Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [138]
Suddenly they became aware of a strange, high-pitched yelping noise coming from the bathroom. They looked in confusion at each other for a split second, then they were on their feet and through the door.
Fintan was out of the shower, crouching on the tiles, water sluicing off his naked, Belsen-thin body. He was gibbering, his expression a rictus of revulsion.
Something was different about him, Tara thought. He didn’t look quite like Fintan.
Then she realized what it was.
He was bald.
There were locks of hair draped on his shoulders and chest. But almost none on his head.
They looked where he was jabbing his finger. At the floor of the shower. They followed three frothy, frilly tidemarks of shower gel as far as the plug-hole. Which was blocked.
With hair.
So much of it. Black, heavy and wet-shiny. Rainbow iridescence twinkling from shampoo he hadn’t managed to rinse before the hair was swept from his scalp.
‘My hair,’ he managed.
Tara wanted to weep. ‘Your hair,’ she confirmed.
‘I’m bald.’
‘It will grow back when you’re better.’ Sandro’s voice trembled with shock.
‘They told you this would probably happen, didn’t they?’ Tara asked gently.
‘Yes, but I didn’t think it would happen to me… I mean, I didn’t think it would be like this… all my hair,’ he stuttered. ‘Look at it. It’s like a horror film.’
‘Come away.’ Sandro pulled a big towel from the rack and began to tenderly dry Fintan, as a mother would a child. His hands, his arms, his underarms, his chest.
‘Lift your foot.’ Sandro crouched on the floor, drying between Fintan’s toes, as Fintan wobbled and held on to the wall. ‘Other one.’
Her heart breaking, Tara gathered up the sopping hair into her hands. This was the worst. Truly the worst.
Fintan wrapped a towel in a turban around his head, then went to the bedroom, threw himself on the bed and began to cry. For half an hour he bawled like a baby, while Tara and Sandro imploded with helplessness.
‘I’m grisly looking,’ he wept, gasping between syllables. ‘I’m. Griz. Lee. Look. Ing.’
‘You’re not, you’re not.’
‘I am, I am.’ A fresh wave of sorrow overtook him. ‘I’m. Griz. Lee. Look. Ing. I’m. Griz. Lee. Look. Ing.’
‘It’ll grow back when you’re better.’
‘I’ll never be better.’
After some time he sat up and went to the mirror. Slowly, painfully, he peeled off the towel and forced himself to check out his new appearance, initially only looking at his profile.
‘Jesus Christ.’ He winced when he finally did the full frontal. ‘I’d take the night’s sleep off myself.’ He ran his hand over his smooth pate in bitter, irremediable regret. ‘My crowning glory. All gone. All gone. I’m dog-ugly without it.’
‘You’re not, you’re not!’
‘Holy Jesus.’ Fintan noticed something, then buried his face in his hands. ‘One of my ears is higher than the other.’
‘It’s not.’
‘It is. Have a look.’
It was.
‘I never knew my head was so lumpy. Oh, God, the ugliness! And this is just the beginning, you know. My eyelashes are next. And eyebrows. And my you-know-where.’
‘You can get a wig.’ Tara was weighed with depression. ‘Perhaps not for your you-know-where, but you can for your head.
‘Hey,’ she forced herself to sound jolly, ‘you’re a gay man. For shame if you don’t already have several!’
‘Actually,’ Fintan rallied, ‘now that you mention it, I have my Pamela Anderson one.’
‘Perhaps you shouldn’t have taken a shower.’ Sandro lamented. ‘Maybe you could have kept your hair.’
‘It was just hanging on by the skin of its teeth,’ Fintan admitted. ‘Though it looked like I still had hair, it was already gone. It was simply a matter of time before it was all over. I just didn’t want to face it.’
Now, what did that remind Tara of?
Meanwhile Katherine was having a rough afternoon of her own. The consensus had been that it mightn’t be good to overwhelm Fintan the minute he returned home, so she had been elected to keep JaneAnn and Timothy out of the way for a while. Milo would have loved to help but unfortunately he was tied up.
Literally.
Liv was a terrible woman.
Because JaneAnn and Timothy were going