June 23, 2005

A colourful marriage

Taken from the best-selling collection 'Moments Short Stories by Irish Women Writers in Aid of the Victims of the Tsunami'.

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.

“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.

Posted by damien at 04:40 PM | Comments (0)

February 01, 2005

Skin Deep - Chapter One

From a very early age I refused to use my Christian name. My mother had seen it only right and fitting to christen me with a name that was truly cruel. I dealt with it as best I could. I simply insisted my name was Finn. Everybody called me Finn, and if they didn’t, they soon learned to.

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.

Click on the picture to buy the book!

Posted by damien at 08:39 AM | Comments (0)

January 03, 2005

Null and Void - extract

"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..."

Chapter One

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...

Posted by damien at 08:42 AM | Comments (0)

January 02, 2005

The House That Jack Built

Chapter One "I lost my virginity on 31/12/1978. I lost my knickers too. I reclaimed them innocently, when I stepped out of the blue Fiat Fiorinni Van, and they hula hooped around my ankles finally to crash land on the ground. (Oh look. there’s my knickers)..."

The whole ordeal had taken exactly three minutes. I had waited fifteen years for this momentous occasion. I had been saving myself for the right man. My accomplice in crime was my brothers friend, as he was one year older than me, I expected him to be fully experienced in the art of love making.

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.

Posted by damien at 08:46 AM | Comments (0)