Page 8 of To Hell With It
Una used to bang on about how her name meant ‘The One’,which she interpreted as The One and Only. But that was what it meant in Latin, not Irish. The actual meaning of her name in Irish is ‘Lamb’. So I used to tell her that when she was older it would change to Mutton, which she hated even more.
My name means ‘Daughter of The Moon’ and when we were younger we’d sit out at night looking up at the sky, with Una doing a moon dance to summon my moon mother, while I sat and waited for nothing to happen.
I do that a lot, look up people’s names. It is a compulsion, much like everything else that I do. I like to keep things simple. It is the best way. It helps keep my mind from blowing up. The smallest of things – of changes – can overwhelm me. Like if someone invites me to something that involves socialising around new people or if something isn’t done exactly as I need it to be done. It will trigger my whole day.
To get to Una’s salon from the shop should take a normal person around three minutes on foot. For me it can take anything from ten to twenty minutes. All I have to do is leave the shop, walk a little way down the road, cross the zebra crossing and carry on until I reach the corner, which is pretty straightforward for your average Joe, but not for someone like me. I have to get there without seeing any red cars and if I see one before I get to her, I have to turn around and start again or something terrible will happen.
The thing is, I went to see a clairvoyant when I was twenty-one (which I blame on Una because she made me go with her) who’d told me the colour red was significant and that I was going to lose someone later in life. So it could only have been Una, couldn’t it, because of her red hair.
I’d got to the salon in seven minutes, which is a world record for me, and caught Una just in time for her lunch break. We often ate our lunch together – in the graveyard (because nobody could die if they were already dead). I had my cheese and pickle sandwiches on brown bread, yoghurt and a banana. Una turned up with a coffee and pre-made baguette from Ellie’s bakery, which has been there for as long as I can remember, although I’m not sure how much longer Ellie will be able to keep it up since her husband became ill and she has no one else to help her.
There are around 150 people in Drangan, give or take a few that have died – and there are a few, trust me. My grandmother is one of them. Annie O’Leary – about as Irish as you can get. That is why my mother called me Pearl. It is a bit different. I think she thought it gave me a chance of getting out of the village if I had a noticeable name –You’ll shine like a celebrity– that’s what she used to say. But most people just thought it was daft because my surname is O’Reilly.
Anyway, I happen to like that I am Irish. I don’t want to run off to Hollywood. I am happy where I am. I am happy being me.
I have often asked myself why I am the way I am. Why two is a bad number (it means death) and why seven is evil, but three, five and six are safe. I’m not into numbers in a numerology kind of way; I don’t believe that my birthdate has some sacred meaning. But I do believe that I will die if I sit at table number four or seven. Or longer numbers like 247 or 427 or 742, which all mean a long painful death.
My OCD isn’t inherited. It isn’t learnt or copied or brought on by some traumatic experience that happened to me. I wasn’t abused or bullied or put down as a child. Nothing awful happened to me, yet I am filled with so much anxiety and I have no idea why.
Una is convinced something happened and that I just can’t remember it. She even arranged for me to see a hypnotherapist to unearth some deep-rooted and buried trauma that was so horrendous I have blanked it out of my consciousness. She believes it is there somewhere and that I just have to dig it out.
I went to the appointment because a part of me wondered if Una was right, if I might have suddenly re-enacted something awful that would reveal the reason behind my craziness. I had expected someone to be sat opposite me swaying a pendent while talking in a ridiculously slow voice and asking me to think of something from my childhood to take me back there.
But it wasn’t like that. There was no pendent, no slow voice or even mention of my childhood. Instead, I was asked to sit still, to take some deep breaths and to go to a place that made me feel calm. So I went to the graveyard, to my grandmother’s grave, because I always felt calm there. Then I was asked to think of something that made me feel anxious and to replace it with my calm place.
The only problem is Mr O’Callaghan’s penis had popped into my head just as I was thinking of my grandmother’s grave. And when I told the hypnotist that, she was convinced that something had happened with Mr O’Callaghan and his penis and no amount of me telling her that Mr O’Callaghan had never been inappropriate towards me or any such thing made a blind bit of difference. So in the end I just let her believe it because it was the quickest way of getting out of there. (Sorry Mr O’Callaghan).
‘How was stocks and shares? Get any shares from Niall?’ Una interrupted my thoughts.
‘Don’t be disgusting.’
‘You know he’s dying for it – why else is he always at the shop?’
‘Because he works there.’
‘He doesn’t really need to be there when you’re on, though, does he?’
‘It can get busy.’
‘He wants to get busy with you.’
‘Well, I don’t want to get busy with him.’
‘I bet he’s a beast in bed, it’s always the quiet ones...’
‘When is your holiday?’ I changed the subject. I am good at that.
‘You should come with me,’ Una said with a mouthful of tuna and mayonnaise. ‘We could scuba-dive.’
‘To the Maldives?’
‘I’m serious. You should come.’
‘I don’t want to go on holiday,’ I said.
‘Who doesn’t want to go on holiday?’
‘Me.’
