Lifesaving for Beginners (24 page)

‘Ed!’
I recognise Sophie’s voice and look up.
She’s standing on the back seat of her father’s car, her head and shoulders poking through the sunroof.
She waves at Ed with one hand and holds her medal with the other.
Ed picks up the medal round his neck and holds it up as he runs towards her.
Thomas and I watch his progress across the car park.
Ed opens the back door of Sophie’s car and crawls in, pushing himself up through the sunroof until he is standing beside her.
They both look at us – Thomas and I – holding their medals and waving at us.
We wave back.
It’s a relief to have something to do.
When we have to stop waving, I fumble in my bag for my cigarettes.

Thomas lifts the cuff of his jacket until he can see the wristwatch I bought him for his forty-fourth birthday.
I went into nearly every jeweller’s shop in the city before I settled on that one.
Thomas is not the sort of man you could buy just any old watch for.
It has to be particular.
It has to be waterproof and manure proof and goat-droppings proof and silage proof and all sorts.
Durable, I suppose.
But aesthetic too, you know?
Thomas has lovely forearms, I’ll give him that.
They’re pretty tanned.
From being outside so much, probably.
Strong enough too, what with all the pulling and hauling around the farm.
You couldn’t just buy him any old watch.

He pulls the cuff back down.
‘I’d better go.’

I inhale and nod.
He is not going to refer to Ed’s news.
The relief feels strange.
It feels like disappointment.

I say, ‘Yes, you’d better.
Get back to – Sandra, isn’t it?’

‘Sarah.’

I can’t make out any expression on Thomas’s face.
You could call it impassive.
Or indifferent.
I blow smoke towards him until I can’t see the indifference anymore.

He turns away as if he is about to leave, then seems to change his mind and turns back.
‘And you’d better get back to your daughter,’ he says.
‘Faith?
Isn’t that what Ed said?’
This time when he turns away, he doesn’t turn back.
He walks towards his car.

‘Thomas.’
I check to see that Ed is still standing on the back seat of Sophie’s car before I run after Thomas.
I’m not sure what I’m going to say.
I reach for his arm.
The warmth of it through the sleeve of his jacket is shocking in the rawness of the day.

He pulls his arm away from me, as if he has been stung.
‘Don’t,’ he says, and there is something like contempt in his voice and it doesn’t seem possible because I’m sure he is speaking to me and he has never spoken to me like that before.
Not ever.
Not even when he let himself into the apartment.
That day with Nicolas.

‘Thomas, I .
.
.’

Now he is opening the door of his car, shrugging off his jacket despite the icy temperatures.
I find myself thinking about the heat of him.
How can one person be that warm?

‘Thomas, please .
.
.’

He gets into the car and throws his jacket on the passenger seat.
He puts his hand on the door handle as if he is about to slam the door, but then he looks at me.
‘What is it?’

I hadn’t thought of what I might say after that.
I just presumed he’d drive away.
I take a drag from my cigarette, buying some time.
‘I just .
.
.
I didn’t want you to find out like this.
I .
.
.
I should have told you.’

Thomas shakes his head.
‘No,’ he says.
‘You didn’t have to tell me anything.
We were only going out for a few months, weren’t we?’

I say, ‘Twenty-three months,’ the way Thomas used to.

He shrugs.
‘I have to go.’

‘Wait.’
Suddenly I want to tell him everything.
I want to go back.
Start at the very beginning.
Start again.
Why didn’t I tell him?
I know now, with the certainty that comes with hindsight, that Thomas would be a good person to tell.
A great person to tell.
He listens.
He doesn’t just nod and say, ‘Yes .
.
.
yes .
.
.
yes.’
He listens.
He doesn’t move.
He doesn’t interrupt.
He listens.
Afterwards, he would say something.
Something sensible.
I’m nearly certain of it.
He might have some questions.
He wouldn’t dispense advice.
But he might make a suggestion.
I want to know what that suggestion is.
I am desperate to know.

Thomas says, ‘What?’
He seems tired now, his features rigid and drawn.

‘I should have said something.
I should have told you.
Ages ago.’

He looks at me and then he says, ‘It’s all right,’ and when he says it, the features of his face relax and he looks like himself again and, for a moment, I think maybe it will be all right.

Then he says, ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ and there is nothing to do but step back from the car and watch him pull away.
He beeps the horn so that he catches Ed’s attention and waves at him.

Ed waves back.

The phone booth smells bad.
Like one of Damo’s farts after he’s been eating pickled-onion flavour crisps.
He’s mad about pickled onions.

‘Milo?
Milo?
Is that you?
Oh thank God.
I thought you were .
.
.
I didn’t know what .
.
.
Are you all right?
.
.
.
WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?’

I can’t answer right away because Faith is crying really loudly.
Even if I tell her, she won’t be able to hear me.
I hate it when she cries.
She usually does it quietly, in her room, so she thinks I can’t hear her.

I say, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t you DARE say you’re sorry.
If anything had happened to you, I’d .
.
.
I don’t know what I’d do.
Aren’t things bad enough already without you pulling a crazy stunt like this?’

I say, ‘I’m sorry,’ before I remember that I’m not supposed to say that.
But I can’t think of anything else to say.
I think it’s because I haven’t had much sleep.

‘Jesus Christ, Milo.’
She stops for a moment and I can hear her taking a puff of her cigarette, which is actually good because she might calm down a bit.

Her voice is quieter the next time she says something but I don’t know if it’s because of the cigarette or maybe she’s a bit hoarse after all the shouting.
She says, ‘Where are you?
I’ve been worried sick.’

‘I don’t want you to go to Ireland on your own.’

‘What are you talking about?
We’ve been through this.
I have to go on my own.
You know that.’

‘Why?’

‘Because .
.
.
because .
.
.
look, this is beside the point.
Where the hell are you?’

‘You could take me with you.
I won’t be any bother.’

‘Stop it, Milo.
You’re not coming and that’s that.
Now tell me where you are so Dad and I can come and get you.’

‘I promise I won’t be hungry all the time.
I won’t eat anything.
I won’t even go into your birth mother’s house.
I’ll wait in the front garden.
I promise.’

‘Jesus, Milo.’

‘And if you want to stay in Ireland with her, I’ll fly back on my own.
I’m old enough, I reckon.
You probably just have to sign a form or something.’

‘Milo, what are you—’

‘I could go and live with Ant and Adrian in London.
I don’t want to live with Dad and Celia because they’ll be busy with the baby and Scotland is about a hundred miles away and I’ll miss my lifesaving exams and I won’t get into the intermediate class.’

‘Nobody is going anywhere, OK?’

‘But she might turn out to be really nice?
The lady in Dublin.
You’d want to go and live with her then, wouldn’t you?’

‘No.
I wouldn’t.
I’m staying with you.’

‘But you might change your mind.’

‘I WON’T.’

I have to hold the receiver far away when she shouts like that.
When I put it back against my ear, there’s silence.
Then she says, ‘Milo .
.
.
look, it’s complicated.
You’re only nine.
It’s hard for you to understand.
I haven’t explained it very well.
I’m sorry.’

‘I’ll be ten soon.’

‘Milo?’

‘Yes?’

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m not going to tell you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m not telling you unless you say I can come to Ireland with you.’

I can’t hear what she says then because of the announcement.
Something about a flight to Buenos Aires that’s leaving from Gate 32.
The gate is closing in five minutes.

Faith says, ‘Oh my God.
You’re at the airport.
Are you at the airport?’

‘No.’
I cup my hands round the receiver so she won’t hear anything else.

‘Christ, how did you get to the airport?’

I’ve already decided that I’m never going to tell her about the taximan.
When we’re on the plane, I’ll tell her about getting the first bus this morning from the bottom of our road into the main bus station.
Then the airport express, which costs more than the normal bus but the poster said it was way quicker.
It’s weird being on a bus on your own.
There’s no one to ask if you’re there yet.

‘Is it Gatwick?
Are you in Gatwick?’

I say, ‘I’ll tell you, Faith.
But you have to tell me first.’

Silence then.
I think that’s good.
I think that means she’s thinking about it.

Then, ‘I’ll be back in a few days, Milo.
You’ll hardly notice I’m gone.’

I say, ‘Mam said she’d be back in a few days.’
I don’t know I’m going to cry until I start to cry.
The thing about Mam was that she always did what she said.
If she said she’d be there to pick you up at three o’clock, then she would be.
The only time she didn’t do what she said she was going to do was when she went to Ireland, because she never came back.
Not really.
It doesn’t count if you come back and you’re dead.

Now I’m sort of crying and shouting at the same time, as if I’m not in the middle of an airport with millions of people all around.
I say, ‘I will notice you’ve gone.
I always notice when people are gone.’

After a while, I get myself to stop crying but now I think that maybe I’ve pressed a button by accident because I can’t hear anything down the phone.
I say, ‘Faith?
Hello?
Are you there?’

Faith says, ‘I’m here.’
Her voice is a whisper, like she’s telling me a secret.

I say, ‘Can I come with you?
Please?’
I cross my fingers because Carla says it brings you luck.
I cross my toes too, except I’m not sure if that brings you as much luck.

And then she says, ‘OK.’

‘OK?’

‘OK.’

‘OK, I can come to Ireland with you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I promise I’ll be good.’

‘You’d better be better than good.’

I’m not sure how you can be better than good but I say, ‘I will,’ just in case she changes her mind.