Every Saturday night was the same except for this one, a Saturday in frigid February in the year 1990. I, at ten years old, was just reaching that age when the world is suddenly big and scary and confusing. My entire life previously had been spelled out for me by catechisms and stern scoldings and the tight fists of older siblings. I had never had any interest in boys, though, and had not made many friends outside of my family. One little girl, Eleanor, and I fought like mad at school, but we did it out of fun, and usually erupted into giggles just before teacher scolded us. Only once I went to her house, though, and was so terrified by her father’s whooping cough that I never went back. He died when we were only nine, and Eleanor’s mother packed up their entire family and moved back to her parents in Dublin. It was a very sad story. But through Eleanor leaving, I wound up making good friends with her old best friend, Ana, whom I had many great times with, though we avoided each other’s houses. Come to think of it, my siblings and I rarely had friends over, and rarely went to friend’s houses. I suppose it was a universal family shame that all of my peers felt for each our own families, though none of us were ever anything but the offspring of workmen in a time of poor economy.

Every Saturday night at the community center in downtown Kinsale, the church ladies put on a social that basically the entire town showed up for. I say that, but perhaps it was only our church, which was maybe a quarter of the town. It’s still a lot of people when you’re a child. For the mothers, it was a chance to dress up and relive their youth; for the fathers, it was a chance to sit around and drink without their wives nagging at them for never doing anything; for the children, it was a chance to either enhance or sabotage our social lives.

I remember that February in 1990 as special for several reasons. The first of which was that for perhaps the first time in my life, I had gotten my own first dress –that is, my mother had made a dress brand new for me. Obviously, in a financially struggling family, the youngest of five girls would have to wear only those clothes passed down from her older sisters, and so I grew up in darned socks, patched jumpers, and blouses with stains in the underarms. But my mother had gotten a large bonus at work –and this is when rumors of her affair with one of the doctors began– and decided to make all of us girls new dresses to wear to our upcoming Dublin trip. She finished mine first and suggested that I wear it to the dance Saturday night, though scolding me within an inch of my life that I keep it clean.

The dress was pale yellow cotton with bright blue stitching –far too light a dress for typical dreary February weather, but then our Dublin trip wasn’t until April, until Easter. I put it on and spun circles around the house, showing off my new dress to the annoyance of my older sisters, who all rolled their eyes and pouted that my dress had been finished first. John Paul clapped for me as I twirled past him, and Sebastian joined him only when I ran into a chair, bruising my shins on the rough wooden edges. To cover my clumsiness, I picked up the lace hem and performed a low curtsy, my white bow flopping over into my face because Brigid hadn’t tied it tightly enough.

“A vision in yella yeh are,” my grandda assured me with a toothy grin, tugging on one of my red ringlets. He was the only one allowed to do so without me squawking in protest. I beamed at him, then took off again, the lace around my puffed sleeves flapping like little wings.

I regretted putting my coat on over the sunshine dress, anxious lest the heavy wool crush the delicate lace, but my mother insisted, batting me on the head until I slipped my arms into the sleeves. I was light as a feather, though, leaping into and out of the car with all the grace of a baby bird. I stumbled on the stone steps but my red cheeks soon flushed a rosy pink of pride at all the praise lavished on me by my mother friends, each of whom had me turn circles for them in order to appraise my mother’s workmanship. She had missed her calling, they said. She should have been a seamstress.

Despite the location and crowd at the Saturday night dances, they were anything if not sophisticated. Everyone dressed to the occasion, dolling up as though they didn’t happen every Saturday night, without fail. And the dancing –the dancing that took place was anything but the aimless stumbling of the working class. Two things were taken very seriously at the dance: the beer and the dance steps. Instead of letting the younger generations twist and dip and shake without any true form, the older adults took it upon themselves to instruct us in proper dance modes. No child in our community had missed learning the steps of our own Irish dances at an early age –that is, the jig, the reel, the slipjig, the Blackbird, St. Patrick’s, and so on. Though in other countries, schools were erected to teach these folk dances to eager pupils, in my home they were passed on through the generations with our freckles and dimples. However, we certainly were not limited to the tradition dances of our country. On the wooden floor of that community center, I learned East Coast swing, the foxtrot, the waltz, the rumba, the meringue. The only two dances not allowed in any form for their overly sexual foundations were the tango and salsa, but in all others I earned a strict education and rigid formal training. We may have been the children of workmen, but we would learn to dance like proper young men and women.

That’s not the say the children were well behaved little puppets, however, who obediently performed the dances we were instructed. Rather, we ran around like demons, upsetting chairs, shrieking at our friends, crouching under tables to jump out and surprise our parents. Occasionally aunts and uncles would grab our arms and make us dance, but particularly those younger of us wanted nothing more than to play a few pranks, get a few laughs.

However, this night was different. I was wearing my sunshine dress and was not about to risk spilling punch on the bodice or wrinkling the skirt by hiding beneath a table cloth. Besides, I was far too busy showing off my mother’s handiwork and doing my best impression of a well dressed young lady to participate in my brothers’ antics tonight. I posed serenely beside my mother on a chair for some time, listening to her tell her lady friends about her work and what the cost of the fabric had been and what our plans were for Easter in Dublin. This grew dull, however, so when an uncle of mine asked to dance, I slipped my hand into his and followed him out onto the floor.

My hem twirled like the petals of a daffodil as my uncle spun me here and there, both of us smiling for the enjoyment that the freedom of dance gave. He was my father’s older brother and I adored him dearly, though he had led a shady life. While in the military, he had basically traveled the country, sowing his seed before marrying a British woman, Rita, as a way of rebelling against his parents. However, when she wanted to move to London to pursue an acting career, he was faced between choosing her or Ireland. He, of course, chose his country, his one true love, and ran off with a younger woman before Rita had even packed for London. He talked about her poorly, as though out of all the things he had done wrong in his life, she was the worst mistake.

But I adored him and adored dancing with him, loved him as he threw me up into the air and caught me securely in his arms. When the song ended, I felt an emptiness in my chest, as though with the end of the number, all the warmth had been sucked out of my body.

“You’re a lovely dancer, Guin’ver,” he praised, bending over to kiss me on the top of the head. I was small for my age at that point, all legs and not much else.

I beamed up at him, but the emptiness was still in my chest. With bleary eyes as though I had just walked from a cinema into broad daylight, I stumbled to the side of the floor to look for my mother again, to sit by her and listen to her lilting voice. A hand on my arm stopped me, though –Philip, an acquaintance of my brother Timothy.

Philip was a good five years younger than my brother Timothy, who in 1990 had just turned twenty-one. They worked out on the boats together, though, frequently sweating together to haul in hundreds of pounds of fish or shellfish. Timothy was more a loner than I ever claim to have been, and so it stood to reason that he wouldn’t have friends, only acquaintances, though I suppose Philip was as close to a friend as he ever got. Particularly a few months before, when Timothy had developed somewhat of a fancy for Philip’s older sister Priscilla, the two boys got to be even closer to what could be called friends. I don’t claim to know if or what about or how much they talked when out on the docks together, but they frequently walked home together, and they stood against the wall together at dances.

Just beginning to view boys as a race apart from girls, even I knew that Philip was good looking. Even Colleen said as much, and she was two years older than Philip. Golden blond hair, deep blue eyes, high cheek beans, a strong jaw –even at sixteen, he seemed to me like the quintessential man. If I had been at an age to have crushes yet, he would have been my crush, I don’t doubt.

So when this Philip put his hand on my arm and smiled at me, “Evenin’, Guin,” I about melted. “How’r ya?”

“Good, Philip. And yaself?”

“Well I’m alright, I s’pose, but I was wondering if ya might help me with something.”

I wasn’t allowed to leave the dance, or even wander too far from my mother’s gaze. But Philip’s grin was so friendly and genuine, and she was distracted trying to get my da to dance anyways. My uncle was dancing with his new wife. Sebastian and John Paul were running around without any concern for their little sister, who refused to do anything fun tonight because of her beautiful new dress.

“Alright, I s’pose. What do ya need me help for?”

“Follow me, then,” he ordered, motioning with a coiled finger for me to follow. He didn’t even need to hold my arm; I figured he had found something cool outside the community center and wanted to show me. Maybe a rabbit’s den or a dead snake. So I tightened my hairbow, which was beginning to slip, and followed him out of the community center, the coldness gone from my chest.

“I saw ya dancin’,” he offered by way of conversation, leading me off the sidewalk to creep behind the building where there weren’t any windows. “You’re a good dancer.”

I glowed at the praise and added, “Me dress is new, too. Me mother made if for me with her raise, you know.”

Bragging about my dress, I hadn’t noticed that he was suddenly standing very close to me, so close I could feel his breath against my face. I took a step back, my face screwing up in confusion as to why he was suddenly looking at me like that, his eyes narrow slits and staring as though he wasn’t really seeing me at all, but was staring right through me.

“It’s lovely,” he muttered, and then suddenly his lips were pressed against mine, his teeth pressing against my lips so that my head was pressed painfully against the wall.

“Philip, what’re you doing!” I tried to demand of him, but he wouldn’t let my mouth go so that my words came out a jumbled mess. I tried to twist my mouth away, but he grabbed the back of my head and held it in place. I was no match for this sixteen-year-old boy’s strength, and could not wrench my hand away when he suddenly grabbed it and wrapped it around his member, which at some point had been slipped out of his pants. With rough, jerking motions, he slid my hand up and down, ignoring my fresh tears and muffling my cries with his own fatty lips. I pushed against him and struggled to twist away, but he had my head and my hand, squeezing both so tightly that I had bruises on my hand the next day.

Suddenly, just as I was on the verge of collapsing out of pure terror, someone called into the night, “Guinevere!” Though the voice was on the far side of the community center, Philip suddenly leapt away from me as though the voice itself had nudged him in the backside with a hot poker. I collapsed to the ground, wiping furiously at my lips and running my hand along the ground. I didn’t know what had just happened, but I felt dirty and sick, like my mouth was melting off my face.

“Guinevere!” came the shout again, but by this time my lungs had gasped in enough oxygen to begin wailing.

“Shut the fuck up,” Philip ordered, kicking at me with a dirty boot. “Don’t be saying a word, do ya hear? Or I’ll be telling everyone ya put your mouth on my cock, do ya hear? I’ll gab to everyone ya aren’t even a virgin no more, ya hear?”

Instantly I shut up, though the tears continued to roll down my cheeks and my throat burned with pain and fear. Timothy had maybe heard my short crying, or maybe was led by divine intervention. Whatever the case, he appeared around the corner of the building seconds after Philip had zipped his pants up and begun digging around in the dirt with his finger.

When Timothy lumbered into view, my distant older brother, Philip explained immediately, “She’s tripped in a hole out here in the yard, you see. I did tell her not to run in the dark.”

“Guinevere, your dress!” At the time, I heard it as scolding, as anger, though now I don’t wonder if it was more concern than anything. He knew my mother would kill me. With a burst of energy, he pulled me up by my arm, as though the quicker I was up, the less damage would be done. But the damage had been done. Dirt caked the side of my dress, and dew had stained the skirt. I sniffled and coughed and tried to breathe and not think about my ruined dress.

“I told her not to–“

”Guin, are ya all right?” Timothy pressed, suddenly leaning in to look closer into my face in the dark. It was the first time --and only time, really– that Timothy made any sort of familiar claim on me. He looked me in the eyes like I was a loved one, like he was truly concerned for me.

But I didn’t want him to know how naughty I had just been, so I nodded my head.

“Jesus Christ, me mum’s going to skin you for this dress,” he sighed. “Come on, then. I’ll sneak ya inta the bathroom and ya can clean up.”

Whatever Timothy assumed had happened, I don’t think know that he really believed me that I was fine. But what was I going to say to him, my distant brother? I wouldn’t have dared confess what had just transpired, not with anyone, much less the brother I knew very little. He didn’t say anything to Philip just then, nor for the rest of the dance, which I know because Philip spent the rest of the night alone in a corner, batting away anyone who approached. He probably thought Timothy was going to kill him.

The moment I was in the bathroom, I burst into tears at the sight of my dress. The fabric was muddy and crinkled, and no amount of washing would completely remove the grass stains. I scrubbed the mud off my face and out of my hair and did my best to wipe it off of the fabric. But clearly I had been rolling around in the mud.

I waited until my eyes had lost some of their redness before leaving the bathroom. Timothy had already found my mother and the two were speaking in hushed tones against the wall, so quiet that I couldn’t hear even once I stood right by them. Though my instinct was to run and hide, even at ten I knew I would have to own up to my fate. I had been naughty; now I would have to suffer the consequences.

“Guinevere Rose Ochiern,” my mother said evenly, slowly turning to look down at me and my ruined dress. She stared long and hard at me, her eyes trailing from my missing hairbow down to my mud-caked shoes. She didn’t yell or cry or outwardly scold. She simply glanced at me with hard, judging eyes. “Timothy tells me ya t’were outside in the dirt. Be that true?”

Timothy had at least spared me the humiliation, it seemed, of telling my mother that I had been out there with a boy. Doing so would have sealed my fate right then and there. But then, I give Timothy the benefit of the doubt, for hindsight reveals that had Timothy shared with my mother that Philip and I had been outback –Philip, a boy six years my senior– such a scandal would have erupted that Timothy’s proposal to Priscilla some three weeks later would no doubt have been prevented.

I nodded.

As it was, my mother took me home right then and there and gave me a whipping that my backside remembered for years. She fixed my dress as best she could, but Easter photos that year show my dress as far less beautiful than it originally was, altered and patched to cover the stains. I didn’t say a word the rest of the night, didn’t say a word to anyone about my naughtiness behind the community center. Timothy and Philip went on being friends as though nothing had ever happened, as though it hadn’t been obvious what had transpired.

My mother never made me a brand new dress again.

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