Lifesaving for Beginners

moved.’
    The nurse looks at me. ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Yes.’ It doesn’t feel so bad. Lying.
    ‘So can I go home now?’
    ‘Just as soon as the doctor gives you the all-clear.’
    I sit on the edge of the bed. She says, ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to talk to someone?’
    I shake my head. ‘Do you know when the doctor will come?’
    She sighs, and rubs her eyes like she’s tired. ‘He’ll be here soon, pet.’ When she leaves, she doesn’t say goodbye. She thinks I’ll be here when she gets back.
    The doctor says, ‘You’re fine.’ I nod and smile, like I agree.
    ‘You’ll bleed for about six weeks. Wear pads. No tampons.’
    I nod. My bag is on the bed. My toothbrush is in the bag.
    ‘So can I go home now?’
    The doctor looks at me. Nods. He says, ‘After a while, it won’t hurt anymore.’

 
    It’s dark now. And cold. We don’t talk, me and Faith. We just walk. We walk past bus stops, a taxi rank, a train station. Faith walks really fast. She always complains about being out of proportion, because of her legs being so long and her body being so short, but Mam said it would have been worse the other way round, like Dad, for example.
    We pass a chip shop. Chip shops in Ireland smell as good as the ones in Brighton and they have batter burgers on the menu too, which I’m not allowed to get on account of them being bad for you. I’ve had them at Damo’s house. His mam doesn’t know about them being bad for you.
    I don’t say anything. I don’t ask her where we’re going or how long it’ll take to get there. I just try to keep up with her until I’m a bit out of breath, like I’ve swum nearly two lengths of the pool underwater, which I can do but not every time.
    Faith stops without letting me know and I bang into the back of her. She sounds like she’s swum nearly two lengths underwater too.
    She sits on the wall and lights a cigarette. The smoke passes over me like a cloud and I try not to breathe it in, because if you breathe it in you could get cancer and die. I sit on the wall too. I feel dead hot. Once, I had a temperature of a hundred and three and I didn’t even dip the thermometer into a mug of tea, like Damo did.
    The good thing about smoking is that it calms people down. Faith’s not breathing funny anymore.
    She says, ‘Go on.’
    I say, ‘What?’
    She says, ‘Go on and ask me. Whatever it is you want to ask me.’
    ‘I don’t have anything to ask you.’
    ‘I won’t mind.’
    She doesn’t sound like she’ll mind if I start asking her stuff. She just sounds tired.
    I say, ‘I have two things to ask.’
    Faith looks at me. ‘Go ahead.’
    I say, ‘The first thing I want to know is, where are we going?’
    ‘What’s the second thing?’
    ‘Don’t you want to answer the first question first?’
    ‘No, I want to know what I’m dealing with.’
    ‘OK then. The second question’s going to be, how long will it take us to get there?’
    Faith nods and puts the cigarette in her mouth for ages, which means that even more smoke is going into her lungs. Afterwards, she throws the butt on the ground, even though it’s not even half finished yet. Mam would call that a waste. I’d only call it a waste if it was a Mars Duo or something. I stamp on it until it goes out.
    Faith says, ‘We’re going home.’
    ‘Home home? Or back to Auntie May’s?’
    ‘Home home.’ She doesn’t say how long it’ll take to get there. Instead, she turns away from me and she stares at the wall, as if there’s something dead interesting on it. A spider, maybe. Or a cockroach. But I don’t think she’s looking at anything interesting. I think she’s crying. Her shoulders are moving up and down. She’s either crying or laughing but I think she’s crying. Nothing funny has happened so far.
    I look around. There’s a bus stop with two old ladies standing at it, which means that a bus will be coming soon. I say, ‘Wait there,’ to Faith and she doesn’t turn round but she nods so I know she heard me and she’s going to wait there, just like I said. It feels weird being in charge. This is the way adults must feel most of the time.
    I ask one of the old ladies if the bus is coming soon and if it goes to Busaras in the city centre. She’s about the same size as me. I think maybe people stop growing when they are adults and then, after a while, when they get really old, they start getting smaller and smaller until they are as small as kids.
    When the old lady smiles,