Lifesaving for Beginners by Ciara Geraghty Page B

been talking about the weather. It was infuriating.
    ‘You’re deluded.’
    ‘I’m right.’
    Despite myself, I was curious. He sounded so . . . certain.
    I cleared my throat. ‘Let’s just suppose – just for a moment – that you’re correct. What would it mean? Hypothetically, I mean.’
    He smiled. Ran his fingers down his face. They made a scratchy sound across his stubble. He said, ‘I would have to admit to harbouring similar feelings.’
    ‘Harbouring?’
    ‘Harbouring.’
    I let that sink in for a while. It felt . . . well, nice, I suppose. Warm and sort of touching, if you’re into that kind of thing.
    ‘But would anything change?’
    ‘No.’ And the strange thing was, I believed him. I did. For a while, anyway. I allowed myself to be lulled by his confidence. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, in spite of the fact that there were things about me that Thomas did not know and never would.
    I believed him.
    That’s where I went wrong.
     
    Now I put my arm round Ed’s shoulders. I say, ‘There’s nothing to be scared of, Ed. Besides, I’m here. We managed before, didn’t we? When it was just us?’
    Ed nods but a shadow of uncertainty falls across his face. This is what happens when you throw caution to the wind. It’s not as easy as you’d think to get back to the way things were. Before.

 
    Faith takes me with her because Mrs Barber is in the hospital again. I think it’s her other hip this time. I don’t mind. I don’t like going to Mrs Barber’s house after school. It looks the same as our house but it smells funny. Like the cloakroom in school after it’s been raining. And she makes me eat gingerbread men with Smarties stuck on them. Like I’m a little kid. And cups of tea. Even though I don’t drink tea. She still makes tea. She never remembers.
    I’m sorry about Mrs Barber’s other hip but at least I don’t have to go to school. Damo doesn’t think it’s fair that I’m going to London on a school day. ‘You could go to school and then come home with me afterwards,’ he says. Damo is lucky. He has his own key to the front door. And his mam works in the factory where they make the biscuits with the chocolate on the top. There’re always bags of biscuits in Damo’s house. Some of them are broken but they taste just as nice. I don’t tell Damo that I’m not allowed to go to his house anymore when his mam or his big sister, Imelda, aren’t there.
    Me and Faith are on the bus. It takes a long time. I like sitting on the top deck, right at the front. Faith says it makes her feel sick but she comes up with me anyway. She sits beside me, texting. Probably Rob. He plays the guitar in the band and he has long hair. Damo says that Rob thinks he’s so cool, but Rob has shown me how to play a G on the guitar and he says he’ll show me a C next time. He says once you know G, C and D, you can be a guitar player in a band. I don’t want to be a guitar player in a band, on account of the lifesaving. But maybe I could play in a band on my day off. Rob is left-handed like me, so his guitar is easier for me to play. It’s still hard, though. Playing the G. It hurts the tips of my fingers.
    I say, ‘Are you texting Rob?’
    Faith says, ‘Mind your beeswax.’
    She puts loads of XXXXXs at the end of the text. They’re mad about kissing, Rob and Faith. I don’t know how they can breathe when they kiss for that long. French-kissing is when you put your tongue in and lick the other person’s teeth. Damo says he French-kissed Cathy in our class. Cathy has braces. Sometimes bits of her sandwich get caught in the wires. I don’t think you could French-kiss someone who has braces on their teeth.
    I look out of the window of the bus. London gets busier and busier the closer you get. Much busier than Brighton. Mam said she liked Brighton because it was beside the sea and it reminded her of home. She still called Ireland home, even though we’ve lived in Brighton for years. Since I