Lifesaving for Beginners (4 page)

And then he kissed me.
Right there on my mouth.
As if we were in my bedroom with the curtains pulled and the lights off, and not in the middle of a public car park in broad daylight with everyone gawking.

I sift through the mound of noodles on my plate, trying to find a piece of beef.
I wish I’d ordered the steak and mushrooms and the onions with chips and a dirty big dollop of tomato ketchup on the side.

Thomas says, ‘So do you really not want to hear my idea?’

I think the wine has settled me a bit because I say, ‘Oh, go on.’

He says, ‘I think we should buy a place together.’

I put my glass on the table.
‘I have a place.’

‘I know.
And I have my place.
I just think it’s time we thought about getting a place together.’

‘I like my apartment.’

‘See?
It’s your apartment.
You just said it.
But wouldn’t it be nice to have a place that’s both of ours?
We don’t have to start looking straight away.
We could leave it till the new year.
Prices are still going down.
It makes sense to wait.’

I think about my bedroom.
My kitchen.
My bathroom.
Even the cupboard in the utility room where I keep the brush and pan seems dear to me now, in the light of Thomas’s latest idea.

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘I’m not moving.
I like living in my apartment.’

‘And I like living there too.
It’s not about that.’

‘What’s it about, then?’

‘It’s about you and me.
Setting up shop together, you know.
Being a proper couple.’

I push the noodles to one side and put my knife and fork on the plate.
Cover the plate with my napkin.
‘Is it OK if we don’t order dessert?’

‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m a bit .
.
.
uncomfortable .
.
.
the rib .
.
.’
This isn’t true.
But it will get me home and away from this conversation.

Thomas says, ‘Of course,’ and asks for the bill without even finishing his dinner, which makes me feel bad because he always clears his plate.
Even Minnie says he’s a pleasure to cook for.

He guides me out of the restaurant like I’m a bomb that’s about to explode.
He doesn’t mention the apartment again.

The weird thing is that, until the accident, everything had been going well.
I mean, I wouldn’t go so far as to say fantastic or anything like that.
Just, you know, quite well.

Like the writing.
It was going really well.
For ages, in fact.
I suppose since Thomas moved in.
I thought his moving in might have an adverse effect on the writing.
I hate distractions and Thomas is a pretty big one.
He moved in about a year ago, I’d say.
Maybe even longer than that.
I had just started writing the next book in the series.
I can get a bit jittery when I’m at the start.
Before I commit to it.
Then Thomas sort of insisted on moving in and, six months later, the book was finished, and when I rang Brona, my editor, and told her, she thought I was joking, even though I don’t joke as a rule and I never joke about my job.
There’d be no point, for starters, because nobody knows about my job.
Well, nobody except Minnie.
And Brona, obviously.
And now Thomas.
I told him one day.
Ages ago.
Even before he insisted on moving in.
I didn’t intend to.
It just happened.

That book – the one I wrote after Thomas moved in – ended up being the most successful one in the entire Declan Darker series.
Brona said it was because Thomas was ‘The One’.
She was always saying crazy things, where Thomas was concerned.
The day he moved into the apartment, for instance, she said, ‘This is a great day for spinsters everywhere.’

I suppose, officially, you could say that Thomas moved in sometime in the summer of 2010.
There he was, in my apartment, surrounded by boxes and black bin-liners and two cabbages that still had the muck of one of his five fields clinging to their stalks.
In fact, some of the muck fell onto the carpet.
The cream carpet.
The cream, wool carpet.
I had to walk past him to get to the Hoover.
He grabbed my arm and pressed me against the wall and he looked at me without saying anything but all the while his hand moved up my leg until it disappeared inside my skirt and kept on going until his fingers reached the edge of my knickers and then he stopped.
He smiled and said, ‘You’re wearing your fancy pants.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘You are.
They’re those black ones with the lacy panel at the front.
They’re your good knickers.’

‘I don’t have good knickers.’

‘You do.
You wore them the first time I stayed over.
I remember.’

‘I did not.’
Although I did.

He grinned.
‘You’re wearing your fancy pants because I’m moving in.
Aren’t you?’

‘No.’

‘Admit it.’

‘I won’t.’

‘I won’t play
Grey’s Anatomy
if you don’t.’

His fingers slid down the lacy panel and disappeared between my legs.
He was close enough to kiss.
His grey eyes were green that day.
Bright green.

I said, ‘OK, then.’

‘Say it.’

‘For fuck’s sake, Thomas.’

‘Say it.’

I sighed.
Then I said, ‘Fine, then.
I’m wearing my good knickers.’

‘Ha!’

‘Are you going to have sex with me or what?’
I made my voice sound bored out of my skull.

Afterwards, he said, ‘You’re going to love living with me.’

And back then, lying on the living-room floor with my good knickers down round my ankles and my skirt hitched over my hips and my breath coming in fits and starts, I thought .
.
.
just for a moment .
.
.
I thought .
.
.
yes, I am.

And I did.
I liked it.
Not every day, obviously.
But most days.
It wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
I liked it enough for people to notice.
Like when Ed and I met Mrs Higginbotham in town about a month before the accident.
We usually met once a month after Mrs Higginbotham retired from her job, which was minding me and Ed pretty much from the time we were babies.
Ed used to get confused sometimes and call her ‘Mum’.

Anyway, we met in town and Mrs Higginbotham commented on it.
On how happy I seemed.
She said, ‘Watch out, Katherine.
If the wind changes, your face might just stay like that.’
I was smiling when she said it.

Even Mum noticed.
She said, ‘I don’t know what’s got you so cheerful.’
That was shortly after she’d been nominated for the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award.
She’s not a big fan of literary prizes.
She says, ‘It’s not a bloody beauty pageant,’ when the journalists ring and ask why she has demanded to be removed from various long lists and short lists.
She’s cantankerous during the literary-prize season.

So yeah, things were OK before the accident.
Better than OK, really.
Good, even.
A lot of the time.
Most of the time, in fact.

Later, in bed, Thomas says, ‘Will you at least think about it?’

I say, ‘I don’t want to move.
I like living in this apartment.
I’ve lived here for years.’

‘You never say “home”.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You never call this place home.
You never say, “I’ll see you at home”.’

‘I do.’

‘No, you don’t.
You say, “I’ll see you at the apartment”.’

‘No, I don’t.’
Except I do.
I do say that.

I switch off the light and bash my pillow a couple of times with my fist.
I keep expecting Thomas to say something.
Something terrible.
About marriage, maybe.
Or wanting to have a baby.
We used to talk about all sorts.
Politics and books and plays and music and, of course, other people.
I adore talking about other people.
Then along comes the bloody miracle and all of a sudden I’m holding my breath, waiting for him to say the terrible thing, and my eyes are open but they haven’t adjusted to the dark and it’s like I’m in a cave.
Or a tomb, and the dark is pinning me down, like hands.

But he doesn’t say anything.
I hear him turn onto his side.

I turn onto my side.

I close my eyes.

Eventually, I fall asleep.

13 July 2011; Brighton

We have to go to mass.
Again.
This one is called a Month’s Mind or a Month’s Mine.
Something like that and you have to have it one month after somebody dies.
I don’t know why.
This one is actually six weeks after because Faith didn’t book it in time.
The church is freezing and has a gigantic statue of Jesus on the cross with blood coming out of his hands and his feet, because of the nails.

I tell Damo about the statue and he wants to come to the church to see it but Faith says, ‘No way.’
She says, ‘I’ve enough to be doing without making sure that fella doesn’t drink the altar wine.’

Dad and Celia come all the way down from Scotland.
That’s what Celia says when Faith shouts at her later.
‘We came all the way down from Scotland.
And this is the thanks we get.’

This time, there’s no coffin at the top of the church with a photograph of Mam on it, which I think is a bit better.
I had to walk past it when I went up to get the Holy Communion and I was in a big long queue so it took ages.
Some people touched it with their hands and some people blessed themselves when they walked past it but I didn’t do anything.
I just walked past and I didn’t even look at it.
I don’t know why.

Ant and Adrian are wearing the same suits they wore the last time.
Dad keeps calling Ant, Adrian and Adrian, Ant.
Adrian says, ‘Wrong again,’ and Dad says, ‘Story of my life.’

In the graveyard, you can hear the horns beeping and cars and buses whizzing past.
That seems weird.
Everything is just going on as usual.
The priest is saying the rosary, which is like the Hail Mary about a hundred times, over and over and over.
It’s really boring.
Faith’s hands have gone blue because it’s so cold, even though it’s summertime.
It’s wet too.
And windy.
Mam would call that a fret of a day.

Back at the house, Celia asks where the bathroom is and I show her, and then she says, ‘Is there any toilet paper?’
and I go and get some from the cupboard under the stairs and then she says, ‘I wonder would there be a clean towel anywhere?’
and I go to the linen cupboard and get a beach towel because it’s the only towel I can reach.
Instead of saying, ‘Thank you,’ she says, ‘Are you all right, Milo?’
like there’s something wrong with me, only there’s nothing wrong with me except that I’m a bit wet and a bit cold from standing in the graveyard.
I’m hungry too.
Faith says I’m always hungry, which is not one hundred per cent true.
It might be about ninety-two per cent true.

If Mam were here, she’d say, ‘Get out of that gear before you catch your death.’
In the kitchen, everybody is sitting round the table drinking mugs of tea and eating the sandwiches and buns that Jack dropped off before we went to the church.
Jack is running the Funky Banana now and he’s nearly as good as Mam at baking and cooking and coming up with new recipes with bananas in them.
I take the banana and strawberry smoothie that Jack made me out of the fridge.
My hands are too cold to hold the cup so I just put it on the counter and drink it through a straw.

Celia comes into the kitchen and Dad says, ‘Ah, there she is,’ like everyone was going mad wondering where she’d got to.
Dad stands up and puts his arm round Celia.
When they stand beside each other like that, they look like a father and daughter instead of a .
.
.
I don’t know .
.
.
boyfriend and girlfriend, I suppose.

Dad always coughs like he’s got something caught in his throat before he starts talking.
‘I – that is we’ he smiles at Celia, ‘– we have a little announcement to make.’

Ant says, ‘Be careful, Dad.
Last time you made an announcement in this kitchen, Mam clattered you over the head with a frying pan.’
I don’t think that’s true because Faith, Ant and Adrian laugh as if Ant had made a joke.

Celia says, ‘You should do this another time, Hamish.’
She whispers it but I hear her.

Dad says, ‘Och no, m’love.
We need to tell them now.
Besides, we could all do with a bit of good news.’
He smiles at us.
‘Couldn’t we, gang?’

Nobody says anything.
All you can hear is the tick and the tock of the clock on the wall; it’s in the shape of Ireland.
Dad bought it for Mam years ago.
I’ve never noticed how loud it is before.

Then Dad says, ‘Celia and I are going to have a baby.’

Nobody has anything to say to that so Dad keeps right on talking.
‘The baby is due on the twenty-second of December and we’re really—’

I say, ‘That’s three days before my birthday.’

Dad looks at me.
‘Oh, yes .
.
.
yes, son, it is indeed.’

Adrian stands up.
He stands up so fast, his chair topples over.
When he stands up, he’s taller than Dad.
‘Are you for real?’
He sounds just like Mam when he says that.
She never said, ‘Are you serious?’

Faith says, ‘Calm down, Adrian.’

Ant sits at the table, eating the icing off the top of a bun, as if Dad hasn’t said anything about a baby coming three days before my birthday.
As if Adrian isn’t standing in the middle of the kitchen, looking mad as hell.

Dad takes a step back so Celia has to take a step back too.
‘Your mother would have been happy for us, Adrian.’

Adrian walks right up to Dad, and when he speaks, his voice is really quiet.
‘Don’t even mention her name.
I don’t even know what the hell you’re doing here.
You and that girl.’
He doesn’t look at Celia when he says that but I’m pretty sure everyone knows who he means.

Dad says, ‘Your mother would be glad I’m here.’

‘What the hell would you know about it?’
Adrian’s voice isn’t really quiet anymore.
It’s more like a shout now.

Dad says, ‘I’m still your father.
You should—’

‘I should what?
Respect you?
A man who abandons his family and shacks up with a girl half his age and gets her pregnant and expects us all to be delighted with the news?’

Adrian is shouting so loud you can hardly hear what he’s saying and that’s when Dad says, ‘You had better keep a civil tongue in your head, boy.’
And that’s when Adrian sort of lunges at him and grabs him by the collar of his shirt and he’s still shouting but I can’t make out what he’s saying.
I can just see specks of spit landing on Dad’s face, and Dad is saying, ‘Get off me!’
and Faith is trying to step in between them and Celia picks up her handbag and hits Adrian with it a couple of times and shouts, ‘Let go of him!’
And that’s when Faith shouts at her.
Something like, ‘Leave Adrian alone.
He’s upset.’
And that’s when Celia says, ‘We came all the way down from Scotland.
And this is the thanks we get.’

In the end it’s Ant who sorts it out.
He gets up from the table and walks over to Adrian and grabs him by the jacket, then pulls and pulls until Adrian has to let go of Dad’s shirt, but he doesn’t stop shouting so Ant keeps pulling him until he manages to get him out of the kitchen and down the hall and out of the house.
Everything is quiet enough now to hear Celia crying but not so quiet that you can hear the tick and the tock of the clock anymore.

Dad is standing by the sink, leaning on the worktop, puffing and panting like he’s just run a mile or something.
Celia takes a tissue out of her bag and blows her nose really loudly.
Faith sits down and puts her face in her hands.

After a while she says, ‘I think you should go.’

Dad sighs and shakes his head.
He picks up his jacket that’s hanging on the back of the chair.
He says, ‘I just thought .
.
.
you’d all like the idea.
A new life.
After everything that’s happened, you know?’

I nod and say, ‘A new baby will be nice, Dad.’
Even though I’m really hoping it doesn’t come late.
Some babies come late.
And if it came three days late, that would be my birthday and I’d prefer if it didn’t come on my birthday because then it wouldn’t really be my birthday anymore, would it?

Dad drags his hand down his face.
He looks pretty tired.
His tie is crooked and a button of his jacket is hanging on by a thread.
He nods and tucks his shirt back inside his trousers.
He looks at Faith.
‘Maybe you’re right.’
Faith nods.
Dad says, ‘I’ll ring you when I get home.’
It still feels weird.
When Dad says ‘home’ and he doesn’t mean here.

Faith picks up the chair that Adrian knocked over.
Starts clearing the table.

Dad says, ‘Your mother would be proud of you.
Everything you’re doing.’
He nods towards me.
‘Come here, wee man.
You’re not too old to give your dad a cuddle, are you?’
I am too old but I go over to him anyway.
I feel a bit sorry for him.
The way Adrian sort of hates him since he went to Scotland to live with Celia and the way Ant just kind of acts like he’s not here even when he is.

I don’t think Adrian is right.
I don’t think Mam hated him.
She didn’t hate anyone as far as I know.
She said hate was a tiring emotion and if you wanted to hate someone, you’d better get good and ready to put a lot of time and energy into it.

Me and Faith walk Dad and Celia to their car.
There’s no sign of Ant or Adrian, which is probably just as well.
We wave and wave until they’re gone.
That used to be Mam and Dad’s job.
Waving and waving at visitors until they were gone.
Once Ant and Adrian go back to the university in London, it’ll just be me and Faith.
I hope nothing happens to Faith, I really do.
Otherwise, it’ll just be me here, waving and waving until everybody is gone.