Lifesaving for Beginners (47 page)

I end up saying, ‘I should have called first.’
After all the time I’ve had to think of something to say, that’s what I come up with.
Hours I have spent, waiting on stand-by at Gatwick airport for planes to Edinburgh that never arrived, or got delayed or cancelled, while the snow fell and fell until you couldn’t see the runways anymore and the airport could do nothing but declare itself closed and people wept and roared at airport staff as if they had personally cancelled Christmas.
I spent the night on a red plastic chair and finally managed to squeeze myself onto a flight to Glasgow.
The airport at Edinburgh was closed because of the snow that kept falling and falling as if it would never stop.
From Glasgow, I got a train to Edinburgh and a taxi to the address that Jack scribbled on the back of an envelope.
I could not give an accurate or even approximate account of what thoughts rose and fell in my head in all that time.
Which is disgraceful when you think that I could have spent at least some of those long, dreary hours coming up with something better to say at this door than, ‘I should have called first.’

Even as I press the bell at the imposing door of the large, modern house in Edinburgh’s leafy suburbs, I haven’t yet come up with that killer line.
I’m still rummaging around for something brilliant to say.

‘I should have called first.’
I think I say it because it’s Faith herself who answers the door and this throws me.
When I see her face, I get a sensation of being picked up and hurled against something solid.
A brick wall.
I don’t know how I can be this unprepared.
I’ve had nothing but time to think about everything.
Surely, I should be more prepared.
But I’m not.
She looks like me.
She looks like my daughter.
If we walked down the street together, people would know.
People would say, ‘She’s cut out of that woman.’
I wouldn’t have to say a thing.

‘I should have called first.’
My mouth is dry.
For the first time since it began to snow, I feel the cold.
It’s digging into me like a spade.

Faith says, ‘Yes, you should have.’
She is wearing jeans, a T-shirt with some band on the front I’ve never heard of, a cardigan that goes down to her knees.
In spite of the cold, her feet are bare.
She looks so young.
I bet she gets asked for ID all the time.
I did too, when I was that age.
I bet it really pisses her off.

I say, ‘I’m sorry.
I just .
.
.
It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.
I just left Dublin and .
.
.
I kept going.’

Faith says, ‘It’s Christmas Day.’

‘I know.
I’m sorry.
I got delayed.
All the flights .
.
.
with the snow .
.
.’

‘It’s not a good time.’

There’s almost a feeling of relief.
When I realise she’s not going to let me in.
I won’t have to come up with something else to say.
Some explanation.
Something that might make everything seem all right.

I say, ‘I’m sorry,’ again.

Faith says nothing.
Her hand is on the latch.
She wants to close the door.
I want her to close the door.
But, instead, I hear Minnie’s voice in my head.
She says, ‘Strap on a fucking pair, would you?’

‘I was fifteen when I had you.’

Faith says, ‘I know.’

‘I was .
.
.
very young and .
.
.’

Faith says, ‘We were all fifteen at one time or another.
Not everyone does what you did.’

My teeth are chattering with the cold.
There is snow on my eyelashes.
I blink it away.
‘I know.
I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry’s not much use to me.’

‘I know.’
I don’t say sorry again because she’s right about that.
I see Faith looking at me, waiting for me to say something that she can relate to.
Something that she can understand.
There’s nothing.
I’ve got nothing.

She pulls at the neck of the T-shirt and that’s when I see it.
The pendant that Ed bought for her, flashing silver in the pale light of this day.
It’s been a long day.
The longest day, maybe.
But I feel the unfamiliar tug of hope when I see the pendant.
That has to mean something.
Doesn’t it?

All of a sudden, Faith says, ‘What do you want?’

It’s not rude, the way she says it.
It’s curious.
Like she really wants to know.
I sense an opening here.
An opportunity.
I have to be careful with it.
Make it matter.
I don’t think there’ll be many of these.
I don’t deserve many.

‘I want .
.
.
I’d like us to be friends.’
Friends?
Why did I say that?
It sounds so bloody twee.
Is it even true?

Faith says, ‘Friends?’
Like she thinks it’s twee as well.

I decide to stick to my guns in spite of a feeling that’s spreading through me.
It’s not a good feeling.
It’s a combination of hopelessness and foolishness.
Despite this, I say, ‘Yes.
Friends.’

Then she says, ‘Are you friends with your mother?’

And I have to say, ‘Not really.’

The feeling – the hopeless, foolish feeling – has reached my perimeters.
It’s all over the place.
I ignore it.
I say, ‘But .
.
.
maybe .
.
.
since we’re a bit different .
.
.
maybe that means we could be friends.’

Her fingers tighten round the latch.
‘I have enough friends, thank you very much.’

That’s when I say, ‘I don’t.
I’ve hardly any, actually.’
I say it like I’m just realising it.
I am just realising it.
I’m realising a lot of things.

‘Do you expect me to feel sorry for you?’

‘No, of course not.
It’s not something that’s bothered me before.
I never thought about it.
I don’t think about much, to be honest.
Nothing important anyway.’

A man appears on the doorstep.
Maybe fifteen years older than me.
Balding, swollen around the middle, exhausted-looking.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human being look so spent.
He smells of curry.

He looks at me and says, ‘Oh,’ and even though we’ve never met, he knows who I am.
Immediately.
I don’t have to explain.

He turns to Faith and says, ‘Faith, love, would you let the poor woman inside the door, at least?’
I’d say he’s her father.
Her adopted father.
Adoptive?
I’m not sure of the correct terminology, which seems wrong.

I say, ‘No, not at all.
I don’t want to intrude.
I just .
.
.’

Faith says, ‘You just what?’

I have never felt more like walking away in my life, and there’s no better woman for walking away.
Let’s face it, I’ve walked away from all sorts.
I have never felt less like talking but, somehow, I manage to say something.
‘I just wanted to talk to you, that’s all.
I think.’

‘You think?’

The man says, ‘She’ll catch her death, love.
She’s not dressed for these temperatures.
Look at her hat, for the love of God.’

Automatically, my hand reaches up to touch my hat.
It’s a Fedora.
I’m wearing my Fedora.
Nonchalant chic, Minnie calls it.
I don’t know what I was thinking.

Faith stands at the door.
I see her deliberating.
It’s in the way she shifts her weight from one bare foot to the other.
Her toenails are a metallic blue but the toes, the toes themselves, they are all mine.
Long, skinny things with a slight bend along the second one.
The one beside the big toe.
At the top, just before the nail.
That’s where the bend is.
I used to think it was something to do with all the unsuitable shoes I ever wore.
Now I know it’s not.
It’s hereditary.
Genetic.
The thought gives me a jolt that seems physical.
I feel like I am being felled.
Like a tree.
In my head, a lumberjack is shouting.
‘TIMBERRRRRRRR!’
as I topple.
I put my hand on the glass pane of the porch, to steady myself.

The man says, ‘I wouldn’t put your hand there, if I were you, love.
You’ll leave prints and Celia is just bursting at the seams to find someone to go through for a shortcut, if you get my drift.’
He smiles at me as if I know exactly who Celia is and why she should be bursting at the seams for someone to go through for a shortcut.
He leans towards me and whispers, ‘Hormones,’ with one of those winks that some men favour when trying to induce empathy.

Faith opens the door a little wider.
She says, ‘I suppose you’d better come in.’

Suddenly I am glad about the man.
The exhausted-looking man with the winky eye who smells of curry.
I am glad that he is here.
I step inside.

The house is a study in modernity.
Everything is huge and shiny.
You can see your face reflected in most of the surfaces.
Where there should be walls, there are either empty spaces or glass.
It’s open plan gone feral.
There is nowhere to hide in a house like this.
I follow the man, who follows Faith.
We’re in a room now that spans the width of the house.
I don’t know what to call it, this room.
It’s got a kitchen, a dining-room table, several sofas, a couple of flat-screens, a sideboard and a dresser.
In the corner, a woman with an enormous belly rocks back and forth in a chair.
Her legs are stretched in front of her, covered with a tartan blanket, which is the only piece of fabric in the entire, gargantuan room.
Her feet are bubbling in a foot massager, like two enormous joints of meat.

She says, ‘You’re the lady on the telly.
You’re Faith’s mother.’
Her voice echoes round the room, bouncing against the chrome and the marble and the glass.

You’re Faith’s mother .
.
.
Faith’s mother .
.
.
mother .
.
.
mother .
.
.
ther .
.
.

I look at her belly.
It seems impossible that I was once like that.
That the angry young woman in this gigantic room that doesn’t know if it’s a kitchen or a dining room or a sitting room, was once inside me.
Was once part of my body.
Part of me.

I hear Minnie’s voice in my head and she’s saying something like, ‘Would you ever cop onto yourself ?’

I cough.
Stand up straight.
Extend my hand.
‘Hello, I’m Kat Kavanagh.
It’s lovely to meet you.’

The woman with the enormous belly has the two must-have qualities of ‘the other woman’.
She is both pretty and young.
Not much older than Faith, I’d say.
Late twenties.
Thirty, tops.
Her prettiness is of the generic variety.
Blonde hair, blue eyes, high cheekbones, creamy skin.