Lifesaving for Beginners (31 page)

May 1987

Me and Ed and Minnie are watching
Top of the Pops
.
It must be Thursday.

Minnie says, ‘Mel and Kim are still at number eight.’
We love Mel and Kim.
We have Mel and Kim hats.
We put them on and do the Mel and Kim dance.
I am Mel.
Minnie is Kim.
I am a better dancer but the hat looks better on Minnie.

Something happens.
I’m not sure what.
I look down and am surprised to see the top of my jeans darkening with wet.
It feels warm.

‘Jesus, Kat, did you piss yourself ?’
Minnie says.
Ed laughs, because Minnie said, ‘piss’.
He loves bad language.
All ten-year-old boys love the word ‘piss’.

I’ve been feeling strange all day.
There have been pains.
Tight clutches of pain that are gone as suddenly as they arrive.
I ate a McDonald’s for lunch.
I put it down to that.
Now, with the water gushing from me, I’m not so sure.
I sit on the couch.

Minnie says, ‘Be quiet.’
I don’t realise I have made any sound.
She closes the door.
‘My mother will hear you.’

Ed sits on the couch beside me.
‘Is Kat OK?’
he asks Minnie.

Minnie says, ‘Don’t worry, Ed.’
She grabs my hand and tries to pull me up.
‘Kat’s just got a pain in her tummy.
I’ll take her to my room.’

Ed says, ‘I’ll go and tell my mammy,’ and Minnie runs after him while I wrestle with another pain.
It hurts more than the last one.

Minnie says, ‘Shut up, would you?’
She’s got Ed in a headlock.
He’s struggling but he doesn’t say anything, which means he’s scared.

I say, ‘Let him go,’ when the pain loosens its grip.

Minnie says, ‘He’ll tell your mam.’
Ed begins to cry.
He doesn’t cry often but when he does, he lifts the roof of the house.
I feel a kind of relief.
Resignation.
Ed will tell Mum and she will come and she’ll know what to do.

The next pain terrifies me.
Up to now, the most painful thing that ever happened to me was getting my finger caught in the hinge of the hood of my doll’s pram.

‘Help me, Minnie.’
I think I shout it.

Ed looks as scared as I feel.
He struggles out of Minnie’s grip and runs out of the room.
For once, Minnie looks unsure.

I say, ‘What will I do?’

Minnie shakes her head.
‘I don’t know,’ she says.
That’s the first time she’s ever said that.

I hear the sound of footsteps coming down the hall.
I know it is Minnie’s mother.
It’s the plink-plink of her stilettos against the floor that gives her away.
No matter how many babies she holds in her arms, she insists on high heels.
She says they’re all she has left, whatever that means.

‘Girls?’
she calls as she approaches.
‘Minnie?
Kat?
What’s going o—’ I look up.
She stands in the doorway, looking at me.
Her mouth is a circle of shock.
Her hands fly to her face.

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ she whispers.

I begin to cry.

We’re in a café that’s called the Cream Bun, which is a pretty good name for a café but not as good as the Funky Banana.
The Christmas tree is a silver, artificial one with flashing lights.
If you’re going to put a Christmas tree up this early, you’d better make sure it’s artificial.
Otherwise, it’ll be long dead by the time Christmas comes around.

They don’t have banana muffins so I just get an apple and cinnamon one, which happens to be my second favourite.
It’s good, but there’s icing on the top.
Muffins aren’t supposed to have icing on the top.

I don’t order the hot chocolate with the marshmallows because it’s three euro and twenty cents.
I haven’t changed my one hundred and thirty-six pounds and fifteen pence into euro yet and I don’t know how much money Faith brought with her.
I know she’s in a band and everything, but I don’t think she makes very much money.
It’s not that they’re no good or anything.
It’s just that no one’s ever heard of them and their songs aren’t on the radio yet.
When their songs are on the radio, I expect Faith will have more money for hot chocolates.
I ask for a glass of water and when the man says, ‘Sparkling or still?’
I just say, ‘From the tap, please.’

Right about now I’m missing maths, which is fine by me, but in twenty minutes, I’m supposed to be in the library with Carla.
It’s our turn to help Miss Rintoole tidy up and put the books where they’re supposed to be.
The library is just a classroom really.
And Miss Rintoole is not a real librarian.
She’s a teacher who happens to be in charge of the library.
Miss Williams always gets me and Carla to do jobs together, like bringing books to the office to get photocopies.
Carla’s got one of those laughs that make no sound, which is probably why she never gets in trouble.
Her hair is very long.
She can sit on the ends of it when it’s not in plaits.
She looks a bit like Pocahontas, when her hair’s in plaits.
And she never wears anything but jeans.
She was the only girl wearing jeans at Stephanie Nugent’s party.
Stephanie’s mam said it wasn’t fair to leave people out so she had to invite everyone.
Even George Pullman.

Faith says, ‘You’re miles away.
What are you thinking about?’

I say, ‘Nothing.’
If I tell her about Carla, Faith will think that Carla is my girlfriend, because that’s what adults say when a boy happens to be friends with a girl who happens to be in his class.

Faith says, ‘You never tell me anything anymore.’
She’s sort of smiling but I think she’s being pretty serious too.

I say, ‘I do so,’ even though I don’t.
Not really.
Not anymore.
Because Faith is sort of a bit like Mam now.
Like, she’s supposed to make me my dinner and make sure I brush my teeth and check that there’s no dirt under my fingernails and that I say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ when I’m talking to adults.
Stuff like that.

Before, I might have told her about Carla.
Not that there’s anything to tell, exactly.
I might have said something about me liking Carla, not because she’s a girl or anything but because she happens to be a pretty interesting person when you think about it.
She knows a lot about the Big Bang.

Faith looks at her phone again.
It hasn’t rung or beeped since she left the note in the letterbox but she keeps checking it as if it has.

So I say, ‘I was thinking about school.’

‘What about it?’

‘Me and Carla usually help in the library on Tuesdays.
Just before break.’

‘Carla?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Is she your friend?’

‘She’s in my class.’

‘Is she your girlfriend?’
See what I mean?

I shake my head.

Faith checks her phone.

Before Faith goes to the loo – she calls it the Ladies – she checks her phone again.
It hasn’t made one single sound since the last time she checked it.

Then, the minute she’s gone, her phone starts to ring.
If Mam were here, she’d say, ‘Typical!’

Ed says, ‘Kat, do you think the baby will mind that I have Down’s?’

I say, ‘She’s not a baby.
She’s twenty-four.’

Ed says, ‘Is she ten years younger than me, Kat?’

‘Yes.’

‘So that means I was ten when she was born.’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t remember seeing her when I was ten.’

‘You didn’t see her.’

‘Did you see her?’

‘Not really.’

‘That must have made you sad.’

Ed and I are ice-skating in Smithfield.
Well, Ed is ice-skating.
I stand outside the rink, on the green felt that is reserved for anxious parents so that they can watch their offspring wobble round the rink.

I am not anxious.
Not about Ed ice-skating, at any rate.
He loves falling as much as he loves skating.
He has no fear of falling, which sets him apart from any of the other adults on the ice.
He falls in a tumble of arms and legs and ends up skidding, on his knees, sending up ice like a flurry of snow.
This sets him off.
He laughs like a group of people laughing.
It’s loud.
And pretty traditional.
He actually uses the words: ‘Hahahahahahaha!’
When you hear him laugh, you’ll laugh.
Even if you’re like me and not given to outbursts of laughter.
And it’s not because I’m humourless.
It’s just that things are rarely all that funny.

This is our December tradition.
We always come here as soon as it opens on the first of December, to avoid the Christmas crowds.
We’ve been doing it for years.
Just me and Ed.
Ed has never invited Sophie.
I have never asked Minnie.
Although, last year, Ed suggested that Thomas might come.
And last year, Thomas asked me if he could come.
I told Ed that Thomas couldn’t come because he was working.
And I told Thomas that he couldn’t come because Ed would prefer if it was just the two of us.
Just me and Ed.

Ed said, ‘That’s a shame.’

Thomas said, ‘I see,’ looking at me like he knew everything.
Then he said, ‘Maybe next year.’
And for a moment back then, I thought: yeah.
Maybe.
Why not?
Why not next year?
And I shrugged my shoulders as if I wasn’t thinking that and I said, ‘Maybe,’ and then I stopped walking and I grabbed his arm so he had to stop too.
We were on Dollymount Strand that day doing one of those unbelievably long walks that Thomas was so fond of.
I suppose I got used to them in the end.
I might even have enjoyed some of them.
And he said, ‘What?’
And I said, ‘Nothing.’
But I think he sort of knew what was going on inside my head because he bent down and stuck his face in front of mine and kissed me in that offhand way he had.
Without touching me.
He had no form whatsoever.
No style at all.
I don’t know why I liked it so much.
The way he kissed me.
Then, only because he knew I wasn’t a sand-dune kind of woman, he suggested we go straight to my apartment for a matinee performance of
Grey’s Anatomy
.
I said, ‘OK.’

Ed says, ‘Did it, Kat?’

I say, ‘What?’

‘Did it make you sad?
When you didn’t get to see Faith?’

I don’t answer quickly enough because Ed shoots off, shouting, ‘Time me,’ over his shoulder as he scorches his way up one side of the rink and down the other.

I say, ‘Twenty seconds.’

He says, ‘That’s my fastest time, Kat.’

‘No it’s not.
You did it in nineteen the year before last.’

The woman standing beside me looks at me.
She has a white face and a long narrow nose with a red tip – a testament to the bitterness of the day.
If her face wasn’t so frozen solid with the cold, it would have an expression that I have seen before.
A ‘have a bit of compassion’ expression.
A ‘give the mentally handicapped man a break’ expression.

I see off her look with a matching one of my own, except that mine is more of a ‘mind your own bloody patronising business’ kind of an expression.
She looks away.

Ed is sulking.
I know he is because his bottom lip sticks out.

I say, ‘Go on, try again.
If you did it in nineteen seconds the year before last, you can do it in nineteen seconds now.’

Ed says, ‘I can’t do it any faster.’

I say, ‘You can.’

He pushes himself off the wall and goes again.
Nineteen seconds around the rink.

I say, ‘See?
I told you you could do it.’

Ed can’t respond because he is bent over the wall, panting hard.

I put my hand round his arm.
‘Ed?’

He shakes his head.

‘Ed?
Are you all right?
Do you want to sit down?’
I bend so I can see his face, which is brick red.
His eyes are shut.
Maybe Thomas was right.
But the tests from the hospital were good the last time.
So long as he keeps taking the medication.

‘Ed?’

When he straightens, his bottom lip is not sticking out anymore.
It is curved in a smile.
‘I did it!’
he says, when he catches his breath.

I smile.
‘I told you you could do it.
Come on.’
When he steps off the ice, I take his hand.
He’s great on the ice but inexplicably unsteady on level, non-slippy ground when he’s got the skates on.
‘Let’s go and get some lunch.’
I want red wine and a packet of cigarettes but Ed will want a main course and dessert.
The doctor told him to watch his weight but it’s like telling Gordon Ramsay not to shout in a kitchen.

We take a cab to the Guinness Storehouse, which is one of Ed’s favourite places.
He loves the glass lift that goes to the top.
He says it’s like the lift in
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
,
which is one of his favourite books-made-into-films films.
I love the views of the city from the bar.
The pigeon houses, sturdy and dependable, in their candy stripe, lording it over Dublin Bay.

Already, the lights are coming on around the city, like cats’ eyes, getting brighter as the pale light of afternoon drains away.
I drink red wine, which is frowned on at the Guinness Storehouse, but not forbidden.
I like the aesthetics of a pint of Guinness.
The intricacy of the pour.
The angle of the glass below the tap.
The pause near the top to allow the stout to settle.
The ceremony.
I like that.
It’s the taste of it I object to.
Ed drinks a glass of it, sweetened with blackcurrant.

In the restaurant, Ed eats Guinness and beef stew.
He orders the same thing everywhere we go.
The chicken wings in Elephant and Castle.
The mussels in the Winding Stair.
The profiteroles in the Talbot 101.
And, of course, the lean-on-me pizza in the Leaning Tower of Pizza.
He never deviates.
He is a comforting restaurant companion.
For a week after payday, Ed insists on paying.
He says, ‘I’ll get this,’ when the waitress brings the bill in a leather wallet and hands it to me.
He reaches across the table with his big smile and takes the wallet and says, ‘I’ll get this.’
He pays in cash.
He has a laser card but he likes the heft of his wallet when there are notes inside.
He leaves a tip.
A big one.
He winks at the waitress and says, ‘Keep the change,’ when she returns to the table.

Adults don’t look at Ed.
Not really.
Children do.
They look and they listen and then they turn to their mothers or fathers or childminders and they say, ‘Why is that man talking like that?’
And they are pulled away by their thin little arms and told to ssshhhh or be quiet or stop staring and they don’t know why, and so they grow into adults who don’t look at people like Ed.

Thomas says, ‘Not everyone is like that.’
He likes to see the good in people.

Ed says, ‘I got Faith a present.’

When I don’t answer, he says, ‘Do you want to see it?’
He unzips the pocket of his anorak, digs his hand in and pulls out a square blue box, a little creased and dented at the edges.
He undoes the pale pink ribbon that is tied round the box and lifts the lid.
His movements are slow, careful.
His tongue, trapped between his front teeth, pokes out of his mouth in concentration.

The necklace is a silver one with a plaque that reads ‘Faith’, in old Irish script.
When you see necklaces like these, dangling from a stand in a tourist shop with every name you can think of engraved along their plaques, you think nothing of them.
Or if you do, you think they are cheap and tacky.

Perhaps it is the box.
The careful way that Ed handles the box.
Or the way the necklace nestles inside the box, on a cloud of cotton wool.
Or perhaps it is because the necklace is on its own and not jostling for position, dangling from a stand in a tourist shop with all the others.
Maybe it’s the engraving on the other side of the plaque.
The one that says ‘Love from Uncle Ed’.

After a while, I say, ‘It’s lovely.’
My tone is brisk.
Economical.

Ed says, ‘I know.’

I put my glass down and cover his hand with mine.

‘What’s wrong, Kat?’

‘I’m scared.’
I didn’t know I was going to say that.

Ed looks around the restaurant.
He turns back to me.
‘There’s nothing there, Kat.
Nothing to be scared of.’

I nod.
‘I know.’

‘You’re being silly.’

‘I know.’

‘Why are you crying?’

‘I’m not.’

‘You are.’

I grab a napkin and press it against my eyes.
‘I think I’m getting a cold.’
My voice sounds like someone is squeezing their hands round my throat.
Ed looks worried and the doctor said he wasn’t to worry.
No worry.
No stress.
No fried foods.
Things like that are bad for his condition.
I clear my throat.
Put the napkin down.
Straighten in my seat.

Ed says, ‘Do you think Faith won’t like you?
Is that what you’re scared of ?
Because you don’t have a present for her?’

I nod.

Ed says, ‘She will like you, Kat.
You’re the best.’

I stand up.
‘We should go.’

Afterwards, when I drop him home, Ed runs round to my side of the car and knocks on the window so I have to lower it.
It’s cold enough to snow.
He leans in and hugs me.
I’m not mad about hugging but Ed is pretty good at it.
Especially when it’s cold.
He’s always warm.

He pulls away then and looks at me.
He looks at me like I am someone good.
When he looks at me like that, I nearly believe it.
Just for a moment.
And then he smiles and turns.
I stay like I always do.
I stay until he opens the door and gives me one more wave and disappears into the house.

I’m most of the way home when the phone rings.
‘Hello?’

‘Kat?
It’s Dad.’
Which is strange because he never rings.