Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [210]
At a flat in Battersea, Joe Roth opened his front door to find Katherine standing there.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry it’s so late, but can I tell you a story?’
Epilogue
At the chrome and glass Camden restaurant the skinny receptionist ran her sparkly turquoise nail down the book and muttered, ‘Casey, Casey, where’ve you got to? Here we are, table eighteen. You’re the –’
‘– first to arrive?’ Katherine finished for her.
‘No, I was going to say you’re the table in the window. Some of your mates are already here.’
Joe and Katherine hurried across the room to Tara, Liv and Milo.
‘Sorry we’re late,’ Katherine apologized. ‘Hair crisis. Anyway, happy birthday, Tara!’
‘What’s happy about it?’ Tara grinned. ‘How happy were you on your thirty-second birthday?’
‘Extremely, actually.’ Katherine smirked at Joe.
‘So was I,’ Liv contributed.
‘I can’t remember mine, it was so long ago,’ Milo said. ‘But I’m told I was content.’
‘How’s the pregnant woman?’ Katherine asked.
‘She’s fine,’ Milo answered, proudly. ‘Puking like the Exorcist most mornings, but grand by lunchtime.’
Liv gave a benign, earth-mother smile, her hands clasped maternally across her midriff even though she was only nine weeks advanced and her stomach was as flat as a board. Contentment rolled off her in serene waves.
‘Are you all right, there?’ Milo asked her anxiously. ‘Would you like a cushion for your back? Has the urge to eat newspaper gone off you?’
‘Newspaper?’
‘I ate the television page yesterday,’ Liv admitted, shyly. ‘He was cross.’
‘Don’t be telling them that,’ Milo chided gently. ‘I wasn’t cross. All I said was “Next time will you eat the financial pages instead…” Oh, here’s Fintan and Sandro.’
A taut wire of tension pulled everyone upright. It was three months since Fintan had finished his course of chemo and he’d had his first check up with the oncologist that afternoon. Everyone hoped he’d been told he was in the clear.
His progress across the restaurant floor was observed by the staff and most of the clientele. Tall, gaunt, leaning on a walking stick, his scalp was tufted with a transparent layer of pale-gold duckling down. Baby hair – according to JaneAnn, he’d been blond when he was born.
‘Aids,’ the Friday-night clientele mouthed and nodded in a frenzy of excitement to each other. ‘Definitely Aids.’
‘Could be alopecia.’
‘Nah, look at how thin he is. And I bet that’s his boyfriend with him. A tenner says it’s Aids.’
Sandro hovered at Fintan’s elbow and they were both smiling. Did this mean that the news was good? ‘Happy birthday!’ They descended on Tara. ‘I know it’s not actually until tomorrow, but happy birthday!’
‘Never mind that. Tell us what the oncologist said,’ Tara clamoured.
‘He reckons I’ll last the evening.’
‘Ah, but seriously. The long-term prognosis?’
‘The very long-term prognosis is that I’m going to die.’ At the circle of appalled faces, Fintan laughed, ‘We’re all going to die.’ But his laughter was joyous, rather than bitter.
‘But has the cancer, you know, like, stopped?’ Milo asked anxiously.
‘It’s certainly behaving itself at the minute. Gone underground. Keeping a low profile. But they’re at pains to tell me that it might come back. Not definitely, but it might.’
‘But it might not,’ Sandro emphasized.
‘We’ll just have to wait and see,’ Fintan agreed. ‘I suppose I’m still in the Last Chance Saloon, but it’s not so bad.’
Tara turned to Fintan and heard herself ask a question. ‘Don’t you mind the uncertainty?’
The words were out of her mouth before she realized; then she wanted to shoot herself for being so tactless. But Fintan smiled, a smile filled with light and life and pleasure. ‘No.’ Then he surprised her by asking, ‘Do you?’
‘Do I what?’
‘Mind the uncertainty.’
She opened her mouth to protest that her life expectancy had no uncertainty, then stopped and bit her lip ruefully. It was so easy to forget everything she’d learnt over the past year. ‘No.’ She grinned. ‘I’m glad of it, really. When