Lifesaving for Beginners

that’s a pretty dangerous thing to do when you think about it.
    I check the bus timetable. The bus into London goes from the top of our road so it’s not too far to walk. I could get the train but the station is ages away and the bus is way cheaper and I’ll be able to sit on the top deck at the front. The last one leaves at 00.14, which means fourteen minutes past midnight. Then I’ll take another bus to Gatwick. Faith’s flight is at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll be there way before then.
    I find my passport in Mam’s room. I run in, take it out of the drawer and run back out. I used to love going into Mam’s room. When I was little, I bounced on the bed. It’s a very bouncy bed. When I got too big to bounce, I lay across it and read my books. Mam sat on the end of the bed and put make-up on her face or brushed her hair or painted her nails, and I’d read and she’d say, ‘Tell me something,’ and I’d tell her about a new dive we were learning at lifesaving or a new star that had been discovered or something like that.
    I shut the door behind me when I get out of the room.
    I put my passport into my bag. I’ll probably be able to buy a ticket to Ireland at the airport. Faith won’t be able to say, ‘No,’ once I’ve got a ticket.
    I end up hoping the birth mother turns out to be a horrible person because then Faith will come back to Brighton with me. I know that’s mean but you can’t stop your thoughts from thinking stuff, even if it’s bad stuff.
    I hide the bag under my bed. It’s small enough so it fits. I hide it behind the box with the costumes. I’m too old for dressing up now but some of them are still in pretty good condition, like the Power Ranger and the Death Eater. There’s a cowboy outfit too. I could give them away, I suppose. To a charity shop, maybe. There’s one in town.
    I’ll do it when I get back.
    When everything gets back to normal.

 
    On Sunday, I visit my parents’ house. There is nothing unusual about that. I often visit their house on Sunday. I’ve been doing it for years.
    It’s cold inside. Dad doesn’t like it too warm because of the orchids, in various stages of development, that occupy most windowsills. He’s supposed to grow them in the orchard but he brings some of them inside. The ones that need special attention, he says. I’ve come across him doing all sorts with them. Talking to them, playing ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ by D:Ream to them, painting their pots (although he says this is a last resort, not being gifted with a brush and a palette). I think it was their second date when Mum expressed a liking for the flower. Dad never forgot it.
    Ed says, ‘Where’s Thomas, Kat?’
    Maybe this is the worst part about me and Thomas. About Thomas and I.
    Ed.
    From the moment he met Thomas, Ed has declared himself to be Thomas’s best friend. And who could blame him, the way Thomas carried on? Bringing him everywhere. Like to the film premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean , a Skulduggery Pleasant book launch, a trip to the set of Fair City , just because he knows that Fair City is Ed’s favourite soap.
    ‘Ed doesn’t need a chaperone, you know,’ I often said in the voice Thomas called my ‘testy’ voice.
    ‘Sure, don’t I want to go too?’ he’d say. ‘Isn’t yer woman, what’s her face, Penelope Crows in it?’
    ‘Cruz.’
    ‘Exactly. And there’ll be a bit of a feed and maybe some goodie bags. We’ll have a blast, won’t we, Ed?’
    And they always did. Have a blast. They went to football matches at Croke Park, the opening night of The Sound of Music at the Grand Canal Theatre, a journalists-only trip to the zoo when the baby elephants were born.
    ‘There’s no need for you to take Ed on every jolly you go on,’ I told Thomas, more than once.
    ‘I know,’ Thomas said. ‘Do you want to come with us?’
    ‘To the smelly zoo to see some smelly elephants lifting their tails and excavating the contents of their bowels right in front of me?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Thomas.
    ‘OK,’ I said, enjoying his surprise. And my own, if I’m honest. And the elephants weren’t even that smelly. In fact, what I remember is the heavy sweetness of jasmine in the air and the smell of summer when Thomas bent and kissed the corner of my mouth in public, before I could tell him not to.
    No matter how many times I try to tell Ed about me and Thomas – Thomas and I – he still asks. Especially on Sundays. In the months before we