Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [119]
‘My mother is bonkers.’
‘So will you be, eventually, if you carry on the way you’re going.’
‘Fintan,’ Katherine’s voice was controlled, ‘it’s not imperative for every human being to have a partner to be happy.’
‘Oh, God, puke bowl again, please.’
Wishing they could run away, they sat as, once more without success, Fintain tried to vomit. ‘If I could only throw up I know I’d feel better,’ he mumbled, when he’d given up on it again.
Katherine and Tara looked at their shoes and wished they were living someone else’s life.
‘So, Katherine,’ Fintan broke the silence, ‘I quite agree that some people are meant to be on their own. And you’re not one of them. Tara tells me there’s some fella at work.’
Katherine glared at Tara, redirecting all the rage she was forbidden to expel on to Fintan. ‘Not any more,’ it gave her sour pleasure to tell him.
‘Has he left work?’
‘No, he’s just gone off me.’
‘Why?’
Katherine didn’t speak.
‘You have to tell me,’ he ordered. ‘I have cancer. I might die!’
Resentfully Katherine elaborated, ‘I think it’s because I accused him of sexual harassment when he kept asking me out.’
‘What did you do that for?’
‘I didn’t want to go out with him.’
‘But why not? Is he a bad person?’
‘No! He’s so nice he’d get on your nerves.’
‘Aha!’ Fintan seemed to have perked up. ‘So you’d have gone out with him if he was a tosser? Then he’d dump you and you’d be safe once more – single, with your low opinion of men reinforced. Katherine, you have it all worked out.’
She shrugged, hating this.
‘Is he married?’
‘Not to my knowledge.’
‘How good-looking is he?’
‘Very.’
‘Dangerously? Insanely?’
‘No, just very.’
‘Does he do any part-time modelling?’
‘No.’
‘Good, I like him already. Do you fancy him?’
There was a pause, then Katherine nodded shakily.
‘What’s his name?’
‘Joe Roth.’
‘Your mission, Katherine Casey, should you choose to accept it – and believe me, you’d better, if you ever want to see Fintan O’Grady alive again – is to bag this Joe Roth.’
‘I think he’s got another girl,’ Katherine protested.
‘You love a challenge!’
She said nothing.
‘Promise me,’ Fintan urged, weakly. ‘Promise me you’ll try.’
‘I’ll think about it.’
‘I know you both hate me,’ Fintan flashed a grin at them, ‘but if you could see what I see, you’d be downright disgusted by the way you’re wasting your lives. You’re enduring maintenance-level misery because you think that at some point in your future things will just click into being perfect.
‘Go on, go home now, the pair of you have worn me out. And remember, Tara, get packing your bags and, Katherine, wear your best knickers to work on Monday! And most of all,’ he urged, like a football coach, ‘get out there and live, live, live!’
Stiffly they bade him goodbye. As they left his bedside, Neville and Geoff arrived. ‘Sorry, girls,’ Fintan groaned at them, ‘I feel too shitty for visitors.’
Tara and Katherine didn’t speak as they went down in the lift or left the hospital, except to wave wanly at Harry, Didier and Will who were noisily en route to Fintan, laden with flowers, magazines and beer. The flowers and magazines were for Fintan but the beer was for them.
As Tara steered the Beetle out of the car park, a car was coming in. Katherine twiddled her fingers at the people in it – Javier and Butch. ‘I wonder if Didier is going to get off with Butch?’ she mused idly.
‘I wonder.’
Then they drove in silence for almost twenty minutes.
Finally Tara spoke. ‘Fintan’s a scream, isn’t he?’ She forced a laugh. ‘An absolute madman.’
Katherine caught her breath. Had she been tying herself in knots for nothing? ‘You think he was joking?’
Tara gave Katherine a wry look. ‘Sure, what else? Who could take that seriously? Isn’t he a hoot?’
Katherine looked anxiously at Tara. She wasn’t at all sure that Fintan had been having them on. But it was such a relief if he had been…
‘A hoot,’ she agreed, wildly. ‘He’s out of his mind.’
Then the laughter gathered steam and became real.
‘The mere thought…’
‘As if…’
‘He’s cracked.’
‘Him and his harebrained schemes!