Lifesaving for Beginners

be thinking about something but it’s hard to tell.
    I pick up the phone again but I’m not sure what to say so I just ask, ‘What kind of a car do you have?’
    Faith gives me one of her looks. It means that question is not appropriate. I don’t see why not.
    ‘Er, it’s a Lexus. Past its sell-by date now, I’m afraid. Like myself, I suppose.’ He sort of laughs as if he’s said something funny.
    Then he says, ‘So, what does Faith think? Should I come and pick you up?’
    I look at Faith. She’s stirring her spoon round and round the cup.
    I say, ‘ I don’t know.’
    He says, ‘That’s all right. You’re in a café, you said?’
    ‘Yes. I’m having an apple and cinnamon muffin because they don’t have any banana muffins, which happen to be my favourite ones.’
    ‘I like banana ones too.’
    ‘They’re dead easy to make.’
    ‘Oh. Do you bake?’
    ‘Not really anymore. I used to. My mam showed me. It’s not that hard. You just have to be dead careful with the measurements and the oven temperature.’
    Now Faith is looking at me. She is shaking her head. She takes the phone out of my hand. Holds it to her ear. Says, ‘Who is this?’
    After a while, she says, ‘Look, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come. I just . . . I shouldn’t have come.’
    And then she hangs up.
    I say, ‘Are we going back to his house?’
    She shakes her head.
    ‘What are we going to do then?’
    She shrugs her shoulders. We sit there. I lick my finger and use it to pick crumbs off my plate until there are none left. I look at my watch. We’ve been here for forty-five minutes. The waitress comes and picks up the plate. She asks Faith if she’s finished with her coffee and Faith nods, even though it’s nearly half full. Mam said that if you’re an optimist, you’d say, half full. I think Faith would call it half empty now.
    I wonder if something will happen. I think it’s going to turn into the kind of day where nothing much happens.
    And then, all of a sudden, something does happen.
    A car pulls up outside the café. A big car. It’s dead shiny and clean. I bet the boot opens by itself. George Pullman’s dad has a car like that and the boot opens by itself. I think you have to press a button first and then it opens, all by itself.
    The driver’s door opens and a man gets out and I get this feeling inside me. I know, nearly for sure, that it’s the man from the phone. The grandfather. For starters, he looks like a grandfather. He’s probably around eighty or something and his hair is grey and he’s wearing one of those caps that grandfathers wear. Damo’s granddad has one. He stands outside, on the pavement, and stares into the café like he’s looking for someone. Us, probably. And he looks kind of expensive, like the sort of man who would live in a mansion with maybe ten bedrooms. I don’t know why. I think it’s because he wears his scarf like a tie round his neck and he has a coat that goes right down past his knees instead of a jacket with a hood.
    I look at Faith to see if she’s noticed but she’s still fiddling with her phone. I think she’s texting Ant, maybe. Or Adrian.
    I look back at the man and now he’s looking straight at us, and he walks to the door and he opens it and now he’s inside the café, still looking straight at us.
    The waitress sees him and says, ‘Howeya, Ken.’
    The man says, ‘Hello, Eileen.’ His voice is serious, like a newsreader on the telly. He’s at our table now. Faith looks up.
    He says, ‘Excuse me.’
    Faith says, ‘Yes?’
    He says, ‘I’m Leonard. Leonard Kavanagh.’ He holds out his hand but Faith doesn’t shake it like you’re supposed to. She stares at him.
    He looks at me and says, ‘You must be Milo.’ He reaches out his hand to me and I shake it like you’re supposed to. Firm and brief. His hand is huge.
    I open my mouth to say something except I don’t know what and that’s when the man looks at Faith and says, ‘And you’re Faith. I’d know you anywhere.’

 
    If.
    If I hadn’t answered the phone.
    Or if I’d left my phone at home.
    Or if the phone had been in the bottom of my handbag instead of on the hands-free set.
    If I hadn’t heard it.
    If I’d turned it off.
    If I could go back.
    Not just to the phone ringing and me answering it.
    But back.
    All the way back.
    Everything would be different.
    Nothing would be the same.
    And this conversation would never have happened.
    Dad says, ‘No, don’t worry, Ed is fine.