Lifesaving for Beginners

the apartment and let Dad drive all of us in. ‘Just for the day that’s in it,’ she says.
    Ed insists on saying goodbye to every patient, nurse and doctor in the hospital before we are allowed to leave. ‘I’m glad to be going home but I’ll miss the hospital too.’
    I say, ‘What’ll you miss about it?’
    ‘The nurses, mostly.’
    Minnie says, ‘Don’t let Sophie hear you saying that.’
    Sophie is the jealous type. I don’t think she’d boil a bunny but I’d say she’d have no qualms about, say, a gerbil or a hamster.
    I’m glancing through the leaflet the nurse gave me about the pacemaker. ‘The doctor says you have to go back for a check-up in a few weeks. See how the pacemaker is settling in.’
    Ed looks worried. He unbuttons his shirt again and shows it to us. We can see the outline of the pacemaker beneath his skin. It is about the size of a matchbox. He says, ‘I don’t like it. It makes me feel scared.’
    Minnie says, ‘You’re like the bionic man, so you are. They’ve rebuilt you.’
    Ed looks at Minnie. ‘I might have died, mightn’t I?’ He’s fond of a bit of drama.
    ‘It’ll take more than a dodgy ticker to get rid of you, I’d say.’ She’s looking at Ed like he’s her brother too. She never treated him any other way. I touch her arm and squeeze it. Just a small one. But a squeeze all the same.
    A small smile gathers round her mouth.
    I say, ‘How’s Baby Driver coming along?’ Maurice took Minnie’s name when they got married. He had to, really. He has a surname that happens to be on one of Minnie’s blacklists.
    She says, ‘Week fifteen. Nine centimetres. About the length of a Curly Wurly. My stools are black but that’s just the iron supplements.’
    I say, ‘That’s great,’ before she can fill me in on any more details.
    Dad’s car is just outside the hospital, with the engine running. Mum is in the passenger seat, even though she’s supposed to be a keynote speaker at a writing conference in Prague. She shrugged when I mentioned it earlier. I help Ed into the car. Mum looks at him. ‘There’s a blanket there, if you’re cold.’
    Me and Minnie sit by the windows and Ed is in the middle. Like when we were kids. I tuck the blanket round Ed’s knees and the smile he gives me is so huge and so true, I have to turn away. Minnie finishes tucking the blanket and she nods at me, and that’s when I realise just how big today is. How huge.
    The surgeon called Ed ‘lucky’. I wouldn’t have used that word. But that’s the word I think of now. On this leg of the journey. The home stretch.
    Ed is lucky.
    We all are.
    Dad drives to my apartment first. Minnie needs to get her car and I need to get a toothbrush and some knickers. Ed wants me to stay for a sleepover. I know he’s milking it but I don’t care.
    There’s a traffic jam from the railway bridge, through the Diamond and on past the Garda station. I don’t take much notice. Malahide is one of those towns that people like to visit at all times of the day and night. It’s Minnie who realises. She looks out of the window and says, ‘That’s weird.’
    I say, ‘What?’
    Minnie lowers her window and sticks her head out. ‘There are five television trucks ahead.’
    I lean forward, into the space between the two front seats. I say, ‘Oh yeah,’ and sit back.
    Minnie looks at me. She doesn’t say anything. We inch along. It’s only when we get through the village and along the curve where the coast road begins that things become clearer. The car park in front of my apartment block is black with trucks. Television trucks. They’ve spilled onto the road, on double yellows, across driveways, along the edge of footpaths. One is on the slip that leads to the beach. Another has secured an elevated position up on the grass verge, where no vehicle has a right to be.
    Mum says, ‘What’s going on?’
    Ed nudges me. ‘Maybe there’s a celebrity staying in your building, Kat.’
    Minnie looks at him. ‘You’re right, Ed. There’s a celebrity in Kat’s building.’
    Dad says, ‘Really? Who?’ He is a closet celebrity-gossip-gatherer. I have seen copies of Now and Closer in his study.
    Minnie points at me. ‘It’s Kat, you great eejits.’
    Ed says, ‘I’m not an eejit. And Kat’s not a celebrity, silly. Her picture’s not in any of the magazines Dad has in his study.’
    Dad flushes. ‘Someone left those magazines there.’
    Mum says, ‘What about the ones in the bottom drawer of