Lifesaving for Beginners

by Ciara Geraghty

  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.

  I decide to say this: ‘Mrs Appleby thinks that things can seem a bit worse. At Christmas time, I mean.’

  Faith doesn’t say anything for a while. She looks at me but I know she’s not really looking at me. She’s thinking about something entirely different. Turns out she’s thinking about Christmas because she says – all of a sudden – ‘Christmas.’

  I say, ‘Yes. It’s in three days. Did you forget about it?’

  She says, ‘Sort of.’ I don’t know how you can sort of forget about something. Especially Christmas. I hope she hasn’t sort of forgotten about my birthday too.

  She says, ‘I’m going to sort it out,’ as if Christmas has sprung a leak or something and she happens to have just the thing to fix it.

  Something is different. In the days following Ed’s procedure – Ed’s successful procedure – something feels different. Or perhaps it is me who is different.

  I’m having funny thoughts.

  Not funny ha ha.

  Funny weird.

  First of all, there’s Brona. She rings to find out about Ed. I tell her and she says how pleased she is that the operation went well, and then she comments on how happy I sound and how she’s never heard me sound so happy. Not ever. And I say it’s because I’ve never been this happy. Not ever. This is difficult for someone like me to explain but I try. I feel like I’ve been given a reprieve. Like I was on death row and some lawyer in a John Grisham novel found some obscure piece of precedent law that meant I could waltz out of death row and skip on out of prison and take one of those Greyhound buses they’re always taking in America and just . . . just be on my way. And, peculiar as that may sound, that’s how I feel. And the really weird thing is that I don’t just leave it there, the thought that is banging against the walls of my mind. No. I go right ahead and share the thought with Brona.

  She tries to take it on the chin but she’s pretty shocked. I can tell. And then, instead of giving her a moment to digest all this talk of happiness and the John Grisham novels and the obscure pieces of precedent law and the Greyhound buses, I go right ahead and tell her all the other stuff too. The stuff about me not writing. Not having written in months. Not a paragraph. Not a sentence. Not one single word. All the lies I’ve told her. I can’t even call them white lies or half-lies. They were nothing but fully formed, gigantic lies.

  She doesn’t say anything for a while and then, finally, she says, ‘I see.’ Which is pretty damned good of her when you take everything into consideration.

  ‘I’m not myself,’ I tell Minnie.

  ‘Thank Christ for that.’

  ‘I need your help.’

  ‘OK.’ I love Minnie because she is the type of person who says, ‘OK,’ when you ask for help instead of asking what kind of help it is you need.

  ‘Do you know how to organise a press conference?’

  ‘No, but I know a woman who can.’

  Minnie always knows women who can.

  Minnie says, ‘You sure about this?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sure.’

  Neither of us say anything for a moment and then she says, ‘Why now? Why are you going public now?’

  ‘I’d prefer people heard it from me, before that man sells it to some British rag. Besides . . .’ I pause.

  ‘Besides what?’

  ‘It’s just . . . it’s time.’

  Minnie nods. ‘Yes, it is. It’s time.’

  Later, she rings. ‘It’s on for Friday. Ten a.m.’

  ‘But that’s the day before Christmas Eve.’

  ‘You got plans?’

  ‘No, but . . .’

  ‘Be there at ten past. Tamara, the PR, will have the place stacked with journos. She’s drip-fed them just enough to whet their appetites.’

  My stomach contracts, like I’m on a rollercoaster that’s inching its way to the top of the track. ‘Thank you, Minnie.’

  There’s no going back now but, in spite of this, the happiness persists.

  I’m happier than Ed, and that has never happened before. Not ever.

  He says the same thing every day. ‘When can I go home?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet. We’ll ask the doctor.’

  ‘Will I be home for Christmas? I don’t want to be here on Christmas Day.’

  ‘You’ll go home when the doctors say you can go home and not a minute before that, get it?’ But even though my tone is as snappy and taut as ever, Ed senses the happiness and he’s not delighted with it, to be honest. I suppose I can’t blame him. It’s not always easy when the shoe is on the other foot.

  He says, ‘You look different.’

  ‘I know.’ It’s because I’m smiling. It happens every time I see him. I get the feeling again. The reprieve. John Grisham. The Greyhound bus. The happiness.

  Ed says, ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m happy because you’re OK.’

  ‘I don’t feel OK.’

  ‘Well, you are, so stop feeling sorry for yourself.’

  ‘I’m not feeling sorry for myself.’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘It’s boring in here.’

  ‘I’ll read you a story. It’s one I wrote.’

  ‘You can’t write stories.’<
br />
  ‘I can, Ed. That’s what I do. I write stories.’

  ‘That story was written by Killian Kobain. It says it on the cover.’

  ‘I’m Killian Kobain.’

  ‘No you’re not, Kat.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘You’re not.’

  ‘I am.’

  Ordinarily, Ed can beat me hands down in this type of conversation. Today, he just shrugs and says, ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘It’s about a policeman called Declan Darker who solves mysteries.’

  ‘Are there lovey-dovey bits in it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK then. You can read me a chapter and see if I like it.’

  Later, when Mum and Dad come to visit, Ed says, ‘Kat writes stories.’

  Mum looks at me. ‘Really?’

  Ed grabs my sleeve. Pulls it. ‘You do, don’t you, Kat? You do write stories.’

  There’s nothing else to say except, ‘Yes.’

  Dad looks at me. ‘I didn’t know you did that, Kat.’

  I shake my head. ‘Nobody did.’

  Mum says, ‘What kind of stories?’

  ‘Crime novels. I use a pseudonym.’

  She says, ‘Crime? That’s a . . . a fairly popular genre, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She says, ‘So you do it in your spare time? When you’re not . . . doing your technical writing? Is that it?’

  ‘No, I, ah, I do it full-time. I’m not a technical writer. I never have been.’

  She smiles then and I’m not sure but I think there is a suggestion of pride in that smile. If she were a different type of person altogether, she might punch me on the arm and call me ‘a chip off the old block’.

  Dad says, ‘That’s lovely, Kat. What’s your pseudonym?’

  I say, ‘Killian Kobain.’

  Mum says, ‘Good Lord,’ and Dad says, ‘Oh my goodness,’ because, while I’m pretty sure that neither of them has read a popular-fiction book in their lives, both of them have heard of Killian Kobain. The body of a hermit was found in a cave in Malawi recently and there was nothing in the cave apart from his body, a bow and arrow, the hide of a rhinoceros and a copy of The Lost Girl, which was the first Darker book to be made into a film.

  I don’t say anything but I smile. I can’t help it.

  It’s around this time that I realise that the happiness I feel is not all about Ed. Not just about Ed. It’s like a curtain is being pulled open, and when it opens all the way you can see someone standing there and it turns out to be me. I’m standing there. I’m there for anyone to see. I’m as plain as the nose on your face.

  I’ve never been in Scotland for Christmas before. I’ve never been anywhere for Christmas before. Except home, I mean. It looks like Christmas in Scotland, on account of the snow. Me and Ant and Adrian and Dad build an igloo. Faith told Adrian that if he was coming to Scotland, he’d have to make an effort. She made him swear. He said, ‘Cross my heart and hope that fat bastard keels over of a heart attack and dies.’

  Faith said, ‘ADRIAN!’

  Adrian said, ‘I’m joking, sis, take it easy.’ He winks at me and smiles so I’m pretty sure he really is joking.

  Faith makes Ant promise not to call Celia fat, or an adulteress or a home-wrecker or a gold-digger.

  It’s warm inside the igloo. Ant said it’s because air gets trapped inside the snow and acts like an insulator. I say, ‘What about our body heat?’ and he says, ‘I was just getting to that.’ Afterwards, we build a snowman. Except Adrian puts two snowballs on the snowman’s chest and says it’s a snowwoman and Dad says, ‘Grow up,’ and Adrian throws a snowball at Dad’s head and then there’s a big snowball fight, and Faith says I’m the only one with any sense because I was the best at dodging the snowballs so my clothes aren’t as wet as everyone else’s.

  Celia hasn’t had the baby yet. She’s gone to the hospital three times so far to have the baby but then she came home. Dad calls them false alarms, but not in front of Celia anymore.

  Christmas is the day after tomorrow. It’s turning out to be not so bad. There’s tonnes of food in the fridge, for a start. The house is dead neat, even though it’s huge. Dad is good at being neat and tidy now. When Celia’s not in the hospital having a false alarm, she gets really mad if there’s a buttery knife on the worktop or if someone has forgotten to flush the toilet. When she notices something like that, she puts her hands on the bottom of her belly as if it’s about to fall off and she shouts, ‘HAMISH,’ which happens to be Dad’s name, and then Dad has to come and tidy up the mess or flush the toilet and make her a cup of raspberry tea and massage her back until she tells him to stop. Celia’s belly is way bigger than Dad’s now.

  Celia has a birthing pool. It’s in a big room upstairs that has nothing in it except a really long mirror attached to the wall. The birthing pool looks a bit like a paddling pool. Celia says the room will be her office after the baby comes out but, as far as I know, Celia doesn’t have a job anymore. Not since she started being Dad’s girlfriend.

  Me and Faith took the train to Scotland yesterday. Ant and Adrian got a lift from London with one of their friends who was driving home to Edinburgh for Christmas. Rob said he’d drive us but Faith said she needed to think about things. I don’t know why she couldn’t think about things in Rob’s van. Maybe it’s because the heater is broken. It’s hard to think when you’re freezing cold. I know because the radiator was broken in our classroom last month and Miss Williams said we all had brain-freeze because no one could do the mathematical patterns.

  The train was much longer than the one we take to London. Nearly as long as the Hogwarts Express, I reckon. I sat beside the window and Faith said, ‘Order whatever you like,’ when the man came with the trolley. I got crisps and a Mars Duo and a can of Coke and a packet of Starburst. The seats were dead comfy. Faith fell asleep. I didn’t because there was too much to see out of the window.

  I like the way the world whizzes by when you’re on a train and there are no traffic jams so you can just keep on going. And I don’t have to ask if we’re there yet because I can tell myself, from looking at the names of the stations when we stop and then looking in the timetable we got at King’s Cross.

  When I was a little kid, I wanted to be a train driver. Now, I’m going to be a lifeguard when I grow up but I still like going on trains.

  Dad met us at the train station. He gave me a high-five then took Faith’s suitcase and put it on the ground and he hugged her real tight and they stood like that, in the middle of the platform, for ages, and everyone had to walk round them and they didn’t even notice. Afterwards, Dad picked up Faith’s suitcase and put his arm across her shoulders. He said, ‘We’re going to sort things out, OK, kiddo?’ Faith didn’t say that she could sort things out for herself. And she didn’t tell him not to call her kiddo either. She just nodded and walked along beside him, like she was really tired.

  Christmas decorations are pretty much the same in Scotland. Every single room in Dad and Celia’s house has Christmas decorations in it. Not just the sitting room. Even the birthing pool has got tinsel all over it. Celia says she’s having the baby at home because she heard about a woman who went into hospital to have a baby boy and she came home in a box. I don’t know what happened to the baby. Celia didn’t say. I hope he didn’t go home in a box too, I really do.

  The first time Celia thinks the baby is coming, she gets Dad to phone for an ambulance.

  Dad says, ‘Will I not phone Carol?’ Carol is the name of the nurse who is in charge of filling the birthing pool with water and helping ladies who are about to have babies in their own houses.

  Carol’s name and number are in Celia’s birth plan. She showed me the plan. It’s four pages long. Celia typed it out herself. She can type ninety words a minute, which is one and a half words every second. I did the sum. It’s long division.

  Celia is in the hall, on her hands and knees. She’s making a noise like a bear I saw once on a wildlife progra
mme.

  When she’s finished making the noise, she turns to Dad and shouts, ‘RING 999.’

  Dad says, ‘Don’t worry, pet, I’ll drive you to the hospital.’

  Celia shouts, ‘There’s no time to drive. The baby is coming RIGHT NOW.’

  When they come home from the hospital and Dad has put Celia to bed, he tells Ant and Adrian to stop laughing, and then he makes us promise that we’ll say nothing about the birthing pool or Carol or the false alarm when Celia is in the room.

  We promise.

  I think Dad is glad we’re here. He cooks haggis, even though Celia doesn’t let him eat haggis anymore. Dad says it’s traditional to eat haggis in Scotland and that he’s only cooking it for us and he’s not going to eat it, but I catch him picking some off Ant’s plate when he’s dishing up. I don’t say anything and Dad winks at me and says, ‘Good lad.’

  Haggis doesn’t taste as bad as you’d think. He serves it with mashed potatoes and turnips and brown sauce. Celia has to stay in her bedroom on account of the smell.

  Faith says, ‘We won’t stay long.’

  Dad says, ‘Stay as long as you like.’

  Faith says, ‘OK. We’ll stay for a week. If that’s OK.’

  Dad says, ‘Of course, of course, that’s fine. Stay as long as you like.’ He always says the same thing a couple of times. Like he doesn’t think anyone’s listening.

  I’m watching a programme about pandas. I don’t know what they’re going to do when the bamboo runs out.

  Dad says, ‘I took my eye off the ball for a while.’

  Faith says, ‘You’ve been busy.’

  ‘Once the baby comes and things settle down, I’ll pitch in more. I’ll come down more often. Things will be better. I’ll be better. I promise.’ He puts his hand on top of Faith’s and they sit there on the couch like that for a while.