Lifesaving for Beginners

Then he wipes his hands on the trousers of one of his two good suits and looks right at the camera, and that’s when the screen shudders as if whoever is holding the camera is running backwards – and why wouldn’t they? – before it goes dark and then switches back to the studio, where Dawn Handel is there to pick up the pieces.
    She says, ‘More from Mark Simms in Monag-Han a little later on. And now, over to the sports desk.’
    Minnie finds the remote and switches off the telly. She goes to the kitchen and switches off the radio. I hear her put on the kettle. She returns with her iPad. She says, ‘You’re trending on Twitter.’
    I say, ‘So?’ because I don’t see what difference that makes, in the general scheme of things.
    Minnie says, ‘And you’re on the front page of all the evening newspapers and I don’t just mean the Irish ones. Look.’
    She hands me her iPad and I scroll through the headlines.
    THE NINE LIVES OF KAT KAVANAGH
    KILLIAN KOBAIN GETS IN TOUCH WITH HIS FEMININE SIDE
    I GAVE MY BABY AWAY, SAYS BESTSELLING NOVELIST KAT KAVANAGH AKA KILLIAN KOBAIN.
    KAT KAVANAGH REVEALS HER DARKER SIDE
    LIKE MOTHER LIKE DAUGHTER – JANET NOBLE IS KILLIAN KOBAIN’S MOTHER!!!
    KAT’S ‘DIRTY LITTLE SECRET’
    DARKER SECRETS AT HODDER & STOUGHTON
    KAT’S GOT THE CREAM AS SALES OF KILLIAN KOBAIN’S LATEST BOOK SOAR
    I stop scrolling.
    I look at Minnie. She’s looking at me as if she expects me to say something. I say, ‘What?’
    ‘What about Faith?’
    Now they’re all looking at me. Mum and Dad and Minnie and Ed. As if they’re waiting for an answer to a question.
    Minnie says, ‘It’s only a matter of time before they get to her.’
    ‘I know, and I . . . I am going to talk to her, it’s just . . .’
    Mum says, ‘You have to talk to her now.’
    Minnie nods, ‘Unless she’s living in a hole in the ground, she’ll have heard it. She’ll have heard you. Telling the world about her.’
    Ed says, ‘She doesn’t live in a hole, Minnie. She lives in Brighton. With Milo.’
    Mum shakes her head. ‘I don’t know why you had to bring it up at the press conference, Katherine, I really don’t.’
    ‘I had to say it. They would have found out sooner or later. I had to be the one to say it.’
    Dad calls a halt. ‘I think we should all sit down. Take a breath.’
    Mum glares at him. ‘I suppose you’ll be wanting to make us tea next.’
    Dad stands up. ‘That’s a good idea,’ and he goes and makes tea and manages to find a packet of chocolate digestives, so we sit round the dining-room table and drink tea and eat chocolate digestives and we try to make sense of things. Dad has Faith’s number. He says I should ring her. Mum says, ‘No.’ She says I have to go to Brighton. I have to see Faith. Talk to her. I have to explain.
    I don’t know how to explain. I have no explanation.
    ‘I can’t go to Brighton. I can’t even get out of the bloody house.’
    And that’s when Minnie leans forward and smiles her malevolent smile and says, ‘You can.’
    I say, ‘How?’
    ‘I have a plan.’

 
    It’s me who notices first, which is weird when you consider that I never watch the news. Well, hardly ever, on account of it being either dead boring or dead sad, like when a lady gets cut up into little bits and put in a suitcase by a man who lives in a basement with a dog and a hamster. That happened once. It was on the news so it’s definitely true.
    Celia is taking a nap. I reckon she’s tired from all the trips to the hospital and back.
    Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is on after the news. To make the time go a bit faster, I blow a Malteser from one end of the mantelpiece to the other with a straw, and that’s when I see her. On the telly, I mean. I’m pretty sure it’s her. I recognise her from the photographs in Ed’s room. Even if I hadn’t seen the photos, I’d probably know who she is because she looks exactly the same as Faith, except she’s old. I pick the Malteser off the mantelpiece, put it in my mouth and turn up the volume on the telly.
    She’s sitting on a chair behind a desk like the desks we have at school. There’s a microphone on the desk in front of her and she’s talking into that. I don’t know who she’s talking to. There’s a glass of water beside the microphone and she keeps picking it up and taking huge gulps out of it.
    She might look a bit like Ed too, if she smiled.
    That’s when Faith and Dad and Ant and Adrian come into the