Lifesaving for Beginners

love it when you’re stern.’
    I said, ‘And that drawer is not for towels.’ If you were to go ahead and describe my tone, you could do worse than call it ‘prim’.
    And then he said, ‘Let’s go to bed,’ as if there were nothing prim about my tone.
    ‘But it’s only –’ I looked at my watch ‘– nine o’clock.’
    ‘Great,’ he said. ‘That gives us two hours. Plenty of time for a spot of Grey’s Anatomy . Bagsy being the patient this time.’
    ‘Subtle,’ I told him. But I forgot about the discoloured dishcloth of a towel and followed him into the bedroom.
    When I am writing, I have to be asleep by eleven so I can get up at six, shower, dress and drink a lot of coffee and be at my desk by seven.
    The next morning, he got up at the same time as me, went for a jog, came back, dropped his clothes on the bathroom floor and used up all the hot water in the shower. Then he strolled into the kitchen wearing nothing round his waist but the tiny, frayed towel that barely covered one cheek, even though his bottom was of the two-eggs-in-a-hanky type.
    Thomas opened the fridge. ‘There’s never any food in here.’ By food, he meant potatoes and steak and turnips.
    I say nothing.
    ‘I could go shopping.’ There was something about the way he said it that made me stop doing what I was doing – making more coffee – and look up.
    ‘I’ve got everything I need.’
    He stuck his head back inside the fridge. ‘You’ve got two eggs, three low-fat natural yoghurts, a lettuce that is two days past its sell-by date and an empty bag of mini Kit Kats.’ He closed the fridge door. ‘I’ll go shopping,’ he said again.
    ‘No!’ I said. It came out a bit panicky. ‘I mean, there’s no need; it’ll just go to waste.’
    ‘No, it won’t. I’ll eat it.’
    ‘But you don’t live here.’
    ‘I’ve been here every night for the last week.’
    When I thought about it, I was shocked to discover that it was true.
    He said, ‘I’m starved and I’m tired of eating out.’
    ‘Then why don’t you go home and boil up a pot of those spuds you’re always talking about?’
    ‘The Golden Wonders?’ he asked, a smile spreading like fertiliser across his face.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘They’re not ideally suited for boiling. You’d be better off baking or roasting those ones, Kat.’
    ‘Then you could go home and bake them. Or roast them,’ I said. ‘How about that?’
    ‘Or,’ he said, closing the fridge door and moving to the kitchen table. ‘I could move in.’
    Silence fell like fog. Thomas pulled out a chair and sat down. It creaked under the weight of him. After a while, he said, ‘It makes sense, Kat. I’m here most of the time already.’
    ‘You said nothing would change,’ I said, eventually. ‘You promised.’ I sounded petulant, like a child being pulled from a playground.
    Thomas looked confused. He said, ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘On St Stephen’s Day that time. When you said that thing . . .’
    ‘When I told you that you loved me?’
    ‘You said nothing would change.’
    ‘That was ages ago. And anyway, nothing is changing, Kat. I just want to move on a bit.’ He reached for my hand across the table. ‘At least think about it, will you?’
    After a while, I nodded my head. I said I would. I said I’d think about it.
    Now it’s Thursday again. I keep meaning to make a Thursday arrangement with Minnie. Take her to see a play or something. She’s cracked about the theatre. But then I forget and – BAM! – it’s Thursday again. I don’t know where the weeks go, I really don’t.
    I take three books from the pile on my bedside locker and put them on Thomas’s bedside locker. There. That’s much better.
    It’s really great having all the extra space again.
    It makes such a difference.

 
    Me and Damo are at the Funky Banana. I didn’t say sorry for hitting him but Damo got me in a headlock in the playground the next day at school and ran around for a bit and then let me go and laughed, so I knew we were friends again.
    Jack asks about Faith. He says, ‘How’s the lovely Faith these days?’ He always calls her the lovely Faith and wants to know how she’s doing. I don’t know why he doesn’t ask her himself when she’s here.
    I say, ‘She’s fine.’
    ‘Has she heard from Jonathon yet?’
    Faith rings Jonathon nearly every day and he never has any news for her. But I don’t tell Jack that. I just shrug as if I don’t know. I’m not mad about talking to people