Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [100]
Tara, hurrying past on her way to the hospital, was both touched and envious. It was one of the most exquisite scenes she’d ever witnessed. The huge, handsome man holding the fragile beauty in a pose of aching tenderness.
Later on, she exclaimed to the throng around Fintan’s bed, ‘It was just like something out of a film!’
35
Fintan was due to get the results of the bone-marrow biopsy, chest X-rays and CT scan on Friday afternoon. Until then, Tara, Katherine, Sandro, Liv and the O’Gradys were condemned to live in limbo, unable to think any further. As far as they were concerned, the world stopped on Friday afternoon. Nothing of importance would ever happen thereafter.
They’d somehow managed to convince themselves that the cancer in his lymph nodes was very little to worry about. That if the disease didn’t show up in his chest, bone-marrow or internal organs, Fintan was as good as cured.
All their energy was poured into enduring the wait to find out exactly how ill he was. While angst and hope played tug-of-war back and forth, havoc was wreaked on sleep patterns, appetites, concentration facilities, patience levels and the ability to decide between cheese or chicken sandwiches. Meanwhile, they read whatever they could find on the subject of Hodgkin’s disease and bought every book on alternative healing they could get their hands on.
So many of Fintan’s colleagues and friends were showing up at visiting time that he was moved to say in a sour, low moment, They’ve only come to see if I’ve got Aids.’ But even after it was clear that he didn’t have Aids, a swarm of good-humoured visitors descended on him every evening. And the inner circle of Tara, Katherine, Liv, his family and boyfriend practically did a non-stop vigil at his bedside, JaneAnn and Sandro graciously letting each other take turns to hold Fintan’s hand.
On Wednesday, the O’Gradys’ first morning in London, Tara drove them and Katherine to the hospital where they met Sandro and Liv.
‘Good morning,’ Tara carolled to Fintan, determinedly cheerful.
‘What’s good about it?’ Fintan asked sullenly, thrown resentfully in the bed.
The collective mood nose-dived, and everyone tiptoed nervously around Fintan, asking the standard hospital-visitor questions.
‘Did you sleep well?’ Katherine tentatively inquired.
‘Was your breakfast nice?’ Tara wanted to know.
‘Would you like a grape?’ Sandro offered.
‘What’s wrong with your man in the bed over there?’ Milo asked.
Fintan answered bitterly, ‘I didn’t fucking sleep well, my breakfast made me puke, you can stick your grapes up your arse, and if you want to know what’s wrong with your man, why don’t you go and ask him yourself?’
Wobbly fake smiles all round, and a series of stilted questions to each other – how was Sandro today, did JaneAnn sleep well in the strange bed, wouldn’t they mind Tara and Katherine not being in work, how early would Milo and Timothy get up at home, did they have cows in Sweden?
‘Oh, here we go again,’ Fintan complained loudly, as he saw a nurse approaching to take his first blood sample of the day. ‘I’m like a fucking pincushion. Someone comes along and sticks a needle in me every five minutes.’ He stuck his arm out for the syringe, and all present recoiled when they saw the elbow crook with its black, purple, green and yellow colouring. Bruises upon bruises, with another about to follow.
Tara’s heart bled as she yearned to endure the pain for him, yet simultaneously she found herself thanking God with passionate, violent relief that it wasn’t she who lay in the bed, a human pincushion. Almost before the thought was fully formed, she was awash with sickening shame. What was wrong with her?
‘Let’s see if we can find the vein in the first ten attempts, shall we?’ Fintan said sarcastically to the nurse.
‘Have manners!’ JaneAnn hissed. It was forgivable for him to be rude to her, his poor aged mother, who had spent