Chapter One

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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