There had been one boy brave enough to ask her out, Niall Fitzsimmons. A lanky lad who stood a whole half inch taller than her, it was enough to be respectable. He caught the same bus to Westmoreland Street as her of a morning. Niall had spent weeks positioning himself opposite her and the first time she’d caught him staring shyly at her with those dark brown eyes peering out from under his cap, she’d wondered if she had a spot or, even worse, a telltale sign she’d had egg for breakfast on her face. Then, one day he’d taken her by surprise and as she’d looked up to find him staring at her he’d asked her out in a red-faced blurt he’d clearly practised. She hadn’t the heart to say no.
So, you see, it wasn’t as if she was completely inexperienced when it came to romance. She’d kissed Niall at the end of their evening together too but if she were to tell the truth she’d only done so out of obligation and curiosity. He’d forked out for a fine fish supper and film. It was the least she could do. Besides, he was a nice enough lad even if he did smell of menthol and eucalyptus. That was down to the Brylcreem he styled his duck’s arse with. He must go through tubs and tubs of the stuff, she’d thought, trying not to inhale as he leaned in toward her with his wet, nervous lips puckered. The feel of them as they locked on to hers like a sucker fish made her think of two things. Her father with his slicked back hair, he was a Brylcreem man, and her heavy-handed mammy wielding the Vicks VapoRub. A girl did not want to be thinking about her mammy and da, or cold remedies, when she was being kissed, thank you very much. There’d been nothing in the least poetic about it all and she hadn’t gone out with him again. She suspected he caught the bus that came twenty minutes earlier as she hadn’t seen him since either. She didn’t have time for fellas right now, anyhow.
Cliona had decided the day the letter arrived confirming her employment at the Times that she was too practical to fall in love. Sure, what was the point? Love led to marriage and it was written right there in front of her in bold black typeface that her employment would be terminated when she married. She didn’t know much about the ways of the world but she did know that it would take time to work her way up through the hierarchy to where she wanted to be. What was the point in all that steady, hard graft if just as the finish line came into sight it was all whipped away from her because she’d said, “I, do.”? There was no point was the simple answer and that’s why she had a plan.
She would learn the trade from the ground floor up. She would be smarter, and work harder and faster than all those other reporters with their air of self-importance as they tapped out their stories, cigarettes smouldering in the ashtrays beside their typewriters. They were always at the ready with a wise-arse answer and keen to make the girls from the typing pool blush. She would prove she was up to the job. Cliona Whelan would make sure of that. She’d become indispensable.
She thought of her mammy and her brothers and sisters. Her tribe of younger siblings were always demanding something and never very grateful for having got it. She had no desire to find herself shackled to the kitchen sink with runny-nosed little ones tugging at her apron strings crying for attention in years to come. No, she wanted to write. Writing was something she’d always done. The proof was in her diary, hidden away under her mattress, safe from her nosy, spying sisters’ eyes. It was something she needed to do because it stilled the restlessness in her. How else were you supposed to get all those feelings out? Sure, Father Sheridan didn’t have time to sit in his confessional box and hear her outpourings. Cliona wrote because, well because she had such a lot to say about what she saw all around her and how it made her feel.
The, world was changing, she liked to tell Mammy, and she was too modern for marriage. Sure, hadn’t she got Honours in her English Leaving Certificate. She was going to be a career woman, so she was. She’d even told Mammy to stop shortening her name to Clio and under no circumstances was she to call her Clio-Cat in the presence of others. The nickname had stuck since she was in nappies and had had a fascination with pulling poor Mittens’, God rest her grumpy old soul, tail. The thing was she’d said, hands on hips, as Mammy stood at the sink with her Marigolds plunged into the hot, soapy water, when she finally got to do some proper reporting—not just the rewrites and advertising editorial mind, her byline would read Cliona Whelan. Not Clio-Cat, thanks very much. It was hard enough to be taken seriously but if anyone got wind of that nickname, sure it’d be the end of her. Mammy had huffed and made an awful clattering with the plates in the sink upon hearing this and said, she was getting ideas above her station since joining the newspaper and it would be a lonely washing that had no man’s shirt in it, if she continued along the way she seemed determined to go.
Clio
