Lifesaving for Beginners

by Ciara Geraghty

  The bus driver looked suspicious when he saw me but he didn’t say anything. Not even ‘hello’. He just gave me my ticket and my change and went back to looking at his newspaper, at a picture of a woman in her togs, and he didn’t drive off till nearly twenty to.

  I say, ‘Yes, I love carbonara.’

  May says, ‘And do you like garlic bread?’

  I nod.

  May says, ‘And I’m guessing you wouldn’t say no to a bit of chocolate cake?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘With a blob of ice cream on the top?’

  I nod.

  ‘Vanilla do you?’

  I nod again, even though the truth is that I’d prefer chocolate ice cream.

  May claps her hands together and rubs them. ‘We’re in business, so.’ I know she’s going to hug me. I just know it. And then she does. She has a different smell to Mam. Not a bad smell. Just different. But she feels pretty much the same. Sort of warm and squashy. Her hair tickles my face. She has a tight hold on me. She says, ‘You’re a great boy, Milo,’ when she stops the hug and stands up straight. Her eyes are really bright. The same blue as Mam’s. I hope she doesn’t cry. Then she ruffles my hair and then she leaves. She doesn’t cry.

  Donabate is still in Dublin but it looks like the countryside, on account of the fields. There’s a caravan park beside Auntie May’s house. That’d be legend. To live in a caravan. When you get bored, you can just hop in your caravan and drive away.

  We pass an ice-cream parlour when we come out of the train station but Faith says, ‘No,’ because we’re going to get a taxi to the house and there’s no way the driver will let a messer like me into the car, with ice cream dripping everywhere. We end up walking all the way to Auntie May’s house from the train station and not one single taxi passes us by, only three normal cars and one man walking a really skinny dog.

  It’s freezing and the wind would cut you in two. That’s what Mam used to say. But then she’d say, ‘At least it’s dry.’ Before Dad went away, he called her his weather girl because she was always talking about the weather and looking at the sky to see what would happen next.

  The farther I walk, the heavier my bag gets. Faith’s bag has wheels but she has to lift it over tree roots that cut through the path every so often. I’m glad when Faith stops to light a cigarette. I cup my hands round my mouth and blow into them a couple of times.

  Faith says, ‘Are you cold?’

  I say, ‘No,’ because I promised I wouldn’t complain.

  ‘Do you want me to put your bag on my back for a while?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ You don’t get girls to carry your bag, no matter how tired you are. No way.

  The road to Auntie May’s house is the longest road I’ve ever been on. Dead straight with no end in sight. It just goes on and on. Then, all of a sudden, it ends. Right in front of the sea and then we’re at the house. It takes about five hours to get there, I reckon.

  After dinner, Uncle Niall plays chess with me. He’s the type of adult that lets kids win. He pretends to be dead annoyed when I say, ‘Check,’ or ‘Checkmate’. He clutches his head as if he’s got a really bad pain in it and he says things like, ‘You jammy little git,’ except he’s smiling so I’ll know he’s only messing.

  Auntie May and Faith are looking through photo albums. I’ve seen them before, those photographs. There’s loads of Mam in there. Mam and May. On the beach. Mam and May in bumper cars. Mam and May at the Tower of London. Mam and May on a boat. With their arms round each other and scarves wound round their heads. They’re always laughing. I say, ‘No, thank you,’ when May asks if I’d like to look at the photographs. I’m glad I’m playing chess with Niall, even though he’s the type of adult that lets kids win.

  Faith says, ‘I’m just . . . I’m so angry with her. I don’t even feel sad anymore. I’m just . . . I’m furious.’ It’s weird because Faith doesn’t sound angry. Her voice is really low. She sounds tired. She probably is tired. I’m tired too. Sleeping in a tree house is not as legend as you’d think.

  May nods and says, ‘Anger is all part of it, you know. Part of the grieving process.’

  ‘No, I’m angry with her for not telling me.’

  May puts her hand on Faith’s shoulder. Squeezes it. ‘She called you her lucky charm. The doctor told her she’d never be able to carry a baby to full term. But after they adopted you, your mother got pregnant twice. She couldn’t believe it.’

  May turns to the next page of the album. ‘Lookit!’ she says, nodding at a picture. ‘Look at the pair of you there.’ She’s smiling at the picture and Faith smiles too.

  It’s Niall’s turn and he takes ages to make a move so I walk over to the couch and look at the picture that May is pointing to. I’ve seen that one loads of times. Mam has it in a frame in her bedroom. Her and Faith. On the beach in Donabate. I know it’s Donabate and not Brighton because of the sand. They have their backs to the camera, walking away. Faith is carrying a bucket full of shells and she comes up to Mam’s knees. Mam has to bend to reach her hand. Faith is wearing nothing except a nappy. Mam’s in her bare feet and has one of Dad’s shirts on over her togs. They’re both smiling. You can see the smiles in the sides of their faces because they’re looking at each other.

  May puts her finger on Mam’s face. Slides it across like she’s taking the hair out of her eyes. She says, ‘That was taken a week after you arrived. One week. I never saw her so happy.’ She looks at Faith. ‘She didn’t tell you because she loved you. She never wanted you to feel any different to the boys.’

  Uncle Niall says, ‘Beat that!’

  That means it’s my go and May looks up then and notices me, standing behind her, peering over her shoulder.

  ‘I’ve a picture like that of you and your mam too, Milo. Taken on Donabate beach. I’m sure of it.’ She starts flipping through the pages. I hope she doesn’t find it. I really do. Imagine what Damo would say if he saw a picture of me in a nappy?

  After I beat Niall four times in a row, he says he can’t take it anymore and he goes into the kitchen to get himself a stiff drink, which turns out to be a can of Coke. ‘I suppose you want one too?’ I nod. I know he’s only pretending to be mad.

  Auntie May insists on tucking me into bed. She tucks the covers around me so tightly, I’m like a sausage in a roll and I can barely breathe. She says, ‘Promise me you’ll never run away again, Milo.’ Which means that Faith has told her everything. I was really hoping she wouldn’t. I say, ‘I didn’t run away. Not really.’ May pulls the blanket under my chin as if it’s a napkin. She says, ‘I’d be worried sick if I thought you were going to run away again, d’ya hear me?’ There’s no point saying anything so I just nod.

  She clears her throat, which means she’s going to say more stuff. I wait. She says, ‘So . . . you and Faith . . . you’re going off tomorrow to meet this . . . this woman . . . Katherine Kavanagh.’ She picks up a thread that’s sticking out of a bit of the blanket and rubs it between her fingers.

  I say, ‘I’m not sure. Faith hasn’t said anything about tomorrow yet. And I’m not supposed to ask. I promised.’

  May smiles and nods. She doesn’t say anything else. She looks like she’s trying to work out a really hard sum in her head.

  I say, ‘Do you think Mam would mind?’

  May looks at me. ‘Mind?’

  ‘About us. Being in Ireland. Looking for Faith’s real mother.’

  ‘Your mother was Faith’s real mother.’ She sounds a bit mad now so I just nod. After a while, May sighs and says, ‘I’m sorry, Milo. It’s just . . . things haven’t been great lately, have they?’

  I shake my head.

  She puts her hand on my shoulder. ‘Maybe you’ll come and spend a week with us in the summertime? Niall and Finn could take you fishing. You’d like that. Wouldn’t you?’

  I nod, except that I don’t want to come here for a week in the summertime. I think it might be something to do with Auntie May. I mean, she’s nice and ev
erything. It’s just . . . it might be something to do with her looking like Mam except that she isn’t Mam, and I know it’s weird but it makes me feel a bit funny. Like . . . I don’t know. Just funny. Mrs Appleby says it’s OK to feel sad and mostly I do my best not to think about it in Brighton. But in Dublin, I keep thinking about it. I don’t know why. Usually, I think about great stuff. Like lifesaving. And hanging around with Damo and Carla. Or playing alien-chasing in the playground at breaktime.

  I say, ‘Do you know what time we’re leaving tomorrow?’

  May says, ‘After breakfast. I’ll make pancakes.’

  I say, ‘Is there a train into the city centre then?’

  May nods her head. ‘Don’t worry, Milo. There’re lots of trains. Or I can drive you. Wherever you’re going, all right? Don’t worry, love.’

  I turn on my side and close my eyes. May tiptoes out of the room and whispers, ‘Night night.’ She closes the door and I hear the creak of the stairs. When she’s gone, I get up and open the door. Just a tiny bit. A thin line of light falls in from the landing. Not much but just enough to sleep by. I’m really tired but it takes ages to fall asleep. Downstairs I hear the low murmur of voices. I expect they’re talking about the woman. Katherine Kavanagh. I wonder what she looks like. I wonder what she’ll say to Faith when she sees her tomorrow? I hope it’s something nice, I really do.

  I think Faith could do with someone to cheer her up.

  I don’t think I’m doing a very good job of it.

  The red flashing light turns out to be a message from Thomas. His voice fills the cold and dark of the hallway, instantly familiar and strange, all at the same time.

  There is relief. That it isn’t the man. The one looking for Killian Kobain.

  Or someone looking for me.

  The girl in the letters.

  Faith.

  And there’s apprehension. What does he want? Thomas is not a phone person. He doesn’t ring for conversation. He rings for a reason. A specific reason. Like news to impart. Phone conversations with Thomas never last long. Not even in our heyday. Twenty seconds. Thirty, tops. Long enough to say ‘who’ and ‘what’ and ‘when’ and ‘why’ and ‘where’. The five Ws. Once a journalist, always a journalist, I suppose.

  The first W he covers is ‘why’. Why he’s ringing on the landline. ‘I didn’t want to ring your mobile because I wanted to make sure you were at home when I talk to you.’

  Relief seeps away and apprehension is all that’s left now.

  Then comes the ‘what’.

  ‘I wanted to tell you the other day. At Ed’s swimming gala.’

  Brief diversion here: ‘Ed was great, wasn’t he? He’s really coming on. He used to be nervous competing, remember? He looked like such a natural in that pool, didn’t he?’

  There are a few features in Thomas’s voice that I recognise. There’s pride. There’s definitely pride. I recognise that. I’ve heard that before, when he’s spoken about Ed. As if it’s true. What Ed says. About Thomas being his best friend.

  And there’s hesitation. A dragging of heels along the floor of this one-sided conversation.

  He launches into a ‘why not’.

  ‘I just . . . when Ed told me your news, I didn’t feel that it was appropriate then to talk about my news.’

  His news?

  The ‘what’ again.

  ‘It’s just . . . I wanted to tell you myself. I mean, I didn’t want anyone else telling you . . .’

  Tell me what?

  ‘It’s not like it’ll come as a huge surprise to you. Or even that you’ll care all that much and why should you? But still . . . I wanted it to be me to tell you and there might be a small mention of it in tomorrow’s paper so that’s why I’m leaving this message . . . sorry it’s so bloody garbled. I hate these machines.’

  Tomorrow’s paper?

  I hear Thomas take a breath. A really long one.

  Then another pause.

  ‘I’m getting married.’

  Nothing. No dramatic reaction from me. No leaning my back against the wall and sliding down and down until I am sitting on the floor. No escaping moan. No gasp. Nothing. I’m just a woman, standing in the cold and dark of her own hallway, with her coat on, listening to a message – a garbled message – on her answering machine, from somebody she used to know.

  ‘Engaged, really. I’m getting engaged. I am engaged. To Sandra. I mean, Sarah. Christ, you have me doing it now. I got engaged to Sarah.’

  A short pause here as if he thinks I might laugh at this and is waiting for me to finish. Polite. To a fault. I have to give him that.

  ‘So, that’s it. That’s all. I just wanted you to know.’

  Another pause. Then an addendum that doesn’t come under any of the five W headings.

  ‘And your news. I’m sorry I reacted the way I did. I think it was shock, really. The idea of you being a mother. I don’t mean . . . it’s just you always said . . . Anyway, just, sorry.’

  A pause. A really awkward one.

  ‘And, you know, you can . . . give me a buzz. If you want to have a chat, or . . . a talk or something, I don’t know. I mean . . . I’d say we can still talk to each other, if you’d like to. You know?’

  And in the cold, dark of my hallway, I find myself nodding. I do know. And I did know. Even back then, when it was all to play for. I knew. And I did nothing about it.

  ‘OK then, I’ll . . . I’ll hang up now. I just . . . OK, see you. Goodbye.’

  A click. A beep. And then nothing.

  The worst thing in a situation like this is that there’s no one else to blame.

  The house is on the Howth Road in Raheny. Auntie May drives us into the city centre. She wanted to bring us all the way to the house but Faith said she preferred to go at her own pace and May nodded and said she understood. She dropped us at Busaras, which is the big bus station in the city. The bus to the airport goes from here. We put our bags in a locker and Faith asks me to mind the key because she doesn’t trust herself today, and for extra safety I put it into the pocket that’s halfway down my jeans, because it has a zip.

  Auntie May says, ‘You’ll ring. Won’t you?’

  Faith nods.

  May says, ‘Remember what we talked about last night, won’t you?’

  Faith nods again.

  May says, ‘I won’t say goodbye.’ She blows me a kiss and waves at Faith and then she checks her mirrors and drives away.

  Faith has the address written in her notebook. I remember it in my head. I’m pretty good at remembering things like that. Without writing them down, I mean. That’s why I usually get ten out of ten in my spelling tests. We take the bus and I don’t ask Faith if we can sit upstairs. She looks as white as Damo did that time he ate the custard powder. He was trying to make custard in his stomach. He swallowed four tablespoons of powder, then drank about a pint of milk and then jumped up and down so it would get all mixed up inside him. When he got sick, it really did look like custard.

  When we get to the house in Raheny, Faith walks right past it.

  I say, ‘Faith, it’s here. We’re here.’ The house is like a mansion. I reckon there’re about ten bedrooms. Probably a playroom too. George Pullman has a playroom. He’s always talking about it. He has an Xbox too.

  ‘Faith.’

  Faith keeps on going. She can walk really fast, on account of her legs being so long. I run after her.

  ‘Faith, wait. The house is back there. You’ve walked straight past it. It’s a mansion. Your real mam, I mean your birth mam, must be loaded.’

  Faith doesn’t stop until we reach the end of the road. From here, you can see the Irish Sea. The tide is out so far, it’s almost in England, I reckon. I put my hands on my knees. Try to get my breath back. Faith takes a packet of cigarettes out of her pocket. Lights one. After a while, she looks at me and says, ‘I’m sorry, Milo.’

  I try to remember if Faith has done something mean to me but I don’t think she has. ‘Why do you keep saying th
at?’ She doesn’t answer me. I look out at the sea.

  ‘Do you know how many miles between here and England?’

  Faith says, ‘No.’

  ‘Fifty-six nautical miles, which is seventy-five miles. And do you know how deep the Irish Sea is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Three hundred metres, at its deepest point.’

  ‘Where do you get this stuff ?’

  ‘From Mrs O’Reilly. She knew everything there was to know about Ireland, remember?’

  Behind us is a low wall and Faith sits on it. I follow her.

  She says, ‘Tell me something else.’

  ‘Well . . .’ I close my eyes. I find it easier to remember stuff when I close my eyes. I could tell her some stuff about astronomy. Carla’s mad about astronomy. ‘Did you know that stars are suns?’

  ‘They don’t look like suns.’

  ‘They are. They’re just really, really far away.’

  ‘How far?’

  ‘They’re so far, you don’t measure in miles. You measure in years.’

  ‘Light years.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What about black holes?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘What do they do?’

  ‘Nothing, really. They just suck everything inside them, even the light.’

  ‘That sounds horrible.’

  I look at Faith. Her face looks sort of sad.

  I say, ‘Yes, but before suns burn out and turn into black holes, they’re called supernovas and that’s when they shine the very brightest that they’ve ever shone in their whole lives.’