Improper Order

by Sullivan, Deirdre; Slattery, Fidelma;

  Also, I hate Karen now. Before I was just aware that she was the Devil, but now I feel that she is the Devil and I am a priest who needs to learn the rites of exorcism in order to stop the Devil ruining further social events.

  Also, next time there is a night out, Ciara and I are both going to wear hats. She is making me a rat-themed one. It will probably have a rat on it, but she will neither confirm nor deny this guess.

  She is making a lily-themed one for Grandma Lily as well. It is hard to find an artificial lily that does not look dreadful. That is what Syzmon and Ciara have been up to all weekend. Well, that and playing football. Ciara went to Syzmon’s match with Leona because Leona’s brother is on the team as well. They won and stuff. Apparently it was a really good game, but I know if I had been there I would not have been able to tell until the cheering started. For all my smarts, I always feel a little bit dumb when it comes to sports and sports-related things. I am uncoordinated and while I know that the objective is generally to get the ball in the hole, I find the scoring systems both complex and really, really dull. Ciara doesn’t. She knows the offside rule and can explain it in terms an idiot can understand.

  If you are nearer to the other team’s goal than the ball and the second last other team member then you are offside. But do not panic! It is not a crime in itself to be offside. That would be very counterproductive.

  If your team has the ball and you are interfering with the play in a way that suits your guys but is not fair on the other guys, then the referee can invoke the offside rule and award a kick to the other team.

  Ciara used a little picture to explain this and I am writing it down because I will probably forget it soon and I want to remember that there was a time, a glorious, glorious time, when I knew a bit more about football than the next man. Although this only applies if the next man is Joel’s little brother Marcus, and he’ll probably catch up to me sooner rather than later. Joel’s dad loves sport, so Joel knows a lot about it by default.

  Joel knows a lot about lots of things. That is why people warm to him and tell him their shameful secrets. He came over Saturday evening after the meeting with Kevin. There were pros and also cons to this meeting. They went to a place that had amazing hazelnut brownies, which was a pro. They laughed and chatted and made merry — also a pro. Kevin got all serious after a while and looked Joel in the eyes and said, ‘I haven’t been completely honest with you.’ For a second Joel contemplated taking Kevin’s hand, but being the reticent fellow that he is, decided against it.

  Then Kevin went on to explain that he had a secret (yes!) and that he was worried people might judge him (yes!) but he felt comfortable around Joel (yes!) and thought he might be the kind of person who would understand why he does the things he does (yes …?)

  Joel nodded and tried to look sexily understanding.

  And then Kevin told him that he LARPs.

  RETICENT: Shy, not offering loads of personal information readily. Joel is only reticent about being gay. Normally he is very good at not being shy. I am very bad at not being shy and normally get very reticent and mumbly when confronted with a group of new people. Sometimes I am even reticent about telling stuff to not-new people, which is why Ciara only found out that Brian McAllister was out of prison when I was telling her about the Mac thing. I could tell from her face that she was annoyed not to have been told but she didn’t give out to me because I had been through enough after my confrontation with the Devil.

  LARP stands for live action role-play. It involves elaborate costumes and battles and playing pretend and swords and wands and worlds in which there is the possibility of dragons and so on and so forth.

  The best thing is that when Kevin told Joel this, he was all, ‘That’s grand. And by the way, I’m gay.’ Because his secret was cooler than Kevin’s one. I was really pleased by this admission. He is one step closer to telling either Ciara or his parents.

  Also, next Saturday afternoon, the two of us are going LARPing with Kevin, just to show him that we understand and that there is nothing to be ashamed of. It is what it is; he’s not doing any harm to anyone. So there’s that.

  I’m not exactly sure how to feel. I knew LARPers existed but I never thought I’d actually have one in my social circle. Live and let live, I suppose. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t sort of disgust me. It just isn’t natural. All those wizards with their invisible lightning bolts that nobody can see but everyone pretends are there. I mean, if God had intended for us to shoot imaginary lightning bolts out of our hands after performing some sort of dramatic sweeping gesture, surely that’s what we’d all be doing, right?

  Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I think because I’m mostly going to support Joel, who is mostly going to support Kevin, in a fit of some sort of weird karmic reasoning which means that he thinks that his dad will be OK with him liking boys if he is OK with the boy he likes liking this ridiculously nerdy thing. I get it. Sort of.

  I am trying to convince myself that it will be fun, in a sort of ironic, Hallowe’en-every-day-of-the-year way. Also, I get to wield a staff. Which is fodder for much hilarity — especially if it’s magic. Because then you can say, ‘I’ll just get my staff to do it’ and it’s as though you have servants, only you don’t; you just have a big wooden stick that does pretend magic.

  Joel is worried that he will never get a boyfriend, at least not until he goes to college. I have this worry too but he dismissed it because the laws of probability give me a bigger chance of boy action than they give Joel. Also, he wants to have a lovely boyfriend his own age or maybe six to eighteen months older, as opposed to some middle-aged man on the Internet.

  To which I responded, ‘Have you been looking for love in all the wrong places, Joel?’ He would not give me a straight answer. I thoroughly approve of the net nanny system his parents have in place. They are sensible, pervert-thwarting heroes.

  I would like to find Joel a boy who loves him. But first I want a boy who loves me. I’m selfish that way. It must be nice to have someone to hold your hand and kiss you and think you’re wonderful even when you have sticky-uppy hair like a giraffe. I need to get my hair touched up again. And that’s not all I need to get touched up. Oh, my.

  This is the level of discourse that Joel and I descended to on Saturday. It was hilarious at the time but, looking back, it was kind of terrifying and exactly the reason I would never go on a reality TV show. Because what is absolutely funny and wonderful on one day could, if played back to you and re-edited to make sure everyone got the full effect of your braying donkey laugh, kind of break your tiny little heart. Or my tiny little heart anyway. And that’s been broken enough for one lifetime.

  I have to go and drink tea with Grandma Lily and Ciara tomorrow night. Well, myself and Ciara will be drinking tea. Lily will be drinking gin out of teacups. She has started having a gin or two as a nightcap in order to be able to turn down Ciara’s parents when they ask her to drop them places.

  ‘She’s not supposed to be driving, Primrose,’ Ciara said on the phone. Her voice sounded like her forehead was all wrinkled with worry. ‘That’s half the reason that they convinced her to come and live with us — so they could look after her, seeing as she’s not really able to look after herself any more. And it’s not like she takes that much looking after. I mean, I make her supper every night and dinner two nights a week. And Lord knows I have enough on my plate without worrying about the two of them.’

  Ciara actually does have a lot on her plate. Her mum is always making her do things around the house and buying her elaborate skincare products for the acne problem that she does not have. Ciara cleanses, tones and moisturises her eyes and the rest of her face separately. This necessitates six different products and a fine linen facecloth.

  I just whack a facecloth on and scrub till my eyes have thick grey circles around them, whereupon I lash a handful of moisturiser (sometimes hand cream) on, but only if I feel like it. Now, some might say that this is probably why I have breakouts and
Ciara does not, but some would be completely off base there. It is genetics. That is what it is. Mum was still getting breakouts when she died and she was in her thirties. I have never seen Ciara’s mum with so much as a blackhead. She hardly even has pores. Maybe she is a vampire.

  FINTAN

  Fintan has a fin-plan. I came across Hedda’s contraceptive pills in the cutlery drawer yesterday morning. I gave them to Dad with a suitably disgusted expression on my face (I mean, who does that?) and told him to ring her and give them back.

  Then on Wednesday I found them slotted into the middle of a packet of those cereal bars he likes that I find disgusting. (I was out of lunch things.)

  CONTRACEPTIVE PILLS: Pills you take if you want to have sex but do not want babies. Hedda should definitely be taking them. For the moment.

  This is not a good sign. Hedda is supposed to be moving in this Friday but she is totally going to put it off because she has planned a weekend away with friends. They are going to visit another friend who lives in Venice and is a glass-blower. (Hedda is way cooler than Fintan. I have no idea why they are together.)

  I began to suspect that something was amiss because of the cereal-bar incident and also because when I said, ‘You don’t want a new baby, do you?’ (by way of explaining why he should return his girlfriend’s medication which she needs to take daily), he was all muttery and, ‘Well, that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, now, would it?’

  I confirmed that it would, in fact, be one of the worst things in the world, if not the very worst.

  I could tell from the guilty look on his face that there was something he was trying to hide. It only took a few minutes of thorough questioning to weasel it out of him.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Yes, Prim.’

  ‘Have you been, like, plotting to get Hedda pregnant?’

  ‘No. NO. No. Er …why do you ask?’

  (I knew from his triple no that the answer to my question was yes. Denying something too much is almost the same as not denying it at all.)

  Then came the bit where I got a bit hypothetical to rein him in.

  ‘So, say if Hedda was planning to break up with you, do you reckon she’d stay if you guys were going to have a baby?’

  ‘She probably would, yes.’

  ‘Oh my God, Fintan! You have been scheming for babies. You are a baby-schemer. Have you no respect for a woman’s reproductive rights?’

  ‘I have not. Anyway, “scheming for babies” isn’t even a thing. There’s no such thing as “scheming for babies”.’

  Sadly, scheming for babies is EXACTLY what Fintan, Lord Lieutenant of Intelligent Living, had been doing. I know this because the next part of our conversation involved the phrase ‘don’t tell Hedda’.

  ‘So, Fintan.’

  ‘Yes, Primrose.’

  ‘Let me tell you why the hypothetical baby-scheming you’re doing would be a terrible idea. Apart from the fact that it is morally repugnant on several levels.’

  ‘Go on.’

  REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS: The right to not be forced to have babies you don’t want. I am slightly confused about this, I will admit, because I was an accidental baby that my mum wasn’t ready for. So I am glad that she decided to keep me. But on the other hand, one should not be forced to have Fintan’s babies simply because he has purloined one’s contraceptives in a fit of needy.

  PURLOINING: Well, it doesn’t have a thing to do with loins, I’ll tell you that right now. Get your mind out of the gutter. The idea! It means stealing but sounds kind of fancy. I would rather be arrested for establishment-purloining than shoplifting. It has a certain class about it. Roderick is forever purloining things to nibble and inspect. He is the greatest thief the world has ever known. Also the cutest.

  ‘It is needy. And needy is the death-knell for any relationship. Once one person starts being all needy, the other person becomes callous and uncaring in order to balance things out.’

  ‘That doesn’t happen.’

  So I reminded him of Cynthia and Margaret and Mum’s ex, Andrew, who texted twenty times a day even though he was a grown-up man.

  The tale of Andrew in particular seemed to sober Dad right up. Not that he was drunk. Except on his own vulnerability.

  It is a strange and creepy world, the world of the middle-aged businessman. Personally I reckon he should chill the hell out. I mean, if Hedda wants to be with him, that’s great, but if she doesn’t that’s fine too. It’s not like she does all that much for him or that they spend that much time together even. They just go on dates a few times a week.

  I don’t know. I can’t deal with all this, really. I’d just go mad. Because it isn’t funny; its kind of unhinged and worrying that Dad would go so mental trying to hang on to a woman that might not even love him back, and yet he regularly forgets that I need lifts and money and dinners and things. Not all the time; not even most of the time. But still, regularly enough for it to be noticed. Written down in my little mental book of things he has done, to be taken out and alluded to whenever we have a row. He thinks that’s petty but I kind of feel justified in being petty. I’m a teenage girl; we’re supposed to be all unreasonable and cranky and full of hormones that lead to mood swings and burgeoning boobage. And, as Mum used to tell me her mother used to say, ‘It wasn’t from the ground I licked it.’

  Fintan is petty as a miniature Chihuahua. Sometimes, after I have been late out of school or town or wherever, he will make a point of being exactly that late to the minute the next time he has to come and get me.

  He calls that teaching me a lesson. I agree. The lesson is that he is at least twice as petty as I am, so accusations of pettiness that come out of his stupid furry mouth are moot.

  I told Lily and Ciara about it while we were watching Rock Hudson come on to Doris Day. They think it is basically criminal. (Not RH coming on to DD; the Dad thing.)

  ‘I had a pregnancy every year from ages nineteen to thirty-four,’ said Grandma Lily. ‘I love my children but they were a great deal of work. I wouldn’t wish an unwanted baby on my worst enemy.’

  ‘So how many kids do you have?’

  ‘Four, Prim. I had fifteen pregnancies, but only five babies. The rest of them all died. Except for Ciara’s aunt Cecilia, who lived for three weeks before she left us.’

  What do you say to that? I don’t know but what I did say is, ‘That must have been hard.’

  ‘Well, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t take its toll on my body. I was quite flat-chested when I got married, Primrose. About the same size as Ciara, here.’

  She sipped her gin resentfully while we took a moment to assess her massive rack.

  ‘I am never having kids,’ said Ciara, who is an A-cup and proud of it.

  Grandma Lily considered her favourite grandchild fondly.

  ‘Well, not until you’re good and ready, at any rate. Good and ready. And married.’

  This last bit was followed with a surprisingly steely glare.

  I chose not to bring up my own dodgily unmarried parental situation. I mean, she probably knows. And it’s not like the out-of-wedlock baby-having worked out oh-so-splendidly for them.

  I wonder what sort of a father Brian McAllister is. Not a very good one for the past two years, probably, seeing as how you can’t be a very good father when you are in prison, by virtue of being almost completely absent from the lives of your children.

  He isn’t a handsome man. It’s weird that his son is such a fox. Maybe he has a really pretty wife who is having an affair with a neighbour so obsessed with her that he is going to murder BMcA and make it look like a terrible accident. I think about stuff like that sometimes and then I feel guilty. Because an eye for an eye is all well and good, but who’s to say what value an eye has?

  If it was to be really fair, I should be allowed to go back in time and kill his mother now, but I don’t think I’d want to. This whole Mac-being-a-McAllister thing is really messing with my head; it is looping and sweeping like it used to do
in the months just after Mum died. It isn’t good. I should probably have said something about it to Ciara but she didn’t like how I liked Mac in the first place, and … I don’t know. It just feels like something I should keep safely squished inside until it dies.

  I mean, it’s not like I even knew him properly. It’s sort of like finding out Alfric, the sexy Viking from my favourite sexy Viking book, was related to Brian McAllister. It shouldn’t matter. But it’s like, if random crushes are tainted by the guy who killed my mum, will I ever be able to get away from it? I mean, I don’t want to forget her or anything. Of course not that, but I don’t want my life to be defined by tragedy either. I don’t want to be always being reminded to be sad.

  LUSTROUS: Shiny, sheeny, sparkly and reflective. It is a good quality in hair but a bad quality in bald heads. Not that they should be dirty or matte, but those ones that look particularly polished creep me out.

  TAINTED: Made dirty or poisoned somehow. Like, I really like Doris Day but then I read online when I got home that she wasn’t very nice about gay people and that kind of tainted her for me. Because now I associate her with being a toolbox full of bigotry.

  THE FIRST ONE IS NOT THE SHALLOWEST (3)

  Dad is making me so mad today. I was innocently making myself a cup of coffee by way of breakfast when he came in and got all starey and noticey about the cuts on my legs. I thought he had already left, and they were pretty itchy, which is why I had my pyjama short-shorts on as opposed to some sort of capri pants, which would have made matters a little easier.

  I tried to explain to him that I had just been extra clumsy while shaving my legs but he was all on his high horse and ranting about self-harm and cries for help and other things he has read about on the Internet.