It was lovely and made me warm to him, even though he would probably attack my beloved Roderick if their paths ever crossed. I reckon Roderick could get away pretty easily, though. Because he can climb things and dogs can’t really do that.
Mr Cat was off the leash as well, and Ella was scratching his back in a way that he particularly enjoys. His purrs were deeper than growls, and I think he also liked watching poor stupid Wayne Rooney retrieve the ball time and time again. You wouldn’t catch Mr Cat doing that sort of thing.
Roderick will fetch occasionally, but only with food or toys he particularly loves. And he won’t bring it back. Just fetch it and use it for his own purposes. I love my rat. He is the best pet ever.
Anyway, just before I went back into Mary’s, Kevin asked me for my number and said that maybe we could do something at some point. I said, ‘That would be good’ even though he did not specify what this something might be. I hope it’s kissing! I think he might have been a bit nervous, actually; he got all mumbly and his voice went a bit deeper than it normally does. Ella approves of him. She told me so once we went in and had a cup of tea.
‘I approve of him, Primrose,’ she said.
And then I went on for a bit about how lovely he is. I wish I could tell her about the whole Joel thing.
Gayday did not happen on Thursday. Ciara had to go to the hospital and visit Grandma Lily, and Joel and me watched a film about robots and didn’t talk about the fact that we are both crushing on the same boy. Normally, I would have rung him as soon as I got home and gone over every single detail of what Kevin said and what I said back and how I probably came across like an idiot but I didn’t care because I had so much fun, but I can’t do that. Because it would be smug of me, and totally inconsiderate.
I feel pretty inconsiderate already. I mean, if the situation were reversed, I’d like to think that I would be supportive, but my main reasoning for that is that there is only a teeny tiny portion of the world that is gay compared to the big huge dollops of straight people you get all over the place. So it would be selfish of me to deny Joel the right to a lovely gay man he could go to the cinema and have mutually pleasurable gay loving with, based on my unrequited attraction alone.
But the situation isn’t reversed. It is the right way round and I feel like I shouldn’t be acting the way I am and I know I could help it if I wanted to but Joel is pretending that he is cool with it and I’m growing to really like Kevin, and I know that this is really childish and stupid but I kind of really want a boyfriend, in the same way that I wanted an iPod Touch for ages and ages and ages. Everyone else has one and I feel a bit left out. And, believe me, I know how idiotic that sounds and how little of a reason that is to screw over the boy who has been my best friend since I was three years old.
I can’t do anything with Kevin, can I? It wouldn’t be right. At all. But all the same, I want to see him more and more and spend more time around him. Even if we can’t be together in a boy–girl type of way, maybe we could be friends. I think he would be a good friend to have. He is broad-shouldered and kind to dogs and these are fine qualities to have in a friend.
I should just go back to crushing on Felix. Maybe, if I actually managed to do some kissing with him, my Kevin feelings would go away. I must come up with a Ciara would be the ideal person to ask about SEDUCTION and PLANS but she doesn’t know why Kevin and I can never, ever be. Hurry up, Joel, and tell her, before I accidentally make sweet love to your boy-crush right in the middle of the green as Wayne Rooney softly dry-humps a football under a star- and-streetlamp-lit sky.
BIRTHDAY
Joel is fifteen now, and his parents are giving him the gift of not being awkward around him for one whole day. Things are looking up, actually. Liam gave him a big talk about how OK he was with Joel being gay. Joel didn’t go into what was said, but he was pleased with it and feels less weird around his dad now.
For his birthday, a big gang of us went for pizza. Me, Ciara, Syzmon, Ella, Caleb, Kevin and Joel’s cousin Glen. It was really nice and while we were getting ready to go out, Joel told Ciara and Ella about how gay he is. They were very supportive. Ella even gave him a hug, and she does not hug easily. This means I can tell them about the whole Kevin thing now, but I am not sure that I want to because I do not come off well in that story.
I am going to meet him some time this week. We chatted a bit last night, but I made a point of not sitting right by him, even when Ciara made eyebrows at the seat beside him in a pointed manner that she probably thought was subtle. She also started a lot of sentences with ‘Sooooo, KEVIN …’ It made me wish for a quick death.
Kevin tried to hold my hand on the way from the restaurant to his mum’s car, but I kind of pretended I didn’t notice and asked him several stupid distracted questions about how Thelonious Monk could still be a greyhound even though he wasn’t coloured grey but more of a golden brown, like a pale shade of cinder toffee. Joel noticed, though. We had a talk, and he is still saying it is OK for me to ‘go for it’ with Kevin, but in this voice that isn’t really his. This really jovial voice that masks his feelings.
I want Joel and me to be honest with each other because he is my best friend in the world. But when he was getting bullied, he didn’t tell me for ages, and now there’s this and he isn’t telling me how he really feels and that is basically a lie. Worst of all, I think I’ll end up going along with it and starting to see Kevin. I don’t know why it is, but having someone think I’m pretty is really soothing. Because deep down in my tummy (I think my soul lives in my tummy, because my deep love of biscuits goes beyond the physical), I know that I am ugly. Inside and out. There is this need in me to be the cleverest, the most superior, and I’m really, really not. I shouldn’t even be allowed around people. People are delicate, wonderful things and my big gaping mouth is so crammed with negativity that it often comes spewing out and afterwards when I go home I feel like everybody knows that there is something wrong with me. I don’t think anybody would miss me if I died. Not really.
There is Joel, but he’d get over it pretty fast because I am not being a good friend to him at the moment. Dad could just forget about me all of the time instead of some of the time, and Ciara would be fine and so would Ella. The only person who my loss would break is my mum and she is not around and when I get in head circles like this and cannot sleep, I usually wake Roderick up and whisper in his little ratty ear that everything will be OK even though he is small, and that he shouldn’t worry. Because he shouldn’t.
Roderick would miss me too, I think. I think he would. But rats don’t live for ever. The average is two years and Roderick is three and a half and he might die really soon and I would miss him so, so, so, so much. Like, hugely. He lived with me and Mum and he makes me smile sometimes when I am sad. I am sad most of the time.
This is something I have not been honest with Joel about. The sadness. And the cutting. But how do you bring that up? I don’t want him to think I’m some sort of mad attention-seeker. It’s private. No one’s business but my own. But it’s not normal.
It is dangerous, actually. Because sometimes I do not want to stop. I want to tear myself to ribbons and to shreds and bits of bone. White and red and beautiful and terrible. But I can’t. I can’t.
Dad keeps bringing up therapists. Now that he is over his bump with Hedda he can focus on messing with my life again. I don’t like it. I don’t like group. I don’t like Triona. I don’t like talking about the way I feel because it won’t change anything. No matter how many hundreds of euro an hour you spend, no one is going to un-murder my mother. I don’t like talking about her. Because the way they talk about her, it is like they are picking holes, giving me reasons to be angry at her for being dead.
‘What would you say to her if she were here?’
And all I have is this: Don’t die. Don’t die. Don’t die.
I need to do something, though. I do. I need to do something before I break. Because once people break, you can’t put them back tog
ether with glue and silver paint, like Marcus’s robot costumes. My hands are weird in the moonlight. All veiny and bizarre, like the hands of an alien or a monster. Not like a girl at all. I can’t sleep, here at Joel’s house. I thought I could, because I was able to the last time. But I can’t now. I sit up at night, thinking about things that could be better. Starting with my eyebrows, ending with the refugee camps you see on the news.
I know that there are people who have it worse than me. But I just can’t seem to cheer myself up. Maybe it is time for me to return to old habits.
THESE THINGS DIE HARD (WITHOUT BRUCE WILLIS) (3, 6)
I crept to Joel’s room in the dead of night, brandishing spirit gum like a maniac. Soon, Joel and I were thinking as one. In sync, like ninjas we slunk through the house. Secretive and deadly. Once we were finished with our dreadful scheme, I cuddled in beside Joel in the bed. I know I’m not supposed to, now that we aren’t kids and have hormones and urges and man-bits and woman-bits and all that. Actually, I think that policy might need to be re-examined now that Joel is a proper gay man who tells people that he is gay and stuff.
Anyway, there is something very comforting about his warm body. His breath, in and out in little spurts and snuffles. It lulled me, and eventually I slept. And in the morning, Anne and Liam and Marcus all had moustaches on. It was the best breakfast ever.
We are in a lot of trouble. Parents do not take kindly to night-sneaking and co-sleeping. It is not seemly. I think they might be worried that I will molest Joel. I was going to promise not to, but Joel stopped me before I got the sentence out.
In other news, all robots everywhere should sport moustaches. It adds a certain exuberance.
OLD HABITS
Joel just forwarded me a text from Karen.
Hear you are gay. Congrats! That is awesome. Want to grab a coffee some time?
How did she get his number?
‘Grab a coffee’? We are in school together; it is not like they need to make plans. If she wants to see him, she can just appear near his locker in a plume of celebrity perfume smoke and brimstone.
So she likes him now that he is gay, and is trying to poach him. This is
Karen can be really funny and she always has stuff on. Joel might run away with her and not be my friend any more. I am his friend because he is awesome, not because he fancies boys. This is just one thing we have in common.
Ha! Just got another text from him:
She = the Devil Be my friend, gay boy! We can clothes-shop and bitch about men like they do on the telly! What a tool!
Phew. It is nice that Joel saw through her right away. I hate Karen. She is shallow and hateful and full of spite. Joel does not need another friend who is shallow and hateful and full of spite. Not when he has back-stabbing, Kevin-fancying me.
How is Karen able to operate at all? I mean, that was shallow and obvious. If she had even a modicum of self-awareness she would be full of self-hatred and wouldn’t come into school with a perfect face of make-up every day because she would be too busy crying big, oh-my-God-I-am-the-Devil? tears over various surfaces.
I hate her. I hate her so much. I need my Joel. He is on my ‘people who would miss me if I died’ list, which is a very short list indeed.
How could she be so thick? Joel is not like a sitcom gay man who says sassy things and tells it like it is. You don’t come out and immediately start spewing out rainbows and fashion tips and soundbitey relationship advice. I want to poison Karen. All I need is poison and an alibi.
I texted Joel to ask for an alibi. He said he would swear that we were off shoe-shopping and being fabulous. I texted him back to say that I have never been fabulous in my life and he thinks shoes are boring, functional things of no great merit so no one would believe us except for maybe Karen. Because she is the Devil.
I hate Karen. And yet, I will not actually poison her. Curse my stupid conscience!
A FOOD THAT CAN EAT AWAY AT YOU (5)
Grandma Lily passed away last night. I was at the swimming pool when I got the text, eating chips in the café post-swim. They have this amazing curry sauce that is completely bog-standard and made of E-numbers but combines with chips to form something greater than the sum of its parts. So I was eating chips while she was dead.
Ciara is very upset, I imagine. I rang and texted but I got no answer. But after someone dies, it’s kind of blurry and fast and surreal for a week or so. I’m going to the funeral on Wednesday. And there’s a thing in the funeral parlour tonight. You know, where people shake your hand and tell you how sorry they are. Which is stupid, because it is not their fault. And ‘I am sorry for you’ is kind of a patronising thing to say. Especially when you follow it up with not contacting me again, ever.
Some of Mum’s friends were like that. Not Sorrel, Méadhbh (who has moved to Nebraska to curate something fancy, but Skypes me every month or so) or even Dave, who texts to see how Roderick is. (For Roderick, read me. Dave is not good at feelings talk.) But a lot of people forgot about me once Mum was gone. People who were only too happy to come over and eat her hummus or borrow her cat-carrier. We never had a cat, but sometimes we would capture feral ones and have them neutered. Mum thought that was the kindest thing in the long run, although she might have changed her mind if she were a cat.
Anyway, I was sadly eating chips when who should plonk down beside me, looking Hollywood perfect and mildly confrontational? Only Dolphin Laura.
‘Haven’t heard from you in a while,’ she said. ‘Did you lose your phone?’
‘No.’
‘Oh. Then why didn’t you reply to my texts? I missed you at swimming.’
‘Yeah. I changed days.’
‘Why?’
‘I had a thing.’
(I said this because I read somewhere once that being overly specific is the downfall of many a liar. Besides, I couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t ‘I joined the circus’. And I clearly hadn’t joined the circus.)
‘Oh. What sort of thing?’
(Damn her! She is clearly a master of lie-unravelling.)
A family thing.’
(This is clever, because it is a bit true.)
And she kept prodding and being friendly and then she stole a chip and that was the last straw, so I just came out with it.
‘Laura, the reason I’ve been distant is because I haven’t wanted to be around you. It’s to do with Mac.’
‘Oh my God. Did you, like, get off with him?’
‘No! His dad killed my mum’
‘Oh. That’s much worse.’
(She didn’t mean it, though. She was pretty pleased I hadn’t got off with him. I’m not sure why that even occurred to her to be honest. Bit of a stretch. Also a compliment.)
‘He doesn’t really talk about his dad. I mean, I kind of only knew why he was in prison and stuff from my mum.’
‘Oh. OK.’
‘That explains a lot, actually.’
‘How?’
‘Well, you getting all weird and distant, like you said, and also that he was always talking about you and trying to find out things.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, that stuff with his dad really messed him up; he was pretty cut up about it.’
(Pause.)
‘Although clearly not as cut up as you. I mean, you lost your mum. That’s huge.’
‘Yeah, yeah, it is.’
And we had a big talk and stuff, and she told me about her and Mac and how his father being back hadn’t made things better and how his little sister was getting teased at school because her daddy was in jail, and all this stuff that really made me think. I don’t know if it was productive thinking. And maybe it was because Grandma Lily was dead, but we both had a small bit of a cry. Hers involved delicate tears floating down her cheeks like small, shiny globes of crystal. Mine involved snot and a lot of facial contortions. I feel like I might have made a new friend today, though. Which is something, even if I don’t want to see her very often — or ever if it me
ans seeing her handsome, troubled, evil-father-having boyfriend.
I do feel really sorry for his little sister Tracey. It is hard enough being a kid with a dad in prison without getting bullied over it. When I was a kid, I used to kind of wish that Dad could live with us all the time. Not as Mum’s boyfriend, because that would have been weird and wrong. But as my dad. I was jealous of Joel for having two parents in the same house when I only got my dad some weekends. I never got bullied for living with Mum though, because I didn’t grow up in the 1950s. But you do miss your parents when they aren’t around, even if they aren’t your favourite parent.
Mum was my favourite parent. She had to be: I saw her all the time and Dad only sometimes. So clearly Mum was going to be the one I talked to about what I’d done at school and things I liked and what I was afraid of and all that stuff that brings two people closer. I didn’t get to really know Dad as a person until I moved in with him after she died.
I think I know him now, at least a little. He is my friend as well as being my dad. Except when he wears socks and sandals when picking me up from the swimming pool café where I am chatting with my sort-of new friend Dolphin Laura. Then he becomes my enemy. Not really, but it was pretty embarrassing. I think I played the reverse psychology card pretty well, though.
‘I like that you have finally given up on trying to be cool, Fintan. Loving the socks and sandals. You are officially old.’
‘Socks and sandals are practical and comfortable.’
‘Yeah, and stylish.’
‘Stop it, Primrose, I have an ingrown toenail and I’m feeling a little bit sensitive about it.’
‘Grandma Lily died.’
‘Oh, Prim, I’m sorry. You looked like you’d been crying.’
He was driving so he couldn’t give me a hug, but he talked to me about Grandma Lily and how sad Ciara might be and promised he would take time off work to go to the funeral with me. Which is something.
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