Lifesaving for Beginners (38 page)

Minnie’s phone goes direct to voicemail.
‘I’m sorry but neither myself nor Maurice, my husband, can come to the phone.
You could try leaving a message .
.
.’

In the end, there’s no choice.
Even though I’ve deleted the number from my phone, I know it.
I know it by heart.
He picks up after four rings.
The lights turn green.
I fling a glance back at Ed, then put the phone on loudspeaker.

‘Thomas, can you hear me?’

‘Kat?
What’s the matter?’

‘It’s Ed.’

‘Where are you?’

‘I don’t know.
I’m on my way to the hospital.
I couldn’t wait for the ambulance.’

‘Are you on your way to Beaumont?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it his heart?’

‘I don’t know.
I think so.’

‘I’ll ring the hospital.
Tell them you’re on your way in with Ed.
I’ll ring your parents.
I’ll meet you there.’

If Thomas is anxious about Ed, he does not reveal it.
He sounds like someone who will make sure that everything turns out all right in the end.
Someone who knows what they’re doing.

Before he hangs up, he says, ‘Drive carefully.’

I drive like a lunatic, flinging my head back much too often to look at Ed.

‘Ed .
.
.
ED .
.
.
ED!
.
.
.
WAKE UP, ED.
IT’S TIME TO WAKE UP.’

Ed does not respond.
He makes no sound at all.

It’s the middle of the night but adults are often up in the middle of the night, aren’t they?
And I can’t ring at any other time or else Faith will hear me, even though she’s not really listening anymore.
She’ll still hear.
Adults always hear the stuff you don’t want them to hear.

I carry the phone into the kitchen, close the door and sit on the floor.
It’s dark but if I turn on the light it spills into the back garden because there are no blinds on the window, and it’s really bright, that light, so there’s a chance that Faith might notice it because of the gap where her curtains should meet but don’t.

I wait till my eyes have adjusted to the dark.
I imagine my pupils getting bigger and bigger till they’re as big as a cat’s.
That’s probably how cats can see so well in the dark.
Because of their gigantic pupils.

The number is really long, on account of it being an Irish number, which means you have to add the international country code as well as the area code to the beginning of the number.
I know the numbers because they’re the same ones Mam used to ring Auntie May.
Before Dad went to Scotland, he’d give out stink about the phone bills but Mam just said, ‘I need to talk to someone, don’t I?’

When the phone starts to ring, I hang up.
I didn’t expect it to start ringing so soon.

I imagine the lady throwing off the duvet and getting out of bed.
She’s probably really annoyed now.

I take a deep breath like Miss Williams tells Damo to try to do before he starts fighting.
Sometimes it works, but not always.
I don’t think it’s because of the breathing.
I think it’s because Damo just happens to be someone who likes fighting.
He says he’s going to be a boxer when he grows up and I think he’ll be a pretty good one.

Anyway, I take a breath and then I hold it and then I start to let it out, dead slow like Miss Williams tells us, and by the time I’ve dialled the last number my breath’s all out and the phone starts to ring again.

‘Didn’t you hear me the last time?
I said, “Fuck off.”
’

That’s about the worst curse word you can say.
Sully says there’s another one that’s even worse than that but he won’t tell me and Damo till we’re teenagers.
Kids say ‘fuck’ all the time but it sounds way worse when an adult says it.
I don’t know why.

I say, ‘This is Milo McIntyre.
Is that Kat?’
I spent ages wondering what I should call her.
Mrs Kavanagh?
Or Miss?
Or Katherine, like her mam calls her?
But, in the end, I decided to call her Kat, like Ed does.

She doesn’t say anything for so long that I think maybe she’s hung up or something, so I say, ‘Are you still there?’

She says, ‘Who is this?’

I’ve already told her that I’m Milo McIntyre but I say it again anyway.
She might wear a hearing aid, like Mrs Barber.
In a loud whisper I say, ‘THIS.
IS.
MILO.
McINTYRE.’

‘Who?’

‘Milo McIntyre.’

‘Do you know what time it is, young man?’

Adults only ever call you ‘young man’ when they’re annoyed with you.
Miss Williams calls Damo ‘young man’ all the time.

I look at my watch.
‘It’s oh-one-twenty.’
Sully taught me and Damo the way you say the time in the army.
People sound older when they say it like that.

There is a pretty long pause and I can tell she’s thinking about what to say next, so to save her the trouble, I say, ‘I’m ringing because of Faith.
I’m Faith’s brother.
Well, I’m not really her brother anymore, except that I still feel like I’m her brother.
And she’s still taking care of me and she still sort of feels like my sister, but I’m not sure if I’m supposed to call her my half-sister now, like when Celia’s baby comes along.
Or half-brother, if he’s a boy.’

‘Jesus, slow down will you?’

I don’t know why I said all that stuff about Faith.
It’s not anywhere on the page where I’ve written what I’m supposed to say so I won’t forget anything.

‘Sorry.’
She sounds cross.

‘Milo.
That’s your name, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’
I already told her that.
Loads of times.

‘You’re Faith’s brother, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’
I don’t say any of the stuff about half-brothers or half-sisters again.

‘Milo, look—’

‘You sound like my mam.’
Sometimes, you end up saying things you never meant to say.
Like Kat sounding like Mam.
That’s not on my page either.
But it’s true.
She says my name just the same.
With loads of O at the end.

‘Do I?’

‘Yes.
Mam was from Ireland.
Just like you.
From Galway.
Do you know Galway?’

‘Eh, yes.’

‘She lived in Galway and then she went to London and she met Dad and they both lived in Galway for a while.
After they got married.
Six years I think.
And then they got Faith.
She was eighteen months old.
Dad said Faith was a baby when they got her, but eighteen months is one and a half and I think that’s more like a toddler, don’t you?’

‘Ah .
.
.
I don’t .
.
.
I suppose .
.
.
I haven’t really given it very much thought.’

‘Did you give away any other babies?
Besides Faith, I mean?’
Nobody else has thought about this, but Faith could have loads of other brothers and sisters she doesn’t know about.
Or half-brothers and half-sisters.

She doesn’t say anything for a while and I’m just about to say, ‘Hello?
Are you still there?’
when she says, ‘No, I didn’t.
It was just .
.
.
it was one baby.
It was Faith.’

‘Do you have any other children?
Ones you didn’t give away, I mean?’
They’d still be Faith’s half-brothers or half-sisters, wouldn’t they?

‘No.’

She sounds dead tired all of a sudden.
I’m worried that she might say she has to go so I look at my notes and I begin.
‘Do you think you could come over?
To Brighton?
That’s where we live.
I think Faith might be happy again if she got to see you.
And if she’s happy again, then Dad won’t make me go to Scotland to live with him and Celia and the new baby.’

The lady says nothing so I go right on talking.

‘I mean, Dad and Celia are fine and everything and I’m sure it’ll be nice to have a new baby half-brother or half-sister.
It’s just .
.
.
I won’t get to see Damo every day.
Or Carla.
Or go to my lifesaving classes.’

Kat coughs, like there’s something stuck in her throat.
She says, ‘I’m sure there must be lifesaving classes in Scotland.’

‘They wouldn’t be the same.’

She says, ‘I know what you mean,’ and the way she says it, it’s like she really does know.

‘So you’ll come?’

She must have been holding her breath because now she lets out the biggest, longest breath you ever heard.
I bet she’s got huge lungs.
She can probably hold her breath underwater for at least one length.

Then she says, ‘Milo, things aren’t as simple as that, I’m afraid.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because they .
.
.
they just aren’t.’

‘Is it because of the money?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The flight?
I know it’s dead expensive but I still have pretty much all my First Holy Communion money left cos I didn’t get to spend much of it in Dublin.’

The lady doesn’t say anything after that.
I wait for a while and then I say, ‘So I have some money left over and you could borrow it and you could fly over and you wouldn’t even have to stay in a hotel because you could stay here.
You could stay in my mam’s room.
It’s empty now.
Faith cleared it out after she found the papers in the attic.’

‘What papers?’

‘The ones about being adopted.’
Sometimes adults can be pretty slow on the uptake.

‘Oh.’

‘She was pretty upset about it because she didn’t know she was adopted.
Not like Jessica.’

‘Who’s Jessica?’

‘She’s just this girl in my school.
She’s in year seven.
Her parents told her she was adopted when she was a baby and everybody knew she was adopted.
But Mam never told Faith.
And then Faith found out by accident when she was looking for Mam’s rosary beads and that’s why she went to Ireland.
So she could talk to you about it.
But you were at the meeting.’

‘What meeting?’

‘I don’t know which one.
Your dad said you were at a meeting and it was a really important one and that’s why you couldn’t ring back.
I think that’s what he said anyway.
That’s why we didn’t get to meet you.’
I don’t know why I’m telling her all this stuff.
I look at my notes and see what I need to say next.

‘So, anyway.
You could stay with us.
When you come over, I mean.
And I could cook.
I’m not bad for my age.
Do you like pancakes?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Pancakes.
Do you like them?
I put chocolate and banana in them.’

‘Ah .
.
.’

‘You can use Nutella as well.
If you don’t happen to have any chocolate to melt.’

‘Milo?’

‘You can slice the banana chunky or thin, depending on how much you like bananas.
I love them so I slice ’em dead chunky.’

‘Milo?’

‘Yes?’

‘I can’t come over.’

‘You don’t have to come right away.’

‘I just .
.
.
I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s just .
.
.
Ed hasn’t been well and—’

‘Ed?
What’s wrong with him?
There’s a flu going round here.
Sully got it when he was home from the war so he couldn’t go back when he was meant to and his mam was so happy she said I could have a sleepover next weekend, and she never lets me have a sleepover anymore on account of us setting off the smoke alarm that one time.’

‘No, it’s not the flu.
It’s .
.
.
he had a .
.
.
it’s his heart.
He needs to have an operation.’

‘Did he have a heart attack?’
I really hope Ed didn’t have a heart attack because George Pullman’s granddad had one of those and he dropped dead on the spot.

‘No, they didn’t say .
.
.
they’re calling it an episode.
Something like that.
He’s always had a weak heart, from when he was a baby.
That’s what they said, after he was born.’

‘He looked dead healthy when I met him.’

‘He said it was lovely meeting you.’

‘He’s legend at Mario Kart, he really is.’