“What’s so funny Het?” I ask.

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.