Lifesaving for Beginners (14 page)

Me and Damo are at the Funky Banana.
I didn’t say sorry for hitting him but Damo got me in a headlock in the playground the next day at school and ran around for a bit and then let me go and laughed, so I knew we were friends again.

Jack asks about Faith.
He says, ‘How’s the lovely Faith these days?’
He always calls her the lovely Faith and wants to know how she’s doing.
I don’t know why he doesn’t ask her himself when she’s here.

I say, ‘She’s fine.’

‘Has she heard from Jonathon yet?’

Faith rings Jonathon nearly every day and he never has any news for her.
But I don’t tell Jack that.
I just shrug as if I don’t know.
I’m not mad about talking to people about it, to be honest.

Jack is great.
Damo thinks so too.
He has a motorbike and he always gives us the biggest slice of banoffi with ice cream on the side, even though you’re not supposed to have ice cream on the side because of all the cream on the top of the banoffi.
It’s hard to pick a very favourite dessert but banoffi is definitely one of my favourites.
I’m not allowed to pick up the bowl and lick it in the café so I just use my finger instead.
Damo puts a blob of ice cream on the end of his nose with his finger and then licks it off with his tongue.

Earwigs are the only thing Damo is afraid of, on account of the way they crawl inside your ear and lay eggs and then you have millions of baby earwigs inside your brain.
He’s always putting his fingers in his ears, checking.
When he takes them out, they’ve got yellow wax on them and then he chases me around the Funky Banana, like he’s going to wipe the wax on my T-shirt with his fingers.
Jack doesn’t mind.
He is cleaning up.
He says this is his favourite time in the café.
When there’re no customers.
I prefer it when there’re lots of people.
I like guessing what they’ll order.
That’s easy with the regulars, although it depends on what time they come in at.
The banana and peanut-butter muffins are the most popular.
Jack says they’re our signature bun.
He makes them now.
They’re nearly as good as Mam’s.

Jack says he’ll take me and Damo to the cinema, just as soon as he gets his paperwork done.
He does it on the computer.
He types in his username and password.
His username is Jack2276, because his name is Jack and the last four digits of the café’s telephone number are 2276.
His password is cinnamon, which happens to be the name of his cat.
He’s had the same password for ages.
I’ve told him he should change it regularly but he never bothers.

We’re going to see
The Three Musketeers
.
We are going to take it in turns to be d’Artagnan.
We use the cardboard holders inside the rolls of tinfoil, for swords.
We point them at each other and shout, ‘ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL.’

We were late getting to the café because Faith and Rob were fighting again, in our house, before we got into Rob’s van to drive over to the Funky Banana.
Jack said that me and Damo could have a sleepover in his house because Four Men and a Woman are doing a gig in London.
A gig is like a concert except you don’t get paid.

But Faith said no.
She said she’d come straight home after the gig and pick us up, which is a pity because that means we won’t get a really long go of Jack’s Xbox.
Jack lets us play Batman: Arkham City, even though you’re not supposed to until you’re fifteen.

That’s when the fight started, because Rob said, ‘Ah come on, Faith.
We haven’t been out in ages.
We can stay with Kegs.
It’ll be a laugh.’
Kegs is Rob’s older brother.
He wears a suit and works in an office.
I’m pretty sure Kegs isn’t his real name.

Faith shook her head.
‘I can’t.
I want to have a clear head for tomorrow.
I’m going into the café to do the books.’
The books aren’t really books at all.
It’s just sums.
Like the amount of money the customers pay for a Sweet Funky Monkey sandwich (that’s a banana and honey sandwich, which happens to be the most popular one for the customers who are about my age), minus the cost of the bread and bananas and honey you use to make the sandwiches.
Ant and Adrian are the best at the books but they are in London.
Dad used to like doing the books.
He said it relaxed him.
Mam said there were better ways to relax.
She said it in a funny sort of voice and looked at him weird and then they’d go for a nap, which is when you go to sleep in the middle of the day with no pyjamas on.
But that was ages ago.
Way before he went to Scotland to live with Celia.

Faith said, ‘I’m not going to just palm him off on any Tom, Dick or Harry.’

Rob said, ‘You’re not palming him off.
You’re going out.
For one night.
One measly night.
And this gig is important.
That scout could be there tonight.
He might want to talk to us afterwards.
We don’t want to be rushing off.’

They were standing in the hall, talking in really loud whispers that sounded like Mrs Barber’s cat hissing.

‘Oh, I’m sorry if his mother dying has inconvenienced you.’
Faith doesn’t sound sorry.
She sounds mad.
Really mad, like the time her appendix burst and she missed the Raconteurs at the Hammersmith Apollo.

‘Faith, stop.
You know I didn’t mean it like that.
It’s just—’

‘Let’s see, what else?
Oh yes.
And I can see how you’ve overlooked this tiny detail, but let’s not forget that I’ve just found out that my whole life is a lie.
Everything I thought was true is in fact the opposite of true.’

‘False’ I think, but I don’t say it out loud.
Miss Williams loves opposites.
She makes us play this game.
She calls it ‘Word Buzz’, when she shouts out a word and points at one of us and we have to shout back, except we have to say the exact opposite of the word she has said.
It’s better than mathematical patterns, I suppose.
And we don’t get in trouble for shouting.

Rob says, ‘That’s a little melodramatic, don’t you think?’

Faith says, ‘No.
I don’t.’

That’s when Faith looks at Rob like she’s about to give him a Chinese burn.
She opens the hall door and walks out to the van.
Rob shakes his head.
He says, ‘Come on, Milo and Damo.
It looks like we’re going.’

Later, at the café, Faith says, ‘I’ll bring you back something from London.
What would you like?’

I say, ‘Nothing.
I’m fine.’

Faith says, ‘I’ll get you some sweets, yeah?
And I’ll pick you up from Jack’s house after the gig, yeah?
Around midnight, all right?
I’ll ring if I’m going to be a bit later, OK?’
She doesn’t kiss me because Damo is here.

I say, ‘You know, I could have a sleepover at Jack’s.
I don’t mind.
I want to.’
This is not exactly one hundred per cent true.
I mean, Jack’s great and everything.
It’s just, when it gets dark, I like being in my own house.
Faith doesn’t mind me leaving the landing light on when I go to bed.

Faith hugs me but I don’t think Damo notices.
He’s too busy telling Jack what happens in the movie, even though Jack keeps telling him not to.
Jack doesn’t like knowing what’s going to happen next.

‘And you have to start thinking about what you want for Christmas, yeah?’
She doesn’t say anything about Santa.
That’s one good thing about your sister minding you instead of your mam.
Even if she’s not really your sister.
You don’t have to pretend to believe in Santa.

I say, ‘It’s only November.’
But I’m glad she mentioned Christmas, all the same.
I was a little bit worried about it this year.

Rob is standing at the door of the café, jangling the keys to the van.
Faith’s violin case is tucked under his arm.
He says, ‘Come on, if you’re coming.’

Faith nods and they walk outside.
I run out of the door and catch Rob before he gets back into the van, and tell him what the speed limit is on the A23, which is the main road to London.
I Googled it.

He says, ‘Don’t worry, Milo.
I won’t drive fast.
Faith won’t let me, will you?’
He tugs her hair and she punches his arm, which means they’re friends again.
Just like me and Damo.

I ring Ed.

‘Whatcha doin’?’

‘Whatcha’ doesn’t sound as needy.

‘I’m working.’

‘Oh.’

Ed waits for me to say something else.

‘Whatcha doin’ after work?’

‘I have a date.
With Sophie.’

‘Oh.’

‘A letter came for you this morning.
To our house.’

‘Really?’
Sometimes the secretarial college I went to a million years ago sends letters to my parents’ address.
Trying to sell me refresher courses and whatnot.
Upselling, Minnie calls it.
It’s probably from them.

‘You working tomorrow?’

‘Nope.’

‘Wanna do something?’

‘Wanna’ is good too.
People feel they can say ‘no’ if you use the word ‘wanna’ rather than ‘Do you want to .
.
.
’

‘Yep.’

‘I’ll pick you up,’ and I hang up before he remembers something he needs to do tomorrow instead of coming out with me.

I ring Minnie.

‘Whatcha doin’?’
Whatcha.
Casual.
Carefree.

‘It’s Monday morning.
I’m working.’

‘It’s Monday?’

Minnie doesn’t answer.
I can hear her furious fingers thumping a keyboard.

‘I’m just ringing to make absolutely certain that you’re not planning on organising a surprise birthday party for me.’

‘It’s only November.’

‘Yes, but if you were organising a surprise party for January, you’d probably start planning in November, wouldn’t you?’

‘I’m not.’

‘You sure?
Because I would hate that.
I would really hate that.’

‘I know.’

‘So you’re not planning anything.’

‘Definitely not.’

‘Great.’

‘Anything else I can help you with?’
Her tone is not as sincere as it could be.

‘You busy?’

She sighs.
If there were papers on her desk, there’s a good chance they’re on the floor now.

Minnie is an accountant.
I can’t believe she ended up being an accountant.
She could have done any course she wanted.
She got eight As in her Leaving Certificate.
In those days, the As and Bs weren’t divided up like they are now.
But I’d say that if they re-examined her papers, the As would have been A1s.
I’m positive.
She did her best to mask her smarts, and because she was so good-looking and wild, she mostly got away with it.
She joined a small, strictly non-profit theatre troupe and toured with them for a while.
It drove her old pair mental, which I think might have been the point.
She sometimes acted, sometimes directed, all the while experimenting with the kind of meds you can’t get over the counter, drinking complicated Martinis and judging Battle of the Band competitions up and down the country.
I’m not sure how she got that gig.
She may have slept with Fiachna Ó Braonáin at one time or other.

Anyway, that’s not the point.
The point is that she spent six months doing that.
And then she met Maurice, who happened to be an accountant.
Just met him in a random sort of a way.
In a café, I think.
Or a Spar.
Somewhere like that.
They got to talking, I suppose, and that was it.
Accountancy was like an infection that Maurice passed to Minnie.
Like German measles.
Soon she was covered in it and before you could say tax fecking return, she had herself enrolled in an accountancy course at Trinity College for the following September.
It happened so quickly.
There was nothing I could do.

Minnie says some people are born to be accountants.
I swear to God, she said that once, and, even though the two of us were most of the way down a bottle of wine, I think she meant every word.
She said that if she hadn’t met Maurice and discovered her love of accountancy (and accountants, let’s face it: Maurice is an accountant and she’s cracked about him), then she might have ended up a junkie.
Or – knowing her – an A-list actor.
She shuddered when she said that, as if she was dead and a junkie, or an A-list actor, was jumping on her grave in heavy boots.

She couldn’t look at me the morning after she told me that she was cracked about Maurice and had signed up for an accountancy course.
Too ashamed, I suppose.
We were on holiday together at the time.
I told her there were worse things to be but when she asked me to be specific, it took me a while.

Back then, I was writing the second draft of the first Declan Darker novel and had three publishers interested.
That was Minnie’s fault.
Read and destroy was the deal.
Read the manuscript, destroy the evidence in the bottom of an industrial bin at the industrial estate where her father’s business was.
She swore.
I should have known better.
After she’d read the first draft, she put the whole lot into a brown envelope and used up pretty much an entire week’s cigarette money posting it to Hodder & Stoughton in London.
She said Dublin wasn’t big enough for Declan Darker when I asked her why she didn’t send it to an Irish publisher.
She also told me that I owed her five pounds and twenty-two pence.

I kept writing and pretended – to my father and sometimes to my mother, whenever she enquired – that I was attending the private secretarial course that my father had paid a fortune for and which was about all I was fit for, once the Leaving Cert.
results came out.

The publishers found my insistence on a male pseudonym amusing.
I know that, because Jeremy said, ‘How amusing.’

At first, it was just about Mum finding out.
Crime fiction was up there with breaking and entering, as far as she was concerned.
It was most certainly not an art.
It wasn’t even a craft.
It was like painting by numbers.
She said that once.
In a television interview.

So I told Dad that I’d graduated from my secretarial course with first-class honours – that never happened – and was now gainfully employed as a trainee technical writer for a software company based in Cork.
This is a handy job for someone who needs a cover.
In fact, be wary of the man you meet on the shady side of a bar on a Thursday night who confesses to being a technical writer.
Dodgy as all hell.

Cork was where I said I was whenever I needed to be somewhere like, for example, London, meeting Brona, or what have you.

Of course, I always meant to tell them.
Someday.
Confess, Minnie calls it.
But things got out of hand.
It really started when
Dirty Little Secret
featured on Oprah’s Book Club.
One word from Oprah (the word happened to be ‘compelling’) and the book started selling like Nicorette patches on New Year’s Day.
Then there was the bidding war for the third book.
I think there were five publishing houses involved, in the end.
Minnie fielded the offers, from a payphone outside the Raheny public library.
Then, the media campaign to find out who Killian Kobain was.
You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff the papers made up about the man.
Outrageous.
Then Scorsese made the first Declan Darker film and it won a truckload of Oscars and Golden Globes that year.
After that, everybody wanted a piece of Killian Kobain.
The problem was, he didn’t exist.
Brona and Jeremy begged me to ‘come out’, as it were.
But by then, it was too late.
And in a way it was kind of nice.
Being someone else.
Someone other than me.

Minnie finally agrees to meet me for lunch.
It’s the only way she can get me off the phone.

Harry’s Bar on Dawson Street is often full to the brim of snazzy-looking people.
Important-looking people.
Glamorous-looking people.
But when Minnie Driver (the accountant, not the actress) rocks up, obscurity gets a dustsheet and drapes it over everyone else in the room.
Minnie is just one of those people.
It’s not enough to say she lights up a room.
It would be more apt to announce that she detonates it.
She walks in and everybody else – men, women, children, even really small babies – just cash in their chips.
Fold like deck chairs after a long, hot summer.
Throw in their towels.
Raise their hands.
Admit defeat.
Walk away.
Minnie does that to people.
She doesn’t mean to.
And she’ll deny it if challenged.
But that’s what she does all the same.
It could be her thinness (we called her Skinny Minnie in school), or her height (which seems greater because of her thinness), or her blonde hair (which is actually, genuinely, blonde and not dyed off her head like that of most women her age).
It could be her ice-blue eyes that look enormous in her tiny, heart-shaped face.
Or the remarkable clothes she wears, which you will never find in any shop, no matter how much you look.
They look like clothes that have been designed especially for her.

But, to be honest, I don’t think it’s anything to do with the way Minnie looks.
Loads of women are gorgeous, but who cares?
No, it could be more to do with the way Minnie presents herself in a room.
In the world!
As if it belongs to her.
As if she owns it.
There is a certainty about Minnie.
A sureness of step.
An aura that even sceptical people can see.
She looks like one of those people who are familiar with the customs of Benin, speak conversational Russian and can fillet a fish in under a minute.
In truth, she couldn’t point to Benin on a map of the world, has no Russian, conversational or otherwise, and can’t walk down the pier in Howth, what with the fishy-guts smell.

People either love her or hate her.
Immediately.
They decide the minute they meet her.
They can’t help it.

My first memory of Minnie is my sixth birthday.
Mrs Higginbotham had made bucketfuls of her cold shivery jelly, and I was in the back garden, looking for a big bush to scrape the jelly into.
Through the thick wall of hedge separating our gardens, I heard Minnie and one of her five sisters.

Minnie: No, she doesn’t exist.
It’s Mam and Dad.
Or just Mam, I’d say.

One-of-five-sisters: Why would Mam want my teeth?

Minnie: She doesn’t, you big eejit.
She throws them away.
In the bin.
Or out of the window, probably.

One-of-five-sisters: You’re telling fibs.
I’m telling on you.

Minnie: If Mam hears about this, she won’t put any more money under your pillow and .
.
.
let me have a look .
.
.
open your gob, for God’s sake .
.
.
yeah, you’ve got about two pounds’ worth still in there.
I’d wait if I were you.
Before you start bleating.

There is the sound of crying during which Minnie says not a word.
Then:

One-of-five-sisters (in teary, jerky voice): Wha .
.
.
wha .
.
.
what abou .
.
.
about S-S-S-Santa?

A pause.
A long, long pause.
I begin to wonder if Minnie has left the garden.
Eventually:

Minnie (sighing): He’s true.

One-of-five-sisters: Are you sure?