Primperfect (6 page)

I know I'll love the baby when it comes. But I'm clever enough to know that I will probably fail it. And what kind of father will Fintan make?

Quote from Prim's mum's diary

obb with two bees and I had a very pleasant day together. I said some awkward things to him, but he said some to me as well. Loads of anecdotes about boarding school. And the jolly japes they get up to in boarding school. Japes are pranks, jokes, Trickery and Adventures. ‘Japes' is a very boarding-school word, I think. Other very boarding-school words include ‘midnight feasts', ‘prep', ‘tuck shop', ‘boater', ‘jolly', ‘dormitory', ‘san', ‘frolic', ‘prankster', ‘prig', ‘prefect', ‘head girl', ‘good show' and ‘parental abandonment'.

While he is busy being a ridiculous Enid Blyton-style ‘boarder', Robb does tend to miss his family, but boarding school has given him a sort of new family. Made of teenagers. He makes it sound delightful, but I still don't think that I would like it very much. I sometimes like to be by myself. I told him that, and he was all, ‘We have a room for that!' It is called the Reflection Room, apparently. I don't think I have ever met anyone who loves school before. He misses it a bit. OK, a lot.

Apart from that he's really normal, though. He paid for my cake and we walked around and sat by the river while he had a smoke. He smokes. Everyone in boarding school smokes. I had a cigarette to keep him company. And also slightly to impress him. Because smoking does look cool. And smokers love the taste of cigarettes, so I thought that if he kissed me and I tasted like cigarettes, he might think I was delicious. He didn't kiss me, though.

But we did talk a lot about ducks and he told me that duck-junk is the same size as man-junk. He didn't say ‘duck-junk', though, he said ‘penises'. I will never look at a duck the same way again. We both got a bit awkward after he mentioned penises. Because it felt like the image of one was dangling between us in the air. So I told him about how all the swans in England belong to the queen, but that the ones in Ireland just belong to themselves and then we talked about how cool it would be to have an army of swans at your disposal because swans are quite vicious and would be handy in a fight. Robb doesn't have any pets. His mother is very house-proud and he's at boarding school for most of the year, so it's not like he has time to take care of a dog or anything. I told him about Roderick but I think he might not have got how close to him I was because he took the stance that rats are full of diseases (
LIE
) and that they are incontinent (
LIE
), so they pee everywhere and their pee is poisonous and odourless and deadly (
LIE
). I think his house-proud mother might be responsible for his many misconceptions about rats.

If Roderick were still alive, I would have totally invited Robb over to play with him. As it was, I just got a bit what Ciara calls ‘debatey' and took him down point for point and would not let him be even a little bit right about things that he was clearly wrong about.

Sample exchange between Robb and me on the subject of rats:

Robb: ‘Let's agree to disagree.'

Me: ‘Let's agree that you're WRONG.'

Robb: ‘I'm not wrong.'

Me: ‘Have you ever even seen a rat?'

Robb: ‘Only in a pet-shop.'

Me: ‘So you'll accept that I know more about rats than you.'

Robb: ‘You know more about your pet rat than I do, but that's not to say you know more about rats in general.'

Me: ‘Have you read On Rat-care?'

Robb: ‘No.'

Me: ‘Or How to Make Your Rat Happy: An Owner's Manual?'

Robb: ‘No.'

Me: ‘Or, God, ANY of them? I've got, like, twelve books on rat-minding. People kept getting them for me for birthdays and things.'

Robb: ‘I've read Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh.'

Me: ‘Doesn't count.'

Robb (quietly): ‘I didn't think it would.'

I went for the bus soon after. We arranged to meet again because we both want to see the new Batman film. I don't think that Robb with two bees is my
TRUE LOVE
, though. I do not even slightly want to hook up with him. I do kind of want
him
to want to hook up with
me
, though. But that's more about self-esteem boosting than because there's any real spark. I can't believe he loves school and hates rats. I want to change his mind about both of those things. Summer project! I'll send him back to boarding school a rat-loving shadow of his former self.

My dad called me a whore. I'm not a whore. But when your father calls you one, no matter how innocent and un-slappery you are, you sort of feel like one. All dirty on the inside. Cheap and stupid.

Quote from Prim's mum's diary

o I met up with Felix today. I wasn't sure why he wanted to. Because we don't really hang out together, except for when Ella is around. He kind of goes out with us a lot, because he likes to watch her and make sure that she is OK. This is partly adorable and responsible and partly creepy. Because even though she has autism, Ella can totally handle herself. If she gets irritated or wants to repeat things or do weird movements with her hands, she usually just goes to the loo to do it and then comes back in a better mood or rings Mary to pick her up.

Felix was looking well. He's kind of the polar opposite of Kevin. All lanky and lean and with hair that is messy and ruffled looking. His fingers are long and his nails are short. His hands have little rough patches on them from playing the guitar. I want to know what those little rough patches feel like, to run my pale, stubby fingers over them and have him smile at me and like my touch.

Dad was
AAAGES
pottering about the place before he dropped me in, though. I would have been so much quicker getting the bus. But he was insistent that he give me a lift. I think doing stuff for me every now and then makes him feel like a better parent than he actually is. That's unfair. He's a pretty good parent. He just hasn't had as much practice as Mum had. He was asking me about Mum's diaries again.

‘I hope I'm not coming off too badly in them,' he said in a fake jovial manner. ‘The last thing I'd need would be for you to start hating me or anything.'

‘To be honest, Dad, I'm not planning on starting to hate you. That's not what would worry me about the whole situation.'

‘Oh?'

I made a triangle with my fingers, the way Caroline sometimes does when she's explaining something. ‘You see, I read somewhere that young women who have grown up with absent or largely absent father-figures often gravitate towards men who resemble their fathers.'

‘Oh.' Fintan did not like where this was going.

‘So, even though I will try to avoid it – because who would want the sort of half-assed relationship you inflicted on poor Mum? – I might not be able to.'

‘You probably would, though.'

‘I don't know, Dad.'

‘I wouldn't let you get into that sort of situation.'

‘To be honest, I probably wouldn't tell you about it. Until I had to because of the pregnancy. Mum certainly didn't tell her parents about you, and as I recall you encouraged that.'

Fintan looked down. ‘I probably did, yeah.'

‘So when I come home pregnant by some middle-aged creep who couldn't care less about me, you will be in no position to admonish him, or me. And that is why I am not doing the recrimination thing now. Life will do the recrimination thing to you at a later date. And you will have no-one but yourself to blame. It's like that poster Mum used to have in the kitchen, Fintan. “Children learn what they live.”'

‘I should never have given you those diaries,' he muttered, still glowering at his bespoke Italian loafers.

‘Keeping them to yourself would have changed nothing. It is like Sorrel says, Dad. Our destinies are

Ooh! Maybe she could be my midwife!'

I do not believe a word of this, of course, but I am kind of angry at him for what happened back in the day, while still aware that he is actually a nice man deep down, and not wanting to pick a big row with him that will just make both of us miserable and grumpy until we make up. I probably would pick a fight with him if Joel were still my friend. But he isn't. And I need all the friends I can get. Is it weird and gross that my creepy, older-than-middle-aged Dad is one of my friends now, kind of? It is, isn't it? I am a freak.

Felix, however, is not a freak, just charmingly off-beat. He was reading and listening to music when I walked into the café, in an ensemble I had chosen because it made me look curvy and grown-up without being too try-hard. I think. I was also wearing mascara, eyeliner and lip-gloss, so there was that. I have a big spot in one corner of my nose and it is really sore and itchy and I had lathered it in concealer but that just made things worse, so I had wiped it off and it was there, looming out at the world like a bright-red monster. I was wearing a flowery skirt, a ripped up black Metallica T-shirt (I don't really like Metallica, but I do really like skeletons riding motorcycles and black T-shirts that suit me), lacy black tights and beat-up-looking ankle boots. My hair was down and there may have been some straightening involved.

‘So … hi.' Felix shrugged his shoulders and blinked at me.

‘Hi.'

We ordered. I got tea and a scone. He got coffee (black) and a brownie. He said that he missed seeing me every day and stuff, and asked how I was getting on. I said that I was getting on OK. Still fighting with Joel.

And Felix said, ‘About that …'

And I said, ‘What?'

And then he told me something that made me forget about the spot in the corner of my nose and how I wanted to amaze him. Something that has been worrying me ever since.

Joel has a boyfriend now. A man. A proper, out-of-school, out-of-college, job-having
man
. And Felix doesn't think that that's OK.

‘I don't want you to think I'm being homophobic or judgemental or anything, Prim,' he said and his voice was sleepy and emphatic at the same time and I want to do all of the things with and to him. ‘I was wondering whether or not to say it to you at all, but then I thought of when you rang me when he was in first year and getting bullied and I thought about Ella and if she were going out with someone so much older, how I'd feel. Or if
you
were, even.'

I'd like to think Felix would be more OK with the concept of me dating an older guy once he realises that the older guy is him and that
WE ARE IN LOVE
. So in love. Getting side-tracked. Back to Joel.

I nodded slowly, resisting the urge to triangle my fingers at him. ‘I think you made the right call, Felix. But I don't know what to do about it, really.'

‘Neither do I. I mean, it's none of my business …' He shook his head helplessly. ‘I'd just hate to see him hurt, you know?'

‘Me too.'

And I really would. I mean, I was so cut up about Kevin and that was hardly even a relationship at all. I felt like he was using me sometimes and that was not a pleasant feeling. If he were older, I think that the potential for feeling used would sky-rocket somewhat. Actually, I don't think. I actually know. Reading Mum's diaries has taught me that older men are not wise life-choices until the two of ye are actual proper adults, and even then you should probably share a decade. So a nine-year difference max.

Joel's man-friend's name is Duncan. That is a very inoffensive name for a paedophile to have. And he is technically a paedophile. I mean, Joel is only sixteen still. You're not allowed to have sex till you're seventeen. So, basically, if this Duncan's slipping it to Joel, that'd be, like,
rape
. Or at the very least against-the-law sex. Not to be alarmist or anything. But it is a concern. It feels really weird to think of rape as something that can happen to a friend. I mean, I know technically it could happen to anyone. But underage people with overage boyfriends have to be at a higher risk of it.

Felix thinks I should be concerned too, obviously. Or he wouldn't have contacted me. But what can I do? I mean, I could tell Liam and Anne, but that would make me even more the bad guy than I am already. And Joel would see it as a betrayal even though it comes from a place of wanting him not to be taken advantage of.

Because, I mean, when Mum was eighteen she went out with my dad and they had me. Joel's two years away from being her age then. But even when she was eighteen and older and wiser and everything than Joel, I can tell Mum wasn't ready for the hurt of being someone's second best. For not being good enough for some things, but plenty good enough for others. Dad used her, and it's not OK to do that to a person. It wasn't just the Gillian thing: he even hit on Sorrel once, and Mum was so embarrassed because she thought that if she could make herself enough for him to love that wouldn't happen, and as I read my heart is breaking for her. And I don't want that to happen to my Joel. He has enough to cope with without the extra hurting all piled on top of other hurts he has from being bullied and things. Things include the stupid thing I did to Karen too. I didn't mean for it to hurt him but still it did and I'm not sure if there's a way to fix it. Even if there is, I think it might be like a teapot when the handle breaks and is stuck back on. The join will still be visible, you know. The little scar.

Felix's eyes are dark and his eyebrows crook when he's worried. I didn't know what to say and I looked at his hands playing with his sugar packet. He doesn't take sugar in his coffee but he played with the little paper cylinder that comes upon the saucer anyway, ratting the paper a little, bending and straightening it. Not meeting my eye.

‘How is the band going?' I asked.

‘OK.'

His eyes were darting and I could tell he wanted to leave. But I wanted him to stay and so I asked him question after question. Questions with answers I don't even care about or want. His voice isn't exactly deep, but there is a full quality to it. A certainty. It is a voice of trust and bedtime stories. I want to be tucked in by him, to be told that everything will be OK. I wonder how many years I have spent wishing he would see me as a girl and not as a child who is Ella's friend.

My nails were covered in midnight polish, darkest blue and chipped to hell, and I picked what was left right off my little finger rather than look up at him.

‘What should I do, Felix? About Joel? I don't know what to do.'

‘Me neither. That's why I passed it on to you.'

‘It's a hard one.'

‘Yeah.'

‘I wish I could talk to him, but now he hates me.'