Lifesaving for Beginners

to Arch club and everything. Isn’t that right, Kat?’
    Ed taps my arm with the tip of his index finger. He is smiling but there is confusion around the edges. I nod. ‘That’s right, Ed.’
    ‘Ed!’ I recognise Sophie’s voice and look up. She’s standing on the back seat of her father’s car, her head and shoulders poking through the sunroof. She waves at Ed with one hand and holds her medal with the other. Ed picks up the medal round his neck and holds it up as he runs towards her. Thomas and I watch his progress across the car park. Ed opens the back door of Sophie’s car and crawls in, pushing himself up through the sunroof until he is standing beside her. They both look at us – Thomas and I – holding their medals and waving at us. We wave back. It’s a relief to have something to do. When we have to stop waving, I fumble in my bag for my cigarettes.
    Thomas lifts the cuff of his jacket until he can see the wristwatch I bought him for his forty-fourth birthday. I went into nearly every jeweller’s shop in the city before I settled on that one. Thomas is not the sort of man you could buy just any old watch for. It has to be particular. It has to be waterproof and manure proof and goat-droppings proof and silage proof and all sorts. Durable, I suppose. But aesthetic too, you know? Thomas has lovely forearms, I’ll give him that. They’re pretty tanned. From being outside so much, probably. Strong enough too, what with all the pulling and hauling around the farm. You couldn’t just buy him any old watch.
    He pulls the cuff back down. ‘I’d better go.’
    I inhale and nod. He is not going to refer to Ed’s news. The relief feels strange. It feels like disappointment.
    I say, ‘Yes, you’d better. Get back to – Sandra, isn’t it?’
    ‘Sarah.’
    I can’t make out any expression on Thomas’s face. You could call it impassive. Or indifferent. I blow smoke towards him until I can’t see the indifference anymore.
    He turns away as if he is about to leave, then seems to change his mind and turns back. ‘And you’d better get back to your daughter,’ he says. ‘Faith? Isn’t that what Ed said?’ This time when he turns away, he doesn’t turn back. He walks towards his car.
    ‘Thomas.’ I check to see that Ed is still standing on the back seat of Sophie’s car before I run after Thomas. I’m not sure what I’m going to say. I reach for his arm. The warmth of it through the sleeve of his jacket is shocking in the rawness of the day.
    He pulls his arm away from me, as if he has been stung. ‘Don’t,’ he says, and there is something like contempt in his voice and it doesn’t seem possible because I’m sure he is speaking to me and he has never spoken to me like that before. Not ever. Not even when he let himself into the apartment. That day with Nicolas.
    ‘Thomas, I . . .’
    Now he is opening the door of his car, shrugging off his jacket despite the icy temperatures. I find myself thinking about the heat of him. How can one person be that warm?
    ‘Thomas, please . . .’
    He gets into the car and throws his jacket on the passenger seat. He puts his hand on the door handle as if he is about to slam the door, but then he looks at me. ‘What is it?’
    I hadn’t thought of what I might say after that. I just presumed he’d drive away. I take a drag from my cigarette, buying some time. ‘I just . . . I didn’t want you to find out like this. I . . . I should have told you.’
    Thomas shakes his head. ‘No,’ he says. ‘You didn’t have to tell me anything. We were only going out for a few months, weren’t we?’
    I say, ‘Twenty-three months,’ the way Thomas used to.
    He shrugs. ‘I have to go.’
    ‘Wait.’ Suddenly I want to tell him everything. I want to go back. Start at the very beginning. Start again. Why didn’t I tell him? I know now, with the certainty that comes with hindsight, that Thomas would be a good person to tell. A great person to tell. He listens. He doesn’t just nod and say, ‘Yes . . . yes . . . yes.’ He listens. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t interrupt. He listens. Afterwards, he would say something. Something sensible. I’m nearly certain of it. He might have some questions. He wouldn’t dispense advice. But he might make a suggestion. I want to know what that suggestion is. I am desperate to know.
    Thomas says, ‘What?’ He seems tired now, his features rigid and drawn.
    ‘I should have said something. I should have told you.