Lifesaving for Beginners

file down the right-hand side of the bookshop, just as Minnie instructed.
     
    III
     
    The queue starts from the little table at the top of the bookshop, where I’m sitting, snakes to the door and spills onto the street. After an hour my hand is as rigid as a claw and my face aches from smiling into people’s cameras. I motion Milo over. ‘See how long the queue is now,’ I whisper. The news isn’t good. ‘Another fifty or so,’ he says.
    ‘Or so?’
    ‘Seventy-three to be exact.’ He smiles at me and somehow I manage to sign more books, smile into more cameras and even hold a woman’s baby while she rummages in her bag for her copy of the book.
    Beside me I feel Minnie tense. I look up. Her eyes are trained on the door. She picks up her walkie-talkie and presses a button. ‘We’ve got a situation at six o’clock. Over,’ she whispers into the radio. She looks at me. ‘Stay there.’ Then she walks with a huge degree of purpose towards the door. I stand up and that’s when I see him. In the queue, at the door, the top of his head reaching for the architrave. He nods when he sees me and the grey curls bounce, like an Irish dancer’s wig. He’s wearing the skinny black jeans that I bought him on a mini-break in Donegal. The white T-shirt  with the hole in the back where his goat got at it when his rigged-up clothesline collapsed. No jacket. In one hand, a copy of the book. My stomach contracts.
    The hired goons and Minnie bear down on him. Thomas stays where he is, oblivious to the imminent danger. I say, ‘Excuse me,’ to the man at the top of the queue who looks at his watch and shakes his head, tutting, like I’m a train that’s been delayed.
    I move towards the crowd. The goons are on either side of Thomas, waiting for the signal from Minnie. She nods at them and they move closer to Thomas, sandwiching him between them. I push through a particularly thick knot of people and burst through the other side. ‘Stop!’ I say, stumbling over someone’s handbag on the floor and falling against one of the goons, who feels as solid as a brick wall. He puts his gigantic hands on my shoulders and places me back on my feet. Minnie looks at me. ‘He claims he’s only here to get the book signed. But I can have him removed from the building. Just say the word.’ Then she looks at Thomas and smiles. ‘No offence, Thomas. I’m just doing my job.’
    Thomas smiles back. ‘I didn’t know you’d gone into the security business.’
    ‘Sideline,’ Minnie says.
    Thomas looks at me as if he’s about to say something, and I’m dying to know what it is he’s about to say when Minnie declares, ‘Decision time, Kat. In? Or out?’
    ‘I . . . ah . . . in.’
    ‘You sure?’
    I look at Thomas. ‘If you want to. Stay, I mean.’ He nods, amused.
    Minnie looks at the goons and says, ‘Stand down,’ in a disappointed, resigned sort of a way and they take a step back at the same time, like a pair of gigantic dancers, oddly graceful.
    Minnie takes my arm and frogmarches me towards the table. On the way, I pass Milo. ‘Can you count them again?’ I hiss at him. He nods.
    Back at the table, the man is still looking at his watch and shaking his head and tutting. I’m signing his book when Milo comes back with a hefty ‘Fifty-seven.’ Thomas is at the end of the queue. I square my shoulders and keep on signing. Inside my head, there are questions. Doubts. Second guesses. Worry. But there are other things too. There are possibilities.
    I notice that my inscriptions are becoming more flamboyant. Caution is in my hands and I am throwing it to the wind.
    Before, my inscription was always the same: their name. My name. The end. Now I was going all out.
    Kat xxx
    Love, Kat xxxx
    Lots of love, Kat xxxxxx
    All my love, Kat xxxxxxxxx
    I can’t stop smiling. Thomas is here and I’m like Brona now. I’m calling it A Sign.
    To Ger, best of luck with the driving test, will keep fingers crossed! Loads of love, Kat xxxx
    To Barney, so lovely to meet you. Hope she says YES!! Best of luck, Kat xxxxx
    To Siobhan, you’ll never know if you don’t ask. Ring him!! Love Kat xxx
    To dear Michael, your kind words mean the world to me. Lots of love, Kat xxx
    And the weird thing is, I mean it. Every word. I’m on a high. I’m on a roll.
    Faith arrives at the table. ‘You OK? Can I get you anything?’ I look at her and I get the jolt. I say, ‘Can you get me the book I signed for you?’ She hands it to me and I