Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [111]
‘I’m going to eleven o’clock Mass with JaneAnn.’
Katherine burst out laughing, then stopped abruptly when she saw JaneAnn behind her.
‘I’m surprised at you, Katherine Casey, making fun of a young man’s faith.’
‘Sorry,’ Katherine said, humbly.
Sandro recoiled when he saw that Katherine’s normally pristine, tasteful flat had deteriorated even further since the previous evening. It was as if a bomb had exploded. Clothes, shoes, suitcases and bed-linen everywhere. Socks were draped on top of the television, a teacup was upended in a pot plant, the previous night’s wine and whiskey bottles were thrown on the floor, and though the sofa-bed had been folded back into a couch, a huge corner of sheet lolled out of it like a tongue from a slack mouth. From the kitchen came clattering, sizzling and the smell of food being fried. It’s as if twenty students live here,’ he breathed, surveying the chaos, searching for an orange traffic cone.
‘It is, isn’t it?’ Katherine laughed darkly.
‘But you are always such a Miss Prissy-knickers,’ he protested.
‘What’s the point?’ She lifted her arms, then let them flop to her sides. ‘If I tidy, it’s a shambles again five minutes later.’
‘You are feeling all right?’ He watched her closely.
‘Fine!’ she declared, shrilly. ‘Great. Except, you know,’ she continued, her voice getting thinner and shriller, ‘once in a while it’d be nice to be able to get into my bathroom. There’s always someone in it. And I don’t really mind that JaneAnn used my loofah-mitt to scrub the kitchen floor, or that Timothy cleaned my non-stick frying-pan by scraping off all the black so that it’s not non-stick any more. But what kind of upset me this morning when I finally got into my bathroom was that someone – I think it was Milo – used all my Kerastase leave-in conditioner.’
‘Why do you think it was him?’
‘Just look at his hair,’ Katherine screeched. ‘See how bloody shiny it is!’ Her face was a ball of red and she glared at Sandro, daring him to try and talk her down. ‘I’m sorry,’ she wailed, and burst out crying. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’ She shuddered with tears. ‘I’m such a selfish brat. How can these things matter when Fintan’s so sick?’
The bell rang again. This time it was Liv, soberly dressed.
‘Don’t tell me,’ Katherine laughed through her tears, ‘you’re going to eleven o’clock Mass with JaneAnn?’
Katherine couldn’t go to Mass, even though she knew it was expected of her. She was just too upset.
‘But surely if you’re upset,’ JaneAnn fretted, ‘Mass is the best place for you.’
Milo didn’t go either, which caused JaneAnn to look sorrowful. But when they all arrived back two hours later, JaneAnn was in top form and even more enamoured of Liv because she knew Father Gilligan personally. ‘You missed a great Mass,’ JaneAnn sang. ‘The sermon was particularly beautiful. About the Prodigal Son. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been away from the Lord, he’ll always welcome you back, no questions asked.’ She looked with heavy emphasis at Milo.
Then Tara arrived and it was time to visit Fintan.
As soon as Tara walked through the hospital doors, she was running on empty. She was wrecked, wrung dry from all the emotion, fed up of her clothes and hair reeking of the ferrousy hospital smell, worn out from sitting on the hard visitors’ chairs and it was a real struggle to do without cigarettes for hours on end. She hadn’t managed to knit any of Thomas’s jumper or go to the gym all week, her work was suffering and she couldn’t stop eating. She yearned for a night at home, alone, watching soaps and speaking to no one. She flicked a glance at Katherine and saw that she’d just hit an identical wall.
‘It’s queer,’ JaneAnn articulated everyone’s feelings. ‘It’s like it’s only five minutes since we were last here. Last night’s sleep might as well not have happened.’
‘Groundhog day.’ Tara laughed wearily.
‘This is only our…’ Liv counted on her fingers ‘… fifth day doing this.’
‘I know,’ Milo finished for her. ‘It feels like the millionth.’
‘But maybe he’ll be coming home tomorrow,