Lifesaving for Beginners

by Ciara Geraghty

  I said, ‘There are nine planets in the Solar System.’

  He said, ‘Eight, actually. Pluto is only a dwarf planet now.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since 2006.’

  ‘That seems unfair.’

  Thomas said, ‘I meant tell me something I don’t know. About yourself.’

  I said, ‘Oh,’ even though I knew that’s what he’d meant.

  And then I told him. Up till then, I told him what I tell everybody who wants to know. I said I was a technical writer for a software company.

  I didn’t make a conscious decision to tell him. I just told him. Without really giving it any thought.

  I said, ‘I’m a writer.’

  He said, ‘I already know that.’

  ‘No, I mean a fiction writer. I write fiction.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I have a pseudonym.’

  ‘Like John Banville?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘What’s your pseudonym?’

  It was strange. Telling him. A bit like the first time I took off my clothes in front of him in the middle of the day so he could see everything, and I ran out of breath in the end and couldn’t suck my belly in anymore. He didn’t seem to notice. He said I was beautiful. Ha!

  ‘It’s . . . it’s Killian Kobain.’

  Thomas didn’t just read the Declan Darker books. He was friends with him on Facebook. He followed him on Twitter. He subscribed to Declan Darker’s blog. I’d seen all the Declan Darker books on his bookcase in Monaghan. The box set on top of his DVD player. Thomas happened to be a fan. He happened to be my fan.

  Thomas shook his head. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  I got my laptop. Showed him the files. The stories. All the various drafts of them.

  Still, he shook his head.

  In the end I had to bring him to my office, open the safe and drag out various documents that happened to have the names of the books written on the top of them.

  Eventually he believed me. He said, ‘You really are Killian Kobain?’

  I nodded.

  He grinned and said, ‘I knew there was something fierce womanly about that bloke.’

  Afterwards, he looked a little shy, like he’d just met me and he was trying to think of something interesting to say. I got a kick out of it, to be honest.

  He said, ‘You dreamed up Razor Bill.’

  ‘He’s basically a male version of Minnie.’

  He laughed and that broke the ice and we were back to being us again. Kat and Thomas. Thomas and Kat. He said, ‘That’s pretty weird.’ But I could tell he was impressed too. And I liked it. A lot. I felt like I was fifteen again. Before everything went wrong. The good side of fifteen.

  ‘Why don’t you write under your own name?’

  ‘I like the anonymity, to be honest.’

  He nodded. He got it.

  I said, ‘What about you?’

  He said, ‘Well, I really am a farmer.’

  ‘You’re not, you’re a journalist.’

  ‘I’m a farmer who happens to be a journalist as well.’

  ‘You’re a journalist who happens to have a farm. A very small farm.’

  ‘It’s not that small.’

  ‘It’s five fields of stony grey soil in Monaghan.’

  ‘Five grand big fields,’ he said.

  Then he said, ‘I was married.’ I felt like someone had slapped my face. Hard.

  ‘It was a long time ago. We were young. In our twenties.’

  I said, ‘What happened?’ Even though part of me didn’t want to know. This was messy territory.

  ‘She died.’ He said it in a way that suggested he didn’t say it often. ‘In a car crash. She was five months pregnant. So I suppose they both died. That’s the way it felt to me anyway. At the time.’

  At first, I was kind of mad with him. Why couldn’t he have been like everyone else and just been married and then got divorced? Why did it have to be such a tragedy? How could anyone compete with that? The least he could have given me was a much-hated ex-wife who had left him for his best friend and was now screwing him for maintenance. That would have been a helluva lot easier to take.

  Another part of me was glad to know. I told him something. He told me something. This was what people did. People in a relationship.

  Out of the blue, I said, ‘I don’t want to have children.’ I don’t know why I said it like that. Just blurted it out like that.

  ‘Oh,’ is all he said.

  ‘I mean, I know we’re not serious or anything. But I just want you to know. I don’t want any misunderstandings.’

  I dived into the space in the conversation where he was supposed to say something but didn’t. ‘Just because I’ve got a womb doesn’t mean I have to fill it to the brim, does it? I mean look at you.’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘Well, you’ve got those three nipples and you never use any of them.’

  ‘That’s a birthmark, I keep telling you.’

  ‘It’s a nipple.’

  ‘It’s a birthmark.’

  ‘It’s a nipple.’

  ‘Anyway. I am serious.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About you.’

  And in the space in the conversation where I was supposed to say something, he leaned towards me and kissed me and, even though my mouth might have tasted of vomit, I kissed him back.

  And there it was.

  I suppose, if you want to be soppy about it, I could say that was the moment when I knew that he was right. What he had said. That day. ‘You’d better be mighty careful, Katherine Kavanagh.’

  But I wasn’t careful. My door was open wide and here he was, traipsing all over my lovely cream carpet in his steel toe-capped, mucky boots. And instead of telling him to get out, or at least have the decency to take off his shoes, and getting busy with the Shake n’ Vac, I just let it go. I let everything go. I might as well have gone to the roof garden at the top of the apartment block and roared at the top of my voice, ‘I LOVE YOU.’

  That’s how bad it was.

  The next day, Faith says, ‘Where are you going?’

  I say, ‘To the library.’

  ‘Is Damo going with you?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Which is pretty funny when you think about it, because Damo isn’t a member of the library. I don’t think he’s ever been inside it.

  But Faith won’t let me go to the library on my own on account of the two roads, even though there’s a zebra crossing on one of them and traffic lights on the other.

  I run out of the door in case Faith thinks of something else to ask me.

  The post office isn’t that far from the library and you still have to cross two roads but neither of them has a zebra crossing. I stand beside a mam and a dad and their two kids. One of them is strapped in a buggy, all wrapped up. You can’t really see the kid but I reckon it’s a girl because everything is pink. The other kid is holding her mam’s hand. They’re both wearing mittens, the same colour, so it looks like a pair of hands except one of them is really big and one of them is really small. The dad is carrying the shopping bags. I wait until they’re crossing and then I cross too. People probably think we’re a family.

  There’s a long queue in the post office and the man behind the glass screen keeps looking down the line and then looking at his watch and shaking his head. Mam used to love it when there was a queue at the Funky Banana. She’d rub her hands and say, ‘We’ll eat like kings tonight, my son.’ I don’t think the man behind the counter loves queues as much as Mam.

  It takes ages to get to the top of the queue. The man behind the screen looks at me like I’ve called him a name or picked my nose right in front of his face. ‘You want to clear your account?’

  ‘No. Thank you.’ Sometimes, if you say please and thank you, it makes adults smile, but not all the time. Not this time. ‘I just want to take out one hundred and fifty-three pounds and forty-one pence, please.’

  ‘But that’s all y
ou have in your account.’

  I say, ‘I know.’ I point to my post office book, which I have slipped under the glass between us so he can see it too. See the number at the bottom. One hundred and fifty-three pounds and forty-one pence.

  The man rubs his eyes as if he hasn’t slept for a really long time. Maybe he hasn’t. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with him.

  He says, ‘So you do want to clear your account, then?’

  ‘Does that mean the account will be closed?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t want to close it because I’ll be saving up again. Half my pocket money every—’

  ‘Your account won’t be closed.’

  ‘OK. So can I have my money? Please? One hundred and fifty-three pounds and forty-one pence?’

  He sighs. ‘Does your mother know you’re here?’

  I nod. ‘Yeah. I mean yes. She does.’

  He sighs again. He opens a drawer with a key. He counts out the money. Three fifty-pound notes. Three pound coins. Two twenty-pence pieces. One penny. It’s all there. He pushes it under the glass, towards me.

  I say, ‘Thank you.’

  He says, ‘NEXT.’

  I don’t go outside until I have the money inside the pocket of my jeans. Just in case. I’ve never actually seen a mugger but I’ve heard about them.

  I can always start saving again for a PlayStation 3 when I get back. Sully has one and, when he’s in a good mood, he lets me and Damo have a go. If a girl lets him kiss her, Sully gets in a good mood. He says he’s done sex with girls. Loads of times. When he’s away at the war, he locks his PlayStation 3 inside his wardrobe.

  One hundred and fifty-three pounds and forty-one pence. That’s worth more than half a PlayStation 3.

  I got more than that for my First Holy Communion but I spent some of it on a new snorkel and facemask. Mam said I should put the rest in the post office because you never know when you might be glad of a few bob. Your First Holy Communion is when you eat the bread, except it’s supposed to be the body of Jesus. And the wine is the blood, but we didn’t get to drink the wine. Only the priest got to do that.

  My jeans are in the laundry basket on the landing so I take them out and put them into the bag. They don’t smell bad. They just have the grass stains on them from the game of Bulldog Takedown we played at school the other day. I have three clean pairs of boxers.

  The socks I find don’t match and have holes in the toes. They feel dead uncomfortable. Mam cut my toenails every Saturday night after my bath. I told her I didn’t need a bath on Saturday nights on account of going to my lifesaving class once a week and then a regular swim as well. That’s like having a bath. Twice. In one week. She’d tickle my toes when she was cutting my nails and, even though I’m too old for tickles, I’d laugh anyway. You can’t help it. Not when it’s your toes.

  I do it myself now. Cut my toenails. Except that I keep forgetting. That might be why most of my socks have holes in the toes.

  In the end, I find four socks. They’re all too big. I think they’re Ant’s. Or Adrian’s. And they don’t match or anything like that. But there’re no holes in them. Not yet anyway.

  Faith is talking to Dad on the phone. He says he’ll be here in an hour. I hope he’s not talking on the phone and driving at the same time because that’s a pretty dangerous thing to do when you think about it.

  I check the bus timetable. The bus into London goes from the top of our road so it’s not too far to walk. I could get the train but the station is ages away and the bus is way cheaper and I’ll be able to sit on the top deck at the front. The last one leaves at 00.14, which means fourteen minutes past midnight. Then I’ll take another bus to Gatwick. Faith’s flight is at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll be there way before then.

  I find my passport in Mam’s room. I run in, take it out of the drawer and run back out. I used to love going into Mam’s room. When I was little, I bounced on the bed. It’s a very bouncy bed. When I got too big to bounce, I lay across it and read my books. Mam sat on the end of the bed and put make-up on her face or brushed her hair or painted her nails, and I’d read and she’d say, ‘Tell me something,’ and I’d tell her about a new dive we were learning at lifesaving or a new star that had been discovered or something like that.

  I shut the door behind me when I get out of the room.

  I put my passport into my bag. I’ll probably be able to buy a ticket to Ireland at the airport. Faith won’t be able to say, ‘No,’ once I’ve got a ticket.

  I end up hoping the birth mother turns out to be a horrible person because then Faith will come back to Brighton with me. I know that’s mean but you can’t stop your thoughts from thinking stuff, even if it’s bad stuff.

  I hide the bag under my bed. It’s small enough so it fits. I hide it behind the box with the costumes. I’m too old for dressing up now but some of them are still in pretty good condition, like the Power Ranger and the Death Eater. There’s a cowboy outfit too. I could give them away, I suppose. To a charity shop, maybe. There’s one in town.

  I’ll do it when I get back.

  When everything gets back to normal.

  On Sunday, I visit my parents’ house. There is nothing unusual about that. I often visit their house on Sunday. I’ve been doing it for years.

  It’s cold inside. Dad doesn’t like it too warm because of the orchids, in various stages of development, that occupy most windowsills. He’s supposed to grow them in the orchard but he brings some of them inside. The ones that need special attention, he says. I’ve come across him doing all sorts with them. Talking to them, playing ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ by D:Ream to them, painting their pots (although he says this is a last resort, not being gifted with a brush and a palette). I think it was their second date when Mum expressed a liking for the flower. Dad never forgot it.

  Ed says, ‘Where’s Thomas, Kat?’

  Maybe this is the worst part about me and Thomas. About Thomas and I.

  Ed.

  From the moment he met Thomas, Ed has declared himself to be Thomas’s best friend. And who could blame him, the way Thomas carried on? Bringing him everywhere. Like to the film premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean, a Skulduggery Pleasant book launch, a trip to the set of Fair City, just because he knows that Fair City is Ed’s favourite soap.

  ‘Ed doesn’t need a chaperone, you know,’ I often said in the voice Thomas called my ‘testy’ voice.

  ‘Sure, don’t I want to go too?’ he’d say. ‘Isn’t yer woman, what’s her face, Penelope Crows in it?’

  ‘Cruz.’

  ‘Exactly. And there’ll be a bit of a feed and maybe some goodie bags. We’ll have a blast, won’t we, Ed?’

  And they always did. Have a blast. They went to football matches at Croke Park, the opening night of The Sound of Music at the Grand Canal Theatre, a journalists-only trip to the zoo when the baby elephants were born.

  ‘There’s no need for you to take Ed on every jolly you go on,’ I told Thomas, more than once.

  ‘I know,’ Thomas said. ‘Do you want to come with us?’

  ‘To the smelly zoo to see some smelly elephants lifting their tails and excavating the contents of their bowels right in front of me?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Thomas.

  ‘OK,’ I said, enjoying his surprise. And my own, if I’m honest. And the elephants weren’t even that smelly. In fact, what I remember is the heavy sweetness of jasmine in the air and the smell of summer when Thomas bent and kissed the corner of my mouth in public, before I could tell him not to.

  No matter how many times I try to tell Ed about me and Thomas – Thomas and I – he still asks. Especially on Sundays. In the months before we broke up – before he left me – Thomas had infiltrated the tradition of our family Sunday lunches the same way he had infiltrated everything else: without my noticing until it was too late. So there he was, squashing himself into my father’s chair at the head of the dining-room table. BAM!

  Today, I just don’t
have the stomach for it. I say, ‘He’s at work.’

  This catches Mum’s attention and she looks up from her notebook. She says, ‘I thought you two broke up?’

  I look at Ed, but he’s gone back to reading Soap Watch and isn’t listening.

  I say, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean he’s not at work.’

  She nods and returns to her notebook. I don’t mind. Not really. She can be vague, is all. It takes her longer than normal people to focus on the real world as opposed to the fictional one in her head.

  Ed puts down his magazine. He says, ‘Thomas can come next Sunday, if he doesn’t have to work on the farm, can’t he, Kat?’

  I say, ‘Who’s for wine? I got a lovely bottle of Côtes du Rhône in Fiztpatrick’s yesterday.’ I stick my head into the sideboard and rummage around for the biggest wine glasses I can find.

  When I return to the table. Ed is waiting for me. ‘Thomas can come next Sunday, if he doesn’t have to work on the farm, can’t he, Kat?’

  I look at Mum, who is scribbling something in her notebook. Then at Dad, who looks at the leg of lamb on the plate in front of him with distrust, as if it is about to jump up and reattach itself to its previous owner at any moment.

  I look at Ed. ‘I don’t think so, Ed. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Thomas and I broke up. After the accident, remember?’

  Ed nods and smiles. ‘Yeah, but you can get back together, Kat,’ he tells me. ‘That’s what me and Sophie do. We get back together. All the time.’

  Mum says, ‘It’s Sophie and I.’

  It’s like a reflex with Mum. I don’t think she’s even aware of it. Today, I can’t let it go. ‘Jesus, can you just stop correcting him? For once? What difference does it make? Me and Sophie? Sophie and I? Who cares? You get the picture. You know what he means. Don’t you?’

  She doesn’t respond.

  ‘Is there anything else to eat?’ I say. ‘Apart from the lamb, I mean.’ It’s not that I’m hungry. I just want to get the meal over and done with so I can get out of here.

  Mum looks up from her notebook. ‘Of course there’re other things to eat,’ she says, looking around. ‘Aren’t there, Kenneth?’