Lifesaving for Beginners

Katherine.’ That’s what my mother said. Afterwards.
    ‘Do you want to hold your baby?’ the nurse asked. The one with the country accent and the big hands. Her name badge said ‘Ingrid’. Capital letters. ‘INGRID’. I shook my head and they took it away and I signed the document in the places that Mum had marked with an x. ‘It’s for the best, Katherine,’ she said and I nodded and she brought me home and we never talked about it again.
    I open the second envelope. The third one. All from the same person. All saying the same thing. I put them on the table. I push them towards her.
    I say, ‘Read them.’
    She looks at the thin little pile of letters but doesn’t pick them up.
    She says, ‘I think we should talk about this later, Katherine.’ She nods towards Ed as if he can’t see us.
    Ed says, ‘Talk about what?’ He abandons his fork and uses his finger to mop up the last traces of ice cream from his plate. Mum does not tell him not to.
    Dad clears his throat and I know he’s going to say something and I know that once he says the thing he’s going to say, nothing will ever be the same again. Everything will be different. I know it.
    He clears his throat and then he says, ‘Kat had a baby, Ed.’ His voice is like the rest of him: quiet and small. His words are like a blow to the head. I look at him. At his kind, familiar face. It is the bluish-white of shock. He looks old. Properly old. For the first time. There is a shake in his voice. Still, he goes on. ‘She’d be twenty-four by now.’
    Ed looks at me. ‘Why is she writing to you? Does she not have your phone number?’
    ‘She asked the adoption agency to write to me. She wants to see me.’
    Ed says, ‘Does she not want to see me?’
    No one says anything.
    ‘Will she be my little sister?’
    Dad says, ‘You’re her uncle.’
    ‘She can sleep in my bottom bunk.’ Ed stands, heads for the door. ‘I’d better go and tidy my room.’ Ed has never tidied his room in his life. Mrs Higginbotham did it. Or me. Or Dad. He tears up the stairs, stopping at the top.
    ‘Uncle Ed!’ he shouts.
    Dad stretches out his hand and puts it on mine. Just for a moment. Mum looks at the gesture, then opens her mouth as if she is about to say something. Closes it.
    ‘Did you hear what I said?’ Ed shouts from the top of the stairs.
    ‘UNCLE ED.’

 
    Dad is asleep in Ant and Adrian’s room. I was worried he might sleep in Mam’s room. He doesn’t snore anymore. He says Celia doesn’t let him.
    I wait till Faith goes to bed and the house goes quiet and the floors start to creak. She goes earlier than usual. Probably because Rob didn’t come over. She told him not to bother, when he rang.
    ‘Get someone else to sing your song. It’s shite anyway, so it is.’
    Faith and Rob sound like Mam and Dad now. Before Dad went to live with Celia in Scotland. I reckon they’ll break up soon, which is a shame because Rob is all right, for an adult. He never tells you that things are good for you and he hates cauliflower and celery as much as I do.
    I put two pillows on the bed and cover them with my duvet, which is made of the same material as the uniform Sully wears when he’s going to the war. I take out the bag from under my bed. It’s got everything I need, even my toothbrush.
    I stop outside Faith’s bedroom door. There’s no sound so I keep going. The stairs are tricky, on account of the creaks. I make it to the sixth one before I drop my bag. When I bend to pick it up, the step creaks. It sounds like an old woman moaning. I nearly drop my bag again.
    I don’t move. I crouch on the sixth step and I listen.
    Nothing.
    Still, I force myself to wait for one minute. I count up to sixty, as slow as I can.
    Nothing.
    I creep down the rest of the stairs.
    The kitchen looks different in the dark. The clock in the shape of Ireland ticks much louder at night-time. When I open the fridge door, the light nearly blinds me.
    I take four EasiSingles, a packet of ham and three strawberry yoghurts. I take two slices of bread out of the breadbin and wrap them in tinfoil. A packet of crackers. A Kit Kat from Faith’s secret chocolate stash that she thinks I don’t know about. I leave the Flake. She’s mad about Flakes.
    I fill my flask with orange juice from the carton, except that I spill some on the floor and then I walk in it by accident. There’s no kitchen roll and the only tea towel I can find is Mam’s favourite one. The one with the recipe