Postscript(64)

She steps in and quickly takes in the room, and me standing in the middle of it all in my underwear.

‘Well, that works.’

She steps over the mounds of clothes, tiptoeing in the cracks where the carpet appears to get to her bed. She holds a tub of H?agen-Dazs, and a large spoon, and sits cross-legged on her bed watching me.

‘We were told not to touch the ice-cream. It’s Dad’s.’

‘I told him I have my period,’ she says, sucking on a full spoon.

Dad hates period talk.

‘A really clotty one.’

I wrinkle my nose. ‘Jesus, Ciara.’

‘I know, he’d have given me anything to shut me up. You should try it.’

‘No thanks.’

She rolls her eyes.

‘If you’re not careful, he’ll send you to hospital. Haven’t you had your period for three weeks now?’

She widens her eyes innocently. ‘I know, which is why I really need the cookie dough ice cream.’ She chuckles. ‘So, what’s the deal, are you having sex with the Ger-meister tonight?’

‘Shhhut up.’

She grins. ‘You are. Whoop whoop. Sexy pants.’

I close my eyes. ‘Ciara, when I was eleven I didn’t speak like that.’

‘Well I’m nearly twelve and I do. Come on then, what are the options?’

‘All of this. None of this.’ I sigh and pick a few things up. ‘This. Or this. I actually bought this for the party.’ I hold up a denim skirt and a top. Clearly, in this lighting, in reality, the two do not match.

Eleven years old or not, I trust Ciara’s opinion, I have faith in her style but I lack the confidence to wear her recommendations.

She puts the ice cream down, lies on her stomach over the edge of the bed to root through the clothes. ‘So where are you going to do it?’

‘I said, shut up.’

‘In the GAA club, up against the Sam Maguire? Or you with your arse in the Sam Maguire.’

I ignore her.

‘In the toilets, beside a bunch of old men in tweed caps eating egg sandwiches? In the staff room, up against some Tayto crisps?’

That one makes me laugh. The funniest thing about Ciara is how she doesn’t find herself funny. She never laughs, even when she says the most hilarious things, and she never seems to run out. She rattles things out one after the other, like her best humour is yet to come, as though she’s building it up, practising, trying to improve.

I don’t reply to her automatic weapon-like firing off of places I can have sex in a GAA club, but I watch her sorting through my clothes while I think of our actual plans to go to Gerry’s house. His parents, along with all the other uncles, aunts, and family members who don’t wish to be deafened by music they detest, are leaving Eddie’s party to continue the festivities at Eddie’s house – his parents are infamous for their house parties, where the sing-songs go on until the crack of dawn. This means Gerry’s house will be empty.

I remember my mum telling me that in a small house of eight siblings she and her brothers and sisters naturally learned to find their hiding places, that in a place so packed with personalities and individuality, it was imperative, a survival strategy, to carve out a space in the world that was theirs, to get lost in their imagination, to play, to read, to be left alone, to be themselves, to find isolation and calm in the midst of chaos. Hers was the space behind the couch where the base of the chair didn’t meet the wall. Those siblings who didn’t find their own space were, and remain, a little less settled in themselves. The same can be said for my friends. We’re always on the hunt for our own space to be with our boyfriends, a free house is a gift to behold and even then, once inside, it’s a competitive hunt for your own patch, the end of a couch, a darkened corner or empty room. Finally, tonight Gerry and I can have our own place, our own time, to really be together without prying eyes or people walking in on us, to create some personal chaos in the midst of calm. You can’t say that a year of waiting hasn’t been long enough. Gerry and I are practically nuns compared to our friends. Tonight is my idea, my persuasion, gentle persuasion. It didn’t take much. I’m ready, are you? I’d asked him.

Gerry may be wild and fun, but he’s also a thinker. Mostly he thinks before his crazy stuff and does it anyway, but he always thinks first.

There’s another knock at the door and I feel ready to explode.

‘Gerry’s waiting,’ Dad says, obviously sent up by Mum, who doesn’t want to be abused again.

‘Rome wasn’t built in a day,’ Ciara calls.

‘It would be built quicker than Holly getting dressed,’ he replies. Ciara guffaws sarcastically, and we hear him wander down the hall.

‘You’re always so mean to him,’ I laugh, feeling pity for Dad.

‘Only to his face.’ She surfaces from a slush pile with a dress. ‘This one.’

‘That’s the one I started with.’

I hold it up against my body and look in the mirror.

‘Definitely looks better from the front,’ Ciara says, from behind, with a view of my underwear.

It’s a little satin spaghetti strap black dress and it’s very little.

‘The black will hide the blood stains,’ she says.

‘Ciara, you’re vile.’ I shake my head.