Lifesaving for Beginners

launch, OK?’
    ‘Can we talk about something else?’ I haven’t written anything in months but I’m not ready to let Brona know that yet.
    ‘Of course. How are you?’
    ‘Grand.’
    But she knows me too well. She says, ‘Tell Brona what’s the matter. Is it Thomas? Has he been in touch at all?’
    ‘He has a new girlfriend,’ I say and I am appalled to hear a crack in my voice. A sliver of a crack but a crack all the same.
    Brona says, ‘Gosh. That’s terrible news. Are you all right?’
    ‘Of course I’m all right. I just . . . it’s weird thinking about him with someone else, that’s all.’
    Brona says, ‘I’m sure Thomas and this woman aren’t serious. It’s just a rebound thing. I’m certain of it. He was mad about you.’ And there it is. The past tense. It still sounds strange.
    ‘She’s young, of course.’
    ‘How young?’
    ‘Thirty-six.’
    ‘That’s only four years younger than you.’
    ‘Three and three-quarters.’ I’m not forty yet, dammit.
    ‘Exactly. That’s nothing.’
    ‘He went out with her before.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘For three years.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘Why do you keep saying, “Oh”?’
    ‘Do I? Gosh, I’m sorry, I’m just . . . I’m listening. Go on.’
    ‘You think it’s bad, don’t you? That he went out with her before? For three years?’
    ‘No. Of course not.’
    ‘She’s at that very susceptible child-bearing age,’ I say.
    ‘Physiologically speaking,’ begins Brona, ‘the optimal child-bearing age is eighteen.’
    I’m not sure if Thomas is aware of this fact. Or if he cares. All I know is that he’d love a child. If he had one. He’s that type.
    ‘Anyway,’ I tell Brona, ‘it’s a moot point and, even if it weren’t, I’m too old to have children now.’
    Brona produces the trump up her sleeve. Her sister. ‘Lorna had her first baby when she was forty-two, remember?’
    How could I forget? Lorna is like a lighthouse in Brona’s stormy seas, shining a soft light on the dark waters of Brona’s single, childless life, of which she is not a big fan.
    Brona rushes on. ‘And she’s overweight – well, it’s that gland problem, really, isn’t it? Then there’s the diabetes. And the alopecia two years ago.’
    I know there’s more so I wait.
    ‘And psoriasis,’ she adds, after a while.
    I’ve never met Lorna but I think I’d be able to pick her out of a crowd at the O2. Not just because of the various ailments, but also because of the child that she bears in a sling about her person, in spite of the fact that the child is now two – or twenty-four months, as Brona calls it. Backpain. There’s another one we can add to the list. Chronic backpain.
    ‘It’s not just the age thing,’ I say. ‘There’re lots of reasons I shouldn’t have babies.’
    There is a pause and I know for a fact that Brona is thinking about Ed.
    ‘How did we end up talking about this?’ I say, almost to myself.
    ‘We were talking about Thomas,’ Brona says and I know she thinks she is being helpful.
    I say, ‘Parenthood is an ego trip for men.’
    Brona says, ‘Thomas would make a lovely father,’ as if she is thinking aloud.
    I say, ‘This is not helping.’
    ‘Sorry,’ she replies and there is an apology in her tone but I think her sorrow is directed at Thomas. She loved Thomas. She met him only twice but she decided she loved him anyway.
    A lot of people loved him, I suppose. He was just that type of bloke. Easy-going, some people said. Undemanding. He didn’t want much. And I gave him none of it. That’s the story doing the rounds.
    I say, ‘I’d better go.’
    Brona says, ‘Don’t forget to watch The Review Show tonight.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘They’re discussing post-feminism in Killian Kobain’s novels.’
    ‘What on earth does Killian Kobain have to do with post-feminism?’
    ‘I have no idea.’
    ‘And what the hell is post-feminism anyway?’
    ‘I’m drawing a blank there too.’
    ‘They’re crime novels, for Christ’s sake.’
    ‘I prefer to think of them as thrillers.’
    ‘Pillocks.’
    There’s a pause then before Brona slips in a sly, ‘So, you’ll think about it?’
    ‘About what?’
    ‘About the tenth book. Unveiling Killian Kobain. You know it’s the right time.’
    I say, ‘OK.’
    ‘OK?’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘You’ll really think about it? You’re not just fobbing me off like before?’
    I say, ‘No,’ even though I am just fobbing her off like before. But I only do it because it works. She doesn’t