Lifesaving for Beginners (6 page)

I inched my way to the front of the plane.
Eventually, I disembarked.

Thomas rang the next day.

He said, ‘It’s me.’

I said, ‘Who?’
even though I knew immediately.
Definitely Monaghan, I decided.

He said, ‘Cunningham.
Thomas Cunningham.
We met on the plane yesterday, remember?
I was reading
Dirty Little Secret
.
You were pretending to say the rosary.’

‘I was not pretending.’
The cheek.

‘Anyway, I just wondered if you’ll be hungry on Friday, around eight?’

‘How did you get this number?’

‘I’m a journalist.’

‘So?’

‘I can’t reveal my source.’

‘I demand to know how you got my number.’

‘The telephone directory.’

‘But .
.
.
I didn’t know I was in the telephone directory.’

‘You have to ask to be left out of it.
Otherwise, Eircom just put you in automatically.’

‘Oh.’

‘So?
What do you think?
Might you be hungry then?’

‘I don’t know.’

A pause.
Thomas didn’t fill it.

I said, ‘Why?’

‘Because if you were hungry, I could take you out for the bit of dinner.’

‘Dinner?’
I say, like I’ve never heard of it before.

‘Or if you weren’t hungry, we could skip dinner and go straight to the show.’

‘What show?’

‘The magic show.
In the Button Factory.
It’s very good, so it is.
I saw it last year.
There’re no white rabbits and no black hats.
It’s good.’

I’d never been to a magic show.
‘Why?’
I asked.

He said, ‘Nothing like a bit of magic on a Friday night.’
I was supposed to meet Minnie that Friday night.
To celebrate the completion of the latest Declan Darker novel.
A cocktail at the Shelbourne and dinner at One Pico.

I opened my mouth to say what needed to be said.
Instead, I said, ‘OK.’

‘OK to dinner or OK to the magic show or OK to both?’

‘Eh, both.’
I couldn’t get over myself.

‘Grand, so.
I’ll pick you up at half seven, OK?’

‘OK.’

‘Great.
See you then.’

‘OK.’

Minnie said, ‘I’m getting dumped for a muck savage from Monaghan?’
when I told her.

I said, ‘Yes.’
I was as shocked as she was.

Now, I look around the kitchen and say, ‘What are you doing?’

Thomas says, ‘I’m making lemon and ginger biscuits.’

That could be true because there are bits of what could be biscuit dough on the counter, the table, the floor, the door of the fridge and all down the front of Thomas’s shirt.
There’s also a pretty big lump of it in his hair.

‘What about dinner?
I’m hungry.’
Minnie would say, ‘Quit your whining,’ if she were here.

Thomas doesn’t say that.
Instead, he says, ‘I’ve made your favourite.’

I look around with suspicion.
‘What?’

‘Guess.’

‘Takeaway.’

He smiles.
‘No, I mean your favourite home-cooked meal.’

Before Thomas came to stay, I didn’t have a favourite home-cooked meal unless you count cheese and ham toasties.

‘I’m not guessing.
I have no idea.’

He says, ‘Goulash,’ and lifts the lid off a gigantic saucepan to reveal a thick, bloody, boiling mass.
He lowers the lid – so carefully, as if he’s anxious not to disturb it – then looks at his watch and says, ‘Dinner in eighteen minutes.’

I say, ‘Why do you think goulash is my favourite home-cooked dinner?’

He says, ‘Because you loved it when I cooked it for you the last time.
Remember?
You had a cold and I cooked you goulash and it was really, really hot because I put a bit too much paprika into it, and you said it was better than a bottle of Night Nurse because the minute you ate it, you were cured, remember?’

‘No.’

He refills my glass.

He says, ‘Don’t worry about the kitchen; I’ll clean it up.’

He says, ‘Don’t worry about the goulash; it’s not as hot as the last time.’

He says, ‘Don’t worry about the lemon and ginger biscuits; they’re supposed to look like that.’

I’m going out of my mind.

It’s later when I come up with the plan.
It’s not a lie as such.
It’s more like self-defence.
I throw myself a lifebelt.
I have to.
It’s either that, or say, ‘Look, it’s not you.
It’s me.’
Anyway, it’s not like I want to break up or anything as drastic as that.
I just need .
.
.
a break.
A mini-break.
That’s all.

I say, ‘Brona is anxious to see some of the new manuscript and I haven’t got much so far so I was thinking about barricading myself into the apartment, switching off the phones and just getting down to it.’
I don’t mention that I haven’t written any of the new manuscript.
None of it.
Not one word since the accident.
The bloody miracle.

Thomas smiles and says, ‘Good idea.
I’m glad you’re getting back to work.
It’s a good sign.’
He puts his hand on mine.
His smile is one of those encouraging ones.
His tone is a master class in tenderness.
I feel like I’m being crushed to death in the back of a bin lorry.

I say, ‘So I was wondering if you could .
.
.’

‘You want me to make myself scarce?’

‘Yes.’

‘No problem.
I need to spend some time on the farm anyway.
It’s coming up to harvest time.
Need to make hay while the sun shines, eh?’

He leaves early the next morning, when I’m still in bed.
I’m half asleep when he comes to kiss me goodbye.
His hair is damp from the shower.
He smells of my Clinique shower gel, which I’m always telling him not to use.
He kisses me for ages and I worry about my breath because I haven’t brushed my teeth yet, but he just keeps on kissing me, as if there’s nothing to worry about at all.
Then he takes off all his clothes again and gets back into bed and we have sex and Thomas calls it ‘one for the road’.

He says, ‘Give me a call.
I know you’re writing.
But the odd time.
OK?
Just to let me know you’re all right.’

‘Why wouldn’t I be all right?’

‘Well, maybe you might be wondering if I’m OK.’

‘You’ll be fine.’

‘A farm is a dangerous place, you know.’

‘It’s not a farm.
It’s five stony fields.’

‘Five grand big fields.’

I say, ‘See you next week.’

He says, ‘Kiss me again, for luck.’

Then he says, ‘Hang on, I’ve left my wallet in the bathroom.’

Then he says, ‘Wait, I’d better take some of those lemon and ginger biscuits for the journey.’

‘It’s an hour’s drive, for God’s sake.’

After a very, very long time, he leaves.
I stand in the hall and breathe it in.
The silence.
It’s like something physical, the silence.
Something you can get a hold of.

I am alone in the apartment.
I can do anything I like.
Nobody will say, ‘Are you all right?’
or ‘How are you feeling?’
or ‘Isn’t it such a bloody miracle that you’re alive?’

Mostly, I do nothing.
I watch a lot of telly and I eat Cheerios out of the box.
I order a lot of takeaway and I make a fairly good dent in a box of wine.
I don’t think about the accident – the bloody miracle – and I don’t think about my rib, mostly because it doesn’t really hurt anymore.
When I’m in danger of thinking about anything serious – like my deadline or how quiet the place is since Thomas left – I turn on the telly.
Daytime television is enough to banish even the merest whisper of a serious thought right out of your head.

I do this for a few days and then I have to venture out for essentials.
Cigarettes.
Wine.
Dinner.
Dessert.

It’s when I’m on my way back that I meet Nicolas.
Nicolas from number thirteen, who always makes suggestive remarks when I meet him in the lobby downstairs.
Today is no different.
Nicolas is in the lobby, checking his post.
He takes a few flyers out of his letterbox and straightens, which is when he sees me and smiles.
His face is long, his teeth are small and his mouth is wide, and the combination of these features brings to mind a crocodile in long-term captivity.
His expression tends towards resigned.

‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t Ms Kavanagh from the fancy penthouse.
Looking foxy as always, Kat.’

I say, ‘Hello, Nicolas.’

‘Where’s Farmer Tom?
I haven’t seen him recently.’

‘Thomas isn’t a farmer.
He just tells people he is.’

‘Whatevs.
Where is he?’

‘Gone away.’
I allow a trace of melancholy into my tone.
Perhaps I’m after a bit of drama after my quiet few days.

Nicolas sweeps me up and down with his eyes.
He always does this.
I’d say he’d make a great eye-witness in a courtroom drama.
He takes it all in.
His eyes settle on the bags I’m carrying, straining with junk.
‘Let me help you.’
And before I can tell him to piss off, he’s wrestled the two bags out of my hands and he’s jabbing the lift call button with his index finger.
Inside the lift, he puts the bags down and they clink and crinkle in a most revelatory manner.
Nicolas looks inside.
Cheeky rat.
He says, ‘Having a bit of par-tay, are we?’
I ignore him, which does nothing to deflate him.
He hunkers down and does a quick inventory.
‘Tub of Ben & Jerry’s, two bottles of Sancerre, family-size pepperoni, Kettle Chips, large bar of Cadbury’s mint crisp and .
.
.’
he rummages around at the bottom of the bag, ‘.
.
.
ah yes, forty Silk Cut Blue.’
He looks up and grins.
‘How do you get to be so gorgeous on a diet like this?’

I don’t know why I let him into the apartment in the end.

He’s in sales.
And I need a distraction from the deadline and the quiet.
A pushy salesman and a woman in need of distraction.
That’s a pretty deadly combination.
But of course, I could have taken my bags of junk and shut the door in his face.
I’ve done that before.

We eat the family-size pepperoni with one of the bottles of Sancerre to wash it down.
Dessert is the gigantic bar of mint crisp and I resent breaking it into bits.
We don’t bother with coffee.
We just go right ahead and open the second bottle of wine.

Nicolas becomes less sleazy as the afternoon wanes into evening.
And there is something attractive about him.
I just never noticed it before.
He starts calling me pussy-cat, which I find not unamusing.