Carmen Cullen has published three books of poetry, Sky of Kites: Kestral Books 1997, Under the Eye of the Moon: Maverick 2001 and Stray Child & other poems.
Carmen has three novels published, Two Sisters Singing, Hello Love and Daisy Daisy. Carmen was Head of English in Coláiste Dhúlaigh Secondary School in Dublin and Director of The Oscar Wilde Autumn School Bray. She is now a full-time writer: her book Class Acts, is on the Applied Leaving Cert course. Carmen used her Lockdown time wisely, writing and producing 41 YouTube videos. The videos combine spoken word, text, music and images.

Once There Was A Girl

By Carmen Cullen

The pub was like a big juicy melon and Sandra was a bee who found herself right on top of it, able to sip the nectar she found there to her heart’s content. In fact, her life at the university had been a lovely experience right from the start. Think of the many girls who are not as lucky as me to be a college student at this time. There is a whole revolution taking place and I’m a part of it, she’d purr to herself.

       Sandra was eighteen. it was 1968 and she was attending University College Dublin. By now she had her routine. She told herself she should attend at least one lecture in the day, so that way she wouldn’t be too out of her depth when it came to answering exam papers. It wasn’t working out so easily. Recently, as the end of the year approached, she’d become more doubtful that she’d even pass her exams. Such a thing had never happened to her before. She was letting her attendance at tutorials slip as well. Any minute now she could be called before a disciplinary board to account for herself. It was letting herself down. Inside though, something told her she’d continue on this same path, because there was excitement in the air. Life was spinning open like a flower in the sun.
      The hands of Sandra’s watch moved slowly onward. Still she kept her place on a crowded bench seat that lined the back of the student-occupied bar. It was Friday afternoon and the place was buzzing with noise. Sometimes she would pause in conversation and take a quick look around. She was in some sort of paradise she told herself. Her fellow drinkers were engaged in debate, perhaps about society and the need for change. She overheard conversations about noteworthy films seen, or books being read. In this latter matter she’d often made a contribution. It was so different to the humdrum reality of home. Her younger sister and brothers and her father were the uninitiated. They might even go through their entire lives without being touched by understanding, getting to know about socialism and the heady ideas it incorporated; how in the future all people would be equal and there would be no war, or strife.  She hoped that someday they’d understand.
       After a few hours of sitting uncomfortably forward on her perch, Sandra had an urge to stand up and stretch. She decided to push her way through packed bodies to get to, The Ladies, toilets. Because the pub lounge was upstairs, the toilets were at the top of the stairs and she could look down. Pausing for a moment, she was mistress of all she surveyed. At one with her own kind, there was nothing to fear. Whatever happened to her, she would never be trapped by convention; behaving as a good Catholic girl, for instance and not making love until she was safely married. She knew that people were born with their own sense of right and wrong and that she had a capacity to convince others to behave properly towards her.
      In The Ladies, Sandra stared at herself in the mirror. She hadn’t been drinking much, because she couldn’t afford to and she experienced a wish not to be so ground down by poverty always. Cash was hard to come by in her frugal household. She could not get as much as an extra penny from her father. Maybe it was just as well, because if she did get drunk, she might do something rash. She had once before, with her older brother and couldn’t believe how hopeless and out of control it made her feel. It was good to be independent, she decided. She straightened her shoulders and winked at herself in the mirror before leaving.
       The same level of noise met Sandra’s ears when she returned to the bench seat. The girl beside her had moved from her place and suddenly she had more space and she let herself sink back. Although she’d drank very little, when she closed her eyes she had a sensation of being in a cradle. Night had fallen and a wind was rocking her gently. She could stay this way, be forgotten about and find herself ousted in the morning.
      Sandra wasn’t quite sure why her eyes popped open. A pale-faced man was standing before her. Malcolm, the name popped into her mind. She slid upright.  Then she heard her own being called. This person she’d recognised as one of her brother’s friends was bending down in front of her. He put two overflowing pints of Guinness on a small table, and licked foam from his fingers. ‘Hello Sandra, do you mind if I join you?’ he asked. ‘You can blame your brother for this intrusion. He was supposed to be meeting me but never turned up. I had his drink ordered for him. Have it if you like.’ She found herself unable to move as his deep voice boomed.  ‘I’m Malcolm. I’m from your own neck of the woods. I’ve seen you before,’ he rattled on. Colour had assailed her. She was talking to a man wearing a multi-shaded poncho. She spied a red shirt opened at his neck and a purple cravat.  Elbows knocked against him as people passed him by and his drink spilled. ‘I’ll go back to the bar. There’s more room there,’ he raised his glass to her.
      ‘My brother told me that you come from home. Thanks for the drink,’ Sandra stammered. She saw hazel tinted eyes and long auburn hair and was seized by a feeling of kinship. This man and she belonged to the same place. It had brought them together.
      ‘Come and join me if you want to. I’d like it.’ He smiled. He was a few years older than her, Sandra guessed and with a world of experience behind him. Anything could happen, her mind reeled. He might become her new boyfriend.
      ‘I better not. I’d lose my seat, she said
      A second pint appeared in front of Sandra shortly afterwards and then another. Soon her mouth felt not her own. When she stood to go to the toilet a second time, she swayed and had to think about the mechanism of walking. Right foot on the ground, then left foot forward, She concentrated on making it to the door. Malcolm had started down the stairs to the street as she reached the landing and she heard herself calling, ‘are you leaving me in my hour of need? She swayed. ‘Woe is me.’ Her words had a wooden sound.
      ‘Not if you don’t want me to,’
      Sandra squinted. Her eyes were stinging from cigarette smoke.
      ‘I can’t drink any more. I think I’ll go home,’ she rubbed them. As she swayed forward a hand pushed her back. She experienced the next happening as a Crossing the Rubicon moment, because Malcolm had moved behind to support her and she didn’t resist. Soon there would be a kiss and she’d be thrust into uncharted territory. I’m a virgin, the words rose to her lips to say, but didn’t come out.
       Light as a feather two lips landed on hers. She kissed back. The unravelling had started. She would never be the same after this. In the beginning, the words suggested themselves and, yes, they implied, your time has come to be completed as a woman. This man doesn’t know your condition. He thinks you’re used to making love and to sex. She felt herself being linked back into the pub. Soon the kisses rained thick and heavy, so that she could barely stand. On one occasion she saw her brother had arrived in. He’d be watching her, she knew and then the word would spread. It’s true there was an inevitability about what was going to happen and she’d adjusted herself to such a possible startling reality, but she didn’t want to be an object of curiosity. Malcolm had moved his hands under her blouse and managed to undo the catch of her bra. She felt a hand on her nipple.
      ‘None of that here. Stop it now or I’ll be asking you to leave.’ The barman was standing over her.
                                                                      ***
They were outside the pub and those who stayed until the very end had formed a few loose groups, chatting and with no intention of leaving. A few minutes before her brother had suggested they go home together. He was silent and looked up at the moon and wiped flecks of foam from his jumper. ‘Are you sure now Sandra. I can wait for a while and we’ll walk together. I’ve often done it,’ he’d said. She saw he was trying to protect her. it had all been in her head about him spreading gossip.
      ‘Come home with me Sandra. I’ll look after you.’ Malcolm took her hand and pulled her towards him. ‘I’ll take care of her, Fred,‘ he said.
      ‘I don’t know. Is that what you want Sandra?’ Fred seemed to do a jig on the footpath but
the gaze he trained on her was steady.
       ‘I think I’ll stay with Malcolm for a little while. I’ll be able to get home by myself,’ she kept her eyes down. ‘Tell Daddy I got delayed.’
      ‘I’ll leave you in good hands so,’ Fred rubbed his fingers together. Then he turned abruptly and began to run.
      ‘Don’t forget to tell Daddy,’ she called after him and he raised a hand in the air, before turning the corner.
      Sandra tried to combat the smell of dirty socks by breathing shallowly. She was lying in Malcolm’s bed. He didn’t like making love in the dark, this new boyfriend had said. She turned her eyes away from a fly-splattered naked lightbulb, hanging from the ceiling. A stained and partly torn sheet had rucked underneath her so that a hairy mattress cut into her skin. She tried to ease back onto the sheet, but Malcolm was on top of her and he was too heavy. For some reason she thought of her first communion. The communion class had congregated in the nun’s garden, when they’d poured from the church. The sun shone from a cloudless sky and she was floating. Her family’s attention was centred on her for the first time. Beauty was with her, and serenity and peace. Here in Malcolm’s bed all attention was focused on her too. She’d be a loose woman from now on; her veil of innocence torn off. Well, she would be if it happened, because Malcolm was finding it difficult to push himself into her.
      ‘Is this good for you? I’ve been with girls from New York to Tahiti and nobody ever complained,’ he raised his face to meet hers.
      ‘Yes. It’s lovely.’ She panted back. It was a lie, but yes, she wanted him to keep going. He seemed to think he’d get there in the end and now, that end was all that mattered. if he didn’t succeed in making love to her, it might mean something was the matter with her insides. She remembered one of her friends had told her that if you rode horses in your past you’d have made yourself tight and hard to penetrate. She kept the information to herself. She gripped her legs over the man, as far as possible. She gritted her teeth because he was hurting her. When he finally rolled off, she had to stretch herself out and groan with pain.
       ‘You never told me you were a virgin,’ he said.
       ‘I didn’t think it mattered,’ she said. She wiped away stray tears. They had come to her eyes unexpectedly. She had the sensation of being born again. It was the world of somebody marked now as spoiled goods, who could be taken advantage of forever more, because she had no shield of innocence to protect her. ‘I’d better go home. Daddy will be looking for me,’ she said.