Less Than Perfect Read Online Free Page A

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 beenabused 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.
    â€˜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 adeclaration of sides. Where religion and politics had their place but were not all-powerful.
    â€˜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