Less Than Perfect Read Online Free
Author: Ber Carroll
and theirs.â
âGood Lord, Liam, youâve some gall to call it a waste of your time! Youâve too much time on your hands, thatâs the problem. Canât you see that you wonât get a job stuck inside the four walls of this house? Itâs laziness, sheer and utter laziness â¦â
âBeing unemployed does
not
mean Iâm lazy!
Iâm not fucking lazy, okay?
â
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 wasnât enough to contend with, now my father had Josh to deal with too. Josh, who couldnât hear, whose speech was unclear at the best of times, who had tograpple with all sorts of everyday challenges and who was not the kind of boyfriend he had envisaged for his eldest daughter.
âDonât get too serious too quickly,â Dad advised me more than once. âYouâre only young.â
And: âAre you sure that this is what you want, Caitlin? That Josh is what you want? Or, more appropriately, what you
need
?â
My fatherâs 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 â nothing my father could say would change that â 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 â 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.
Chapter 3
My fear of Belfast should have dissipated as I came to know the city better, but it didnât. 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 wasnât 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 wasnât threatening. Politics aside, the students at Queenâs studied hardand 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 didnât 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
âGood Lord, Liam, youâve some gall to call it a waste of your time! Youâve too much time on your hands, thatâs the problem. Canât you see that you wonât get a job stuck inside the four walls of this house? Itâs laziness, sheer and utter laziness â¦â
âBeing unemployed does
not
mean Iâm lazy!
Iâm not fucking lazy, okay?
â
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 wasnât enough to contend with, now my father had Josh to deal with too. Josh, who couldnât hear, whose speech was unclear at the best of times, who had tograpple with all sorts of everyday challenges and who was not the kind of boyfriend he had envisaged for his eldest daughter.
âDonât get too serious too quickly,â Dad advised me more than once. âYouâre only young.â
And: âAre you sure that this is what you want, Caitlin? That Josh is what you want? Or, more appropriately, what you
need
?â
My fatherâs 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 â nothing my father could say would change that â 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 â 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.
Chapter 3
My fear of Belfast should have dissipated as I came to know the city better, but it didnât. 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 wasnât 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 wasnât threatening. Politics aside, the students at Queenâs studied hardand 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 didnât 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
Readers choose
J.A. Roberts-Parkes
Kit Rocha
Diana Rowland
Georges Simenon
Katherine John
L. Neil Smith
Kaylea Cross
Andy McNab
Lori King
Cassandra Black