Lifesaving for Beginners

Confess, Minnie calls it. But things got out of hand. It really started when Dirty Little Secret featured on Oprah’s Book Club. One word from Oprah (the word happened to be ‘compelling’) and the book started selling like Nicorette patches on New Year’s Day. Then there was the bidding war for the third book. I think there were five publishing houses involved, in the end. Minnie fielded the offers, from a payphone outside the Raheny public library. Then, the media campaign to find out who Killian Kobain was. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff the papers made up about the man. Outrageous. Then Scorsese made the first Declan Darker film and it won a truckload of Oscars and Golden Globes that year. After that, everybody wanted a piece of Killian Kobain. The problem was, he didn’t exist. Brona and Jeremy begged me to ‘come out’, as it were. But by then, it was too late. And in a way it was kind of nice. Being someone else. Someone other than me.
    Minnie finally agrees to meet me for lunch. It’s the only way she can get me off the phone.
    Harry’s Bar on Dawson Street is often full to the brim of snazzy-looking people. Important-looking people. Glamorous-looking people. But when Minnie Driver (the accountant, not the actress) rocks up, obscurity gets a dustsheet and drapes it over everyone else in the room. Minnie is just one of those people. It’s not enough to say she lights up a room. It would be more apt to announce that she detonates it. She walks in and everybody else – men, women, children, even really small babies – just cash in their chips. Fold like deck chairs after a long, hot summer. Throw in their towels. Raise their hands. Admit defeat. Walk away. Minnie does that to people. She doesn’t mean to. And she’ll deny it if challenged. But that’s what she does all the same. It could be her thinness (we called her Skinny Minnie in school), or her height (which seems greater because of her thinness), or her blonde hair (which is actually, genuinely, blonde and not dyed off her head like that of most women her age). It could be her ice-blue eyes that look enormous in her tiny, heart-shaped face. Or the remarkable clothes she wears, which you will never find in any shop, no matter how much you look. They look like clothes that have been designed especially for her.
    But, to be honest, I don’t think it’s anything to do with the way Minnie looks. Loads of women are gorgeous, but who cares? No, it could be more to do with the way Minnie presents herself in a room. In the world! As if it belongs to her. As if she owns it. There is a certainty about Minnie. A sureness of step. An aura that even sceptical people can see. She looks like one of those people who are familiar with the customs of Benin, speak conversational Russian and can fillet a fish in under a minute. In truth, she couldn’t point to Benin on a map of the world, has no Russian, conversational or otherwise, and can’t walk down the pier in Howth, what with the fishy-guts smell.
    People either love her or hate her. Immediately. They decide the minute they meet her. They can’t help it.
    My first memory of Minnie is my sixth birthday. Mrs Higginbotham had made bucketfuls of her cold shivery jelly, and I was in the back garden, looking for a big bush to scrape the jelly into. Through the thick wall of hedge separating our gardens, I heard Minnie and one of her five sisters.
    Minnie: No, she doesn’t exist. It’s Mam and Dad. Or just Mam, I’d say.
    One-of-five-sisters: Why would Mam want my teeth?
    Minnie: She doesn’t, you big eejit. She throws them away. In the bin. Or out of the window, probably.
    One-of-five-sisters: You’re telling fibs. I’m telling on you.
    Minnie: If Mam hears about this, she won’t put any more money under your pillow and . . . let me have a look . . . open your gob, for God’s sake . . . yeah, you’ve got about two pounds’ worth still in there. I’d wait if I were you. Before you start bleating.
    There is the sound of crying during which Minnie says not a word. Then:
    One-of-five-sisters (in teary, jerky voice): Wha . . . wha . . . what abou . . . about S-S-S-Santa?
    A pause. A long, long pause. I begin to wonder if Minnie has left the garden. Eventually:
    Minnie (sighing): He’s true.
    One-of-five-sisters: Are you sure?
    Minnie: I said so, didn’t I?
    To be honest, I doubt Minnie ever believed in Santa.
    She bangs her stopwatch thingy on the table between us. It’s like one of