Lifesaving for Beginners

about Mars bars. So am I, especially Mars Duos.
    Yours sincerely,
    Milo McIntyre
     
    PS. I’m putting in a Petr Cech card because (1) he’s the best goalie in the entire universe and, (2) I have two of them now.
    PPS. Hunger Games is coming out in ten days!!!!!!! It’s 12A but Sully is coming home from the war next week and he said he’d come to the cinema with us, to make sure that I get in this time.
    PPPS. Tell Kat not to worry about being the worst in the class. Coach says everyone can be good at lifesaving so long as they practise a lot.

Epilogue
    1 July 2012; Dublin
    I
     
    This is the first book launch I’ve ever attended.
    Faith says, ‘Are you nervous?’
    I still get a jolt when I see her. The very fact of her, standing here, beside me. She is taller than me. Thinner. But there are similarities. The long, dark hair. The pale skin. The green eyes. She doesn’t look like me but she looks like a version of me.
    I shake my head. ‘Actually, no. I thought I would be nervous. But I’m not.’ This is not bravado. It happens to be true. I should be as nervous as a hedgehog chancing a beach road on an August bank holiday. But I’m not.
    She nods then. Smiles. The dimple dents her right cheek. Ed’s dimple. She says, ‘Anyway, there’s no need to be nervous about the book.’ Her copy of Lifesaving for Beginners is tucked under her arm, like a clutch bag. Now my mouth is dry and my heart is banging against the wall of my chest, like a drum solo. I had already decided – before I sent her the book, before I’d finished it – that I wasn’t going to ask her if she’d read it. I definitely wasn’t going to ask her what she thought of it. I wasn’t going to say a word.
    ‘Did you read it?’ I feel like someone’s just plugged me into the mains.
    Faith nods.
    ‘And . . . ah . . . what did you think of it?’ Goosebumps rise on my arms, like I’m standing in a draught.
    ‘I thought it was brave. And honest. And I really like the way it ends.’
    I’m glad I’m sitting down. The relief would have floored me.
    Faith puts her hand on my arm. A brief touch. ‘Good luck.’ Then she walks towards the door of the office, which is a small, cluttered room at the back of the bookshop. ‘See you out there.’ When she leaves, I twist the rod at the edge of the window and the venetian blinds tilt. The bookshop is teeming with people. Journalists and photographers mostly. You’d think, after six months, interest would have waned. Heads turn as Faith disappears into the throng in the green linen dress that her mother called her ‘Ireland’ dress.
    I scan the crowd again but it’s only when I don’t see him that I realise I’m looking for Thomas. He’s a journalist after all. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that he might be here. No matter how many lambs his ewe bears, he’s still a journalist. He could easily be here.
    But he’s not.
     
    II
     
    Minnie bursts into the room, gripping a clipboard in her hands. A pen is clamped between her teeth like a bit. She looks at me. Plucks the pen from her mouth. ‘Good,’ she says. ‘You’re here.’ She scores a tick on a page that’s attached to the clipboard, like I’m an item on her ‘to-do’ list. I probably am.
    The clipboard is Natasha’s, the PR Brona hired to handle the launch. Except that at exactly 9.13 this morning, Natasha got text-dumped by her boyfriend of seven and a half months who was on the cusp of moving into her one-bed in Notting Hill. Now she’s in the Turk’s Head drinking tequila and leaving increasingly incoherent messages on her ex-boyfriend’s mobile which he has – thus far – failed to return. The cad. That’s what Brona called him.
    Minnie has stepped into the breach. She’s in her element. ‘PR’s a doddle,’ she said, in front of Natasha’s assistant, who curled his hands into fists so Minnie couldn’t smell his fear. She’s put him on name-badge duty.
    ‘You ready?’ She inspects me from the feet up, nods and scores another tick on her page. She doesn’t comment on the effort I’ve gone to. The red dress with the matching shoes and the fitted black leather jacket. But she ticks me off her list and that’s something.
    I say, ‘Yes.’
    ‘Good.’ She takes a walkie-talkie out of the pocket of her jacket and presses a button. Static hisses through the speaker and she winces. She presses another button and says, ‘We are leaving position D and will be at position A in T minus twenty