I was up first the following morning, Sunday. There was now less than four weeks to go to the concert date, Saturday 18th December; our end of term exams were starting on 13th December and we had a family and relatives preview for the evening of Tuesday, 7th December. And today we had a dress rehearsal. All in all, it was going to be a busy run up to Christmas. I wasn’t looking forward to Christmas; its arrival would mean the end of the road for Aisling and I was becoming very enamoured by her. I tried to put these thoughts aside and live in the moment, but they nevertheless intruded from time to time.

There was a note on the kitchen table saying Pancake Mix in Fridge so I turned on the oven, put a large serving plate in, retrieved the batter from the fridge and started to cook pancakes. It actually takes quite some time as each individual pancake requires two minutes, and it took me most of half-an-hour to have twenty-four pancakes prepared and covered in a warm oven. I could hear movement meaning that my parents were up so I called “breakfast ready” up the hallway. By the time I had made a pot of tea they were both in the kitchen and we were sitting down by 8am to pancakes with maple syrup, lemon and caster sugar and, my own favourite, banana with nutty chocolate sauce.

“So, what’s happening today?” my mother eventually asked, looking at me.

“Dress rehearsal and study”.

“Dress rehearsal?”

“Yes; we want to be sure that everything works OK for the show so we’ll have time to fix it if it doesn’t”

“So that means that you’ll be wearing the clothes you bought yesterday?”

“Yes; just for today’s practice. We don’t want them damaged or dirtied before the show.”

“Well, we might drop over to have a look.”

My mother was looking at my father as she spoke. He nodded; no point in wasting words when a non-verbal indication will suffice!

I wasn’t sure that I was overjoyed by this; I would have preferred a dress rehearsal without an audience.

Yesterday’s ridge of high pressure had been rudely elbowed aside by a warm front and it was raining again today. Not hard, but persistent, wetting, and, despite the name of the front, cold. My mother offered to drive me over to Niamh’s house for 10am, an offer I gratefully accepted. Then…

“Go, get ready and I’ll do your makeup before we go.”

My father looked up, almost a little sharply, in my mother’s direction.

“It’s a dress rehearsal! He’ll have to look the part or it will look silly!”

My mother had noticed my father’s reaction and had moved to forestall any objection. He responded with another, almost imperceptible, nod.

“Wear the tan dress” my mother called as I disappeared up the hall.

I hadn’t counted on getting a make-up job and was now pushed for time. I skipped the shower and settled for a quick wash, did my teeth, and returned to my bedroom. The cami that I had worn the previous day was lying on the bed, along with a fresh pair of black knickers and my second pair of heavy brown tights. I dressed quickly, substituting the dress with my dressing gown and called “I’m ready”.

My mother had two chairs in the bathroom, like before, and set to work. Either she skipped some bits or she was getting used to this as I was all painted up much quicker than the previous day. Again, a quick look in the mirror. Forgot the earrings! My mother sent me to get them and clipped them in in the hall. I put on the brown dress and boots and wore my own long waterproof coat instead of my sister’s brown woollen one and was ready to go by 09:50. No perfume this time: I, and my clothes, still smelled a little of it from yesterday.

We arrived at Niamh’s house and my mother told me to stay in the car while she went in and spoke to Niamh. She was back out in a few minutes; she would help me get dressed in the barn and let Niamh know when I was ready. I supposed that it made sense; the bathroom was OK to change in normal times, but not when dressing up in fancy dresses, tights and heels. If Ciara was changing in the Twins bedroom it would be mayhem, but I missed the camaraderie of getting ready with the rest of the girls in the shop changing room. It’s funny how quickly I had normalized that experience.

I headed into the barn; the stove had the place well heated already and I thought that I detected, for the first time in a few weeks, the smell of Niamh’s herbal cigarettes wafting down from the studio above. My mother, carrying a hanger covered with a transparent plastic bag like a suit comes from the cleaners, and a shopping bag, appeared to notice it too when she came in. She gave a quick sniff, but said nothing. I sat in a chair and she took a pair of tights out of the bag. I slipped off my shoes, removed my brown tights and donned the proffered white gloves. Saoirse must have given them to her? Getting the sheer tights on was easy and my mother looked away diplomatically, searching around in the bag as I pulled them up. She pulled out the big matching knickers and again looked away as I pulled them on, then sat down and put on the dress shoes. I found the ankle strap hard to tie with the gloves on and finally thought to take them off! Then I had to take off my dress and cami. I had turned my back towards my mother while I did this and draped them over the chair. I hand appeared over my shoulder; I expected it to be the dress. It wasn’t; it was the bra that I had worn in the shop for the photoshoot. Niamh must have bought it along with the other clothes. I turned red with embarrassment.

“Do I have to wear that?”

“Yes; it fills out the shape of the dress. Don’t worry: Noone will see it!”

I slipped my arms through the bra straps, though not without some fiddling around to get it lined up, and my mother fastened it at the back. Finally she handed me the dress, already unzipped down the back. I was fumbling around trying to get into it, Saoirse had helped me in the shop changing room.

“Be careful: Don’t get makeup on it!”

My mother took the dress from me.

“Hold your hands up.”

I held my arms straight up over my head and my mother draped the dress over me, pulled it a little this way and that, then zipped up the back.

“Here, let me see you.”

I turned around. My mother looked, then looked away quickly and began folding up my brown dress, cami and tights. This finished, she looked back and spent a minute looking at me, fixing my hair, reclipping my earrings, and generally fussing. She looked outside, it was still raining, more drizzling now.

“I’ll let Niamh know you’re ready, then I’ll go and get your father. No point you getting wet”

“Actually I’m going to go to the bathroom before we start.”

I went to pick up my waterproof jacket. It was no more than 10 steps from door to door but there was no point in getting the dress, and me, wet.

“Don’t! The Velcro will rip your tights.”

The waterproof was fastened with both a zipper and Velcro on the stormflap. My mother went out to our car and returned with a large umbrella.

“Use this; you tell Niamh I’m gone.”

“Thanks”.

I opened the umbrella, manoeuvred it carefully out the door on its side, popped it upright and walked, a little unsteadily in my new heels, to the house. I remembered to reverse in the door and close the umbrella before I brought it inside: Niamh was a little superstitious and most people of that ilk tend not to like umbrellas being opened inside. I stood the umbrella in the hall stand. I called up the hall to Niamh:

“I’m ready; my mother is going to collect my father”.

“OK.”

I headed for the bathroom. Business complete and front paws washed, I emerged to find Ciara, all dressed and ready, at the door looking at the rain.

“Here, we’ll both go under this.”

I opened the umbrella outside the door, stepped out as I tilted it upright, and held it as Ciara joined me. She linked me to the barn door, being almost as unsteady as myself in her heels. I held the umbrella as she went in the barn door and followed her in. Both our shoes were wet so I changed back into my brown boots and went back to the house. The Twins were now ready.

“Don’t wear the shoes; they’ll get wet.”

The Twins went to change into runners while I collected some kitchen towel from the kitchen; where else? I walked each of the Twins in turn to the Barn, linking them more for my benefit than theirs, while they carried their shoes in their free hand.. Niamh appeared in a hooded waterproof and followed us out.

Ciara had already fired up the sound system. I dried her shoes off, then my own show shoes, and changed back into them. For good measure, I dried off my brown boots as well.

We first decided on a running order: Who do you think you are?; Hazy Shade of Winter (Bangles Version); Long Train Running; Walk Like an Egyptian; Song of The Underground; Really Saying Something. We had dropped the Bangles’ Walking Down Your Street, which I led, in favour of their version of Hazy Shade of Winter, on which I would also lead. Niamh busied herself with setting up the running order while we started to rehearse tunelessly, and in my case, totteringly. We had decided that, when the curtain went up,we would start with our backs to the audience, microphones in our right hands, a problem for Ciara as she was left-handed (ciotóg in Irish). Then we would whirl around together, going towards our right, as the music started. It took me a few attempts to do this without losing my balance, but I was getting there. What I did notice was that, when we twirled, the skirts of our dresses floated up almost to our waists: Those big knickers were needed!

“That will get some whistles, girls”, said Niamh. “Don’t let it put you off!”

We kept working away. Moving from song to song also needed some rehearsal. We didn’t want the lead singer for any particular number to be on either end, so after the first song, I had to change places with Saoirse so that I moved from the extreme right, to second from the right. Ciara would have to do the same with Aoife on the other side. We decided that, rather than just two girls exchanging places, whenever an exchange was required, both the left and right pair would switch. This meant that the Twins, taller and frankly better looking that Ciara and me, would either be in the centre together, or on the wings. Again, this would be done with a twirl; same result with the dresses.

The crunching of tyres on gravel announced the arrival of one, no two, cars. Either they had liaised, or had the same idea; both sets of parents had arrived for the dress rehearsal. They came in, standing close to the door.

“OK girls, lets get ready and see how far we can go with this.”

Niamh intended us to go through the full show, non-stop, to see how we would get on. We had already done this in practice, not in a dress rehearsal with a small audience. We lined up, backs to the small audience; Niamh started the music; we twirled around.

“Jesus Christ!”

My father’s exclamation completely unnerved me and, whereas the music and the other three girls continued on, I stopped, dismayed at his reaction.

Niamh stopped the music.

“Like I said, no matter what the reaction, you just keep on with the show! Let’s start again.”

She didn’t look at my father, just set about resetting the machine. I looked down towards my parents; my father was looking rather sheepish and my mother was whispering in his ear.

“Sorry; wasn’t expecting that,” he eventually said.

“No harm done”, Niamh was being diplomatic. “The girls need to be ready to deal with any reaction from the audience when they are performing, especially at the start of the show”.

My mother looked up at me, nodded and winked. I looked at my father; another almost imperceptible nod. As we were turning around to get ready for a restart, Saoirse reached over and gave me a quick arm-over-shoulder hug. Music starts, twirl turn, go for it, we got through the full show.

“OK; let's take a break. We’ll do it again in fifteen minutes, then back to study.”

Niamh and the two mothers drifted towards the stove; the two fathers were looking at the study table and examining that end of the room.

“They’re going to do a stage for the rehearsal on the 7th”, my mother explained to Niamh. “Otherwise, half the group won’t even see the girls perform.”

“They’ll need a name.” Ciara’s mother had just raised something that we hadn’t even considered: What would we call our group?

“How about The Black Valley Girls?” We had joined our three mothers and Ciara had made the first suggestion.

“Sounds OK.” My mother was happy enough to go along with the suggestion, partly, I guessed, as a diplomatic gesture to Ciara’s mother.

Niamh shook her head.

“Won’t work.”

“Why not? I think it sounds good.” Ciara’s mother liked her daughter’s suggestion as well.

Niamh lowered her voice so the two fathers wouldn’t hear.

“It’ll get shortened to the BV Girls, then lengthened to the Beaver Girls.”

Both Ciara’s mother and mine nodded gravely. The Twins tittered; Ciara turned beetroot red. I couldn’t imagine why an aquatic mammal, no longer found in Ireland, should cause such a reaction, so I just kept quiet.

“How about Cailíní Ghleann Dhubh?” Aoife suggested. It was a direct translation into Irish of Ciara’s suggestion.

Everybody nodded.

“Maybe Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh?” Saoirse had expanded the name to something like Black Valley Singing Girls.

We had a brief discussion. It was not good Irish, but the alliteration of the first two words overrode the grammatical deficiencies and we were happy to run with the name.

“What about Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh?” Ciara’s mother called over to the two fathers, deep in a conversation about woodwork by this time as they planned a temporary stage.

“Ceart go leor.” Ciara’s father responded. It meant “OK”.

My father looked up and nodded. He was taciturn in both languages!

We got ready and did the show again; no interjections this time and it all went well.

The girls disappeared into the house to change. The two fathers were again engrossed in planning the stage so Niamh pointed up to her studio, meaning that I could change up there. I took the bag containing my clothes from my mother and headed up to the studio while Ciara’s mother and mine accepted Niamh’s invitation to go into the house for a coffee.

The studio was bright and airy, with a great view of the lake which curved around the hill on which Niamh’s house sat. It was full of half-finished paintings and smelled more than faintly of Niamh’s herbal cigarettes. I started to change, unzipping my dress and carefully placing it over the back of a chair. I couldn’t manage to unhook the bra so left it on and slipped the cami on over it. I put on the white gloves and, as I set to work to carefully remove my dress knickers and tights, I realised that I could hear my and Ciara’s father talking downstairs. Engrossed in their planning, they didn’t realise that I was in the studio overhead.

“You got a bit of a fright!” Ciara’s father, like everybody, had noticed my father’s reaction.

“You can say that again! I knew that he was filling in for a girl’s spot; I just didn’t imagine how it would look.”

“You’re OK, he’ll get away with it. He looks the part.”

“That’s what I’m worried about; he looks too much the part!”

“It’s only a show; it’ll be over at Christmas then they’re all back to study.”

“Maybe he’s spending too much time around girls. He’s beginning to act like one.”

“That’ll pass when he’s a bit older.”

“Hope so…”

The voices faded as the men joined the women for coffee. I sat for a while; upset, but not entirely surprised at what I’d just heard. I knew that I wasn’t like the other lads in school. I had no interest in the UK football teams they constantly blabbered on about, the school Gaelic football team whose members felt that they were the top dogs in the school, regardless of academic ability, the handball players who spent every possible moment in the ball alley. I was comfortable around the girls in a way I simply wasn’t with the lads. Other than my performance in the show, I wasn’t aware that this was noticeable to my father. Maybe he was just referring to my current, temporary, situation? I couldn’t be sure.

But I knew, deep down, that I was not a girl, not really. I was getting a chance to pretend that I was, and that’s as far as it would go. So let’s go as far as I can, for as long as I can, then probably just get down to being a boy. Just keep going, just keep pretending that this is just a Show I’m doing. Pretend that I’m pretending that I’m a girl; let nobody know that that is not the real pretence…

“Aisling, have you gone to sleep or what?”

Saoirse had been sent to find me; I had drifted off, lost in thought, and had not fully finished changing. At least I had my tan dress on. Strange that she called me by my chosen girl-name.

“Sorry; I was thinking about the act”.

In a way, that was true.

I pulled on my tights, stepped into my brown boots and followed Saoirse down the stairs. Everybody was in the kitchen, the mothers finishing their coffee, the fathers still talking carpentry, the rest of the girls getting ready to resume study in the Barn. I joined them; we would do two hours than all back to our respective houses for Sunday Lunch. It was still raining when study finished and I was glad when Ciara’s father arrived in their car to drop me home before bringing Ciara back to their own house.

I arrived home with a few minutes to spare, went in the back door and dropped my coat in the wet-room. I went through the kitchen to my room and changed from my tan dress into jeans and a jumper. I had briefly felt OK wearing the dress in my father’s presence, but having overheard him in the Barn, it didn’t feel right, I didn’t feel comfortable. I went back to the kitchen where dinner was nearly ready and got the warm plates from the oven while my father stirred a saucepan of gravy. My mother was just finishing slicing beef sirloin with an electric knife. She laid it out on a platter, my father spooned some now-ready gravy over it, and it was placed in the centre of the table. I retrieved a platter of roast potatoes and vegetables from the oven, placed these on the table and we were all ready to go.

Unlike breakfast, lunch was normally a chatty affair in our house, but today I didn’t much feel like talking.

“Are you not going back to study later?”, my mother eventually asked, trying to bring me into the conversation.

“Yes, we are starting again at 4PM. Why do you ask?”

“It’s just that you changed; you’ll have to change back again if you’re doing any more practice, that’s all.”

“I’ll just go over in my jeans; I can change over there is we’re doing another practice”.

“You need to get used to walking in heels so you’ll need to wear your new boots. They would look unusual with the jeans?”

“I’ll see if it’s raining when I’m leaving.” I didn’t want to continue the discussion in front of my father, now that I knew how he really felt.

“If it’s raining, I’ll drive you over. I can pick up Ciara too.”

Conversation turned to school and the upcoming end of term exams. I professed myself happy enough with my preparation; my father wondered if practice for the show was taking up study time.

“No, we make sure we do three hours study at least, every weekday. Practice is on top of that.”

“Well, it’ll be over by Christmas so you’ll have no distractions next term.”

I nodded; pretend you’re on the same page… don’t let anyone know…

Of course it was still raining at 4PM so my mother rang Ciaia’s house to say that she would pick her up for study. She turned to me:

“Well, go on, get changed. Don’t keep them waiting! Wear the blue mini and your brown boots.”

I changed in my bedroom. My father was reading some Department of Agriculture forms at the kitchen table and I had to slink past to pick up my waterproof coat in the wet-room and went out the back door. I sat in the car waiting for my mother; she was right behind me. She started the car and drove away, much slower than usual.

“All right; what’s wrong?”

I suppose there had been no mistaking my bad humour.

“Dad’s not happy; is he?”

My end question was purely rhetorical.

“He’ll be OK; he just got a surprise when he saw the act. I suppose the Twins picked those dresses?”

“Ciara and Aoife spotted them first; then we all agreed that they would do. What’s wrong with them anyway?”

“Nothing’s wrong with them; maybe we weren’t expecting anything that… that dramatic.”

We were at Ciara’s house by now. My mother gave a dainty toot on the car horn then blasted up the demister to clear the windscreen. Ciara came out on her own, climbed into the back seat and we headed off to Niamh’s house. Ciara and I went directly into the Barn; the Twins were already there. I noticed that my mother hadn’t driven away so presumed that she had called in to Niamh.

We had to complete a French essay for school tomorrow. We started off by rehearsing a lot of descriptive phrases, the weather, the house, the road, all of which helped to bulk up the content and could be included in a myriad of essays, then we got down to writing.

We finished study at 7pm and were getting ready for one final practice session of the day when Niamh appeared. We all had to get our dress shoes and do the rehearsal in them. That meant changing tights and Saoirse again gave me her white cotton gloves to ensure the sheer tights did not snag in my false nails. I had forgotten these! Once ready, we tried a few alternative openings for the show: Whirling around in turn as opposed to together; left and right pairs whirling inwards simultaneously; starting facing the audience. It was all good practice, but in the end we reverted to keeping to our original plan. It did help me get used to wearing the heels however, by the time we had run through our repertoire, my feet hurt.

By the time we were ready to go the rain had stopped, but the roads were very wet and my mother picked us up, as usual dropping Ciara off first and then going to our house. My shoulders were tense as I hung my coat in the wet-room; could I get in and changed before I met my father? No chance! He was in the kitchen as I came in, just taking a bread pudding from the oven.

“Thought this would be a change from the usual.”

Almost immediately I recognised it as a kind of peace offering; he knew that this was a favourite of mine. My shoulders relaxed:

“I’ll just go and wash my hands.”

We all sat at the kitchen table enjoying bread pudding and custard. Conversation was light, no inquisitions in relation to exam preparation this time. My mother mentioned that my sister would be home from Boarding School for the relatives preview on 7th December. She had not been at home for the mid-term break as Transition Year (TY) in her school were on a trip to Rome. Given that there was little, if any, academic aspect to TY, my parents had arranged to collect her on Saturday and return her to the school on the Wednesday morning. I was looking forward to that. My mother also mentioned that Ciara’s mother was coming on the morning school run in our car. Apparently they had arranged to meet the Head of TY in our school, one of whose jobs was to set the running order for the Christmas Concert.

Eventually I was ready for bed. This time I remembered to remove my make-up. As I was busy doing this, I noticed my nails. I stuck my head sheepishly back into the kitchen:

“How do I get these nails off?”

“Try a claw hammer!”

My father’s attempt at humour was appreciated; a claw hammer has a fork on the head for removing nails, mostly from timber.

“Stop that you! Here, I’ll give you a hand.”

My mother followed me into the bathroom and eventually my nails were returned to their original state, albeit looking a bit battered!

Head on the pillow, I drifted off…

“He does seem in better form now…”

“Yeah, he must have heard us talking in the Barn; we never knew he was upstairs…”