Lifesaving for Beginners

corridor.
    Finally, I can use a word that I’ve never had any cause to use before. Magnanimous.
    I am being magnanimous.
    It doesn’t feel as good as I thought it might.
    And I can’t even have a drink. Not for a whole bloody year.

 
    I was right about the Christmas tree. Dad shouldn’t have bought it so early. It’s starting to smell. It smells a bit like Mrs Barber’s perfume. The bottle is so old that the picture and the words aren’t there anymore. It just looks like an ordinary bottle that used to be white, I reckon, with yellow crusty stuff round the lid. I don’t know why she doesn’t throw it away. She says being wasteful is nearly as bad as being a robber, so maybe that’s why.
    We’re on our Christmas holiday now. The bad thing about the holiday is that there’s no lifesaving class. Damo has gone into town with his mam to see the lights and have their dinner in McDonald’s. Damo’s not into the lights but he likes McDonald’s. He asks for a chicken burger meal and a chicken burger and his mam says that’s dead greedy, but she gets it for him anyway. She says it’s because it’s Christmas but she gets it for him other times too. Even when it’s not Christmas.
    This will be the first year when people know I don’t believe in Santa so I’m not sure if there’ll be anything under the tree on Christmas morning. I probably shouldn’t have let on that I didn’t believe until Boxing Day. At least I’ll probably get a present for my birthday.
    I don’t know if Ant and Adrian are coming home for Christmas. Faith didn’t know when I asked her last week. I don’t want to ask her again and I don’t know their mobile numbers.
    The only presents under the tree are the ones I put there. I’m not good at wrapping so I just bought those gift bags you can get in the pound shop. They’re great except that if you look inside, you can see what the present is. I don’t think Faith has looked inside hers yet so she probably doesn’t know that I got her a keyring with an Irish leprechaun on it. I got it in the airport in Dublin when she went to the loo. His eyes light up green when you shake it. she has keys for the house as well as the Funky Banana so it will be handy to have a keyring to keep them all safe. I got her chocolates too because Mam always said that if you want to cheer up a woman, you could do a lot worse than give her chocolates and make her a cup of tea.
    I go downstairs. Faith is sitting at the kitchen table doing the books. I say, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
    She picks up a piece of paper and looks at me. ‘Whose number is this?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Milo?’ Which means you have to answer the question again but differently this time.
    ‘I don’t know.’
    Faith hands me the piece of paper. ‘It’s an Irish telephone number. A Dublin telephone number. I didn’t call it so it must have been you.’
    I’m trying to come up with something to say but I can’t so I say nothing.
    Faith points at the piece of paper she’s handed me. ‘The call was made at twenty past one in the morning.’ She looks at me. Rubs her eyes and pushes her hair away from her face. Her hair could do with a brush. And a wash, to be honest. Mam would call it a wren’s nest.
    I’m about to answer. I get ready to answer. I’ve my mouth open and everything, when Faith says, ‘And don’t bother lying to me because I’ll know.’
    I close my mouth.
    ‘Milo?’
    ‘I rang her.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘You know who.’
    ‘No. I don’t.’
    ‘I asked her to come over.’
    ‘Milo, for Christ’s sake, what were you thinking?’
    ‘She said she—’
    ‘DON’T. Don’t tell me what that woman said. I don’t want to know. You should never have rung her.’
    I look at Faith then. At her dirty, tangled hair. She never used to have dirty, tangled hair. There are crumbs on the kitchen floor and plates and cups and knives and forks in the sink and on the counter and they’re all dirty too. There’s scrambled egg stuck to a plate. It’s been there since yesterday, I think. It’ll never come off in the dishwasher. It’ll have to be scrubbed and it’ll take ages. And the Christmas tree. The drooping Christmas tree that smells worse than Mrs Barber’s ancient perfume. And it’s nearly dark. It’s only about three o’clock in the afternoon but it’s nearly dark anyway.
    ‘Milo? What’s the matter?’ Faith’s voice sounds far away, as if she’s in a different place to me. It’s