Lifesaving for Beginners (35 page)

It’s dark now.
And cold.
We don’t talk, me and Faith.
We just walk.
We walk past bus stops, a taxi rank, a train station.
Faith walks really fast.
She always complains about being out of proportion, because of her legs being so long and her body being so short, but Mam said it would have been worse the other way round, like Dad, for example.

We pass a chip shop.
Chip shops in Ireland smell as good as the ones in Brighton and they have batter burgers on the menu too, which I’m not allowed to get on account of them being bad for you.
I’ve had them at Damo’s house.
His mam doesn’t know about them being bad for you.

I don’t say anything.
I don’t ask her where we’re going or how long it’ll take to get there.
I just try to keep up with her until I’m a bit out of breath, like I’ve swum nearly two lengths of the pool underwater, which I can do but not every time.

Faith stops without letting me know and I bang into the back of her.
She sounds like she’s swum nearly two lengths underwater too.

She sits on the wall and lights a cigarette.
The smoke passes over me like a cloud and I try not to breathe it in, because if you breathe it in you could get cancer and die.
I sit on the wall too.
I feel dead hot.
Once, I had a temperature of a hundred and three and I didn’t even dip the thermometer into a mug of tea, like Damo did.

The good thing about smoking is that it calms people down.
Faith’s not breathing funny anymore.

She says, ‘Go on.’

I say, ‘What?’

She says, ‘Go on and ask me.
Whatever it is you want to ask me.’

‘I don’t have anything to ask you.’

‘I won’t mind.’

She doesn’t sound like she’ll mind if I start asking her stuff.
She just sounds tired.

I say, ‘I have two things to ask.’

Faith looks at me.
‘Go ahead.’

I say, ‘The first thing I want to know is, where are we going?’

‘What’s the second thing?’

‘Don’t you want to answer the first question first?’

‘No, I want to know what I’m dealing with.’

‘OK then.
The second question’s going to be, how long will it take us to get there?’

Faith nods and puts the cigarette in her mouth for ages, which means that even more smoke is going into her lungs.
Afterwards, she throws the butt on the ground, even though it’s not even half finished yet.
Mam would call that a waste.
I’d only call it a waste if it was a Mars Duo or something.
I stamp on it until it goes out.

Faith says, ‘We’re going home.’

‘Home home?
Or back to Auntie May’s?’

‘Home home.’
She doesn’t say how long it’ll take to get there.
Instead, she turns away from me and she stares at the wall, as if there’s something dead interesting on it.
A spider, maybe.
Or a cockroach.
But I don’t think she’s looking at anything interesting.
I think she’s crying.
Her shoulders are moving up and down.
She’s either crying or laughing but I think she’s crying.
Nothing funny has happened so far.

I look around.
There’s a bus stop with two old ladies standing at it, which means that a bus will be coming soon.
I say, ‘Wait there,’ to Faith and she doesn’t turn round but she nods so I know she heard me and she’s going to wait there, just like I said.
It feels weird being in charge.
This is the way adults must feel most of the time.

I ask one of the old ladies if the bus is coming soon and if it goes to Busaras in the city centre.
She’s about the same size as me.
I think maybe people stop growing when they are adults and then, after a while, when they get really old, they start getting smaller and smaller until they are as small as kids.

When the old lady smiles, her eyes disappear.
Now her face looks like it has only a nose and a mouth and zillions of lines where her eyes used to be.

The old lady says, ‘You can take any of them from this stop, young fella.
They’re all headin’ the one way.
Like the rest of us, wha’?’
She whacks the other old lady on the arm with her handbag and the pair of them cackle, like the hens at the petting zoo in Brighton.
I don’t really get it but I laugh along because Mam always said that you should be polite to old people.
I suppose it’s because they’re so old and they might die any minute.

I walk back to Faith and tell her about the bus.
She nods and says, ‘Thank you, Milo.’
She leans against the wall and closes her eyes.

We wait for the bus.

Coming up the road is a woman with a boy.
The boy is six or seven, I reckon.
The woman is his mam.
You can tell by the way she walks ahead of him and then stops and looks back and waits for him to catch up.
The boy is holding a string and the string is attached to a balloon.
One of those helium balloons you sometimes get at posh kids’ parties.
The balloon is red and because the evening is so cold and dark you really notice it, that balloon.
The way it sort of dances at the end of the string.
And the colour too.
A really bright red, like a fire engine.
The boy is holding the string in one hand and an ice-cream cone in the other.
Adults always wonder how kids can eat ice cream in the wintertime, but it tastes exactly the same as it does in the summertime.

The mam takes a tissue out of her pocket and walks back to the kid.
She bends so she can wipe the melted ice cream off his hands.
She wipes his face too, even though there’s no ice cream on his face.

That’s when he lets go of the string.

That’s when the balloon floats away.

It’s funny how quickly balloons can float.
One minute, they’re right there.
Right beside you.
And the next, they’re gone.
All you can see is a little circle of red in the dirty grey of the sky.
You can hardly see the string anymore.

The kid is crying now.
He cries really loudly for his size.
His mouth is open and his tongue is white, on account of the ice cream.

I look away.
I wouldn’t want people looking at me if I was crying like that, in the middle of the street.

I look at the balloon instead.
I wonder where it’ll end up.
England, maybe.
It’ll never come back here, that’s for sure.
Not unless the wind changes direction, and even if it does, I bet it’ll be burst by then.

The kid has stopped crying now.
His mam wraps a tissue round the cone and hands it back to him.
She says something.
I don’t know what.
But it must be something nice cos the kid smiles.

If I rubbed a lamp right now and a genie appeared and granted me a wish, I’d wish that Mam were here.
If she were here, I know I’d be wearing a warmer coat.
She was always going on about wrapping up if it was cold out.
Perishing.
That’s what she called it.

It’s perishing outside, so it is.
Wrap up warm, Milo, there’s a good lad.

And Faith wouldn’t be crying in the middle of the street.

And we wouldn’t be in Ireland.
Or, if we were, we’d be on our holiday and I’d be the one with ice cream dripping everywhere, even in the middle of winter.
Mam knew about ice cream and the way it tastes the same in the winter as it does in the summer.

I look at Faith.
She’s still leaning against the wall and her eyes are still closed.
I don’t know why I’m thinking about genies and lamps.
There’re no such things as genies.
Everybody knows that.

I zip up my jacket and I put up my hood.
I push my hands deep into the pockets.

When I look at the sky again, the balloon is gone.

It’s like it was never there at all.

Nothing happens.

Nothing you’d notice.

I don’t ring Thomas.

I tell Brona I can’t talk right now.
When she rings, I say, ‘I’m in the middle of a chapter.’

I listen when Minnie tells me about spinach and how it’s a great provider of folic acid, which is really essential at this stage of the baby’s development.

‘Tell me to fuck off if I’m boring you, won’t you?’
This is after she’s been talking about her stools – that’s what she’s calling them now – and how regular she is compared with before, when days could go by without so much as a whimper out of her bowel, never mind a movement.

I say, ‘Of course you’re not boring me,’ which is a lie.

I don’t tell her what happened.
That Faith came to Dublin.
I don’t know why not.

Instead, I sit in my apartment and I field calls.

Dad calls.
Nearly every day.
He’s started shouting into the answering machine, like they do in overblown American films.
‘Pick up!
Pick up, Kat.
I know you’re there,’ even though he doesn’t know I’m here.
Not for certain.

Ed calls.
He wants to come over.
I tell him I’m sick.
He says, ‘Do you have the flu?’

‘Yes.’

‘You should take some tablets.’

‘I did.’

‘You should get into bed.’

‘I am.’

‘Can I come over?’

‘When I’m better.’

‘When will you be better?’

‘I don’t know.’

I see nobody except delivery men.
They’re nearly always men.
Pizza delivery men.
Indian takeaway delivery men.
Chinese.
Thai.
Even the chip shop down the road delivers.
I alternate between them and say as little as possible.
The last thing I need is a friend who’s a fast-food delivery guy.
What would that say about you?
I hand over money, take the box, say, ‘Keep the change,’ and close the door, lock the door, put the chain across the door, close the curtains, eat the chips, the egg-fried rice, the samosas, the thin-crust pepperoni.
I wash it down with red wine.
Australian, Chilean, South African.
I don’t look at the bottles.
Screw tops, the lot of them.
Easier that way.
Twist and pour.
I have loads of bottles.
Cases and cases.
I won’t have to get more until March, I’d say.
February, at the earliest.

Just as I’m settling into a bit of a routine, the doorbell rings.
At first I ignore it.
I’m not expecting anyone.
I haven’t ordered any food yet.

But whoever is at the door is persistent, which means three possibilities: a Jehovah’s Witness, someone selling cable television, or Thomas.
But Thomas hasn’t knocked on the door since he came to pack up his stuff.

I don’t pick up the intercom.
I don’t open the curtains and look out of the window.
In fact, I do nothing at all.
The doorbell keeps ringing.
One long, mournful sound.
And then, all of a sudden, it stops.

When I stand up, pins and needles prickle up and down my legs and I hobble out of my bedroom and into the kitchen.
I shuffle to the breadbin, where I keep the takeaway menus.
Put on the kettle.
Turn on the radio.
I reach up my arm to the press and put my hand around a cup.

Them I stop.
Look at the kitchen clock.
It shows a quarter past five and my rule is, no drinking till six.
But it’s only forty-five minutes earlier than usual.
I’ll order dinner forty-five minutes earlier too.
That’ll even it up.
I lift my hand off the cup.
Pick up a glass instead.

I open the bottle.
Pour myself half a glass.
Swill the wine around.
Put the glass down.
Pick up the bottle.
Fill the glass this time.
Take a huge drink.
Wipe the wine stain – already forming – off the corners of my mouth.

I jump when the kettle whistles.

That’s when the knocking begins.
On my front door.
Which means one of the neighbours has broken the Golden Rule, which is never, ever, Under Any Circumstances, let someone into the building unless that person is calling specifically for you.
Even if you know them.
You’ve known them for years.
Since they were born, in fact.
Even if they’re a member of your own family who happens to be calling for somebody in the building and you know perfectly well that it’s perfectly legitimate.
Even then.
You don’t do it.
You just don’t.

Except now, it seems, someone has done it.
The chief suspect is Mrs O’Dea on the fourth floor.
She’s a sucker for a sad story.
There was that time last year when she let the
Big Issue
seller in.
Hours, it took us.
To get him out.
He looked ancient but he was a dab hand on the fire-escape stairs.

‘Katherine?
Can you open the door?
Please?’

It’s not a Jehovah’s Witness.
Or a cable telly salesman.
And it’s not Thomas.
Of course it’s not.

I open the door.
She says, ‘May I come in?’
and then she waits as if she’s not sure what my answer might be.
I nod and step aside, opening the door wider as I do.

‘I wasn’t expecting you.’
I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she has been here on her own.
She’s always with Dad.
Or Ed.
Or Dad and Ed.

Mum nods and peels her black leather gloves away from her hands, gives them to me along with her coat and her hat.
It seems that she is staying.

I say, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘I’ll have what you’re having.’
She nods at the glass in my hand.

Mum does not drink wine except on Sundays.
She says it interferes with ‘the Work’.

I say, ‘Go on through.’
She takes a couple of steps up the hall, then turns back and points at a door with a question on her face.
I say, ‘Yes.’

I bundle her hat and coat and gloves into the cloakroom.
In the kitchen, I get another glass and fill it with wine.
I top up my own glass.
I put my hands on the counter.
Close my eyes.
Steady myself.
Try to remember the last time Mum and I were in a room together.
Just the two of us.
On our own.
I can’t.
I can’t remember.

I pick up the glasses.
Bend and look at my reflection in the toaster.
I look pretty bad but there’s no time for bronzer or a hairbrush.
I’ll have to wing it.

I hand her a glass.
‘Here you are.’

‘Thank you, Katherine.’
She takes the glass and views it with deep suspicion.
Places it on the coffee table beside her chair.
I grip the back of the chair I’m supposed to be sitting on.

I say, ‘So?’
in a way that I’m hoping strikes a balance between not-unwelcoming and mildly curious.

I don’t think I manage it because she says, ‘What do you mean, so?’
Her voice is pinched.
It’s not coming easily.
She sits on the edge of her seat, as if she’s about to leave.
But she doesn’t leave.
Instead, she looks around the room.
Stops at the record player.
She smiles and nods.
‘Your father bought me that before we were married.
I can’t believe you still have it.’

The silence that follows isn’t awkward as such.
It’s just .
.
.
there.
I pass the time by drinking wine.

She says, ‘Does it still work?’

‘Yes.’
Even though it doesn’t.
Not really.

Sometimes I wish we were the type of mother and daughter who could have the television on in the background.
Countdown
,
maybe.
Something interactive.

She lifts her glass, takes a drink and puts it back on the table.
Then she clears her throat and I brace myself and she looks towards me, but not directly at me, and says what she came here to say, which is, ‘What are you planning to do?’

‘Nothing.’

She nods.
There is resignation in the nod.
She expected me to say that.

For a moment, I think that’s it.
That’s all she’s going to say.
But then I realise there’s more.
I’m pretty sure she’s going to say something else.
I can tell by the way she shifts in her seat.
Picks up her wine glass.
Puts it back down again.
Tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear and pushes her finger up the bridge of her nose, as if she is wearing her glasses, which she is not.

The thing she ends up saying is this: ‘Faith looks just the way I imagined her.’

I am not surprised that Mum mentions Faith.
It’s the fact that she imagined her that I can’t get over.

‘She looks like you.’

I take a drink.
‘I didn’t think you ever thought about her.’

‘Of course I did.
Didn’t you?’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I did.
And she looks just as I imagined.’

‘You never talked about it.
Afterwards.
You never brought it up.’

Mum picks up her glass.
Takes the tiniest sip.
She shakes her head.
‘I thought it was for the best.’

‘And even Minnie.
She never mentioned it either.
Not really.’

‘I spoke to Mrs Driver.
Afterwards.
Told her I thought it was better if we didn’t .
.
.
make a fuss.’

‘And Dad never said anything.’

She shrugs.
‘No.
Well, he wouldn’t, would he?’

‘It was like it never happened.’

She looks at me.
‘Don’t be silly.’

‘Afterwards, when I came home, nobody said anything.
Sometimes I wondered .
.
.’

‘What?’

‘If it had actually happened.’

‘You’re being fanciful, Katherine.’

Fanciful.
There’s a word.
I’ve never heard anyone use it except my mother.

She puts her glass on the coffee table but the gesture is a little brisk and wine reaches for the rim, scales it, splashes onto the pale wood of the table.
She doesn’t notice.

Now the silence is awkward.
After a while, she straightens.
‘So.
The reason I came .
.
.
Well, I mean, we have to do something, don’t we?
We can’t just do nothing.
Can we?’

I don’t say anything.

‘About Faith, I mean.’
When she says her name, I want to clamp my hands against my ears.
She sounds real, when she says her name.
Faith.
She sounds like a real person.
A person who’s twenty-four.
A person who has a brother called Milo.
A person who lives in Brighton.