Lifesaving for Beginners (40 page)

Afterwards, he denies it.
‘I smacked you, is all.’
My red, throbbing cheek pays testament to the truth.

Apparently, you’re not supposed to hit people when they are having a panic attack.
Dr Collins told Thomas that.
Afterwards.

In spite of this sage-if-untimely piece of free medical advice, it works.
Thomas hitting me.

I stop hyperventilating.

Now I’m crying.
Not discreet, delicate crying that people reserve for public places.
It’s the real thing.
There’s mascara.
There’re secretions.
There’s blotchy skin.
Red, swollen eyelids.
Minnie told me once that I wasn’t a pretty crier and she was right.
It’s bad.
It’s about as bad as it can be.
I’m crying in public.
Right in front of Thomas.
And Dr Collins.

I don’t think I can stop.

Thomas puts his arms around me and says, ‘It’s all right, Kat.
Ed is fine.
The doctor said Ed is going to be fine.
The procedure went well.’

This has no impact on the weeping.
It’s like I’m fifteen again.
I’m in the changing room of O’Connor’s Jeans.
Minnie has just told me.
And instead of standing there and saying nothing, I’m crying.
I’m weeping.
I’m wailing.
Like I’m fifteen all over again.
Dr Collins says, ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to go now.’

Neither of us responds so he leaves.

I’m crying so hard now, I can’t catch my breath.
There’s a chance I might suffocate, which I suppose isn’t as bad as it could be, considering I’m at a hospital.
If you’re going to suffocate anywhere, a hospital isn’t a bad place to go about it.

It’s only afterwards I realise that I’m clinging to Thomas like a limpet on a rock.
One entire section of his shirt is saturated with my tears.
Later, I will notice a deep circular indentation on my forehead caused – I assume – by the gigantic wooden button on the lapel of his jacket.
Buttons don’t usually appear on lapels of jackets but he insists on buying shop-soiled clothes.
Seconds, he calls them.
He has a thing about waste.
He says somebody has to buy them.
‘Why does it have to be you?’
I often asked him.

As suddenly as I began, I stop.
I stop crying.
Thomas, God love him, looks a little dazed.
I suppose I can’t blame him.
He’s never seen me crying.
He has no idea what an ugly crier I am.
Well, he knows now.
I reach into my pockets for tissues but there are none.
Why would there be?
Thomas takes a gigantic piece of material out of his pocket and I hope it’s a clean handkerchief because he goes right ahead and wipes my face with it.
He pats it.
When he spreads his fingers, one of his hands can span my entire face.
I remember that.

And, just like that, I reach for him with my hand and sort of touch his cheek with my fingers.
If I were writing it down in a romance novel, I might call the gesture ‘tender’.
I can’t believe it.
But instead of jerking my hand away like it’s been bitten by a dog, I hold my fingers there.
Against his face.
Here I am, standing in this barren room, touching Thomas’s face with my fingers, as if it’s nothing.
As if it’s normal.

The stubble scratches against my skin.
Everything is so familiar.
The angle of his cheekbone.
The lines that stretch from the corners of his eyes.
The dark thicket of his eyebrows.
And his mouth.
You could say a lot of things about a mouth like that.

I think Thomas is as shocked as I am because he looks at me as if he has absolutely no idea who I am.
I decide to let my hand drop and not mention it.
Pretend it never happened.
Start a conversation about something else entirely.

I let my hand drop.

And then I start having a conversation, but it’s not the one I planned.
It’s this one, right here.

‘I’m not crying about Ed.’
It takes about a minute to get this sentence out because, while I have stopped crying, my body and my voice are still twitching and heaving and juddering.

Thomas nods.
He waits for me.

‘I’ve made a mess of everything.’

Thomas nods again.
The cheek.

‘After the accident, I .
.
.
I freaked out.
All that stuff you were saying .
.
.
about getting married, having a baby .
.
.’

‘I didn’t know about—’

‘Don’t say anything, Thomas.
Please.
Let me .
.
.’

He nods.

‘I never said sorry.
But I am.
I’m sorry.
I’m really sorry.
I’m so sorry.
I messed everything up.
I wrecked it.’

Thomas says nothing.

‘And that thing .
.
.
that .
.
.
business with Nicolas.
That was just .
.
.
that was nothing.
That was stupid.
I mean, he wasn’t even a good kisser.
He had this really long tongue and—’

‘Don’t bother with the details, Kat.’

I look at him in case he might be smiling but he is not.

‘And I’m not trying to wreck what you have with Sarah now.
I’m glad you’re happy.
You deserve to be happy.
You’re a good man.
I was .
.
.’

‘You were what?’
He leans forward as if he really wants to know.

‘I suppose I wasn’t able for you.’

Thomas pulls back.
‘I see.’

‘You made me so happy.’

He says, ‘Did I?’
like he doesn’t really believe it.

I nod.
‘You did.
And I could never make you that happy.
It’s not in me.’

Thomas studies me.
As if he’s lost and I’m some class of a map.
‘So?’
he says.
‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m apologising.
For everything.’

Thomas shakes his head.
‘I wish you weren’t such hard work.’

‘So do I.’

‘What about Faith?’

‘I don’t know.
I .
.
.
I’ve wrecked that too.’

‘Did Faith tell you that?
Or did you decide?’

‘Her brother rang me.
Her little brother, Milo.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I was pretty short with him.’

‘Yeah, but when he gets to know you, he’ll know you don’t mean it.’

‘I don’t think so, Thomas.
I don’t think that’s going to happen.’

‘Why not?’

‘It can’t work out.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘I don’t know how to make it work.
I’ve left it too late.’

‘Isn’t that a matter for Faith to decide?
Not you.’
His tone is as barbed as wire.
He could be talking about something else.
He could be talking about lots of things.

He stands up, pats himself down, which makes not the slightest bit of difference to any of the wrinkles in his clothes.
He adopts a jocular tone.
‘So what about the pair of us, then?
Are we actually going to end up as friends?’

‘Jesus, no.
I couldn’t be friends with you.’

‘Nice.’

‘No, I mean .
.
.’
Christ, being honest is hard work.
And exhausting.
I don’t know how Ed does it.

‘What?’

‘I can’t be friends because I’d be .
.
.
hoping it could be something more.
And thinking about
Grey’s Anatomy
.’
There.
I said it.
It wasn’t that bad.
Thomas doesn’t even look surprised.
The cheek of him.

He smiles.
‘That was pretty good, mind.’

I nod.

He moves towards the door.
Then he turns and opens his mouth and looks as if he’s about to say something and, for a moment, I have an enormous feeling of well-being.
As if he’s going to say something that will change everything.
Then he says, ‘You’ll let me know about Ed, won’t you?’

Disappointment tastes sour.
Like gooseberries.
I swallow it down.
‘Of course.’
I’ll get Dad to ring him.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to talk to him again.
Not after everything.
Not when everything is wrecked and you’re the one who wrecked it.

He nods.

He bends his head and ducks through the door.
Then he turns and says, ‘Take care of yourself, Kat.’
This is goodbye but I don’t say it.
The word is stuck in my throat like a fishbone.
Instead, I try to smile and he nods again and walks away, and I watch until he disappears along the curve of the corridor.

Finally, I can use a word that I’ve never had any cause to use before.
Magnanimous.

I am being magnanimous.

It doesn’t feel as good as I thought it might.

And I can’t even have a drink.
Not for a whole bloody year.

I was right about the Christmas tree.
Dad shouldn’t have bought it so early.
It’s starting to smell.
It smells a bit like Mrs Barber’s perfume.
The bottle is so old that the picture and the words aren’t there anymore.
It just looks like an ordinary bottle that used to be white, I reckon, with yellow crusty stuff round the lid.
I don’t know why she doesn’t throw it away.
She says being wasteful is nearly as bad as being a robber, so maybe that’s why.

We’re on our Christmas holiday now.
The bad thing about the holiday is that there’s no lifesaving class.
Damo has gone into town with his mam to see the lights and have their dinner in McDonald’s.
Damo’s not into the lights but he likes McDonald’s.
He asks for a chicken burger meal and a chicken burger and his mam says that’s dead greedy, but she gets it for him anyway.
She says it’s because it’s Christmas but she gets it for him other times too.
Even when it’s not Christmas.

This will be the first year when people know I don’t believe in Santa so I’m not sure if there’ll be anything under the tree on Christmas morning.
I probably shouldn’t have let on that I didn’t believe until Boxing Day.
At least I’ll probably get a present for my birthday.

I don’t know if Ant and Adrian are coming home for Christmas.
Faith didn’t know when I asked her last week.
I don’t want to ask her again and I don’t know their mobile numbers.

The only presents under the tree are the ones I put there.
I’m not good at wrapping so I just bought those gift bags you can get in the pound shop.
They’re great except that if you look inside, you can see what the present is.
I don’t think Faith has looked inside hers yet so she probably doesn’t know that I got her a keyring with an Irish leprechaun on it.
I got it in the airport in Dublin when she went to the loo.
His eyes light up green when you shake it.
she has keys for the house as well as the Funky Banana so it will be handy to have a keyring to keep them all safe.
I got her chocolates too because Mam always said that if you want to cheer up a woman, you could do a lot worse than give her chocolates and make her a cup of tea.

I go downstairs.
Faith is sitting at the kitchen table doing the books.
I say, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

She picks up a piece of paper and looks at me.
‘Whose number is this?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Milo?’
Which means you have to answer the question again but differently this time.

‘I don’t know.’

Faith hands me the piece of paper.
‘It’s an Irish telephone number.
A Dublin telephone number.
I didn’t call it so it must have been you.’

I’m trying to come up with something to say but I can’t so I say nothing.

Faith points at the piece of paper she’s handed me.
‘The call was made at twenty past one in the morning.’
She looks at me.
Rubs her eyes and pushes her hair away from her face.
Her hair could do with a brush.
And a wash, to be honest.
Mam would call it a wren’s nest.

I’m about to answer.
I get ready to answer.
I’ve my mouth open and everything, when Faith says, ‘And don’t bother lying to me because I’ll know.’

I close my mouth.

‘Milo?’

‘I rang her.’

‘Who?’

‘You know who.’

‘No.
I don’t.’

‘I asked her to come over.’

‘Milo, for Christ’s sake, what were you thinking?’

‘She said she—’

‘DON’T.
Don’t tell me what that woman said.
I don’t want to know.
You should never have rung her.’

I look at Faith then.
At her dirty, tangled hair.
She never used to have dirty, tangled hair.
There are crumbs on the kitchen floor and plates and cups and knives and forks in the sink and on the counter and they’re all dirty too.
There’s scrambled egg stuck to a plate.
It’s been there since yesterday, I think.
It’ll never come off in the dishwasher.
It’ll have to be scrubbed and it’ll take ages.
And the Christmas tree.
The drooping Christmas tree that smells worse than Mrs Barber’s ancient perfume.
And it’s nearly dark.
It’s only about three o’clock in the afternoon but it’s nearly dark anyway.

‘Milo?
What’s the matter?’
Faith’s voice sounds far away, as if she’s in a different place to me.
It’s probably because I have my hands over my eyes and ears.

‘Milo?’

I shake my head but I don’t think I can be quiet for much longer.
It feels like there’s something inside me.
Like a volcano or something.
We learned about Etna in school the other day.
Miss Williams said that Etna is one of the most active volcanoes in the world.

‘Milo?
Milo, don’t.
I’m sorry.
I shouldn’t have shouted at you.’

I’m crying now.
Like a girl.
Not like Carla, though.
She never cries.
Not even when the girls call her a tomboy and don’t invite her to their birthday parties.
They say she wouldn’t like it on account of the fact that they put make-up on their faces and make their hair go curly with a special machine.
I don’t think Carla would like it either, but you never know, do you?
You never know with girls.

I don’t think I can stop.
I have my fingers across my eyes now but it’s no use.
I’m roaring crying and I can’t stop.
If Damo saw me, he’d give me a dead arm and call me a gay, which is just about the worst thing you can be, Damo says.

‘Milo, stop.
Please.
It’s not your job to fix things.
I’m supposed to do that.
I know I’m doing a terrible job.’

I can’t say anything because of all the crying I’m doing, but if I could, I’d say, ‘You’re not doing a terrible job.’

Faith pulls me by the arms to the other side of the kitchen and sort of pushes me onto the couch.
She holds one of my hands for a second but then she lets it go.

‘Mam would lambast me if she were here.’

I try not to but I cry a bit harder, all the same.
I suppose I’ve always known that Mam’s not coming back.
Not ever.
I know that.
I’m nearly ten.
I’ll be ten in three days.
Christmas Day.
I’ll be ten on Christmas Day, which is the one day of the year when I can eat Christmas cake and birthday cake.
At the same time, if I want to.
Mam said she got me for Christmas.
When I was a kid, I used to think that I came all wrapped up.
Like a present.
Of course I don’t think that anymore.
People know a lot more things when they’re nearly ten.
I know that Mam will never lambast Faith and not just because she never lambasted Faith or any of us, but because she’s never coming home.
Not ever.
I’ll never see her again and I know that Mrs Appleby says I can close my eyes and see her face in my head and remember her like that, but it’s not as easy as that.
Closing your eyes and seeing her there, in your head.
I can see her most of the time but sometimes I can’t and I’m worried about that.
Like maybe she’s leaving my head as well, and I don’t want her to, but I don’t know how to keep her there.

Anyway, if Mam were here, everything would be different.
It would.
I wouldn’t be crying for a start.
No way.
And Faith wouldn’t know that Mam isn’t her real mam and that her real mam is somebody in Ireland called Kat, which is short for Katherine, who doesn’t want to be anybody’s mother even though she is.
Even though she is somebody’s mother.

And there wouldn’t be crumbs on the floor all the time, or scrambled eggs stuck like glue to a plate, or a drooping, smelly Christmas tree in the sitting room three days before Christmas Day.
And Faith wouldn’t have dirty, tangled hair.
She would have shiny, clean hair and she wouldn’t be here all the time, making a mess in the kitchen or getting me to answer her phone and telling Rob she’s in the shower again.

I say, ‘She wouldn’t lambast you.’

Faith sits on the couch beside me.
She says, ‘I know.’
And then she starts crying.
We’re like a tag team in a relay race because now I’m not crying.
Now I’m trying to think of something to say that will make her stop.
She’s crying like somebody who might never stop and I’m glad I can’t see her face because of all the dirty, tangled hair round it.
I think, if I saw it, it might set me off again and I hate crying because it gives you a headache and makes you dehydrated because of all the water that comes out of you.
I stand up and pull some kitchen paper off the roll so Faith can blow her nose when she stops crying.

She stops and I hand her a piece of kitchen roll.
She says, ‘I should be doing this for you, not the other way round.’

I say, ‘’Sall right.’

Faith says, ‘No.
It’s not all right.
You’re the one who’s upset.
Christ knows, you’ve every right to be.’

‘I’m fine now.
I’m not sad anymore.’

She looks at me funny.
Like I’m one of those cryptic crossword puzzles that Mam used to do.
Faith said she couldn’t do them because she wasn’t clever enough but Mam said that wasn’t true.
It was patience.
That’s all Faith was missing.

She says, ‘What’s your secret, Milo?’

I say, ‘Which one?’
as if I’ve got loads, which isn’t true.
I’ve only got the one that Carla told me.
About her dad not having a job anymore on account of the shop closing down.
No one else knows except me and I haven’t told anyone.
Carla made me promise that I wouldn’t tell anyone.
Not even Damo.
As if I’d ever tell Damo something like that.
I know he’s my best friend but he’d blab it to his granny, if he still had one.

Faith says, ‘Mam was right, you know.’

I say, ‘About what?’

‘About you.’

‘What about me?’

‘She said you were a tonic.’

‘Is that good?’

‘It means there’s something about you that makes people feel better.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘It is.’

‘I haven’t made you feel better.’

Faith goes ahead and hugs me then, and because she does it so quickly there’s no time to dodge it.
Faith’s not a hugger, as a rule, so it doesn’t last too long.
Not like Mam.
When Mam decided she was going to hug you, it went on and on for ages.

In fact, Faith’s hug goes on a bit longer than I thought it would.
And even though her hair is a bit dirty and she smells like a cigarette, it’s actually not that bad because Faith happens to be one of the softest people I know so it sort of feels like you’re being hugged by a marshmallow.

When she stops, she says, ‘It’s not your job, Milo.
To make me feel better.
I should be making you feel better.’

I say, ‘I don’t feel too bad.’

Faith says, ‘But you do feel a little bit bad, don’t you?
It’s normal, you know.
To feel a little bit bad.
There’s no harm in it.’

I don’t explain.
About the crumbs and the scrambled egg and the Christmas tree and the dark of the house, even though it’s only three o’clock in the afternoon.
I don’t say any of that.
I just nod and Faith nods too, like I’ve said something that she agrees one hundred per cent with.
The door into the sitting room is open and you can see the Christmas tree from here.
Faith looks at it.
Like she’s just noticed it.
The drooping branches and the pine needles on the floor.
She looks at it for ages.