Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [3]
‘Happy birthday,’ Fintan said to Tara. They didn’t kiss. Although Tara, Katherine and Fintan kissed almost everyone else they met on a social basis, they didn’t kiss each other. They’d grown up together in a town that didn’t go in much for physical affection – the Knockavoy version of foreplay was the man saying, ‘Brace yourself, Bridie.’ All the same, that hadn’t stopped Fintan trying to introduce the continental-style, two-cheeked kiss into their Willesden Green flat, in their early days of living in London. He even wanted them to do it to each other when they came home from work. But he’d met with strong resistance, which deeply disappointed him. All his new gay friends had indulgent fag-hags, why hadn’t he?
‘So how are you?’ Tara asked him. ‘You look like you’ve lost some weight, you lucky thing. How’s the beriberi?’
‘Playing up, taking it out of me, it’s in my neck now,’ sighed Fintan. ‘How’s your typhoid?’
‘I managed to shake it,’ said Tara. ‘Spent a couple of days in bed. I’d a mild bout of rabies yesterday, but I’m over it now.’
‘Making those kind of jokes is downright evil.’ Katherine tossed her head in disgust.
‘Can I help it if I always feel sick?’ Fintan was outraged.
‘Yes,’ Katherine said simply. ‘If you didn’t go out and get slaughtered every night of the week, you’d feel a whole lot better every morning.’
‘You’ll feel so guilty when it turns out I’ve got Aids,’ Fintan grumbled darkly.
Katherine went pale. Even Tara shuddered. ‘I wish you wouldn’t joke about it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Fintan said humbly. ‘Blind terror is a divil for making you say stupid things. I met this old pal of Sandro’s last night and he looks like a Belsen victim. I hadn’t even known he was positive. The list just keeps on growing and it scares the living bejaysus out of me…’
‘Oh, God,’ Tara said quietly.
‘But you’ve nothing to be scared of,’ Katherine interjected briskly. ‘You practise safe sex and you’re in a stable relationship. How is the Italian pony, by the way?’
‘He’s a beeyoootiful, beeyoootiful boy!’ Fintan declared, in a boomy, theatrical way that had the other diners looking at him again and nodding in satisfaction that he was indeed a famous actor, as they’d first suspected.
‘Sandro’s grand,’ Fintan continued, in his normal voice. ‘Couldn’t be better. He sends his love, this card…’ he handed it over ‘… and his apologies, but as we speak he’s wearing a jade taffeta ball gown and dancing to “Show Me The Way to Amarillo”. Maid-of-honour at Peter and Eric’s wedding, do you see.’
Fintan and Sandro had been going out with each other for years and years. Sandro was Italian, but was too small to qualify for the description of ‘stallion’. ‘Pony’ just had to do. He was an architect and lived with Fintan in stylish splendour in Notting Hill.
‘Will you tell me something?’ Tara asked carefully. ‘Do you and the pony ever have rows?’
‘Rows!’ Fintan was aghast. ‘Do we ever have rows? What a thing to ask. We’re in love.’
‘Sorry,’ Tara murmured.
‘We never stop,’ Fintan continued. ‘At each other’s throats morning, noon and night.’
‘So you’re cracked about each other,’ Tara said wistfully.
‘Put it this way,’ Fintan replied, ‘the man who made Sandro did the best day’s work he’ll ever do. Why are you asking about rows, anyway?’
‘No reason.’ Tara handed him a tiny parcel. ‘This is your present to me. You owe me twenty quid.’
Fintan accepted the parcel, admired the wrapping, then handed it back to Tara. ‘Happy birthday, doll. What credit cards do you take?’
Tara and Katherine had an arrangement with Fintan where they bought their own birthday and Christmas presents.