Primperfect (15 page)

The man who killed my mum was one of those. He didn't mean to do it. He just did, and the end result is the same. Maybe if he had planned ahead and ordered a taxi before he started drinking, Mum would be alive today. I can get so stuck in those maybes. Maybe if she hadn't been all worried about her carbon footprint and bike-ridey. Maybe if it had been a nicer day, the visibility would have been better and she would have seen that he was driving dangerously and gotten out of the way. Maybe if the car had been going slower, or had hit her differently.

And then there are the other maybes. Maybe if Mum had been alive, I wouldn't have felt the need to cut myself. Maybe if Mum were alive, I wouldn't miss Roderick so much. Does that sound cold? He was like a furry little memory of her, you see. As well as himself. I wonder am I a smooth little memory of Mum for Sorrel? The kind of memory that smells faintly of hair-removal cream?

Syzmon must be gutted, the poor dude. I was going to text him, but I'd hate for Ciara to think I was putting the moves on him. I would not like to put a move on Syzmon. He belongs to Ciara and is not my type. Past history has shown that if he belonged to Ciara and were my type, it probably wouldn't stop me. God. I hate that Kevin completely eroded my morals, like as if my morals were limestone and he was water. Or a weak acidic solution that would also dissolve limestone. It's not that I am Karen or whatever. I chose limestone because it is one of the easier-to-dissolve sedimentary rocks. Karen's morals aren't even mudstone. They're like those vitamin C tablets that fizz up in water. I wish I had granite morals like Joel, or diamond ones like Ciara.

God, geography was a very boring subject. I'm glad I'm not taking it next year. For all that it's boring, though, sometimes it's nice to know things, random useless things you wouldn't ordinarily know. I mean, I had the whole Internet in front of me for fourteen years before I found out about different types of erosion.

I think people get eroded too, by disappointment. Like, every time you get hurt, a little flake dissolves from off your heart and you're still able to hope and feel and love and all that. It's just – smaller. More guarded. Less of a leap. I don't know that there's anything you can do to stop it, though.

Ciara made the right decision. But Syzmon will be less now, because he knows about getting hurt by someone who loves you. And Ciara will be less, because she knows about hurting someone you love to save yourself from bigger, future hurts. Everyone is crumbling, like that story at mass about the woman who looked back and turned to salt. One shower's all it'd take.

So, I wonder who I'll talk about next. Robb or Duncan? Duncan or Robb? Robb has two bees but Duncan has Joel and is therefore more important. So we'll start with him. Joel and me were having tea and Duncan popped in to join us for an hour. Then he paid for the tea and cake and him and Joel left together to do kissing and things presumably. They said they were going to watch a movie. But I think if they were really going to watch a movie, Joel wouldn't have made don't-invite-yourself-along eyebrows at me. Joel's eyebrows have a wide vocabulary. Duncan isn't as much of a sex predator as I had envisioned. For one thing, he looks younger than his age. And for another, he's quite unassuming. He kind of listened to Joel talk more than talked himself. But not in a creepy way. Although, an older man watching a boy with a view to fancying him is always going to be slightly creepy, just because of the age difference and the sexual intent.

I
KISSED

Robb.

Just thought I'd get that in there. It wasn't that great of a kiss. Is it weird that I felt it was, like, expected of me? Like he was an earl who had saved me from a highwayman and I was a lowly wench who had but one way to reward him – her virtue? I am reading the BEST Regency romance novel at the moment. I think earls might be my thing, the way Mum liked Vikings. Especially if said earls are also Egyptologists. I do still like Vikings, though. And certain knights.

Anyway, Robb was an earl because he expected things from me and, lo, he got them. Am I so easily won? While he was kissing me I was already telling Joel and Ciara about it in my head, like,
Look I have a life as well. Interesting things also happen to me.
That is not a good reason to kiss someone. No more for you, young lady. I could feel his teeth. His oddly needley little incisors. I thought he was going to cut my tongue on them. I think I need to kiss another boy to stop Robb seeming like a viable summer-boyfriend option. No-one except him wants to kiss me, though. Because I amn't pretty and I suck at making friends.

Besides, I want to
experience
things and stuff. And if I'd only done kissing with people I fancied, I'd only ever have kissed one guy. And he didn't like me properly, so I feel there is a need to kiss other people to show him he is not important. Not that I still fancy him or anything. I don't. He is not important. I have moved on. I don't think I have moved on to Robb, though. I mean, I don't particularly want to be his girlfriend. He's a bit up himself. He paid for everything (which was a sign that kissing would be expected of me), so I suppose it's not a complete loss. Is that a dreadful thing to think? I actually am not short of a buck. I mean, Dad is loaded and even though he's big on making me earn a crust to teach me life skills, this is only in theory, because in actual practice he is too lazy/busy to do the proper kind of parenting that you read about in books.

Luckily, I was poor for the first thirteen years of my life. Not, like, living-in-a-garret, making-a-bag-of-rice-last-the-month poor, but the kind where, if I wanted to go on a school trip we had to look for something we could cut out. Dad paid maintenance for me, but Mum used that for big things like health insurance and saved the rest for college. She didn't like taking money from Dad. Reading her diaries, I can kind of understand why. Things went downhill pretty quickly after they got engaged.

I am teaching myself to knit. The baby will appreciate the fine clothes I will soon be able to make for it. Maybe it will impress Fintan as well. He caught me crying into a pair of tights that didn't fit me the last day. I was eating a sandwich at the same time and the tights were covered with pickle juice and tears. He put them in the bin and stared at me. It was not the stare of a man who thinks his wife-to-be will be a very good mother. It was not the stare of a man who thinks his wife-to-be will be a very good wife, as a matter of fact. I can't lose him. Being engaged is literally the only thing I have going for me at the moment.

Quote from Prim's mum's diary

o, Ella asked me to come over. But then she wasn't there at all. It was the weirdest thing. Felix was there, though. I think she might be trying to set us up. I know this because she said it, just after I rang the doorbell.

I am not home at all. I have gone to town with Mum. I am trying to set you up. I hope you wore something blue. Felix likes blue. You're welcome.

I was wearing a black dress and a big orange hoodie with kitten ears growing out of the top. I looked like a jack-o'-lantern in drag. He asked me if I wanted tea, and I really did but I felt like I was going to puke and walked all the way home. It took ages and I was all sweaty and afraid.

How did I not know that he liked blue? I only have three or four blue things in my wardrobe. Mum's tea-party dress is blue. Light blue with fat dark-blue poppies on it. It is a kind of a magic dress that looks lovely on everyone. I feel like a lady when I wear it. A lady who wears little white gloves and goes for tea and has love affairs with wounded soldiers between the wars. It is only for special occasions. Seducing Felix with my average lady looks and moderately entertaining personality would be a special occasion, though. And by special occasion, I mean

I kind of don't want to encourage this sort of thing. Because I've fancied him for so long that actually hooking up with him would be like making out with God or something. My poor flawed human body would not be able to process what was going on and I'd probably implode into a puddle of lady-goo and tears. I say implode because it is more decorous, knowing full well it would be an explosion and some would get on his T-shirt and probably not come out in the wash and how he would hate me then.

Look Ella. I appreciate what you are trying to do. But please don't do it any more.

Do you not like him?

How do you answer a question like that? Ella is very direct and I like to dance around the point and occasionally brush against it with an ankle in a flirtatious manner. I need to get sexier ankles. I have a big purple scar on the inside of my left one and it kind of looks like a flat varicose vein. Now, I'm no expert on what makes boys all wibbly and full of sex-lemonade in the tummy region, but I am, if not full sure, at least ninety-nine per cent sure that flat varicose veins are not the sort of thing people have fetishes about. I could do an Internet search and remove all doubt, I suppose, but I'm scared of what I'd find. I left the text unanswered for an hour until she asked again and then I was all,

Ella. He's your brother. I cannot discuss any of my emotions with you at this time.

Which I thought was very ambiguous of me.

He makes your elbows blush, Prim. I'm not exactly reading between the lines.

Nice use of idiom.

Don't patronise me.

Well, don't patronise ME then. Just because you are lovely and skinny and able to get with anyone you want does not mean you get to sort out my love life as well.

You are not fat, Prim. You're medium sized and some guys like that. And I don't think Caleb counts as anyone I want.

Have you fancied anyone since him?

No.

Then, 100% success rating.

I suppose so. Feel quite smug now.

You should. But not matchmaker smug. Desirable woman smug.

That is a good smug.

I wouldn't know.

Shut up, Prim.

Whereupon I did. I hope Ella doesn't meddle any more. I've liked Felix for so long that I feel it's kind of a magic secret, as opposed to a real thing that could happen. The power balance would be off. Because he would have all of it and I would have none. I think the power balance has to be equal in a relationship, with maybe a wee bit more fancying on the side of the person who is not me. At least to begin with. Mum's diaries have taught me a very valuable life lesson about power imbalances in relationships and what they get you. Apart from awesome girl babies who grow up into slightly less awesome teenage girls, that is.
NATCH
.