As the car turned off the lane leading to Niamh’s house, and onto the road towards ours, I saw the security light outside our house come on. My heart sank: This could only mean one thing; my father had just driven or walked into the farmyard. For some reason, this was a much more troubling prospect than been seen by my mother wearing one of the Twins cheerleading skirts. She had, presumably been given an explanation by Niamh so would have expected to find me dressed like this when she called to collect me.

“Does he know?”

The “he” in my question was obviously my father. Having no brothers and with my elder sister attending boarding school there was no one else that would be expected to be around to set off the security light.

“No, I haven’t spoken to him since I heard from Niamh. He was in the machine shed.”

My fears confirmed by my mother’s answer, I could only await his reaction with mounting apprehension. Not being a natural mechanic, he tended to get a bit tetchy when he was working on the machinery. Most local farmers did a lot of the maintenance themselves as going to a garage or getting a specialist mechanic would have been too expensive.

The car pulled into the farmyard; the security light was still on. I undid the seatbelt, grabbed my bag with my wet clothes and tried to speak to my mother as if all was normal.

“OK, I’ll go and get changed.”

“First you get those wet clothes into the washing machine! A rinse and spin will do.”

I didn’t argue even though this would have meant my staying in the skirt and subject to my father’s probable disapproving eye for longer. Maybe he’s gone back into the machine shed? I opened the door and tried to get out without flashing my underwear…

“Knees together and swing your both legs out at the same time. Remember that next time!”

Again, that ghost of a smile as my mother watched me trying to climb awkwardly out. What did she mean by next time? Maybe Niamh had told her about the planned girl group? Not possible; Niamh hadn’t been aware of this herself until she had joined us after study and must have made the ‘phone call before that. I filed this in my mind as something to resolve another time and swung my two legs out, smoothed down my skirt and stood up. Just then my father walked out of the house and back towards the machinery shed carrying an insulated mug of tea: He was planning to spend a few more hours working on the tractor, or whatever; never a good sign. He looked at me, stopped, looked at my mother, then back at me, started to speak and then stopped. My mother must have put her finger to her lips behind my back.

“OK, get those clothes into the washing machine and put on some milk for the cocoa.”

My mother and I had a habit of drinking slightly sweetened cocoa at night, neither of us liking the overly sweet drinking chocolate available in the supermarket. I headed into the house, past my father, trying to walk normally and aware of his eyes following me. Once inside, I quickly put my wet clothes into the washing machine, stuffed my shoes with newspaper and left them in the drying room. This room had been added during a recent renovation of our now somewhat rambling house in order that wet coats, boots, waterproofs etc., could be taken off and left to dry before anyone got into the kitchen. Anyone familiar with West of Ireland weather will know the advantage of this facility. My mother came in from the machinery shed, where she must have been telling my father the background to my arriving home dressed as an American female cheerleader, just as I had finished sorting my clothes and shoes and was heading to my room to change.

“Come on, slowcoach!” she said as she hung the car keys on the keyboard. “Let’s have our cocoa. Your father won’t be in for a while.”

I assumed this to mean that she wanted me to start preparing the cocoa before I changed so I turned back from the door, got two mugs, measured the milk into a saucepan and started to heat it while I mixed the cocoa and sugar into a smooth paste in each mug. She busied herself setting the table and soaking porridge for breakfast the following morning. These days she would probably be regarded as belonging to the “slow food” tribe. Prepared or instant foods, frozen peas excepted, rarely crossed our threshold. I was happy to stay in the skirt now that she had seen me in it and my father wasn’t in the room beside me. Cocoa prepared, we sat at the kitchen bar on two high stools.

“Remember, knees together”, she reminded me.

I tugged at the hem of my skirt and complied.

We chatted for a while, school stuff mostly.

“The girls are thinking of doing a girl band act for the Christmas concert”, I eventually said, delicately broaching the subject.

“Oh, that sounds good, whose idea was that?”

“It kinda just emerged… we were talking about doing something for Christmas and that was where we left it.”

I let that sink in. My mother must have sensed that I had more to say.

“And what would you be doing?”

“They want me to join them. I suppose most groups have 4 or even 5 girls.”

My mother never mentioned the obvious; I wasn’t a girl!

“What did you say?”

“That there’s only 3 girls, but they thought I could fill in to make up the numbers.”

“And what do you think of that?”

How do I answer this question? How do I get to where I want to be, without making it obvious that I desperately wanted to be a part of this, dress as a girl, hang out with the girls even more than heretofore, be like a girl?

“I suppose they’re my friends; I don’t want to let them down.”

Sometimes I even surprise myself by coming up with plausible answers to difficult questions!

“And what about the rest of the school? Especially the lads. What would they say?”

My mother had identified one of my two big concerns: I decided to name the other.

“More importantly, what would Dad say?”

“I don’t know”, she mused thoughtfully. “Anyway, it’s time for bed”.

We put the cups into the dishwasher and I headed off, reluctantly taking off and folding my skirt and top. My mother waited up; she normally did when my father was working late. He’d usually arrive in covered in grease and nursing a cut hand from a spanner slip, or some similar injury. He was great with the animals; the machinery frustrated him. Later that night I caught pieces of conversation as they talked, mostly his voice which carried further…

“I don’t know… I wouldn’t want him to be seen as a Nancy-boy…”

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School passed off as normal the next day. Ciara’s mother drove us there and my mother picked us up at 4pm. Nobody mentioned the events of the evening before; in fact in school we never spoke of our study arrangement directly. None of us were really sure how this had come about but it was probably to avoid being seen as “swots”, an illogical fear as most of the townies were participating in the School Study Club. My mother dropped the twins off first and Ciara and I left our schoolbags in the old barn. She dropped Ciara off next, then on to our house, the furthest into the valley. I had a quick snack, changed into shorts and started off for Niamh’s house, carrying a waterproof jacket this time along with my jeans. My mother stopped me at the door and handed me a plastic shopping bag. I glanced inside; the skirt, top and underwear were neatly folded and smelled very faintly of fabric conditioner. My mother had laundered them sometime during the day. The shoes were also in the bag, wrapped in another bag.

Arriving at the barn at 5:25pm, the twins, Ciara and Niamh were already there, messing around with the DVD player. The Black Valley broadband was somewhat erratic and could not be relied on for streaming. Niamh had managed to get some DVD’s of some girl groups so the idea was that we would watch the DVD, miming along trying to follow the dance moves and develop a routine from this. I handed Niamh the bag with the clothes and thanked her. She took the bag and left it down on the study table. The Twins were wearing their cheerleading outfits; Ciara was in shorts.

We started off with the Spice Girls “Who do you think you are?” performed live. This was probably too ambitious as a start point. We found it hard to make any sense out of the choreography and, after about 15 Minutes, Niamh called a halt.

“This isn’t working girls; let’s try something else.”

I didn’t mind being referred to as one of the girls, in fact I was delighted. I rationalised this to myself as, being a prospective member of a putative girl group, it made sense. Niamh went to search through the pile of music DVD’s that she had obviously acquired from a charity shop, then stopped, picked up the bag of clothes she had left on the table and handed it to me.

“Let’s start by getting the look right first; you get changed. Saoirse, can you get a skirt for Ciara?”

I pretended to hesitate, then the three of us headed into the house. Saoirse and Ciara disappeared into the girls’ room and I headed for the bathroom to change. At least I’d have my own dry clothes to go home in tonight. Back out in the barn, Niamh had selected “Walk like an Egyptian” by the Bangles, not a live performance, more like an official video. The Bangles were a “real” band, their live performances were basically standing up and singing as they played their own instruments. The video was better to work from as, unencumbered by instruments, there was enough movement to give a semblance of a show. This attempt went much better and after about 20 minutes, Niamh, who had clearly taken over as leader, music director and choreographer, called a halt. It was now 6:15pm and we were late starting study. Aoife suggested that we do one more session at our break. Everybody agreed, and it seemed almost natural that we stay in our practice clothes at least until that session ended.

Breaktime came, some quick toilet breaks and, instead of practicing a dance routine, Niamh began by checking our voices. Fortunately, my voice hadn’t broken and I would easily manage two scales. The twins likewise had good singing voices; Ciara struggled but was, by Niamh’s definition, passable. Niamh then proposed that, instead of just miming, we should try to sing to a backing track. This would make for a much more authentic show, but would be much more difficult to perform. We agreed to give it a try. We did another hour’s study, then one more session of routine practice, and it was time to change back into my own clothes and head home. Niamh headed up to her studio to smoke her nightly herbal cigarette. I presumed that these cigarettes were hard to buy in the shop as Niamh rolled her own, somewhat crudely having to twist the ends to keep the herbal stuff from falling out. I thought to tell her some time of a box one of my English uncles had when here on holidays. There were compartments for the tobacco and paper. To make the cigarette, the paper was put into a slot, filled with tobacco and the lid closed: A passable cigarette appeared out of the slot at the top of the box.

Ciara’s mother drove us home the following day. She followed the normal practice, first Niamh’s house where she would drop off the twins and our schoolbags, then drop me at my house and finally back to her own. As we were turning into the laneway leading to Niamh’s house, we had to wait as another car was coming out. As it passed by, I recognised the car and driver as being our local Garda (police) Sergeant. He was wearing a civilian jacket over his Garda shirt, not unusual for him. We arrived at the house and got out to drop off our schoolbags in the barn. When we climbed back into the car we had to wait for a while as Ciara’s mother chatted to Niamh, then we drove off towards my house.

“I wonder what the Skip was doing in Niamh’s house”, Ciara mused. The Sergeant was known as the “Skipper”, “Skip” for short. This had been the naming practice for years and probably arose from the more junior Guards (police constables) giving that name to their local boss.

“He was just doing a crime prevention call”, Ciara’s mother replied.

I reckoned he must have called to all the houses; he would hardly just pick one out. We got to my house and I got out of the car. My mother and Ciara’s had a quiet quick word before the car drove off again.

“What did the “Skip” say?” I asked as I was having my pre-study snack, warm potato cakes.

My mother hesitated just for a minute.

“Eh, not much, we should have the key-box in a less obvious place and the shotgun should be locked up in a gun safe.”

I changed and headed off to study. Ciara and the Twins were there, no sign of Niamh. Ciara was wearing the same skirt that Saoirse had lent her yesterday. Aoife just handed me a bag with “my” skirt and top, told me to get changed as quickly as possible so as not to delay practice. This was becoming normal, and I wasn’t at all perturbed. I didn’t even feel the need to feign reluctance.

We practiced the routine for “Walk like an Egyptian” and got down to study on time. Niamh appeared at the break and handed out sheets with the song words printed. She played the DVD and we all sang along as best we could, our voices masked by the vocals on the tape. Niamh seemed preoccupied, a little “ratty” (short-tempered), unusually for her. We did the routine again after study, Niamh was there but didn’t go for her usual herbal cigarette afterwards. I changed and headed home.

The tractor and all the rest of the machinery must have been ok as my father joined my mother and me for cocoa and scones before I headed off to bed.

As I was going to sleep, I heard his voice…

“She’s lucky to have gotten away with a warning… you can get in trouble for using that stuff…”

I had no idea what he was talking about, maybe someone using marked agricultural diesel in their car?

“Shssss…”. My mother wanted him to keep his voice down so that I could go to sleep.

**************************************************************************************************************************************

Question: How can you tell that it’s summer in Ireland?

Answer: The rain gets warmer.

Winter was closing in. This is not the continental winter of long, dry cold spells punctuated by occasional snow. It was an Irish winter, lots of rain, sometimes warmer, sometimes colder. Farm work was reducing to a routine of care and maintenance. The milking, reduced to once a day in October, now ceased as the grass growth lessened into November. Dairy in Ireland is a seasonal business. Our grass-fed cattle give the best butter in the world, but grass feeding is only possible when the grass is growing and the land is dry enough to bear the weight of large animals standing on relatively small hooves. Even then, the milk at the start and the end of the season is generally used for the production of butter for the food industry, not the table.

Our routine changed. It was agreed that, coming from school, we would all be dropped off at the barn as opposed to going home first. My mother and Ciara’s would provide our pre-study snack on a loose, mutually agreed roster. It was felt that as Niamh was providing the location, cutlery and tableware, as well as looking after the washing up, she would have contributed more than enough. It worked out a little differently as we students quickly took on the job of clearing up and filling the dishwasher after we had eaten, and Niamh occasionally cooked. The arrangement worked exceptionally well as it meant that we were generally able to start practice at 5pm. It also worked academically; all four of us did very well in the midterm examinations and there was some muttering amongst our classmates about the Black Valley Brainboxs. As we tended to hang out together, we had developed a reputation of being a bit cliquish and I occasionally drew some flak for hanging out with the girls as opposed to playing soccer in the school yard.

We were also getting good at what had become, by now, a very sophisticated Karaoke act. Niamh had sourced a 4 microphone system with external sound connectivity, on Amazon. We had mostly moved off our original preferred groups keeping only “Who do you think you are?” from the Spice Girls and “The Song of the Underground” from Girls Aloud. We concentrated on some earlier groups: The Bangles gave us “Walk like an Egyptian” and “Walking Down Your Street”; from Banarama we picked “Really Saying Something” and their cover of the Doobies “Long Train Running”. We would probably only have time for two or three numbers for the actual concert. We each learned to lead on at least one number; I had two, “Walking Down Your Street” and “Really Saying Something". My voice was probably the strongest and I was a little disconcerted when Niamh remarked on the Castratos having the best voices in the 16th & 17th Centuries.

By the third week of November, we had four songs and routines picked for the concert and were well on our way to perfecting them. There would be various acts from four of the years; the state exam years, 3rd and 6th were not expected, or even allowed, to participate. It was decided that my mother and Ciara’s would negotiate our slot with the organising committee; for some reason Niamh was not regarded as being as influential with the school staff. Before doing this, they were to come over and see our act.

Thus it came to pass that, at 5pm on a wet and windy Wednesday evening in this third week of November, all three mothers came to see us perform. The twins, a year older and much more advanced than Ciara and me, as well as being natural show-offs, were at their very best. Ciara carried her lead number off adequately. I was a disaster! I had grown quite accustomed to dressing as and playing a girl’s role with my three classmates and Niamh. To have to do it in front of the other two mothers was somewhere between embarrassing and terrifying. What would they think? They knew I was a boy! This last point was not entirely logical as so did everybody else, but I did not see it that way at the time. My moves were wooden, I struggled to stay on key, I kept tugging at the hem of my skirt as I was overcome by a new, though overwhelming, belief that it was far too short.

The girls tried to console me, saying that I had just had an off-day, as the mothers conferred. Conference finished, the adults, in their infinite wisdom, diagnosed a severe case of double stage-fright brought on by my first time performing before an audience, albeit very small, and appearing in public masquerading as a girl. A remedy was proposed. We needed stage outfits and these were most likely to be sourced in Galway, a small city about an hour’s drive away, or if not there, Dublin. Niamh would bring the four girls to Galway on Saturday. Yes, four GIRLS. I was to be dressed, made up and coiffed as a 13 year old girl in order to get used to being seen as one in public. The Twins looked at each other and grinned; they were going to enjoy this! Despite my abject failure to perform adequately at the demonstration, I was both excited and nervous about the prospect of appearing in public, really in public, as a girl.

An additional remedy was also proposed. A dress rehearsal before an audience of neighbours, and whatever relatives could be drafted in from around the county, would be held on the evening of 7th December.

My mother drove me home. I was feeling very deflated about my performance, and, simultaneously, both excited and terrified at the prospect of a shopping day in Galway the following Saturday, dressed as a girl. My biggest concern was leaving our house; I didn’t know how my father would react. I contemplated getting dressed in Niamh’s house. At least all the other participants were now used to seeing me in a skirt and girl’s top. In Galway, no one would know me. Right now, I wanted just to go to bed and let sleep sort out my combination of despondency, excitement and trepidation.

“Not so fast”, my mother responded when I mentioned that I would skip the nightly cocoa and retire.

She went into my sister’s room, rummaged around for a bit and returned with a button up denim mini, a polo neck jumper and some heavy blue tights.

“Here, try these on”, she said, handing them to me.

I took the clothes to my bedroom and changed, hoping that my father was busy outside. Once dressed, and wearing my own slippers, I went back to the kitchen. My mother wasn’t there so I busied myself making cocoa and toasting scones, my earlier decision to retire early and skip this nightly ritual now forgotten.

My mother arrived in, obviously having been out in the machine shed briefing my father.

“Mix another mug, he’ll be in soon.”

My face must have betrayed my discomfort as she quickly added:

“It’s ok, he knows.”

“What did he say?”, I enquired nervously.

“Not much, you know your father.”

“How’s he getting on out there?” If the job was going badly I was afraid that he might be tetchy.

“He’s fine; just finished cleaning the shotgun.”

Obviously the shotgun had seen use earlier that day. My father, a former Army Reservist, always cleaned it after use. I bent down to get another mug from the kitchen press.

“Not like that! You’ve just flashed your underwear to whoever is behind you.”

The denim mini was A line, or slightly flared, not straight. It was very easy to wear, but had one big disadvantage as I had just found out.

“When you need to bend, do it with your legs”, my mother advised.

My blank expression elicited further explanation.

“Like you’re doing a deep curtesy.”

I was still lost; my blank expression hadn’t changed.

“Bring one knee down towards the other heel, like this.”

She demonstrated: I copied and managed not to fall over.

“Good; remember that.”

I mixed the third mug of cocoa while my mother toasted an additional scone. We had just about finished when my father came in, open shotgun across his arm. He looked at me, said nothing, than continued to my parents bedroom where the shotgun resided in the corner of a wardrobe, despite the Garda (police) advice that it be locked away in a gun safe. He came back into the kitchen and, as there were only two high stools at the breakfast bar, we all sat around the table with our cocoa and scones.

I was glad that my skirt and legs were safely tucked away under the table. We all munched away in silence for a minute or so.

“Don’t worry about the rehearsal,” he eventually said. “What’s the point in having one except to see what can go wrong! That way you know what you have to do to get it right.”

It was definitely a good job that I wasn’t sitting on a high stool; I would have fallen off!

“Just remember once you’ve decided to do something, stick out your chin and do it right!”

“Thanks Dad, “I responded.

“Can you get some blackcurrant jam from the fridge? “, My mother asked.

She never had blackcurrant jam with her scones so I assumed she was just getting me to walk around to get used to moving in the skirt in front of my father. I got up carefully, walk to the fridge, fortunately an eyelevel unit, got the jam and a clean spoon and returned to the table. My parents have switched to talking about business. My mother, who did the accounts and managed the finances, was visiting her tax accountant on Friday in Baile Na hAbhann, directly translated as River Town, but Anglicised as Ballyhowan, the closest regional centre. My father announced that he would not be going: the weather promised fine and he wanted to use the good day and work on some fencing. Eventually I excuse myself and headed off to bed, hanging the skirt and polo neck up in my wardrobe and dropping the tights over the skirt hanger.

Thursday passed by as normal and I absolutely blitzed our practice session. It was chalk and cheese compare to my performance the previous evening. I arrived home and responded “it went well” to my mothers raised quizzical eyebrow. As I was heading off to bed my mother told me to tell the teacher that I will be picked up from school at 12 pm on Friday for “a medical appointment “.

“What medical appointment?”, I responded. “I thought that you were going to see the tax woman?”

“We’re going shopping” she responded. “Just don’t say that to anyone!”

“Do I tell the girls that practice is off?”

With the long dark evenings closing in, we were now doing study and practice on Friday nights and over both weekend days as well. I didn’t mind missing school; I definitely didn’t want to miss practice.

“No, I’ll have you back in time for that”.

As a good attender and with good grades, no remarks were passed by the teachers on my proposed absence. The Twins enquired if I was all right; I assured them that all was ok and that I’d see them for study. Duly picked up from school, my mother, unusually, told me to get in the back of the car, a rather venerable Volvo estate. A cardboard box on the seat beside me contained the polo neck, tights and skirt along with a pair of my sister’s Sketchers, a casual walking shoe, although rather fashionable, along with her light blue “puffer jacket”. My mother told me to get changed.

“I can’t go around Ballyhowan wearing these”.

“Why not? All your friends are at school. I’m leaving you off at the beautician’s while I go to the tax accountant. They know what to expect and that you’re doing this for a concert. They’ll get you all made up and your hair done for tomorrow.”

“But won’t they talk and spoil the act?”

“Well, they promised not to say anything so we’ll just have to trust them.”

“But won’t everything be rubbed off by tomorrow?”

“Yes, we’ll take it all off tonight, but once they’ve got a plan ready for makeup and hair, I can redo it in the morning.”

I let all this sink in as I changed. The shoes were a bit loose, but a pair of “invisible” girl’s trainer socks sorted that out. The car was warm so I left the jacket off until I had to get out.

“Brush your hair a bit.” My mother was looking at me in the car mirror.

“Look at the road; you’re making me nervous.” I was always a nervous passenger. “Anyway, I have no brush.”

“I suppose you’re going to be a Ban Garda (female police constable) when you grow up.” My mother knew that I was a nervous passenger and this conversation had happened before. Only this time she had said Ban Garda! It was an old term, only used by older people who remembered a time when Ban Gardaí (plural) were regarded as ancillary to “real policemen”. Why had she said that? Maybe because I’m dressed as a girl? Anyway, I didn’t mind.

“Reach forward and you’ll find a brush in my bag” she continued.

Her bag was on the passenger seat; I leaned over the seat, found a brush, and set to work. This wasn’t easy as my hair was quite long and something between curly and wavy. I usually wore it in a ponytail. It wasn’t red per se but definitely on that spectrum, though somewhat bleached from last summer’s sun.

“Now clean the hairs off your jumper.”

She was watching me again. I decided to say nothing although I thought that the road should demand her full attention!

We parked in the bank carpark in the centre of Ballyhowan. Nobody would be too put out by her using this free parking space as it wasn’t very busy, and anyway, she was a customer. As we were getting out of the car, in my case carefully, my mother asked me to hold out my right wrist. She put a spray of her perfume on it and told me to rub my wrists together. I had often seen her do this so I spread the perfume over my wrists and dried them off behind my ears, as was her habit. I realised that she was looking at me, but she said nothing.

“Remember, keep your knees together when sitting and be careful bending down,” she reminded me as we walked the short distance to the beautician’s.

I was barely able to hear her. I tried not to look at the passers by, imagining each in turn turning around behind me to laugh at the boy dressed as a girl. It was terrifying. No exhilaration, just pure fear of discovery, of ridicule, maybe worse? I might as well have had a big sign on my back saying “Boy”! I was relieved to be brought into the reception area of the beautician’s. For the town that it was in, this was quite a large affair, combining a hairdressers and beauticians, a one-stop-shop. I was handed over to a woman named Mable. Like all the rest of the women working here she appeared quite old to me; at least in her mid 20’s, maybe even 30’s! They all looked glamorous, albeit overly made up and coiffed.

My mother headed off, and Mable took charge of me. The first problem was the polo neck jumper; I would have to take it off. My mother must have been in a hurry or she would have thought of that. Jumper off, I was hoping that my T-shirt didn’t look too masculine: I supposed one white crew neck T-shirt looks much the same as another. I was handed something that looked like a hospital gown and slipped this on. The gown fastened at the back; Mable tied this up for me.

Sitting in a chair before a mirror, Mable and another girl looked at my hair, pulling it this way and that for a few minutes before deciding what to do. Decision made, I was led to a basin for a wash and shampoo. I was a little perturbed that nobody had asked my opinion, however having my hair washed was a luxury and I nearly dozed off as my head was gently massaged. Eventually, hair barely towel dried, I was led back to the mirror seat and Mable started to work. She explained that this time, she was only going to take some of the weight from around the back and sides, and layer it down, so that my hair would look less unruly when not in a ponytail. I wouldn’t even notice it when she was finished. The logical part of my brain wondered what the point was in cutting my hair in a way that no one would notice, but I felt too intimidated to ask.

Cutting finished, some Moroccan Curl added, my hair was blow dried. Mable explained that normally it was better to let the hair dry naturally but today was just too cold to be going out with a wet head. I did notice the difference: instead of flaring out from my head in a confusion of curls and waves, my hair now fell down towards my shoulders, still curly, but not looking like the wild mop it had heretofore resembled.

Hair completed, I was handed over to the makeup team. Another discussion and Louise set to work. First she used a hair band to pull my hair back and started by rubbing some cream into my face. She spent what seemed like an inordinate amount of time on my eyes, then back to my face again with an assortment of creams and brushes. I noticed that she was making notes as she worked. I had to purse my lips as she used first a pencil, then some colour and finally gloss, and warned me not to lick my lips! Eventually, she turned my swivel chair back towards the mirror. I must have jumped in the chair as she laughed at my reaction. A girl, maybe 14-15, was looking back at me.

“You like?” Louise’s face appeared in the mirror over my shoulder. I was afraid to talk as my voice might break; I just nodded. Louise handed me a tissue.

“Dab your eyes gently; don’t ruin all my good work!”

Either Louise had noticed that I was starting to well up, or maybe she was used to this reaction from young girls when first given a makeover. Wait a minute; I’m not a girl. I’m just pretending to be one for a show. That’s all!

Next my nails. “They should match your lipstick, honey”, Louise explained as she glued a set of long pink, slightly sparkling nails over my own. The glue was giving me a slight headache and I wondered how I would ever get the nails off. Looking back into the mirror, Louise held a pair of hoop earrings to my earlobes.

“Like these?”

“Won’t work”, I responded. “My ears aren’t pierced.”

“Not yet”, Louise responded. She headed off to the reception desk and I could see her on the telephone. She came back.

“Not this time; it could be a problem in school.”

I didn’t know if I was relieved or disappointed.

Apparently I was now finished as I was brought back to reception to wait for my mother. She arrived quite quickly, came in the door, looked at me and turned quickly away. She must have had something in her eye as she dabbed it with a tissue before going to the reception desk. She spoke for a few minutes with both Mabel and Louise before picking up a large brown paper bag, paid the receptionist and came over to where I was sitting.

“All right young lady; let’s go shopping.”

I presumed that my mother was just teasing me and followed her out into the street.

“Nobody will know unless you tell them.” Having noticed my previous trepidation about being on the street in public, my mother’s reassurance, although welcome, was not required. I was now convinced that nobody would recognise the teenage girl that I had just seen in the mirror, let alone know that she was not what she appeared. Our first stop was at an accessory shop where my mother picked out a set of small clip on earrings.

“Would you consider getting her ears pierced?” The shop assistant asked as my mother paid for the earrings and proceeded to clip them to my earlobes. “Lots of girls her age are getting it done now.”

The piercing was free so the shop assistant wasn’t trying to make a sale. My mother demurred, saying that she would think about it. We walked directly to a clothes shop and to a rack where my mother selected a tan/fawn heavy long sleeved button up cordoroy tunic-dress. She had clearly done a check on the shop beforehand. She held the dress up to me and told me to look in the mirror. The colour matched my hair almost precisely and I was sent to the ladies fitting rooms to try it on. Fortunately the fitting rooms were divided into cubicles. The dress fitted well enough although I felt it to be a bit short: I could fold my hand around the hem. Emerging from the fitting room, I was inspected by my mother and a shop assistant who had joined her. The inspection proves satisfactory and the shop assistant guided us to the hosiery area where two matching pairs of heavy brown tights were added to the basket that the assistant had magically produced. To the assistant’s disappointment, my mother did not accept her recommendation in relation to a winter coat saying that I already had a suitable one at home. I guessed that she was referring to a brown woollen coat that my sister had bought the previous year.

Changed back into my blue mini and polo neck, our next stop was a shoe shop to try on a pair of brown, kitten heeled, ankle boots. Finally, we headed back to the car and my mother drove back to the Black Valley. As we would be passing through Ballymore, I sat in the back where the tinted windows would keep me concealed from prying eyes. We arrived at Niamh’s house just in time for the pre-study snack and I was deposited outside the barn with my school bag. My mother drove back to our house with the purchases.

I opened the door of the barn and stepped into the warmth of the stove. Niamh, Ciara and the Twins were having soup and ham rolls at the table.

“Hi, sorry I’m late…”

I didn’t finish my explanation. Four pairs of eyes were just staring at me and I suddenly remembered that I was made up and dressed as a girl. Incredibly, I had simply forgotten, fixated on the prospect of a practice session, then study. Saoirse was the first to break the spell, jumping up from the table with a kind of squeal of delight and smothering me in a big hug. Aoife quickly followed and even Ciara, much less demonstrative than the twins, came over and embraced me. I was dragged to the table and quizzed on the day’s events as I, not having eaten since morning, tried to answer while tucking into my soup and roll. They loved the hair, loved the makeup, who did it?, what shade was that on my eyes?, the nails are fantastic!, all in an excited babble of loud voices. Eventually Niamh called the room to order and we finished our food and cleared the table for study. It was now 5:30pm and we decided to study first, finish early, then do a longer practice session at the end.

The questioning continued at our break and I gave the girls an outline of the day’s events. They all promised not to tell anyone at school that I did not have a medical appointment and the chatter turned to plans for tomorrow, Saturday, shopping in Galway. Then back to work, finish study at 8:30pm, quickly change into our practice gear, fire up the sound system and go through our six routines.

It was never so easy. Maybe for the first time I felt really a part of the group, not just an imposter masquerading to make up the numbers. I would probably never match the Twins bravura performance, but I was enjoying putting on a show, albeit with no audience. I had forgotten that I wasn’t a girl… no…not quite correct… at that moment I WAS a girl. Maybe my enthusiasm was being felt by the rest of the girls, but we all felt that, if we kept up that standard, we had nailed it. We all had a big group hug when we finished. I was becoming more and more aware that the girls, in particular the Twins who were a year older than Ciara and me, were developing as teenage girls do and was caught between a wish that I would follow the same route, and a reticence to be seen to be taking advantage of my position as an honorary girl. The Twins obviously accepted me as such. Ciara and I had grown up together so the leap was much greater for her.

Practice finished, it was time to change and walk home. Oops, I only had the denim mini, polo neck, tights, sketchers, and puffer-jacket. And I was all dolled up like a girl. What the heck… I changed and headed off on the 15 minute walk. It was not raining, though cool. I felt light headed, feeling the slight breeze around my legs, enjoying the ease of walking in a skirt, feeling as happy as I had ever been. I wasn’t even worried about meeting my father!

I arrived at our house; my mother and father were sitting in the kitchen, cocoa and scones ready just to toast and heat the milk.

“I thought that you might call for a lift?” my mother remarked as I came in.

“Didn’t need one, thanks, it’s a nice evening, a bit cool,” I responded as I put the milk saucepan on the gas hob. My mother toasted and buttered the scones and my father read the Farmers Journal. We had our supper and I excused myself to head for bed…

“Not so fast; you’ve got to take off all that warpaint.” My mother was rehearsing an old joke whereby we referred to makeup as warpaint. She handed me a bottle of cleanser, a makeup removal pad and a small clear bottle of eye cleaner. I was to smear the cleanser all over my face, wet the makeup pad, put eye cleaner on it, clean off my eye makeup first, then my face. I nodded and repaired to the bathroom. Job completed and fangs polished, I headed to my room.

“We’re up early in the morning; I have to redo that makeup!” my mother called as I walked down the hallway.

I hung up my skirt, jumper, tights and coat beside the new cord dress that was already hanging in my closet.

My parents continued talking… as usual my father’s voice carried more than hers…

“… if you hadn’t told me I wouldn’t have recognised her… I mean him… she looks just like a girl… HE looks just like a girl…”

**************************************************

I woke early on Saturday, excited and terrified by the thoughts of the coming day. Probably more excited than terrified, yesterday’s excursion having done much to allay my fears. I checked the time; 5am. Still time for another snooze. I turned over, snuggled further into the duvet, closed my eyes, and stayed fully awake. After about 10 minutes or so, I decided I might as well get up and start to get ready. I wandered to the bathroom and was just about to step into the shower when I saw a small box on the shower tray with a note.

Wear this in the shower.

I looked at the box; it was branded Western Lodge Hotel Group. My parents were from a generation that did not believe in leaving unused toiletries in a hotel when they were leaving and had picked this up some time in the past, near or distant I could not possibly know. I opened the box to discover a shower cap. Not having ever used one of these before, I was struggling to tuck my hair inside its elastic rim when there was a soft knock on the bathroom door. I was still wearing my dressing gown so opened the door to find my mother ready to help me with my unaccustomed headpiece, as well as ensure I actually wore it.

“We heard you getting up; we would have been up soon anyway.”

She fixed the cap on my head, instructed me NOT to let the water spray above my neck, and to call her when I was dried off and ready. I could hear my father shuffling about in the kitchen; he had taken on the role as breakfast maker for the day… not unusual in our house. I showered quickly, dried off, got back into my pyjamas and dressing gown and announced myself as ready. My mother accompanied me into my room, told me to put on one pair of the brown tights she had purchased yesterday and pointing at the bed, said,

“Wear these instead of your own.”

I looked at the bed whereon lay a black plain pair of knickers and an ivory cami-top, both obtained from my sister’s room.

“Can’t I just wear my own?”

“These are better; your t-shirts will all show under the brown dress, and you’ll probably be changing with the girls so the knickers will be more concealing.”

That was true; my cotton underwear tended to get loose with the enhanced possibility of things falling out.

“Come back to the bathroom when you’re dressed. Don’t put on the dress yet, we don’t want it covered in hair, makeup or breakfast before you get out the door, do we?”

I nodded, she left, I got dressed. The knickers and tights were not a problem but I managed to get the cami on backwards before I eventually got myself sorted. The cami felt strange against my skin, not particularly soft as it was a silk-effect material, but quite sensuous. I admired myself momentarily in the mirror before dragging my dressing gown on and heading towards the bathroom. The smell of a fried breakfast in preparation permeated the hallway.

My mother had brought in two chairs from the kitchen and sat me on one while she sat on the other beside a box with an assortment of tubes and jars, itself standing on the footstool that we all used to reach things in the higher shelves of the bathroom cabinet. The room was arctic; she had opened the window to disperse the steam. Seeing me shiver, she closed the window and pulled a cord to start the small, wall-mounted blow heater which supplemented the radiators. A stream of heated air quickly brought the temperature to acceptable.

I was seated on one chair, she on the other, facing me. She started by pushing the elastic band of the shower cap, which I was still wearing not having been told to remove it, up into my hairline and rubbing cream into my face. Working from the notes which I had seen Louise making out, she then started working on my eyes, drawing, painting, brushing and, like Louise, taking a lot of time, before she moved onto my face. That was quicker, more cream, then light brown stuff, both well worked in and then my face dried off by her pressing some soft tissue against it.

“Just press, never rub”, she said. “This gets rid of any blobs of make-up that you haven’t fully rubbed in.”

“Eggs ready!”, my father’s voice floated up the hall.

We knew better than to delay; cooked eggs just don’t keep. We headed to the kitchen, shower cap forgotten and still on my head, to sit down to a veritable morning feast. My father, who liked to cook, had prepared a breakfast of sausage, rasher, mushroom, tomato and scrambled eggs, to be consumed along with my mother’s home-made brown bread, potato cakes, and tea from a large, ceramic teapot that had graced our table for as long as I could remember. Tea bags, ubiquitous elsewhere, rarely crossed out threshold. We even had an assortment of tea “balls” or strainers for occasions where only a single mug was required.

As usual, most of breakfast was consumed with little conversation. At this early hour, we tended to listen to BBC Radio 4 or World Service, only switching to the main Irish channel, RTE, for the Irish weather forecast and national news. This wasn’t unusual amongst farming families and both Ciara and I had been surprised to learn that Niamh and the Twins did not, at least initially, do likewise. Eventually, Irish weather forecast digested along with breakfast, the radio was turned off.

“What time is Niamh here?” my father enquired.

“About 8,” my mother responded. “She’ll call here first then pick up Ciara.”

I looked at the clock; 7:10am.

“I’d better get moving so” I remarked and started to clear off the table. In slack times on the farm, such as now when we were well into winter, the general understanding was that whoever cooked did not clean up, so I expected that my mother and I would be responsible on this occasion.

“No, leave that, we’ve still got work to do on you!”

My mother and father had the morning planned out. I was sent to wash my teeth with a warning not to mess up the paint job on my face, then back to the chair to have my lips done and my hair, finally released from the shower-cap, fluffed up by hand and sprayed. Clip-on earrings attached, I was told to look at myself in the mirror. This time I was prepared so I managed a nonchalant “Thanks Mum, nobody will recognise me now!”. I was trying to present my reaction as an appreciation for a good disguise job, which in a way it was, rather than as a transformation into someone that I was increasingly at home with. My mother went to her own room and returned with her perfume. Same procedure, a spray on the wrist, rub them together, then dry behind the ears. I was far too young for such an expensive perfume.

I headed to my bedroom, took off my dressing gown and donned the tan tunic-dress and brown ankle boots. The dress took time to button up, the buttons being, for me, on the “wrong” side. Again, a sneaky look into my mirror…

“Yes, you look quite the young lady.”

My mother had caught me admiring myself. She handed me my sister’s brown coat which came down to my knees and was a little loose on the shoulders.

“You won’t need it in the car”.

I took the coat off and was handed a small brown shoulder bag, again purloined from my sister’s room. My mother took me through its contents: tissues, an inhaler (I was/am mildly asthmatic), cash in an internal zippered section, mainly in €5 notes, some coins in a separate zippered section, and a very small transparent zippered plastic bag with lip pencil, lipstick and lip gloss, and a small, airline-style, travel spray bottle with some of her perfume.

“The Twins will help you redo your lipstick after you eat, and take it easy on the perfume; just reapply after lunch.”

She showed me how to wear the bag across my body instead of just hanging off a shoulder in case some “knacker” tried to snatch it.

“They’re on the way.”

My father had seen the lights of Niamh’s Landcruiser coming down the hill from her house to the road… ETA approx five minutes.

I slung the bag across my body as shown by my mother and gathered the coat into my left arm. My father gently lifted the coat from my arm and put some banknotes into an inside pocket and zipped it up. He returned the coat to me.

“Never keep all your money together,” he warned. “If the knackers grab your bag, they should never get more than half!”

“Thanks Dad.”

“And don’t come home with any boyfriends; you’re far too young for that!”

“Stop teasing him!”

My mother didn’t clarify whether she thought he was teasing me on the grounds of my youth, or gender!

The Landcruiser pulled into our driveway and came to a shuddering stop; Niamh was a terrible driver. I walked carefully, never having worn anything other than flat shoes before, out the door of our house and joined the Twins, both in the back seat. They must have shared our opinion of their mother’s driving. My mother spoke to Niamh briefly and gave her an envelope which she slipped into her bag on the seat beside her. We drove off to Ciara’s house and, having no choice, Ciara occupied the front seat, clipped on her seat belt and crossed herself. This was not entirely unusual; many country people performed this religion inspired act at the start of any journey, more now as a habit than from any deep religious devotion.

“Come on Ciara, she’s not that bad”.

Aoife was using Ciara’s apparent request to the Divinity for a safe passage as an opportunity to tease her mother. Ignoring the banter, Ciara twisted around in the seat, looked at me and said:

“So, what do we call our new girlfriend? You never introduced yourself last night!”

As the Landcruiser snaked down the road leading from the Black Valley to the main road to Ballymore, with three girls looking expectantly into my face, and Niamh listening as she drove, I gave myself a new name, my new name.

“What about Aisling?”

“That’s a lovely name” Niamh responded from the driver’s seat. “What does it mean?”

The Twins, though technically exempt from having to study Irish on the grounds of not having studied it in Primary School, had both opted to learn the language; Niamh herself was working her way through a CD course. They still weren’t as fluent as Ciara and I, and it was Ciara who responded.

“It means a Dream.”

“That’s lovely”. The Twins had given another unnerving demonstration of their ability to say the same thing at the same time, as if controlled by a single mind.

“Why Aisling?”, Niamh asked as she slowed down before turning onto the main road.

“I just thought of it now”, I lied. Truth told, I had thought of the name last night.

Yes this was a dream, in a number of ways. Certainly, a dream as in the experience of a sense of unreality: Am I dreaming?

Possibly more accurately for me, it was also a dream in the sense of my being in the process of achieving something that I really longed to get, in the same way as an athlete dreams of winning a gold medal. I had no idea where this dream had originated, what it meant or where it would lead, but it was a part of who I was becoming.

“Just now, hmmm”, Niamh responded thoughtfully. “Nice name. Just remember it when one of us calls you!”

We were living at that time at the tail end (pun intended) of our Celtic Tiger years, though none of us knew it at the time, and the investment in roads had paid off. We quickly joined the main Galway Road near an airport that everyone had thought of as an old priest’s folly until it succeeded as a business venture, and were driving into Galway around 9:15am, in light Saturday morning traffic. Niamh was to drop us at a shopping centre, visit her art dealer, and collect us by 11:30am. The back of the Landcruiser was packed with paintings. We were to look and NOT buy. We would check out the town centre when she returned, then lunch, then down to serious shopping!

Niamh pulled into the shopping centre carpark, occupying two car spaces, and turfed us all out. I remembered to grab my coat as Saoirse playfully pushed me out the door. The Landcruiser drove off and I momentarily froze: Panic had returned. Saoirse took my bag from across my shoulder, Aoife and Ciara helped me on with my coat, Saoirse returned my bag to its rightful place and the Twins, taking an arm each, got me walking towards the shops. Once underway, Saoirse continued to link me and Aoife linked Ciara as we wandered into the shopping centre. I needed the link; I was still learning how to walk in the kitten heels.

Shopping with the girls was a new experience: For me, this had always been a utilitarian affair, even yesterday’s foray to Ballyhowan with my mother. Something needed, go to shop, select, fit, purchase, job done! Now, we flitted from shop to shop, looking, admiring, visualising, holding dresses on hangers in front of ourselves as we looked in the mirror. We decided that we needed matching, though not necessarily identical, outfits. Mini-skirts or mini-dresses were taken as a given. Having practiced in these, we would all, me included, have felt it impossible to envisage a different style of dress. Some outfits were selected as possibles; I asked if we should make notes so that we would remember these.

“We’ll remember!”

The Twins, in unison again.

As we wandered around my eye was drawn to a mannequin dressed in a white tight mini skirt and a small, white bolero style jacket worn over a salmon-pink sweetheart top.

“Are we doing the Egyptian song?” I asked, meaning “Walk like an Egyptian” by the Bangles.

“Not sure”, Ciara responded. “Why?”

“That outfit would be perfect for it. Remember the pictures in our Geography book? All the men are wearing white minis.”

“The lads would love to see us wearing that! You’re getting good at this Aisling”.

The Twins had drifted up behind us; I think it was Aoife who had spoken.

I blushed under my make-up.

“I just thought it fitted in with the song, that’s all.”

Eventually, that shopping centre checked out, we decided to get a coke in a small corner snack bar and wait for Niamh. First, the bathroom. Again, it was Saoirse who grabbed my arm when I turned towards the wrong door and we all trooped into the Ladies. Business done, quietly in my case at least, make-up examined, lips touched up, mine by Saoirse who appeared to have adopted me for this trip, and off to the snack-bar.

I offered to get the cokes while the girls grabbed a booth and carried the four bottles and glasses on a tray to the table. Aoife got out of her seat to let me move inside her. I thought that it would have made more sense for her to slide in and leave me on the outside, but I didn’t mention this and just slid in myself, remembering to smooth down the back of my dress as I sat down. The three girls were a little giggly and eventually I asked what was going on. Saoirse, sitting opposite me, winked and indicated to her left, my right, with a slight inclination of her head and swivel of her eyes. I looked across at the table opposite us, occupied by three lads who looked to be just a little older that the Twins. Their full attention was being given to Aoife’s legs, which she had crossed outside the table support which would otherwise have hidden them. I grinned, pretending to understand the joke, but in reality I was mystified. I fully understood that the lads would look at her legs: I didn’t understand why she would make a point of displaying them. I had a lot to learn about girls.

Cokes finished, we headed out to the carpark to wait for Niamh, much to the lads’ disappointment I’m sure. Niamh arrived on time, and did her usual crash landing in the Landcruiser, picking us up on a double yellow line. All the artwork was now cleared from the back so presumably had met with the approval of the dealer. We drove to the centre of town, parked in a school carpark opened on weekends to supplement the school’s income, and headed towards Shop Street for another round of checking out the stores. As there was a lot of ground to cover, we split into two groups, Saoirse with me, Aoife with Ciara, and Niamh flitting between the two teams. We had an agreed time and rendezvous and eventually all joined up again at the corner of Eglington Street. There was one in-town shopping arcade left to check before we all sat down for a pizza in Milano’s.

Decision time was upon us. As we tucked into our pizza and cokes, we discussed the merits of the various outfits that we had seen that morning. My suggestion of the white mini and bolero jacket found some favour but was eventually overtaken by a dress, or rather a series of dresses, which Ciara and Aoife had found on their side of Shop Street. These were mid-thigh, half sleeved, flared dresses, V-necked at front and back, and in a variety of colours. This would enable us to have stage outfits that would be matching, but different.

We headed off to inspect, and were delighted with the find. It only remained to pick out who would wear what colour. I was quickly nominated for Electric Green; by common consent it went best with my vulpine coloured hair. Ciara got Lipstick Red, Aoife Electric Blue, and Saoirse Sunburst Yellow. The dresses were very short and were paired with matching “Bridget Jones” big knickers as they were practically guaranteed to flip up. The shop assistant, mentally adding up the commission, was all over us. Sizes selected, we were practically carried to the changing room…

Oooops… this was a modern girls’ changing room… all in together, no cubicles. We all had to undress and don our new dresses together. The Twins quickly stripped down to their bras and tights-over-panties while I tried to look away. Ciara was somewhere beyond them changing while she faced the wall. I went to do the same and felt a tap on my shoulder. Saoirse whispered in my ear:

“It’s OK; they don’t bite!”

I looked around; she was standing beside me, still in her bra, holding her dress.

“Huh?” I wasn’t sure what she meant.

She draped the dress over her left arm, caught both her boobs in her hands, over her bra, slightly lifted them.

“These, they won’t bite you. You’ll have to get used to changing with us.”

She was whispering as there were some other, older, girls, in the changing room but they paid no attention to us. She winked at me and stepped back to slip on her dress. I unbuttoned my cord dress, somewhat clumsily as unused to the opposite side buttons, slipped it off and hung it up. Saoirse, already dressed, helped me into my “Showdress” and zipped it up the back. My cami showed slightly at the front as the V-neck went down just a little bit too far but the straps didn’t show, nor did the back.

All attired, we stepped out to be inspected. Niamh smiled. The dresses were as good as bought. Ciara was given a smaller size to try on and we all milled around as she went back into the changing room.

“Those dark tights really kill that dress”.

Niamh was looking at my brown knitted tights. The Twins were wearing Nude tights, the cold being kept at bay by knee boots.

The Shop Assistant’s eyes lit up with Euro signs. While we were changing Niamh had briefly told her that we were picking out stage outfits, and, even with the 25% discount that Niamh had pretty much insisted on, she was going to do well out of us today.

“They’ll need a few pairs each, nude, sheen?”

It was half a question, half a suggestion. Niamh and the shop assistant went over to the hosiery area and started to go through the sample bundles attached to each row. Ciara came back out; the dress fitted this time but, as she was also wearing dark tights and I had to agree with Niamh’s assessment as to the unsuitability of these. The Twins drifted over to the hosiery area to add their input to the discussions between Niamh and the shop assistant. I remembered that there was money in my coat pocket and went back into the changing room, retrieved the cash and put it into my bag which I, like the other three girls, had kept with me.

When I got back out, it became apparent that the decision was to go with nude tights, three pairs each, as opposed to trying to match the individual dresses. It had also been decided to go for brown, mid-heeled court shoes, the Twins preference for higher shoes being overruled on the grounds that both Ciara and I would likely fall over if we tried to wear them! Before going over to the shoe section of the store, Ciara and I were instructed to change our heavy tights for nude ones as this would impact both the fitting and appearance of any shoes that we would be trying on. Saoirse came to help me, taking a pair of white cotton gloves from her bag. She opened the packaging on the tights for me while I put on the gloves, took off my warm heavy tights and put them into my coat pocket. She showed me how to scrunch up each leg in turn to get into the tights easily and work them up my legs gently so as not to snag or ladder them. I had already worked out how best to don tights; the gloves were a useful innovation for me. I hesitated when it came to the top and I had to lift the skirt of my dress to pull the tights over my knickers. Saoirse leaned over and whispered in my ear:

“We’ll just get used to this; it’s not like we’re not wearing something!”

I pulled up the dress and the tights. We exited the changing room, still holding onto our bags, to be sent back in along with Aoife. Niamh had decided that we should be wearing the matching knickers when trying on the shoes, as some accidental “flashing” was inevitable. Again, I had a moment of panic before I realised that the girls were pulling these on over their tights. I had wondered what the point of these knickers was if worn under tights; now I understood.

The sales assistant handed us over to the “shoe lady”: Tan shoes with an ankle strap, were fairly quickly selected. Niamh and the shoe lady agreed that we were less likely to accidentally step out of these on stage. There only remained the fitting: Ciara, and more especially me, had some difficulty with the height as we walked around to test the fit but we managed well enough. The Twins flounced and pirouetted as if on the catwalk.

Shoes bought, and just as we were about to repair to the changing room to get back into our own clothes and pack away our purchases, Niamh was approached by the manager and a woman carrying a professional looking camera. He introduced her as the proprietor of the camera shop next door and he had taken the liberty, with Niamh’s permission of course, of asking her to get some pictures of the four of us wearing the kaleidoscope of matching dresses. The Twins beamed in anticipation. Niamh moved away slightly with the manager and photographer and engaged in some discussion; Aoife and Saoirse took the opportunity to start to rehearse Ciara and I in poses. Eventually Niamh came back to us and said that she had agreed to let the pictures be taken for use in the shop and in the local newspaper only. In return, she got a further 25% discount, meaning that we were getting the entire outfits at half-price.

The photographer busied herself with setting up the camera and a light while Niamh brought us all into the changing room for some hair fluffing and touching up of make-up. The Twins had to change into new tights to match those that Ciara and I were wearing. I had to exchange my cami, which showed at the front of my dress, for a bra that the shop assistant brought into the changing room. Apparently it was needed to "fill out" the front of the dress.

Eventually, ready or not, we all traipsed out of the changing room and engaged in a bit of a game with the photographer as she moved us around to get what for her was the best colour pattern. Eventually, happy with the result, she asked us for a pose. Aoife took over and, along with Niamh, got us individually into a semblance of a pose before resuming her own place in the line-up. Ciara had to hold her hands in a way to hide her nails; she was the only one not to have them done and I felt rather sorry for her. Some shots taken, a different location, a different pose, repeat, … the whole process took over an hour and it was closing time by the time we’d finished. I was exhausted, Ciara likewise, the Twins energised! We all went back to the dressing room while Niamh paid for the purchases. Our stage dresses were carefully folded, shoes returned to boxes, tights changed and we were ready for home.

We carried our boxes to the Landcruiser and lurched away. I sat in the front this time; it was only fair to Ciara but I missed being in the back with the rest of the girls. We had one last stop, at a small Middle Eastern shop in a rather decrepit mini mall on the outskirts of town, where I picked up the assortment of teas which my mother blended together to make our unique home brew. Back on the road, we chatted for a while, before all drifting off to sleep… except Niamh, of course!

I awoke to the crunch of tyres on gravel which signified that we had arrived at Ciara’s house. We agreed to meet for a dress rehearsal the following morning at 10am in the barn. Ciara thanked Niamh and disappeared into her house. I was dropped off next, thanked Niamh, collected my boxes of tea and got out. It was cold after the warmth of the car and I was glad to get into the coziness of our kitchen.

My parents were both there, part chatting, part watching television: My mother turned down the sound when I came in. I deposited my load of tea on the kitchen table and headed to my bedroom to change my ankle boots for the slippers that we normally wore inside, and hang up my coat. I never thought to change out of the dress; it just seemed normal now. My mother kicked off the inquisition.

“How did you get on?”

I gave a reasonable account of the day, not mentioning of course the little episode when Aoife was teasing the boys with her legs. My mother was disappointed that I had not brought my dress in so that she could see it; we had agreed that the stage outfits should stay in Niamh’s house where they would be available for a dress rehearsal. My father’s eyebrow lifted when I described the photo shoot, but he nodded in apparent approval when he heard that Niamh had secured a 50% discount.

I was nodding off so we had our cocoa and scones and I headed off to bed.

I dreamed that I heard my father and mother talking…

“What will we say if someone sees whatever picture was taken of him?”

“It’s OK”, my mother responded. “No-one will recognize him… if they do we’ll say it’s his cousin from Knocknacarrig. After the concert we can say that it was just part of the act...”

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…”

The following morning my mother first picked up the Twins and all our schoolbags from Niamh’s house, then on to Ciara’s. Ciara squeezed in the back while her mother sat in the front passenger seat. As we were about to pull off, Aoife remarked that Ciara didn’t have a seat belt on; there were only three belts in the back of the car. Saoirse unclipped herself from the middle seat belt, yielding it to Ciara, unclipped my belt, snuggled in beside me, and clipped us both into the one belt.

“Sorted!” she announced and my mother pulled off again.

We arrived at the school, dropped our French essays into the box left beside reception, and headed off to class. The mothers went to meet the Transition Year head; we would find out what they had managed to negotiate for our part of the show when we got home later that day.

French Class was first after lunch. The teacher, Mr. Dunleavy, whom we called Mon Sewer in a disparaging play on the French word for “Mister”, was middle-aged, red-faced, and not very good at teaching. He shuffled in with the bundle of essays and sat down at the front of the class.

“Can the Glandoo students please stand up?”

Glandoo, an anglicisation of the Irish form of the name, was how the Black Valley was mostly called in Ballymore. We were sitting close together, not sharing desks; we tried to avoid this because of our reputation of being a bit cliquish. We slowly stood up, not sure what Mon Sewer was about.

“Well, tell me, which of you wrote the essay for the others to copy?”

We looked at each other; we had prepared collaboratively and had written the essays sitting in the one room, but we had not copied.

“We each wrote our own.” Aoife was the first to respond.

We all nodded.

“I’ll ask you again, who wrote the essay and who copied it?”

Saoirse responded next.

“Like Aoife said, we each wrote our own.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Mon Sewer thought he was being firm, but had just made an error.

“Given that you have decided to call us liars in front of the class, I think you should call the Principal.” I couldn’t believe that I’d just said that.

Mon Sewer turned a deeper shade of red. The rest of the class was beginning to shift uneasily. This form of aggression between students and teachers was just not normal in our school.

“Sit down, we’ll see about this later.”

Nobody moved to sit. Aoife inclined her head slightly towards the door. Leaving our books on our desks, we walked out of the classroom. Mon Sewer said nothing; none of us looked at him. Outside on the corridor, Ciara, probably as upset as me at what we had just done, asked:

“What now?”

“We’re going to the Principal, before he does.”

Aoife was the ringleader and was pushing this. In fairness, she had a point; the first person to get their story out sets the scene for any adjudicator. We headed towards the Principal’s office. The School Secretary’s office was beside his and she acted as a kind of unofficial gate keeper.

“We would like to speak to Mr O’Dwyer; is he in?”

This was unusual; an unannounced delegation never sought to see The Madra. This unflattering nickname, a mixture of the English definitive article and the Irish word for dog was how he was universally known throughout Ballymore. A local from a farming background, he had returned to teach in this school immediately on receiving his H.Dip. in Education and had stayed there all his career, eventually making it to Principal almost by dint of longevity. A gruff man, it was rumoured that he had smiled twice in his life, once on getting the teaching job back in this his hometown, and the second time when his now wife of thirty years said “Yes.”

Sensing something was afoot, the Secretary knocked on his door, went in and reemerged in a few minutes:

“He’ll see you now.”

We shuffled in. Not invited to sit, we stood before his desk.

“Well?”

He looked at us expectantly.

I thought that I had better start this on a polite note as I was afraid that the Twins might launch into a tirade.

“We’re sorry to disturb you Sir, but we have just had a difficult discussion with Mr. Dunleavy. He accused us of copying our essays in front of the full class.”

“And I suppose that you’re going to tell me that you didn’t?”

“No Sir, we each wrote our own.”

Ciara had finally found her voice; the Twins, still in their first year in the Irish school system, were holding fire, despite having started the war!

“Then why did Mr. Dunleavy think that you had copied from someone, or each other?”

“We can’t speak for him, Sir”

Aoife had joined the discussion; cleverly declining to speculate.

“And if I were to tell you that this is not the first time that this issue has been discussed, what would you say?”

I had half expected this and was prepared. We all knew that our essays must be similar as we had prepared together, we did this all the time, for History and English as well as French.

“We haven’t discussed this with anyone else; we don’t copy.”

This was looking too planned as we were taking turns answering; this last response had been from Saoirse.

The Madra sighed, leaned back in his desk, and looked at us.

“I didn’t say that it was discussed with you; it has been discussed in the staffroom. Your English and History Essays have also been remarkable similar. How can you explain that?”

I thought that I’d better come in again. I had figured in my mind where I wanted this conversation to go and didn’t want anyone else in the group to bring it in a different direction.

“Well, you do know we study together, Sir, and that might mean that we approach our work in the same way. We help each other, but we don’t copy. We couldn’t have copied from each other in our mid-terms, could we?”

We had all done well in our mid-term examinations, conducted in a supervised environment in classrooms.

“What do you mean, study together?”

We had not told the rest of the class about our study arrangements, nor the teachers. Aoife responded:

“We have our own study club, Sir. We all work together under my mother’s studio after school. The School Study Club starts too late for us.”

“Ah, I see. How long have you been doing this?”

“Since almost the start of the year.”

“OK, so what happened today?”

Aoife recounted the story of our incident with Mon Sewer, almost calling him by that name but recovering quickly and changing it mid-word to Monsieur Dunleavy.

“So why did you leave class? You could have brought this up later with Mr. Dunleavy.”

Saoirse responded, picking her argument carefully. It was like she had tuned into my thinking.

“He chose to call us liars in front of the whole class. If we had accepted that then, everybody would have believed him, and we would be known as cheats and liars throughout the whole school. If he had approached us privately, none of this would have happened.”

The Madra ruminated.

“Go back to your next class when French is finished; we’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

We shuffled out, none of us happy with the situation that developed, and headed back towards our own classroom. In our school, the teachers moved from classroom to classroom, a much more efficient arrangement than moving all the students. A small number of students, mainly in the senior years, moved for specific subjects. The corridor quickly filled up with fast-moving teachers and some senior students and we just about made it to our classroom before the Maths teacher arrived. Thankfully we didn’t meet Mon Sewer on the corridor. We resumed our seats and our classmates didn’t have time to question us until Maths class was over. Then there was a barrage of questions shouted in our direction.

Aoife stood up and gestured for silence; the hubbub died down. Her words were well chosen:

“We’re sorry for the unpleasantness. The matter is with the Principal and we can’t discuss it any further until we have his response.”

“Discuss what?”

The Civics teacher had just arrived to take this final class of the day.

“I’m sorry Miss, it was a class issue. I’d prefer not to make it public.”

Aoife had handled that well; it would, of course become public as soon as school was finished for the day, but we would not be responsible for broadcasting it. The Civics teacher, a youngish lady and new to the school, smiled and shrugged:

“Whatever.”

She had a way of relating to us that the older teachers could not.

Class finished, we walked together to the gate, avoiding discussions with the other students as the word of the Battle of Mon Sewer V. The Glandoo Gang spread like wildfire. My mother picked us up, I climbed into the front seat, the girls into the back.

“OK; what’s happened?”

It was obvious that we were a very subdued gang. I related the story.

“So, you’ll be talking to The Madra tomorrow?”

I did mention that everybody called him The Madra!

“Yes; that’s what he said.”

“Don’t worry girls; this will be sorted!”

Was my mother talking to Aoife, Saoirse and Ciara, or was she including me?

“By the way, don’t you want to hear when you’re singing?”

Truth be told, this had disappeared from our minds.

“When?”

The words practically fell from all our mouths at the same time.

“Actually, Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh have two slots, just before the half time break, and just before the end.”

“Huh?”

“We explained that you’re a very lively act, lots of energy. So rather than a long show, you’re getting two wrap up slots, to end the halves on a high note.”

“So we’re not actually in the competition?”

Aoife was articulation what we were all feeling; we were an interval act only.

“Competition?”

Clearly the adults hadn’t got their brief right. The successful act went through to the Réaltaí Scoile, School Stars, competition, first at County level, then Provincial, then National.

“Girls, we did well to get you two slots. Just enjoy the performance; a karaoke act is not going to get to the finals!”

We had to agree. We knew that Transition and 5th Year were putting on some serious plays by Ibsen and Brecht, so our relatively frivolous interval act had no hope of progressing. First (us) and Second Year acts were effectively regarded as being in training for a possible future role. Nevertheless, we now had a problem; we had planned to do four songs, one each. With two slots, we could probably fit in six numbers; our entire repertoire!

We arrived at Niamh’s house and had our pre-study snack of real Oxtail Soup with Salad Rolls and got down to preparation. As usual, we would start off with a practice session so I changed in the bathroom while the (other?) three girls got dressed in the Twins bedroom. We split our repertoire into two and practiced two sessions of three songs each. We also varied the start. The first time we all opened facing away from the audience and twirled around together, the second time we did it individually. At least we had practiced this before. Ciara was operating the karaoke machine; there was no sign of Niamh. We also added two new songs, and started to practice them, both from ABBA, Mamma Mia and Voulez Vous. We were now confident in our ability to get these right in the time available. As we were getting down to study, opening practice complete, we heard the sound of tyres on gravel; my mother and Niamh had returned; we heard later this was from a “war” conference in Ciara’s house. The Ghleann Dhubh girls would have some heavy calibre support tomorrow.

Niamh and Ciara’s mother joined us for the last practice session after we finished study, Niamh again insisting on us wearing our show shoes. Then Ciara’s mother drove Ciara and I home. Though my parents did their best to calm me down, I was very worried about school the next day. It wasn’t in our nature to get engaged in a war with the teachers, even Mon Sewer, and I wasn’t at all confident that The Madra would be reasonable in his decision. It is much easier to be brave when there’s other people around, all in the same boat. Now I felt that I was very much on my own and envied the Twins. They always had company! Eventually I went to bed, almost exhausted from worry, and drifted into a fitful sleep…

“I suppose that they wouldn’t be in this situation if it wasn’t for the Twins…”

“Yeah… they’re a bit headstrong, like their mother…”
**************************

Dawn arrived, well more correctly, it was eventually time to get up as the sun wouldn’t rise until almost 08:30. I didn’t much feel like eating, had some porridge and my mother packed a buttered scone as a mid-morning snack, feeling that I would need it by then. She drove, us four in the back again and Ciara’s mother in the front passenger seat. We were warned not to discuss the War with anyone; we had already agreed this amongst ourselves. The two mothers went in search of the Principal, something he was doubtless expecting.

Co-incidentally, the first two classes were English and History, both of which had been mentioned by The Madra in the course of our discussion yesterday. At the end of third class, Science, just before our short morning break, the teacher quietly told us to go to the Principal’s office. So off we trooped, the Twins seeming rather nonchalant, Ciara and I less so. This time there were some chairs and The Madra asked us to sit down.

“Right, I accept that you weren’t copying from each other. But in the circumstances, would you think that it was not unreasonable for Mr Dunleavy to think that you did? Your essays contained a lot of similar phrases, and you all chose to spend quite a lot of time describing the weather, the surroundings, the clothes?”

Aoife, the natural leader, responded first.

“Thank you. And I personally accept that Mr Dunleavy could have formed a suspicion, but our protest was about being accused publicly, then being told that we were not believed.”

We all nodded. A sense of relief had swept over me on hearing The Madra’s first words, and it was now a matter of getting to some form of agreement to bring the matter to a mutually acceptable conclusion. Even at that age, I realised that Mon Sewer could not be publicly humiliated; he would be unable to retain control of any class if that were to happen. I chimed in…

“Sir, given that this was already discussed in the staffroom, and nobody spoke to us before Mr Dunleavy made a public accusation, maybe the fault is not only his?”

The Madra nodded. To give him credit, he accepted an implicit criticism of himself in good grace.

“That’s true; but how does this help to fix French class?”

“Maybe Sir, if you were to visit French class as it starts and explain that the Teachers did not know that we were studying together, but NOT copying, we could say that we should have told you that we had a Study Group going?”

Aoife wasn’t impressed.

“What have we to apologise for? We did nothing wrong!”

“Maybe if we’d said that at the outset that we prepared together, it wouldn’t have gotten as bad as it did.”

The Madra kept quiet, seeing that Saoirse’s reply to her twin sister was moving this towards a satisfactory conclusion. Ciara, probably reflecting a discussion with her own parents, summed up the reality of the situation succinctly:

“After all, we have to work together for the next six years. I can speak for us if you prefer Aoife?”

Ciara’s question to Aoife reflected the fact that we all regarded her as the leader, even her twin sister deferred to her.

“Thanks Ciara, I’ll do it.”

Aoife also regarded herself as the leader and was taking responsibility for “her” team!

The Madra and Aoife exchanged a few more words, refining the terms of the proposed treaty, but they all washed over me. I was so relieved that I could have cried; it was literally like a heavy weight had been lifted off my shoulders. We eventually were sent off to class, late, but the teacher simply accepted our apologies as we joined class midway through.

Next class was French; there was an air of expectation amongst the class but nobody got to question us as the Principal and Mon Sewer entered almost immediately on the other teacher’s departure. The inter class hubbub had barely started to rise when it immediately died down. The Madra, in as pleasant a voice as he could muster, was the first to speak.

“I understand that there was a misunderstanding in class yesterday. We weren’t aware that the Ghleann Dhubh girls… and one boy of course… had a Study Group of their own and prepared collaboratively. That meant that their essays had some similarity, but we are happy to confirm that they definitely were not copied.”

I noticed that the Madra, being completely immersed in the Irish language, had used the proper Irish words for the Black Valley as opposed to the common anglicisation “Glandoo”. I also noticed that either he had initially forgotten about me, or had subliminally classed me as a girl before correcting his “mistake”. I didn’t take any offence.

Aoife was on her feet.

“Go raibh maith agat, a Mháistir.”

“Thank you, Sir.” It was customary to use Irish for simple expressions such as Thank You, Excuse Me, etc. when addressing teachers, and often informally amongst students as well. She continued:

“The misunderstanding would not have occurred if we let you know of our studying arrangements. We didn’t foresee any issues arising so didn’t think to mention it.”

“Well, it’s all resolved now?”

“Yes, Sir.”

The Madra nodded and was exiting the door when Mon Sewer added his peace offering.

“On that basis, they were all very good essays. Well done.”

Aoife had already resumed her seat so we all murmured our thanks; class resumed as normal.

We got questioned at lunch break, naturally, but we stuck to the story. It had been a misunderstanding, all cleared up now, nothing to see here, move on! What did result, although not immediately apparent, was that the perception of the Glandoo Girls (and boy) as being cliquish was reinforced and we’d developed a reputation as not a gang to be trifled with. We were also becoming known simply as the Glandoo Girls; it was meant to be unkind to me as I was already known for not participating in the schoolyard soccer games or the Gaelic football team. I was privately quite happy with the name; my father would be less so if he found out. I hoped that Ciara would not mention it at home; her father would be sure to share the problem with mine.

That evening, Tuesday, as we got ready for our pre-study session, we decided that we were in danger of over-practicing and that we would do an exercise class, cheerleading of course, before study, and a practice session afterwards. We had just finished this and were getting down to our books when Niamh appeared. Apparently, the mothers had decided that, as we were doing two, well-separated, sessions at the concert, we should change between them so we would need a second outfit. We quickly decided that we would get the white mini, white bolero jacket and salmon/pink sweetheart tops that we had spotted in the first shopping centre that we visited. Niamh would drive us again; another opportunity for her to bring some paintings to her dealer.

The week flew by; we did our exercise classes and practice sessions each day. On Thursday evening, as she drove us from school, my mother announced that she would be bringing us all to Ballyhowan immediately after school on Friday to have our nails done. This seemed a bit extravagant. We could just have done a paint job; mine were now growing just long enough to look well when varnished, but still short enough not to be immediately noticeable in school. This was a delicate balancing act for sure! Then a problem came to mind; I obviously would be wearing my normal school uniform, as would the girls. Problem was, mine was a boy’s: I couldn’t get my nails done in that!

“No problem; I’ll bring your tan dress and you can change into that.”

My mother’s solution had a flaw.

“Where will I change?”

“In the car, like last time!”

Saoirse, seeing my discomfort, giggled:

“Don’t worry; we won’t look.”

The following morning, my mother gave me a pair of black knickers and brown tights.

“Wear these under your trousers; it’ll make it easier to change in the car.”

The brown tights wouldn’t match the blue school uniform trousers, so I pulled my own socks over them. It made my shoes a bit tight, but bearable. I felt good at school that day, wearing the knickers and tights, even if hidden under a boy’s trousers. I was also warm; tights under trousers worked well on a cold day!

My mother picked us up as promised at 4pm. Aoife had to take my usual place in the front seat while I changed in the back. This was easier that I had feared with my tights, always the most difficult, already on. I had my own long waterproof coat which wasn’t ideal but my mother did not want any glue or varnish to find its way onto my sister’s good brown woollen coat. Anyway, sometimes girls will wear boy’s coats, or so I consoled myself. Traffic was light; my mother double-parked outside the beautician’s shop and turfed us all out before driving off to park the car. We were expected, and, two at a time, were “fitted” with matching sets of long nails, like before, pink and slightly sparkling.

Niamh picked me up last the next morning so I ended up in the front seat of her Landcruiser. As before the back was completely packed with pictures in a variety of sizes. She got to the shopping centre in Galway and, knowing what we were looking for, we got down to the business of fitting on the outfits. This time I had worn nude tights under my brown ones so it was just a matter of pulling off the brown tights in the changing room. I hadn’t wanted my father to see me wearing the nude tights leaving the house; I thought that it would look too “girly”. In retrospect, this made very little sense; how does a boy dressed almost convincingly as a girl, NOT already look girly? Even worse, my mother had stitched “chicken fillets” into the bra that I was wearing under my camisole top, to give me “more shape”!

Niamh stayed with us as we got ourselves fitted out, looking through the shoe section of the shop. Eventually, ably assisted by her daughters, she had picked out white, high-heeled ankle boots, with heels slightly higher that our other show shoes. They looked thrashy, but worked well enough for our purpose. Then, just as I thought we were finished, Aoife decided that the nude tights that we were all wearing were not optimal and went hunting through the tights section. This was a down-market cheap shop so no shop assistants were hovering, or even available, but she eventually found a shade that she said matched the salmon/pink tops we were wearing under our little bolero jackets. We all had to try these on as well.

We packed up all our purchases and Niamh paid. No discount this time; the store specialized in selling cheap, almost disposable, clothing at rock bottom prices and was not in the business of negotiating. Take it, or leave it. We all traipsed out of the shop, stowed our purchases in the Landcruiser, and went back to the small corner snack bar where Aoife had enthralled the lads last week with her legs. Sadly, they weren’t here this time so we had our cokes without entertainment and left.

I, and presumably the girls, had expected that Niamh would now dispose of her paintings and head home. She parked in the same school carpark as the previous week, close enough to her art dealer in any event, paid the fee, declined our offer to carry the paintings and led us to a hairdressers, just a little way up Shop Street, near the store where we had bought our initial show outfits. She then disappeared, presumably to sell her artwork. Again, like the salon in Ballyhowan, this hair appointment was obviously pre-arranged as we were quickly seated, washed and blow dried. From there, and again clearly by prior arrangement, we were passed to the beauticians next door, our make up removed, and redone, this time quite heavily. The beauticians were conferring, working to a plan, but wouldn’t tell us.

“You’ll see, my dear”, was all the response that I could get.

Eventually, Niamh returned and we were all ready. She had a brief discussion with the manager of the beauticians, and we all headed off. I didn’t see her pay; maybe she had pre-paid? We turned to go back to the Landcruiser before being corrected and we ended up in the store where we bought our matching dresses et al last week. And there we were, in person, but also on a life-sized picture above the area where last weeks dresses were on display. There was a camera, lights and backing screen set up in a corner of the store and suddenly the penny, or rather the Euro cent, dropped. Apparently our modelling debut had been a success, the picture had proved to be very popular, and we were to do some more.

“You could have told us!”

The Twins could even talk to their mother in perfect unison!

Niamh smiled:

“I didn’t want you to be nervous.”

“Us, nervous?”

Niamh was probably thinking about Ciara and me; the Twins were in their element.

We had a lady assigned to look after us, probably an assistant manager, and the photographer was the same lady as last week. The manager came, spoke briefly to Niamh, then left about his business. The next two hours were a frenzy of changing, posing, being photographed, changing again, repeat. It was hard work, and I absolutely loved it. It felt like I got to wear almost every item in the early teen girl section of the shop. I quickly lost any inhibitions and just imagined myself as a girl, delighting in dressing and looking, at least moderately, pretty. The problems of last week, in particular the incident with Mon Sewer, seemed a world away. The shop was open for business and shoppers stopped as they wandered around to look at the scene; it didn’t bother me. Some of them noticed that we were the girls in the big picture, looking up at it, then at us and moving on to do whatever they had come to do in the first place.

I realised, at some point, that I didn’t mind having an audience.

Eventually, it was all over. Exhausted, we changed back into our own clothes and prepared to leave. My eye was taken by a girl’s coat, fawn coloured, double breasted, long, warm. I went over to look at it, feel its texture, admire the oversized cuffs on the sleeves.

“Try it on”.

Saoirse was beside me. She held my own coat while I slipped the coat on. Just a little big.

“You’ll grow into it.”

Saoirse was echoing a phrase common amongst older folks when buying for us kids.

But I knew that I wouldn’t. In just a few weeks this adventure would be over. There was no point in buying a relatively expensive coat for that length of time, and I knew that I wouldn’t have the girl-time left to “grow into it.” I looked at Saoirse, smiled and shook my head. Back to reality, I felt a little sad; maybe not just a little. I hung the coat back on the hanger, slipped my own back on, hitched the strap of my bag across my chest in case a knacker tried to grab it, and moved over to where Ciara and Aoife were standing near the door, waiting for Niamh to finish her conversation with the manager. He had a brown envelope in his hand.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Saoirse pick up the coat and go over to Niamh. The fawn colour would look lovely with her hair.
****************************************************

We all crowded into a high street Pizzaria, got a booth by the window, and set about deciding what we would have. This was rather a treat for us; there were no good pizza places in either Ballymore or Ballyhowan. And this was our second Saturday in a row; good job we had resumed the Cheerleading exercises! The place was bright, a bit garish and one wall was covered with pictures of minor and major local celebrities who, at some stage, had graced the establishment with their presence. Niamh had a piece of paper, literally the back of an envelope, and she was doing some calculations; the girls were still excited, coming down from their high on the photo shoot, and I was recovering, slowly, from the “Down” that had hit when I’d decided against buying the coat. Eventually we got our orders in to a rather harried waitress who had probably put up with more gangs of young teenagers that day than she would care to count. Shop Street on Saturday could be like that.

Eventually Niamh called us all to order.

“Girls, I’ve just being doing the figures and you’ve now covered all the costs of your costumes, makeovers and the Karaoke set and with some left over.”

It somewhat washed over us. Teenagers often don’t have a great understanding of money. And in fairness, the show outfits that we had bought today were cheap; last weeks purchases had been at half price from the last, our initial, modelling job. I had no idea what the Karaoke machine had cost.

“Don’t forget your diesel for our two drives here.”

Being from a farm, I knew that fuel was an expensive input, and road diesel even more so. Niamh demurred:

“I’d have been coming here anyway with some paintings.”

“You could have fitted in all the paintings on one run if we weren’t with you.”

Like me, Ciara knew about the cost of fuel. Niamh reflected for a few seconds; she didn’t want to appear to be avaricious.

“OK, one trip is fair.

I’m going to put cash into envelopes for your mothers to repay what they have already contributed and I’ll hold the rest as a fund for any more expenses.”

“Actually…”

Saoirse was a bit hesitant. Niamh looked at her expectantly…

“Go on…”

“Aisling’s new coat is an expense; we can’t have her going around in a boy’s jacket, and everybody in the school will recognise it, and she’s already had to buy clothes just to be here, and …”

Saoirse’s words had come out in an uncharacteristic jumble and she lost track of her arguments in the middle of her sentence. She was sitting beside me, so I had to turn right around to look at her. Normally quick enough to catch the drift of a conversation, this time I was a bit slow:

“I thought you got it for you. It’ll look lovely… just your colour!”

She reached over and gave me a big hug.

“You can lend it to me sometimes!”

I was getting a bit teary; Aoife chipped in:

“Yeah, you definitely have to have a coat. It’ll likely be either pissing, freezing, or both on the day of the concert!”

“Language Aoife; a young lady doesn’t talk like that!”

“Sorry, Mother!”

Aoife’s expression didn’t look in the least contrite. She had used the expression for effect; it wasn’t her usual style of speech.

“And less of the ‘Mother’!”

Niamh preferred everybody to use her name.

I extricated myself gently from Saoirse’s hug, hoping that I hadn’t left any make-up on her dress. Niamh handed me a tissue:

“Just dab gently; there’s a lot of makeup on those eyes.”

I dabbed my eyes, sniffed, dabbed my nose:

“Thanks girls.”

“No; we should be thanking you. A four-girl band is much better than only three of us.”

I guess the Twins and Ciara just didn’t know that they were doing me a favour, not the other way around.

We reverted to some inconsequential chatter and Niamh resumed her calculations on the envelope. That done, she pulled a packet of long envelopes from her bag, obviously just bought at a stationery shop, and started counting money from the brown envelope, that she had received from the shop manager, into three envelopes on which she had written Twins, Ciara, Aisling. She was doing this on the seat between herself and Aoife, so it would not be visible in the pizzeria. We were in a window booth and I noticed a man, outside, apparently reading the menu, posted at the door. He looked in his mid-twenties, shabby to rough, neither clean shaven nor bearded, not at all like the clientele in this place. Either his left eye didn’t align with his right, or he was actually watching Niamh out of the corner of his eye. I looked at him, he spotted me looking, looked back to the menu, then walked off.

“There was a man looking at you.”

Niamh looked up.

“Where?”

“Outside; he saw you counting the money.”

Niamh scooped up all the notes, envelopes and her calculation sheet.

“Better do this later.”

It was late in the day and shops were closing. Service was very slow but eventually our waitress returned with our drinks. She actually smiled.

“You’re the girls on the poster in the store?”

“Oh my; we’re famous!”

The Twins flashed their bright smiles; Ciara and I nodded. The waitress served our drinks and promised that our pizzas were nearly ready. She returned a minute later accompanied by a young, tall man, carrying an old-fashioned, even then, instamatic camera.

“This is George, our manager.”

George smiled, holding the camera up.

“Can I take your picture for our wall?”

This was a bit of a surprise, we weren’t exactly known for anything other than being the occasionally stroppy Glandoo Girls, and that only in Ballymore.

Niamh looked at him, quizzically.

“All the teenagers in town know them by now”, George explained. “The picture will appeal to them, and will last just about as long as the poster in the store!”

Knowing Niamh, I had expected her to ask for free pizzas in return; she didn’t.

“Is that OK, girls?”

We nodded, rather pleased with our newfound celebrity status, even if only temporary. Niamh gathered up all our coats and bags, playfully pushed Aoife out of the booth so she could get out herself, and stood behind George. She and her girls often interacted like sisters, not mother and daughters. A few people were watching from other booths; we arranged ourselves around the booth table.

“At least we’re all made up for a picture.”

Ciara reminded us, what we had mostly forgotten, that we were still heavily painted up from the modelling job.

It was now darkening rapidly outside and George had to drop a window blind or the picture would also contain his own reflection.

“Big smiles!”

We posed, George took the picture, waited for it to develop, declared himself satisfied, waved it a bit to dry it off and showed it to us. It looked OK, nothing spectacular, but all right for his collection. He asked Aoife, now on the inside by the window where Niamh had been sitting to open the blind.

“I’ll put this up when it’s dry”.

George headed off holding the photograph carefully by one corner. Niamh dumped our coats and bags on the seat and excused herself while she headed off to the ladies’ room with her own coat and bag. Our pizzas arrived while she was gone; no matter she didn’t take long. She sat at the edge of the booth, a pile of bags between her and Aoife while Ciara, Saoirse and I occupied the other bench. With the blind open, we could look out at the passers by in the street; they could look in at us. Young lads sometimes returned for a second pass; Aoife was doing her leg display trick again!

Eventually, meal finished, it was time to go. Niamh went to the counter to pay the bill as we all got up, pulled on our coats, bags across our chests, and got ready to go. Ciara stopped me as I went to pull on my waterproof coat; Saoirse took the new fawn coat out of its shopping bag and she and Aoife held it as I slipped it on in the very narrow confines of the pizzeria. Niamh joined us, her bag hanging on one shoulder, and we spilled out into the street. We turned left, towards the car park. I looked around and thought I spotted the man I’d seen looking at Niamh as she counted the money. He was with two young teenage lads. There were very few people around by now, except for a relatively large gang of “crusties” drifting, apparently aimlessly down the street. These latter were a type of hippy who made their living selling various forms of what was essentially rubbish, but which they classed as art, in a small market close by. They were harmless; often very nice, people who had abandoned the mainstream.

I walked alongside Niamh as we formed a loose gaggle strolling down Shop Street.

“That man, he was across the street.”

“Was he with two lads?”

How did she know this?

“Yes.”

I pretended to look in the window of a Jeans shop.

“The lads are following us. The man is a long way back.”

“Tell the girls.”

I knew that Niamh wanted me to use Irish; feral street kids were unlikely to understand it. Her own Irish wasn’t yet good enough. I spoke loudly enough for all the girls to hear me.

“Tá beirt gadai in aice linn.” (There are two thieves beside/close to us).

I’ve always regarded it as slightly ironic that one letter separates the Irish words for thieves and police. The gaggle tightened. Niamh stopped to look in another shop window. We were nearly at the end of Shop Street. There was only ourselves, the probable thieves, and the clutter of “crusties” around. They drifted over towards us.

“Hi Niamh.”

One of the crusties, long hair and beard plaited with beads, dressed in what looked like a collection of cast-off Indian clothes from an old western movie, didn’t look directly at Niamh as he looked in the same shop window.

“Hi Man. Those two lads; they’re going to go for my bag.”

The two feral lads were looking in another window; not very convincing as it was the blacked-out window of a shop undergoing renovation.

“Yep, thought so; stay safe.”

“Thanks Man.”

“OK girls, nice and slow towards the car.”

We gathered protectively around Niamh, who didn’t seem the least bit concerned, and shuffled off towards the car. We rounded a corner, twenty yards to the gate of the school where our car was parked.

“Now fast; don’t run”.

We moved. I glanced behind, no sign of the feral lads. We got to the school gate. There was a young man there, probably a school caretaker or even a teacher doing voluntary work to boost the school’s income with parking charges. We stopped.

“Did a man come in here, a bit rough, not shaven, long grey coat, no hat?”

The young man looked up:

“Not in the last 10 minutes; you OK?”

Niamh nodded.

“Close Encounters of the Handbag Snatching Kind”.

He looked concerned.

“Where’s your car?”

“Round the back.”

“I’ll walk you there; nobody coming in now anyway.”

People paid a flat rate on entry. With the carpark due to close shortly, there would be no more custom today. We walked to the car and got in. Aoife volunteered for the front seat this time. Niamh thanked the attendant who waited until we were all in, doors locked and lurching off towards the gate. We kept our bags on the floor of the car, even though there was little real danger now, and drove away in the almost non-existent traffic. We were all on an adrenaline high.

“What just happened?”

We were halfway to Tuam by the time we’d recovered and Aoife, alongside Niamh in the front, articulated what was on all our minds.

“We’ve got to thank Aisling; she saw the bad guy first and told me. Then we both saw him outside the pizzeria.”

“But you hadn’t seen him the first time; how did you know that was him?”

“Elementary, my dear Aisling;” Niamh was obviously watching Sherlock Holmes on TV. “He was with two lads, too young to be his brothers and too old to be his sons. And they were all watching the door. I was suspicious of them, and you confirmed it.”

“But the crusty; where did he come from; how do you know him?”

Aoife was still trying to get the picture.

“Oh, Man? I sent him a message. The manager fellow, George, owed us for the picture so I asked him to send one of his kitchen cleaners down with a note. Everybody knows Man.”

“Is that his name?”

Ciara was incredulous, as were we all.

“That’s how he’s known. Apparently he calls everyone “Man”, so that’s what he’s called.”

“I suppose his wife’s called Woman, and you still haven’t told us how you know him?”

Aoife wanted the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

“His woman’s called Rachel; she’s American, he’s English, and I met him in the art dealer’s. He’s a painter, not bad, but he’ll only do what he needs to keep going.”

“What’ll the crusties have done to the two knackers?”

I was curious to find out. In Ballymore, the ‘knackers’ would have probably needed hospitalisation if caught.

“Not much; they’re all very peaceable people. Just told them that we were their friends and to leave us alone. With that gang of them there, that would have been enough.

And look girls, don’t call them crusties. They’re just different.”

Actually, the name ‘crusty’, unlike ‘knacker’, didn’t really have a pejorative connotation. Niamh wasn’t familiar enough with Irish local slang to have worked this out yet.

“Niamh…”

I still had one unanswered question.

“Yes…”

“You didn’t sling your bag across your shoulder like us, and you even knew that the knackers were after it?”

“There was nothing in it, all in my inside coat pocket.

“But why make it easy for them to get away with the bag, even if empty?”

“If they’d pulled the bag from across my shoulder, chances are I’d be knocked over and hurt. They thought they knew for sure that there was money in the bag, so they would have risked it. Normally they won’t bother going for a secure bag, so wear yours like you do. Got that, girls?”

We all answered yes.

“I don’t think I’ll tell my mother.”

“Me neither”, I responded to Ciara’s statement. “She’d never let me go to Galway again!”

Saoirse, sitting on the opposite side of me to Ciara, caught my arm and half pulled me over to her.

“Well, we can’t have that. Girls do have to have their shopping trips, you know!”

I gave her arm a squeeze; in the darkness of the car I was glad that she couldn’t see my eyes.
********************************

Tempus fugit…

It was now Saturday, 4th December.

As promised, my sister had returned from Boarding School for a few days. Four years older than me, my parents had chosen boarding for her as she would otherwise have been the only Ghleann Dhubh student attending Ballymore Secondary. She was more than happy with the arrangement as boarding gave her access to a range of activities not available to the current batch of Ghleann Dhubh girls (and boy). Having just completed her Junior Certificate last year, this year she was in Transition Year, a mainly non-academic year. Luckily for us, she was working backstage at her own schools much more elaborate equivalent of our Christmas show and had picked up some experience.

And she wasn’t particularly surprised when, on her first day home, her kid brother, wearing her denim mini and polo-neck jumper, headed off after breakfast to the Study Club in Niamh’s: My mother had kept her up to date with developments. She probably found it interesting to have a temporary little sister and insisted on doing a full make-up job on me before I left. Despite the age difference, little wasn’t an accurate description of my size relative to hers. She took after my father’s family, relatively short and dark haired; I resembled my mother’s side, taller, pale skinned and with hair of varying shades of red. Given the effects of human sexual dimorphism on size, my parents were of approximately equal height, something of which I think my father was always rather conscious. My sister was smaller than average for her age and, as I was on the tall side, she was only a little taller than me. Soon, I was told, I would be shooting up past her!

She drove me over to study in my mother’s car, not strictly legal as she only had a Learner’s Permit, but we never took much heed of such trifles in the Black Valley. She watched, with some fascination as, before study, we did our initial cheerleading session and then headed off as we got down to work. We had end of term exams coming up, and limited study time this weekend.

There was a “continuity” or planning session that morning in the town hall, a local recreation facility as opposed to an official building as the name would imply in many jurisdictions. This was to give the organisers or leaders of the various acts an opportunity to see how the stage was to be arranged, how the various acts would occupy and vacate it, how the sound system would operate, lighting, and other essential arrangements to keep the evening from degenerating into a total amateur shambles. The nominal leaders of the acts and the backstage teams were generally students, in practice “guided” by teachers and sometimes parents, and all were expected to attend at some stage during the morning.

The three mothers, along with my sister, went along. My mother drove, towing a well-scrubbed cattle trailer with the Volvo. Niamh’s Landcruiser was a better towing vehicle, but nobody was comfortable with the thoughts of her towing a trailer; her driving was an adventure in itself. They had a chance to scope out the amount of stage that we would have. Not much as it turned out. In order to ensure that we could start quickly after the curtain came down on the previous performance, we would be performing on a narrow strip at the front of the stage, between the main and an inner curtain. When the main curtain closed on the previous act, both times an abridged play, these acts would ensure that they all moved behind the inner curtain which would be drawn across the stage and in front of which we would take position. We would have about five feet, about a metre and a half of depth and as much width as we needed to use, and not a lot of time.

They also borrowed enough chairs from the hall for our own private concert on the evening of Tuesday, 7th December, stacked these in the trailer and reversed the trailer into our hayshed to keep everything dry until needed.

That evening, still Saturday, we all gathered in the barn, mothers, fathers, my sister and Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh to plan arrangements for Tuesday night. Whereas this wasn’t a dress rehearsal, we had to wear our show footwear as our only big remaining concern was that Ciara or I would topple off our shoes during the performance. Using masking tape, my sister marked off our performance area on the floor and we went through both routines. Not wearing a “floaty” dress, I felt a bit more comfortable with my father being there. Routines finished, staying more or less, in the marked off area, we called a halt for the night

The Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh had to study in Niamh’s kitchen the next day, Sunday, as the two fathers, Ciara’s and mine, used our study table, some sheets of plywood and 4x2 timbers to make a stage. Farmers are generally very resourceful, and this was finished by Sunday early afternoon. As we were occupying her kitchen, Niamh and the Twins joined us in our house for roast leg of lamb. As we had had neither a cheerleading nor show practice, I was dressed in my jeans and jumper. I felt strange; by this stage I was normally either in either a cheerleading skirt, blue mini or tan dress when with the (rest of) the girls. Lunch over, we were hunted back to Niamh’s kitchen to resume study. These end of term exams were serious as we needed to do well to stay in the higher, or “honours” class. And stay together.

As we were about to leave, Aoife, alpha female as always, looked at me.

“Aren’t we doing a rehearsal after study?”

I nodded.

“Well, get changed. You can’t come like that!”

I headed off to change into my denim mini. I was delighted that she had noticed as, my father being around, I was feeling slightly self-conscious about changing without a prompt.

We studied while my sister and the adults finished off the stage by tacking some material to the front to disguise the construction, to the probable disappointment of our fathers who were rather proud of their design. Time came to do a test run and a problem arose immediately. We performers couldn’t get onto the stage safely in our high heels using the foldable metal steps that Niamh used to reach higher shelves in her studio. It was thought to be inappropriate that we go up in our feet and then put our shoes on, so my sister went on the stage first to take on the job of steadying us as Ciara’s mother handed us on the steps. A little undignified, but it would work. Other than that, the stage worked out fine, though I was conscious that those in the front row, which would be very close to the stage, would be looking right up our dresses.

So were the mothers when we came to do the dress rehearsal after study on Monday. We started off in our dresses, climbed on stage, with assistance, started facing away from the audience like we would do in our main show, twirled around and started into Who Do You Think You Are?. Other than my clip-on earrings flying off, I thought it went fine. We went through our first act then stopped to change for the second session. As it was raining, we all had to change in the studio upstairs; I was well used to changing with the girls by now. We clip-clopped carefully down the stairs and were told that we would be doing all this particular show in our white minis and bolero jackets. The venue was “too intimate” for the dresses, but they would be fine for the town hall where the front row seats were much further back

“Whatever about the odd flash, you can’t have the front rows looking up your dresses for the full show”, was Niamh’s summary.

The following day was Tuesday, 7th December, the day before what the Dubs (to us country dwellers, these were unfortunate Irish people who had or happened to live in Dublin) called Farmers’ Shopping Day. This was based on a past practice which saw country people descend on Dublin and provincial centres for their pre-Christmas shopping on what was a Catholic religious holiday, 8th December, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Although religious observance was no longer strong, some schools, traditionally having freedom over their opening days within an obligation to open for a minimum number, chose to take this day off. Ours had been one of these, although 2004 was to be the last year as the Department of Education pursued a standardisation policy across the country. This free day was the reason why this preview show, initially conceived as a way to get us prepared to perform in front of an audience, was happening on 7th December: We would have the following day off as a late night was expected. After all, you can’t drag all your cousins in from around the county without providing some beers and nibbles!

Ciara’s mother picked us up from school and dropped us all off at our respective houses. Our schoolbags were secured in Niamh’s studio, locked in case wandering cousins might mess with the artwork. We had decided that we would use it as a dressing room as well. At our house, my mother had prepared trays of sandwiches, mainly ham and cheese along with some egg salad: She knew her clientele. She wrapped these in foil and put them into the back of the Volvo, along with some “slabs” of beer and headed off to help Niamh prepare.

“Well, come on, get dressed, it’ll take time to get you ready!”

My sister’s none to gentle direction confirmed that it would be her, not my mother, doing my warpaint. I wore my tan dress as, being button up, I would not have to pull it over my head as I would have to do if I wore the denim skirt and polo neck jumper. To save time changing, I wore the tights that Aoife had selected for the white mini outfits under my brown tights. All dressed except for the actual dress, I put on my dressing gown and my sister trowelled on the make-up. She was doing this for the stage and, like for the photo shoot, subtly was not the objective.

The party was meant to start at 7pm, with the actual show to run at 8pm. My mother arrived back to our house at 6:30pm, changed and had my sister and myself back at Niamh’s by 6.55pm. There was quite a spread laid out on the edge of the stage. Alongside my mother’s sandwiches, Ciara’s mother had brought cocktail sausages, kept warm in electric pans, and Niamh had prepared some hors d’oeuvres. Beers and soft drinks sat on ice and there was even a few bottles of Vinho Verde with plastic wine glasses for the ladies who might prefer something other than beer. Us performers got to have some food in Niamh’s kitchen and, as the main bathroom was to be used by the guests, we were to use the ensuite in the Twins bedroom. Once we’d finished our food and washed our teeth, my sister fussed around again with my lipstick before declaring herself satisfied. She also helped the Twins and Ciara to lay their makeup on a bit heavier; nobody had thought to brief them on doing stage, as opposed to standard, warpaint.

Now, 7:30pm, my sister was going to join her cousins at the party. Us performers had to exit the house, go through the end of our usual study room and climb the stairs to Niamh’s studio to get dressed. We didn’t want to get involved in the party before the show as this would be too much of a distraction and would not have been practicable for me, for obvious reasons.

There was a mix of two families present, Ciara’s and mine. Niamh’s ancestors had left in the 1950’s and her cousins were all in the US; she had some distant relatives in the County, but did not know them well enough to involve them in this gathering. I had to pass by this group, dressed as a girl in a tan dress whilst wearing stage make up, and not get noticed. And I got away with it, partially because we simply sneaked in and crept up the stairs; partially because each family might suppose that I was from the other family; partially because people only see what they expect to see; partially because the few lads that did look up concentrated on the Twins. We opened the studio door, slipped in, and locked the door behind us. I was ready and dressed first; wearing the show tights under my brown ones was a real time saver. We all had a sense of anticipation, but following the photoshoots, had a sense of performing, at least for a camera, if not an audience. My main worry was what would happen when they realised who I was; some natural reaction was inevitable.

Ciara’s mother was selected to do the introduction. She climbed on the stage at 7:45pm and called the room to order using one of our microphones. Directly overhead, we could hear her as if we were in the room.

She started by introducing herself; half the room need not necessarily have known her before tonight, though some of these actually did. Next she introduced my mother, Niamh, and the two fathers, being careful to give them credit for the stage construction in record time. She thanked all the attendees for coming, asked them all to pitch in to clear the food from the front of the stage, set out chairs, get themselves sorted i.e., go to the bathroom if required, grab a drink and be seated by 8pm. There followed a general hubbub, then a scraping of chairs on the floor, popping of cans of beer and fizzy, a loud whine of feedback from the microphone, then Ciara’s mother’s voice again.

“Thanks again for coming tonight, for what is to be the very first performance of our new Black Valley girl group, Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh.

This group has been put together for the Ballymore School Concert, or maybe Variety Show is a better name. Niamh’s twins, Saoirse and Aoife, and my daughter Ciara wanted to have a four-girl lineup, and have conscripted the fourth member, stage name Aisling, in a very innovative solution to the fact that there are only three Black Valley girls actually attending the school.

So, siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins, everyone, please put your hands together and welcome Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh.”

Niamh started some introductory music, my mother turned down the main lights, my sister climbed on stage to hand us up and Ciara’s mother took her place beside the steps to likewise assist. We clattered down the stairs from the studio in the order we would stand on stage, Ciara, Aoife, Saoirse and finally me. We made our way in line along the wall, were helped on stage, took the microphones that my sister handed to each of us, and took position facing away from the audience. Nobody had had a chance to see our faces yet. With the introductory music playing, we had decided not to stand still as we lined up, just moving our tails and shoulders a little to the beat as we waited for the intro to cut directly to the music for Who Do You Think You Are?

Cue the music, we twirl about and start into our act…. my earring flew off again, ignore it, just keep going…

There was a fresh round of applause as we started, which we just sang through. We were well into this first number when I began to hear the odd voice, faint against the music.

“That’s him.”

“No, it can’t be!”

“It is, I tell you!”

Facing the audience, I could not really see who was talking as they were in relative darkness, but I could sense that word was spreading. It didn’t bother me. Suddenly, as everybody became aware, as if on cue, the audience burst into another round of applause. We kept singing through, almost consummate professionals by this stage.

We did three numbers, Who do you think you are?, Hazy Shade of Winter & Long Train Running in one segment before stopping. We were trying to keep as close as possible to the format for the main gig. We took a step back as Ciara’s mother climbed back up on stage during the applause.

“Well, are they good, or what?”

Another round of applause, some of the cousins chirping in with exclamations such as “Brilliant”, “We love them”, “More!”

“And there will be more, but first, I think you’ve all figured who Aisling is? Give her a…”

Ciara’s mother didn’t have to finish that request before it was drowned out by another round of applause.

“Take a bow Aisling”.

I stepped one step forward, took a deep bow, and resumed my place. Ciara’s mother vacated the stage; we all turned our backs to the audience and Niamh starts the intro music for Walk Like an Egyptian. Twirl around again, one at a time this time. This was a fun number and we were dressed for the part. More importantly, we were really enjoying ourselves. We did three numbers again, Walk Like an Egyptian, Song of The Underground & Really Saying Something before stopping, taking a bow, all on a high and wishing that we had a dozen numbers left. But we had only two for our inevitable encore. These were our ABBA songs, Mamma Mia and Voulez Vous?; we were doing the extended the version of the latter. Of course, someone’s young cousin had to shout out Oui! in the middle of that one, but this was to be expected.

And then it was over.

It was a short show, but the audience had been forewarned of this and were happy. The evening was also a convivial meeting of relatives before Christmas. We scurried up stairs to change, as fast as our heels would allow, with the intention of circulating amongst our relatives for an hour or so. We reckoned that our white outfits would not survive a social engarement. I had a self-conscious twinge as I realise that I would be joining the party in a tan dress… what the hell…I’m staying in character!

Ciara and I were conscious that these were our relatives, so we were determined not to let Aoife and Saoirse feel left out. Not a chance! They were quickly surrounded by cousins from both families, predominantly young lads, vying for their attention. I was mobbed by the girls, mostly intrigued at how I had managed to transform into a girl. I avoided replying in detail, just that my sister and mother had done the make-up jobs. Saoirse eventually extricated herself from the group of lads and joined the girls group. Aoife stayed with the lads, apparently revelling in the attention of the group, and particularly one of Ciara’s cousins.

Eventually the party broke up around 11pm as the designated drivers herded their charges into the cars cluttering up Niamh’s driveway. We performers had to go back to the studio and carefully pack away our show gear. Our father drove home; he rarely drank more than a can or two. I fell asleep in the car in the 5 minutes it took to get to our house. My sister shook me awake, I stumbled in, heading directly for bed.

“Not so fast; that makeup will ruin your skin, to say nothing about the pillowcase!”
*********************************************************

The sun was warm, even at 10AM. I collected the oars of the rowing boat from the machinery shed where we kept two pairs hung carefully on the wall. This was my first time using the boat this year, the first time I had felt able to bring it out. I walked the 200 yards to the lake and waded in. The boat, fastened by its painter to a post on the shore, was deliberately left some way out to stop the cows causing damage by scratching themselves against it. Even out there it wasn’t quite safe now; the last week had been a scorcher and the cows were regularly found standing in water up to their knees, presumably to cool off. I started to bail the boat with the canvas bucket that we kept tied to a seat for that purpose. Canvas was less damaging to the interior wood and paint than either plastic or metal, and easier to fill. The floorboards had been floating within the boat and I carefully laid these on the bank to dry off whilst I bailed, gently lifting the bucket with my left hand, still nursing my, now hopefully mended, right ribs.

It didn’t take long as most of the water had evaporated over the last week. If I wasn’t actually taking it out, I would probably be putting water into the boat to stop the timbers cracking in the heat. Eventually, I put the floorboards back in place, untied the painter, climbed in and carefully dragged the very wet sandbag that acted as bow ballast to the centre of the boat, thus raising the bow. I punted off with an oar, pushing the boat through the bullrushes that lined the shallow shore into the deeper waters beyond. Once free, I slipped the oars into the rowlocks, swung the boat around, and pulled off gently, testing how much pressure I could exert without straining my right ribcage. Actually, quite a lot as it turned out; I must be almost completely healed.

I rowed slowly, away from the shore, making my way around the hill and headland on which Niamh’s house sat. I could see the studio clearly and as I got around the headland, the back windows of the house itself. Niamh and the Twins had returned yesterday from a six-week holiday in the US; my mother had picked them up in the airport in Niamh’s Landcruiser. We had looked after their house whilst they were away and I would call over tomorrow; they would be resting today after a long flight and road trip from Dublin. I rounded the headland, out of sight of my own house, and shipped the oars. The sun was beating down, its intensity increased by the surrounding water: It must be at least 22 or even 23 Degrees Celsius!

The floorboards were already dry so I took off my t-shirt and shorts and lay them carefully across a seat. There was still some water under the floorboards and I didn’t want to have to go home in wet clothes. The shorts were my sister’s, passed on to me as she grew out of them. They were all the feminine attire that I got to wear these days, and these only around the farm as they were far too short to be worn by a boy anywhere else. I lay down on my back along the length of the boat under the seats, manoeuvred myself until my face was shaded fully by a seat, and closed my eyes. The water was gently lapping against the sides; slap, slap, glug, slap; I drifted off, not to sleep, but to dreaming of the year just passed, well almost just passed. It was now August, one month to go and we would be back in school for Year 2.

We had almost peaked too soon for the Christmas School Show so after the relatives’ concert on the 7th December, we got back down to study once the fathers had restored the Barn to its usual state. We still did our exercise routine every day, but only practiced our act every second day. Our exams were over 4 days, 16th, 17th, 20th, & 21st. 22nd December was the last day of school and the show would start at 5PM on 23rd. Although not an official Public Holiday, most people would be taking 24th December, Christmas Eve, off. We were happy enough with the exams, even French. We thought it unlikely that Mon Sewer would try to get us back for our little rebellion earlier in the term as his marking was potentially subject to scrutiny by other French teachers or even The Madra should we have a problem.

We did practise on the evening of the 21st, quite a bit. We did a dress rehearsal and decided to change the opening pose of our second act. Niamh had suggested that the outfits that we would be wearing, our white skirts, did not lend themselves to our “twirl around” start and that to do this twice was a bit repetitious. We decided to stand, facing sideways to the audience, in “Egyptian” poses as the curtain went up to the opening music of Walk Like An Egyptian, and do a less dramatic half turn to face the audience as we started to sing.

School finished at lunchtime the following day. Apparently, if a school stayed open for a number of hours in a day, the Department of Education counted that as a full day and virtually every school in the country used this loophole to give a half-day on the last day of term. My mother collected me separately whilst Niamh picked up the rest of the girls; I was to go to Ballyhowan for some “final work”. Whatever it was to be, I was rather looking forward to it. I changed in the car again and we arrived at the Beauty Salon where I was re-equipped with talons, the same long, pink and sparkling false nails as previously, before they set about my hair. This time a small trolley was parked just behind my chair while a young hairdresser started to slide what looked like pieces of plastic onto my hair, pulling strands through, before painting them with some rather foul-smelling stuff: Apparently I was getting “highlights”. Then, just as I thought all was finished, I had a gun put to my head, or rather a piercing gun to my ear. Ouch! Ear two; Ouch again! I wonder is this what calves feel when the farmers punch their ears to attach the mandatory yellow tags? Instead of yellow tags I was given small gold-coloured earrings. I looked at myself in the mirror and positively purred, silently of course. I was back at the barn in time for a practice session and the first five minutes were taken up by the girls admiring my new hair, nails and earrings. We did another dress rehearsal before Ciara’s mother dropped me at our house.

The Christmas tree was just about finished and my father was fiddling with the lights. He didn’t notice me at first as I made four mugs of cocoa to have with some panettone. He took a second glance as four of us sat down; my sister had arrived home that day. He said nothing.

On being informed that we had an early start and a long day tomorrow, I decided to call it a night. My sister retired early too as she was also going to be busy tomorrow. Apparently, she would get extra “credits” for her Transition Year (TY) report by being our “manager” for the show. Nobody minded that the credits meant nothing in relation to formal results, nor that she wouldn’t really be our manager. Transition Year teachers have to have some way to justify their year!

It took me a while to go to sleep…

“Won’t he have problems going back to school with the ears pierced and blond hair?”

“He had to have the ears pierced; the clip-ons won’t stay on. The school will all know by then anyway. And the ears will close up in a few weeks and the hair will eventually go back to its normal colour…”

*******************************
The next day was manic!

We had to be in the town hall by 08:30 to see the stage and our own position on it, how we would get on, how we would come off, and when. This was arranged by my sister with the Ballymore TY teacher via her own TY teacher. She was to collect the key from the local filling station and return it when she was finished. Maybe she was earning her credits; the whole purpose of this early morning foray was to keep me from prying eyes. We were not able to check out where we would be changing in the adjacent school; the various acts had been allocated different classrooms as preparation rooms, some segregated by sex if actual changing was required. We had been allocated one room at the back of the school. We did see, thankfully, that a tent corridor had been constructed from the school door to the hall stage door. These were large, military frame tents, courtesy of and erected by the local Reserve unit, so we would have plenty of room.

Then off to Ballyhowan, my mother and sister up front in the Volvo, us four in the back, Saoirse and I sharing a seatbelt. I wasn’t complaining. Back into the Beauty Salon for some hair washing and setting, make up jobs and talon fitting for the other three girls. While this was going on, my sister went to a costume jewellery store and returned with a selection of “danglers”. Everybody, including the Beauty Salon staff, debated which were the best and, decision made, she headed off to get four sets and return the samples. Eventually, all warpaint and primping finished, earrings fitted, we headed back to Ciara’s house where a cauldron of curry and a mountain of rice required demolishing. It being Christmas, the adults, my sister included though not quite an adult, had a beer.

One final rehearsal, in high shoes but not dressed, and Niamh headed off with Ciara’s mother to get the karaoke machine wired into the hall sound system. Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh had to do a final tooth wash and start getting ready. We were to dress in our various coloured dresses, tights, et al. We would don warm opaque tights over our nude tights and wear our normal shoes and coats. We each had a large headscarf to drape over our heads if required to hold our hairdos in place. That way there would be less changing for the first interval act. We each had a bag with our second act outfits, both sets of shoes, spare tights and white gloves. My sister checked each bag meticulously. My mother drove us to the school and parked in the school yard, now operating as a parking lot for the show.

Now for the first test, getting into our allocated classroom without being recognised. Actually, it was easy; nobody heeded us and barely glanced as we made our way into the school, down a corridor filled with muppets and actors in varied costumes. We got to the room, rearranged it to our liking, laid out our second act costumes along with the shoes and spare tights for our first act, on tables under my sister’s fussy management. She herself occupied two desks with a load of makeup and some bottles of water. Satisfied, we headed off to the town hall, my sister locking and retaining the room key.

Nerves make me want to pee… even now. I turned towards the toilets to be grabbed by Aoife who steered me to the Girls’ Room. This was tricky, she came in with me to deflect any trouble, waited until I was finished and accompanied me out. I kept my scarf pulled forward and got out unscathed. We headed down the tent corridor towards the stage door. There a covered fire escape led up to a gallery above the main auditorium where the performers could watch parts of the show without disturbing the audience. We got seats at the back; everyone would be facing away from us once seated. We had left it as late as we could and the lights soon dimmed. There was no introduction…the Muppet Show music started and the curtain went up. The second years were in fine form….

It's time to put on music
It's time to light the lights
It's time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight.

It's time to put on makeup
….

They sang the full song and even had the two grumpy old guys at the corner…

One more short light act was followed with the main event for part one of the show, an abridged play by the 5th Years. This meant we had a planned-for 45 minutes. It might be shorter; sometimes nervous actors rush their lines so we had to be ready to be on stage in 30 minutes. We slid out of our seats and made out way to the balcony fire escape door, now guarded by a PE Teacher. She opened it and we crept downstairs, then through the tent tunnel to the school, and all went to the Girls’ Room… very important before going on stage! This time I felt more comfortable with the whole gang around me. My sister was in our dressing room ahead of us, handing us each a pair of white gloves as we doffed our coats and scarves. We removed our warmer tights, slipped on our show shoes and, hey presto!, we’re ready. Not quite: My sister had us redo our makeup, particularly our lipstick.

Next big test: Make our way to backstage without me being recognised, no coats or scarves this time. We headed off, attracting more attention this time in our mix of brilliantly coloured dresses, makeup, heels and hair. I did attract some attention, curious looks, who’s that with the Twins & Ciara? We just smiled and minced our way through the tent tunnel to the backstage entrance. Once in, we moved towards the sound desk where Niamh was standing alongside the students and teacher running this aspect of the show. She passed us our four mics, turned off, and waited with us. We continued to get attention, more for the shortness of our dresses than curiosity about me, and the Twins were the centre of attention. Suited me; I made sure not to catch anyone’s eye.

The stage manager held up an open hand, fingers spread, five minutes. Then, applause for the previous act and we’re on. Sound system connected to Niamh’s machine, mics on, tap each in turn to check working, then climb on stage and wait. We could hear the compere talking; he had had to fill the time until the stage manager indicated ready. Then…

“And now, before we get to the interval, we have a treat for you, our brand-new Girl Band, Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh”.

The music starts, the curtain raises, and we’re off. Twirl around, dresses float up, expected whistles, cheers, ignore them, keep going. No earrings flying off this time. Everything goes like clockwork, lateral switches to keep the lead singer off the flanks get more whistles and cheers and, quite quickly, we’re finished. Deep bow; the curtain falls to a good round of applause. Adrenaline rush over, we exit the stage quickly and start to make our way out of the backstage area.

Third big test: The last act before us has vacated the backstage but the next act, another light contribution, this time from our own year, is making its way in to get ready to come on in 15 minutes. The backstage crew are still there and, with the lights full on, I felt like a rabbit in the headlights. Our own classmates naturally recognized Ciara and the Twins, but not me. They were more than curious but we just smiled acknowledgement of the raft of congratulations on our performance and made our way out through the tent tunnel to our dressing room. Niamh had headphones on resetting her machine for our next performance. She would not leave the kit unattended to prevent accidental interference. My sister had the room open and noticed that we were each still holding our mics in our hand so she collected these to bring back to Niamh. We had forgotten to organize this in all our preperation..

Left alone in the room, we started to change when there was a gentle knock on the door. We got ourselves somewhat sorted.

“Who’s there?”

“Ms Jones; can I come in?”

Ms Jones was our popular young Civics teacher.

“Come in.”

Aoife had taken over again, naturally.

Ms Jones came in, wearing jeans and a jumper, not at all like we knew her from class where she dressed much more formally, as did all the other teachers. She was every bit as friendly as we knew her to be.

“Girls, sorry to disturb you. There’s been a bit of a…, I won’t say complaint…, more a question raised.”

We looked expectantly.

“You see, all performers have to be from the school. I know Aoife and Saoirse and Ciara are, but, I’m sorry, you’re not.”

She was looking directly at me, not unkindly.

“Actually, I am from the school Miss. You have four Ghleann Dhubh students in your class.”

She wasn’t slow, but it still took time for my answer to sink in. Her eyes opened wide before a big smile covered her face.

“You’re not…?”

I nodded as the Twins and Ciara broke into whoops of delight.

“We did it; no, you did it, Aisling!”

“Aisling?”

Ms Jones was curious.

“My stage name for the night.”

She sat on a desk and we chatted away for a while. Our act was great, but how did we get it together? How did we pick the songs? How did the girls persuade me to join in? Then, more seriously, how would we handle the “issue”.

“Well Miss, I thought that I would be recognised in any event, so maybe we should just tell them?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes; they’ll eventually work it out. My sister’s even our manager.”

My sister had returned by now; manager or not, Aoife was now the boss. She quickly agreed with Ms Jones that at the end of our next act, the compere would mention that some questions had arisen and ask her to name her team. We got changed, makeup touched up again, usual visit to the Girls’ Room and back to the backstage area. This time I was more confident as we manoeuvred through the oversized backstage crew to get to Niamh, calling people by name as I wormed past them.

“Excuse me, George” and “Can I get past, Fergal?”, all in a whisper of course.

The five-minute signal; it was nearly time to go on again. Line up, wait for applause to start, mic’s on, tap check, climb on stage, “Egyptian” pose.

The compere is announcing our second appearance.

“Who’s the ringer?”

A shout from the auditorium; a “ringer” is someone, usually very good, smuggled onto a team that s/he’s not entitled to play for.

“All members of Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh are students at the school, and we’ll introduce each of them at the end.”

The compere, a teacher from the school, should have been a lawyer; that was a neat answer, skirting the fact that not all members were girls!

“And now, our last act, and for the second time, Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh”.

Music starts and curtain raises; we swing into it. The “Egyptian” song was fun to perform and like at the relatives’ concert, we were now flying. We got through our numbers without any problems, and I enjoyed every minute of the performance, my last public performance as a girl. We finished and took our bow.

“And now Aoife, can you tell us all about Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh?”

“Go raibh maith agat a mháistir. (Thank you Sir)

We decided to form a Girl Group in Ghleann Dhubh so Ciara, (Ciara steps forward and takes a bow), my sister Saoirse (Saoirse likewise takes a bow) and myself, Aoife, got together to make it happen…

Only we wanted a fourth member; it makes for a better show, so we persuaded our fourth member, stage name for tonight, Aisling, (I step forward, bow & step back), the fourth Ghleann Dhubh student in the school, better known to you as…”

Her voice was drowned out by a chorus of applause, whistling, cheering and general pandemonium. Aoife beckons me out to take a further bow, then we all bow together and get ready to leave the stage.

“Can you hold on a minute girls?”

The compere had been talking to another teacher just at the corner of the stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the judges have asked for another five minutes.”

He looked over at Aoife, she nodded and disappeared into the wings. She came back in a few seconds, nodded to the compere again, and whispered “ABBA” to us.

“So, our superlative and surprising group will do another few numbers for us… Ladies and Gentlemen, for the third time, seo libh (here are) Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh.

We did our two ABBA numbers. The extended version of Voulez Vous gives plenty of time to the judges and, as we were finishing, the compere was back on stage.

“Aren’t they great?”

Another round of applause during which he turned around, clapping, and said,

“Stay put girls”.

This was a little concerning as we had no more numbers to do. We waited while the compere invited The Madra on stage to say a few words; thankfully he kept them short. Then the chair of the judges, a mixed panel of 6th year prefects and teachers, climbed on stage and droned on a bit about how hard it was to pick from two such fine plays as put on by Transition and Fifth Years, and the great Muppet act by the Second Years, and all the other acts but finally confirming the Transition Year’s play as the winner. Not surprised, we all clapped as the Student and Teacher leads climbed on stage to accept a small plaque marking their triumph.

Now it was time for the compere to say the final words and send us home, but instead the judge continued on…

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have one other award, of a sort, to make. We are allowed to put forward a nomination to the County Schools Musical Competition where we think that an act has particular merit. It is a separate competition from Réaltaí Scoile with its own selection process. Only ten acts from the County go through to the final which will be held in Ballyhowan at Easter and our nomination, if accepted, will join this competition at semifinal stage.

This year, we are delighted to nominate Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh.”

Having been asked to stay on stage, we had begun to suspect the reason during the judge’s introduction, but confirmation still elicited some joyful hugging amongst the four Ghleann Dhubh girls. Amidst the applause, as the curtain was descending, was I dreaming, or did I hear my father moan…

“Jesus, not again!”

*****************************************

Christmas came and went, as it always does, full more of promise than fulfilment. December 26th, (St.) Stephen’s Day in Ireland, dawned clear and bright. The traditional Christmas Day family lockdown was lifted and we were all free to set forth the to harass our relatives and neighbours. As they were new to the area with few, if any, close local relatives, my sister and I headed over to Niamh’s house. With Niamh and the Twins in tow, we then all headed for Ciara’s house for an hour or so of general merriment before returning to Niamh’s where our parents were to join us in due course. Aoife tarried somewhat longer in Ciara’s; on our way back to Niamh’s, we joked that the arrival of one of Ciara’s cousins, whom she had met at the family concert, has absolutely nothing to do with her reluctance to leave. Eventually, seeing a cousins’ car heading for our house, we scarpered back, bringing Niamh and Saoirse with us, to our own house for some more chat and socialising. All that was missing was a visit from the Wren Boys, but in a townland of four houses this would have been quite a stretch. This was an old tradition, somewhat modified and revived in modern times, where groups of lads and young unmarried men would dress up in straw disguises and go from house to house in a village, singing, playing traditional music and generally clowning around, being rewarded with a drink, or some food for their entertainment.

But the tradition did come up for discussion as Niamh and Saoirse were not familiar with it. Eventually my sister printed off the lyrics of a Chieftains’ song. The Chieftains were probably Ireland’s premier traditional and folk music group.

The wren, oh the wren; he's the king of all birds,
On St. Stephen's Day he got caught in the furze,
So it's up with the kettle and it's down with the pan,
Won't you give us a penny for to bury the wren?

Well it's Christmas time; that's why we're here,
Please be good enough to give us an ear,
For we'll sing and we'll dance if you give us a chance,
And we won't be comin' back for another whole year!

We'll play Kerry polkas; they're real hot stuff,
We'll play the Mason's Apron and the Pinch of Snuff,
Jon Maroney's jig and the Donegal reel,
Music made to put a spring in your heel!

If there's a drink in the house, would it make itself known,
Before I sing a song called "The Banks of the Lowne",
And I'll drink with you with occasion in it,
For me poor dry throat and I'll sing like a linnet!

Oh please give us something for the little bird's wake,
A big lump of pudding or some Christmas cake,
A fist full o' goose and a hot cup o' tay,
And then we'll all be goin' on our way!

The wren, oh the wren; he's the king of all birds,
On St. Stephen's Day he got caught in the furze,
So it's up with the kettle and it's down with the pan,
Won't you give us a penny for to bury the wren?

Eventually, the adults having had a glass or two, and us younger folks being always up for some fun, practiced the song, strolled over to Ciara’s house, formed up outside, and, lyrics in hand, sung it for them. Although invited in, we declined as, with that house already full of Ciara’s relatives, there wouldn’t have been room for us all. We headed back chez nous, joined by Aoife and her now very definite boyfriend! Eventually, as it became dark, quite early at this time of year, the cousins departed all the houses and the population of Ghleann Dhubh eventually ended up in Niamh’s barn, our study room, for a karaoke session. It was a Stephen’s Day as it should be, spent having fun with neighbours and relatives.

The following Monday and Tuesday were displaced Public Holidays, the 25th & 26th having been weekend days. That didn’t much matter on farms where routine winter work continued as normal. Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh now had a new task; get some more material together for a competition of which we knew very little. We agreed to resume our evening routine, exercise, practice and, unbelievably, study. That left the day’s free for family. For me this was slightly tense as my father felt aggrieved that this “ridiculous playacting” was continuing past it’s scheduled end point. My mother and sister felt that I had to play it out and not let down the girls.

We added some more songs to our repertoire, both to have a better show, and to keep us from getting bored: Tina Turner, more ABBA, Carly Simon, Blondie, Bonnie Tyler, Cher, Dixie Chicks, & Everything But The Girl. We also needed some more country numbers; Pussycat’s Mississippi, Shania Twain’s Man, I feel like a Woman (I should have led on that, but we decided to play it a bit safe) and two from Trisha Yearwood, She’s in Love with the Boy, & An American Girl. New Year’s Eve & Day passed by little noticed; neither were much observed in Ghleann Dhubh.

Then it was time to go back to school. This would be my first day back after having put on a show as a girl. I still had highlights and had to wear “sleepers” to keep my ear piercings open. There was some good-natured banter in class; nobody would overstep the mark with the four of us present. But, first break, first day, a second-year footballer twice my size cornered me with a few of his mates in tow.

“Hi Sugar; can I have a kiss, or maybe a BJ”?

His mates laughed uproariously at this high humour. I waited for the ruckus to die down so that I could be heard.

“I’m sorry Gerry; I didn’t realise that you were gay. Even if I was, you’re not my type.”

His mates found this funny too…

“He got you there!”

Football Gerry, being cerebrally challenged, had no adequate response and decided to resort to tactic number two, punching me in the face. He was restrained by one of his mates.

“Look, a bit of slagging is one thing; no bullying!”

I suppose the restrainer didn’t count verbal abuse as bullying, but at least he did draw a line somewhere.

The Twins must have told Niamh as she showed up at our study the next day in a sports top and leggings just as we were about to start our exercise session.

“OK Girls, time to do a few lessons on how to look after yourself.”

We looked on as she continued…

“The first thing is RUN! People who attack you are mostly stronger, so just get out of there. Get among other people, into a shop, wherever you can find.

The second thing is to SCREAM! Someone might hear you and come to help. And the attacker might just be afraid of that too and run away himself.

What I’m going to show you is for the last resort. You won’t be able to win, but you might just cause him enough injury to help you escape.”

It did strike me that I was being shown how a girl might defend herself from my own gender. I felt a bit ashamed to be a male and wondered if girls lived in perpetual fear of being attacked.

Niamh, I learned later, like her now deceased husband, had spent some time in the US Reserves before quitting when the Twins arrived. She was rusty, but had some useful tips, like raking your heel down the shin onto the foot of someone who grabs you from behind, poking eyes as opposed to uselessly flailing fists at someone’s face, punching in the throat as opposed to the chin, heel of hand into nose, groin kicks, elbow jabs… and a few other little tricks. We did a bit of roleplay; we were very mismatched in terms of strength and size. I was the same size but much stronger than Ciara. The Twins were evenly matched and stronger than me. Niamh had to pitch in herself to give the Twins some practice with dealing with a stronger opponent. At the end of what was just a demo, we all agreed that it was worthwhile learning, and we would do some practice once a week in lieu of a cheerleading session.

My father seemed pleased that I was doing something “manly” like self-defence; I suppose he just missed the point.

****************************************

Eventually, the school heard back from the County Schools Musical Competition; the judging panel wanted to see us perform to see whether we would make the grade. We didn’t want our fathers to have to go to the trouble of rebuilding the stage, and mine might not have been enthusiastic about that task in any event, so it was agreed that we would do a show in the town hall featuring almost our entire repertoire and lasting an hour, at 5pm on Thursday, 27th January. This would give time for us to get ready after school, and still finish the show in time for any of the students who cared to attend to be on time for study in the School Study Club. The Parish Priest grumbled a bit about having to heat the hall; he had been at the School Concert and didn’t approve of our act, too much leg and knickers, and particularly as one of the girls was a boy. The Madra persuaded him by announcing that the show was to raise money for the school football teams, boys and girls, was open to the town, and would have an admission fee, all without consulting us! We had just needed the stage to do a private show for the judging panel.

We suddenly had an organisation to back us as Transition Year took over the running of the event, leaving us to concentrate on the show itself. The football teams sold tickets all over the town and to all their relatives, ensuring a full audience. We enlisted the two first-year classes to put on two five-minute interval comedy sketches as we developed three singing sessions of about 15 minutes each. We would start with some slower, ballad-type numbers, then a session combining all our country music, and finish with our most upbeat numbers. We would change outfits each time, backstage as there was no time to do it anywhere else, and a quick trip to Ballyhowan secured four matching denim minis and as close to country-style shirt blouses as we could find.

For something put together in a hurry, the show was a resounding success and quite a bit of money was raised. No-one offered to cover our expenses so we didn’t ask. We would have to wait a few weeks for the results from the judges.

Niamh solved the expenses problem: We headed off to Galway to model the Department Stores “Spring Collection”. No drama this time and we had our meal in Eyre House, somewhat more upmarket than the pizzeria.

Notoriety was beginning to develop on two fronts. There had been some queries in Galway in relation to the teen models and word had also seeped out to schools in towns adjacent to Ballymore that there was a girl group which included a boy. Nobody put the two together, yet. Galway was at least an hour’s drive away from Ballymore and, being a different county, was not involved in our County Schools Musical Competition.

Finally we heard that we were in the Semi-Finals, ours to be held in Ballyhowan on Thursday, 17th February. We would be on stage for three songs and we decided to go upbeat. As half the acts would go through to the final, we were hopeful.

And we aced it again; through to the final. There was one less than edifying incident when the representative of one of the Ballyhowan schools which had been knocked out objected to our going through on the basis that Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh were not a girl band as stated, but had one boy included. The chair of the judging panel probable erred in responding that, even in Ballyhowan, it was now 2005, not 1905. Rather annoyed, the objector remarked that at least there were three girls in the group, and only one, not four, Transvestites. This earned him another sharp rebuke.

We got some feedback from the judges at the semifinal. Our act was good, but we needed to vary the songs to be in with a chance in the finals. We decided to do Missing by Everything But The Girl, Mississippi by Pussycat and Voulez Vous by ABBA. We kept up our normal routine, our only concession being to get off school early to get dolled up in the Beauty Salon in Ballyhowan before the Finals on Wednesday, 16th March. It had to be before Holy Week; there was still some residual church influence in the schools.

All tarted up, coats over our dresses, leggings over our tights, my mother drove us to the hall where the Finals would be held. Niamh was already there, with other “sound” teams, setting up our machine. We went over to her.

“OK, I just need to go out and get the mics for a test.”

“I’ll get them.”

Niamh handed me her keys; I preferred to be doing something rather than standing around. I went out to the car park; it wasn’t quite dark yet. There were a few lads in one corner of the carpark, no one else around. I walked towards the Landcruiser.

“Here, that must be him! That’s the fucking Tranny!”

No 1 Defence, run.

I turned around intending to sprint for the door; I was cut off.

No 2 Defence, scream.

“Back off!!!”

Black Out.

****************************************

Noise; lots of it. I’m cold: I must have shivered as someone wrapped a warm blanket around me. Drift away again…

Noise again, light… My mother’s voice:

“I think he’s coming around.”

“Let’s have a look.”

Male, foreign, heavily accented.

“Ah; you back to us, yes?”

“Grunt”

“Whatyouname?”

“Huh?”

“He’s asking you for your name.”

Mother’s voice again.

“Name… Aisling…”

“It’s his stage name…”

Opening eyes, lights on ceiling, a man standing over me, white coat, stethoscope.

He waits a few minutes. Holds up his hand, fingers spread

“How many finger?”

“Four.”

“Four; you sure?”

“And a thumb.”

A big grin.

“I think you back for sure; you mother here.”

He pulled back and my mother’s face appeared, drawn. She smiled.

“Where am I?”

“Hospital, A&E.”

“What happened?”

“Someone hit you.”

“I’m all sore!”

“I know; I’ll see if they can give you something more to help.”

She returned with a nurse and the Doctor. They spoke for a few minutes then the nurse fiddled with the drip hanging over my bed.

“We’ve upped the dose; let’s see how he gets on.”

I must have slept again, probably not for long. My mother was still there when I woke again. I tried to move; there was a stabbing pain in my side and it felt like the football team was practicing on my head. She motioned me to stay still.

“Your ribs are broken, four of them. And you were concussed. Something hit your head.”

“Where? When?”

“Ballyhowan Hall; do you remember going to the carpark?”

“Not yet.”

“Were you at school today?”

“Off early, hair, talons, make up.”

She smiled, looking relieved.

“Hurts to think, later?”

“OK, you rest.”

I drifted off again…

“…they’re going to move him to ICU. This place is too full … they want to monitor him for 24 hours after being kicked in the head.”

My mother’s voice. I opened my eyes; she was talking to my father. I smiled. Talkative as ever, he just rubbed my hand…

Soon the bed starts moving. I’m just looking up, ceiling lights and doorways pass by. We come to a quiet space. My father is with me; my mother has gone away for a while. Different doctors and nurses come by to check me; mostly I sleep…

“… displaced rib fracture in two ribs…will need surgery to stabilise these. The other ribs will heal normally in time.”

A doctor was talking to my father beside my bed.

“So, when can you do this surgery?”

“Actually, we can’t do it here. He’ll be going to Galway later today; surgery probably tomorrow, it’s up to them. Someone can ride in the ambulance with him.”

It was the worst trip of my life. Ambulances are not very comfortable and, strangely, no place to be if you’re not feeling well. Moving without visual reference is the easiest way I know to get car-sick so I arrived in Galway with a sore head, sore ribs, and nauseated. My mother and a paramedic were in the back with me, but there was little conversation; I noticed that at one stage she had fallen asleep. She must have been exhausted.

It turned out that I was now known in Galway. Word of the assault had reached the media and photographs of Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh taken during our concerts had been circulated, and correlated with the advertising pictures in the store. The local press in both counties had run with the story as a case of transphobia, which it was, except that I wasn’t officially trans., I was just doing an act. This added to the trauma for my parents, caused confusion in the school, gained kudos for the Department store for their “progressive and inclusive approach to advertising” despite their not being aware of my official, if not true, gender, and got me into a private room as the hospital authorities decided to play it safe and not assign me to either sex.

It didn’t speed up treatment: I was injured late on 16th March; the following day was a Public Holiday; a lot of staff had created an extra-long weekend by taking leave on 18th March the day I arrived in the hospital. I was finally operated on on 21st March. I suppose, this being the vernal equinox, the celestial alignment was at least favourable. Actually, that year the vernal equinox was scheduled for the previous day, but that being Sunday, the equinox had to be postponed until the hospital consultants, senior doctors, were ready.

Surgery was followed by a few hours in ICU, then back to my private ward. My mother and sister alternated staying locally in a B&B; my father visited each time he switched them over. Niamh and the rest of Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh came on the 4th day. They felt sorry for me, a few tears and sniffles; I felt sorry for them as they had pulled out of the performance and missed their chance to shine. We all felt that this was the end of an era; it was unlikely that Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh, at least in its original lineup, would ever perform again.

The following day the “Skip” visited me accompanied by a Garda (police constable) from Ballyhowan. My mother was expecting him; I don’t think he could talk to me without her present. He was only there himself as the Ballyhowan Gardai (police, plural) thought that his presence would make it easier for me to talk to them. I couldn’t remember much, but thought that I had recognised the lad who cut off my retreat as having been with the group whose teacher had complained about the transvestite at the semi-finals. Pressed gently by the Ballyhowan Garda, I had to tell her that I couldn’t be sure. Other than that, I’d really seen nothing.

Discharged after a week, I insisted on returning to school when it reopened for the last term on April 4th. My parents weren’t happy as I wasn’t really recovered, but, with our singing group likely ended, I was determined to finish the year and not have to repeat and be separated from my friends. There was some surprise when I extracted myself slowly from the front of the Volvo outside the school. Saoirse and Aoife were carrying my schoolbag between them, as well as their own, when Footballer Gerry, last term’s bully, relieved them of it and accompanied me to class, deposited it beside my desk, nodded acknowledgement to my thanks, and headed off to his own classroom without saying a word.

That term was hard. As well as being sore, I found that at first I couldn’t concentrate for more than about half-a-class so I was not really keeping up with the curriculum. Study was also difficult and I would work for a while, them put down my head on the desk and snooze. I was given plenty of leeway by everyone and at least got all the notes. I planned to make up for any deficit over the summer. On the social side, everybody tiptoed around me. Half the school believed that I was trans, as reported in the papers, the other half weren’t sure. I was hanging out with the girls, not just Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh, but the rest of the girls as well, more than ever: Many of the lads were afraid to be seen to be too friendly with me in case they were deemed trans also, or possibly they believed that they might be infected with the trans virus. The main exceptions to this were the footballers and handballers; they probably felt immune from both the virus and the suspicion of their fellow students.

We had eight weeks before the exams and I continued to improve. The exams took one week and I felt that I had achieved the minimum standard necessary to stay in the Honours Class.

School ended on 4th June; I had been dreading Summer. The Twins and Niamh were going to the States for a long holiday and I would miss them. My sister would be home which was a bonus, and Ciara would be around, but even though I had grown up in her company, it just wasn’t the same without our relatively new friends. I also had more surgery to face, to remove the plates which had aligned my ribs whilst they healed. One thing for sure; I wasn’t going near the hay. Where possible we saved hay for the cows as silage is neither pleasant smelling nor environmentally friendly but it wasn’t always easy to save hay if the weather didn’t cooperate.

I settled down to a routine as best I could. As we would be taking care of Niamh’s house while she was away, I would continue to study each morning in her Barn. Ciara, on hearing this, decided that, whenever not otherwise engaged, she would join me. Walking there and back was good exercise and I would extend my walking each afternoon to try and recover my fitness. First surgery: I was being admitted to hospital in Galway on 14th June for what should be a relatively short stay. It suited me to get it out of the way early so that I would have the rest of the summer to recover. As Niamh & the Twins would be gone when I left, I said “goodbye” the day before. Saoirse walked me to the end of her drive and gave me a kiss on the forehead as I left; it seemed very sweet.

Surgery over, back to routine. Study, exercise, and cooking as between milking and hay, the farm was very busy in high summer which meant that my mother and sister were mostly working outside. My sister had also acquired a boyfriend who kept her occupied in the evenings, somewhat to my parents’ concern. Our remote location was no deterrent as, although just going into Leaving Certificate year, he had “wheels”, an old diesel Peugeot 205XRAD acquired from his father, owner of the filling station and attached small garage in Ballymore. Apparently they had met when she collected the keys of the town hall there back in December.

I found that keeping busy was best, otherwise there would have been too much time to think. I knew that things would start to happen soon, if they hadn’t started already, like fuzz growing on my face, getting taller, getting spots, becoming a male teenager. It couldn’t be helped, but I wasn’t looking forward to it. Even if Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh reformed, I wouldn’t be able to pass visually as a girl, and my voice would soon be too deep. And being a part of Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh had made me happy; happier than I’d ever been before; I was sad it was all over. This sadness permeated my whole existence: I felt that I was closing in on myself, or more that life was closing in on me.

So, as soon as I felt that I could manage it, I took the boat out for a gentle trip around the lake. It was my preferred method of relaxation and my mother was happy; it would help build up my strength if I got back to rowing.

********************************************************

The boat floated gently across the lake; it was hard to tell if the wind was increasing or decreasing... slap, slop, glop, slap…. The water lapped gently against the sides, mesmerizing, calming. The lake always had this effect on me; it suspended reality for a while. I imagined myself floating in an ether, three dimensional, there was no depth perception looking directly up to the blue of the sky. Maybe I can stay here forever?

The boat rocked, suddenly, dramatically. What the f***? There’s nothing out here to hit. I jerked upright, hit my head on the bottom of the seat and fell back again. Up again, carefully this time. The boat has developed a significant list to the right, starboard. Instinctively I counterbalance, leaning to port and scanned the starboard gunwale. There’s a hand, then a face, grinning from ear to ear.

“Saoirse, You’re not allowed to drown me, I think it’s illegal!”

“Sea monster or Mermaid?”

“Mermaid, definitely, but can you move to the stern?”

Blank look…

“The back, back there!”

Face and hand disappear, then two hands reappear at the stern, then the face again.

“Missed you!”

And I had.

“Me too! Can I climb in?”

“Hold on.”

I climbed towards the bow to counterbalance the weight on the stern.

“OK, now’s good.”

She heaved herself out of the water, leaned her waist over the stern, and toppled forward into the boat. I watched mesmerised. She was topless, wearing only her knickers. She looked at me and smiled.

“They don’t bite, promise!”

I collected myself and tried to look at her face.

“I thought you would all be sleeping?”

“Slept on the ‘plane. Anyway, it’s a shame to waste a good day now that we’re back here. How’ve you been?”

“OK; you?”

“OK; you’ve been sunbathing?”

“Kinda; just lying in the boat; thinking, drifting, you know?”

“Can I join you?”

“Need to ask?”

That grin again. She stretches out along the floorboards, and beckons me to lie alongside. Trying not to step on her, I manage without overturning the boat.

“Where’s Aoife?”

“Ciara’s.”

“Ah! Boyfriend?”

“Yep; trying to rekindle old flames.”

“Not so old, surely?”

“Not sure; lots happen in summer.”

I suspected she was talking about Aoife’s holidays; Aoife liked having boys around.

“And did you get a boyfriend over there?”

“Me? No…”

It sounded unfinished; I waited. We drifted for a while; I could tell that she wanted to talk: I waited.

“Can I tell you something?”

“Of course.”

“No, I mean something important, just for you?”

I thought it must be serious.

“Saoirse, promise. Nothing to no one”.

Plain, if ungrammatical and logically incorrect.

“I don’t think I’m interested in boys.”

“OK.”

“No, I don’t think you get me; I don’t… like… boys”

Ooops, where does that leave me?

“Are you telling me that you’re a …”

I was afraid to say the word in case I upset her.

“Lesbian? I think so, I don’t know yet. Niamh says I’m very young to know for sure.”

“You told Niamh?”

“Of course I did; she’s my mother!”

“Sorry, I just wish I could talk to someone like that”.

Slap, slurp, glop, glop.

The boat floated on; we drifted on, side by side, I had to ask…

“Saoirse?”

“Yes?”

“You know the way you said you don’t like boys?”

“Yes; and it doesn’t apply to you, if that’s what you’re going to ask!”

My question answered, we drifted on. She found my hand and squeezed it.

“It was what you were going to ask? You DO know you didn’t need to?”

“I think I knew… but it’s all new to me… and I didn’t want to presume after what you’d said…”

“You’re different… I don’t see you as…”

She stopped, uncertain…

“A boy? Is that what you were going to say?”

“Yes; touché.”

We drifted some more…

“Saoirse; can I tell you something?”

“Yes, but I think I know”.

“That I don’t think I’m a boy either?”

“That’s what I thought you’d say.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“To me, yes. Maybe the rest of the girls as well.”

“What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you noticed how we talk? We say “girls” when we’re talking about us as a group.”

“I thought you were just doing that because I was playing a girl’s role?”

“Even in school, as a group we’re called the Glandoo Girls by the others. And there was all that stuff in the paper about you being trans.”

“So they wouldn’t be surprised…”

Saoirse finished my sentence.

“… if you turned up as a girl? I don’t think so.”

“Have you noticed something about this conversation?”

“Quite a few things, but I think you mean that we kinda know what the other is going to say?”

“There we go again! We’re not even brother and sister, much less twins!”

“I’m glad you’re not my brother.”

“I’m glad you’re not my sister!”

We drifted on some more, just lying together. The situation was complicated enough for older kids, even adults.

“Saoirse, Aoife’s your twin, and she likes boys?”

“We wondered about that too, Niamh and me. Apparently being Twins doesn’t mean that we’ll both be the same… that way.”

We were now half twisted towards each other; the bottom of an 18 Foot boat is narrow, even for two kids. And a bit hard after a while. I was glad that I’d worn swim shorts under my own shorts; it concealed my appreciation.

I stuck my head up to see where the boat was now. We had drifted into shallow water close to where a pier jutted out to collect the water supply for Ballymore. Gravity brought it to a filter station and reservoir about two miles away and then on to Ballymore. I extricated myself from under the seats and got the oars to pull us back out into the middle of the lake. Saoirse got up, much more elegantly, sat on the thwart beside me, and took one.

“Not afraid you’ll be seen?”

“Only our house overlooks the lake.”

“Does that mean that Niamh …”

“… thinks you’re a girl as well? I guess so; we never talked about it.”

We were finishing each other’s sentences again. Niamh might be less perturbed at seeing her daughter topless in the company of someone she thought of as a girl. But given that she liked girls, and I was still anatomically a boy… too complicated… just forget about it!

We brought the boat into the middle of the lake and slid back under the seats again.

“You know it can’t work for me?”

Some silence.

“Go on.”

“Well, whatever I think that I want to be, I’m male. And soon I’ll be big, spotty and hairy like the third-years.”

Everything is relative of course; the third-years were certainly bigger, definitely more spotty as puberty hit, and many sporting fuzzy chins until they learned to use a razor.

Saoirse didn’t answer directly.

“You haven’t told your mother?”

“God! No! She’d go through the roof, and if she didn’t my father would! They’re not like Niamh.”

“Would you have told me…

“… if you hadn’t told me?”

We were finishing each other’s sentences again.

“I’m not sure. It might have come up if we tried to restart Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh. I won’t be able to play the role soon, even if it’s not really a role.”

We lapsed into silence again, enjoying the stillness, punctuated only by the irregular slap, slop, glug, of wavelets hitting the boat.

“You know, you don’t have to end up going all male and hairy?”

“Huh?”

“Have you ever heard of puberty blockers?”

“No, never.”

“Apparently they can slow down puberty, so you wouldn’t get big and hairy.”

“How did you hear about them?”

“When we started to research being… you know, lesbian… we came across other stuff as well. I just know they exist, not much more. I think you have to go to a shrink and a doctor to get them.”

“A shrink? Am I classed as being a bit mad?”

“No, it’s just they need to sign off that you’re really wanting to be a girl, permanent like. At least in the States; don’t know about here.”

The thought was nice; something to stop me growing up as a male; reality intrudes.

“Doesn’t matter anyway; I wouldn’t be let take them.”

“How’d you know?”

“Even if I did tell them, they wouldn’t want me going to a shrink or taking puberty stoppers.”

“Blockers! If you don’t tell them, you definitely won’t get to do any of this: And you’ll never know for sure: And you can’t wait too long.”

“I’m just afraid of what they’ll think about me after, and then I’d be in an even worse place.”

More drifting…

“You know I envy you, a lot?”

Saoirse didn’t answer, just snuggled into me a bit more.

“I mean, whatever you decide to do, to be, you have the body you want to have. I don’t; I wish I had a body like yours.”

She put an arm around me and hugged me. I was old enough to appreciate being hugged by a beautiful topless girl.

“I know; so do I.”

********************************************

It was starting to get late; still warm, but the sun was losing its power. We headed back to where Saoirse had left her clothes and grounded the boat at the bow so that she could get ashore dry. She had to climb past me to get from the stern to the bow and I couldn’t resist putting an arm around her hips and giving her a kiss on the belly. She kissed my head and hopped over the bow. I watched as she got dressed and moved to the stern to raise the bow as she pushed the boat off.

“See you tomorrow?”

That grin again.

“Yes; we’ve to plan for next year.”

We didn’t really have to plan anything; it was just a good excuse to call over and spend some time. I got dressed and rowed slowly around the headland and back to our mooring. I sat on the gunwale and slopped some water into the boat with the bucket. The planks would need it if tomorrow was as warm. As I dropped the oars back into the machinery shed I could hear the milking going on in the adjacent milking parlour; it must be near finished by now. I would soon have to pitch in to help with that, it wasn’t heavy work and I was now almost fully recovered. In the meantime, I headed into the house. Someone had blind baked a quiche base so I busied myself softening some onions, adding garlic, red and green peppers, then preparing the egg mixture and waiting for the milking to be finished. The quiche would be ready by the time everybody’d washed up and changed.

I was trying to decide; who do I tell first, how do I tell them, what will they think of me, will I be stopped studying with the girls, will they tell me that I’m too young to know? But I was coming to a decision: The sooner I told them, the sooner life would restart.

Speaking of restarts, I got up early next morning dressed in my work clothes and headed out to the milking parlour. In high summer, we started around 7am, aiming to be finished by 9am. I was the first out, so I opened the gate and the cows filed in obediently. They tend to be very co-operative about this and are not slow in reminding us if, for some reason, we’re late starting! My father arrived next, then my mother and my sister, last out, went back to sort the house and get breakfast. I think she would have preferred milking! It was good to be back at work on the farm again, even though I had only a few weeks left before I returned to school. By then the rhythm of the farm would start to slow, the milking would gradually reduce to once a day before the cows were finally dried off for winter. But that was in the future. Today, milking finished, we headed into the house to shower and have breakfast. After breakfast I helped for a while as my father started the servicing of the hay-making machinery which would not be used again until next summer. Most of the machines got a power wash before being left out in the sun to dry off. The weather was still settled, warm, hazy and not much in the way of wind. We would take them in before milking started that evening when they would be thoroughly dry and ready to be greased, oiled and sharpened as required.

In the meantime, I was free for a few hours so I took the oars again, this time taking a towel, and rowed around to where I’d dropped Saoirse off the day before. Grounding the boat, I brought the painter ashore and tied it around a rock. With no tides on a lake and little wind, the grounded boat wasn’t going anywhere. I climbed the hill through the field leading towards Niamh’s house; all the windows were open to take advantage of whatever wind there was. I was waved in by Niamh who saw me approaching and spent a few minutes in polite conversation about their holiday and my recovery before I asked if anyone would like to go with me to a shallow bathing spot across the lake. Aoife declined, but Saoirse headed off to get her swimsuit and returned in a sundress carrying a bag out of which peeked some bikini strings and a towel.

We rowed together across the lake, silently at first, before I mentioned the elephant, not in the room of course, but sitting at the transom.

“I’m going to tell them; I just need to decide how…”

There was no need to elaborate on who or what I was talking about.

“Together?”

“No, probably my mother first. If she goes ballistic, I’ll know not to push it any further.”

“What about your sister?”

“I thought about that; not fair on her.”

“I suppose not.”

Row a bit more…

“How did you tell Niamh?”

“Just told her that I didn’t like boys.”

“Did you tell Aoife first?”

“Kinda. She wanted us to pick up two lads she fancied in a mall… just for a coke or whatever… I said no. She told me that she didn’t think I liked boys… so I told her.”

We grounded the boat at a small beach of rough sand. There were some shrub trees close by so I tied the painter to one of these: They also kept the place somewhat secluded. I slipped off my shorts and t-shirt; I already had my swimming trunks on. Saoirse likewise had her bikini bottoms on under her sundress, and didn’t bother with the top. We slid into the water together; even now, at high summer, it was cold. We swam around a bit, me parallel to the shore, Saoirse unconcernedly heading well out; she was a much stronger swimmer than I was. Eventually we hauled ourselves out and shared my towel as we lay in the sun to dry off.

“I’ll tell her in the car… that way she won’t be able to strangle me right away!”

“No! But if she pulls up suddenly you’d better be ready to run!”

Gallows humour helps.

“Seriously though, it’s easier to talk to her in the car. We don’t have to look at each other that way.”

“You’re really planning on doing this soon?”

“She’s going to Ballyhowan tomorrow to lodge a milk check with the bank. I need some school shirts so I’ll ask to go along.”

“Hmmm, don’t buy too many.”

“Huh?”

“You might need blouses!”

“Stop that you!”

A few minutes play-wrestling established that she was still stronger than me as she pinned me to the ground, slid on top of me, and kissed me.

We lay together on the towel some more.

“I’ve got to go back; I’ve to help my father bring in some machines.”

“Can I help?”

“Yeah, come on. You’ll have to change.”

“Two minutes.”

Saoirse got up, dusted herself down with her own towel and slipped on her sundress before slipping off her bikini bottoms and drying her tail under her dress.

“Don’t want to get my dress wet.”

She wrapped the bottoms in the towel, threw it into the bag and climbed into the boat while I stood in the water holding the gunwale to steady it. We rowed across the lake again and beached the boat. I was going to wait with it.

“No, come on up with me.”

I pulled my shorts on over my swimming trunks, put on my t-shirt, and we climbed the hill to Niamh’s house.

“We’re going to put some machinery away”, she announced as we arrived in the kitchen.

“OK; try not to get too dirty!”

Niamh, as always, appeared to be totally unconcerned. Her now 14-year-old city-bred daughter was heading off to work with farm machinery with a 13-year-old.

“Oh, that bikini top dried reeaaal quick.”

Aoife had just fished Saoirse’s top out of her beach bag.

I turned a darker shade of purple, Niamh snorted as she tried to supress a laugh, Saoirse stuck out her tongue at Aoife and headed off to change. She was back, in the promised two minutes, in denim shorts and a t-shirt. We looked like a matching pair. We quickly pulled the boat back to its normal mooring and carried an oar each to the machinery shed.

There was no sign of my father so I started up the smaller of our two tractors, an ancient Massey Ferguson good for tight spaces and soft ground, but not up to the work now required of the much bigger Ford. Picking up machinery with a tractor is a bit of an art which I hadn’t much mastered so I had Saoirse stand well to the side to tell me when the machinery lug was correctly aligned with the aperture on the tractor lifting arm. Once one was aligned, handbrake on, engine off, into gear, connect. The rest was easy after that as the other side could be aligned by moving the tractor backwards or forwards by the smallest amounts. I lifted the first machine, a rotary mower and dropped it into the machinery shed in its normal spot. Again, handbrake on, engine off, into gear, disconnect. When I was finished I noticed that my father was watching.

“You two OK to finish this?”

We both nodded.

“When you’re finished, take the tractor into the bottom field and let Saoirse have a go.”

“OK.”

We did the same with the hay turner and the third machine, a “square” baler, was a towed machine which I had to reverse into the shed. It took a few attempts, but we eventually got it in place and disconnected. That done, Saoirse climbed into the cab beside me and we headed for the designated field. The cab was tight with the door closed, but we didn’t mind! Old tractors are very easy to drive, just don’t expect power steering. It took only a few minutes to change places, explain the few controls, and Saoirse was driving around the field, with me in the cab beside her. We didn’t spend long, just enough for her to get a sense of the machine, then we changed back again and put the tractor back in the shed. I was going to change for milking, she was going back home, she gave me a quick kiss before heading off.

My sister and mother were smiling mysteriously when I came into the kitchen.

I did the milking that night and the following morning. Then, as we were finishing breakfast, I threw in the ball to start the big game.

“You’re still going to Ballyhowan today?”

“Yes; wanna come? I thought you might be busy.”

My sister gave a little snigger. Whatever did my mother mean?

“Yeah, I need some school shirts. Just two.”

**********************************************

“Hurry up, I’m ready to go.”

Why did I need to pee again? After all, I had nothing to be nervous about; I was just going to divulge a secret to my mother that could mean the end of all the things that I most enjoyed about last year: Cheerleading practice, Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh, dressing, being one of the girls. What could possibly go wrong?

The Volvo pulled out of the driveway; I waited until we were well on our way so my mother wouldn’t be tempted to turn back. Past Ballymore, now on the Ballyhowan Road.

“Mom, I have something to tell you.”

“If it’s about you and Saoirse, I’d have to be blind not to notice!”

“No Mon, it’s not about Saoirse.”

“Good: I’m telling you that girl is far too advanced for you.”

“Mom, it’s not about Saoirse. Anyway, we’re just good friends.”

“OK, so all girls kiss you on the lips when you’re saying goodbye?”

“Please, it’s not about Saoirse; it’s about me.”

“OKkkkkkkk; you’d better tell me so.”

“Promise you won’t be mad?”

“Now what have you done?”

“I’ve done nothing…. It’s who I am…”

“Siiiiighhhhh …. Would I be able to guess?”

“Maybe… it was in the papers…”

“You’d better say it so… just so we’re sure we’re talking about the same thing…”

“I think I’m a girl… I know I’m a girl… I just want to become one…”

Long silence… followed by an even longer one…

“So, when did you decide this?”

“I didn’t decide; I just came to know.”

“OK, when did you come to “know” this?”

“Over the last year… and before that…”

“So, it was all this dressing up with the girls. Your father was right.”

Ouch! That hurt.

“No, but it helped me make up my mind… to know what was wrong…”

“What do you mean, “what was wrong”?"

“I never wanted to grow up to become a boy, I didn’t know what I wanted: Now I’ve found out”.

“But you always have been a boy, it’s not like you’re suddenly becoming one!”

“Yes, but you know everything changes over the next few years. We did all that in school. I don’t want to grow like that… I don’t want to be like that!”

“But that’s how all boys grow up; it’s not something to be afraid of.”

“I know it’s how boys grow up; I’m just not a boy. I know it!”

“But you are a boy; there’s nothing you can do about that!”

“Well… there is… I could start taking puberty stoppers… I mean blockers… then I wouldn’t have to grow up like that.”

“Hmmm, and where did you hear about those?”

Time to lie a little; if I tell the truth then Saoirse gets put in the frame as the instigator.

“I looked it up on the school computer; there was all this talk when I was attacked, and I wanted to see what it was all about.”

“And they’ll let you look at that kind of thing at school!?”

Part exclamation; part question.

“Well, after what happened, they weren’t going to stop me.”

I was now skating on thin ice; if my mother complained to the school, could they check back to see what I’d accessed? Fortunately, she moved on.

“And you nearly got yourself killed that time in Ballyhowan. Do you know how lucky you were? Do you know how upset we all were? And now you’re talking about going back doing the same thing again! How long will it be until something else happens?”

“I know all that. I’m sorry; do you think that I’d be talking about this if it wasn’t important? It’s not just something that I want to do; it’s who I am.”

We drove along in silence for a while, getting into the traffic and the town.

“I’ll drop you outside the shop; we’ll meet in Carmel’s Cakes at 11:30.”

“OK.”

She pulled up on a double yellow line and I got out quickly before a Garda appeared or the cars behind started to honk their horns. She pulled off and I went into the shop. I got a shop assistant to measure my neck and arms to get the right size shirt; I was conscious that I had already started to grow taller, catching up with the Twins soon I guessed. Shirts bought, I gazed longingly at the short blue tartan-pattern kilt-skirts that our girls wore, sometimes very short. I would have loved to have been trying one of them on, going to school in one… ah well; will probably never happen.

I had plenty of time, so I strolled out into the streets to make my way to Carmel’s Cakes, intending to amble along and take in the buzz of the high street. I had only gone a few yards when I realised that the last time that I’d been alone in this town I ended up in A&E. A combination of panic and paranoia crept in and I felt that everybody would recognise me from the pictures of Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh that had been published after the attack. I scanned the street ahead of me looking for groups of lads that might pose a threat. I stopped frequently to look in shop windows, in reality to check that nobody was creeping up behind me. I got to the coffee shop ten minutes early and slipped into a seat at a vacant table, telling the waitress that I was waiting for my mother to come before ordering. She left to deal with more immediate prospects; had she recognised me? Would she be telling people who I was? I resisted the temptation to wait outside; there were more dangers out there.

By the time my mother arrived I was thoroughly uncomfortable and I suspect a bit white-faced as she looked at me and asked if I was OK. I nodded and muttered something about it being a stressful day; she probably assumed this to be on account of the earlier conversation. She sat down at the table and looked at the menu.

“The usual?”

I nodded. I always had lemon cheesecake, fresh cream and a cappuccino; a creature of habit. She always had an americano and lemon drizzle cake. She ordered from the waitress who smiled and displayed no indications of malevolent intent. Maybe she was a good actress?

“So, what’ll we do now?”

“Tell Dad, and I’ll need to go to a doctor.”

“Don’t tell him for a day or two. I need to think about how best to do that… And what’s this about a doctor?”

“Well, if I’m to start on the (whispered) puberty stoppers, I need a doctor to sign off.”

“Don’t start getting ahead of yourself; your father and I haven’t even discussed this yet.”

I was happy to let it sit there as I had succeeded in getting my agenda on the table. The waitress arrived back with our coffee and cakes and we took time out of discussing my future to enjoy the immediate treat.

“Have you told Saoirse about all this?”

Again, I couldn’t admit that I’d told her before my parents!

“Not yet, but I will soon.”

“And what do you think she’ll say?”

“She probably won’t be surprised. I think most of the girls in the class would guess, even if they don’t know what to call me.”

I had deliberately opened this out from Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh to take the heat off my three immediate friends.

Most of the journey home was in silence, not a sulky silence, just thoughtful. I was keenly aware that I’d given my mother a real headache and that she’d probably elect to tell my father herself. I got dropped off at the laneway leading to Niamh’s house: I wanted to tell Saoirse that I would be busy that afternoon but free the next day if she wanted to have a boat trip or swim. I arrived at their house as they were finishing lunch and declined the offer of a coffee on the basis that I’d just had one in Ballyhowan.

“So what are you doing this afternoon?”

Niamh was always curious to know what was happening on the farms. As a non-farmer, she probably felt that she should learn something about her neighbours’ work.

“I need to grease and oil the hay machinery so that it doesn’t seize up over the winter.”

“And you know how to do all that?”

“Kinda; I’ll use the manuals to make sure I don’t miss anything.”

Niamh looked impressed.

“Can I come with you?”

I’d been hoping that Saoirse might ask that.

“It’s very messy work; you’d ruin your clothes and hair.”

“I could read the manual for you.”

Niamh and Aoife were smiling; reluctance feigned, time to accept the offer.

“OK, that’d be good.”

Saoirse disappeared and came back in jeans with two scarves. She folded one diagonally. Then added a second fold along the diagonal and wrapped it around her head and covered all her hair. She handed me the other.

“Here; your hair is almost as long as mine”.

“You can put it on me before we start.”

She guessed that I didn’t want to arrive at the house in the scarf following the morning discussion, so she held on to it. Niamh was going painting and Aoife was to start practicing on a second hand guitar that the Twins had bought to see if they had an aptitude for playing. They had some starter DVDs which they intended to use before thinking about lessons; I’d have done it the other way around. We headed off.

“How’d it go?”

“I’m still alive; could have gone better, or worse.”

I recounted the conversation with my mother.

“And by the way, I’ve only told you just now.”

“OK, but why?”

“’Cause I don’t want them to think that you were part of my decision; it would be an easy out for them to say that this was all your doing and that I should stay away from you.”

“Oh!... thanks, I wouldn’t want that. Was I part of your decision?”.

I reached out and caught her hand.

“Nor me; I wouldn’t want that either. And yes, I don’t think I’d have been able to make the decision without you.”

We arrived at our house to find my mother, father and sister having a cup of tea at the kitchen table.

“Saoirse is going to help me with the hay machines.”

“Not in that top she’s not. Get her one of your old shirts.”

My mother had visions of Saoirse ruining her nice blouse playing around with grease guns. I didn’t bother to explain that she would just be reading the manuals. We went to my room and got her an old shirt. She changed beside me as I also got into working jeans and shirt and we arrived back in the kitchen together to raised eyebrows from my mother and sister. They hadn’t expected us to change together. My father appeared oblivious to the point. I got the manuals from the farm office, which was really an annex to the kitchen and mainly my mother’s domain, and we headed for the machinery shed. Saoirse took the second scarf from her jeans pocket and tied it around my hair. We resembled mildly observant religious women from any one of a number of faiths.

First thing first; light gloves to keep the grease and oil off our hands but still enable sufficient dexterity to work.

Next, spray WD40 onto the nuts which held the cutting disks onto the rotary mower. These disks would be brought back to the dealer to be sharpened each year and the nuts tended to be hard to loosen. My father said many a “prayer” each year when at this job, and doubtless would do the same this year. The WD40 would help.

Then we started to work our way through the manuals. Saoirse’s job was to make sure I didn’t miss any of the greasing nipples.

“Nipples? Is that what they’re really called?”

It only dawned on me then…

“Yes… are you being funny?”

“No… just didn’t know that you’re an expert on nipples.”

I waved the grease gun at her.

“Stop that you… or I might end up greasing …”

Of course I didn’t dare. Despite our growing intimacy, I tended to let her do the “driving”.

We worked away for almost two hours and got through the job in good order. Moving parts that didn’t have a greasing point were given a brushing with oil to prevent rust; each machine tended to have a different manufacturer specification for grease, so we had a separate grease gun for each machine which had to be refilled once used. I was a mess; there wasn’t a bit of grease on Saoirse!

We were finishing up.

“What’s the problem with the nuts you sprayed at the start?”

“They tend to jam up solid and are very hard to get loose: That’s the socket wrench my father uses there. It’s one of those jobs that just has to be done.”

I was pointing at a wrench on the wall. My father was meticulous about his tools; a place for everything, and everything in its place!

“Handle’s too short”.

“Huh?”

“Physics class, lever and all that?”

“Yes, but he has to be in very close to hold the socket on the nut. Even if the handle was long, he couldn’t use the length. Anyway, they don’t come with long handles.”

“Hmmm, there’s a long handle.”

Saoirse was eying up a large nailbar, about a metre in length, hanging in its place on the wall.

We used three hose clips, evenly spaced on the wrench handle, to attach the wrench to the nailbar. I removed the split pin that acted as a safety clip for the nut and inserted an oversized screwdriver, again kept on the wall with the wrench especially for this job, into the hole designed to stop the disk spinning, held the socket on the nut and Saoirse pushed the end of the nailbar with her hands. Not a budge.

“Try the rubber mallet, not too hard.”

Some gentle taps and the nut moved. We only needed about a quarter turn to ensure it was free. If we loosened it too much the cutting disk would fall on the ground either taking my arm with it or, even worse, getting blunted on the concrete floor. I replaced the split pin and we spent a half an hour loosening all the other nuts. Job finished, time for milking soon and Saoirse had to go home. We left the nailbar and the wrench coupled together beside the machine so that I could help my father when he was ready to remove the cutting disks fully. I was too dirty to give her a hug, so she kissed me and headed off. She forgot that she was wearing my shirt.

I had to get washed before milking; grease and oil would ruin the milk and the milking machinery, to say nothing about possibly upsetting the dignity of the cows by appearing in their presence looking like a grease monkey. I did leave the scarf on my head; I thought it looked well and would keep my hair clean at the milking. My parents had already started when I joined them in the milking parlour. My father hadn’t expected to see me.

“You finished the machines already?”

“Yeah, got the nuts loosened on the mower as well.”

“You what?”

“It’s OK, just loosened. Split pins are back in until you’re ready to take the disks off.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah; Saoirse put a lever on the wrench.”

He went next door to the machinery shed to see for himself. He came back in, shaking his head.

“That girl will make a great farmer’s wife some day!”

My mother slightly, almost imperceptibly, rolled her eyes.

After milking and breakfast the next morning, my father and I had the disks off in about an hour, packed carefully in the small trailer, separated by lengths of 4x2 timbers to stop them getting damaged by hitting off each other, and he was ready to be on his way to the dealer’s. I declined his offer to go along on the basis that I was going out on the lake for a row around and a swim. My mother called him back:
“Can you wait for about ten minutes; I’ll go along with you”.

It was very unlike her to just go along for the ride.

**************************************************

I pulled the boat up on what I was now starting to call Saoirse’s beach and tied the painter to its usual rock. I had intended to wait there for her, but Aoife appeared at the gable of her house and waved me to come up. Niamh was in the studio and Saoirse was committing crimes against melody with the guitar; I couldn’t figure how Niamh was able to work. I watched for a while as the Twins tried to figure out the essence of guitars and declined their offer to contribute to the cacophony; they were going to have to get lessons!

Eventually they called a halt and Saoirse and I headed off. The day was warm but humid; half the sky was obscured by cumulus clouds and a shower was likely but not inevitable. We both had light waterproofs and the boat had a cover which we could pull back from the bow to shelter almost half its length if required.

“I think she’s going to tell him today; they both headed off in the car together.”

There was no need to explain the context!

“That’s sooner than you’d expected?”

“Yeah, she’s probably taking advantage of him being in a particularly good mood. He was real impressed with you; said you’d make a great farmer’s wife some day!”

We got into the boat, Saoirse at the stern to lift the bow, and I punted off.

“Did he really say that?”

She was pensive; maybe I shouldn’t have said it?

“Sorry… he meant it to be positive… very positive.”

We shared a thwart and rowed away slowly.

“I know he did; it’s just that people have an expectation of what we’ll be… what we’ll become. Back in the States I’d be expected to be a cheerleader and humping some footballer. Here I’ll be a great farmer’s wife.”

We normally didn’t use this kind of language between us; it made me a bit uncomfortable.

“You know that it’s only a figure of speech here? It’s not meant literally. We speak the same language, kinda, but use it differently.”

She stopped rowing and put an arm around me. I had to stop too or we’d just go in a circle.

“I know that. I’m not giving out to you, but it’s going to be a hard year for both of us. You more than me, I know, but people will turn on me as well. Especially the lads: First they’ll say I’m no fun; then I’m a frigid bitch; then they’ll figure it out and I’ll be the Black Valley Dyke. Not to my face of course, or to yours, but behind my back when they realise that they won’t be getting a leg over.”

In one way my mother was right; she was much more advanced than me. I hadn’t gotten around to her level of understanding of what we both were facing yet and her frank language was difficult for me to easily absorb. She leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“Sorry; there’s me nattering on, it’s a much bigger day for you. If your mother is telling your father, this afternoon is going to be interesting!”.

We rowed away again, together. Eventually I broke the silence.

“If he reacts bad, there could be trouble.”

“You know you won’t be on your own?”

“Huh?”

“If it really gets bad, come over to us.”

“Thanks, but that puts you all in the frame.”

“Maybe; nothing we can’t manage. Should I tell Niamh?”

“She doesn’t know already?”

“I haven’t spoken to her, if that’s what you mean. Doesn’t mean she doesn’t know, or at least suspect.”

“Don’t tell her yet, officially like. It’s better to keep it quiet until I see how things go at home.”

“OK”.

We were arriving at “our” beach. Knowing the drill, Saoirse moved to the stern and I grounded the bow. I had no sooner moved a ballast sandbag to the bow when large drops of rain started to splatter around, and on, us. I grabbed the canopy at the bow and pulled it back amidships. Saoirse grabbed her bag and hopped forward. By the time I’d secured the canopy, she had spread a yoga mat on the floorboards and was lying back in a parody of a model’s pose, one leg straight, one knee raised, chest pushed forward, and a come-and-get-me look on her face. I slid in beside her; she immediately rolled on top of me and started a deep, long kiss. She pulled back, took off her top and bra, and leaned forward again, holding my arms by the wrists above my head, and draping her boobs over my face.

“Now, let’s see what you’ve learned about nipples!”

I think I passed the exam…

**************************************************

All too soon, it was time to go. With my parents away, and my sister gone off with her XRAD-driving boyfriend, I’d need to start the milking. It was hard to move from a place of the most perfect peace and contentment to the real world where I I feared that I might end up being shredded in a few hours’ time. We slipped into the lake for a swim and to wash each other off; I’d have to wear long sleeves for a while until the marks on my wrists, where she’d tied them with the painter, disappeared. We walked ashore, dried each other off and got dressed. We rowed back to Saoirse’s beach.

“Does it change your mind, about wanting to be a girl?”

“No, I still want to be a girl. But I don’t think I want to be with boys, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Maybe we’re both lesbians!”

I had to laugh at her comment. I was a frustrated lesbian in a male body; let’s not make it simple!

“And you; do you still think that you don’t like boys?”

She thought for a minute…

“No, I mean yes, I don’t like boys. I wouldn’t have done that with anyone else… like I said before… to me you’re a girl…”

“Just with an unusual configuration…”

“We’ll work around that when we need to… ”

I wasn’t quite sure what she meant, but I was sure that she’d show me.

**************************************************

I had the cows in and had just started to wash the first batch of udders with warm water when I heard the crunching of tyres on the gravel as the Volvo arrived back. After a while my father arrived out, changed for milking. He glanced around, nodded, looked at the machine and waited. Milking in our configuration was a batch business; once the cows are hooked up, it was a matter of waiting until the job is done, then start on the next batch.

“You haven’t worn your scarf; I thought you were keeping that hair clean?”

I recognise this as a way of introducing the Elephant.

“Saoirse only gave me one and I’ve washed it. The cap will have to do.”

“Your mother told me…. “

“I thought so when you both headed off. I would have, maybe should have, done it myself.”

“Probably better she did… “

“Probably… sorry…it’s how I am… I know I’m causing a lot of trouble for both of you… “

“A lot more for yourself, you know that?”

“Yeah; not like I didn’t get a preview.”

“It’s the hardest part for your mother and me; you know that don’t you?”

“I know that… sorry…”

“Don’t keep saying sorry; we need to move on now…”

“Move on?”

“We called by the Doctor, it’s why we’re so late. You will need to see a Clinical Psychologist in Galway. Before you do that, say nothing to no one! You might change your mind.”

Batch 1 was finished. Unclip the machines from the udders, second batch in, warm water wash, clip up, start all over again.

I wasn’t going to either correct his double negative or assert that my mind was made up. The door was open; don’t push too hard.

“OK, I’ll say nothing. But I’ve told Saoirse… “

“And she’s OK with this?”

“She’s not surprised; probably no one will be in school.”

“Will she keep it quite?”

“Of course; she’s my friend!”

“Friend? OK. Look, nothing will happen before school starts so you’re going back like last year. If you want to do that girl group stuff again, that’s OK, but say nothing until we know where this is going, OK?”

“Promise Dad, nothing!”

**************************************************

Star Anise, our history teacher, had spent the last class talking about the Celtic Fringe, not a hair style, rather how the Celtic peoples, now the Irish, Welsh, Scots, Bretons and probably Galatians had been pushed to the fringes of Europe first by Romans and subsequently by Germanic tribes such as the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Franks. It was his misfortune that he’d developed the habit of announcing the start of his class with the Irish words for History Now, that is Stair Anois, hence his nickname. Now, in classic teaching style, he was rehearsing his previous class through a Q&A session.

“OK, so what can someone tell me about Offa’s Dyke?”

“Sir!”

One of our class funny lads had his hand up.

“Right Frank, you tell us.”

“Well Sir, Offa was a Saxon Chief, and Offa’s Dyke was his Lesbian daughter”

There was some laughing amongst his cohort. Saoirse was in the seat ahead of me; I saw her back stiffen. So did the girls on either side of her, as did Aoife, who was sitting in the same row beside me.

“Frank, sometimes they’re laughing at you, not with you. You don’t have to play the class clown to amuse them.”

Star Anise went to move on.

“Sir!”

Saoirse was on her feet. So this was it; she had told the other three Ghleann Dhubh girls how she would use a suitable opportunity to out herself, rather than let people figure it out for themselves.

“Saoirse?”

“Sir, Frank’s comment was in contravention of the school policy on diversity and inclusion. Personally I find it particularly offensive and think he should apologize for it.”

Star Anise understood immediately that this was a form of announcement.

“Thanks for bringing this to my attention Saoirse; you’re right. Frank, stand up and apologize to the class.”

Frank stood up and apologised to the class. Only the very slow would not realise that Saoirse had just outed herself. Frank came over immediately after class and apologised personally to her. Most of the class tried to act cool as if the revelation was nothing remarkable. Saoirse and I walked around the school yard, arm in arm, at lunchtime. The class, and school, regarded us as an item; hard to know what they’d make of us now. Aoife and Ciara diplomatically stayed a bit behind us.

“Best to come out that way; at least I don’t have to pretend anymore.”

“I wonder what they’ll say when I come out.”

“They’ll know why we’re still together, and they’ll rename our girl group.”

We were performing again at the Christmas show and in the County Schools Musical Competition.

“Go on Saoirse, what’ll they call us?”

“Cailíní Ait Ghleann Dhubh”.

We both broke out in peals of laughter in the middle of the school yard. Ciara and Aoife, discreetly shadowing us, thought it now safe to join. They didn’t fully get my situation, but a lesbian and an apparent boy pretending to be a girl fitted the new Irish name and they joined in the hilarity. OK, it didn’t mean exactly the “Queer Girls Of Glendoo” but Ait was the word we tended to use for “Gay”. (It actually means strange.)

**************************************************

The Madra (Dog) O’Dwyer, the School Headmaster, issued the following announcement by email just before we were scheduled to return to school after the Christmas break.

Dear Parents and Students,

I wish to announce that the student that you have heretofore known as Vernon O’Dell will be attending school in the coming term as Ms Aisling O’Dell.

On behalf of the Board of Management and the Staff I would like to formally welcome Aisling to our school. We have all previously become acquainted with her as a member Cailíní Canadh Ghleann Dhubh.

We know that you all will also welcome Aisling and do your utmost to ensure she feels at home.

Your attention is drawn to the School Policy on Diversity and Inclusion.

Any queries relating to this announcement should be addressed directly to me.

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