Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [106]
When Tara and the O’Gradys arrived at nine a.m., Sandro was already there, his head next to Fintan’s, both of them chatting intimately. They looked so close and united that everyone felt uncomfortable at disturbing them.
‘Sorry to bother ye,’ JaneAnn said, wondering why she wasn’t jealous of Sandro.
‘No problem,’ Sandro smiled, ‘I’ve been here for hours.’
‘He couldn’t sleep,’ Fintan said.
‘The bed’s too big without him,’ Sandro said, then horror zigzagged across his little face. Had he offended JaneAnn?
But although she was mildly shocked, she couldn’t find it in her heart to hold it against him. Either of them. Somehow it didn’t seem that important, no matter what the Church’s view on the matter was…
Next to arrive was Liv, who stayed only a short time because she had to go to work in Hampshire.
‘You’ll miss Supermarket Sweep,’ Milo teased.
‘Watch it for me, then tell me what happens.’ She smiled, shyly.
Supermarket Sweep had already become a fixture in the morning and Fifteen-to-One in the afternoon. Half an hour twice a day when reality was suspended. Something other than craven dread to unite them.
‘We’re normalizing the abnormal,’ Liv, the behavioural expert, explained. ‘It’s a survival technique.’
‘I just thought it was because I liked Dale Winton,’ Sandro said.
‘Don’t be silly!’ Liv admonished. ‘You’re simply responding to a terrible trauma.’
In contrast to the previous day Fintan lay in lethargic apathy.
Suddenly his caustic tongue seemed far more desirable. The only time he stirred was when a nurse walked into the ward, and automatically he began struggling to roll up his sleeve. Already he inhabited the strange world of the sick person, Tara thought, stricken with exclusion, seeing the huge gulf between them, they who’d always been so close. She could never share in what he was going through, or be part of the relationship he had with his nurse. He belonged to other people now.
At one thirty, when Katherine was sitting at her desk, completely unable to decide whether to have a cheese or a chicken sandwich for her lunch, her phone rang, breaking the deadlock. Cheese! Cheese, it would be. Cheese, without a doubt. Unless, of course, it was chicken…
Desmond the porter was on the line, saying there was a ‘gentleman’ in the lobby who wanted to see her. From the heavy irony with which he said ‘gentleman’ Katherine was led to believe her visitor was anything but. Confused, she got the lift down and found Milo, grinning his head off, an A–Z in his hip pocket. ‘How did you get here?’ she asked in astonishment.
‘Piccadilly line to Piccadilly Circus,’ he said, the words sounding incongruous in his soft Clare accent. ‘Then Bakerloo line to Oxford Circus. Fintan’s asleep, JaneAnn’s doing some heavy-duty praying, Timothy is reading, so I thought I’d have an adventure.’
‘Do you know this man?’ Desmond asked, looking in disdain at Milo’s mad hair, his work-worn dungarees, his big boots.
‘Yes, Desmond, thank you.’
As Desmond disbelievingly shook his head, in a exaggerated version of it’s-always-the-quiet-ones, Katherine turned back to Milo. ‘And you didn’t get lost or anything. Fair play.’
‘Oh, I did get lost. I went the wrong way from South Kensington, but I got off at Earl’s Court and asked a woman for directions.’
‘And she helped you?’ Katherine sighed in relief.
‘No, she didn’t. She said – I must see if I can remember the exact words. She said, “Do I look like a fucking talking map?” ’
‘Oh, Milo.’ Katherine touched his arm protectively, and barely noticed Joe Roth and Bruce passing through the lobby. ‘I’m sorry about that.’
‘Not at all!’ Milo declared. ‘I thought it was the height of hilarity. I’m getting used to this London place now – it’s all about people speaking their minds. It’s refreshing.
‘Do I look like a fucking talking map?’ he chuckled to himself. ‘A talking map? How do you like that? I never heard the beat of it. Right, now I’m off to Hammersmith to see Tara. Piccadilly or District