Page 133 of To Hell With It
‘OK.’
‘For my OCD, I mean. A therapist, Mairéad, she’s really nice.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘I told her what you told me.’
‘Oh.’
‘She won’t tell anyone, I promise, she has to keep all that stuff confidential, but she did ask me if I’d pass on her number, if you wanted it?’
‘What for?’
‘To help you with your, you know, to help you with the memories and all that.’
Niall shook his head like he was trying to shake my words out of it.
‘I’m doing fine, thanks.’
‘I’m just saying, if you want to talk to someone, Mairéad is pretty good, and you can’t see your dad’s penis in your head for the rest of your life.’
Even though I knew I was going to.
‘I don’t particularly want to talk about this, Pearl.’
‘Sorry.’
He changed the subject. ‘Thanks for coming in today, Mum was worried you’d not come back.’
‘Of course I would.’
‘I think she thought you’d stay out there or something like that.’
‘No, although it did make me think about what I want I suppose.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I love working here, but I have always wanted to write a book.’
‘I didn’t know that, although you were always good at English.’
‘I wouldn’t know where to start to be honest or if I’d be any good.’
‘You just start at the beginning, I guess.’
‘Yeah, but the beginning of what?’
‘You could write a memoir?’
‘Then I’d have to write about your dad and Maggie Ryan.’
‘You could leave that bit out.’
‘It would have to stay in.’
‘You could write under a pseudonym,’ he said. ‘Just change the names of the characters so no one would know, or at least if they did recognise themselves you could just deny it. Who would I be?’
‘You’d be you.’
