Primperfect (18 page)

Maybe the baby will give meaning to my life, I find myself thinking sometimes. Is that a very dangerous thing to think? Meaning seems like something so much bigger than a baby. Babies are very small, traditionally. But holding my watermelon tummy and imagining it dolphining around in the amniotic fluid, my baby feels like it will be big, enormous, impossibly huge, the biggest thing in the world.

Quote from Prim's mum's diary

read somewhere once that alcohol kills brain cells. When my head was sore this morning, I stared at the unfamiliar ceiling and tried to remember interesting facts about the Industrial Revolution (1760–1840). There are no interesting facts about the Industrial Revolution because the gist of it is basically: there were more machines that did stuff and that made stuff easier to do. Also, this dude called James Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny and everyone thought he was impossibly cool. Other people invented other stuff also, and they were all very pleased with themselves in Britain. In Ireland, we were still all rural and living the sad lives of share-croppers and so on and so forth. Ulster had an Industrial Revolution. The rest of Ireland had an over-reliance on potatoes until the famine. As I was pondering this, Ciara came into the room with a pint glass of water.

‘Here you go,' she said, looking at me as though I were a little fawn who might escape if not spoken to gently enough. I
felt
kind of like a little fawn who might escape if not spoken to gently enough. All woozy and delicate and things. We hadn't planned on staying over in Syzmon's, had we? Why were we still here?

‘What year is this?' I demanded, getting the most important question out of the way first thing.

‘You have not time-travelled, Prim.'

‘Then why am I not where I am supposed to be?'

‘You got drunk.' She pursed her lips.

‘Oh,' I said. She nodded.

‘Yes.'

‘Did you also get drunk?'

‘Not
as
drunk. I'm not sure anyone could have got as drunk as you got last night and not died. It was pretty impressive.'

Oh God.

‘Did I make a fool of myself?' I asked, already knowing the answer.

‘No. NO. It was kind of when almost everyone had left. And I put you to bed. And I told Mum I was staying over at yours and your dad that you were staying over at mine.'

‘Thanks, Ciara. You are the best.'

‘You're welcome.' She looked at her hands. They were in her lap. Her nails were robin's-egg blue and filed into little ovals.

Another question rose inside my gut. ‘What did I do?'

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Tell me what you remember doing and I'll fill you in.'

I did not like the sound of this at all. ‘Ciara?'

‘Yessy?'

‘Can I have five more minutes in bed?'

‘No. You're having a shower and then we're having a big chat and then we're meeting Mum in town at four o'clock.'

‘Oh.'

And that's
when I realised
I wasn't wearing
any pants.

When do memories begin exactly? I have one or two from when I was a toddler but not many. So there's a small window of opportunity to get things wrong before the baby remembers enough to hold a grudge.

Quote from Prim's mum's diary

y head felt full of ink instead of thoughts. I have never not remembered anything before and it was really scary. I had a bit of a memory. I mean, I know how the night began.

Fintan and I visited Mum's grave that morning. We brought her flowers. It had been two weeks. We normally go once a fortnight now. It used to be every week, and then it changed. I wonder if by the time I'm eighteen we'll even make it once a month? It will be harder to do when I'm in college.

What happened was basically that there was a party. Nora came without Karen, who had not been invited but still shows up later. If a party is good enough, Karen just manifests at it. You don't even need a Ouija board to summon her or anything.

Ciara and I had obtained pink and blue drinks. They were very sugary. The blue drink was a sort of vodka thing that was fizzy and tasted of cheap ice-pops and the pink drink was a sort of wine and seven-up hybrid, only pink. We mixed them together to see if they'd go purple, but they didn't and when we thought about it later, we realised that it had been a foolhardy endeavour. At the time, though, it felt very scientific and important. James Hargreaves knows what I'm talking about.

And the next morning I woke up with no pants on. Which I am getting to. But what good is a horrible experience if you can't dance around the telling of it? I am still putting together theories. I mean, I amn't sure what happened. I mean, I have an idea. I have a definite idea. But I amn't fully sure. My idea isn't something that I'm gone on. I mean, I don't think I just took off my pants all by myself, because of the heat or whatever.

How can you tell if you've been
interfered with
, as Ciara put it in her Grandma Liliest of tones. Is it something you're supposed to sense, to just know? Because everything is ink, it's covered up in ink and I can't see it. Jesus. I am so frustrated at myself for getting drunk. I knew no good would come of it. I knew. And yet. Oh, decision-making skills, I would definitely not have got an A in you in the Junior Cert.

I wish you could get grinds in not being a screw-up. I suppose that's what the CBT is supposed to be, but I am
NEVER
telling Caroline about this ever. I am
SO
embarrassed. Anyway. So. There were drinks. And Ciara and I were drinking them. Apparently, Ciara had every bit as much as me. I had assumed that I would have a higher tolerance for alcohol than her because she is a tiny pixie and I am a massive goblin. But no. Pixies can put it away, apparently. Goblins begin to puke after their seventh cup of either pink or blue drink.

Initially, goblins are great fun and everyone loves them. They go dancing with older-man perverts and are very good about judiciously ignoring Siobhán and Kevin, who apparently could not take his eyes off a certain goblin all night. I am calling myself a goblin here because it helps to distance me from my actions. I did not do it. A goblin did it. A goblin called Steve. OK, so henceforth in this story, I will be played by a goblin called Steve.

Cast

Primrose Leary…………………………………………Steve, the Goblin

Because actual people would have been a lot cleverer in terms of their decision-making skills than Steve the goblin was in this story. Steve has made some dreadful life choices in his/her time, but never has he felt more thoroughly humiliated than he did last night. Steve the goblin was initially quite normal and happy and doing a good job of keeping Ciara away from Syzmon. Steve went to the bathroom to inexpertly reapply her eyeliner and when she came back, Ciara and Syzmon were in the garden, having the kind of deep and meaningful conversation that goblins are not welcome at. Steve the goblin thought a bit about whether they would hook up and, if so, would that mean that they got back together and she concluded that it would. Because Ciara is not exactly the kind of girl to break someone's heart twice in one week. At least Steve thought so. Poor foolish Steve, the drunken goblin.

‘Oh, Steve,' you are probably thinking, ‘surely it can't have been that bad.'

To which Steve can only sit with his head in his hands, murmuring incoherently, his sorrow and shame floating out like seaweed on the ocean of what a useless person he is.
WHAT A NAUGHTY GOBLIN I HAVE BEEN!
thinks Steve.

What an utter disappointment I've become! I'm glad my mother's not around to see me. I am glad I am not a human being, because the social fallout from this would be devastating.

Steve the goblin met his best friend Joel the person at the party. Joel was there with his boyfriend and Steve and Joel went out into the garden to have a smoke. Neither of them smokes, but they wanted to have a bit of a gossip. Sometimes, the best part about being romantically involved with someone is dissecting them fondly like treasured pigs that have lived a life and now must turn to chops.

So Steve shared a cigarette from a packet Joel had bought on a night out with Duncan's friends, so he would have something to do with his hands when he felt awkward, and they talked. Joel thinks that he's in love. And Steve is happy for him, he really, properly is. But he is also a goblin conflicted, because the age gap is big. It's not big when we're twenty or we're thirty, but it's too big now and I've read about my mum and how things went down there, and I'd hate him to feel used.

‘I think that, if it breaks up, I will feel used,' he said, ‘but I would even if Duncan was our age. I think that every relationship you have will disappoint and empty you, until one doesn't, and, while I don't think we're going to be civil partners and adopt a kid and everything, he makes me happy for now and I really fancy him. And it's not like I'm going to get pregnant. So what's the harm?'

Steve shook his goblin head. ‘I don't know what the harm is, exactly. But I strongly feel that there is a harm there. Lurking.'

‘Ugh. I hate lurking. Kevin was really good at lurking.'

‘He was, wasn't he? He'd lurk and he'd lurk, and then somehow I'd find myself kissing him.'

‘Not any more.'

‘Nope.'

Joel the person tilted his head in a regretful manner. ‘He used to be a nice guy, you know. Remember the LARPing?'

‘Who could have predicted he would not be the perfect boyfriend?'

‘No-one. I mean, he was sometimes a Jesuit assassin.'

‘A HOT one at that,' mused Steve the goblin. ‘Let us speak no more of Kevin, Joely. It cuts deep.'

‘Like the blade of a vampire ninja.'

‘I never want to fight over a boy again.'

‘And I never want to fall for a straight boy again. I don't think we can exactly plan these things, though. But I would hope that next time, you might not kiss him all over his face without discussing it with me first.'

‘I hope so too. I get very distracted by kisses. I'm worried I'll grow up to make poor life-choices or become a sex-pervert.'

And, though Steve the goblin did not know it, his words were oddly accurate. For some very poor life-choices were to be made by him that very night.

Joel, too, was making life-choices that were arguably rash. For he left early to repair to Duncan's flat (Duncan has his own flat, that he lives by himself in, because he is old, old as Methuselah) for the purposes of kissing and other nice things. Steve the goblin missed Joel. And Ciara, who was still engaged in chat with Syzmon. They kept doing hugging. Not sexy hugging, but supportive, friendshippy hugging. Steve longed to know what they were banging on about out on the patio. For he was a curious goblin, prone to poking his nose into the business of pixies and other woodland creatures. This was mostly because Steve had very little going on in his life and also had a lot of time on his hands.

Before the boy and his friend the grown-up man headed off, Steve had another drink and did some crazy dancing with Duncan while Joel used the bathroom. (I am flittering around the night piece by piece because it is like trying to cobble together a mind-jigsaw using only your elbows.) Steve observed that Duncan was quite the adept dancer, capable of doing lots of dipping and twirling manoeuvres that made a gal feel all graceful. Steve reminded herself that she was not to fancy the same people as Joel any more and glared at Duncan until he asked her if there was something in her eye. She told him there was an eyelash in her eye because there could have been. How was he to know with his old-man ways and his young-man boyfriend?

Steve had another drink. Ciara returned.

‘I'm taking a break from chatting to Syzmon,' she exclaimed. ‘Lest I accidentally kiss him. Let's do shots.'

This was most unlike Ciara. It was almost, Steve thought later in retrospect, as though she wanted to get absolutely trolleyed so she would have an excuse to hook up with Syzmon. At the time, however, Steve was not into it.

‘I don't know.'

‘Ah, come on. It will be fun.'

‘Don't you peer-pressure me, Ciara.'

‘I will. I will peer-pressure you into an early grave. Have some cocaine while we're at it. And a bit of heroin.' Ciara was emphatic.

Steve was clearly going to have to use every bit of his moral fibre to resist.

‘Ooh, now that you mention it, I could totally go for some heroin.'

‘I don't have any on me. You'll have to have a shot instead.' Ciara's eyes were wide and impetuous.

Steve was powerless against her. That's how they get you. Your peers. By being friendly spiced with crazy eyes.

‘A shot of what?' Steve asked.

‘Syzmon has a GREEN drink. It tastes like applejacks.'

‘Green drink? But what about pink and blue?'

‘I have decided green is also acceptable,' said Ciara wisely.

‘Fine.'

‘Fine?'

‘Come on, before I change my mind.'

‘You are the bestest, Prim. I love you.'

‘Love you back, silly girl.'