Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [91]
‘There they are.’ Tara pointed at JaneAnn, Milo and Timothy, standing in a little huddle around their suitcase, like wartime refugees.
JaneAnn was decked out in an ancient black coat with an astrakhan collar. Milo, the eldest brother, wore a borrowed brown blazer over dungarees, while Timothy wore his one suit – a navy, pinstriped, wide-lapelled, flared ensemble that he’d been married in over twenty years before. It was so old it was nearly fashionable again. He’d put on some weight since the last time he’d worn it. Or maybe it was the thick jumper he wore under the jacket that made it bulge so.
Despite their unsophisticated appearance, the O’Gradys were unfazed by the mayhem of Heathrow. Still going at the same slow pace they employed in Knockavoy, they were amused when a young businessman tutted and pushed past them muttering, ‘Some people!’
‘It must be a matter of life and death,’ JaneAnn remarked.
‘Faith, no.’ Milo smiled. ‘By the looks of him it’s far more important than that.’
They drove straight to the hospital, everyone crammed into Tara’s Beetle. Milo and Timothy had to squash into the back with Katherine, because even though they were both enormous and JaneAnn was tiny, protocol dictated that the Irish Mammy sat in the front.
The mood was chatty. They swapped gossip from home and even shared the occasional laugh. Then Katherine would remember why she was sitting spooned into a tiny car with Fintan’s relations, and was stricken by how unfitting laughter was.
Tara couldn’t get the hang of things, either. She kept behaving like the O’Gradys were in London for a holiday.
‘That’s Kensington Palace,’ she pointed out, as they inched through the traffic on Kensington High Street.
‘And what goes on there?’ Milo asked politely.
‘It’s where Princess Diana used to live,’ Tara faltered.
‘Lord, she must’ve had ferocious heating bills.’ Milo winced, leaning forward for a good look as they passed.
Although the hospital looked more like a hotel than a place to house the sick and dying, none of the O’Gradys commented. Neither did they waste time buying sweets or magazines for Fintan. The mood had flipped and they were frightened.
Tension built as they travelled up in the lift, along the wide, linoed corridor and towards the room Fintan shared with five others. Outside the swing door, JaneAnn clutched Katherine. ‘How does he look?’
‘Fine,’ she said, her guts twisting. ‘Thinner than he was, and his neck is a small bit swollen, but otherwise fine.’
No need to mention that he hadn’t looked too hot earlier when he’d been brought back from having his biopsy. All the muscles in Katherine’s legs and the soles of her feet clenched at the memory of Fintan, his face grey, his eyes closed, as he’d whispered, ‘The pain was disgusting, I actually saw stars.’
Tara and Katherine hung back as the O’Gradys trooped towards the curtains around Fintan’s white, metal bed. Sandro sat meekly on a chair beside him.
‘God bless all here,’ Milo said, leading the clan.
‘Love the blazer, Milo,’ Fintan said weakly, as he lay on the flat of his back, in his new peacock-blue silk pyjamas.
‘Sure, I’m pure lovely,’ Milo laughed wryly.
‘Hello, Mammy,’ Fintan greeted JaneAnn.
‘Aren’t you the heart-scald,’ she complained affectionately, tears in her eyes, ‘worrying us all like this?’
‘Fair play to you, though, you picked a good time,’ Timothy said.
‘You waited till after the hay was in,’ Milo finished, ‘and before the lambing starts. That’s what I call decent.’
Sandro hovered with over-elaborate meekness as the family reunion took place. He was very nervous. That morning he’d waited by the bed until Fintan returned from his biopsy and, as soon as he’d established that Fintan had everything he needed, blurted anxiously, ‘What if they don’t like me?’
‘Who?’ Fintan had croaked through a haze of pain.
‘Your family. What way should I behave with them?’ Sandro laid a beseeching hand on the recently biopsied hip.
‘Ow, ow, Christ almighty, ouch!’ Fintan twitched in the bed. ‘Do you bloody well mind?