Lifesaving for Beginners

why not.
    Instead, I sit in my apartment and I field calls.
    Dad calls. Nearly every day. He’s started shouting into the answering machine, like they do in overblown American films. ‘Pick up! Pick up, Kat. I know you’re there,’ even though he doesn’t know I’m here. Not for certain.
    Ed calls. He wants to come over. I tell him I’m sick. He says, ‘Do you have the flu?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You should take some tablets.’
    ‘I did.’
    ‘You should get into bed.’
    ‘I am.’
    ‘Can I come over?’
    ‘When I’m better.’
    ‘When will you be better?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    I see nobody except delivery men. They’re nearly always men. Pizza delivery men. Indian takeaway delivery men. Chinese. Thai. Even the chip shop down the road delivers. I alternate between them and say as little as possible. The last thing I need is a friend who’s a fast-food delivery guy. What would that say about you? I hand over money, take the box, say, ‘Keep the change,’ and close the door, lock the door, put the chain across the door, close the curtains, eat the chips, the egg-fried rice, the samosas, the thin-crust pepperoni. I wash it down with red wine. Australian, Chilean, South African. I don’t look at the bottles. Screw tops, the lot of them. Easier that way. Twist and pour. I have loads of bottles. Cases and cases. I won’t have to get more until March, I’d say. February, at the earliest.
    Just as I’m settling into a bit of a routine, the doorbell rings. At first I ignore it. I’m not expecting anyone. I haven’t ordered any food yet.
    But whoever is at the door is persistent, which means three possibilities: a Jehovah’s Witness, someone selling cable television, or Thomas. But Thomas hasn’t knocked on the door since he came to pack up his stuff.
    I don’t pick up the intercom. I don’t open the curtains and look out of the window. In fact, I do nothing at all. The doorbell keeps ringing. One long, mournful sound. And then, all of a sudden, it stops.
    When I stand up, pins and needles prickle up and down my legs and I hobble out of my bedroom and into the kitchen. I shuffle to the breadbin, where I keep the takeaway menus. Put on the kettle. Turn on the radio. I reach up my arm to the press and put my hand around a cup.
    Them I stop. Look at the kitchen clock. It shows a quarter past five and my rule is, no drinking till six. But it’s only forty-five minutes earlier than usual. I’ll order dinner forty-five minutes earlier too. That’ll even it up. I lift my hand off the cup. Pick up a glass instead.
    I open the bottle. Pour myself half a glass. Swill the wine around. Put the glass down. Pick up the bottle. Fill the glass this time. Take a huge drink. Wipe the wine stain – already forming – off the corners of my mouth.
    I jump when the kettle whistles.
    That’s when the knocking begins. On my front door. Which means one of the neighbours has broken the Golden Rule, which is never, ever, Under Any Circumstances, let someone into the building unless that person is calling specifically for you. Even if you know them. You’ve known them for years. Since they were born, in fact. Even if they’re a member of your own family who happens to be calling for somebody in the building and you know perfectly well that it’s perfectly legitimate. Even then. You don’t do it. You just don’t.
    Except now, it seems, someone has done it. The chief suspect is Mrs O’Dea on the fourth floor. She’s a sucker for a sad story. There was that time last year when she let the Big Issue seller in. Hours, it took us. To get him out. He looked ancient but he was a dab hand on the fire-escape stairs.
    ‘Katherine? Can you open the door? Please?’
    It’s not a Jehovah’s Witness. Or a cable telly salesman. And it’s not Thomas. Of course it’s not.
    I open the door. She says, ‘May I come in?’ and then she waits as if she’s not sure what my answer might be. I nod and step aside, opening the door wider as I do.
    ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’ I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she has been here on her own. She’s always with Dad. Or Ed. Or Dad and Ed.
    Mum nods and peels her black leather gloves away from her hands, gives them to me along with her coat and her hat. It seems that she is staying.
    I say, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
    ‘I’ll have what you’re having.’ She nods at the glass in my hand.
    Mum does not drink wine except on Sundays. She says it