Lifesaving for Beginners by Ciara Geraghty Read Free Book Online

believe I was doing this. I never did this.
    He nodded and said, ‘Keep you guessing till the end. That’s what I like about them.’
    When we were eventually allowed to disembark, there was a mad scramble for the exits. Cunningham-Thomas-Cunningham stayed in his seat. I stood up. I said, ‘We can get out now.’
    He said, ‘I always wait till the crowd disperses.’
    When Thomas smiled, his eyes lightened and I noticed the ring of green round the grey, except the grey wasn’t all that grey anymore. It was more like a pale blue. Like the sea when the cloud breaks and the sun filters through.
    He said, ‘It was nice meeting you, Kat.’
    ‘You too.’ The weird thing was, I meant it. That was strange.
    I moved into the queue of people standing in the aisle of the plane. Thomas said, ‘Goodbye now,’ before he settled himself in his seat, opened his book – my book – and began to read. As the queue of people inched forward, I wondered, for the first time, why I do this. Why do I stand up as soon as the plane doors open and join the queue instead of waiting till everyone gets off before collecting my belongings and ambling off the plane? I’ve never ambled. Not once.
    I looked back. Thomas was still there, still sitting down, still reading his book – my book.
    I inched my way to the front of the plane. Eventually, I disembarked.
    Thomas rang the next day.
    He said, ‘It’s me.’
    I said, ‘Who?’ even though I knew immediately. Definitely Monaghan, I decided.
    He said, ‘Cunningham. Thomas Cunningham. We met on the plane yesterday, remember? I was reading Dirty Little Secret . You were pretending to say the rosary.’
    ‘I was not pretending.’ The cheek.
    ‘Anyway, I just wondered if you’ll be hungry on Friday, around eight?’
    ‘How did you get this number?’
    ‘I’m a journalist.’
    ‘So?’
    ‘I can’t reveal my source.’
    ‘I demand to know how you got my number.’
    ‘The telephone directory.’
    ‘But . . . I didn’t know I was in the telephone directory.’
    ‘You have to ask to be left out of it. Otherwise, Eircom just put you in automatically.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘So? What do you think? Might you be hungry then?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    A pause. Thomas didn’t fill it.
    I said, ‘Why?’
    ‘Because if you were hungry, I could take you out for the bit of dinner.’
    ‘Dinner?’ I say, like I’ve never heard of it before.
    ‘Or if you weren’t hungry, we could skip dinner and go straight to the show.’
    ‘What show?’
    ‘The magic show. In the Button Factory. It’s very good, so it is. I saw it last year. There’re no white rabbits and no black hats. It’s good.’
    I’d never been to a magic show. ‘Why?’ I asked.
    He said, ‘Nothing like a bit of magic on a Friday night.’ I was supposed to meet Minnie that Friday night. To celebrate the completion of the latest Declan Darker novel. A cocktail at the Shelbourne and dinner at One Pico.
    I opened my mouth to say what needed to be said. Instead, I said, ‘OK.’
    ‘OK to dinner or OK to the magic show or OK to both?’
    ‘Eh, both.’ I couldn’t get over myself.
    ‘Grand, so. I’ll pick you up at half seven, OK?’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘Great. See you then.’
    ‘OK.’
    Minnie said, ‘I’m getting dumped for a muck savage from Monaghan?’ when I told her.
    I said, ‘Yes.’ I was as shocked as she was.
     
    Now, I look around the kitchen and say, ‘What are you doing?’
    Thomas says, ‘I’m making lemon and ginger biscuits.’
    That could be true because there are bits of what could be biscuit dough on the counter, the table, the floor, the door of the fridge and all down the front of Thomas’s shirt. There’s also a pretty big lump of it in his hair.
    ‘What about dinner? I’m hungry.’ Minnie would say, ‘Quit your whining,’ if she were here.
    Thomas doesn’t say that. Instead, he says, ‘I’ve made your favourite.’
    I look around with suspicion.