Lifesaving for Beginners

‘No, there’s been too much upset already. He needs to stay in Brighton. That’s where his home is.’
    Dad says, ‘OK then. Once the baby comes – if he ever does – and Celia gets used to him, I’ll come to Brighton more often. Once a month, if I can. And the boy will come and visit. Won’t you, son?’
    Nobody knows what sex the baby is going to be, but Dad keeps talking about him as if he’s a boy already.
    I say, ‘Could Damo come too? Sometime?’
    Dad blesses himself and says, ‘Saints preserve us,’ but he’s smiling so that means there’s a chance that Damo could come too. Sometime. I’ll just have to tell him what to do about babies. Damo doesn’t have any little brothers or sisters so he won’t know.
    The man on the programme says that baby pandas are born pink and blind and toothless, which is a bit like humans. Humans can see only shapes and colours when they’re born. And their eyes are blue. Mam said my eyes were blue when I was born and then they changed to brown. And I reckon Faith’s eyes were blue when she was born and then they changed to green.
    Faith is talking about the Funky Banana now and how Jack wants to buy it. I don’t mind selling it if Jack wants to buy it. I bet he’ll still give me free stuff when I call into the café. Damo too. Jack says we’re like beans and farts. You never get one without the other.
    Dad nods and agrees with everything Faith says but I’m not sure if he’s listening anymore. He looks pretty tired, and later, when I say, ‘Dad?’ he jumps and says, ‘Yes, of course, son,’ as if we’re in the middle of a conversation instead of just at the beginning of one. And he’s wearing the same shirt he was wearing yesterday, when he picked us up at the station. It’s got brown sauce down the front.
    Faith’s phone rings again but this time she takes the call. She stands up and says, ‘Hi, Rob,’ and then she leaves the room.
    Baby pandas stay with their mams until they’re one and a half or maybe two. I’m glad I wasn’t born a panda.
    Dad is snoring now. Upstairs, I hear Celia getting out of bed. She’s making the bear noise again. I put my hand on Dad’s shoulder and shake him a bit. His eyes fly open and he says, ‘Yes, of course, son.’
    I say, ‘I think the baby’s coming again.’

 
    Minnie books the Grand Hotel for the press conference, which is a short walk from the apartment. She hires two security guards. Huge ones. I laugh when she tells me but Minnie’s face betrays not even a hint of a smile.
    She says, ‘You asked me to take care of it. I’m taking care of it.’
    Turns out she’s right. She’s always right. We do need them. When the room is full, the two of them stand at the door and present their joint bulk to any other journalists trying to get in.
    They also come in very handy when the journos swarm like bees at the end, blocking the door, poking their microphones in my face and pointing their cameras at me. I’d say the photographer from Heat won’t be waking up and smelling the coffee anytime soon, with that stump he’s got now, where his nose used to be.
    I tell them everything I know about Killian Kobain and Declan Darker. Afterwards, Minnie says, ‘That’s all, everybody. Thanks for coming.’
    She has to shout into the microphone to be heard over the barrage of questions being hurled towards me. I answer a couple of them before one of the journalists at the front stands up and says, ‘Are there any other skeletons in Kat Kavanagh’s closet?’ Because he has one of those booming voices, it punctures a hole through the babble and gets people’s attention, and there is a lull and everyone looks at me and waits.
    Minnie nudges me.
    I look at her.
    She cups her hand over the microphone and whispers, ‘You don’t have to answer that.’
    I shake my head, then look at the man and I say, ‘Yes. There is something.’
     
    Dad is already at the apartment when we get back from the press conference. In the car park. The engine of his car is running. Mum is in the front seat. I say, ‘I thought we were going to meet at the hospital?’ Ed is being discharged today. We all want to be there.
    Dad says, ‘I’ll drive in. There’s no need for everyone to take their cars.’ He has a thing about paying for parking at hospitals. He calls it a ‘scandal’, which is a pretty strong word for him. Minnie, who rarely lets her car out of her sight – it’s a silver Jaguar XKR-S – agrees to leave it at