10.
Meet JJ (my best friend from school)
10
…
11.
Attempt to stop my Mum watching Sex Change Hospital
11
Fix Leak and Paint Hall
12.
Submit poetry for publishing
12
Hang Photos
13.
Record some of my songs professionally
13
Develop Cooking Recipes
14.
…
14
Play Tennis at least twice a week to develop my game
15.
Read Ulysses again
15
Organise Tennis Coaching
16.
Visit the Aran islands
16
Help Develop The Big Deal story for Play
17.
Visit Skibbereen
17
Spanish Trip with the Kids at Easter
18.
Trip to Paris (on my own)
18
Reconcile my relationship with Ellen
19.
Weekend away with T
19
Reconcile my relationship with Mammy
20.
…
20
Reconcile my relationship with Sister 1
21.
Start cycling
21
Reconcile my relationship with Sister 2
22.
Lose a stone in weight
22
Reconcile my relationship with Brother 1
23.
Get my ears pierced
23
Reconcile my relationship with the Catholic Church and separately with God
24.
Stabilise financial situation
24
See Counsellor again to check if she thinks I’m still sane
25.
…
25
Have Father-and-Son day with my eldest son Shane
26.
…
26
Have Father-and-Daughter day with my eldest daughter Louise
27.
…
27
Have Father-and-Daughter day with my youngest daughter Charlotte
28.
…
28
Have Father-and-Son day with my youngest son Peter
29.
…
29
Stop watching so much TV with the Kids. Learn to relax in their company and enjoy the time with them. Stop trying to organise something to do all the time
30.
…
30
Develop more Adult relationship with Shane take an interest in his friends, school and sports
31.
Fiftieth Birthday dinner with family
31
Keep Income Levels sufficiently high to meet all the bills
32.
50th Birthday dinner with closest friends
32
Go on the Tennis Weekend & join in the Club’s social activities to develop friendships there
33.
Party at home August weekend
33
Write a decent short story
34.
Night out with ML & SH
34
Write a decent poem
35.
€1000 shopping spree
35
Develop a plan for my novel
36.
Boxing Match (to see Katie Taylor)
36
Push Ellen to have her house renovated
37.
Laser Eye Surgery
37
…
38.
Start a club
38
Have friends to Dinner once every 6 weeks
39.
…
39
Buy a New Tennis Racquet
40.
Buy a copy of The Frames’ 1st album on Vinyl
40
Go on a Solo Weekend Trip abroad
41.
Bands To See: The Frames
41
Go for a Solo Weekend Trip in Ireland
42.
The Swell Season
42
Go to London with Deborah
43.
James
43
Acquire nice Jewellery piece – an opal perhaps
44.
Gemma Hayes
44
Complete the Pandora Bracelet
45.
Duke Special
45
Purchase a nice Gold Fountain Pen or Biro
46.
Vyvienne Long
46
Consider 3D TV and DVD Acquisition
47.
Paul Tiernan
47
Consider benefits of acquiring a Laptop or iPad
48.
Wallis Bird
48
Acquire a Silk Nightie
49.
Lisa Hannigan
49
Acquire Silk Sheets
50.
Christy Moore
50
Minimise working weekends to once a month
Song: ‘Lisdoonvarna’.
CATHY: I first tried to transition in 1984 when I was twenty-three years old. I told my mother in the kitchen and she said, ‘Oh, Jesus!’ or something like that. Then she went into my Dad in the living room and turned off the TV. Now I broke it to them gently. I gave them a physical reason; I think I told them I had a womb. That was the cowardly thing to do, not to stand up and say, ‘These are my feelings. I’ve no evidence of it.’ I pretended there was a physical manifestation. Of course there was a physical manifestation as far as I was concerned. I had the wrong fucking body. It was 1984. My parents were very supportive, although it was covered up. I went and lived as Cathy for four months in London and I tried to be what was in my mind the ideal woman, what a woman should be. That involved not talking too much. That wasn’t me. Now, you cannot be someone you’re not, and so I wasn’t any happier. I knew my family would be happy if I went back to being Patrick and as I wasn’t happy anyway… Very simple. I went back. I fell in love. I got married.
DEBORAH: Cathy,
It’s 10.30 p.m. on Tuesday night. I have just finished your recent e-mail. All nineteen pages.
You are now on the way to recovery.
You are here now as you should have been and will be from now until the day you die.
So whilst I struggle slowly onward and upward, you are already there,
Love Deborah.
CATHY: I woke up this morning with a very determined view that this was the first day of the rest of my life. I got up and had my weekly shave – the first since I arrived – I do hate that.
I shaved very gingerly as my face is sore from the face lift.
I went down for breakfast which was the best meal I’ve had since I got here.
Coffee, Cornflakes, orange juice, toast, rashers cooked in the crispy way I love them.
I returned upstairs ready to dilate the first time myself.
I find it very difficult to come to terms with touching my vagina and surrounding areas.
After my bath I open my card and presents from the kids.
The card read ‘To the best Dad: in the world.’
And I’m crying again.
Each child had signed their own name.
Nothing from Ellen. No present. No card.
This is the scariest, loneliest, most rotten time of my life.
While I was waiting for the plane to Thailand, Deborah gave me an iPod Nano – not just an iPod Nano because that’s just buying someone a present – she did something I wouldn’t be able to do, she uploaded 441 songs and, I have to say, about 80% of them I liked, which is an amazing achievement. When she puts her mind to helping someone, she really knows how to do it.
&
nbsp; I had a very bad brush with myself one time. I went to Deborah’s house the next day. She got me through one of the darkest periods of my life, and then she helped me produce a CD of about eighteen/nineteen songs that were basically appealing to Ellen – don’t leave me. She has an amazing music library and an amazing music mind and she helped produce for me an album that I love and still listen to and call Without You. One of the songs in particular has a lot of meaning for me.
I will learn to live before I die
Will learn to love and learn to try
Not to give it all away
She may be the one that’s meant for me
Or for the man that I used to be
Till I gave it all away
Today was probably one of the most boring days so far – thank God.
I finished the Alias series –
It was OK.
I then opened my DVD box set of The West Wing –
I did get out of the hospital for a short time today – I got lunch at McDonald’s. I also purchased my first pack of sanitary towels. That is probably the weirdest part of all of this. Having to get used to needing those things and wearing them.
Later on, I settled down for probably the best film since I got here.
Enemy of the State.
I finally got my journal off to Deborah.
It was eighteen pages long – poor Deborah.
Dr Deeptha told me I could now wear make-up. I can’t tell you how much this cheered me up. It allows me cover up all the bruising on my face and look normal. I couldn’t believe the results.
It gave me some pep in my step and I decided to go shopping.
I took the sky train.
And there I was,
moving around the shopping centre,
nothing special about me anymore,
just another woman.
Every time I passed a man,
especially one in a tie,
I smiled to myself.
I will never again have to pretend to be something I’m not.
The horror is over.
DEBORAH: Dear Cathy, can you let me know if I am collecting you on Monday from the airport and if so what time…? Just so you know, I would be honoured to… Lots of love,
Deborah.
CATHY: I always feel better about myself when my hair is washed and I have my make-up on. So I made a huge effort this morning to do just that. I had my breakfast and then went up to my room and forced myself to sort things out and tidy. For the past half-hour, I have been working on legal contracts. They are complex, but if they are drawn up correctly, I can save my client a few tens of thousands of euro. Even though I am thousands of miles away, having surgery – surgery that many people think is weird
– the client (God bless him!) doesn’t trust anyone else to get the job done right. So he’s paying me, to make sure everything is done properly.
Life can be sweet.
Today seems very like yesterday.
Breakfast, clean-up, writing, skipped lunch altogether, clean-up, didn’t feel like dinner.
After clean-up, I started writing – to Ellen. I never stopped. Except to cry.
I don’t think I will ever recover from losing Ellen.
I am mortified at the thought of meeting her tomorrow.
Mortified that my wife is going to see me as I am now.
How I have let her down.
My feelings of disgust are almost drowning me.
I am in love with a woman who is not gay and must hate me for killing her husband.
I don’t expect to find anyone else.
For God’s sake, I’m not even looking.
And if I were, who or what would have me.
DEBORAH: 2011. The Westbury Hotel, Dublin.
I ask Jean to meet me so I can tell her of my impending surgery. When she sits down, she asks what this meeting is all about. I thought maybe one of the kids might have mentioned it to her. Obviously not.
I tell her that I am going for surgery. I tell her that I’ve asked for this meeting out of respect for her, that I didn’t want her hearing about it from someone else.
‘You should have shown me some respect by not marrying me or having children. Then you wouldn’t have the need to tell me anything.’
Janis and I arrived in London, early Sunday, at 9.30 a.m. After having a late breakfast and a leisurely glass of wine in Covent Garden, we went for lunch. This was my last meal before I checked in to Charing Cross Hospital at 4 p.m. It felt like a last meal. 4 p.m. came around quickly and we headed for the hospital. A girl I knew from Dublin, Edel, was also in the ward, she was due to have surgery the same day as me.
I was awoken at 6 a.m. by a Philippino nurse called Amour Resurrection. She gave me an enema and told me to put lovely white surgical stockings on, which I was to wear the entire time I was in hospital. Amour came and Edel left for her surgery. I wished her good luck.
At 12 a.m., the doctor arrived. Dr Bellringer. I’m not making these names up. He was dressed in a football shirt, shorts and sneakers. He looked like he was going for a kick around in the park. He asked if I would donate my scrotal skin for research. Sure. I don’t need it anymore, knock yourself out. He told me he would see me later. He did but I didn’t see him.
At 1.30 p.m., Amour came to bring me to theatre, a long walk to the fourteenth floor. We caught the lift to the fifteenth floor. Amour told me that Edel, on her way to surgery that morning, had admired the view of London.
I came to in the recovery room. Holding my hand was a nice man. I asked his name. He said it was Raj. I told him he had a really nice face. I looked at the clock, it said 4 o’clock. This was all very real. I was awake, I wasn’t dreaming, I was ALIVE. Raj informed me that he was bringing me back to the ward…
SCENE 7
Fade up so DEBORAH can be heard talking over the song. David Bowie: ‘Space Oddity’.
I started singing. I don’t know why, but I did. I didn’t stop, couldn’t remember any more lyrics, so I kept repeating that bit. I kept on smiling at that beautiful face looking down on me. I sang out loud. They could hear me coming…
SCENE 7.5
Fade up much louder. Fade out fast after ‘the stars look very different today’.
I texted a few friends to let them know it was over. The nurse told me how to manage the pain. There was no pain, some discomfort, but no pain. I was sitting up enjoying my fish pie and, more importantly, my orange marmalade pudding with custard. I had a morphine drip with a little button attached, should I need it. I didn’t need it. I felt great. ‘Just like riding a bike around Ireland for five hundred miles,’ I told Janis, ‘a sore ass, wobbly legs and a little bit woozy.’ Cathy had five surgical procedures in one day and was alone in Bangkok. I had one and was with my friends and family. Amour arrived and removed my bandages. I got to see down there. I got a warm feeling.
My mum rang me at 10 p.m.. Dad had gone to bed. We talked about the op, how I was in myself, coming home, dad, and how great it was for me to have Janis here. She asked would I like to go down to her house for a couple of weeks after I got home so she could look after me. She had stressed herself out watching Sex Change Hospital on the telly.
Later that day I got my energy back and did 10 laps of the corridor. 3200 steps of about 2ft each. So I walked 6400 ft. I was tired so I went back to bed.
I didn’t sleep too well that night. I started to feel a little down. I was missing the kids. I don’t know why. I had seen them last Saturday night, and normally go for weeks without seeing them. It was just tiredness. My daughter sent me a text to tell me she got herself a job for the summer. It lifted my spirits.
The next day we had a party in the ward. I played DJ and had all the nurses dancing. Even the nurses not on our bay came to join in, smiling and dancing – ‘You Sexy Thing’. It was fun. Everybody was singing.
At 8 a.m., I peed. I didn’t think I could be so overjoyed about peeing. This meant I could go home. I walked outside the hospital and thought:
I was always Deborah. This operation did not make me a woman; all it did was make me physically female.
But I will never be completely female.
I will never have a menstrual cycle.
I will never experience the joy of being able to bear children.
And I will never experience growing up as a girl.
On the Saturday before I went to England, my mum insisted that I take her rosary beads. I don’t subscribe to the church anymore and I certainly don’t pray. I tried to explain this, but she insisted I do it for her. On the morning after the surgery, I found myself saying a decade of the rosary. I didn’t use the beads, I counted with my toes. Why, I don’t even know now, I don’t believe in that sort of thing, but it continued all week. Every morning I would wake up and say one. I stopped as soon as I got out.
CATHY: I packed,
had dinner,
did my clean-up,
finished packing.
I had no time for a last cup of coffee when my driver arrived at 8:30 p.m. to bring me to the airport. The flight got in in good time and I arrived at the connecting gate an hour early.
I think I will always be annoyed with the man who didn’t help me as I struggled with my case on the carousel.
Patrick would have rushed to help.
Interestingly, I’m not prepared to ask a ‘gentleman’ for help.
The Oberon Anthology of Contemporary Irish Plays Page 19
