Lifesaving for Beginners

long. Twenty minutes is too long.’ They say they’ll do their best.
    It’s hard to think.
    In the end, I half lift, half drag Ed into the back seat of the car. I look at his face. He looks like he’s asleep but he does not react when I shout his name. His lips are blue. There are flecks of spit on them. I wipe them away with a tissue. I try whispering now. ‘Ed,’ I whisper. He does not move. I push my fingers into the soft folds of skin round his neck. I can’t feel his pulse.
    I get into the front seat. Switch on the lights. The engine. The heater. The wipers. I turn to look at Ed one more time and then I gun the engine and the car moves.
    I use the bus lanes. I speed, too. Nobody notices. Just when you’re desperate for some flashing lights and sirens, the roads remain eerily empty. I put the phone on the hands-free and ring my parents’ landline. No point ringing their mobiles because they’re never switched on, and if they are, they’re on silent. The phone rings and rings.
    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