I find Heather upstairs in my bedroom. She is sprawled on her stomach, legs in scissor like formation. She has the television on full blast as per usual. I turn it down slightly. She giggles.

I know she won’t answer me. I am resigning myself to the fact that she might never speak again, resigning myself to her muteness. When was it that she had stopped talking altogether? I immediately feel it is my fault. I must have done something wrong. Despite my guilt, I am not about to give up. Not now that the Enfield Child Guidance Clinic has come on board. Thank God.

I don’t want to think about it. My hands begin to shake uncontrollably... I need a Valium to think straight. I need a Valium to think about something else. I need a Valium to function. I need…

I tell the thoughts to go away. The thoughts of Miles and Heather, my husband and my daughter. They are supposed to be the two closest people to me in the whole world. Not strangers that pass me on the landing, barely speaking, barely breathing the air around me, and barely exchanging glances over the kitchen table at breakfast.

It isn’t long before the tablets take effect. I can apply my make-up without my hand jerking this way and that. I can talk without feeling the pain in my cheek, where last night Miles had thumped me repeatedly. I can pretend I had not been thrown across the floor and hit the corner of the glass coffee table. I can pretend there hadn’t been blood on my nightdress. I can pretend he hadn’t said those horrible words…

“The only thing you’ re good for is sex,”

I can blot it out, just like I am blotting out the purple and yellow bruise that has blossomed overnight. I have had much practise in the art of disguise. I can manage perfectly, as long as I can’t feel.

I pull in to the Enfield Child Guidance Clinic and find a parking space easy enough. We are early. As we enter through the dull brown doors of the clinic, I feel Heather’s tiny hand grip mine just a little bit harder. I squeeze it back without looking at her. I can feel her anxiety. Her cherry lips draw hard into a straight line and her shoulders are rigid and tense, her steps loud and methodical on the polished concrete stairs.

We sit down on a crooked couch that slouches to the right and wait. Heather amuses herself with broken bits of toys. Everything seems broken, second hand or lopsided. It is strangely comforting. Afterall, I am all of those things myself.

In the appointment room, I stare hard at the enormous window screen before me. I can’t see anything through it. On the centre of it is a white telephone. Mark Holby, the facilitator, picks it up and begins whispering down the line.

Heather wanders about the room as if searching for something. I pretend not to notice. No one else is making any reference to it anyway. I wish she would just sit down. It is making me nervous.

I can’t very well order her to sit down.

What will the panel of psychologists behind the screen think of me then?

I am so anxious and nervous knowing there is six of them behind there. We are being studied, like some unusual monkey strain threatened by extinction.

Mark Holby ends the mysterious dialogue with the other side. It all feels so absurd. The panel seems to be instructing him. I wait. Back arched, shoulders up, fingers drumming my locked knees. I try to drop my shoulders and look more relaxed.

“OK Mrs. Corcoran” he starts.

“It’s Clare,” I smile.

“Clare,” he nods towards me and smiles back.

I shouldn’t have offered my first name.

Moments Short Stories by Irish Women Writers in Aid of the Victims of the Tsunami is available from all good book stores.

Skin Deep is available from bookstores now...

Forget the past of a dysfunctional childhood – Finn thinks that plastic surgery would make her world a better place. With bigger breasts, she will finally be happy. Or will she?

Catherine Barry writes with intuition and humour about modern women. In The House That Jack Built, she explored the story of alcohol addiction; in Null And Void, she looked at marriage breakdown and the pain of moving on. Now, in Skin Deep, she focuses on self-image and one woman’s idea that changing herself on the outside, will sort out the problems of the inside.

'Rich with Irish humour and universal truths, Skin Deep cuts through the world's outer shell to reveal real, flawed people you care about ... by turns witty and tragic: its poignancy will remain long after you've read it' - Cathy Kelly

Read Chapter one now!

Click on the picture to buy the book!

I am sitting at the breakfast table with my husband Michael, the man I normally love cherish and adore. Only I will not love and cherish and adore him for the next 24 hours. I will detest, despise and resent the very air he breathes because I have p.m.t.

Ellie, my eight year old wanders in to the kitchen. Her blonde ponytails are matted in Sabrina’s secrets hair mascara. She has a ton of lipstick on, and none of it, is on her lips. She stands at the table with her new violin. She places the bow on the strings. The noise that comes out sounds like a bag of suffocating cats. She’s only had three lessons and she’s bloody awful. I try not to cover my ears.

“Hello munchkin,” Michael says to her. Hello, he says, to her. Not a good morning to me. He did that deliberately. The swine. He’ll do everything in his power to trip me up. Well, he can sing, I’m not going to utter one profanity or make one mistake this time. It doesn’t occur to me that I haven’t exactly showered him with love and adoration and overt affection, nor does it occur to me that within five seconds I will have offended every breathing entity within my radius and not have a clue why.

“Ellie. Have you been at my make-up bag again?” I snap at the little mite. She is waiting for me to tell her how good she is on the violin, but my wincing has convinced her to put it away.

The narkiness is not directed towards her or even him but I am powerless to shut my mouth. It will do exactly as it pleases and I will be completely at its mercy for the whole day. What I really need is one of those muzzles, you know, like Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs? I’m not fit to be let out, let alone speak. I contemplate taking a large dose of sleeping pills that will knock me unconscious for the waiting duration until the blessed period arrives. At best, Michael might hold off with the divorce papers, which is what he threatened me with the last time. He’s always saying he will leave home when the next bout of madness comes around. With the daggers looks that are being exchanged presently, genocide seems a more likely outcome. I know by Michael’s face that he is aware it’s that time of the month. I can’t stand the sight of him. His very presence is annoying me. I hate the way he makes those little grunting noises. He looks fat and old and I can’t remember one tiny ant sized good thing about him. Actually, I can’t even remember why I married him. Look at the state of him. Smiling away to himself. The great big eejit. Happy he is. The fucking nerve. He’s no right to be happy when I feel like a bag of shit. He’s doing that to annoy me as well. The ‘I’m a happy normal well adjusted balanced human being’ thing. As opposed to ‘You’re a crazed lunatic with a potentially lethal kitchen utensil and I’m pretending not to notice that my life is at stake,’

Extract taken from The 28th Day, from the collection Irish Girls about town

A friend remarked to me today that if her lover had referred to her as flippantly as‘ a pair of old slippers that he can’t get rid of’, she too would have happily whacked him over the head with a cricket bat and stabbed him in the chest. Had she been in the throes of p.m.t she might have sawn his legs off as well. There wouldn’t have been any more ‘slipper’ jokes; that’s for sure. He wouldn’t be needing them again anyway.

Such were the shock and horror quotations sprawled across Tuesdays papers about Jane Andrews pending trial for the murder of her lover whom she discovered was having a secret affair by e-mail. Just what makes a woman go over the edge and lose all control, whose rage intensifies to such a peak that a murder is committed? What drives women to do such atrocities? What’s going on?

The 28th Day

My friend is by all intent and purposes a perfectly well adjusted normal human being and was only joking, but should we really be laughing so hard? She admits that at certain times of the month, she can understand how any woman can fan the fire of resentment with fantasies of causing grievous bodily harm to their loved ones. Especially when they are hurting and have valid and legitimate reasons for being angry.

Being angry is ok. But does it give us a free pass to mutilate and gun down the opposite sex as seen reported more and more often in the tabloids I ask her? One case in question comes to mind. A woman in the states who murdered her lover in the thick of pre menstrual tension or pre menstrual syndrome, as it is more commonly known. She was acquitted her crime if my memory serves me right. Does that mean a free for all? Can we all barrel down to the local Toys’r’us and buy a truckload of cricket bats and wreak revenge at random? A short sharp trip to the loony bin and hey it’s all over baby. They say if you’re looking for revenge you better dig two graves and I believe in that.

Healthy? Ha!

Of course, you might say, I don’t know my arse from my elbow and when I was told this article was about relationships, well frankly. I burst out laughing. You’re right. I’ve no idea what constitutes a healthy loving intimate relationship but then again does anyone? However as far as I know, it’s generally unacceptable to beat the living daylights out of each other and then blame the chemist for having no starflower oil or Vitamin B6 in stock. It just so happens that I am in the middle of writing a short story on the subject of p.m.t. for a new book and wonder is it possible, that women can be pushed over the edge at the wrong time? Well next time your girlfriend is in p.m.t. try asking her would she like a cup of tea? What will happen? Let me guess.

If you are lucky, she will give you a look that would wither a rose. More than likely she will slap you across the head and tell you to go and stick it where the sun don’t shine. Now add the scenario of her finding out you are making love to a computer on the sly and insult her with the above quote from Tommy Cressman and ponder with justifiable amazement how you are still alive because he’s pushing up daisies right now. I hope you are getting the gist of it. I’m not saying Jane Andrews was suffering from p.m.t. I’m just posing the question. What if she was? Guys, if you value your time on this planet, don’t push the button. You may never live to see what a cricket bat is actually intended for and you may look down one day and find yourself minus the bottom half of your legs. According to my friend, of course.

The Celtic Bogcat

Violence is an undeniable part of today’s news coverage and is more out there due to media accessibility but is it really fair to assume it is only the result of the crumbling values so prevalent in society today? I ask my friend, has not the Celtic Tiger brought with it the nasty negative dark side as well as the positive? What of the millennium diseases like greed, road rage, bad manners, pursuit of power and money as the be all and end all? Have we not got lost in the chase for happiness out there instead of in here? Yes and no my friend replies.

With all this affluence and wealth one would imagine we are all happy in our nappy and destined to spin in euphoric glee for ever after. Yes well Catherine Nevin isn’t very happy at the moment and Myra Hindley certainly wasn’t suffering from some slight backache and a bloated stomach. There are bad women as well as men. Looking back through history, there have been many cases in the category described above. Those kinds of stories were always occurring, we just didn’t hear about it. The Queens of old, spring to mind as a point in case. They had a penchant for chopping off heads as nonchalantly as we dice onions for spaghetti Bolognese. No one batted an eyelid. How come? Because they were dead basically, my friend reminds me. Oh yeah. Right.

Spanner

Let me throw a spanner in the works. Just for argument sake could it have anything to do with the constant barrage of violent sex that now seems to be more in demand than ever in the multi billion-pornography business? You know the kind of thing I’m talking about. The burning of a woman’s nipples while she cries seems to be a great turn on I hear. The abuse of children, who are now expected to behave like responsible adults, still goes unacknowledged by those who claimed to be our spiritual guides.

These lost souls can hardly cure themselves. Until someone tells them it wasn’t their fault how are they supposed to heal? They are destined to become abusers too but enough of that, it’s too awful to dwell on. Snuff movies with preplanned murders are hot stuff and readily available in this country but if you don’t tell anyone I promise I’ll do a great impression of an ostrich arse up, too.

It seems perfectly acceptable for a man to tear his own skin off in a video that he knows children like my eight year old daughter will watch and other famous women repeatedly tell me if I don’t have a size 99F breast well then it’s my own fault if I’m a lonely old tart.

Rape is on the increase on the streets but also readily available to rent on video. Coincidence or deeply rooted connection? You tell me. Of course I’m not sure if any of that has anything to do with why women murder their lovers. I really don’t know anymore than you. I’m only taking a wild stab in the dark. Better to take a wild stab at something not human and better to direct it where it really belongs than end up in the dock wondering how did I get here?

Rape Crisis Centre Ireland

Buy Skin Deep by Catherine Barry

He can continue to ‘clean out his closets’ for as long as he wants as far as I am concerned. I think it’s just wonderful. I will buy all his c.d.’s because they just keep getting better and better and no, I don’t openly play him in front of the kids, but it makes no difference. All they have to do is go downstairs and turn MTV on. There’s a lot worse than ‘Eminem’ on MTV that I object to.

The more he vents his anger and expresses his rage, the more he shames his abusers. The more he shames his abusers, the more society reels. Why? Because in this lousy world some people will never acknowledge, let alone apologize for their own behaviour. The victims of this ‘dismissiveness’ have only one choice left. That’s to holler even louder, become more explicit and graphic. He is trying to be heard and he will be. I hear Eminem’s pain. I cry when I hear ‘Cleaning out my closets’ and those who are dumb enough to try and shut him up are only serving to motivate him to write another song, and another…

The Bockady People

Victims of sexual abuse know all about this. I call them the ‘Bockady people’. I use the term ‘sexual abuse’ because of the recent exposure of the real extent of the abuse and the subsequent ‘dismissal’ when help was called for. However, the word ‘abuse’ may cover a multitude. It is not just sexual abuse that has our prisons full of drug addicts (not criminals as we would like to call them).

It is violence, overt and covert, which can occur in the very act of being drunk and terrifying (without hitting anyone) to not being ‘emotionally available’. This is all a spin off of today’s new addictions, food, sex, alcohol, drugs, relationships, money, power and work. You can actually include everything that can be repeated more than once.

The result of all this mayhem is too commonly presented in courts, counsellor’s offices, prison cells and juvenile homes as the now familiar ‘acting out teenager’. The child of course, is only a symptom of the family disease. Parents are as much a part of the problem as the solution and ‘families’ in general need to be treated as a whole. Not just the obvious child who is causing trouble. This is only the tip of the iceberg and until we come to grips with the ‘larger picture’ (that Daddy is beating Mammy and Uncle Jim is abusing his niece) then we are failing our children completely.

Responsible

It is no use wagging fingers at kids who stab, maim or even kill for a mobile phone or the dart fare home. If they are under sixteen then presumably someone, somewhere is responsible for them and these people should be targeted and treated as well as their troublesome off spring. If not, the suicide statistics, the escalating violence on our streets, the seemingly complete absence of any moral decorum will appear as if we are living in New York, not the Dublin we once knew.

People who have been on the receiving end of abuse, no matter how subtle, will take their unresolved conflicts in to life. They have no other place to take them, and are entitled to be heard. Not only do they have to endure a lifetime of depression, broken relationships (if they manage to have any), but also then they have to deal with the ultimate knife in the back. The denial of the abuser. What does this do to someone’s mind? Well, we can see for ourselves can’t we?

What's up Doc?

Next time you’re in your doctor’s surgery, you can surmise that half of the patients in the waiting room are being treated for depression. The guy who just mowed down people in the streets, well what’s his story? Bet its abuse of some kind. Absenteeism from work (due to depression, addiction or inability to just cope) is costing company’s billions. Our private hospitals are full of people who don’t know what’s wrong with them. Our current road accidents are the highest figures ever; they always seem to happen at 3a.m. These people are hardly out to get a pint of milk? A lot them are as ‘drunk’ on medication as alcohol.

Our prisons are full of ‘untreated addicts’ who have been forced in to some kind of crime to support it. They are thrown on the street again and on the vicious circle goes. Hurt people, hurt people.

Rewards

They are on your child’s computer waiting to do to the innocent what was done to them, because they don’t know any better. When our Church (supposedly our protectors and guides) cosset, protect and sweep over such violation of human rights, society will reap the rewards.

Although it is not a problem exclusive to the Catholic Church. It is just as likely to be your next-door neighbour who is abusing as the local parish priest.

The rewards are all there for us to see in the headlines of yesterday’s paper, today’s paper, and yes, tomorrow’s paper. It was Nelson Mandela who said in his inaugural speech ‘Don’t play it small, playing small helps nobody’. He didn’t mean people can go about blindingly abusing others because they were abused. On the contrary, if the ‘Eminem’s’ of this world all used their energy creatively and poured it in to constructive expression, there would be a lot more healing. Me? I am just about to step out and buy his new album. Keep talking ‘Eminem’. I hear you…

Information on drugs from the National Drugs Strategy Group

Kevin Myers, ('If I had a brain, I'd be dangerous') author of this insult and others, ought to think first before they wilfully hurt Irish children who are educated enough to read this appalling and inaccurate 'lone parent bashing'.
These people seem to have us Lone Parents sussed…. Some suggest that we planned it all.
That a social welfare payment of €180 a week (for the mere task of raising a human being to adulthood) has acted as an 'incentive' into our communal descent into the 'moral free loader' category which these people purport we belong to.
So look closely.
No closer...
Can you see it now?
My hand is up.
I’m waving it frantically before your very eyes!
It's all true...
I give in.
Yes...
I do belong to that obscenely and grotesquely opulent brat pack.
You know…
The LPSWLI.
(Lone Parent Social Welfare Lifters Inc.)

There’s no point in playing ostrich arse up. I am as guilty as a certain politician, who robbed us of much more, (but we won't go there).


Plans

It was a cold, calculated premeditated plot to unburden society of their hard earned cash, a whopping €180 euros a week...

We all planned it.

Right down to the psychotic partners who beat us senseless, or the addicts who left us starving or the unfaithful ones who ran off with someone else... or simply abandoned us... and their children.
Those visits to St. Vincent De Paul? They really had you fooled, eh? They were deliberate diversions: we made them up. We didn't really need to go there to get our kids clothes. The sad itemized shopping lists that we took to the cheapest supermarket every week? Yeah… that was all for show too. Opening the oven door in the kitchen to get some heat? Yep, you guessed it, that too was all to foster sympathy for the 'poor lone parent' image.

Why, I even bought a shambles of a property in a not too popular part of Dublin North city, thinking it would enhance the overall ‘poverty’ vibe, make it all look a bit more authentic you know?

You see, I was walking down the street one day and saw a girl coming out of the dole office pushing a battered buggy, and balancing three bags of shopping on it while her baby screamed blue murder because he wanted an ice-pop and she couldn't afford it. It was there and then I felt my first ‘rush' of 'social toxism'.

It dawned on me, like a thunder bolt out of the blue.
That’s what I want!
That's what I want out of life!
I ran home overwhelmed with excitement and fired with enthusiasm about my newly found vocation…being a pimple on the arsehole of humanity.
Oh the joy!


Perks

I would experience such thrills! Like a distinct lack of social life and good job prospects, I would simply reel with the ecstasy of sacrificing all and sundry for my wee ones (including a sex life/freedom/clothes/holidays/) and there was the unbridled euphoria of being a 24 hour nurse to look forward to, not to mention the emotionally/mentally and physically rewarding drudgery of being the sole responsibility to my children.
Being sick and having no-one to mind you, that really appealed to me also but if I was pushed, I would have to say; it was the extreme poverty that attracted me the most.
I could hardly contain my happiness...

I would drop babies by the nanosecond, at least six.
I would immediately adapt a completely irresponsible moral code.
I would team up with the ‘Condoms? Never heard of them… any chance of a ride anyway?’ brigade.
I wouldn’t do ‘employment’. What is it anyway?

But how exactly was I going to crack this plot?

Why it all came to me in a flash of intense ESP of course. Obviously, I hadn’t been consciously aware of my dormant psychic gift at the time, but I guess that’s what MUST have happened. How else could I have predicted our future economy? The rise and fall in house prices, social welfare rates, medical cards, rent allowances, tax dodges, training schemes, the desperate depression of the drastic 80’s… and roughly 22 financial budgets?

You tell me.


Incentive

I have worked full time all my life as a 'lone parent' and handed it all out again to a babysitter. What's that babysitter thingy? It's a thing you have to get to mind your kids, that takes all the money you have gone out to earn so people won't label you 'a mooch'. It's also an issue that this government refuses to address despite the fact that all other countries have incorporated 'childcare' into their agendas to give incentive to women to go out and work.

Where's that 'incentive' please?

Damn... Must have missed it... probably while I was out breaking my back working a 12 hour day... and as for the six kids bit, all the lone parents I know have one child. I hadn't time for sex after the first two... Another point worth remembering is that most Lone Parents do not own a home and the chances of it happening are slim, why? Because the majority of us are separated/divorced and will never have the €150,000 (or whatever) to purchase our half of the house from our significant other, and em no... we don't have it stashed away in social welfare cheques somewhere in the Cayman Islands...

It has also been suggested recently that offspring of Lone Parent will become drug dealing murdering rapist pimps, due to a distinct missing presence of a father figure. This has me VERY concerned.

My son is a very gifted talented guitar player, has a green belt in Tae-kwon Do, got four honours in his Junior Cert, doesn't do drugs, hates cigarettes, has a moderate drink now and then and is very anti-war, unlike some children of two parent families who think kicking someone to death is acceptable. My daughter has two grades in violin, has a talent for art and music, is tops in her class at reading and writing and displays impeccable manners. She's fair, trusting and compassionate.


Perfect

Double damn... I obviously missed something there too. They're perfect. And it's all my fault. I am so ashamed... and I apologize profusely for letting you all down.

Well it has to be someone’s fault right?

Well, we now know, it's not a lack of education that manufactures 'lone parents’; children are now taught sex education (which includes relationships) in school.

It's not a lack of availability of contraception. We can nip around to the garage or pub and get that now. And it's not that we are hormone smitten teenagers who can't keep their pants on.

Most of us on lone parents are grown adults.

So what is it?

I say it is life...

It's life Jim... but not as we know it.

Because we can't seem to be human anymore and make mistakes.

___________________

Catherine Barry is a single working mother, living on the Northside of Dublin. When not raising her great satanic brood of Bastard Spawn, she works for The One parent exchange network* and writes novels. Her third novel 'Skin deep' will be published in March 2005.

Buy Skin Deep by Catherine Barry

* = the opinions expressed in this piece are not reflective of any policy of the One Parent Exchange Network.

I started phoning the said private hospital on a Monday but was greeted by a very non-descript answering machine. I repeatedly left messages that I needed to make an urgent appointment with the surgeon. After several failed attempts and no response, I thought perhaps the phone number to be temporarily out of order, so I contacted the general number of the said hospital.

Harp of hell

Having endured 8 and half minutes of detestable harp playing, an anonymous woman eventually answered. I explained my situation to her and asked if the number was out of order.

‘’No, actually the number is not out of order. I’m afraid the secretary is out sick at the moment,’ she explained.
‘I see,’ I said ‘so can you tell me who is the stand in and how I can make an appointment with someone else?’
‘Oh, I’m afraid there isn’t anyone else,’ she went on.
‘Excuse me?’
‘I’m afraid you will have to wait till the secretary of Mr. X returns from work,’
‘I see,’ I say a little taken aback ‘this is the private hospital I am on to?’
‘Yes,’ she confirms.
‘I see. So let me get this straight. I have a lump under my arm and could be dying of terminal cancer or some other horrific disease, and I have to wait till the secretary returns before I can see a surgeon?’
‘That’s correct I’m afraid,’ the anonymous voice sounded a little embarrassed.
‘I’m not sure you understood me,’ I say quietly ‘but I may have a life threatening illness and I would like to see a surgeon as soon as possible. There must be something you can do for me? Can you at least find out for me when this secretary will be back?’
‘I can try,’ she says warily ‘please hold,’

I am wearily entertained by Michael Flatfoot and Company, his intermittent yelping guaranteeing the onset of a migraine of gargantuan proportions.

However, I am determined not to hang up, it took me twenty minutes to connect with any sign of the living in the first place. I ponder have I been mistakenly transferred to the mortuary? Just as I am putting the finishing touches to my epitaph and last will and testament, Mrs. Anonymous receptionist returns.

We wish we could help you

‘As far as I know Mr. X’s secretary has a bad cold. She may be back by Thursday, I can’t say for sure,’ she tells me.
My heart bleeds for the secretary. I make a mental note to send her flowers.
‘And what am I supposed to do in the meantime. What about my lump?’ I demand sulkily.
‘I wish I could help you. I’m afraid you have to wait till she comes back,’ she says solemnly.
‘What? Until Thursday? I’m on my mobile phone. It will cost me an arm and a leg to hold on that long, what if I die?’ I point out ‘it’s hardly a life threatening illness she has, its just a little sniffle for Gods sake!’
‘Can you please hold. I have to take another call,’ she says abruptly and I am left holding again. I am furious. I had desperately wanted to tell the anonymous voice that she too could be soon facing a life threatening illness if I ever managed to get my hands on her.

Another ten minutes of Michael Flatfoot and I am beginning to show alarming signs of ‘Riverdanceitus’. My head is jerking spasmodically and my feet are beginning to tap frantically without my permission. I decide I might as well have my daily nap while I am waiting. At 4p.m. I am brought back to consciousness by the sound of another woman’s voice.

‘Hello?’ she is yelling down the phone ‘is that the private hospital?’
Great. A crossed line. A strike up a conversation with Mary whose husband is waiting three years for a heart transplant. She spends most of her days trying to get through to the hospital and has moved the kitchen and bedroom out to the hall where the phone is. She claims it’s more comfortable. We come up with an elaborate plan. If either of us sees an ambulance going less than 50 miles per hour, we’ll thrown ourselves mercilessly under it. When the driver gets out, we’ll ambush him and knock him out with some ether. She promises me, if she gets lucky first she’ll mill around to Kilbarrack and drive me straight to casualty. By the time I’m finished talking to her I know the ins and outs of her thirty-year marriage and that grapes are a great remedy for piles. I in exchange, have promised to send photos of the kids by scanner on the e-mail.

A click, and anonymous is back.

Ambulances

‘Hello? You’re holding for?’
I reiterate my story.
She vaguely remembers me.
‘I’m sorry but if there was anything I could do for you I would,’ she says whilst yawning heavily in to my swollen ear.
‘Would it help if I hacked off my legs and called an ambulance, surely that’s an emergency?’ I suggest in desperation.
‘I doubt it,’ she sighs ‘we already have an epidemic of hacked off leg patients and the ambulance men have copped on,’ she informs me matter of factly.
‘What if I drove in myself, in my own car?’ I ask.
‘How could you, with no legs? Unless you have a friend who is willing to drive you?’ she says.
Massive intelligence. I’ll give her that.
The line suddenly goes dead.

It doesn’t matter, I say to myself. I conclude I have already contracted cancer from the mobile phones radiation waves. After all, it’s been stuck to my ears for three hours.

By the way, please note that all the above characters are completely and utterly fictitious. As is the notion of private medical health care insurance in Ireland.

Click here for more information on cancer from The Irish Cancer Society

‘That’s what I wanted to explore in Skin Deep. The idea that my heroine, Finn, could be happy and erase all the bad things that have happened to her, if only she goes under the knife.’

Writing about inner scars is Catherine Barry’s trademark. This Dublin-born writer says she loved reading as a child. She contributes this to her fathers love of literature, who took her to the local library every week. Her passion for writing was born. However, in the great tradition of writers says, ‘I didn’t think I could write a book…I was undisciplined and lazy...it still amazes me to this day that I am a novelist! Poetry had been my first love. I had many poems and short stories published before I even considered trying to write a book. Poetry is and always will be a great love of mine, it was my way of expressing myself, my way of finding my own voice, something I felt I hadn't had,'

It was only when her two children were a little older and she was raising them as a single parent, that she decided to start writing novels.
‘I had two kids under 6 and was working as an administrative assistant and never had a moment to myself but…I started to write at the kitchen table. I found that I loved it. I’d always been involved in writer’s groups, and had kept a diary since I was seven,’

That book was 'The House That Jack Built', a searing tale of one woman’s battle with alcoholism that The Irish Times called ‘a gutsy, raw debut from a very promising new author,'

‘I couldn’t believe it,’ says Catherine. ‘One moment I was dreaming of being published, the next, I had a publishing deal. It all happened very quickly,'

She followed that first book with 'Null and Void', a novel detailing the pain that’s left when a marriage breaks down, yet in typical fashion, Catherine decided to focus on the unexplored, the 'spiritual' angle and effects of marriage breakdown. The novel takes us on a journey through the often bizarre and much misunderstood process of the 'Catholic Annulment'

'I was sick and tired of reading about divorce/separation. The courts, the solicitors, the financial angle. I had already been through the Catholic Annulment process and just HAD to write about it, there's so much more to marriage breakdown than the legal aspect,' says Barry.

Catherine also writes short stories, notably, the widely acclaimed 'The 28th Day', (Irish Girls About Town)

Catherine also writes periodically for newspapers & magazines and is an established and published poet.

While Skin Deep examines the current trends in obsession with outer image, Catherine is currently working on a novel that looks at the increasingly dysfunctional world we live in today. 'Madly in Love’ blends Catherine's wit and acute observance of flawed people, as she examines one woman's journey through a stay in one of Ireland’s modern psychiatric hospitals.

'I suppose the core theme of 'Madly in love' is about loneliness, it seems to me, that more and more people are booking themselves in to these 'luxury hotel type' retreats. They call them convalescing homes I think...I call them what they are, psychiatric hospitals,' she says bluntly 'I mean you have to ask, why is this happening? I can't help feeling that the greatest need in this world at the moment is for one human being to truly LISTEN to another, sadly this seems to be lacking in modern day living, hence our hospital beds are full.

People are sick with depression and eating disorders and addiction and so on. Deep down, every human being needs to be loved and nurtured. Isn't it a sign of the times when we have everything we could possibly want and need, yet more and more people are turning to these kind of facilities to get some nurturing? I feel that's terribly sad,' she says thoughtfully. 'But as with all my novels, I add a huge amount of light and laughter to what are difficult and thorny subjects, the way I see it, tragedy is funny in a bizarre kind of way, isn't it?' she asks with a hint of a smile.

Catherine Barry is as passionate about community issues as she is about her writing 'We can't keep taking from this planet, we have to give something back to our society, if everybody did a little bit, what a nicer place this world would be!' she says. She currently works for an organisation that assists lone parent families. She has worked previously with long term unemployed people and has a great interest in modern day current affairs and politics.

Catherine lives on the Northside of Dublin with her two children, Davitt and Caitriona, and her two cats, Billy and Jacque.

Catherine is available for interviews.

I chose the name Finn, because some of the kids had nick named me that. It sounded cool and I didn’t know of any other Finns and that was the final deciding factor. It was different, and I wanted to be different. I was Finn O’ Farrell as far as everybody was concerned. I had kept my secret well hidden. In fact, I had almost forgotten my real name, until the day I did the interview for the Credit Union and my cover was blown for good. I had really wanted this permanent position. I wanted it real bad.

The last job interview I had done was a complete waste of time. It was for a sales position in the basement of a second-hand bookstore in a tenement building on Marlboro Street. The pay was pathetic and the place smelled of mouse droppings and mouldy sawdust. The Manager had chirpily tried to rope me in with the amazing perk of having 33% off all books. Great, I had thought to myself, now let me get this straight. You pay me £100 a week and I buy all your crappy books with 33% off which will probably leave me with about £30 after tax? Yes, he had nodded excitedly. No extra points for figuring out what I told him to do with his ‘amazing perks’.

I didn’t hold out much hope for the Credit Union job either. For one, I gave a really poor performance from the minute I parked my butt in the seat opposite my future Manager, Mark Adams.
‘So. You live locally I see?’ he raised an eyebrow at me as he perused my two-page curriculum vitae.

Actually it was really only one page. I had double-spaced everything to make it look more impressive. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t disguise the employment history section, which boasted a solitary three-week period of employment at McDonald’s in Grafton Street. I had been fired rather abruptly when a customer complained they had choked on some foreign object discreetly embedded in their Big Mac.

It turned out to be a false nail, which I had been trying to glue on my forefinger, in between flipping 100% pure Irish Beef burgers and wrenching the lever of the milkshake machine clean off its writhing and shuddering metal body. There was more writhing and shuddering as I refused to leave. I gave in resentfully when a security guard who looked distinctly like the guy out of the movie “The green Mile” offered to escort me out of the premises.

‘Yes. Actually your Credit Union is only about a fifteen-minute walk from my flat,’ I beamed.
‘Well, that certainly helps. We like to employ local people, if at all possible,’ Mark Adams smiled.
I smiled back, hoping he wouldn’t notice I wasn’t a local.
So far so good.
He peered again at the c.v. and took in a deep breath.
‘So, Finn?’ he looked at me.
‘Yes. That’s my name,’ I replied.
‘Yes. That’s what it says here,’ he confirmed, looking from me to the c.v.

‘Well, actually Finn isn’t my real name,’ I blurted suddenly. What if he asked for my birth cert and found out I was lying?
‘Oh?’ he asked looking puzzled.
‘It’s a little difficult to explain…’ I started ‘you see my real name is Fainche,’ I cringed. (Fawncha)
‘Oh?’ he nodded nonchalantly.
‘Yes, it’s a bit of a mouthful, that’s why my friends call me Finn. Have done ever since I was little’ I tried to wriggle out of the inevitable.
‘Fainche eh? A most unusual name,’ he commented.
A fucking infliction, I thought.
‘Is it Irish?’ he enquired.
‘Yes, it is,’ I squirmed.
‘Mmm’ He rubbed his chin. ‘What does it mean? I mean does it have an English translation?’
‘Yes, it does,’ now I wished that I had never mentioned the damn thing.
‘And what is it?’ He waited.
Long pause.
‘Fanny,’ I cringed.
I mean there’s just no way of saying it nice. It’s like other curse words. They sound so aggressive and loud. Mark Adams recoiled slightly, I could see the struggle between his mouth and his brain to try and remain serious and dignified.
‘Excuse me?’ he coughed.
‘It means Fanny!’ It came out crass and uncouth again.
I couldn’t help it. I felt certain the job opportunity was ruined anyway so it didn’t really matter what I said now. I blathered on trying to explain why my mother had lost her marbles and called me a name that pertained to a vagina.

‘You see it originated from the name of two saintly Irish virgins, one the sister of St. Enda of Aran, and patroness of Rossory, on Lough Erne, whose feast was kept on the 1st January. I’ve no idea why my mother chose it because I wasn’t born on the 1st of January or anything; in fact I was born in April. But my brothers, I have two brothers by the way, two of them were born in January so I suppose she might have had them in mind when she did it. Anyway, the other patroness of Cluain-caoi, in the neighbourhood of Cashel, was venerated on the 21st of the same month. What that has to do with anything is about as obvious to me as the visions of our lady crying blood in Mount Mellary. That’s the gist of it anyway,’ I finished.
Then without warning, I let out a robust and definitely unplanned burp. The kind that has a little one tapering off at the end of it, like the little spaceship following the Mammy and Daddy spaceship around the bend in the film “Close encounters of the third kind”
For fuck sake Finn…

‘Excuse me. I’m very sorry’ I drew my hand to my mouth in horror. It always happened to me when I was nervous. Why did it have to happen now in the middle of a very important interview? I was so embarrassed and annoyed at my own body. Mark Adams stared at me, a kind of bewildered glaze settling over his eyes. I was certain he was reaching under the table for the panic button when he stunned me into silence with his next question.
‘Can you do that at will?’ He leaned over the desk earnestly.
‘I beg your pardon?’ I asked.
‘Can you do that, you know when you want to, or does it happen by accident?’
‘Which? The burping or the inability to stop talking?’
‘The…’ he gestured to his throat.
‘Oh that. Yes, I can do it at will actually, but I don’t usually. That one for instance was completely involuntary. My brothers taught me how to do it properly, you know like from deep down inside.’
I heard my own voice begin to quiver. I was making a complete fool of myself. ‘God, I’m sorry, going on like that look, thank you for your time, I’m sure you’ve better things to be doing’ I felt the blood rush to my face. I had ruined it. I couldn’t possibly do anything else wrong. I was ready to leave and quietly crawl into some corner and die with the humiliation.
‘It’s no problem. Wait till you hear the others. Dessie holds the record at the moment,’ he smiled. Then he pressed a buzzer and I heard him call in someone. I assumed I was being accompanied to the door again. There was no need. I would make my own way out this time.
A small blond guy stepped into the room. I could tell he wasn’t blond at all because he sprouted very dark roots. He looked like a cross between a bale of hay and a Tesco’s multi purpose Vileda mop. He smiled, exposing the clearly marked absence of one front tooth. If it hadn’t been for the missing tooth, he might have done well as an extra in “Rosie and Jim”.
‘Dessie,’ Mark Adams smiled ‘This is Fainch…’ He paused ‘Miss Finn O’ Farrell,’ he corrected himself politely.
‘Yo,’ Dessie nodded, chewing methodically on something. He had a glazed expression, like the lights were on but there was no one at home.
‘I think you two will find you have a lot in common,’ Mark Adams smirked.
Dessie looked me up and down. I wasn’t sure where all this was going but I knew where I was going the minute it was over. I was going straight to the pub.
‘Finn, can you type?’ Mark Adams winked at me. He was smiling now.

I wondered was this all part of the interview process. Were they pulling a fast one on me to see was I game for a laugh. Perhaps I was on Candid Camera? I peered around the office looking for the hidden lens and gave one of my best smiles just in case.
‘Yes, I…’
‘Can you file?’ Dessie butted in.
‘Yes, of course I can,’ I confirmed.
‘Have you handled cash before?’ Mark Adams wanted to know.
‘Yes,’ I nodded.
‘Marvellous, bloody marvellous,’ Mark Adams said wearily.
‘What’s marvellous?’ Dessie asked. Then he stared at me with that dumb hair and vacant eyes. I decided he was a true fart of an individual.
‘Dessie, I want you to train in Finn, like yesterday. Can you put in some extra hours?’ Mark Adams asked, exhaling urgently.
‘Sure’ Dessie smiled at me.
I smiled back.
Dessie stood there chewing away.
‘That’s all, Dessie. You’re excused,’ Mark Adams said, slightly irritated now.
‘Yo,’ Dessie said exiting.
‘Finn, you’re in,’ Mark Adams said, standing up and extending a hand.
‘You’re having me on,’ I choked.
‘Well, I’ve looked over your c.v. You can type, you can talk, and if you don’t mind the odd burp from your fellow workers then you’re the one for the job,’ he finished.
‘Right,’ I smiled, stupefied.
‘Welcome to the Credit Union’ He shook my hand vigorously, and that was how it began.

That was how I landed in Dublin, wide-eyed and destitute, bar a packed lunch. I had come ‘up from the country’ as they say, from a small rural suburb. I was used to small town rules and small town ambitions. I ached to be free of it, to taste the wildness and freedom of a big city. My life had taken a turn for the best. Things were looking up. I was so happy in the job. So delighted to have some new friends. I had parties to go to, shopping sprees to indulge in. I had choices. It was such a relief to be away from the stunted narrow-minded views of my family and neighbours back home.
I had money in my pocket. I had a bank account. I had museums and cinemas and theatres to visit. But, most of all, I had freedom, an abundance of freedom. I hardly knew what to do with it.

I had managed to get a small flat on the North Circular Road. The move had acutely clipped my spatial square footage, as I was used to lots of room back home. The flat was cramped and pokey but it was a small price to pay in comparison to the explosion of my inner world. At last, I was able to expedite without limit or constraint. As far as I was concerned, Finn O Farrell had arrived and she was never going back home, not ever.

Oh. It was all so perfect! Life was exciting and new and fresh as a daisy. It was just dandy! I was in seventh heaven! I never entertained the thought that some day it might change. No. Life was peachy. Life was a breeze. That is, until the day a young lady by the name of burst on to our television screens, and fucked it all up.

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Dublin Regional Marriage Tribunal.
Diocesan Offices,
Archbishops House,
Dublin 9.

Nullity of Marriage; Reece-Blake J.2 254/94

Personal and Confidential. 20th January 1995.

Dear Mrs Blake,

We are pleased to advise you that we are now in a position to arrange an appointment for you regarding your application to this Tribunal.
Please be good enough to call on the Tribunal Offices, Archbishops House, Drumcondra, Dublin 9. On Tuesday 14th February 1995 at 9.30a.m. to meet the Reverend Sean Ebbs.

I would be grateful if you would telephone or write to me, confirming this appointment, immediately. If you wish to confirm your appointment by telephone, please contact me at 607810.

You will appreciate that if we are to cater for all who seek our help at the Tribunal, it is most important that each person should attend the specified appointment. I would urge you therefore, to make every effort possible to keep this appointment.

With every good wish,

Yours sincerely,

Aidan Mason.
Tribunal Secretary.

Ruby held the letter tightly. It had been three months since she had made the initial application to the Catholic Church for an Annulment. She hadn’t expected an appointment so soon. She wondered had Eamann received the same letter. She sat down at the kitchen table and read it again. Her hand wandered across the table as she read, until it found the box of cigarettes. She pulled one out with her teeth. Her nail polish had not yet dried. The Archbishops house was not going to ruin her nails as well as her marriage.

She took a deep drag and perused the words slowly taking each one in. She blew the smoke on her nails, exhaling deeply. It had started too soon. She needed more time to think. Think about what? She wondered. There was nothing more to think about. The marriage was over. It had been over for almost two years now. It seemed only right to set the ball rolling. She had already appointed a solicitor to look after the Divorce end of things. Somehow an annulment seemed more profound. She picked up the phone and dialled Eamann’s number. It rang forever. Didn’t he know that he could set the answering service to pick up after 6 rings? Eventually, a recorded message came on. Ruby listened to Eamann’s voice, soft, confident, strong.

“High, you’ve reached Eamann, I’m not available to take your call right now, you can try me on my mobile at 086/23476, or alternatively, leave a message after the long bleep”.
Ruby listened to the long bleep and the silence that followed. Her voice abandoned her. She hung up.
What am I doing?

She took the receiver in her hand and dialled again.
A deep voice answered the phone.
“ Archbishops House, how can I help you?”
“Thank you, my name is Ruby Blake, I’m phoning to say..”
“Your reference number please,” the voice interrupted.
“Reference number?” Ruby stumbled.
“At the top of the page Madame,” the voice said.
“Oh yes, I see it, J.2. 254/94,” Ruby replied.
“Thank you, I just wanted to say...”
“Putting you through now Madame,” the voice cut in again.
“Fuck you...” Ruby’s words echoed down the empty line...

In a hopeless attempt to salvage what remained of his manhood, he savaged my self-esteem on that ill-fated journey home afterwards.
“For fuck sake!” he spat.
“Haven’t you ever heard of foreplay?"
This remark only served to encourage my own sense of inadequacy, and self blame. Wowed by his use of complicated vocabulary, I searched my mind for a humorous retort.
“Sure, I’ve read all his books,”
It was a lame effort. Already my beau was engaging in the serious business of rolling a joint, large enough to wipe out armies.
The night in question fell two weeks before my sixteenth birthday. It seemed only fitting. After all, it was New Years Eve and Matt (abbreviation for Matthew) had presented me with a pre-birthday gift. A pair of dangly silver earrings sporting multi-coloured feathers, and a bottle of Tramp. The quintessential kit for an upwardly mobile amateur hippie of my description. The evening was off to a good start, despite the fact that Matt had arrived predictably two hours late.

I had borrowed a cheesecloth ankle length dress from my best friend. She had purchased it from an Indian Shop on trendy Grafton Street.
The fact that she was a blubbering 4ft nothing, equally as wide, and looked more like a St. Patrick’s Day float, did not deter her. However, perusing my own slender figure in the mirror, the dress was perfect. It was the ideal seventies sexual aid. Buttoned conveniently right down the front, any would be suitor, would be hard pressed not to manipulate the simple structure to his advantage. A few delicate flickering fingers could have it disrobed in one minute. I knew it took one minute because I did a dummy run twice, and timed it myself. My attire that evening was very important. With a spray of Tramp in all the right places, and my feathered friends jangling from my ears, I felt like a woman. Not at all, the fifteen year old girl that I was inside. I was in love with Matt and tonight was ‘the’ night. There was no doubt about it.
Earlier on in the pub that evening I was feeling queasy. Partly with excitement about what was to come, but more probably because of the six Bacardis and coke I had bravely poured down my throat. Matt & I linked little fingers under the table. I thought it was cute and I felt really happy.

The fact that Matt was mysteriously disappearing in to the toilet every five minutes did not diminish my enthusiasm. “The Sea view”, a dingy pub that boasted hideous 3D maroon coloured wallpaper, had only one saving grace.
It was conveniently situated 100 yards across from the seafront. Glasses clanked noisily, people laughed heartily; bad jokes were standard and vomiting compulsory. Swilling my Bacardi and coke around the glass like an expert wine taster, I watched the curious comings and goings.
Matt had disappeared again.
“What’s wrong with him,” I asked my friend Karen.
“Is he constipated?"
“Yeah, looks like it,” she laughed.
“Hey Mick,” she beckoned to the barman.
“ Do you serve laxatives?"
“Yeah, we serve anyone” came the tarty reply.
Matt returned looking sheepish and glassy eyed. He sat down beside me.
“Where were you?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Ah man, the van was giving me trouble,”

Not bad I thought, I had heard worse. (N.B. For those of you unaccustomed to seventies garb, ‘in’ words included man, cool, freaked, wrecked, spaced). The truth was that Matt and his cronies were making their ritual rounds of the local chemists, gathering prescribed bottles of cough medicine, none of them had a cough to speak of, and the prescriptions were forged. It was a cheap and effective drug at the time. Failing that, they were crossing the road to the seafront were most of our hash supply was dealt. The peeling green painted shelters came alive at night. Couples huddled inside them, making use of their over sized duffel coats to camouflage their adolescent groping. Dutch clogs, red and yellow, scraped the pavement in haste, as five and ten spots were discreetly negotiated. Gangs congregated along the Clontarf Road, and all the way down the causeway. This was New Years Eve. You were supposed to be drunk, at the least stoned, but preferably both.

I had had a crush on Matt, since I was 9 and a half. We had enjoyed a turbulent and ever changing relationship. Of course Matt wasn’t aware of the fact that we had been having this fictitious affair. Most of it had been created in my head.