Galway Review 8 - April 2020

‘If you were, I didn’t notice,’ he chuckled, ‘anyway
what’s that supposed to mean?’
She burst into tears.
‘What’s happened to put you in this bloody mood?’
‘I don’t know,’ she whimpered. ‘I just don’t
understand!’
‘That’s a change usually it’s me that doesn’t
understand.’
‘All I know is I’m insulted and hurt,’ she said.
‘Has that Priest been going on again?’
‘It’s like I’m an onion with so many skins and
layers…I, the person, seems to have got lost,
smothered along the way.’ Rhoda made a gesture of
helpless innocence, ‘why did God give us a nature so at
odds with what He expects? I feel I want to rid myself of
everything I’ve been told and taught. Find out what-itsall-about
for myself because I can’t live like this any
longer. I need to get right down to bedrock.’
‘Bedrock! For God’s sake woman will you tell me
what you’re on about?’
‘I hate myself. I hate my body. I hate being a
woman. I can no longer cope with being put in these
positions of shame.’
‘Look, just tell me who or what’s put you in this state
and leave out the rest.’
‘I’m speechless with disgust is all I know,’ she said.
‘Oh! I hadn’t noticed. The speechless bit I mean.’
Rhoda threw herself down on the couch and released
her hair from its controlling scarf-hat. The light-brown
mass tumbled to her shoulders glinting in tandem with
the hot-cold blue of her eyes. ‘If you’re unfortunate
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