Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [90]
‘I know all about it.’ Her voice was dignified. ‘Just because I live in the backs of beyond, don’t think I don’t know.’
‘Mrs O’Grady, Fintan has a form of cancer.’
‘I’m his mother. The truth is bitter but tell it out to me anyway. Don’t fob me off with talk of cancer.’
‘Mrs O’Grady, I swear to you, Fintan really has cancer.’
‘And you’re not just putting sweet words in my ear?’ JaneAnn sounded suspicious. ‘Trying to spare my feelings?’
‘Hardly,’ Katherine said, on the verge of tears.
Fintan got very drunk that night. ‘Might as well.’ He laughed. ‘Could be my last chance for a while.’ He glittered with wild and bitter humour.
Tara, Katherine and Sandro also drank heavily in an attempt to escape the horrors, but never managed to get off the ground.
‘Jesus, cheer up, would you?’ Fintan complained, as three taut, white, miserable faces looked at him. ‘I mean, I’m the one who’s going to die.’
Now and again, the evening seemed almost normal. Almost, but not quite, everything was a bit skewed, tinged with nightmare. They could only think about it for a certain amount of time, before they stopped being able to process it. Like the lights in the hallways of apartment blocks, they worked for a while, then their mechanism just clicked off.
At about midnight, Fintan announced he was going to bed. ‘Big day tomorrow!’
‘See you in the morning,’ Tara promised.
‘With a pair of nice pyjamas,’ Fintan reminded her. ‘Try Calvin Klein.’
‘Consider it done.’
‘And if you can’t get Calvin Klein ones, try Joseph. Just get me something wearable, I have my career to think of. If I’m spotted in those dreadful hospital ones, I could be sacked.’
‘It’s in hand,’ Katherine reassured.
‘Do you mind?’ Fintan was suddenly anxious. ‘Will you get into trouble for taking time off work?’
They both looked at him, mute with exasperation.
Katherine summed it up. ‘Feck work,’ she said simply.
‘My God,’ Fintan murmured. ‘This must be serious.’
Tara and Katherine said nothing to each other as they left and got into the filthy Beetle.
‘Are you all right to drive?’ Katherine asked, anxiously, as Tara screeched away from the kerb.
‘I always drive better when I’ve a few drinks on me,’ Tara insisted.
‘You don’t, you just think you do.’
They both laughed, then stopped abruptly.
‘It’s strange,’ Katherine said, feeling her way through her thoughts. ‘That we can think something is funny at a time like this.’
‘I know.’ Tara sighed. ‘Tonight, in places, we had a laugh. Sometimes – and I feel really ashamed about it – but sometimes I felt almost normal. But in a parallel-universe kind of way.’
‘Maybe we’re in shock.’
‘Could be. It’s certainly a lot to take on board. Pity Liv isn’t here, she’d be able to explain what’s happening to us.’
‘Oh, God!’ They were both stricken, as they thought of Liv.
‘Who’s going to tell her?’ Tara gasped. ‘She’ll be devastated, she’s so fond of him. Can you do it? You’re better than me. Less emotional.’
And, though Katherine wouldn’t have agreed, she said, ‘I’ll ring her tonight. She’ll be up. Poor insomniac.’
They drove in silence.
‘I can’t stop thinking about that bone-marrow thing.’ Katherine said faintly. ‘It’s barbaric. Tomorrow morning’s going to be unendurable. Mostly for Fintan,’ she added quickly.
‘I just wish it was tomorrow lunchtime,’ Tara said, ‘because then it’ll all be over.’
‘But it won’t be,’ Katherine replied. ‘It’ll only be starting.’
‘No.’ Tara clasped the steering-wheel tightly and her face lit up with hope. ‘We mustn’t think that way. Maybe he’ll be fine.’
Katherine thought about it. ‘Well, maybe he will be,’ she admitted.
‘Attagirl!’
32
The following afternoon, JaneAnn, all four foot ten of her, flew to London, with a selection of her tall, silent sons.
None of them had ever been on a plane before. In fact, they’d rarely crossed over the Clare borders. In their lumpy, old-fashioned ‘good’ clothes, amid the bustle and gleam of the airport, they looked as if they’d just landed from another planet.
Even though Tara and Katherine didn’t arrive into work until lunchtime, they