Lifesaving for Beginners

by Ciara Geraghty

She says, ‘You were right.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The leak. It came from our office.’

  ‘WHAT? HOW?’

  ‘Bloody Harold.’

  ‘Harold? Jeremy’s boyfriend?’

  ‘Ex-boyfriend, remember? Apparently, he was up to his neck in debt. He was an addict.’

  ‘A drug addict?’

  ‘Cosmetic surgery. He’s had everything done. He looked like Joan Rivers in the end, Jeremy said. Anyway, he must have been poking around Jeremy’s home office and he found something about you. Jeremy is distraught. He’s in the disabled toilet, crying his eyes out.’

  ‘Why is he in the disabled toilet?’

  ‘Privacy.’ It seems like a strange word now, in the circumstances.

  For a while, neither of us says anything. It’s nice, actually. A fleeting moment of peace.

  Then Brona says, ‘Is it true? What you said? About having a baby?’

  I say, ‘Yes,’ and Brona begins to cry again. A soft little cry. It makes a terrible sound.

  Eventually she says, ‘That’s s-s-s-so saaaaaaaaad.’

  It was only a matter of time before they uncovered Thomas, I suppose. They find him in one of his five stony fields, putting up a fence. He’s wearing a long sheepskin over a suit, the trousers of which are tucked inside the wellingtons. The bright pink ones. With the yellow buttercups. The camera has to pan up for a good while before it reaches his face.

  Seeing him on the television is a terribly strange sensation. His face is so familiar. I know it so well, like the way to somewhere you’ve been going to for years. You just go. You don’t have to think about it.

  And yet, there is something strange about it too and I think it’s because Thomas is on the television and I’ve never seen him on the television. I’ve seen him in my home. In my bed. All over my life. And I miss it. I miss seeing him. This much I am certain of. To be honest, it feels good. To know something for certain.

  The newsreader – Dawn Handel – is in the middle of a story about me getting a D for my English paper in the Leaving Certificate, which is the first thing they’ve said that is one hundred per cent true (Mum took it as a personal affront and didn’t speak to me for weeks after the results came out). Dawn stops in the middle of a sentence about Sister Rafferty, who was my English teacher back then, and who surely must be festering in the grave by now. She cocks her head and touches her ear with her fingers. She says, ‘Breaking news now. We are going straight over to a farm in County Monaghan’ – she pronounces it ‘Monag-Han’, which I don’t think the locals are going to like – ‘where our reporter has caught up with Thomas Cunningham [Cunning-Ham], Kat’s partner.’

  I cover my face with my hands. Then I splay my fingers so I can see through the gaps and I watch his face on the screen. That familiar face. The face that I know off by heart.

  Ed shouts, ‘It’s Thomas. There’s Thomas. Thomas is on the television!’ This brings Mum, Dad and Minnie running in from the kitchen, where they have been talking in low, urgent voices. On the screen now is a reporter with a microphone. He’s a small, skinny little fellow with huge, black glasses. The microphone covers most of his face. He looks like he’s getting smaller until I realise he’s sinking. Every so often, he pulls one foot out of the black mud and it comes away with a guttural sucking sound that is picked up, clear as a bell, by the microphone. The persistent rain over the past few days has turned Thomas’s five stony fields into a mud bath.

  He says, ‘I’m here in County Monag-Han at a farm that is owned by Thomas Cunning-Ham who, we understand, is engaged to be married to Katherine Kavanagh AKA Killian Kobain.’ He pauses to let the import of the sentence sink in. His feet sink a little deeper into the mud.

  Behind him, the camera picks up Thomas, who has put down the hammer – thank Christ – and is walking towards the reporter.

  Thomas says, ‘Can I help you?’ His tone is about as helpful as a hearing aid for a blind man.

  The journalist says, ‘Is it true that you are engaged to be married to Katherine Kavanagh?’

  Thomas says, ‘No.’

  The journalist says, ‘But you were romantically involved with Kat Kavanagh, were you not?’

  Thomas steps forward and the journalist steps back. Thomas says, ‘Get off my land.’

  The journalist says, ‘Did you know? That she wrote the Declan Darker books?’

  Thomas says, ‘I know a lot of things. And one of those things is that you’re trespassing on my property.’

  The journalist says, ‘Do you know who fathered the child that Kat Kavanagh gave away when she was just fifteen years old?’

  Thomas says no more. Instead, he picks up the journalist with both hands. It takes him longer than it should because he has to pull him out of the mud, which is now up to the journalist’s shins. He walks to the bit of the fence he’s built so far, and deposits the journalist on a haystack on the other side. Then he wipes his hands on the trousers of one of his two good suits and looks right at the camera, and that’s when the screen shudders as if whoever is holding the camera is running backwards – and why wouldn’t they? – before it goes dark and then switches back to the studio, where Dawn Handel is there to pick up the pieces.

  She says, ‘More from Mark Simms in Monag-Han a little later on. And now, over to the sports desk.’

  Minnie finds the remote and switches off the telly. She goes to the kitchen and switches off the radio. I hear her put on the kettle. She returns with her iPad. She says, ‘You’re trending on Twitter.’

  I say, ‘So?’ because I don’t see what difference that makes, in the general scheme of things.

  Minnie says, ‘And you’re on the front page of all the evening newspapers and I don’t just mean the Irish ones. Look.’

  She hands me her iPad and I scroll through the headlines.

  THE NINE LIVES OF KAT KAVANAGH

  KILLIAN KOBAIN GETS IN TOUCH WITH HIS FEMININE SIDE

  I GAVE MY BABY AWAY, SAYS BESTSELLING NOVELIST KAT KAVANAGH AKA KILLIAN KOBAIN.

  KAT KAVANAGH REVEALS HER DARKER SIDE

  LIKE MOTHER LIKE DAUGHTER – JANET NOBLE IS KILLIAN KOBAIN’S MOTHER!!!

  KAT’S ‘DIRTY LITTLE SECRET’

  DARKER SECRETS AT HODDER & STOUGHTON

  KAT’S GOT THE CREAM AS SALES OF KILLIAN KOBAIN’S LATEST BOOK SOAR

  I stop scrolling.

  I look at Minnie. She’s looking at me as if she expects me to say something. I say, ‘What?’

  ‘What about Faith?’

  Now they’re all looking at me. Mum and Dad and Minnie and Ed. As if they’re waiting for an answer to a question.

  Minnie says, ‘It’s only a matter of time before they get to her.’

  ‘I know, and I . . . I am going to talk to her, it’s just . . .’

  Mum says, ‘You have to talk to her now.’

  Minnie nods, ‘Unless she’s living in a hole in the ground, she’ll have heard it. She’ll have heard you. Telling the world about her.’

  Ed says, ‘She doesn’t live in a hole, Minnie. She lives in Brighton. With Milo.’

  Mum shakes her head. ‘I don’t know why you had to bring it up at the press conference, Katherine, I really don’t.’

  ‘I had to say it. They would have found out sooner or later. I had to be the one to say it.’

  Dad calls a halt. ‘I think we should all sit down. Take a breath.’

  Mum glares at him. ‘I suppose you’ll be wanting to make us tea next.’

  Dad stands up. ‘That’s a good idea,’ and he goes and makes tea and manages to find a packet of chocolate digestives, so we sit round the dining-room table and drink tea and eat chocolate digestives and we try to make sense of things. Dad has Faith’s number. He says I should ring her. Mum says, ‘No.’ She says I have to go to Brighton. I have to see Faith. Talk to her. I have to explain.

  I don’t know how to explain. I have no explanation.

  ‘I can’t go to Brighton. I can’t even get out of th
e bloody house.’

  And that’s when Minnie leans forward and smiles her malevolent smile and says, ‘You can.’

  I say, ‘How?’

  ‘I have a plan.’

  It’s me who notices first, which is weird when you consider that I never watch the news. Well, hardly ever, on account of it being either dead boring or dead sad, like when a lady gets cut up into little bits and put in a suitcase by a man who lives in a basement with a dog and a hamster. That happened once. It was on the news so it’s definitely true.

  Celia is taking a nap. I reckon she’s tired from all the trips to the hospital and back.

  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is on after the news. To make the time go a bit faster, I blow a Malteser from one end of the mantelpiece to the other with a straw, and that’s when I see her. On the telly, I mean. I’m pretty sure it’s her. I recognise her from the photographs in Ed’s room. Even if I hadn’t seen the photos, I’d probably know who she is because she looks exactly the same as Faith, except she’s old. I pick the Malteser off the mantelpiece, put it in my mouth and turn up the volume on the telly.

  She’s sitting on a chair behind a desk like the desks we have at school. There’s a microphone on the desk in front of her and she’s talking into that. I don’t know who she’s talking to. There’s a glass of water beside the microphone and she keeps picking it up and taking huge gulps out of it.

  She might look a bit like Ed too, if she smiled.

  That’s when Faith and Dad and Ant and Adrian come into the room.

  Dad says, ‘We’re going to play Scrabble.’ Dad is really bad at Scrabble. He always makes up words. He uses the internet too, which is against the rules.

  Faith looks at the telly and says, ‘Jesus.’

  Dad says, ‘What’s wrong?’

  Faith says, ‘SSSSSHHHHHH.’

  Ant and Adrian say, ‘What about Scrabble?’ at the same time. Sometimes they do that. It’s probably because they’re twins. And they love Scrabble. They mostly always win.

  Then Faith tells everyone to BE QUIET and Ant says, ‘Time of the month?’ and Adrian says, ‘Shut it, scumbag,’ and Dad says, ‘Do you want Celia to come down here again?’ and after that everyone shuts up.

  The woman on the telly points at something and nods her head and suddenly there is a man on the screen. In fact, there’re loads of them. And women too. They’re sitting in chairs. Rows and rows of chairs. They have notebooks and pens and they’re writing things into the notebooks with the pens.

  The man says, ‘So, er, Kat, is it all right if I call you Kat?’

  Kat says, ‘I can’t stop you.’

  ‘So, er, Kat, could you tell us why?’

  Kat says nothing.

  ‘Er, what I mean is, why have you kept your writing success a secret for so long?’

  Kat throws her eyes to heaven, exactly the same way that Faith does when Ant and Adrian say they can’t do the books because they’ve got a date or a pain in their toe or something. ‘To avoid this.’ She waves her hand around the room, so everyone knows she’s talking about them.

  A woman with really tight curls and a really tight suit says, ‘If that’s the case, then why are you telling us now? After all these years?’

  The camera switches back to Kat. ‘Because someone found out and has been harassing me, trying to extort money out of me.’ Then she looks directly into the camera and says, ‘The police have been notified and it’s only a matter of time before that person is uncovered.’ She looks exactly like Faith, when Faith says things like, ‘I’m going to find out sooner or later so you may as well make things easier for yourself and tell me now.’

  For a moment, nobody says anything. Then it seems like everyone in the audience starts asking questions, all at the same time.

  Ant says, ‘This is boring. When is Harry Potter coming on?’

  Adrian picks up the TV guide. ‘I hope it’s the first one. The first one’s my favourite. When Hermione’s hair is all fluffy and huge.’

  Ant says, ‘Hermione is a nerd.’

  Adrian shakes his head. ‘I like women with big hair.’

  Ant says, ‘Freak.’

  Faith watches the telly.

  Dad puts on his glasses and looks at the woman on the screen. Then he looks at Faith. Then back at the woman on the telly. But I don’t think he works it out. Not yet.

  It’s probably because he’s really tired. Yesterday, he called Celia ‘Beth’. Then he tried to put kitchen roll in the toilet roll holder in the bathroom and he forgot to put chicken in the chicken and broccoli bake. There’s something sticky in his hair and I don’t think Celia is talking to him.

  On the telly, a small man with a big belly looks at Kat and asks, ‘Are there any other skeletons in Kat Kavanagh’s closet?’

  Kat looks at the man for ages before she says anything. A woman who looks like a headmistress and is sitting beside Kat covers the microphone with her hand. She says something but I don’t know what it is. Kat shakes her head and turns back to the small man with the big belly. She says, ‘Yes. There is something.’

  She picks up a pen, rolls it between her fingers. In the room, you can hear papers shuffling and people doing those coughs that people do when they don’t actually have a cough.

  Kat says, ‘I had a daughter when I was fifteen and I put her up for adoption.’

  Silence now. Not even shuffling or coughing.

  Ant and Adrian look at Faith and say, ‘Jesus H!’ at the same time. I reckon they’ve copped on to it. You wouldn’t think it, but they pretty much got all As in their A levels.

  Dad sits on the couch so heavily that I think it might break, but it doesn’t. It holds.

  The people on the telly start asking questions, all at the same time. Cameras flash like lightning strikes.

  A woman in the audience leans so far forward in her chair that she nearly topples out of it. She straightens herself and then says, ‘Have you ever met your daughter?’

  Someone else – I can’t see who – says, ‘Why did you give her up for adoption?’

  ‘Has there been any contact with your daughter?’

  ‘Does your daughter know that you’re Killian Kobain?’

  ‘Who is your daughter?’

  ‘What’s your daughter’s name?’

  ‘Where does your daughter live?’

  And then someone – a man with a very shiny head, like it’s been polished – says, ‘Why are you telling us this now?’

  Kat puts her two hands on the desk in front of her and studies them as if she’s trying to learn them off by heart.

  Then she looks up at the man and says, ‘I’d prefer you to hear it from me.’ She stands up then and says, ‘I have no further comment.’ And she walks away without turning back and the people in the room are on their feet now, shouting questions after her and taking pictures but they’re just pictures of the back of her, because Kat never turns round.

  Then it’s back to the newsreader woman, who says, ‘Janet Noble, Katherine Kavanagh’s mother and winner of the Man Booker Prize, was unavailable for comment.’

  Ant says, ‘Holy F—’ and Dad says, ‘Mind your language, young man,’ before Ant even has time to say the F word. He often calls him and Adrian, ‘young man’. It’s because he doesn’t always know which one is which.

  The weather report is on now. The weather lady starts with: ‘My goodness. Think I’ll have to take my poster of Killian Kobain off the wall, eh?’ before she starts on about the weather.

  There’s a weather warning, she says.

  A chance of a storm, she says.

  It’ll blow over, she says.

  Soon-ish.

  Faith snaps off the television. She sits on the couch really suddenly, like her legs stopped working.

  Ant says, ‘That’s her. Isn’t it?’ He sits beside Faith and picks up one of her hands, and instead of telling him to sod off, she lets him. She just sits there and lets him.

  Dad – who sometimes forgets he do
esn’t have hair on his head anymore – brushes his fingers across his forehead like he’s taking a fringe out of his eyes. He says, ‘Do you mean . . . Is that . . . ’

  Faith nods. ‘Yes. That’s her. That’s my . . . mother.’ Faith doesn’t sound mad. She sounds like Damo’s mam when Sully is getting ready to go to the war.

  Dad says, ‘But I . . . what do you . . . how can . . . ’ I think he could do with a lie-down. He really could.

  Adrian says, ‘Well put, Father.’

  Faith says, ‘I don’t believe this.’ She’s gone as white as a sheet. I hope she’s not going to have a heart attack. George Pullman said his grandfather went as white as a sheet before he had his heart attack and dropped dead on the spot.

  Dad says, ‘I don’t understand this. She wouldn’t even see you. When you went to Dublin. And now she’s on the telly and . . .’

  Ant says, ‘Sky News.’

  Faith says, ‘Oh Christ.’ She looks like something terrible has happened.

  Dad says, ‘Now she’s on Sky . . . saying that she’s this big-shot writer who also happens to be your mother. It doesn’t make any sense.’

  Adrian says, ‘I wouldn’t imagine the two events are entirely unrelated.’ He rubs his chin with the tips of his fingers when he says this, like he’s a right old know-it-all.

  Faith looks at Adrian and says, ‘What do you mean?’

  Adrian says, ‘Some journo was snooping around, trying to out her. Threatening to reveal her identity. And, at the same time, this woman she’s never met rocks up, claiming to be her daughter.’

  Faith says, ‘Claiming?’

  I say, ‘Faith’s not lying, you stupid idiot. That woman really is her mother. We saw her name on the computer in the office in London. You tosser.’ I’m really mad now.

  Dad says, ‘Milo, that’s not very—’

  Adrian says, ‘I’m only trying to offer an explanation for the seemingly impromptu press conference that we have just witnessed, as I was, in fact, requested to do by your good self, Faith.’

  Faith starts to cry. I turn to Adrian and say, ‘Now look what you’ve done.’ It’s only then I realise I’m shaking. I think it’s because I’m mad and I’m not even sure why I’m mad. I think it’s to do with Christmas. And Mam. Mam loved Christmas. She should be here at Christmas time. I don’t mean here, like in Scotland. Just, here. With us. And she should be Faith’s mam. Her real mam. That’s the way everything was before. Everything was fine before.