Lifesaving for Beginners (22 page)

The tray is not in its usual spot: in the cupboard beside the fridge.
Mum says it might be in the utility room when I ask her.
And it is.
It’s on the counter, covered in papers and bills.
She insists on taking care of the household paperwork, even though, if Dad did it, there’d be less chance of the electricity getting cut off twice a year.
I think she feels like it’s her link to the real world.
To how the real world works.
It’s a fairly tenuous link.

On the tray are flyers for the local supermarket, unopened bills, a handwritten letter from a fan – three foolscap pages – and a couple of coupons for the local taxi company.
I tilt the tray and they tumble onto the counter, and that’s when I see them.
The envelopes.
Three envelopes.
Identical.
Cream envelopes with a window.
A British stamp.
A registered post sticker on one of them.
They’re not from the college.
Printed in the window is my name.
Ms Katherine Kavanagh.
My parents’ address.
I haven’t lived at this address for twenty years.

Somewhere in my head, a pulse begins to beat.

I pick them up, the three envelopes, and walk into the dining room.

‘Mum?’
She looks up from her notebook.
Sees me.
Sees the envelopes in my hand.

‘Oh, yes, I’m sorry, Katherine.
I meant to forward them to you.’

‘When did these arrive?’

Ed says, ‘Who are they from, Kat?’

Mum says, ‘Oh, I’m not sure.
Recently, I think.
The last few weeks, definitely.
I’ve been so busy with the book, you see.
It’s been .
.
.’

‘Difficult.
Yes.
We know.
You said.’

Dad steps in.
‘Well, you have them now, Kat.
No harm done, eh?’
This is the role he has always played.
The middle-man.
The referee.
The facilitator.
The one who rings the bell.
The one who says, ‘Enough’.

I’m at my chair now.
The envelopes are in my hand.

Ed says, ‘Who are they from, Kat?’

I sit down.
Pick up my glass.
Drain it.
Pour more wine.

Mum says, ‘Aren’t you driving?’

Dad says, ‘I’ll take her home.’

Ed says, ‘That’s an English stamp, isn’t it, Kat?
Look, it’s got the Queen on it.’

I look at the envelopes.
A cream queen on a pink background.
The postmark is London.
I don’t know anyone in London.
Except Brona, of course, and she posts everything to the PO Box number I gave her.

I open the first envelope.
Take out the letter.
One page.
I turn it over.
One side of one page.
It is written the way I like things to be written.
No fancy language.
Precise.
To the point.

Ed says, ‘Who’s it from, Kat?’

Mum says, ‘Edward, don’t put your elbows on the table.
And please don’t speak with your mouth full.
How many times have I told you that?’

‘Stop it.’

Mum looks at me and says, ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Leave him alone.’

She picks up her fork.
Puts it onto her plate.
‘I’m merely trying to instil some manners in the boy.’

Dad says, ‘Janet!’
Which is the closest he’ll come to telling her off.
He puts his hand on Ed’s shoulder and wanders out of the room, into the kitchen.

I say, ‘He’s thirty-four years old.
He’s not a boy.’
Anger is not something I feel all that often.
I’m more inclined towards peevishness.
That’s what Thomas used to say anyway.
Anger has its two hands round my throat now.
It’s strangling me.
‘And he’s not speaking with his mouth full,’ I say.
‘He’s finished.’

Dad comes back into the room and says, ‘Here’s the coffee.’
He looks at us as if we are an audience and he a reluctant after-dinner speaker.
Everything about my father is small.
His voice, his size, the portions he eats, his expectations of other people.

I say, ‘The first letter is dated nearly a month ago.’

There’s one morsel of cake left on Mum’s plate.
She spears it with her fork, dips it in a puddle of melted ice cream, lifts the fork to her mouth, opens, closes, chews her ten chews, swallows, drinks water followed by the merest sip of wine.
Then she looks at me and shakes her head.
‘I forgot about them.’
And if this were a normal Sunday, one of the hundreds of Sundays I have sat round this table and watched my mother chewing and swallowing and forgetting about things, that would be that.
I would shrug and remind her, or not remind her, depending.

I don’t do either.
I look right at her.
‘The letter is from an adoption agency.’

‘An adoption agency?’
She sets her fork down.
I nod.
My breathing is funny.
Jerky.
Mum looks at me and it’s like she’s just arrived.
She is present.
I have her attention.

I say, ‘Did you know it was a girl?’

Ed says, ‘Who was a girl?’

Mum says nothing.
Her lips have retreated into a single, thin line.

I say it again.
Louder this time.
‘Did you?
Did you know it was a girl?’

Dad says, ‘Katherine?’

Ed says, ‘Who was a girl?’

Mum looks at her plate.
She nods.

‘Why did you never tell me?’

‘I assumed you knew.’
Her voice is low, almost a whisper.

Ed says, ‘Who was a girl?’

I look at Ed and shake my head.
There are things I need to tell him but I don’t know where to start.

The thing is, we never discussed it.
Afterwards.
Maybe it was the shock of the thing.
She thought I was in Minnie’s house, revising for a history test on the Normans.
I was her only daughter.
A fifteen-year-old girl.
I remember her arriving at Minnie’s house.
Out of breath, like she’d been running, her hair escaping from the bun that she wore, even then.
I remember how I felt when I saw her.
Relief.
That she would sort it out.
Make sense of it.

And she did, I suppose.

‘It’s for the best, Katherine.’
That’s what my mother said.
Afterwards.

‘Do you want to hold your baby?’
the nurse asked.
The one with the country accent and the big hands.
Her name badge said ‘Ingrid’.
Capital letters.
‘INGRID’.
I shook my head and they took it away and I signed the document in the places that Mum had marked with an x.
‘It’s for the best, Katherine,’ she said and I nodded and she brought me home and we never talked about it again.

I open the second envelope.
The third one.
All from the same person.
All saying the same thing.
I put them on the table.
I push them towards her.

I say, ‘Read them.’

She looks at the thin little pile of letters but doesn’t pick them up.

She says, ‘I think we should talk about this later, Katherine.’
She nods towards Ed as if he can’t see us.

Ed says, ‘Talk about what?’
He abandons his fork and uses his finger to mop up the last traces of ice cream from his plate.
Mum does not tell him not to.

Dad clears his throat and I know he’s going to say something and I know that once he says the thing he’s going to say, nothing will ever be the same again.
Everything will be different.
I know it.

He clears his throat and then he says, ‘Kat had a baby, Ed.’
His voice is like the rest of him: quiet and small.
His words are like a blow to the head.
I look at him.
At his kind, familiar face.
It is the bluish-white of shock.
He looks old.
Properly old.
For the first time.
There is a shake in his voice.
Still, he goes on.
‘She’d be twenty-four by now.’

Ed looks at me.
‘Why is she writing to you?
Does she not have your phone number?’

‘She asked the adoption agency to write to me.
She wants to see me.’

Ed says, ‘Does she not want to see me?’

No one says anything.

‘Will she be my little sister?’

Dad says, ‘You’re her uncle.’

‘She can sleep in my bottom bunk.’
Ed stands, heads for the door.
‘I’d better go and tidy my room.’
Ed has never tidied his room in his life.
Mrs Higginbotham did it.
Or me.
Or Dad.
He tears up the stairs, stopping at the top.

‘Uncle Ed!’
he shouts.

Dad stretches out his hand and puts it on mine.
Just for a moment.
Mum looks at the gesture, then opens her mouth as if she is about to say something.
Closes it.

‘Did you hear what I said?’
Ed shouts from the top of the stairs.

‘UNCLE ED.’

Dad is asleep in Ant and Adrian’s room.
I was worried he might sleep in Mam’s room.
He doesn’t snore anymore.
He says Celia doesn’t let him.

I wait till Faith goes to bed and the house goes quiet and the floors start to creak.
She goes earlier than usual.
Probably because Rob didn’t come over.
She told him not to bother, when he rang.

‘Get someone else to sing your song.
It’s shite anyway, so it is.’

Faith and Rob sound like Mam and Dad now.
Before Dad went to live with Celia in Scotland.
I reckon they’ll break up soon, which is a shame because Rob is all right, for an adult.
He never tells you that things are good for you and he hates cauliflower and celery as much as I do.

I put two pillows on the bed and cover them with my duvet, which is made of the same material as the uniform Sully wears when he’s going to the war.
I take out the bag from under my bed.
It’s got everything I need, even my toothbrush.

I stop outside Faith’s bedroom door.
There’s no sound so I keep going.
The stairs are tricky, on account of the creaks.
I make it to the sixth one before I drop my bag.
When I bend to pick it up, the step creaks.
It sounds like an old woman moaning.
I nearly drop my bag again.

I don’t move.
I crouch on the sixth step and I listen.

Nothing.

Still, I force myself to wait for one minute.
I count up to sixty, as slow as I can.

Nothing.

I creep down the rest of the stairs.

The kitchen looks different in the dark.
The clock in the shape of Ireland ticks much louder at night-time.
When I open the fridge door, the light nearly blinds me.

I take four EasiSingles, a packet of ham and three strawberry yoghurts.
I take two slices of bread out of the breadbin and wrap them in tinfoil.
A packet of crackers.
A Kit Kat from Faith’s secret chocolate stash that she thinks I don’t know about.
I leave the Flake.
She’s mad about Flakes.

I fill my flask with orange juice from the carton, except that I spill some on the floor and then I walk in it by accident.
There’s no kitchen roll and the only tea towel I can find is Mam’s favourite one.
The one with the recipe for Funky Banana Bread.
That’s where she got the idea for the name.
I sneak out to the hall and get toilet paper from the downstairs loo and I wipe the kitchen floor and the sole of my shoe with that.

I haven’t told anyone.
Not even Damo.
That way, when they ask him, he won’t have to lie and say, ‘I don’t know.’
He can just say, ‘I don’t know,’ and it’ll actually be true.

Outside, it’s raining.
I suppose I should have packed my raincoat.
It’s pretty cold too.
My anorak probably would have been better than this jacket.
I have a torch but I don’t turn it on.
I don’t want to run out of batteries.

Dad’s going to drive Faith to the airport in the morning.
He says he’s going to drive me to school and then drive Faith to the airport.
That’s why I have to go now.
Otherwise, Dad will drive me to school, and I don’t think I’d make it to the airport on time.

I check my wallet, which is in the pocket of my jeans.
It’s actually Mam’s purse; I don’t have a wallet.
I might buy one in Ireland.
The money is still there.
Three fifty-pound notes and three pound coins and two twenty-pence pieces and the penny.
It’s all there.

The bus stop is at the end of our road.
There’s no one there.
And there’s no sign of the bus coming.
I look at the watch Ant gave me for my ninth birthday.
It’s not a kid’s watch, like the Spiderman one that George Pullman has.
It’s a proper watch, except the hands light up in the dark, which is good because the torch isn’t working.
I think the batteries are dead.

It’s 00.10, which means the bus should be coming in four minutes.
But when I look at the timetable at the bus stop, the time of the last bus is 23.55, which was fifteen minutes ago.

Coach says you should always have a Plan B.
I should have remembered that.

I sit down on the kerb.
I think better when I’m sitting down.
It’s probably because the blood doesn’t have as far to go to get to my brain.

The taximan says, ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
when I put out my hand and he pulls over.

I say, ‘The airport, please.’

He turns off the engine.
Leans his head out of the window.
Examines me like Miss Williams does before the school inspectors come.

‘The airport?’

‘Yes, please.
The one in London.’

‘There’re a few airports in London town, my son.
Did you have a particular one in mind?’

‘Eh, Gatwick.’

‘Which terminal?’

That’s the problem when you’re talking to adults.
They always end up asking you a question you don’t know the answer to.

The taximan lights up a cigarette.
Blows smoke out of the window.
It comes out of his nose as well as his mouth.
Sully can do that too.
And make smoke rings.

‘Goin’ someplace nice, is ya?
Spain, maybe.
Benny-dorm, eh?’

Damo’s been to Benny-dorm.
He said it was too hot and nobody spoke any English.

I shake my head.
I say, ‘I’m going to Ireland.’

‘You don’t wanna be doin’ that, mate.
Too bloody cold over there.
And the beer is black.
Suspect, mate.’

‘I’m going with my sister.
She’s twenty-four.
I’m meeting her.
At the airport.
The one in London.’

He takes another drag, looks at his watch and, for a moment, I think my Plan B is working, but then he shakes his head and looks at me.
‘It’s a bit late to be going to London, mate.
Why don’t I take you home?
Your mother’s probably wondering where you’ve got to.’

I step back from the car and give it one last go.
I say, ‘I have to go tonight.
I have money.’
I take out Mam’s purse and show him the three fifty-pound notes, the three pound coins, the two twenty-pence pieces, the penny.

‘Let’s see that.’
When the taximan smiles, I see his teeth.
They’re crooked and yellow.
They look like they haven’t been brushed all day.
Or yesterday either.
I put the money back into the purse.
Stuff the purse into my bag.
But now the man is struggling with the seatbelt.
Trying to get out of the car.
It’s not easy, on account of how fat he is.
The bottom of the steering wheel sticks into his belly.
He takes another drag of his cigarette.
Throws it out of the window, even though the butt will take twelve years to decompose.
He opens the door.
Puts one hand on the roof and uses it to hoist himself out.
The streetlamp throws a light across his face.
His face is huge and red and sweaty.
If he was in a film on the telly, he’d be a baddie, I reckon.

He says, ‘Come ’ere, my son.
Let’s have another look at that money.
Make sure it’s all there.’

That’s when I run.
I’m not as good at running as I am at swimming but I still came second in the hundred metres at school last year.
Only Carla beat me and her mam did the London marathon two years in a row and Carla says she’s going to do it too, when she’s old.

Stranger danger.
We learned about that in school.
You’re supposed to run away.
And scream to attract attention.

I don’t scream.
I don’t want to attract attention.
I just run.
I don’t look back till I’m at the top of the road.
I can’t see him.
But I see his car moving towards me, making hardly a sound.

Damo’s house is round the block.
I jump over the gate and run to the side entrance.
The door is locked but easy enough to climb over.
I run down the narrow passage to the tree at the end of the garden, where the tree house is.
It’s really just a big slab of wood with sheets on either side, pretending to be walls.
I climb past the middle bit, which is usually where I stop.
But this time I go all the way to the very top of the tree.
Damo probably won’t believe me when I tell him.

There are no leaves, on account of it being winter, but it’s dark so I don’t think he’ll see me unless he’s got a torch with batteries in it.

I hear the car coming down the road.
Dead slow.
When it reaches Damo’s house, it slows down even more.
The lights are off but I can see the tip of a cigarette, glowing red in the dark.
And I can see the man.
He looks like he’s staring right at me.

I’m thinking about screaming now.
Opening my mouth as wide as it will go and screaming my head off.
Loud enough to wake Damo’s mam and Imelda.
Sully’s at the war and I probably wouldn’t wake Damo.
His mam says if a bomb exploded right beside him, he still wouldn’t wake up.

I open my mouth.

And then I think about all the trouble I’ll be in if I scream loud enough to wake Damo’s mam and she goes and wakes Faith and Faith finds out about me going to the post office on my own instead of going to the library with Damo.
I bet I’d be grounded for about a month.
Maybe even longer.
And I probably wouldn’t be allowed to go to lifesaving or buy a PlayStation 3, even if I had the money for one.

My breathing sounds funny.
Really loud, for starters.
I press my hand across my mouth but the breath comes out through my nose instead, just as loud.
The taximan is still there, still sitting in his car with the lights off and the window down.
Still smoking, even though I don’t think you’re allowed to smoke in taxicabs.

Just when I’m so cold that I think I can’t hold onto the branch anymore, the lights of the car turn on and the engine starts and the car disappears up the road.
I make myself wait ten minutes after the man drives away.
To make sure.
Then I climb down to the tree house, and it’s a good job I’m pretty good at tree-climbing now, because, if I wasn’t, I’d definitely fall out on account of my hands and feet being so numb with the cold.

It’s hard to think about a Plan C.
I drink the orange juice in my flask and wish I’d made hot chocolate instead.
I look up at Damo’s window and try not to think about him snoring his head off in his warm, cosy bed.
I pretend he’s here too and I have a conversation with him.
Not out loud or anything stupid like that.
Just in my head.
Just to pass the time.
When I’m finished, I’ll get cracking on a Plan C.