Less Than Perfect (3 page)

Dad's daily contact with students and exposure to their lifestyle meant that he was quite in touch with the world: he listened to whatever music was popular at the time, took notice of fashions and trends, and used relevant, modern examples in his lectures. He kept up to date in his own rather deliberate way, and his students appreciated and respected him for it. Dad was also savvy enough to guess that Josh and I were making the most of our privacy at the Elms. He would have been able to tell from our body language that we were physically intimate, and from our faces when we looked at each other that we were in love. ‘Be careful, Caitlin,' he muttered once or twice, glancing in Josh's direction to make his meaning clear. This was his way of telling me to use contraception.

He always wore a slight frown when he greeted Josh; in
fairness, though, I don't think he was aware of this. His problem wasn't with me having an adult relationship as such – he knew it was par for the course at my age – it was that he didn't quite know what to make of Josh. Undoubtedly, there were a number of factors in Josh's favour. He worked as a plasterer and earned a decent living, unlike Liam. He came from a respectable family, albeit Protestant. He dressed well, he was obliging (he always helped clear the table whenever he ate at our house) and he was polite, always letting Mum walk through the doorway before him and things like that.

But the fact that Josh couldn't hear – that missing sense, that blatant imperfection – must have grated on my father, diminishing Josh in his mind. Perfection meant everything to him. He aspired to it in every aspect of his life, and he expected it from everyone around him, not least his children.

The fact that Liam, his eldest child, was unemployed was an acute embarrassment to Dad. Never mind that there were thousands of other young men and women unemployed at the time. Never mind that the Celtic Tiger, the boom occurring in the South of Ireland, seemed to have totally bypassed the North. Never mind that Liam's diploma in sport was useless in the face of the continuing political friction and violence that stunted investment in the sports and leisure industry, and all other industries for that matter. Liam was young, male and Catholic, and unemployment in that particular demographic was as high as thirty per cent. Never mind all that: more should be expected, and was expected, of Professor Jonathan O'Reilly's son.

‘Can you just
stop
, Liam,' he would snap when he was no longer able to contain his irritation.

‘Stop what?'

‘Stop kicking the chair. Stop moping around the house. For God's sake, for
all
our sakes, find something to
do
.'

‘And what exactly do you suggest I
do
, Dad?' Liam would snarl back.

‘Go down to the sports complex and volunteer your services, for instance.'

‘You mean work for free?'

‘Yes, if that's what it takes!'

‘They won't let me work without being on the payroll – insurance reasons. Any other ideas,
Dad
?'

‘Can't you put on a suit and go into town? You never know what opportunities might happen if you get out there and meet some people face to face.'

‘You mean gatecrash their offices? They don't want to see me, Dad. They have
no jobs
. It's a waste of my time and theirs.'

‘Good Lord, Liam, you've some gall to call it a waste of your time! You've too much time on your hands, that's the problem. Can't you see that you won't get a job stuck inside the four walls of this house? It's laziness, sheer and utter laziness …'

‘Being unemployed does
not
mean I'm lazy!
I'm not fucking lazy, okay?
'

The arguments exploded into raised voices, swearing and slammed doors at least once a week. In some ways I preferred the arguments to the strained, contemptuous atmosphere before and afterwards. At least the fights were honest.

As if the situation with Liam wasn't enough to contend with, now my father had Josh to deal with too. Josh, who couldn't hear, whose speech was unclear at the best of times, who had to
grapple with all sorts of everyday challenges and who was not the kind of boyfriend he had envisaged for his eldest daughter.

‘Don't get too serious too quickly,' Dad advised me more than once. ‘You're only young.'

And: ‘Are you sure that this is what you want, Caitlin? That Josh is what you want? Or, more appropriately, what you
need
?'

My father's wants and needs were different to mine. He wanted and needed me to be with someone strong, steady, mainstream, someone who had no obvious problems, because in his opinion I had enough problems of my own. Liam might have been the first of us to fail publicly at being perfect, but I had failed on an intrinsically private level many years before.

Josh and I
were
serious – nothing my father could say would change that – and his hearing impairment, though testing at times, was at the very base of my attraction to him. I connected with Josh at the deepest level – I understood his frustrations and fears better than anyone else could because I too had a handicap, a defect, something fundamentally wrong with me.

Like Josh, I was less than perfect.

My fear of Belfast should have dissipated as I came to know the city better, but it didn't. The university quarter was located on the south side of the city, an attractive and apparently safe part of town. Within walking distance were the Botanic Gardens, the Ulster Museum, the Grand Opera House and numerous shops, cafés and restaurants. The campus was situated within three designated conservation areas with lots of grass and plants and trees. The buildings, some of which were more than a hundred and fifty years old, were imposing and steadfast and promised to students like me both a serious education and a sense of security.

The campus wasn't free of politics, though; quite the opposite. The students had political views and no hesitation in airing them. There was always someone ranting and raving and having their say, but it was honest and open and for that same reason it wasn't threatening. Politics aside, the students at Queen's studied hard
and socialised even harder, just like students at other universities around the world. I often wondered if I was the only one who felt anxious and afraid.

I worried about accidentally walking into the wrong area, about being in the wrong place at the wrong time, about being attacked or getting blown up. Sometimes it was a relief to go back to Clonmegan on the weekends and holidays, to be in a small town that didn't need high walls or armoured cars, a town that was unified rather than segregated. Even the townscape in Clonmegan went some way to demonstrating a sense of unity, the skyline distinguished by the gothic spires of the churches, Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland, Methodist and Presbyterian harmoniously overlooking the town. And as you stood at Friars Bridge and observed where the Balowen and Glenrush rivers merged to form one, you could easily liken this confluence to that of the townspeople, separate outside the town but joined as one community inside it.

Belfast felt more benign when I was with Josh, when my hand was in his. We took walks down Royal Avenue, along the River Lagan and through the Botanic Gardens. Sometimes we went as far as the docks where the two decommissioned ship-building cranes, Samson and Goliath, presided over the slate-coloured water, the long corrugated-iron warehouses and the lines of multicoloured containers waiting to be transported somewhere else, rather like us all. On these walks I came to appreciate that our gritty surroundings were interesting and beautiful in their own unique way, and that any attractive monuments and architecture were only accentuated by the tough, unapologetic backdrop. I realised that Belfast was like a child who had been
abused and neglected and misunderstood, but who wore its heart on its sleeve and had developed a resilient and lovable character. Still, though, Josh and I always stayed close to the city centre and I was thankful to have him by my side, his eyes on the lookout. He noticed things that I didn't, and I only ever felt any way safe when I was with him.

‘Relax,' Josh would tell me, trying to massage the tension from my hand.

I tried to relax and came close sometimes, but never fully got there.

It took some willpower on my part not to see Josh every day. To prevent my studies from suffering I restricted the times he came around; as much as I loved him, I never lost sight of my degree, the reason I was in Belfast in the first place. I daydreamed about my graduation day. In my head I had a snapshot of myself in a black gown and mortarboard, holding a scroll – my degree, my ticket out of Ireland. Josh represented a complication to my dream, one I hadn't counted on. Because of his hearing impairment, he would find it harder than me to get a visa. And even if he did get a visa, he would then have to find a job wherever it was we decided to emigrate, a job as good as the one he had now.

We talked about our plans for the future like any other couple. I had more than two years to go on my degree and we reassured ourselves that we had time to work things out, to plan our escape to a more prosperous country, a country comfortable in its own skin, a country that did not know or need to understand the kind of conflict that split the North of Ireland in two. A place where one's name was simply what one was called, rather than a
declaration of sides. Where religion and politics had their place but were not all-powerful.

‘I want to go somewhere I can relax,' I'd say vehemently. ‘Where the streets are safe no matter what neighbourhood I'm in.'

Josh wanted the same. ‘Somewhere warm,' he'd add, his eyes faraway. ‘Not just the climate, but how people treat each other.'

I would have enjoyed my first few months of university much more had I known that Belfast didn't pose any danger – well, at least not personally to me. I would have taken walks at times when Josh wasn't with me, when my eyes were tired or my head aching from stuffy classrooms and I needed some fresh, cold air and new scenery. I would have immersed myself wholeheartedly in student life, gone to pubs and house parties outside of what I perceived to be my ‘safety zone'.

Little did I know that the danger I feared was, in fact, where I least expected it, where I felt safest and most secure.

My room at the Elms had a small telly, an old portable set that had belonged to my parents. When I was on my own, I rationed it between periods of study, a treat at the end of two hours' nonstop reading or a completed essay or assignment. When I turned it on, the telly felt like a flatmate, a voice in the room easing the silence and loneliness until Josh came around. Due to the misshapen aerial at the back the reception was patchy, but for all its obvious imperfections, I loved that box of colour and sound.

Josh loved it too. Most of the time. Television frustrated him almost as much as it fascinated him, teasing him with dialogue
he couldn't properly follow and lifestyles he could never hope to emulate. He would flick through the channels, leaning towards the telly with the remote control in his hand – the signal didn't work unless you held it close and pressed hard on the buttons. He liked to watch anything to do with cars: design, road testing, racing, anything that involved a motor and four wheels. He would have loved a car of his own, to feel the curve of the steering wheel under his hands, to command the vehicle with the gearstick and clutch, accelerator and brake. He knew how to drive – his father had taught him – but he wasn't deemed fit for a licence because he couldn't hear sirens or car horns in the event of an emergency.

‘It's not fair,' he'd protest, anguished by his exclusion from this aspect of everyday life more than anything else. ‘All those lazy, incompetent drivers on the road, and yet they're allowed to sit behind the wheel and I'm not.'

I tried to console him. ‘Maybe they'll change the rules when hearing-aid technology improves.'

‘Yeah, maybe, but I could be an old man by then!'

When Josh had finished surfing the channels on the telly, we'd snuggle together under the covers and watch a film, usually a foreign one with subtitles, a quirky storyline and more nudity than the plot required. Those were happy times – the warmth of the duvet and his body next to mine, the small portable telly with its wonky aerial, its blurry screen a window to an exotic other world.

Initially I didn't take much notice of the peace talks that were reported on the telly.

‘Talks between the political parties and the Irish and British governments have been going on for more than thirty hours
now, through the day and night, and now into another day, in a monumental effort to reach agreement …'

It took a while for the television coverage to penetrate my cynicism. As far as I was concerned, there was always some politician talking to another, shaking hands and flashing phoney smiles at the cameras, but nothing ever came of those talks. Nothing happened other than the handshake, so firm and resolute, promising so much and delivering nothing at all. I imagined that both parties left with the best of intentions, and then at some stage reality intruded: thirty years of conflict; arms, hatred and history more powerful and dividing than any image of the future.

‘Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern have not slept, leading to reports that it's not a matter of
if
agreement will be reached, but
when
…'

The chairman of the talks, a US senator, had been up all night too. Though the deadline for an agreement had passed, the news commentator sounded excited and hopeful. Maybe it was a similar sense of hope that made me break one of my rules and leave the telly on past the allotted time. I muted the sound and resumed my work on the sociology essay I needed to submit before the end of the week. A few laborious pages later, I glanced up to see that Tony Blair was speaking at a news conference; the talks had apparently ended. I turned the sound back on.