‘Formative Years’ by Seán Kenny

Welcome.

This is not always a welcoming place.

Nonetheless, you are here. You are wet to begin, slick with the substances of your very being, a coating of blood and mucus and vernix. They will clean and dry you, render you presentable. The midwife will herald your arrival with the certitude of a courtier announcing royal guests. ‘A beautiful baby boy.’ The words will ring with a plain and pleasing truth through the delivery suite, which is fuggy with warmth and hush and blear-eyed brand-new love.

*

You will sit on your father’s lap, aged four, proffering the large book of fairy tales, thumbing eagerly to your favourite story. He will propose reading one of the other tales – ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ or ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’. A boy’s story. You will demur, patting the page with a quiet insistence. Your father will sigh and say, ‘Well, okay, just once more, though.’ Arriving at the first large illustration of Snow White, you will point at her dress, with its golden floor-length skirt and brightly striped puff sleeves, and you will smile broadly.

‘Absolutely totally beautiful,’ you will say.

Your father, impressed by your command of these multisyllabic words, will turn to your mother and say, ‘He still fancies Snow White,’ to her answering laugh. Presently you too will laugh, responding to their prompt. Your father will decline to read ‘Cinderella’ to you, but later on this day, your mother will, after much persistence on your part, and only when your father is not present.

*

On Halloween when you are six, you will brave the forbidden territory of your sister’s room. Nine years old and imperious, she will scowl. ‘What do you want?’ You will see it hanging from a wardrobe handle, the cornflower blue tutu, its frilled white overlay with twin black bows, its crimson heart.

‘Your Alice dress is pretty.’

‘I know. That’s why I picked it.’

You will feel the silky texture of the overlay between finger and thumb.

‘Hey! Leave it. You got your own costume.’

‘You can try mine on if you want?’

‘Ooh, that’s gross, no way. It’s not my fault if you don’t like Spiderman. Why did you get it when you don’t even like him? Oh my God!’

After Halloween, one afternoon when she is visiting a schoolfriend’s house, you will creep into her room, finding the Alice dress discarded – shamefully – under a pile of other clothes. You will turn the lock on the bathroom to find your heart making violence in your chest. The dress will be too large. It will fit you like nothing you have ever worn before. You will risk only a minute or so, stealing looks in the mirror as you dare, tiptoe back into your sister’s room, return the dress to the precise spot where you found it lying.

*

Aged eight you will sit on the floor of your friend Leah’s bedroom. Her Communion dress will lie lustrously across her bed, your eyes feasting upon the bead embellishments, lace detailing, tulle skirt and satin ribbon cinching the waist. All in perfect ivory. You will consider your own Communion outfit, the hateful dark suit that scratches your legs, that renders you alien to yourself.

You will recall the day of its purchase. Crying through gritted teeth because the suits are wrong – in colour, in cut, in ways beyond your understanding yet. Submitting, by the end of a war of attrition, to an outfit. Your mother telling you how handsome you look and proposing a new, shorter, hairstyle to augment the effect – ‘a big boy’s haircut’. Her saying that this would make you more handsome still. And you snarling and roaring with renewed fury. Threatening to withdraw from the sacrament altogether. Finally, being permitted your long hair. Your own hair: its hundred thousand dumb strands of keratinised protein a battleground and finally a concession.

At this moment, though, you will be ravening Leah’s dress. Unlike your sister, she will not whine in complaint when you touch its smooth and cool surfaces.

‘Your dress is so gorgeous.’

‘Thanks.’

You will feel your breathing quicken, a seething warmth through your person. You will force the words out against the resistance, parachutists from an aeroplane.

‘I should try it on. For the laugh.’

And Leah will laugh. ‘Nooo! You’re a boy!’

‘It’ll be funny,’ you will say, drawing further giggles. ‘Like dressing up at Halloween.’

‘You have to be careful with it.’

You will hold it like a holy object. Leah will close her eyes as you change, chuckling all the while. You will discard your own clothes with ready haste but linger over the dress, savour its slide and rustle. You will be suffused with it, as though it has entered your bloodstream, nerve endings, brain. Leah will laugh with renewed force when she sees you. You will play up the comedy – this feeling safer, like a life buoy Leah has thrown you with her girlish hilarity. Pouting like a model, walking with swaying hips, forming huge balls of rolled-up tissues to stash under the dress next to your chest.

‘Stop staring at my boobies!’ you will admonish, falsetto. ‘O.M.G, so rude!’

Leah will lie pinned to her bed, skewered by hysterics.

‘Do the walk again, do the walk again!’ she will say, when she regains the power of speech. She will add some of her mother’s gloss to your lips. ‘Perfect!’ she will say, as you pout anew. ‘We have to take pictures,’ she will add. In the manic whirl of it all you will pose and she will snap.

Amidst the hubbub Leah’s mother will appear at the door with popcorn and jellies, saying, ‘I’ve got snacks!’ You will watch her face darken, a shadow’s sudden sweep across a field on a sunny day. She will say your name once, very quietly. More firmly, ‘Leah, put your Communion dress back in the wardrobe.’

‘We were only playing,’ your friend will say.

Her mother will leave the room, the popcorn and jellies departing with her.

In school you will not know how to talk to Leah anymore, and so will studiously ignore her when she calls your name from across the desk. After three days she will stop trying to speak to you. Sometimes you will see her glancing over at you while she whispers to other children. At this, you will feel jolting daggers of pain in your stomach. You will never again visit Leah’s house, occasioning a mingling of sorrow and relief in you. Nor will you ever establish the precise sequence of events leading to the Communion dress photos being published on a social media platform.

You will change schools.

*

Your parents’ arguments will grow in frequency, duration and intensity over the following year. You will come to visualise these fights as a long snake-like balloon being blown and blown till its limits are tested. You will brace yourself always against the point of explosion.

One day, your mother will arrive home with expensive headphones for you and your sister. You will be sitting at the kitchen table. She will say that she is gifting them to you because of your love of music, then leave the headphones sitting in the bag and walk out of the room. Noise-cancelling, it will read on the plastic packaging. ‘Cool headphones,’ you will say to your sister later, but she will merely shake her head and turn away from you.

There will be many headphone nights. Occasions too when it is not necessary for you to run your finger along the volume fader to maximum. Other times, the music in your ears will be pierced only by the louder screams or particularly energetic and sudden movements from the floor below.

Some evenings you will try to hear, a moth to the flames of your parents’ rage. You will assume a frozen crouch as far down the staircase as you dare, usually two steps behind your sister. The word ‘phase’ will drift up often from the machine gun bursts of their rows.

In the year of your tenth birthday your parents will separate. This will not be your fault, although for many years to come you will harbour the notion that it is. In truth, their arguments over you will be one topic of disagreement amongst many.

Over time the walls of your room in your father’s new house will become plastered with posters of footballers – these pulled from the magazines you find lying on your bed on each visit. On hearing your father’s tread on the stairs, you will grab the latest magazine. Often asking you questions about players and teams, he will usually appear satisfied with the answers you supply, saying, ‘Good lad, good lad.’ In your mother’s house, where you spend most time, your walls will be decorated with now-fading pictures of Disney characters, of animals, and of your favourite singers. There will be no posters of footballers there.

One day, a friend of your father’s named Mick will be visiting. A blasting stench of alcohol from his breath will strike you as he enters the living room.

‘Howaya, buddy,’ Mick will say.

You will be relieved you do not have to tell Mick your name, as he will already know it. Telling people your name will by this time feel like telling a lie.

‘That’s some hair you have there. Are you a hippie, are you?’ Mick will laugh hoarsely.

‘No,’ you will say, sensing from the glance your father gives that this is the right answer.

‘My little girl has hair like yours,’ Mick will say. ‘She wears it in pigtails. Do you ever do that?’

Very quickly, your father will respond. ‘He has himself a bird already, this lad. Holly, she’s called.’ You will feel his hand hover just above your shoulder, not quite touching you, then suddenly withdrawn.

‘Jaysus, you move fast, don’t you?’ Mick will say.

‘Holly’s just my friend.’

Mick and your father will exchange strange adult laughter, Mick lightly punching your arm. ‘That’s what they all say.’

You will ask your father if you can switch the TV channel to the celebrity dancing programme you regularly watch in his house. ‘No.’

‘But you said, Dad.’

‘No. Here,’ he will say, producing a note from his wallet. ‘Run down to the shop. Get an ice cream.’

‘Can I record it?’ ‘No.’

‘But –’

‘No.’

You will not understand at the time, but the set of your father’s face and the low note of that single word, ‘No’, will be all the warning you need. The hot swirling needling feeling in your stomach will not be quenched by the ice cream. You will toss most of it in a bin.

*

When you are twelve you will participate in a school pantomime. The teacher directing will ascribe comedic value to boys playing girls’ parts, casting you in a female role. Your character will wear a dress, waist-length blonde wig and make-up.

Your mother and sister will attend the performance; your father will not. Afterwards, your sister, now fifteen, will embrace you, saying, ‘You were brilliant,’ and the rushing warmth of it will take your breath.

‘Well done,’ your mother will say, smiling for a half-second with her mouth alone.

For some moments the three of you will form a skewed triangle in the school corridor. You will notice that your mother is not reaching for her car keys.

‘Are we going home? We can toast my acting debut with ice cream.’

‘You have to get changed,’ your mother will say.

‘I’m allowed to wear this stuff home.’

Your mother will glance around her, at the electric bustle of children and other parents. You will be aware that this is to your advantage.

‘Okay,’ she will sigh. ‘Get changed and you can put the outfit in a bag.’

‘I’m wearing it home.’

‘Don’t push me on this.’

You will feel a hot prickling around your eyes, a sudden moistness. You will shake your head with a firm metronome swing. Other parents in the vicinity will begin to steal furtive looks.

‘Come on,’ she will say, keys jangling in her grip as her heels clop fast towards the exit, opening up distance between you.

You will sleep in the dress, although in truth you will be asleep for little of this unquiet night. The ridiculous wig you will cast aside. After your mother and sister have gone to bed, you will pass sad exquisite yearning hours before the mirror. Running your hands along the material of the dress, over and over and over. Although it will be of a crude and cheap cut, it will feel sumptuous under your touch.

The dress, a silver-coloured, sequin-studded confection in stretch lace and tulle, will not truly be to your taste. Nonetheless, you will savour the feeling that it is yours, that you have made it yours through acting. Before the mirror, you will not be acting.

You will feign illness the following morning, so you can linger a little longer in the dress, but your mother, defeated the previous night, will be unyielding. You will trudge to school in your grey uniform on a grey day, bereft.

When you return that afternoon the dress will be gone.

‘I’m washing it,’ your mother will say. But it will not hang on the washing line with the other clothes.

‘It got destroyed in the machine. I’m sorry.’

You will search with your hands through the bin’s grime and stench, but the dress will not be there. The following day your mother will ask if you would like a new video game. Or to go to your favourite pizza restaurant that night. You will scream that you hate her, attacking the stairs with furious pounding feet, spending the rest of the evening in your room.

*

And one day, gnawing on bloodied fingernails, you will tell a doctor these stories. You will pass more briefly over the ongoing chemical assault of puberty, the frantic confluence of hormones that will leave you feeling mugged, robbed of your essential self. You will not wish to dwell on the depressingly inevitable bullies, such as the boy who will fracture your nose with a single arcing punch because he ‘can’t stand the sight of your faggot face.’ Or how you will change schools (again). Never drinking in school, to avoid the issue of toilets. You will mention smashing more than one mirror in self-revulsion. And – despising what a cliché you sound like – beginning to cut, experimentally at first, progressing to sharper blades, deeper incisions. Spending your pocket money on depilatory cream (stashed in an old video game box, empties thrown in a public bin far from your house). Always applying the cream late at night in your room so the redness has faded by morning. The internet becoming a window to a new world, letting light in, but glassed over all the same. You will speak of the fleeting joy – precursor to the crashing waves of guilt – in stolen moments whilst home alone, wearing one of your sister’s dresses and your secret nail varnish (acetone at the ready). Always being alert at these times to the rattle of keys in the door, your whole body tensed like prey awaiting predator, primed to bolt. Learning to dissemble with growing skill, becoming practiced in evasion.

And you will come to know well the too-bright walls of the clinic. Waiting, forever waiting, the heavy clock’s tick of it. One day you will get the go-ahead, clinging to new hope: clinging to it, terrified of it. And the start of a new life – or the glimmering chance of it – will heave into view. You will come to call it your second birth.

Welcome.

This is not always a welcoming place.

From issue #6: spring/summer 2018

About the Author
Seán Kenny is the winner of a Hennessy Literary Award and was named Over the Edge New Writer of the Year. He has also placed third in RTÉ’s Francis MacManus Short Story Competition. His stories have appeared in Over the Edge and Hennessy anthologies, The Irish Times, Crannóg, The Incubator, The Honest Ulsterman, Ropes and Southword in addition to being broadcast on RTÉ Radio One. He is working on a collection of stories.