‘Eric, what does antsy mean?’
‘Um. Restless, I think, uneasy.’
‘Has it anything to do with ants?’
He frowns.
‘I thought it was when you think there are ants crawling all over you, so you start to feel like this.’ I shudder a bit. ‘But there aren’t any ants on you at all.’
He taps his lip. ‘You know what, I don’t know. Is it important?’
I think about it. It would mean that I think there is something wrong with my life because there actually is something wrong with my life or that there is something wrong with me. But it’s just a feeling, and there actually isn’t. There not being something wrong would be the preferred solution.
What’s wrong, Sabrina? Aidan’s been asking a lot lately. In the same way that constantly asking someone if they’re angry will eventually make them angry.
Nothing’s wrong. But is it nothing, or is it something? Or is it really that it is nothing, everything is just nothing? Is that the problem? Everything is nothing? I avoid Eric’s gaze and concentrate instead on the pool rules, which irritate me so I look away. You see, there it is, that antsy thing.
‘I can check it out,’ he says, studying me.
To escape his gaze I get a coffee from the machine in the corridor and pour it into my mug. I lean against the wall in the corridor and think about our conversation, think about my life. Coffee finished, no conclusions reached, I return to the pool and I am almost crushed in the corridor by a stretcher being wheeled by at top speed by two paramedics, with a wet Mary Kelly on top of it, her white and blue-veined bumpy legs like Stilton, an oxygen mask over her face.
I hear myself say ‘No way!’ as they push by me.
When I get into the small lifeguard office I see Eric, sitting down in complete shock, his shell tracksuit dripping wet, his orange Sun-In hair slicked back from the pool water.
‘What the hell?’
‘I think she had a … I mean, I don’t know, but, it might have been a heart attack. Jesus.’ Water drips from his orange pointy nose.
‘But I was only gone five minutes.’
‘I know, it happened the second you walked out. I jammed on the emergency cord, pulled her out, did mouth-to-mouth, and they were here before I knew it. They responded fast. I let them in the fire exit.’
I swallow, the jealousy rising. ‘You gave her mouth-to-mouth?’
‘Yeah. She wasn’t breathing. But then she did. Coughed up a load of water.’
I look at the clock. ‘It wasn’t even five minutes.’
He shrugs, still stunned.
I look at the pool, then at the clock. Mr Daly is sitting on the edge of the pool, looking after the ghost of the stretcher with envy. It was four and a half minutes.
‘You had to dive in? Pull her out? Do mouth-to-mouth?’
‘Yeah. Yeah. Look, don’t beat yourself up about it, Sabrina, you couldn’t have got to her any faster than I did.’
‘You had to pull the emergency cord?’
He looks at me in confusion over this.
I’ve never had to pull the cord. Never. Not even in trials. Eric did that. I feel jealousy and anger bubbling to the surface, which is quite an unusual feeling. This happens at home – an angry mother irritated with her boys has lost the plot plenty of times – but never in public. In public I suppress it, especially at work when it is directed at my supervisor. I’m a measured, rational human being; people like me don’t lose their temper in public. But I don’t suppress the anger now. I let it rise close to the surface. It would feel empowering to let myself go like this if I wasn’t so genuinely frustrated, so completely irritated.
To put it into perspective here is how I’m feeling: seven years working here. That’s two thousand three hundred and ten days. Eleven thousand five hundred and fifty hours. Minus nine months, six months and three months for maternity leave. In all of that time I’ve sat on the stool and watched the, often, empty pool. No mouth-to-mouth, no dramatic dives. Not once. Not counting Mr Daly. Not counting the assistance of leg or foot cramps. Nothing. I sit on the stool, sometimes I stand, and I watch the oversized ticking clock and the list of pool rules. No running, no jumping, no diving, no pushing, no shouting, no nothing … all the things you’re not allowed to do in this room, all negative, almost as though it’s mocking me. No life-saving. I’m always on alert, it’s what I’m trained to do, but nothing ever happens. And the very second I take an unplanned coffee break I miss a possible heart attack, a definite near-drowning and the emergency cord being pulled.
‘It’s not fair,’ I say.
‘Now come on, Sabrina, you were in there like a shot when Eliza stepped on the piece of glass.’
‘It wasn’t glass. Her varicose vein ruptured.’
‘Well. You got there fast.’
It is always above the water that I struggle, that I can’t breathe. It is above the water that I feel like I’m drowning.
I throw my coffee mug hard against the wall.
My neck is being squeezed so tightly I start to see black spots before my eyes. I’d tell him so but I can’t speak, his arm is wrapped tight around my throat. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I’m small for my age and they tease me for it. They call me Tick but Mammy says to use what I have. I’m small but I’m smart. With a burst of energy, I start to shake myself around, and my older brother Angus has to fight hard to hold on.
‘Jesus, Tick,’ Angus says, and he grips me tighter.
Can’t breathe, can’t breathe.
‘Let him go, Angus,’ Hamish says. ‘Get back to the game.’
‘The little fucker’s a cheat, I’m not playing with him.’
‘I’m not a cheat!’ I want to shout, but I can’t. I can’t breathe.
‘He’s not a cheat,’ Hamish says on my behalf. ‘He’s just better than you.’ Hamish is the eldest, at sixteen. He’s watching from the front steps of our house. This statement is a lot, coming from him. He’s cool as fuck. He’s smoking a cigarette. If Mammy knew this she’d slap the head off him, but she can’t see him now, she’s inside the house with the midwife, which is why we’ve all been turfed out here for the day until it’s over.
‘Say that again,’ Angus challenges Hamish.
‘Or what?’
Or nothing. Angus wouldn’t touch Hamish, older than him by only two years but infinitely cooler. None of us would. He’s tough and everyone knows it and he’s even started hanging out with Eddie Sullivan, nicknamed The Barber, and his gang at the barbershop. They’re the ones giving him the cigarettes. And money too, but I don’t know what for. Mammy’s worried about him but she needs the money so doesn’t ask questions. Hamish likes me the most. Some nights he wakes me up and I’ve to get dressed and we sneak out to the streets we’re not allowed to play on. I’m not allowed to tell Mammy. We play marbles. I’m ten but I look younger; you wouldn’t think I play as well as I do, most people don’t, so Hamish hustles