Lifesaving for Beginners (15 page)

Minnie: I said so, didn’t I?

To be honest, I doubt Minnie ever believed in Santa.

She bangs her stopwatch thingy on the table between us.
It’s like one of those contraptions professional chess players use.
She presses a button and the thing starts ticking, as loud as a bomb.
‘I have forty-two minutes so make it matter,’ she says, peeling her suit jacket off and hanging it on the back of her chair.
She sits down and looks at me, drumming her fingers on the table.

Ignoring the crowd, who will leave this place with cricks in their necks, trying to get a better view of her, she says, ‘Well?’

I say, ‘Well what?’
as if I haven’t a clue what she’s on about.

‘Why did you want to see me?’

‘Why do I need a specific reason to meet you for lunch?
I never did before.’

‘You never had time to meet for lunch before.
You were busy before.
Remember?
Writing books?
Doing strange things with Thomas?
And Ed?
Any of this ringing a bell?’

She has a point.

‘Well, yes, maybe I do have a little more time on my hands these days.
That could be true.
But it still doesn’t mean I have to have something to discuss before I’m allowed to meet my best friend for lunch.’

‘Just because I’m your only friend does not mean I’m your best friend.’

‘You are not my only friend.’

‘Name two other friends.’

I open my mouth.

‘And you can’t say Ed.
Or Brona.’

I shut my mouth.

I say, ‘I got another one of those calls.’

‘A dropped call?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you reported them?’

‘No.
It’s not against the law to ring someone and not say anything, is it?’

‘It’s harassment.
It could be a stalker.’

‘Why would someone be stalking me?’

‘Not you, dimwit.’
Minnie leans forward and whispers, ‘Killian Kobain.
Maybe somebody’s found out.’

I look round.
Nobody is paying any attention to me although some customers are still gazing at Minnie.

I shake my head.
‘No.
I’ve been so careful.
And I checked with Brona.
There’ve been the usual enquiries from journalists but nothing out of the ordinary.’

Minnie says, ‘I can’t believe you’ve managed to keep it a secret for this long.’

I pick up my napkin.
Unfold it.
Fold it again.
Unfold it.

‘Spit it out, Kat.’

I look at her.
‘You’ve never said anything to Maurice, have you?’
I know I shouldn’t ask.
It’s Minnie.
I can trust Minnie.
But she’s been part of a couple for years now.
Some couples tell each other everything.
Don’t they?

Minnie says, ‘I’m not even going to answer that.
And I’m going to have to insist that you pay for lunch.’

‘I’m sorry .
.
.
the calls .
.
.
they’ve left me a bit .
.
.
paranoid, I suppose.’

‘You’ve always been paranoid.’

‘I mean more paranoid than usual.’

‘Call the cop-shop.’

‘No.’

‘Call the service provider.
Change your number.
Change your provider.’

‘No.’
I never, ever communicate with call centres.
That’s non-negotiable.
It’s the way they play mind games with you, getting you to press this button, then that button, then hash, then star, then another button until you’re so confused, you can’t even remember why you rang in the first place.
Then, when a human finally speaks to you and you go ahead and tell your sad story, they say that, in fact, the person you need to tell your sad story to is in such-and-such a department and they put you on hold for half an hour and make you listen to ‘Greensleeves’ over and over – or, worse, Lyric FM – and then you speak to someone in such-and-such a department who doesn’t even know your name, never mind the gist of your sad story so you have to start all over again.

‘Ring the number back.
After they hang up.’

‘I can’t.
It’s a withheld number.’

‘Then don’t bother answering the phone.’

‘But it could be Ed.
He sometimes rings from Sophie’s landline if he wants a lift and he’s run out of credit.
Her number is withheld.’

Minnie throws her hands up in the air.
She says, ‘That’s all I’ve got.’

‘OK.’

‘You have thirty-four minutes left.’

The waitress arrives.
I’m not hungry.
Not that I’m complaining.
I’ve been subsisting mostly on coffee and cigarettes and red wine and the weight is tumbling off me.
This must be the silver lining.
In fact, had I known, I would have broken up with Thomas ages ago.
OK, yes, technically, he was the one who broke up with me.

Minnie takes ages to decide.
She and Maurice became foodies during the boom.
A lot of people did.
They know about things like celeriac and truffles.
The old Minnie would have beaten any talk of celeriac and truffles out of anyone, especially an accountant like Maurice.
And I mean actually physically beaten it out of him.
With the branch of a tree.

I haven’t looked at the menu yet, so I just ask the waitress what today’s special is and she tells me, but I can’t hear her because Minnie is talking at the top of her voice about some hostile takeover or other she’s working on, and the waitress has the low voice of someone who has been told to SHUT UP all her life.
So I nod and return the menu to her and take a huge slug of wine out of the carafe I’ve ordered and watch Minnie sip her sparkling water, and I wish that Minnie didn’t have to go back to the office and work on a boring bloody acquisition because then the two of us could go to Lincoln’s and get properly pissed, like we used to.
Back when we laughed so hard, sometimes a tiny little drop of piddle would slip out and wet my knickers.

She says, ‘Twenty-two minutes left.’

I say, ‘Fuck.’

She says, ‘What?’
She’s trying her best to sound impatient but I hear a sliver of concern in her voice.

‘Everything.
It’s .
.
.
everything.
Everything is just so .
.
.
flat.’

‘You’re just bored.’

‘I shouldn’t be.
I’ve loads to do.’

‘Yes, but you’re not doing any of it.
Just start doing the stuff that you’re supposed to be doing and then you won’t be bored and everything won’t seem so flat and I might get this acquisition sorted out and even manage to dodge the latest redundancy cull.’

‘They’d never make you redundant.
They wouldn’t dare.’

That’s when I see the blackboard where the specials are written and realise that today’s special is beef and Guinness stew and that if there’s one thing I hate it’s beef and Guinness stew; and that’s when the waitress whooshes out of the swingy door from the kitchen holding two plates, one of which is overflowing with beef and Guinness stew.
I pick up my glass of wine.
I don’t drain it but I nearly do.

Minnie says, ‘You could go to your house in Italy.
Have sex with your gardener, whatshisface?
Pedro?
Or Antonio?
He’s a grand-looking fella.
Strong as an ox.
He’d keep you going, take your mind off things.’

‘It’s Stefano.
And I can’t just rock up and have sex with him.
What if it didn’t work out?
Where would the garden be then?
Those lemon trees aren’t going to prune themselves.’

Minnie spears a piece of asparagus with the prongs of her fork, even before the waitress has guided the plate to the table.
She’s like that, Minnie.
Impatient.
I look at the timer.
I’ve twelve minutes left.
With no plans for the afternoon.
And beef and Guinness stew overflowing on a plate in front of me.
It’s enough to make anyone have a nervous breakdown.
God knows, I’ve time for one.

Minnie bends her head to her plate and ingests at least a third of her lunch before she comes up for air, while the rest of the restaurant looks on and tries to work out exactly where she puts it or to see if she will belt to the bathroom immediately afterwards for a quick barf.
She is smiling now.
Food is the only thing that has a tangible effect – for the good, I mean – on Minnie.
Food and maths.
When she eats, or does maths-related things, there is a subtle shift and something slips into place; so, when Minnie looks at me, I know that she cares about me, even though she would never say such a thing out loud.

It’s the same when she’s at a restaurant with a big group of people and the bill comes at the end.
Minnie says, ‘I’ll do it,’ and her voice suggests she would rather be dipped in bloody fish guts and lowered into the Great White Shark-ridden waters off the Cape of Good Hope.

But the truth is, she loves it.
There’s no splitting the bill’s total plus tip by the number of people at the table.
Not with Minnie around.
No.
Instead, she will work out – to the last penny farthing – how much everyone owes.
Who had the early bird?
Who said they were having the early bird but then went for the fillet steak with its sneaky little fifteen per cent supplement in tiny lettering underneath?
Who didn’t have any wine?
Who had more than their fair share?
Who had two starters instead of the traditional starter and a main?
Who insisted on dessert?
Who ate some of the dessert that someone else ordered?
The list of possibilities are endless at such a table but Minnie will tap-tap-tap at the calculator she carries in her bag at all times (the way most women carry a compact and a stick of mascara – although, of course, Minnie carries these weapons in her arsenal too).
There is a carefully crafted ‘weighting’ system.
Minnie will take into account things like age (students and OAPs get a ‘Minnie-calculated’ discount).
Ed has to pay full whack; there is no disability discount in Minnie’s calculations and for this – and many things – I love her.
If people are ‘between jobs’, as many people are at the moment, there’s a discount for that too.
Everything – and everyone – is taken into account.
Is given due consideration.
She works it out while the rest of us are scraping the froth from the bottoms of our coffee cups.
It takes her about five minutes.
Less, probably.
She tells everyone what they owe and if there is a problem with change, she will sort it out.
That’s what Minnie does.
She sorts things out.

I say, ‘You were right about Thomas, by the way.’

She says, ‘What?
That’s he’s a skyscraping muck savage with Monaghan silage-breath?’
And the funny thing is that Thomas is one of the few people that Minnie genuinely likes.

I say, ‘No, the bit about him seeing someone.
He’s seeing someone.’

‘So?’

‘Nothing.
I just .
.
.
I thought I’d tell you.
Confirm it.’

Minnie says, ‘No need.’
And then she scoops couscous out of a clam shell.
When it’s all scraped out and tipped into her mouth, chewed, swallowed and washed down with water, she continues, ‘A creature like Thomas doesn’t get to sit in the swamp licking his balls for any length of time.
Especially in a recession, when people are desperate.
I’m just surprised he managed to hold out this long.’