Primperfect

by Deirdre Sullivan

  I was trying to make Joel jealous with all my talk of Robb. I do not know if I succeeded. He made me jealous with all his talk of Duncan. Nary an anecdote went by that didn’t involve the aging pervert. They met one night when he was out with Karen. He pointedly mentioned Karen a few times while we were making the awkward small-talk leading up to me glutting my feelings all over him. I think it is really hypocritical that he was now hanging out with someone who has called our friend Ella a retard on more than one occasion and wouldn’t hang out with me, even though I didn’t even use hate-speech when I outed her, just said that she was ‘a mean lesbian or possibly a mean bisexual woman’.

  ‘So you and Karen are, like, total besties now?’ I said.

  ‘Don’t use that sarcastic tone with me, Prim. I don’t even want to be here. Karen is worth ten of you.’

  ‘No she isn’t.’

  ‘She is mean. But also really fun, so it kind of balances out.’ He emphasised the word ‘fun’ as though it were delicious and alien. Which is nonsense because I am total fun. Like off-the-chain fun-levels right here all day everyday. I can’t believe he tried to imply he didn’t have fun with me. We had mild-to-moderate fun on a number of occasions. Sometimes we dialled it right up to severe. This normally involved move-busting or gluing things on children. I wonder what kind of fun he had with Karen. I bet it was mean, immoral, reprehensible fun. The kind of fun you have on a road-trip with human trafficking.

  ‘Do you miss me even a little bit?’ I asked him.

  ‘I do. But I can’t be friends with someone who doesn’t respect people’s right to be themselves.’ He stirred sugar into his tea. Round and round and round it went. Clink and clink and clink. I felt a tirade building up inside me because I am not a bad person. I’m just not. I made a mistake and people do that all the bloody time. They make mistakes and then they get forgiven. Look at Dad. Before I knew it my mouth was open and all the feelings were just pouring out, surprising both of us.

  ‘But who she is is hateful, Joel. She opens her mouth and all this bile spews out and it is hurtful. She said my mum got SQUISHED.

  That was not OK. And I feel that you hanging out with her and picking her over me is so unfair or something.’ I may have started to cry at this point. The spoon inside the teacup had stopped moving. Joel’s voice got deeper, softer. The way it does when he is being sad or gentle with me. When he is trying to ease the answers out.

  ‘When did she say that thing about your mum?’

  ‘At the dancey thing last year. Remember I went home early because she told me about Mac?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So her exact words were, “His dad squished your mum.” That’s not OK. You loved my mum and it’s not OK that you are hanging out with someone who disrespected her memory like that. And it’s not OK that you are being so mean to me when you know I have always loved and accepted you and –’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Let me finish.’ I was kind of full-on purple and quivery with woe at this point. In a café. In the middle of town.

  ‘And I thought I wanted you to be my friend again. I thought I was in the wrong. But the more I analyse it, Joel, the more it seems like you were looking for a reason to friend-break-up with me, because Karen has basically been bullying me since first year, or trying to anyway. And you picked her over me because I did one mean thing.’

  ‘You also punched her in the face that time.’

  ‘She called Ella a retard, Joel.’

  ‘Oh yeah. She did. Jesus. I’d forgotten.’

  ‘Ella hasn’t. And I haven’t. And I think that you not talking to me was way more about the Kevin thing than it was about the Karen thing. And I am sorry, because he was horrible to me as well, in a different way, and you are more important than he is and I shouldn’t have done that to you when I knew you fancied him. It’s just … I hardly have all the boys running after me. I mean, I’m not gorgeous like Ciara or skinny-quirky-pretty like Ella. I kind of have to take what I can get.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have kissed him,’ Joel said, and his face was tight. He ripped open a sugar packet and spilled the contents on the table.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And then kept on kissing him.’ He was making a little mountain out of the sugar, then smoothing it down, spreading it thin.

  ‘I know.’ I looked at the granules on the table. I wanted to wipe them away, to tidy them up. My hands were in my lap. I kept them there. Joel sighed.

  ‘You know you aren’t, like, ugly or anything. I mean, you’ve got great hair and you’re fun to be around and you didn’t inherit Fintan’s nose. Any boy would be lucky to be with you.’

  ‘No they wouldn’t. I’m a mess. I mean, look at all this. I was going to be cool and woo you back with tales of my fascinating life without you.’

  I tried to flick my hair. It didn’t work. But Joel’s interest was evidently piqued because he made suggestive eye contact.

  ‘Fascinating, eh?’

  ‘Honestly, it’s been crap. You’re kind of my favourite person.’ We were quiet for a while, letting the truth of that sink in. The weight of it.

  ‘You never told me Karen said that thing. You bottle things up too much.’

  ‘Maybe you are right.’

  He is right. I amn’t going to change my ways or anything but he is right. I bottle and explode in carefully managed situations by myself. I hate the thought of casualties. Or causing grief. Collateral damage in my war to not be crap. That kind of thing.

  We paused and he mumbled something.

  ‘Wait. What?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Prim. I’m really, really sorry. I should have asked you about things. I should have been there for Roderick’s funeral. I mean, I’d known him since he was a baby.’

  ‘That was pretty harsh of you. We buried him with Mum. For my birthday party.’

  ‘I know you did. Ciara told me all about it. I asked her things about you. Well, not so much with asking. She tends to talk about you pretty freely.’ This was true. I nodded.

  ‘Sometimes I think she’s basically my no-sex wife,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not going to even bother unpacking that. Can we be friends again?’

  ‘Only if you tell me about your ridiculous older-gent sex-pervert of a boyfriend.’

  Joel shook his head, but also kept on talking. ‘He is only three out of those four things.’

  ‘Which three?’

  ‘That would be telling.’

  And then we spoke of Duncan once again.

  Duncan has dirty blond hair and enjoys surfing. They met at a house party, where Karen abandoned Joel to go find drugs. Duncan shared his beer with Joel and made sure he was included in the conversation. Duncan is kind like that. He fought against asking Joel out for ages, because he was worried Joel was too young. He is a very moral and upstanding dater of children.

  ‘I’m finished my Junior Cert, Prim. And it isn’t like that. Don’t make me stop talking to you again.’

  ‘I can’t not mock you about being a boy-toy, Joely. My tongue would spasm from the wanting to and then dry out and curl up from frustration in my mouth. I might die.’

  ‘You are not going to die, Prim.’

  ‘Of course I’m going to die, Joel. Everybody is.’

  ‘You’re so morbid.’

  I triangled my hands, like a good Caroline. ‘I blame the cognitive behavioural therapy.’

  ‘How is that going, by the way?’

  Joel has always been very interested in therapy. He once told me that when he came out, he was secretly hoping that his parents would pay for him to go. They ended up accepting him instead. Which is probably better.

  ‘Mostly OK. But it can be hard.’

  ‘How so?’

  I knew from the head on Joel that he wanted me to talk about the cutting. But I wasn’t going to. It’s not conversation-fodder. I barely even acknowledge it to Caroline. Joel knows because of conjecture and seeing my scars in passing, when I’d be changing into my
pyjamas or whatever. Since he’s come out as gay, both our parents have been laxer about the whole being in each other’s bedrooms for long periods of time thing.

  ‘Just things. Saying things out loud. I bet they’d send you to therapy if you told them about Duncan.’

  Joel nodded slowly. ‘You’re probably right. But then I wouldn’t get to see Duncan. He has a gauged piercing and a tattoo of a pigeon on his calf. Dad would hate him.’

  ‘So would Fintan, by the sounds of it. Maybe I should date him too.’ quite a while and it felt lovely. ‘You can’t have this one. He is a proper gay man.’

  ‘Sexuality is fluid, Joel. And I can look pretty manly in the right light. Have you guys done the deed?’

  ‘Prim!’

  ‘Joel! What? I’m curious.’

  ‘He wants to wait until I’m seventeen.’ Joel fiddled with another sugar packet, but didn’t open it. I approved of Duncan’s self-control by picking at my nail polish awkwardly.

  ‘How chivalrous of him! He clearly is a proper gent.’

  ‘I think so. Ooh! Actually I forgot to ask what the story was with your dad and Sorrel. Mam saw them hanging out like a pair of chums in town.’

  ‘They’re getting on quite well. She does some minding of me and some cleaning of our house in exchange for money. Freelance acupuncture and Reiki aren’t going too well at the moment.’

  ‘I hope I’m not poor when I’m older.’

  ‘Me too. I mean, I don’t want to be Fintan-rich. But I’d like to have enough money not to have to do cleaning on the side. Not that she cleans very well. I have to follow her around with the cloth. Dad mostly likes her for the chats. She’s kind of his therapist.’

  Joel put his head dramatically between his hands. ‘Everyone has a therapist but me.’

  ‘Liam doesn’t.’ Liam is Joel’s father. He is an extremely confident man who coaches hurling.

  ‘Liam has never had a moment of self-doubt in his life. Even when he found out he’d raised a gay man.’

  ‘You are not a man yet, Joel.’

  ‘I am. I am a young adult.’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m the same age as you, and I don’t feel very adult at all.’

  ‘What makes you an adult? I wonder.’

  ‘Voting. Or doing it.’

  ‘But not at the same time.’

  Even though we clicked into our old friendship like there hadn’t been a few months in the middle where he’d cut me out, I’m wary. Because he might start hating me again and never stop and then I would be lonely. It is important to carve out friendships with new, less-prone-to-hate-me people for this reason.

  Fintan has asked me to marry him. I’ve said yes, because I love him and I want my parents not to be angry with me. The latter is not a very grown-up reason to get married, but I think the former is pretty solid. Also there is wanting my child to have a traditional two-parent family. I mean, that’s the ideal, isn’t it?

  Quote from Prim’s mum’s diary

  called over to Ella’s for tea today. She prefers to stay in than go out, although she has her moments. We watched a documentary about a lion cub who was raised in 1960s London, and then got big, so his owners decided to send him back to Africa to live with other lions, so he could be happy and fulfilled and not a public menace. There was a bit at the end, where the lion was all hanging out with his new pack and his old owners visited and he recognised them and went over to them and gave them a big excited yet gentle lion hug. It made me properly sob. Unexpected reunions always do that to me. In films and books anyway. I don’t think I’ve ever had one in real life, unless making up with Joel counts. Ella rubbed my shoulder awkwardly. She’s not too gone on hugs. Felix came in midway through my sobathon.

  ‘You must be at the bit where they visit him in Africa.’

  I nodded.

  ‘I’m pausing it until she stops crying,’ said Ella, rubbing my shoulder all the while.

  ‘Good plan. It might be a while, though. That was a pretty moving scene.’

  ‘Felix cried as well,’ said Ella, who was going to rub a hole through the fabric of my T-shirt if she wasn’t careful. ‘Not as much as you, though. You’re pretty sad.’

  ‘I’m not sad.’

  ‘Yes, you are, you’re crying.’

  ‘I suppose I am.’

  Felix came back in with a box of tissues and eventually I quieted down enough to watch the rest of it with Ella. Then we went to her room and played with Mr Cat for a while.

  ‘I wonder if Mr Cat would give you a glorious lion hug if he were a lion instead of a cat and you had returned him to Africa so he could socialise with other magnificent lions?’

  ‘He would if I had cheese.’ Ella knows Mr Cat pretty well.

  ‘He probably would anyway. He’s pretty loyal to you.’

  Mr Cat rubs and cuddles up to Ella as though his name were Mr Dog. With everyone else, he acts like a normal cat who could not give a toss about you unless there was something in it for him. Like cheese or catnip or a stick with a feather on the end for him to hunt. Sticks with feathers on the end of them are endlessly fascinating to Mr Cat, so long as they’re in motion. If they are perfectly still, there is no sport in hunting them and he could not care less. Kind of like Kevin with me. I got a text from him last night asking who this Robb fella was. As if he cared.

  ‘He probably does care a bit,’ said Ella.

  ‘Not enough to want to be my boyfriend.’

  ‘He can’t be your boyfriend when he already has a girlfriend.’

  ‘I know, duh. But I wish he had picked me instead of Siobhán. I wonder why he texted.’

  Ella thought about it. ‘Because he mightn’t want you, but he doesn’t want anyone else to have you either?’

  ‘That’s not very nice of him.’

  ‘Boys are not very nice people. Caleb is kissing other girls now.’

  This was interesting. ‘Oh?’

  ‘He keeps texting me about it. I think he is trying to make me jealous so I will get back together with him.’

  ‘That would probably work on me.’

  ‘Felix said the same thing. He is quite needy.’

  Me too, Felix. Look at all we have in common. Let’s have twenty babies and a cocker spaniel called Oscar that we dress in little jumpers.

  ‘And would you think about getting back together with Caleb?’

  ‘No. I like him a lot, but I don’t fancy him enough to be his girlfriend any more.’

  ‘Makes sense. I wonder why people stop fancying other people.’

  This is a pretty big question for me. Not only would it solve the mystery of Mum and Dad’s weirdly twisty little romance thing but it would provide me with much needed Kevin-closure.

  ‘They get used to them, and then they are not as interesting.’

  This was not the answer I was expecting, but it made a lot of sense. Ella is really wise. We made pizza for dinner, with a side salad. Ella put raisins in the salad and I thought it was going to taste weird, but it was actually pretty epic. I think I would like going over to her house even if I didn’t fancy her brother a ridiculous amount. We could hear him playing his bass guitar through the walls. He is in two bands. The Deep Tinkers (who do a sort of trad-rock fusion thing and often play at alcohol-free events for Dublin Youth) and Promises, Promises, which is his ‘commercial venture’ and plays covers at weddings. The members of both bands are exactly the same, but they didn’t want to sully the Tinker name with Abba medleys and power ballads.

  There is something really attractive about playing an instrument. It might explain why Mum fell so hard for Dad. He can play the guitar, the bass guitar, the piano and a bit of the zither. I used to think this was really cool when I was little and he would pick out the songs I liked on his keyboard to impress me when I only saw him at weekends. Mum was never overly enthusiastic when I told her how cool that was. She never really moaned about Dad in front of me, but sometimes I overheard her grumbling to her friends. We tended to live in small pl
aces. I have way more privacy in this house now. Which is a good thing, because I am a teenager and don’t enjoy being too observable. Not because I do too many secret things, but because I want to be my own person and have stuff that’s just mine.

  Roderick was a thing that was just mine. No-one else I knew had a rat. And he was so cute and friendly and clever. My small bestie. Ella understands how important animals are. Ciara not so much. I think she has them down as less than family and boyfriends, but slightly more than an accessory you quite like. Whereas for me, Roderick was on an even enough keel with Fintan. But he was a damn sight more important than stupid Kevin. I kind of miss stupid Kevin, though. He had broad shoulders and a warm neck. And a ridiculous little dog called Wayne Rooney. As boys who fancied me went, he was pretty much the only one. I hope I meet another one before I die. Preferably before the summer is over. Ella thinks I will, but she’s not so sure about herself.

  ‘People think I’ve got an intellectual disability just because I’m on the spectrum.’

  ‘But you get better results than most people.’

  ‘I know, right? Some of Mam’s friends speak to me really, really slowly. As though I were a cat to be coaxed out of trees.’

  ‘That sucks.’

  ‘Yeah. I don’t like it at all. People say that we can’t pick up on social cues, but it’s very easy to know when you’re being patronised.’

  ‘Blerg.’

  ‘I know. I think that even if I did have an intellectual disability, I would not want to be spoken to like that. There are an awful lot of things I want from a boyfriend, and being talked down to is not one of them. So it’s not that I don’t think I can get a boyfriend, it’s just that I want someone who is properly special.’

  I nodded, thinking about her lovely brother with his smile and shoulders. ‘Me too.’

  ‘Prim,’ said Ella, maintaining excellent eye-contact, ‘are you thinking about Felix?’