Lifesaving for Beginners by Ciara Geraghty Page A

deodorant under my arms and checked my legs. Stubble. No way he was staying over. I squeezed into jeans and reefed a top over my head, one that very charitably hid my bum, my stomach and a good bit of thigh.
    Thirty seconds.
    Not enough time for foundation. I made do with lipstick and a quick flick of the blusher brush round my face. Thomas had never seen me without make-up and Christmas was definitely not the time to reveal myself. People aren’t themselves at Christmas.
    Six seconds. I glanced in the mirror. Long black hair, trapped in a makeshift bun with bits already falling out of it. White face, in spite of my heavy hand with the blusher brush. Green eyes, strained from all the telly watching. Not great but – with three seconds left – it was the best I could do.
    I positioned myself beside the door. Exhaled. I couldn’t believe it had come to this.
    I opened the door of my apartment and there he was. As always, the hallway seemed to narrow, the ceiling lowered, the walls contracted. From habit, he bent his head when he walked through the door. Years of smacking your forehead on architraves will do that to a man.
    In the end, there was no need to worry about Thomas meeting Ed. I probably should have known that.
    Thomas said, ‘You must be Ed,’ when he strode into the living room.
    Ed stood up and brushed turkey-and-stuffing-and-cranberry-sauce sandwich crumbs off his trousers. He said, ‘Are you Kat’s boyfriend?’
    Thomas said, ‘Kat’s too old to have a boyfriend.’
    Ed said, ‘She’s not that old. She’s only thirty-eight.’
    I said, ‘Ed!’ Thomas and I hadn’t discussed our ages. Well, OK, he’d told me he was forty-five but my age hadn’t come up. Well, maybe it came up once and I might have said I was thirty-five or something like that. I can’t remember every little detail, can I?
    Thomas looked at the telly and said, ‘That’s Miracle on 34th Street , isn’t it?’
    ‘Is it? I’m not sure . . . we haven’t really been . . .’ When Ed took it out of his overnight bag I had presumed it was one of those films I’d hate.
    Thomas said, ‘I love that film.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘Do you mind if I stay and watch it with ye?’
    ‘Well, I suppose . . .’
    ‘And are there any of those lovely-looking sandwiches going a-beggin’?’
    In the end, we managed to fit on the couch, all three of us. We ate the mince pies that Thomas had brought. ‘The mammy made them,’ he said after Ed gave them – an over-generous, I felt – eleven out of ten. I was sandwiched between them. They talked across me. They talked about football; they both supported Chelsea. They talked about films; Thomas admitted to a passionate interest in all things vampire, which Ed approved of. They talked about their jobs; Ed explained how he made the perfect scrambled eggs in the café where he worked while Thomas countered with a step-by-step account of the best way to milk a goat.
    I felt a couple of things. A bit drowsy, from the overeating and the heat of being sandwiched between them. Perhaps a little tired. There may have been some shame. That I ever thought that Thomas would treat Ed differently instead of with his usual gruff charm and curiosity. He was never afraid of Ed’s disability. He just accepted it, like he accepted most things, even me.
    Later, when Ed went to bed, I sat beside Thomas on the couch and, without really planning it, I kissed him. If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. I went all out then and wrapped his arm round me and tucked my head under the massive awning of his shoulder.
    After a while, he said, ‘You’d better be mighty careful, Katherine Kavanagh.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because I think you’re falling for me.’ His tone was matter-of-fact, his eyes trained on the telly.
    I said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
    He said, ‘It’s worse than I thought.’
    ‘What could be worse than that, you dirty-looking eejit?’
    He said, ‘You love me.’ His voice was dead-pan. He might have