Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [87]
‘Katherine?’
‘Hi!’
‘I’ve bad news,’ Tara blurted, quick to sidestep a normal Monday morning conversation – what they did on Saturday night and how Tara wished it was already Friday.
Katherine waited with her customary sangfroid. There was no flurry of panicky inquiries.
‘It’s Fintan,’ Tara said. ‘He’s sick.’
‘What kind of sick?’ Katherine’s voice sounded cool, measured, thoughtful.
‘They don’t know for sure yet. But he’s been having night sweats, losing weight, is terribly weak…’
Pure silence ensued, then a strange noise came over the phone to Tara. Part whimper, part wail. Katherine was crying.
Katherine never cried.
In the afternoon, a request came from Fintan, conveyed by Sandro. Would Tara and Katherine call to see him after work that day?
‘Of course,’ stammered Tara. ‘I’ll come now, this minute.’
‘Later is better,’ Sandro soothed. ‘We’ll know more then.’
‘You mean…?’ Tara choked. ‘There’s something to know?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good or bad?’ she pleaded.
‘Oh, Tara.’ He sighed, and said nothing more.
‘But…’ she started.
‘We’ll see you later,’ he said firmly.
Even though Tara had to go miles out of her way, she insisted on collecting Katherine from work so that they could arrive at Fintan’s flat in Notting Hill together.
At six thirty, when Katherine came out of the front door of Breen Helmsford, Tara waved to attract her attention, then stopped abruptly. Waving wasn’t right. Not today.
Katherine climbed into the filthy little Beetle, sat on the window-wiping knickers and didn’t even notice. They drove in silence. It was a cold October night and Tara’s heater wasn’t working, yet both of them were perspiring.
‘He had a lump on his neck last week,’ Tara said quietly. She was reverberating with shame from the way she hadn’t taken that seriously. ‘I think this has been going on for some time, Katherine. I’m sorry to shock you.’
‘Who’s shocked?’ Katherine snapped.
‘Why?’ Tara was amazed. ‘Did you know?’
‘Of course I knew,’ Katherine said angrily. ‘He’s lost his appetite, been losing weight and had pains in his neck and stomach and various other places. All that talk of rabies and beriberi and anthrax…’
‘Was I the only one who didn’t know?’ Tara wondered, appalled. ‘Was I the only one?’
When they reached Fintan’s road, Tara parked even more haphazardly than usual, and leapt out. She was desperate to see him. ‘Come on,’ she said, making for the steps. But just before she rang the bell a reluctance came over her. She didn’t want to see him at all now. She wanted to run away.
‘Oh, Tara,’ Katherine said, grabbing her hand and, for a few seconds, squeezing it tight. They could feel the pumping of their blood, pressing against each other’s palms.
How could someone get so thin so quickly?
In a week, Fintan’s face seemed to have shrunk. Something was weird, Katherine thought, then realized what it was. It was his teeth. They looked too big for his face now. Like an old man whose mouth had become too small for his dentures.
Below his ear, protruding like a bumpy egg, was a large, grotesque lump. Covering part of it was a thick white bandage, cotton wool sticking out raggedly on two sides.
Tara stared at it, horror-struck. ‘You told me the lump was gone,’ she couldn’t stop herself from exclaiming.
‘I lied,’ Fintan sang, with unexpected levity.
Sandro brooded silently, as though he was sucking the oxygen out of the room. He acted as though he was angry. But Fintan seemed curiously elated. ‘Sit down, sit down,’ he pressed, his eyes glittering in his skull head. ‘And Sandro will get the drinks. Now, I’ve good news and bad news. Which do you want first?’
‘The good news,’ Tara clamoured. They already knew the bad.
‘Right you are. The good news,’ Fintan declared, jauntily, ‘is that I’ve had several tests and I’m definitely, without a doubt, one hundred per cent HIV negative.’
His words dropped into a