Miss Flood stood wooden-faced, at the front of the class.
She was a formidable figure, heavy without being fat, with dyed
brown hair swept up and back, Maggie Thatcher style. Beside her
and dressed in a white coat, an equally large Nurse Dunne was
pulling on a pair of surgical gloves. She was about to begin her
six-monthly inspection, examining teeth, probing into ears and
parting hair to look at our scalps.
Miss Flood clapped her hands for attention. ‘Boys! Boys!’ she shouted, in her drill sergeant’s
voice. Her eyes sparkled with anxiety behind her glasses as she stared at the
rows of desks.
‘ We will start the inspection from the back,’ she said. The boys seated in the back row
were the lepers, of the class. The boys, who, according to Miss Flood, didn’t pay attention,
didn’t do their homework properly, were late for school and generally were boys
that, in her opinion, were not worthy of her time.
First up was Bosco O’Hara, a country boy with a crow’s nest of red hair and a red face
to match. Miss Flood looked at him distastefully as he passed her. Nurse Dunne peered
into his mouth and ears, and then poked around in his hair. Engrossed by the whole
spectacle, I sat on the edge of my seat for it was my turn next.
Nurse Dunne grunted her satisfaction and told him to sit down again. Miss Flood’s
mouth curled downwards in disappointment that nothing had been found wrong with
Bosco.
‘Next!’ she barked. I passed a smirking Bosco in the aisle between the desks on my
way up to the front of the class. Nurse Dunne pulled my lips apart like a horse trader at
Ballinasloe fair and inspected my teeth. She twisted my ears, yanking my head to the
one side to peer into my ear cavities. She then went through my hair with all the enthusiasm
of a beachcomber that had just found something of interest washed up on the
shore. She grunted, and I took this as an indication to sit down again.
The inspection dragged on in almost complete silence, broken only by the occasional
cough and the scratching of Nurse Dunne’s pen as she wrote on her clipboard. Boy
after boy went up to the waiting nurse and was inspected by her as if she were a white
slave trader at an auction. We sat in our seats and Miss Flood her arms folded under her
plateau of a bosom, glared down at us, daring us to misbehave.
Finally, Nurse Dunne was ready to inspect the last boy, Colin James, who sat in the
desk immediately in front Miss Gillen’s table and who was her favourite pupil. Miss Flood
smiled her encouragement at Colin.
A pink-faced, well-scrubbed boy, Colin was as squeaky clean as a new balloon. During
the morning or afternoon milk break, if Miss Flood had an extra chocolate biscuit, she
would smile and offer it to him. Colin in turn, would sometimes offer her an apple or
would walk up to her desk, his sandals making polite, squishy noises on the floor, and
offer her a sandwich. They were delicate little sandwiches, cut into triangles with the
crusts cut off.
Colin, in polished sandals and turned down white ankle socks, now stood obediently in
front of Nurse Dunne and bent his well-groomed head with its shiny, black hair for her
inspection. She began flicking through his hair like a bank teller counting notes and all
of a sudden froze. She put her thumb and forefinger together, tweezers-like, and lifted
something from Colin’s scalp. She studied it briefly and a triumphant gleam came into
her eyes. Her cheeks lifted slightly. It was as near to a smile as I ever saw Nurse Dunne
manage. She stretched out a podgy arm towards Miss Flood, displaying her find like a
trophy.
Miss Flood’s mouth hung open for a fraction of a second. ‘Take it away! Take it away!’
she screamed, her face deathly pale and she jumped backwards with all the agility of a
ballet dancer.
Nurse Dunne flicked whatever it was into the fire and we heard the faint sizzle of something
burning. A buzz of excitement erupted from the class and boys half stood in their
desks to get a better view. She resumed her inspection of Colin’s head, this time peering
more closely at his scalp. She again put her thumb and forefinger together and lifted
something from his head. Miss Flood stood with her back to the wall, her face twisted in
fear and one hand held protectively at her throat. Nurse Dunne dropped whatever she
had in her fingers and it scurried across the teacher’s desk. With the speed of a gunfighter,
she lifted a ruler and brought it down on the desk with a loud splat.
Hunter Moore, who also sat in the front row and had a bird’s eye view of the whole
episode, turned and excitedly informed the rest of the class in a loud whisper that it was
a wee grey thing with hundreds of feet. Colin stood in front of the class, tears of shame
brimming in his eyes and his pink knees knocking together like castanets. Nurse Dunne
and Miss Flood held a whispered consultation during which we clearly heard the words,
infestation and personal hygiene.
Nurse Dunne put her files in a briefcase and snapped it shut. ‘I’ll be back on Monday,’
she warned. Miss Flood nodded glumly and I knew that we were in for it when the nurse
left.
Miss Flood stretched out her arms wide and grasping her table on either side, inched
it backwards, further isolating herself from the front row. She left just enough room for
her to squeeze into her seat. Her face turned an ugly red and she stared at Colin with a
mixture of sympathy and revulsion.
‘Never in my born days have I been so ashamed of anything,’ she hissed. ‘And poor
Colin of all people,’ she said, her voice now breaking. She pulled a hankie from her
sleeve and gave her nose a genteel blow.
‘Miss! Miss!’ piped up Bosco. ‘What were they Miss?’
She glared accusingly at the back of the class. Her voice rose. ‘Nothing but dirt and
filth,’ she screamed. Struggling to keep her voice calm, she said, ‘I want every single
one of you to come in here on Monday morning with your hair cut up short.’ She held up
her hand, forefinger and thumb about half an inch apart. ‘That short,’ she ordered. ‘And
you,’ she shrieked at the unfortunate Colin, ‘stop your sniffling.’
She instructed us to read our books while she stared vacantly out of the window, past
the geraniums on the windowsill to the hills beyond. She gave the occasional shudder
and sighed repeatedly.
During the afternoon break she stayed in her seat and Colin, in a desperate act of reconciliation,
left his desk and offered her one of his sandwiches.
‘Get back to your desk,’ she barked.
The sandwich dangled limply from Colin’s hand and he started sniffling again.
Later, when I told my mother about the days events at school, she looked alarmed and
blessed herself.
‘Those things spread like wildfire,’ she said and sent me to the chemist shop to buy a
fine comb.
She made me kneel down on the floor in front of her and spread a clean pillowcase
across her knees.
‘Put your head on my knees,’ she commanded and then began scraping my head with
the steel comb. It made a noise inside my head like the sound my mother’s knife makes
when she peels a turnip for the Saturday stew. She dug the comb into my scalp and
dragged it from the back of my head to the front. Fearful, I looked up, expecting to see
blood dripping from the comb’s teeth and staining the white pillowcase.
‘Miss Flood is a very proud woman,’ my mother said suddenly. I clutched at this opportunity
to get my mother talking, anything to get away from the purgatory I was enduring
with her scraping the head off me.
‘How’s that?’ I asked, my voice muffled as I spoke into the pillowcase.
‘She was always the same, even as a small girl.’ My mother spoke softly as she began
reminiscing about her childhood. ‘Always thought she was a bit better than the rest of
us. Very clean and immaculately turned out for school every day.’ She sighed and resumed
combing my head, a lot gentler this time. ‘And her hair, it was her crowning glory.
All the other girls admired it. It was thick and brown and as shiny as a newly-shelled
chestnut.’ I grunted into my mother’s knees.
‘Of course every weekend her father gave her a bottle of beer to rinse her hair with.
Mister Flood said it would strengthen and thicken it. And he would know, for he was an
educated man. When I asked my father for some beer he just laughed and said it was
a terrible waste of drink.’ She resumed her attack on my head with renewed vigour, as
if it was my fault that her father didn’t give her beer to strengthen her hair. I squealed in
agony.
‘All done,’ she eventually said. My scalp tingled and I looked at the pillowcase. My
mother saw my look. ‘Nothing there,’ she said. She gave me an affectionate pat on the
head and smiled. ‘You’re as clean as a whistle.’
When my father came in from work he went out to the back shed and got his hand clippers,
the ones that he trims his Kerry Blues with. He sat me on a chair in the backyard
and began shearing my hair. My mother tut-tutted as she watched my fair hair falling to
the ground.
‘It’s terrible looking,’ she said sadly. ‘You’ll look like someone just out of jail in your
Confirmation photos.’
On Monday morning, we gathered in the playground before school. Miss Flood looked
pleased with herself as she lined us up, and we shuffled after her, like miniature members
of a chain gang, into the classroom. ‘My, my,’ she beamed, ‘aren’t we the smart
looking bunch of lads. Nurse Dunne will certainly find nothing wrong with us today.’
Unable to keep quiet, I blurted, ‘My mother said that we’ll look like a bunch of convicts
in our Confirmation photos.’
‘Nonsense,’ she said, ‘sure it’s not for another six weeks yet.’ She turned her back on
us and began writing on the blackboard.
From my seat at the back of the classroom, I stared at the rows of semi-bald heads.
They were all shapes and sizes with the hair shorn. I nudged Bosco with my knee and
we started sniggering. Miss Flood whirled around from the blackboard, her eyes flashing
angrily.
‘What’s so funny?’ she snapped.
Bosco and I bit into the backs of our hands in a vain attempt to stop giggling.
‘Up here,’ she ordered and reached for her cane. A strand of hair had fallen down over
her forehead and she angrily swept it back into place. Her mouth suddenly opened wide
and she started sucking in air like a drowning man that had popped up for the third time.
She dropped the cane and started shaking her hand in a wild frenzy. She stared down
at her table and began making funny little whimpering noises.
Colin, looking pinker than ever, jumped up from his desk. ‘It’s alright Miss Flood. I’ll kill
it, I’ll kill it,’ he bleated. He clenched his hand into a mini fist and brought it down with
a thump on the table. He smiled in triumph. ‘It’s alright now Miss. There’s no need to
worry,’ he shouted gleefully. ‘It’s dead.’
But of course it wasn’t all right, for by then, the formidable Miss Flood was out in the
playground, screeching her head off.

This is just to say
It was not my fault.
So many years apart,
On a ship
That never sailed.
To see you
And never hold you.
Wire deliberately placed
So tantalisingly close
That our fingers
Even stretched,
Could not touch.
Your feet,
Twisted and cut
By a surgeon’s knife.
Progression never followed
By a caring father.
I should have been
At Lourdes with you,
But I was in Maidstone,
Not in Kent,
But in Belfast Lough.

It was a special day. Rory’s twenty-first. Where was he? Why
had he not come like a knight in shining armour and swept her
away? They could set up home like a proper family. Sinead still
clung limpet-like to the possibility that one day he might find
her.

‘Sinead! Sinead.’ Louder this time, impatience in the bullish
voice. You’re wan dull bastard,’ her father said. ‘Always standing
there with yer head in the clouds.’
‘How do I look,’ he asked, gyrating like a teenager.
Sinead stared at him. He looked ridiculous shoe-horned into an outdated suit. A smile,
huge face expectant. Praise me the drink-swollen features said. Tell me I’m still a great
puller of women. His purple nose twitched.
‘Fuckin eejit,‘ she thought, instead, conditioned to a life of servitude, Sinead mouthed
‘Grand, you look grand.’ A happy sigh and he was gone.
Sinead’s face was expressionless as she stared out the window. It’s good to daydream
the psychiatrist tells her. It helps, but then wasn’t everything supposed to help,
the Valium, the electric treatment that left her feeling drowsy for days and the endless
therapeutic sessions making raffia table coasters.
She thought of Rory again and a smile pushed at the corners of her mouth. The remains
of beauty were etched on her face but Sinead didn’t notice. It had been a long
time since she had looked at her reflection in a mirror.
The dance that night so many years ago was supposed to be a special occasion. A
large fleet of naval boats docked in town the previous week. Talk in the shirt factories
had been excited. Descriptions of uniforms and how different the foreigners were to the
local men was the main topic of conversation. He was a nice lad. A Yank. She had never
done it before. Didn’t expect anything to happen. It did.
Her mother cupped her face in her hands and cried. Sinead had expected that. What
she didn’t expect was her father’s reaction. His first punch caught Sinead on the back
of the head. Her face bounced into her dinner plate. His second smashed into her chin
knocking her to the floor. He lashed out with his right foot catching her on the stomach.
A sharp pain ignited and exploded through her body, making her retch. ‘Get up ye dirty
wooer ye,’ he roared. She looked up at him, her vision blurred by mashed potatoes and
turnip.
He grabbed Sinead’s hair and twisted her to her feet. ‘It’s England for you ye fucker ye.
For I’m not going to be shamed by the likes of you.’
Later, Fr. McLaughlin arrived. A whispered conversation took place between her parents
and the parish priest. Sinead heard the words, ‘Good Catholic family. No, no one
will know. Discretion is the word.’
Fr. Mc Laughlin smiled and shook her parents’ hands. Ignoring Sinead, he left the
house, his cassock making swishing noises; the same noises Sinead’s frock made the
night she jived in the Corinthian Ballroom with her American boyfriend.
Sinead liked Sister Bernadette. Cheerfully plump, Bernadette was the youngest nun in
the convent. She joked with the girls sent there from all over Ireland. Sinead’s dormitory
was the blue one, the one with the blue blankets. The next dormitory was the green one
and next to that was the red. Her typewritten name was cello taped to the tubular frame
of her bed. All her clothes were marked with her own number, five hundred and nine. No
mix-ups and no arguing over who owned what.
Laundry work was hard, sweaty and repetitive. Letters home went unanswered. Those
girls that did receive letters received them slit open and censored. Whole sentences
covered in thick black ink stains. ‘Just in case,’ Mother superior said with a hint of accusation.
Sinead grew used to the nightly whimpering in the dormitory. She never got used to the
squealing of the girls as they hammered on the dormitory windows as their children were
driven out of their lives in the same black car. She dreaded hearing the scrunch of its
tyres on the gravel in the convent’s forecourt. Like an avenging angel the car swept into
the grounds and whisked the tiny bundles of life away to their new parents.
‘You can’t go home,’ Mother Superior said. ‘Not even for your mother’s funeral. Just
look at you for goodness sake. What would people think?‘ Sinead knew it was futile to
argue.
The baby was born healthy. A boy. Sinead pleaded to see it. You know the rules she was
told. Sister Bernadette broke all the rules and let her see it – a small wrinkled thing with a
fontanel pulsating softly beneath a fine down of fair hair. When Sinead awoke again she
was told her son was gone forever. The drama of motherhood stolen from her because
of a forced signature.
Twenty-one today. Sinead sighed and switched on the television. In the cockpit of an
aircraft Charlton Heston struggled at the controls. In the cabin, passengers screamed.
Depressed, Sinead pressed the red button on the remote. The screen made a crackling
sound as it went blank. She went to the hall and put on her coat.
The chapel was almost empty. Incense from the evening Devotions tingled her nostrils.
All was quiet except for the exaggerated whisperings of gummy old women mouthing
payers.
She tried not to think of Rory but couldn’t. How could I have done it she asked herself
for the umpteenth time? You can’t blame yourself her psychiatrist said on numerous occasions.
I’ll increase the strength of your tablets, he said reaching across the table for
his prescription pad.
Sinead stared at the old women. Their eyes stared back and spoke to her. See me,
they accused. See how holy I am? See how I kneel here every day and pray? Soon you
will be like me, nothing to look forward to except death. Rosaries rattled against wood.
You’re nothing but a dirty whore the eyes accused, a dirty rotten whore who abandoned
her infant son in pagan England. Sinead ran from the chapel.
She switched on the television. Charlton Heston now carried a child in his arms. He
staggered through a swamp. Blood poured down his face; his once immaculate uniform
tattered. The child limp, arms dangling, swung in time to Heston’s movements.
Disgusted, Sinead pressed the mute button on the remote. She dozed.
A slight noise in the hall wakened her. She knew she must have been sleeping for more
than an hour for it was now dark. The silent screen flickered on the walls. Louder this
time, the noise sounded again. She heard a woman giggle and the hushed voice of a
man. Cajoling. Coaxing, almost pleading.
A hand appeared around the door and switched on the light. Her father, eyes reddened
with drink, stood in the doorway. A stupid expression on his face, he glared at her. The
giggling woman bumped into his back, rattling the bottles of his carry-out.
‘I thought ye were at the bingo,’ he slurred. Open-mouthed, Sinead stared at the woman.
The woman put her jaw on the silver shoulder of her father’s coat. ‘What’s wrong
Charlie darling?’ she said drunkenly; her lower jaw unable to move properly, giving her
face a fatter than normal expression.
Fiona Doherty! Sinead’s brain screamed. Her and me Da! Her only my age. In the same
class at school. The biggest tramp in the area. Anything for a drink and that’s including
breakfast. Sinead jumped to her feet. ‘Get that fucker outta here,’ she yelled.
Fiona sniffed. ‘At least I didn’t abandon me wain,’ she smirked.
Sinead lunged. Charlie stepped back and pulled the door shut.
Crying, Sinead fell to her knees. The front door slammed shut. She heard the clicky
click of high heels and her father’s apologetic voice saying, ‘Pay no heed to that idiot for
we all know she’s a simple bastard.’
Sinead went to the dresser and took out her tablet bottle. One, two, three Valium she
popped into her mouth and washed them down with a glass of milk. Much later as the
old house creaked and settled in the night, Sinead slept fitfully. Her dreams, peppered
with images of Rory. She dreamed also of her father’s wedding. Fiona Doherty’s wedding
dress stretched tight against her swollen stomach. Sinead stood in a circle of old
women who danced around her like dervishes, cackling as they swung their rosaries in
the air.

In Memory of Paddy Mullan

Thigh deep on the river bed
He stands content
His line curls to the flick of a fish
Silence
The water well in flood
Brown depths
Where patient trout twist in the ripples
Leap to the gleam of the fly
A light breeze and the river rushes
Foam over stones
Tumbles and gushes across
His feet
He draws the line
Waits for the tug of a young trout
Shadows stretch over sun-flecked water
Alone in quiet company
He reels in leans back
Casts out
The rhythm endless
Comforting
A step further, further
The boots weigh him down
No time to say goodbye
One step too many
His foot slips on green-slimed stones
A brief surprise
The river tricks him
Like an old friend
Wraps itself round him
In final embrace
Who will write his eulogy
Who can capture his laughter
His quiet wit
He wrote a story once
Where life could not let go of love
And death took on a humour
Of its own
I’ll bet he’s smiling now
At the irony of it all