Primperfect (28 page)

Fintan is building up to breaking up with me. I can feel it welling up in him. Like a tick about to burst from too much blood.

Quote from Prim's mum's diary

wonder if the baby will be a boy or a girl. I'm used to having a little brother, because of Marcus, so I could help with a boy. I've grown out of putting false moustaches onto babies. I used to think it was the funniest thing ever. But if you do something often enough, it kind of loses its glow. I have adhered moustaches to infants, wobblers and toddlers approximately 216 times since I was eleven years old. Most of them were Marcus. If something is funny 216 times, it is probably a decent joke, even if it doesn't work any more. Maybe I'm maturer? Like a fine cheese.

I wonder if I'll love the baby.

I was right. About Fintan. She's two days old and I am looking at her and I'm crying and telling her we'll be OK. In a while, I'll probably believe it.

Quote from Prim's mum's diary

ur flight is early so Joel is staying over. He's sitting on my bed, and I am on the floor, leaning against it. I never use the rocking chair in my room as, like, a seat. It's weird how things take on roles. I mean, that chair was probably a chair for ages. It's antique. I don't know how antique but it's antique. And now, it sits in my room, a majestic clothes-balancer. I used to pet my Roderick on it sometimes. When I moved here first. I have more clothes now. I think it's because I've been the same size for a while. Dad used to find it really weird how fast I grew, how things would need replacing very soon. There are certain suits and pairs of shoes he's had for decades. Imagine being the same size for a decade! How solid that would feel! How comfortable! My father used to be a weekend dad and then he was a Fintan and now he is a proper all-day dad. I wonder how the new kid will divide him, if he will have less time for me. If he will love me less. I don't think parents work that way, not normally. But there's always a chance that something weird will happen when there are people involved.

Sorrel will probably love me less. I texted her.

I know. I'm happy for you and we'll chat when I get back from London.

Good to know. What do you think of the first name Squirrel? Your dad gave me the idea. Chat soon x

I think that was OK. Appropriate. Maybe when it is a grey smudge on a photo I will feel like it is real. Maybe when it is a growth under the skin and jutting out through tie-dye or crushed velvet. Maybe when I touch to feel it kick. I've never felt a baby kick before. When I was small, I one time did feel kittens. There was a honey-coloured cat named Farrah in our neighbour's house, she was a stray, they took her in and found out she was pregnant. She was a cat who was shaped like a kitten, all fine angles, delicate. China-dainty. She gave birth to eight little kits. Seven breathing, one dead. We held a funeral for the dead one in my back garden. I think that was the first funeral I ever went to. Mum held my hand and we sang the cat a song I'd learnt at play-group. She was sitting in a box the neighbour kids had brought into the garden. Still and regal, like a duchess, she washed herself while all the humans grieved.

The week before the cat had had her babies, I was over at the house. Mum was at work and I was being minded. Eric, who was seven and older than me, put my fat hand onto Farrah's stomach and said, ‘Feel.'

I did, and there were, like, loads of legs. Did I detect an ear? It was a miracle. All those angles bruising through the soft.

After the kitten died, the grass was wet and Mum had hand-cream on her hands and they were greasy. I said ‘I'm sorry, Farrah,' and I shook her paw, just like it was a hand. Eric told me that's what's done at funerals. Seven years and he was shaking mine. So many people came out of the woodwork when Mum died and then faded right back in as quick as anything. Like when you see a picture in a cloud and when you look back up it's something else, a thing that's unfamiliar.

If something can die does that make it alive? Six weeks pregnant, that's all Sorrel is. It's just begun. Now is the dangerous time. You don't say the words out loud until you're fairly sure what's growing in you won't die. They must have done it right before my English paper one. Made the baby. What will it think of me, I wonder? If I move out for college when it's two, will it still be my family? Will it even live with me and Fintan? Is Sorrel moving in now? I can't think. There are a lot of things to be resolved. But in another six weeks, the baby will be a fixed point. Real and spoken of and coming. It will not be a secret any more. It's hard to keep a person secret. Even when we're little we're too big.

Babies are catalysts — you react to them and change your life. Primrose Ivy Leary will not have her feeds delayed, heartbreak or no. I left the hospital today. I packed my engagement ring in with the bottles. I think I'm going to throw it in the Liffey.

Quote from Prim's mum's diary

oel helped me pack. I showed him my blue mini-skirt and he hated it, but I'm going to bring it anyway. I have an outfit planned. It's hard enough to sort out seven pairs of matching socks. I had to upend my drawer.

‘So … you and Duncan?'

‘What about us?' He was keeping his face neutral.

‘Oh, come on. Stop trying to be mature. You're dying to tell me.'

‘Well, Prim.' His face did that thing where his mouth gets betrayed by his eyebrows. ‘If you must know, we've been kind of … building up.'

‘To things?'

‘Obviously.' Eyebrows and mouth were on the same page now. Lofty.

‘Well, you obviously wanted to tell me about things when you sent that text.'

‘Yeah, well. To be honest it felt kind of like …'

‘Like?'

‘A thing that I should inform you about as opposed to something I actually wanted to talk about. I mean, I have no idea how to talk about, like,
sex
. How much can you say before you're saying too much? I don't want to hurt Duncan or anything. He's too important. Prim, I think I
love
him.'

Oh dear. What do you say to that? I was trying really hard to set my facial features to ‘supportive' and ‘understanding' but it was hard. My eyebrows had certain things they needed to communicate via muscular contractions and suchlike.

‘I'm pleased for you. I'd like to fall in love.'

‘I don't know if you would.'

‘I think I would.'

‘But, like, it's really hard.' His face dispersed into pale and blotchy sections. ‘I don't want to say it first. I know he likes me, but I have all these feelings and they well up in me and I'm worried they'll spill out.'

‘And what? You'll tell him?'

‘I can't say “I love you” first. He'll think I'm childish.'

‘Not if he says it back.'

‘I don't think that he will, though.'

I wanted to argue but his face was set and I didn't want to shake it in case it cracked again. I hate it when Joel cries. It's like my heart starts crying too beside him.

‘And have you …?'

‘We've been working up to it. These things take time.'

‘I know.'

‘So – I feel like I have probably lost a portion of my virginity. Like, two-thirds of it.'

I was impressed. ‘That's a fair whack of virginity.'

‘I know.'

We paused for a moment to mull.

‘Ciara said to me one time that when you are in love, there are loads of little first times. I don't think she fully meant sex things though.'

‘It's hard to imagine Ciara doing sex things. She's very prim,'said Joel, as though it were somehow massively easy to imagine our other friends doing sex things. The creep.

‘Ciara can be messy. Just because her nails are perfect doesn't mean her head is.'

‘Fair enough.' He shrugged.

‘Two-thirds, eh? I like your theory. I wonder if Kevin took a bit of my virginity? Not, like, much. Maybe five per cent or something. That time in the wardrobe.'

‘Nope. With straight people it has to be the full thing or it doesn't count.'

‘That is not very open-minded of you. I think it's probably something everyone defines for themselves. When it feels right …'

At this point Joel said, ‘Hmmm,' and looked off into the distance. I love when he does this because it makes me feel very wise indeed. I hope Duncan loves him back. He deserves to be loved. Even if it is by a problematic older gent with a tattoo of a pigeon on his calf. Joel showed me a picture of it on his phone. It's not very nice. The pigeon looks a bit baleful, to be honest. I'd like to get a tattoo when I'm older. A cowslip on my ribcage, near my heart.

Plant-based names are really appealing to me. Fintan told me I was not to call her Cowslip. As if he had any right to tell me what to do any more.

Quote from Prim's mum's diary

e got up early. Dad was stoic on the drive to the airport. He gave me the passports and print-outs.

I was in charge of them, apparently.

‘Why me? You are the grown-up.'

He looked a bit abashed. ‘Well, it'll be up to you because I'll be taking this.' He produced a chalky little pill from his pocket. ‘An hour or so prior to flight.'

‘So soon.'

‘Yes. And I won't be good for much after that.'

‘What's the pill for, Fintan?' Joel was curious. His
OLD MAN
boyfriend had probably familiarised him with illegal pills of all kinds as well as made him feel insufficiently loved.

‘Well, Joel. Some people don't enjoy air travel. And this pill helps them to journey more smoothly.'

‘It's a one-hour flight, Fintan. Can't you suck it up?' I asked him, not unkindly. OK, pretty unkindly.

‘No. I would have already sucked it up if I was able to suck it up.'

‘Be nice to him, Primrose. It's probably, like, a phobia or something.' I think Joel basically just wanted my dad to stop saying the word
suck
and take us on our holidays.

‘Thanks, Joel,' said Fintan. ‘I'm not sure what it is that frightens me. It's a combination of being in an enclosed space and being really high up.'

‘Yes. It is called a plane, Dad. People go on them every day. Sometimes for, like, eighteen or nineteen hours.'

‘I have gone on long-haul flights, Prim. I don't let it stop me. I just take these and then I feel calm and dozy. But I occasionally misplace things, so I'm giving you my passport.'

‘What do you do when you're travelling by yourself?' I asked.

‘I wait till I've checked in. If it's long-haul, it usually has worn off by the time we're landing. Don't look at me like that. I'm not going to be
zonked
or anything. Not like you were at that party.'

‘He has you there, Prim.'

Joel gets on great with my dad since he bought him crepes for being gay. They got on OK before, but now they, like,
side
with each other. It is sickening.

‘He does
NOT
have me. I am tolerant and helpful,' I said, putting the passports in my handbag and resolving to hold his to ransom once we got to London. I quite fancied some theatre tickets. Something with plaintive singing and emboldened hearts in. I wasn't picky.

I really like airports. I assumed Dad would too, because he has to travel for work so much. But no. He glared at the building, as though it were somehow its fault that he was going to have to go up in the sky and be frightened.

‘Can I get a travel hair-straightener?' I asked.

‘Don't be asking me for things, Prim. Particularly after I've taken the pill.'

‘Will you be, like, suggestible and stuff?' I wondered.

‘I'm not sure.'

He was sure. I could tell by the face on him. He just didn't want to say.

‘We won't take advantage of you, Fintan,' Joel promised.

‘I might,' I said.

‘I'll make sure she doesn't.'

‘Thank you, Joel.'

THINGS I KNOW THAT FINTAN DOESN'T

Joel is not always to be trusted.

He really wants a new MP3 player.

There's always the way back.

From what I have heard about tranquillisers I was expecting him to be zonked out of it, but he was pretty lucid. I've seen him worse. Like, when he's woken up unexpectedly from a sofa-nap. Or surprised by a high-pitched noise. The discombobulation level was medium at most.

In the airport, we had tea and a little chocolate and Dad took out his book and pretended to read it while myself and Joel chatted. He was not fooling anyone, getting through, like, half a page and following our conversation like it was an audio-book he occasionally had opinions about. He threw in his two cents' worth every now and then.

‘That one.' (When Karen was mentioned.)

‘You're only young once.' (When Joel was debating a septum piercing.)

‘Not under my roof, you won't.' (When I mentioned the possibility of a tattoo.)

It was really – ‘companionable' is the word I'm looking for, I suppose. I haven't used that word in ages, in my head or written down. A safe, cosy kind of lull between bits of life is what we had curling up on seats that all faced the same way at our gate until the flight was boarding and we switched off our phones. Well, Joel and I did. Dad left his till the last minute. Just in case anyone wanted to talk to a slightly bewildered businessman. I wonder is flight-medication conference-calling more or less socially acceptable than drunk-dialling? Or is it worse? It's probably worse. I bet Dad's drunk dialled Hedda a couple of times. Mum drunk dialled him. I rarely get drunk enough to drunk-dial Kevin, preferring to embarrass myself in front of him in other, sober ways.

It's kind of acceptable to humiliate yourself in front of an ex. Not enjoyable. But we have all been there, texting our different-shaped Kevins at three o' clock in the morning with courage in our hearts and feelings running through our veins making everything an emotional imperative. I'd probably text Robb instead of Kevin late at night-time now. He'd probably text back as well. I wonder why he likes me. Joel thinks it's because I'm beautiful. He told me that when Dad went to the bathroom.

‘I'm not. Size of me. Face on me. Personality on me.'

‘You are medium-sized and you go in and out in the right places. Your face is my favourite face – you're always one step away from plotting something. And your personality belongs to my best friend. So clearly Robb is a discerning individual.'

‘Ugh.'

Dad came back from the bathroom and joined us.

‘I don't know why everyone gets up to queue,' he said. ‘The seats are assigned.'

‘Programming?'

Dad agreed. ‘You're right. Let's sit back down.'

‘I don't want to lose my meaningless place in the queue, though.' Joel pretend sulked. In fairness to him, there were about twenty people behind us. And it felt a bit like we were winning the game. The boring, pointless game.

So we stayed and handed in our boarding passes and got them scanned and took our seats. Dad was looking a little bit drained about the face. He took the aisle so he wouldn't see out the window. I was in the middle, gazing over Joel at the tarmac of the runway and the green of the grass beyond it. There's something really magic about planes: you're on the ground and then, little by little, layer by layer, the plane balances up. Tens of thousands of feet above the ground and you can see the tops of things you've only ever seen the bottom of, like clouds and cities. Dad was breathing deep.

Joel looked at him. ‘Prim doesn't think she's beautiful.'

Dad looked at me. ‘Don't be ridiculous.

She's stunning. Best thing I've ever done.'

‘Shut up, Dad,' I said but I was smiling.

The plane was mounting sky. My father gulped. I took his hand. The skin on it was dry and slightly, oh-so-slightly wrinkled. He squeezed and I squeezed back and smiled at him. Joel took my other hand in his. I felt a callous in his index finger brush against my thumb. And something else, which probably was love.

And up we flew.