Improper Order

by Sullivan, Deirdre; Slattery, Fidelma;

  Friday night was like a graph. The graph started off suspicious, swiftly rising to good then swooping up to better before plateauing for a time at fun. It dipped almost imperceptibly later in the night when I got thirsty, but rose again for a time once I got a drink of water into me. Ultimately, however, it was to plummet to the depths of woe that change the way you view the world FOREVER.

  And finally it rose a bit again, though what was learned at the bottom of the graph could never be unlearned. For, you see, no matter how long and mouldy and full of drunk-person-wee the tunnel might be, there is usually some light at the end of it. Even if it is the headlights of some oncoming traffic being driven by a flock of vodka-soaked killers with seriously impaired judgement.

  I suppose I’ll begin at the beginning. In the beginning, it was Friday. I had homework but it was mostly done and Dad was dropping me over to Ciara’s house to get ready. He was going to the theatre with Hedda after and was in the kind of good mood that he gets when he is going to spend time with her. I wonder if it will last after she moves in. Constantly chipper Fintan would be hard to stomach, I think. I wish this was my biggest problem.

  I was going to Ciara’s house because this is the way of things before dancey-type events. Girls get ready in clusters so they can critique each other’s looks and build up each other’s fragile teenage self-esteem before going out into the wild.

  Joel was there too, even though he is a boy and not a girl. He was there to play Xbox on Ciara’s bedroom TV and complain about how shallow we were.

  We were pretty shallow. There was a lot of earring-and bracelet-related talk. Did you know that if you wear a ring, a bracelet, a necklace and earrings all at once it can sometimes be overkill? Sometimes but not necessarily always. It depends on several factors: the positioning and adjacence of the bracelet and rings and the dimensions of the necklace — its statementitude, if you will. Ciara is a big fan of ‘statement’ jewellery. This is jewellery that says in a loud voice, ‘I AM JEWELLERY.’

  Grandma Lily prefers a more delicate, feminine chain. Also, she will only wear real gold or silver. No costume jewellery for her. It must all be real, and one day it will all be Ciara’s. Grandma Lily enjoys Ciara’s company and has grown to respect her more, because standing up for what you believe in is a very Grandma Lily trait and Ciara is doing this more often now that she has someone around to consistently back her up.

  Lily was there not to help us get ready, but to keep an eye on us because Ciara’s parents were out. This is why Joel was allowed in the room.

  Ciara’s parents are very strict about not having boys in her room. This is why she mostly goes to Syzmon’s house when they want to hook up. Syzmon’s parents are more lenient about such things. And although I can kind of understand (understand, not agree with) where Ciara’s parents are coming from with the whole Syzmon thing, I don’t get why Joel is not allowed either. I mean, there’s no way anything would happen with Joel. Even if he was a fan of the ladies for all his sexy-time needs, he would not want to hook up with Ciara because she is very high-maintenance and demands teddies with hearts on them for Valentine’s Day and other accoutrements like that. She is a girl who uses the term ‘Weekiversary’ without irony. Luckily, Syzmon is mad enough about her to be very assiduous about things like that, winning her things with claw machines, buying her cards with rhymes about the colours of various flowers in and so on and so forth.

  Anyway, Joel should be allowed in Ciara’s room, because he is her friend, not some massive sex-pervert who cannot be contained. I am more of a sex-pervert than he is and I’m hardly a pervert at all, though I do possess a long raincoat and unfettered Internet access.

  Ciara was wearing a little black and lime-green pinstriped pencil skirt, a sleeveless and silky black top and heels of the sort that a promiscuous secretary would wear in an advert about sexy coffee. Also red lipstick. She looked great, very polished and wiggly. This was unsurprising, as she had been worrying about what to wear for what felt like weeks and weeks but was probably only about six or seven lunchtimes. I had my purple tutu, an old band T-shirt of Dad’s for some dude called Rory Gallagher and my sequined black tennis shoes with the purple and black polka dot laces Joel had got me.

  Ciara looked me up and down, said, ‘Nice look — but give it to me for a second,’ and proceeded to produce an ENORMOUS dressmaker’s scissors and cut poor Fintan’s T-shirt to shreds. I put on an old jumper of hers and we went down to Lily’s flat and Ciara borrowed her sewing machine and did some stuff to the T-shirt that made it look a lot better on me than it had before. It clung in the right places and had some holes that looked a bit lacy or arty or something and when Joel saw me wearing it he went, ‘Wow’, and he does not say wow lightly.

  I did not know Ciara was an amazing seamstress, but there you go. Lily said I should see her hats, but she wouldn’t show them off because she has ‘only recently taken up millinery and they’re not ready to be shown to anyone yet’. I asked her if she knew how incredibly cool that was. I only wish I had an awesomely secret talent like that. I can touch my nose with my tongue but that is literally the only talent I have.

  Anyway, Grandma Lily (who isn’t supposed to be driving any more, except when Ciara’s parents need her to be their little blue-haired chauffeuse) dropped us to the club where the

  was on and loads of people we knew and knew by reputation were there. We spent most of our time in the queue to get in noticing people and saying hello.

  I was surprised by how many people were drinking bottles of fizzy drinks while they waited and then copped that fizzy was not all that those drinks were. The scandal! I wondered if this dance thing would be on the radio the next day, like that one last year where loads of the girls didn’t bother with underwear and scandalised the matrons of Dublin with their drunkenness and fondling. Because I was supposed to go to that one and then I couldn’t at the last minute and after that chat show about it Fintan got really wound up and has ONLY NOW forgotten about it, even though I always wear underwear because I consider a warm bottom essential in our inclement Irish climate.

  It’s not like I’m against drinking or anything. I have been known to try a sip or two of the many weird bottles in Fintan’s copious liquor cabinet when Joel is over and we feel like being bold. It just didn’t occur to me to bring drink with me tonight, and also no one mentioned it and I kind of wouldn’t want to be drinking unless Ciara and Joel were as well, because if we are going to be silly, it is WAY more fun to be collectively silly, as opposed to just one person being silly and the other two raining on her parade and making her feel like the biggest tool in the box.

  Karen and them were all drinking of course, as were a fair few of the guys. But my tiny mind was soon distracted from all their antics by the advent of a big surprise. Caleb and Ella showed up together. She was all ‘Hey’ and cool, as if going to cramped places filled with loud noises was something she did every day.

  She had been over visiting the Doctor. By which I mean the ferret. Ella is apparently very good with the Doctor. He likes to curl around her neck like some sort of fancy fur scarf worn by grandes dames of the theatre to premieres. Only alive and more bitey. She only has one ferret hickey, though. Apparently, after he’d tried it once, she gave him a stern look and a spritz of punishment spray and then the Doctor realised who the boss was.

  Caleb’s presence annoyed Karen and she gave our group a look of DEATH. Caleb wasn’t sure why she was so annoyed, seeing as how they broke up because she cheated on him five times in one night because he refused to take her to see a romantic comedy about hairdressers in the Savoy.

  When Ciara heard that, she called Karen a ‘brazen strumpet’, which made us all laugh because Ciara has really been spending far too much time with Lily. Ella asked what a ‘brazen strumpet’ was and Joel explained that it was ‘old Person for whore’. Then I got all up on my high horse because I am my mother’s daughter and my mother did not approve of such slurs. If a boy cheated on a girl five time
s in one night to prove a point, he would be a ‘player’ or at worst a ‘bastard’ (which is another slur that I hate because I am proud to have been ‘born on the wrong side of the blanket’, as Grandma Lily would put it, proud I tell you — shows my mum had sense).

  Karen, although her behaviour could be construed as promiscuous, is not a slut, a whore, a ho-bag, a town bicycle (Lily again — do they do nothing but discuss euphemisms for this sort of thing?), a strumpet, a floozy, a tramp, a tart, a harlot, a scarlet woman (this one is my favourite as it sounds quite cool), a hussy and so on and so forth. We spent quite a bit of time coming up with all the words that Karen shouldn’t be called, although it occurs to me now that if she heard us brainstorming she might not have gotten that I was defending her from slut-shaming because it is hard to compile a list like that collectively without getting the giggles. I shouldn’t feel bad, though, because what she did to Caleb was very mean indeed. I wonder will I ever get the chance to be a scarlet woman? It could be fun, but only for a summer. I think a summer of scarlet abandon would be kind of amazing. Perhaps post-Junior-Cert?

  Once we got in, after having our bags searched for contraband by three burly men and two burly ladies, the place was actually quite cool. There were a few people from primary school there who said, ‘Heeey’, and, ‘Haven’t seen you in aaages,’ and other sentences with too many enthusiastic vowels in, and the music was really good, if a little bit on the poppy side.

  Ciara wanted to dance right away but Joel and I were a bit shy so we all got lemonades instead. I kind of wanted to see who was there and what they were wearing and if I looked like an idiot compared to them. I didn’t look like anyone there really, but I felt good. There were a lot of fake-tanned legs and tiny shiny dresses.

  Leona was wearing a dress that looked like an old man’s shirt with a waistcoat over it and loads of beads and mad earrings. She looked amazing and I told her so when she came over for a chat.

  Joel’s Kevin was there and he came over too, and so did Laura the Human Dolphin and Mac. All of a sudden, we were in the centre of this enormous group of friendly joking people and it was lovely. We all went out dancing and they didn’t even seem to mind when myself and Ciara busted out sweet, sweet rap battle moves on the floor. This involves lots of swaying and dramatic hand gestures as well as a very tough expression on the face that says, ‘Do not mess with me or I will cut you to the quick with my apt and insightful rhymes.’ Laura joined in and she was very, very good at busting a move, for a Human Dolphin.

  Joel and Kevin were talking and after a while Joel pulled me aside and was all, ‘Oh my God, he has something to tell me! We’re going to meet up tomorrow to talk!’ and I was excited for him, but also worried because although Kevin looked like he was fond of Joel, there was nothing overly flirty or whatever in the way they interacted and … Anyway, I hope it went well. Must call Joel later when I am ready to speak to other human beings again.

  Song after song passed and it was amazing for ages, till it wasn’t.

  I got thirsty and got a tap water and then went back to dance and everything was fine until I needed to pee and Ciara couldn’t come as well because Syzmon had arrived and they were busy kissing and doing the dance that isn’t like a dance at all, just like a hug with swaying. So that was OK, but I wonder would things have been different if she had been there when I heard. I don’t know. Maybe.

  As I climbed the stairs to the bathroom, my phone beeped. It was Felix.

  Ella’s missing. She left to go to the doctor eight hours ago and hasn’t come back. Any clue where she mite be?

  I still fancy him quite a bit, actually. I texted back to let him know she was here, and safe and happy. I didn’t mention that the Doctor was a ferret because I did not want to blow his mind, unless it be in a more romantic and less rodenty manner. Oh, Felix.

  I went into the bathroom and there was a huge queue of girls, some of whom were puking. I helped a girl called Charlotte retrieve and put on both of her shoes, which she had taken off in a fit of high-heeled agony, which abated after she stepped in something she was pretty sure had once been chips.

  Felix rang while I was sitting on the loo, and I didn’t answer because I make it a policy never to do so midstream. That time is mine and mine alone, and the Devil take the consequences!

  When I got out, Karen was at the sinks, sneering at Siobhán who was sort of taking a nap on an out-of-order toilet (seat down, because she’s not an animal). It is very hard to be the Devil without expertly applied eyeliner, so Karen applied some gel eyeliner from a pot with a little brush she had secreted somewhere on her person (I actually have no idea where she had it on her; she would do very well in prison) before turning to me with the smuggest expression that she has ever had. And this is a girl who, if she were a cat, would be constantly eating cream and also salmon.

  ‘Primrose!!!’ she said, in that really fake I’m-happy-to-see-you-but-really-I-amn’t-wait-for-what-I’m-going-to-say-next-because-it’ll-probably-haunt-you-for-decades kind of way. ‘I’m surprised at you.’

  I looked at her, like, ‘What?’ and then followed my look up with the actual question ‘What?’ because that was kind of where my look had been going but she hadn’t answered me.

  She pressed her lips together, in case someone’s pet goldfish escaped her mouth, swallowed once and let it rip.

  ‘Well, I didn’t know you could be so … forgiving.’

  Again, I went, ‘What?’ but this time my voice must have had a bit more contempt in it, and also I had started drying my hands, so she couldn’t really draw it out for fear I’d escape on her.

  ‘I suppose it’s hard for you to make friends. I mean … well, that’s why you hang out with the … Ella.’

  She literally thinks that Ella is not a real person, that she’s somehow less than other people because she has Asperger’s syndrome. I know Karen thinks that she is better than almost everyone including me (because I’m clever, which makes me a nerd, and I don’t know as many people as she does, which makes me a loser), Ciara (because she used to eat her own hair, which makes her abnormal), Joel (because he is friends with me and I once punched her in the face) — the list goes on. But in Ella’s case she really, REALLY thinks it, more than usual.

  ‘But I thought…’ she was saying now, ‘well. It seems a bit odd, like you don’t really care that his dad smooshed your mum and stuff.’

  I’d like to get some driving lessons, take my driving test, pass my driving test, fill in a form, enclose money and two passport photographs, wait till my licence arrives in the post four to six weeks later, drink a bottle of vodka and smoosh the hell out of her.

  But wait, there’s more. And the more is why I was too stunned to punch her all over again.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Siobhán asked from the toilet seat, where she was blinking and focusing on the world outside the cubicle as though it were some sort of test she was in the process of trying desperately not to fail.

  ‘Oh, just the thing I was telling you earlier — about how Primrose is all in love with Malcolm McAllister. You know, Laura’s Mac’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ said Siobhán, ‘she wants to have his babies, even though his dad killed her mum, right?’

  ‘I know. I don’t think it’s fair to her memory. You’d think her daughter would, like, care about stuff like that.’

  ‘But she doesn’t, does she?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Karen looked me over really coldly from top to toe and was all, ‘Sorry, I thought you deserved to know.’ But there was a smile on her face that belied that statement utterly. She only said it in case anyone overheard our conversation and realised that I had been right all along and mine were not the ravings of some feral heretic and that Karen actually was the Devil — Satan herself, with soulless eyes that were perfectly defined and empty of all but evil.

  I looked around and around and around me but I had nowhere to go; literally EVERYONE was peeing or queuing or preening or eavesdropping and all the
stalls were full so I couldn’t slam myself into one and hide and I could feel myself just emptying out, like I was falling down a hole or had been spinning and spinning and spinning and finally stopped and the world was still going around and around and I wasn’t sure what the world was up to with its dips and wobbles but it was almost certainly malevolent.

  Then Felix rang and called me a bitch for not answering my phone before. So there was that.

  If life were a film, it would have cut to me falling onto my lonely bed in a world of motherless despair, but life is not a film and I don’t have a teleporter, so I went back downstairs and saw everyone still dancing and laughing and doing normal things. But it was like all the fun I had been having had been a dream, and now I had not exactly woken up but more realised that I was dreaming; none of it was real.

  The real world is a place that isn’t safe, a place you must be careful in, for people are such vulnerable creatures, all soft skin and fragile bones. I’ve stopped taking supplements since Mum died — she used to have me on calcium and iron and vitamin C and omega 3 and whatever else she liked the sound of in the health-food shop where Sorrel sometimes worked.

  Dad doesn’t believe in that sort of thing. He says that they are all placebos and the only reason they work is that we are stupid enough to believe in them. This is kind of how Mum felt about God, who Dad actually does believe in. I’m not sure what I think about vitamin tablets. They come in pretty bottles, but what I liked best about them in retrospect was that they showed Mum cared about my health. She considered what I needed and tried her best to make me as strong as I could be. I don’t have anyone worrying about ways of boosting my immune system during those cold winter months any more. I have to be as strong as I can be all by myself.