Lifesaving for Beginners

any of the other adults on the ice. He falls in a tumble of arms and legs and ends up skidding, on his knees, sending up ice like a flurry of snow. This sets him off. He laughs like a group of people laughing. It’s loud. And pretty traditional. He actually uses the words: ‘Hahahahahahaha!’ When you hear him laugh, you’ll laugh. Even if you’re like me and not given to outbursts of laughter. And it’s not because I’m humourless. It’s just that things are rarely all that funny.
    This is our December tradition. We always come here as soon as it opens on the first of December, to avoid the Christmas crowds. We’ve been doing it for years. Just me and Ed. Ed has never invited Sophie. I have never asked Minnie. Although, last year, Ed suggested that Thomas might come. And last year, Thomas asked me if he could come. I told Ed that Thomas couldn’t come because he was working. And I told Thomas that he couldn’t come because Ed would prefer if it was just the two of us. Just me and Ed.
    Ed said, ‘That’s a shame.’
    Thomas said, ‘I see,’ looking at me like he knew everything. Then he said, ‘Maybe next year.’ And for a moment back then, I thought: yeah. Maybe. Why not? Why not next year? And I shrugged my shoulders as if I wasn’t thinking that and I said, ‘Maybe,’ and then I stopped walking and I grabbed his arm so he had to stop too. We were on Dollymount Strand that day doing one of those unbelievably long walks that Thomas was so fond of. I suppose I got used to them in the end. I might even have enjoyed some of them. And he said, ‘What?’ And I said, ‘Nothing.’ But I think he sort of knew what was going on inside my head because he bent down and stuck his face in front of mine and kissed me in that offhand way he had. Without touching me. He had no form whatsoever. No style at all. I don’t know why I liked it so much. The way he kissed me. Then, only because he knew I wasn’t a sand-dune kind of woman, he suggested we go straight to my apartment for a matinee performance of Grey’s Anatomy . I said, ‘OK.’
    Ed says, ‘Did it, Kat?’
    I say, ‘What?’
    ‘Did it make you sad? When you didn’t get to see Faith?’
    I don’t answer quickly enough because Ed shoots off, shouting, ‘Time me,’ over his shoulder as he scorches his way up one side of the rink and down the other.
    I say, ‘Twenty seconds.’
    He says, ‘That’s my fastest time, Kat.’
    ‘No it’s not. You did it in nineteen the year before last.’
    The woman standing beside me looks at me. She has a white face and a long narrow nose with a red tip – a testament to the bitterness of the day. If her face wasn’t so frozen solid with the cold, it would have an expression that I have seen before. A ‘have a bit of compassion’ expression. A ‘give the mentally handicapped man a break’ expression.
    I see off her look with a matching one of my own, except that mine is more of a ‘mind your own bloody patronising business’ kind of an expression. She looks away.
    Ed is sulking. I know he is because his bottom lip sticks out.
    I say, ‘Go on, try again. If you did it in nineteen seconds the year before last, you can do it in nineteen seconds now.’
    Ed says, ‘I can’t do it any faster.’
    I say, ‘You can.’
    He pushes himself off the wall and goes again. Nineteen seconds around the rink.
    I say, ‘See? I told you you could do it.’
    Ed can’t respond because he is bent over the wall, panting hard.
    I put my hand round his arm. ‘Ed?’
    He shakes his head.
    ‘Ed? Are you all right? Do you want to sit down?’ I bend so I can see his face, which is brick red. His eyes are shut. Maybe Thomas was right. But the tests from the hospital were good the last time. So long as he keeps taking the medication.
    ‘Ed?’
    When he straightens, his bottom lip is not sticking out anymore. It is curved in a smile. ‘I did it!’ he says, when he catches his breath.
    I smile. ‘I told you you could do it. Come on.’ When he steps off the ice, I take his hand. He’s great on the ice but inexplicably unsteady on level, non-slippy ground when he’s got the skates on. ‘Let’s go and get some lunch.’ I want red wine and a packet of cigarettes but Ed will want a main course and dessert. The doctor told him to watch his weight but it’s like telling Gordon Ramsay not to shout in a kitchen.
    We take a cab to the Guinness Storehouse, which is one of Ed’s favourite places. He loves the glass lift