Primperfect (25 page)

My little girl is here. She is a human being. She has eyes. They're shiny and they blink. I can't stop looking at her. Everything about her is so perfect. I'm going to do my best for you, I'm thinking as I look at her. I'm going to try so hard to make you happy. She looks like herself already. I mean, she looks like Winston Churchill after he's gone through a hot-cycle wash as well, but she has features that don't belong to me or Fintan. They're all her own. At 0 years of age.

Quote from Prim's mum's diary

oel is coming to London!! He'll be there for the first three days and then we'll put him on the plane home and Dad and me will hang out. I'm so excited. He's coming over at some point soon to plan and also tell me the story of what happened with him and Duncan the night of the party. I'm pretty interested to find out. I mean, I don't want an enormous level of detail. Probably. But I haven't had someone like he has Duncan yet, a friend like that. And even though Duncan is a gross disgusting older dude and whatnot, he is cute and he is into Joel. Which are both good qualities in a boyfriend.

Apparently Anne and Liam want Joel to come to London with us because he's been spending far too much of his summer going out. I wish I'd been invited to all these going-outs. It's weird to think of someone you used to do everything with having their own life and stuff. I'm not sure that I like it. Who told Joel he was allowed to have a social life that didn't involve me?

I wonder what Duncan's circle are like. Joel says they're nice. Older, like college age and over, but nice and friendly and they don't make him feel like he's a child or anything. I'd feel pure awkward there, if I was invited, I reckon. And he'd need to mind me, keep me company. And sitting beside a sixteen-year-old girl would only highlight how young he was, and he'd hate that. He's been doing subtle things to look older. Sometimes he wears ties. It doesn't really work. I mean, you can't change what age you are. Just because you both bought the same satchel in Topman doesn't mean you're equally mature.

I've only met Duncan three times. Which is fine, and he's been nice on each occasion, but anyone can be nice three times. That's not, like,
challenging
. And there's a huge bit of me that feels like to get to have a relationship with someone as interesting and as cool and as wonderful and as everything as Joel, you should have to undergo at the very least a rigorous interview process. And I think I am the person best qualified to hold said interviews. And Duncan seems to have slipped in to Joel's life in spite of our friendship, without my say, without my being there at any level in the early stages. Which was partially my own fault for being a tool in my dealings with Karen, but if Joel were going to stop talking to me every time I acted like a tool then we would probably not have been best friends in the first place.

And we were, and we are. And I'm really glad we are. I love my Joel. I wish his brother Marcus were older, so I could discuss the Duncan thing with him. Take him for tea and make fun of him for the year and a half where he dressed like a robot almost constantly and then be all, ‘Marcus? What do you think about the moderately sized man your brother may or may not have already done grown-up things with?'

I don't think I could ever say that sentence out loud. It would probably have a detrimental effect on Marcus to think about Joel and sexy-time in the same sentence. I don't even like thinking about it and I have been known to read slash fiction from time to time to while away the twilight hours.

I got a text from Sorrel today as well.

Has your father told you the good news?

Yeah, really excited. Never been to London before. How did the date go?

She didn't reply to me. It's weird, because she's normally quite quick to. I mean, she's scatty as anything but she's kind of the closest I have to an aunty.

Looking at my baby girl. At her little tummy poking out above the nappy. Her bellybutton's got a little clamp thing on it. She still has a bit of umbilical cord. But as she grows it will shrivel and fall away and she'll have lost the last little bit of me in her and just be all herself. The doctor said that some people choose to keep it. I don't think I'll be one of them.

Quote from Prim's mum's diary

Hey Robb, you about later on? The Bengal tiger is the most numerous tiger subspecies. So when you think of tigers, you are actually thinking about Bengal tigers. X

I am not. I am thinking about white tigers. Pointedly. X

Ha! The white tiger is a recessive mutant of the Bengal tiger. X

You're a recessive mutant of … your face. I would love to hang out. Aren't you grounded though? X

You could call over. But you have to promise not to say anything mean about my face from now on. X

I wasn't being mean. I like your face. You know that. Bengal tigers! X

Their basic social unit is that of one mother and offspring. Adults only interact on a transitory basis. X

Dry. X

Bengal tigers are not dry, Robb. X

They are too. They're no craic. X

I'm no craic. X

You're loads of craic. Big fun head on you. Mam'll drop me over around seven, if that's OK? X

It is OK. Bengal tigers have been known to prey on leopards and bears. X

They have not. I take back what I said about them being no craic. X

I like the way he always replies to my texts, even when they don't have a question in. I like an awful lot about Robb with two bees as a matter of fact. But I wonder if I'm thinking about him because he fancies me, rather than actually fancying him in his own right. Because, until recently, he used to really bug me. I want to meet him in person again, so I can see if I like him when he's not just a series of responses on my phone.

Joel has cancelled our movie night because he has to spend as much time as possible with Duncan before he goes to London for three nights. He is being very cagey about their recent activities. He does not text details or offer them over the phone. It's like he wanted me to know it happened, but also wanted to keep everything private and that is confusing. Not that I want detailsy details. But I wouldn't mind doing a little bit of analysis, in case he has any pointers for me when I decide to lose my virginity at the age of forty-seven to a man I have hired for the express purpose.
AND
I'll pathetically fall in love with him and keep paying him to sleep with me and go into hock and then do some credit card fraud and go into prison and it will all be one horrible mess because I am dreadful and no-one will ever love me properly. Not even Yann, my glorious gigolo. Oh, how I will wish he did! But he will be European and blond and lithe and golden. He will speak several languages well and be the son of an ambassador who has fallen on hard times. I will hate myself for exploiting him, and he will hate himself for being reduced to women such as me. He'll only visit me once in prison and everyone will assume he is my son and it will be awkward.

So you see how I would be in need of romantic advice, like.

Her fontanelle is so soft. I can't stop stroking it, and I'mreally worried I will be too roug hand put my finger through her brain or something. Velvet-soft she is, my little girl. Velvet soft and full of screams. She wants it all, all the milk, all the comfort, all of it. And I want her to have it.

Quote from Prim's mum's diary

ad tried to have another talk with me last night before Robb came over. It was about boys but ended up being about something else as well.

‘This Robb with two bees fella.'

‘Yes?'

‘Are you seeing him?'

‘I'm not sure.' We were both staring at the wallpaper. Dad's hands were on his knees.

‘Well, if you ever want to go to a lady-doctor and get yourself sorted out, I can arrange that.'

‘Get myself sorted out?'

‘Not that I'm encouraging that sort of behaviour. But if it is a thing that's going to happen, I'd rather you were taking care of yourself. Your sexual health.'

I asked

‘Don't make me repeat it, Prim.'

‘I won't, Fintan.'

‘And you're my little girl, so it's hard for me to think of you as a sexual being, but if you ever need any advice or anything …'

‘What, like sex-tips?'

‘No. NO. Like sexual health advice. Jesus.' He looked supremely flustered.

I was glad. I'd said that sex-tips thing to try and dock the conversation where it was.

‘Anyway, I know there's pressure on teen girls to be sexual these days.'

‘Dad …'

‘Let me finish.'

‘Dad.' I put my hand on his arm.

‘What?'

‘You do
NOT
need to be having this conversation with me. The Internet is a valuable tool and I already know a lot about my – sexual health.'

His face looked as down-trodden and disgusted as mine felt.

‘The Internet is no substitute for a parent. And it's very easy to make a mistake, Prim. One slip and you're left with the consequences for years to come.'

‘Like you were with me?' I asked him. He shook his head.

‘I wouldn't swap you for anything, you know that. And actually, I meant that …'

‘What?'

‘Well. It's very easy to get caught up in the heat of the moment and even adults don't always do the right thing, so I feel that it's important that I tell you you're supported. In your choices.'

‘Yes.'

‘What else, Dad?'

I could see something fluttering in his throat, waiting to get out. When you know a person well, you get a kind of handle on their tics that makes it way harder for them to lie to you.

‘Well.'

‘It is not going to be any weirder a conversation than the one we just had. And once it's out there, we can forget it.'

‘Well …'

‘Out with it, or I'll just assume it's cancer and act accordingly.'

‘Sorrel. We …'

‘You've broken up?'

‘We're going to have a baby.'

And what do you say to a thing like that

Loads of things, but Robb with two bees rang the doorbell and my head was melting but I had to entertain him and hang out watching movies and holding Dad's news inside me like it was a bomb that would go off once its name was spoken out loud.

At first, Fintan made himself thoroughly scarce as soon as Robb was around, which is uncharacteristic of him, because normally he's all ‘A boy, eh?' and peering around corners curiously and leaving doors open and things. And that is just with Joel. I don't know if I've had a boy who wasn't Joel over here before. Syzmon and Caleb when we were watching movies in a big group but not otherwise.

I took Robb up to my room and sat on my bed and asked him questions about boarding school while he alphabetised my books and CDs. I don't have a lot of CDs. The ones I have mainly used to belong to Mum. And the things I have belonging to her are kind of precious, because Dad threw out a lot of her stuff quite soon after she died. Like, bundled up in bin bags and into the charity shop. This is another example of thoughtlessness on his part.

Not that I am stuck for such examples. I can't believe he knocked Sorrel up. How far along is she? I wonder. Because normally you wait three months before you tell people, but I don't think that rule counts for family. And if she's told him, I assume she wants to keep it. I mean, she isn't coming to London with us or anything. So there's that.

I wonder if it's Dad's.

It has to be. I mean, she's very honest. I know she has a lot of boyfriends and things, but I don't think I remember her ever having more than one at the same time. If they were exclusive, which I don't know if she and Dad even are.

‘This is a really good album!' exclaimed Robb, brandishing one of Mum's more angry music choices.

‘Yeah, I like it too. It used to be my mum's.'

‘Cool. My mum likes crooners.' He said this in the same tone of voice as Anne will say ‘Duncan' when she finds out about him.

‘Crooners?' I was aghast. ‘Like old guys in colouredy tuxedos singing the kind of songs you hear in lifts?'

‘Not just old guys. Young men do it too.' He sounded despondent.

‘Ugh.'

‘I know. We go to France every summer and I have to listen to their music choices the whole time. I'm not allowed to play my music until I have a driver's licence.'

‘Does your
dad
have good taste in music?' I asked.

‘He likes rural comedy songs.'

EEP
.

‘Jesus.'

‘I'd rather listen to the Leaving Cert aural back catalogue.'

‘Me too, I think. Fintan has pretty good taste in music. Sadly, he has many other qualities as well.'

‘Sadly?'

‘Well, he's a dad. He wears socks under his sandals.'

‘My dad too. Sometimes he pulls them up, so there's only, like, a foot of skin visible between where his socks end and his shorts begin.'

I could easily have out-dadded him by saying that Dad was after impregnating my late mum's best friend, but I don't know Robb with two bees well enough to share that, so I asked about his holidays instead.

‘Are you going to France this summer?'

‘The last two weeks of August. We're going to Dijon.'

‘With the mustard?' I'm not gone on mustard but I know a bit about it because Dad lathers it on to things with gusto.

‘Yeah. It's going to be
amazing
.' He italicised amazing with his voice. It was impressive.

‘I bet.'

‘And then they pack me off to school again, until October.'

‘You like it, though.'

‘Yeah. I like it.'

He didn't sound too happy as he said it, though. I kind of wanted to hug him or something, but I didn't. He crawled up to the bed, and started looking through the pile of books beside it. I normally only read one book at a time, but I'm reading three at the moment, because one is short stories, so you can read it as a snack. Then there's the book of Tennessee Williams plays because they are summery and pretty and sad and then there is the book about sexy earls. Robb chose to pick on the sexy earl book.

Because
OF COURSE