Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [187]
Moving to a deeper level of fear, he remembered his father. He’d lost his hair early, which was no problem when you were a postman. But Lorcan was an international actor. His appearance was his income. What would he do? he projected wildly. When the crown of his head was smooth and bare, would he keep the rest of it long, à la Michael Bolton? Or would he cut and shave the remaining hair, so that he was entirely bald, just like Grant Mitchell?
Diminished, almost in tears at the thought, he caught sight of himself in the mirror. And wondered what he was worrying about. He still had loads of hair. Tons of it. Long and luscious, lustrous and luminous. Volumizing shampoo. That’s all he needed. A bit of lift over his forehead. And there was Wella’s liquid hair, he’d only been waiting for an excuse to use it. Here was his chance.
He pointed a finger at the mirror, winked, clicked his tongue and, with a warm appreciative grin, ordered, ‘Don’t go changin’.’
‘How do I look?’ Tara, sleek and sexy in a black catsuit, paraded before Katherine and Joe.
‘Great. Tara –’
‘What if your man Benjy is nice?’ Tara wondered.
‘Tara, something’s happened. While you were in the shower Sandro rang about Fintan.’
‘Oh, God,’ Tara breathed and sank into a chair.
‘No, it’s good news.’
Tara’s pale face looked up hopefully from between her fingers.
‘Really good news. He said that in the last day there’s been a dramatic reduction in the size of the tumours.’
Tara was frozen, her fingers still half over her face.
‘The one on his neck has halved, he says, and you can hardly feel the ones on his pancreas.’
‘Oh, thank God.’ Tara laughed tearfully. ‘About bloody time too, after six months of chemo. What about his bone-marrow and chest?’
‘More tests will have to be done, but if the lymph glands have improved we can only presume there’s a high chance that the other sites have too.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ Tara breathed tearfully. ‘I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it. It’s been so long since anything positive has happened, I was fairly sure that, you know, there wasn’t much, um, you know, hope.’
‘I know.’
‘I’d kind of come to terms – well, not come to terms,’ she said hurriedly, ‘but if he didn’t ever get better, it wasn’t going to be a massive shock, do you know what I mean?’
Katherine nodded.
‘But this is brilliant!’ Tara’s eyes were shiny with tears.
‘I suppose we shouldn’t get too excited.’ Katherine struck a note of caution. ‘It’s such an unpredictable illness.’
‘Oh, come on, let’s get a little bit excited. Will we go over there now to see him?’
‘No.’ Katherine could hardly hide her impatience. ‘We’ll see him tomorrow. Go out on your date and have fun.’
She was keen to get rid of Tara because there was something she’d been dying to discuss with Joe since the previous day.
‘OK. See you later.’
‘Have a nice time. ‘Bye.’
The door slammed.
72
‘Joe?’
‘Mmmm.’
‘Did anything ever happen with you and Angie? Angie at work.’
Katherine felt him go very still, as though his blood had stopped flowing, then he moved and sat up properly on the couch. He looked at her and his face was sad.
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ she lied, quickly. ‘It’s none of my business, really, but she saw us when we came in together yesterday morning and asked me if I was seeing you. And I said I wasn’t but she seemed upset. So… I wondered if anything happened with the two of you. Did it?’
He looked at her with infinite tenderness, then frowned as though in pain. He opened his mouth to speak and she watched, willing him to say no. ‘Yes,’ he said, and she felt a heavy stone plummet through her. Don’t overreact, she begged herself. Please don’t turn into a bunny-boiler.
‘How long?’ Her heart was pounding. ‘I mean, what happ – I mean, did you go out with each other for a long time? Were you in love?’
‘No.’ He said kind of wearily. ‘Nothing like that. It was just one night.’
One night