Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [40]
A lightbulb sprang into life above Tara’s head. ‘I know! We’ll be his friends.’
Katherine and Tara had recently emerged from the wilderness years of loathing and despising boys (traditionally between the ages of seven and twelve). At fourteen they were quite partial, at least Tara was and Katherine didn’t have any objection to them, though Fintan wasn’t a boy in Tara’s conventional interpretation of the concept – in other words, she needn’t hold out any hopes of getting off with him.
‘What do you want to be friends with him for?’ Katherine asked in a little voice, a cold lump of jealousy in her stomach. ‘Is it because he’s…’ she hesitated over the taboo word ‘… gay? Is it because the Limerick girls laughed at your sandals last summer?’
Katherine yearned for Tara’s motives to be suspect. These were the days when a gay friend still carried kudos and novelty value. Having Fintan by one’s side was bound to impress visiting Limerick girls – possibly even Dublin girls. More so, even, than a sweatshirt with a pattern picked out in glitter and a pair of white tukka boots with fringes and beads.
Tara was shocked by Katherine implying that Fintan was merely a fashion accessory. ‘No. It’s because he hasn’t any friends.’
Katherine didn’t want to be convinced. ‘Anyway.’ There was a sour taste in her mouth. ‘He’s not gay at all. Sure, how could he be gay when there’s no one in Knockavoy for him to be gay with?’
To her dismay this piece of astonishing information still didn’t put Tara off, and Katherine had to endure a couple of agonizing weeks while their alliance with Fintan was cemented. Mute with fear and misery Katherine was sure that the minute Fintan and Tara were officially pals they’d abandon her. With a rigid smile on her face, she yearned for reassurance from Tara, but didn’t know how to ask. ‘You and me will always be best friends,’ Tara had a murky inkling of Katherine’s distress, ‘but we can’t leave poor Fintan on his own.’
‘Poor Fintan, my foot,’ Katherine mouthed, with silent sarcasm. But to her surprise, she and Fintan hit it off like a house on fire. So well that Tara almost felt left out.
Of course, both Katherine and Fintan had been brought up without a father – Fintan’s had died when he was six months old. And Fintan loved the way Katherine looked as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth yet could back-answer with the best. He had great plans to make her over as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. ‘You’ve that small, neat Audrey Hepburn look about you,’ he told her. Tara tried to quell her envy.
While Katherine was a bit doubtful at talk of wide-brimmed hats and Givenchy gowns, she was giddy with relief that Fintan approved of her. Now she had not just one friend but two!
Although her friendship with Fintan didn’t go down so well with her granny. ‘Who were you out with?’ Agnes asked, one evening in early spring, when Katherine came in, her cheeks red with the cold.
‘Tara, and Fintan O’Grady,’ she said, unable to keep a hint of pride out of her voice.
‘Fintan O’Grady,’ said Agnes. ‘Tell me now, why does he dress up in JaneAnn’s dressing gown?’
‘Because he’s gay,’ Katherine explained.
‘Gay!’ Agnes objected angrily. ‘Well, how do you like that? Gay, no less.’
Katherine and Delia were astonished because Agnes was usually such an easygoing old woman.
‘I’ll give him gay where he’ll feel it,’ she threatened.
Delia was appalled and already planning a Cake Sale Against Homophobia. ‘Mama… I mean Agnes, you’ve got to learn not to be so bigoted. Fintan’s entitled to express his sexual preferences…’
‘I’m not talking about his sexual preferences,’ Agnes exploded. ‘I couldn’t give a fiddler’s about his sexual preferences. For all I care he can do it with the hens and good luck to him! They might lay better. I’m talking about “gay”. It used to be such a lovely word.’ Her face took on a dreamy expression. ‘When people visited my mother, God be good to her, she’d be sitting there