Lifesaving for Beginners

door.’ I’ve told Ed about me and Thomas. I’ve told him loads of times. He keeps saying we’ll make up. Like him and Sophie.
    There’s no point looking out of the window because you can’t see the gates from the top floor. I pick up the intercom phone.
    I say, ‘Who is it?’ in the voice I reserve for door-to-door salesmen and scientologists.
    For a moment, I think Ed’s right. I think it’s Thomas. This has been happening a bit recently. I think I see him. Or hear him. When I’m in the supermarket or at the pick ’n’ mix in the foyer of the cinema, I think I see him out of the corner of my eye. But when I turn round, it’s someone else. Or nobody at all. Just a shadow. A figment of my imagination.
    ‘Who’s there?’ All I can hear is the crackle of some static on the line. I hang up. There have been some phone calls like that lately. When I answer, no one’s there.
    Ed is behind me, biting his nails. I paste a smile on my face and say, ‘It’s probably just kids messing.’
    Ed says, ‘It could be burglars.’
    ‘It’s not burglars. They don’t buzz the apartment before they break in, generally.’
    ‘I wish Thomas was here.’
    ‘I told you, Ed. Thomas isn’t going to be here anymore. Remember?’
    ‘I wouldn’t feel scared if Thomas was here.’
    I didn’t introduce Thomas to Ed for ages. I hate the way some people talk slower when they’re talking to Ed. Or louder. Or they just talk about stuff that they’d never usually talk about. Boring stuff. I hate that. When they finally met, it was by accident, really. It was St Stephen’s Day and Ed and I were in the Position on my couch.
    Ed said, ‘It’s your turn, Kat.’
    I said, ‘No, it’s your turn.’
    ‘I made them the last time.’
    ‘Yes but I made the hot chocolates, remember?’
    ‘Yes, but I’m your guest.’
    ‘Fine.’ I dragged myself off the couch and hauled myself to the kitchen to make another platter of turkey-and-stuffing-and-cranberry-sauce sandwiches.
    That’s when the intercom buzzed, which was strange because I wasn’t expecting anyone. I checked my phone. No messages. I picked up the intercom. ‘Who is it?’
    ‘It’s me.’ I recognised the accent immediately. Riddled with Monaghan. The voice itself, halting and low and reminiscent of Wispa bars.
    I said, ‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ my tone sharp. See what he made of that.
    Thomas said, ‘I know.’ Unperturbed by my sharp tone.
    I said, ‘Well?’ I hated the way I sucked in my belly and ran my fingers through the briars in my hair.
    ‘Are you going to let me in?’
    ‘I . . . I wasn’t expecting you.’
    ‘You already said that.’
    ‘But it’s true.’
    ‘Well?’
    ‘I’m just saying.’
    ‘Are you going to let me in?’
    Perhaps that was the moment it all began to unravel. Because I did. I let Thomas Cunningham in.
    I pressed the door release. I had sixty seconds. That’s how long it would take him to call the lift, exchange pleasantries with every single person he met and arrive at the top floor.
    Not enough time to do anything with my hair so I just gathered it up in my hands and twisted it round and round and pierced it with a pencil until it sort of looked a bit like a bun.
    Forty-five seconds.
    Not enough time to wash myself but just enough time to tear off the tracksuit bottoms and T-shirt with the cranberry-sauce stain on the front of it and throw them into the laundry basket. I rubbed deodorant under my arms and checked my legs. Stubble. No way he was staying over. I squeezed into jeans and reefed a top over my head, one that very charitably hid my bum, my stomach and a good bit of thigh.
    Thirty seconds.
    Not enough time for foundation. I made do with lipstick and a quick flick of the blusher brush round my face. Thomas had never seen me without make-up and Christmas was definitely not the time to reveal myself. People aren’t themselves at Christmas.
    Six seconds. I glanced in the mirror. Long black hair, trapped in a makeshift bun with bits already falling out of it. White face, in spite of my heavy hand with the blusher brush. Green eyes, strained from all the telly watching. Not great but – with three seconds left – it was the best I could do.
    I positioned myself beside the door. Exhaled. I couldn’t believe it had come to this.
    I opened the door of my apartment and there he was. As always, the hallway seemed to narrow, the ceiling lowered, the walls contracted. From habit, he bent his head when he