Primperfect (13 page)
Authors: Deirdre Sullivan
Dad's been watching a lot of historical documentaries recently. Maybe because he is old. My father is an old, old dude. An old, old dude who liked young, young women once upon a time. I suppose he still kind of does. It's just that now they're young compared to him as opposed to fresh out of secondary school and ripe for corruption and impregnation.
We've booked a wedding band! This is really happening! My parents are not necessarily delighted, but their relief has been translated into something approaching delight and that will do for now. I have decided to be excited about this. I need something to be excited about. The baby isn't cutting it, as yet.
Quote from Peim's mum's diary
aroline is stupid. She keeps listening to me. I'm supposed to find this soothing or something, I think. She then usually asks a question with no question mark to it, like, âTell me about school,' and then just waits and I hate pauses and, I mean, she's nice even though she's stupid and I like to please people so I fill the spaces in the air with all these words but they don't necessarily mean all that much, if you get me. Sometimes I sigh and look at my hands.
I told her about making up with Joel and she didn't even say how great it was. She smiled at me and nodded her head, like, âTell me more.' I can't believe it is properly a job to get all up in people's business and have them pay you for it. It seems more like a cruel trick. Not that Caroline is cruel. I mean, she does interact with me sometimes and it's not like I don't like the sound of my own voice, it's just in the room alone with her, listening to myself, I sound different. Sort of broken. Sort of off. And that is the last thing that I want to seem to people and normally I don't think that I do. Seem that way, I mean.
Caroline is dearer than Triona, my old therapist, was. Evidently, Dad decided to bust out the platinum card when it came to me actually self-harming as opposed to just being sad for a very good reason, like when I went to Triona for bereavement counselling. Triona was dreadful. Caroline is miles better than she is. She helps me come up with plans to make things better. Like I keep a ball of string beside my bed now, and when I want to cut I make a cat's cradle instead and then my hands are too tangled and busy to get up to any devilment. Cat's cradles are very innocent things. Real childhoody. I miss being a kid. Instead of a âyoung lady'.
Nineteen is way more grown-up-sounding than eighteen. So I'm glad my birthday comes before the baby. Also, a baby is quite a grown-up thing to have. I mean, you can't have a baby and not be a woman. I wish I were older. I can't quite get my head around being someone's wife. Or someone's mum. Jesus Christ. I am really trying to stop swearing. When the baby comes, he or she will not benefit from a sweary mother. Whoops a daisy. Fairy-cakes. Mother of pearl. These are functional alternatives, I think. I hope. Christ on a bike is Dad's favourite exclamation. That and Jesus Wept.
Quote from Prim's mum's diary
am going to take up crochet. I think. It will be something else to do with my hands when I get fidgety. My cat's cradle string keeps tangling in a frustrating manner and I think it might be full of germs at this stage. No-one told me how often to change my string of notslicing. And it's not the kind of question I can ask in therapy without Caroline worrying my mind scabs with her tongue. I don't need any more scars on my legs or stomach. I only have, like, five, but I don't need any more. They're kind of purple. I think that they would have faded better if I wasn't such a ridiculous scab-picker. I wonder, when I have a proper, sexy-times boyfriend, if he'll ask me what they are. Will I tell him the truth, remind him what his business is, or lie?
I was mugged by a tiny person. Possibly a vicious child. They had a blade and slashed at me a few times when I wouldn't give them my phone. It was pretty hardcore.
I fell foul of a particularly savage feral cat. One-eyed Tom was his name and he sliced at me with his magnificent claws one cold November Eve as I was perambulating about the town. I still hear tell of One-eyed Tom sometimes, and bear him no ill-will. Were he a man, I would probably have fallen for him.
I cut myself shaving. My legs and stomach. I had a weirdly hairy stomach a while back but it isn't hairy any more because I've had extensive electrolysis on it. Dad paid for it after I cut myself shaving.
These are stretch marks from the secret baby I had, once upon a time. *stares into distance in a wistful manner* (This one raises more questions than it answers, but I think it might work, because what kind of demented individual would lie about a secret baby? THIS ONE RIGHT HERE, YO. I also need to work on being less enthusiastically shouty, because my future boyfriend might not like the near-constant deafening that is part and parcel of this sexy little package. I also need to become a sexy little package. Maybe I should join a gym.)
Crochet involves hooks and wool and you can make small animals out of the wool by using the hook. This is called amigurumi, and I think I might make an amigurumi life-cycle of Roderick. A kind of
IN MEMORIAM
-type-dealy. A small rat, like he was when I first got him, then a gawky adolescent rat, then a splendid fellow that I could dress up in top-hats and things and, finally, an aging fogey who weighed almost nothing because his muscles were wasting away.
Isn't it odd that a marvellous way to remember my rat would be a
REALLY
creepy way to remember my mum? I look at photographs of her a lot. At different ages. I worry, though, that that could be quite dangerous. That when I'm remembering a thing, there'll all of a sudden be a photograph super-imposed on her face. I want to remember her in motion. A human, not an image.
I thought about getting Roderick taxidermied way back before he got sick, but Fintan was very against the idea. He hates stuffed animals. He once took me to the natural history museum, and after a while he had to let me wander around alone while he went for a reviving cup of coffee. My father is a very strange man. Who should have been nicer to my back-in-the-day mother. But you can't change the past. If I could, I'd be a busy girl, always erasing past mistakes. Like Kevin. Who is still with Siobhán.
Ciara says that Leona said that Siobhán said that she is in love with Kevin. Good luck to her. I am not in love with Kevin, but I do feel a certain ownership of him, seeing as how I had him first and everything. Robb with two bees is not the same as Kevin. Wouldn't it be weird if Kevin started spelling his name with two vees, just to be cool like an absolute prat? Kevvin, like? I wish he would. And I could be Primm and Joel could be Joell. Joell is a bit too close to the girl's name Joelle, though. Don't think he'd be too into that.