difficult. How did I feel about this, that and the other?
‘Fine,’ I said.
‘Fine is not an emotion.’
I began to explore my emotions. I found that I was angry, resentful, hurt and anxious as well as grateful, warm, kind, considerate and lonely. Tina said that trust was my number-one issue, but that given my background, it was entirely reasonable. I liked that. I was reasonable.
Sometime in March, the guards got in touch. The Director of Public Prosecutions was not going to proceed with a prosecution over my illegal disposal of human remains. I had no case to answer. I’d not been worried about it. Detective Inspector Howard was shocked when I said this to her. ‘You weren’t worried that you had criminal charges hanging over you?’
‘Not really. I mean, it was a simple misunderstanding. Thank you very much.’