Primperfect (21 page)

‘Yep. Do you know him?'

‘We chatted for a bit while I was alphabetising the DVDs. I like to organise things.' He tilted his head to one side like an abandoned puppy. ‘Primrose, why did you leave me alone in there?'

‘I didn't leave you alone. I was in the garden.'

‘I was in the house.'

‘But you talked to people. You are a people person. A mixer.'

‘I wanted to talk to
you
,' said Robb.

‘Why would you want to talk to me?' asked Steve. ‘I'm crap.'

And that is when the ink kicks in.

Steve was in the en-suite bathroom at some point.

Someone's legs asked, ‘Is she OK?'

Someone put a wet face-cloth on Steve and he was concerned it was going to make him wet the bed as he had misremembered American slumber-party lore in his drunken state.

Robb had his hand around her waist and said things.

Someone asked, ‘What happened?' Steve got up to prove he was OK and then fell over again.
Get up Steve
, he thought.
Get up, get up.

Steve said things to people. People he remembers as being mostly made of legs.

The floor in Syzmon's parents' en-suite bathroom was black and white and really, really clean.
No wonder people hook up in here
, thought Steve.
It surely is a gleaming sex-palace.

Steve was kissing someone's mouth. She didn't know whose mouth it was but it belonged to someone and was soft and linked her to the world.

Maybe if I keep doing kissing,
thought Steve,
I will not want to do any more puking.

Steve puked more.

And that is the sorry tale of Steve the goblin. I kissed a person. I do not know who the person was. I assume it might have been Robb. Maybe? I puked on my leggings. I puked all over my skirt and leggings. That is why they weren't there. Ciara found them on the floor of the en-suite bathroom. Which we helped tidy up. My brain felt like it had been preserved in something gelid but I Frankenstein's-monstered my way through the clear-up for Syzmon's sake.

Parties are messy. Ciara found a runner in the salad drawer.

‘At least it wasn't mine,' I said, smiling at her in a shame-faced manner.

She smiled back at me. I tried to smile back but ended up squinting.

‘So what happened with Robb?' asked Steve, and Ciara made a face.

‘Don't ask me what happened with Robb,' she said. ‘It's kind of humiliating.'

‘Hello? I puked on everything and fell over and said things I can only kind of half remember.'

‘Nothing you can say will give me cause to judge you,' said Ciara.

‘I don't like pink and blue drinks.'

‘I don't like
ANY
drinks. I keep smelling them on cups and having to dry-retch.'

Syzmon came into the room then and Ciara made secret no-talking-about-hitting-on-other-boys eyebrows, which made me think she might not be finished with him yet. I'm kind of glad Robb didn't kiss her.

I wish I fancied Robb more than I do. He seems to like me. No idea why, but he seems to like me. He's even been replying to my texts after he saw me puke. A lot of people saw me puke. Ciara was trying to have me thinking that no-one had at first. I had to quiz her, name by name. Like, ten people saw. And if ten people saw, and each of them told just one person, that is twenty people. Which is a fifth of our year. And our year is a gossipy year. Urgh.

I can't believe I got roaring drunk. I can't believe I did that to myself. I mean, I could have hurt someone, pushed them down the stairs when I stumbled or something. I could have been hurt, fallen and bashed my head or stumbled down into the road or anything. Anything can happen when you don't remember.

I wonder if Brian McAllister remembers killing Mum. I hope he does. I hope it is stuck in his head like a splinter made of pictures and of sounds. I hope it hurts. I hope it really hurts. Like, more than my head hurts now at the moment. At least fifty per cent more. I think if it was any more than fifty per cent more he might die from it. Which would be good, but he has kids so I don't want him dead. A kid needs both their parents. If that is what they're used to, I mean.

When you're properly sick and really have to concentrate on what people are saying and being in the world, it is kind of how I imagine a ghost feels. You can feel your attention fuzzing in and out and you know you're not yourself, you're not yourself, but who else are you if you're not yourself, who would you be? A paler, sicker version. Less able. Less interesting. Less. It's not that much of a jump to make yourself transparent after that. You have to speak up any time you speak at all when you feel weak, your voice feels like a croak, red-raw from what you've done to it, and it takes more effort to be noticed, listened to.

Syzmon and Ciara homed in on each other as soon as he came in the room, and they did the washing up. He washing, she drying and putting away. I'm glad he doesn't know about her trying to kiss Robb. Which was kind of cold. I never would have thought of her as cold before, not Ciara. But she wasn't like she normally is. She was more and less fun in equal measure. Which goes for me as well.

I mean, I'd rather not have sung the shanties with people because I don't want to be that weird girl who sings shanties even though she's nearly grown. But there are plenty of ways I humiliate myself sober.

When I was little, the first bra that I had was mostly duct-tape and I couldn't get it off and had to take shower after shower and pull at my skin which is tenderer than skin in other places. Maybe not tenderer, but nervier or something. Sometimes my boobs really, really hurt for like a day and a half for no reason and someone brushes against me accidentally or bumps their bag into my side or chest and I seriously want to deck them or stamp on their feet and be, ‘See how you like it.'

I wasn't worried I'd been raped or anything, when I woke up with no pants. But I was worried that people had seen my down below places, or that I'd strode around half nude bellowing like a calf or something. Which wouldn't be the worst-case scenario, but would definitely be in the top 5. I'm not going to say I'll give up drink because that would be ridiculous and people never, ever stick to that. But I will give up drinking to keep people who are drinking things company, I think. That seems sensible. Lesson learned.

I really feel I've grown or something. And, best of all,

Dad never needs to know.

I met Úna from school today on Grafton Street. She looked me up and down and exclaimed, ‘Oh, you're expecting,' while smiling a smile that could have been painted on by an artist who specialises in portraits of affected little creeps. I hate telling people for the first time. She's going to be a barrister. ‘When the baby comes, I'll have to come and see it,' she said. Little does she know that when the baby comes, I am going to teach it to hate her. Which might sound cold, but I have so few pleasures in my life and need to take what I can get.

Quote from Prim's mum's diary

o, I crawled in home like a slug. Literally, like a slug. Ciara's mum was going to buy us lunch and even the
word
‘lunch' made my toes turn grey and the grey was spreading up into my face and Ciara sensed it and said, ‘No, no. We ate earlier.'

Even though I know she was pure hungry because her tummy rumbled all the way in the car to my house and her mum was all, ‘Are you sure you aren't hungry?' and suspicious but Ciara covered it up, saying that she just had got indigestion from all the food she'd eaten. Which, as far as thinking on your feet goes, is kind of brilliant.

Robb texted again, to ask how I was, which was nice of him, but I'm kind of too embarrassed to reply. Was he the legs? Who were the legs? And were they all one set of legs or was it several legs belonging to different people?

There was definitely one unfriendly set there anyway, because although I had no recollection of Karen being anywhere near me at the end of the night, Dad had received a text from her mother's phone containing video footage of me puking into a shower tray. I'm not saying anything too bad, but my legs are bare and there is a boy in the room and that is enough to convince the Daddy-man that I am one sperm short of a pregnancy.

I hate Karen. Dad hates her too and thinks that it was very unfair that she sent him the video. But he has to punish me now that he has evidence. I asked him if I could take a nap first, and he said I could. But once I wake up, I will find out what my punishment will be for underage drinking to excess and lying about where I was and things. He copped right away that I couldn't have stayed in Ciara's.

‘Because Ciara still had hair left on her scalp when she dropped you off, and Nóirín would have had it dragged off of her, if she'd got even a whiff of drink.'

This was how he put it. In fairness, he is not wrong. I am in so much trouble.

I still have ghost-feelings all through my body. Like I'm a series of images and memories and not a person. Like I am made of wisps of fatigue and woe. I'm dying to nod off, but it's hard knowing I'll wake up and be punished. I wonder how Mary Queen of Scots slept, or Anne Boleyn, the nights before they were due to be executed. My pillow is really soft. I think Dad changed the sheets for me this morning. It smells nice here, more homey than at Syzmon's.

When I moved here first, it smelled new and old at the same time. So different to the home I'd had with Mum. The little crooked stairs up to our flat. The baking press and glass jars with candles in. The candles Dad has come in jars already. And when the candle's burnt, he throws the jar out with it, as if it couldn't be re-used. I save them sometimes. Put ribbons and jewellery in them. I suppose when you're a man you don't need pretty jars as much. You've got fewer bits. He could put his ties in a jar, I suppose, but the little hanger especially for them he has is probably better in the long run. Moustache combs! That's what he could put in them. He has a few, because he keeps losing them. He could put the jar of moustache combs on the back of the toilet and he'd never be lost for one again. They'd have a place.

I must tell him that idea when I wake up. Either before or after he exiles me, or whatever half-assed punishment he thinks of. He might send me to some actual salt-mines. I bet he could and all. He's got connections. I need to sleep. I need to go to sleep.