Book review: Convincing tale of dysfunction and abuse

A university lecturer is confronted with her past after she gets an email 30 years after her attendance at an exclusive girls’ secondary school in Dublin, saying: 'I know what you did... If you testify, I’ll tell them everything.'

Fiona McPhillips has written a compelling story is about misogyny, snobbery, the hypocrisy of the religious order running the school and swimming club, as well as the vulnerability of adolescents and their lack of agency when abused by a trusted elder.

• When We Were Silent
• Fiona McPhillips
• Bantam, €14.99
• Review: Colette Sheridan

This is a convincing tale about a young female from a dysfunctional working-class background pitted against an exclusive girls’ secondary school in Dublin, where there is hidden and systemic sexual abuse carried out by a PE teacher.

Lou wins a scholarship to Highfield Manor, where she is in her final year. It is all that her alcoholic single mother Rose dreamed of for herself, but she couldn’t continue her education when she became pregnant.

However, Lou is on a mission other than education at this cedar tree-lined posh establishment, where she quickly learns that the hierarchy at the school is based on money, sports, and looks.

She states in the first-person narrative:

I’m not here for prestige. I’m here for revenge. 

Her friend Tina, who attended Highfield Manor’s prestigious swimming club, took her own life after becoming pregnant by abusive swimming coach and hockey teacher Mr Maurice McQueen. Lou feels guilty about not having been supportive to Tina in her time of need. She was afraid to admit that she was in love with Tina.

McQueen is truly odious with his bristled moustache rubbing up against schoolgirls’ skin. The attention is unwanted but this man is feared. He doesn’t take long to zone in on Lou, who proves to be excellent at hockey.

McQueen wants her on the school team and starts abusing her whenever they are alone together, such as in his car when he gives Lou lifts to hockey matches.

Lou thought she could manipulate McQueen into a compromising position but he is stronger than her. It will take time and cunning to get an incriminating photo of him with a victim.

That victim is the beautiful Shauna, an ambitious swimmer who is an Olympic hopeful. (She and Lou have a tentative love affair).

Aftermath

The timeline of this page-turner is the 1980s and the present day. We first meet Lou 30 years after her attendance at Highfield Manor.

For years, she tried not to think about the school. Now, as a university lecturer in English literature welcoming new students, she says: “I can’t help but think of the intimacy of teenage girls, their social hierarchies and my naive certainty that I could conquer them.”

The memories of Lou’s sixth year “fester” in her, “real as a disease”. There is a reason for this, beyond the abuse. Lou has a secret that, she feels, could ruin her. She has a lot to lose: her wife and her teenage daughter, and her career.

She is asked to testify in an action being taken by a 14-year-old boy, Josh, who was a member of Highfield swimming club. The solicitor, Ronan, acting for the boy, is Shauna’s brother.

When Lou receives an email from a Liam Kelly, her worst nightmare looks set to come true. He writes: “I know what you did... If you testify, I’ll tell them everything.” 

Will Josh’s case go ahead? Ronan feels that it will be settled by the nuns in charge of Highfield swimming club, with the teenager getting a big payout. The nuns already had to endure a court case which was dubbed ‘The Highfield Affair’.

This compelling story is about misogyny, snobbery, the hypocrisy of the religious order running the school and swimming club, as well as the vulnerability of adolescents and their lack of agency when abused by a trusted elder.

The ripples of McQueen’s behaviour are far-reaching, with Shauna developing an eating disorder and never recovering from her experience at Highfield Manor. However, Shauna, born into privilege, comes up trumps for Lou in a denouement that is wonderfully worked out and very satisfying.

BOOKS & MORE

Check out our Books Hub where you will find the latest news, reviews, features, opinions and analysis on all things books from the Irish Examiner's team of specialist writers, columnists and contributors.