CLARIFYING
[A converted warehouse off the Lower Glanmire Road, Cork. The kind of place that looks abandoned from the street and isn't. A wrestling ring set up in the centre. Foam crash mats stacked along the far wall. A heavy bag in one corner. Tuesday morning. Empty except for two people.
SAOIRSE FALLON has been here since six. Tight black athletic shorts, an old training t-shirt darkened with sweat, hair in the braid that has slipped at the temples. She has just come off the top rope — Phoenix Splash on a stack of mats — and landed on the balls of her feet, rolled forward, and come back up at speed. She is breathing hard but not winded.
MICK WALSH, her trainer — late fifties, grey beard, faded GAA Munster jersey, holding a coffee — has been watching from the apron. He is not smiling.]
MICK: That's the fifth one.
SAOIRSE: Aye.
MICK: That's the fifth one this morning.
SAOIRSE: Counted them, did ye?
MICK: I count them every morning, girl. Ye know I do.
[She walks to the ropes, presses her foot against the bottom one, stretches the calf. Doesn't look at him.]
SAOIRSE: Right. So.
MICK: So I'm telling ye. Five Phoenix Splashes from the top, off a stack of mats no thicker than the canvas. I've been watching ye drill the landing all week. The landing isn't the issue. The setup isn't the issue. You know I know what the issue is.
SAOIRSE: The pause.
MICK: The pause. Ye're not pausing.
[She finishes the stretch. Stands. Turns to face him. Her expression is the one her father knows — not defiant, not soft. The one that explains.]
SAOIRSE: Mick. Marisol Reyes is a submission specialist. She's gonna catch me on the landing if I leave her any seconds. The pause is the seconds. I'm taking the seconds out.
MICK: I know what she is. I watched her at BCD 5.
SAOIRSE: Then ye know.
MICK: I know the matchup. I'm not arguing the matchup. I'm telling ye that the seconds in the pause are what your body asks for, and ye're spending all week training yourself not to ask. Ye're three months on from a concussion that took ye four months out and ye're training out the part of yourself that warned ye before the ladder.
[She is quiet for a moment.]
SAOIRSE: That's not what I'm doing.
MICK: It looks like what ye're doing.
SAOIRSE: From the apron, aye. From inside it isn't.
[She walks to the corner. Climbs. Sits on the top turnbuckle. Looks at him from there.]
SAOIRSE: BCD 5. Bottom of the second round. Diamante had me against the cage wall and I went up the corner because the cage wall was the only thing I could leave from. I got to the top. Body said stop. I went anyway. Phoenix Splash. Landed. Won.
MICK: I watched it.
SAOIRSE: Aye, ye watched it. The body said stop. The body was wrong.
MICK: Saoirse.
SAOIRSE: The body was wrong, Mick. That's what I came back from the concussion knowing. The body's stop signal is set somewhere in 2019, when I was nineteen and a different fighter, and it hasn't been updated. Every time it goes off and I go anyway and I land it, I'm not being reckless. I'm clarifying. I'm telling the body where the actual line is, because the body hasn't been keeping up.
MICK: That's not what clarifying means.
SAOIRSE: It's what it means when I say it.
[Long pause. Mick takes a drink of his coffee. He has known her since she was twelve. He has seen this conversation coming for months.]
MICK: Your dad called me yesterday.
SAOIRSE: I know he called ye yesterday. He called me first.
MICK: He's worried.
SAOIRSE: He's allowed.
MICK: I'm worried.
SAOIRSE: You're allowed.
[She climbs down from the turnbuckle. Walks to the centre of the ring. Faces him fully.]
SAOIRSE: Mick. I'll tell ye the truth. I don't know where the line is yet. I'm not pretending I do. What I know is that BCD 5 was below it. The body said stop and the stop wasn't the line. So I'm going to keep finding out where the actual one is, drill by drill, match by match, until something gives. When something gives, I'll know.
MICK: When something gives.
SAOIRSE: Aye.
MICK: That's the part that scares the two of us.
SAOIRSE: I know it is. I'm sorry it does. I'm not sorry I'm doing it.
[Brief silence. Mick finishes the coffee. Sets the cup on the apron. Picks up a towel from the stack behind him and tosses it to her. She catches it.]
MICK: Right. Two more from the top. Different setup. Walk me through what ye're planning for the Reyes match while ye climb.
SAOIRSE: Aye, boy.
[She wipes her face with the towel. Drops it. Walks back to the corner. Climbs. Starts talking the Reyes plan while she sets her feet on the turnbuckle. The scene ends with her at the top, mid-sentence, about to go.]