Last Chance Saloon

by Marian Keyes

  ‘It’s right marvellous for him to have so many visitors. There’s not many people lucky enough to have eight young men sitting around their sick bed,’ JaneAnn said proudly. ‘And all of them so well turned out.’

  ‘Very well turned out,’ Milo agreed.

  ‘But terrible noisy,’ JaneAnn sighed. ‘My head was ruz. So did you think his lump looked like it had got a bit smaller?’

  ‘Now that you mention it, it did,’ Tara lied.

  ‘He certainly didn’t look like someone who was dying, now did he?’ JaneAnn asked, jovially.

  ‘Dying? Hardly!’ went the scornful response. ‘Would a dying person be so bad-humoured?’

  Everything about Fintan – good, bad or indifferent – continued to be turned into something positive, to shore up their version of the cosmic plot, the one where he recovers.

  But JaneAnn couldn’t sustain it. In the midst of the positive thinking, she burst into tears and blurted, ‘I wish it was me instead of him. To see him thrown in the bed, so sick and weak. He’s too young for that but I’ve one foot in the grave and another on a banana-skin.

  ‘You know what?’ she said, angrily. ‘It’s my fault. I should never have let him come over here to England. The other four lads stayed at home and none of them got cancer.’

  As people rushed to comfort her, the pizzas arrived. And when JaneAnn discovered she was just supposed to eat it as it was, without potatoes or vegetables, she became even more upset. ‘Are you in earnest?’ she asked. ‘But that’s no dinner at all. Small wonder Fintan got sick if that’s all he’d eat of an evening. A mother’s home cooking could have prevented all this.’

  Later on, JaneAnn turned businesslike. ‘Now, girls, I want to talk to you,’ she said. ‘You both have fine important jobs and I couldn’t have it on my conscience if you lost them because of all the time you’re spending looking after us. You don’t have to drive us everywhere, we can get that tube yoke.’

  Tara and Katherine both protested enthusiastically. But never so energetically as when Timothy said, ‘Those lifts in the hospital are great, aren’t they?’

  ‘Um, yes,’ Katherine said, tentatively.

  ‘I was never in one until yesterday,’ Timothy elaborated.

  ‘Me either,’ JaneAnn said. ‘Great sport, wasn’t it?’

  ‘You could go up and down all day in it,’ Milo agreed. ‘It was like going on the merries in Kilkee.’

  ‘We can’t set them loose on the London Underground,’ Katherine hissed quietly to Tara. ‘Not without lessons. They’ll be going up the down escalators and breaking the ticket-machines and not minding the gap and getting stuck in the doors and whatnot. I can just see it! It’d probably get on the news.’

  36

  Somebody had slept with Angie.

  Katherine hadn’t been in the office much all week – just running in between hospital visits to do a couple of hours here and there, and her mind wasn’t on the place when she was in – so it took her longer than it usually would to realize that a new nickname was doing the rounds. Gillette.

  Despite all the horrors that were going on with Fintan, Katherine was surprised to find she still had emotion left over for Joe Roth. The few times she’d been to work that week she was highly sensitized around him and remained on full alert for any signs of sexual chemistry between him and Angie. She was very ashamed of this, but not ashamed enough to be able to stop. With her heart in her mouth, she listened anxiously to the men’s conversations to see just who ‘Gillette’ was and when her worst fear was realized and it became clear they were talking about Angie, she got a dull, heavy pain in her stomach, as if she’d eaten raw bread.

  Gillette – why Gillette? What elaborate sexual tricks had Angie done that merited her being rechristened as a razor-blade? Katherine’s imagination went wild as she thought of the story she’d once heard from someone who’d been to a strip-show in Thailand and allegedly witnessed girls pulling strings of razor-blades out of their vaginas. But would Angie have done that? Where would she have learnt to do it? And would Joe like it? Katherine was a ball of emotion – jealousy, anxiety, but mostly self-loathing for being so boring in bed. She wouldn’t know what to do with razor-blades – she’d be afraid of cutting herself. And, frankly, she couldn’t see how it was sexy. What was wrong with suspender-belts, little knickers and the odd bit of bondage?

  Or maybe they were calling Angie Gillette because she shaved her pubic hair. Could be. Then Katherine found herself wondering if Angie had done it on her own initiative. Or did Joe ask her to do it? Did Joe help her to do it? Did Joe tie her up and insist on doing it? Jealous and strangely turned on at the image, Katherine didn’t notice in the expenses claim in front of her that Darren had included one restaurant bill three times.

  As she continued earwigging, Katherine realized she hadn’t thought of Fintan in about ten minutes and was shocked and ashamed. How could she be worried about Joe Roth and Angie at a time like this? What kind of friend was she?

  But she couldn’t help it. Again her ears pricked up as she overheard more talk of Gillette. She stopped banging away at her calculator, just in time to hear Myles singing, ‘Gillette! The best a man can ge-eh-et!’

  Aaaahhh. Katherine suddenly understood. Gillette had nothing to do with Angie shaving her pubes or playing jack-in-the-box with razors. It was because – in the words of the ad – she was the best a man can get. Unlike her male colleagues’ usual rechristening of women, Gillette was a nice name, a complimentary name. The jealous pain in Katherine’s stomach increased. Angie was the best a man could get. Which man was getting her, anyway? There was no proof that it was Joe. Despite Katherine’s beady surveillance, she couldn’t find any definite indication that something was going on between Angie and Joe. And at no stage had he been overheard referring to Angie as Gillette. But Katherine wouldn’t take that as any reason to stop worrying. She always liked to expect the worst, to meet disappointment half-way. She’d die rather than be caught on the hop.

  On Thursday morning, Katherine went to work looking as if she’d slept in her clothes. It had been a rough few days, as they waited for the result of the biopsy, and she didn’t have the energy or the concentration that she usually devoted to her appearance. Though the O’Gradys had only been staying with her since Tuesday night, it already felt as if they’d been there for ever. As the lads were used to rising at the crack of dawn to tend to their farms, Katherine was woken at half six each morning by them watching telly. Then when the time came to iron her shirt, she found that access to the ironing-board was blocked by the pair of them cooking scores of rashers in the kitchen.

  Also she’d lost her black work shoes. They’d disappeared into the twilight zone created by all the extra people and possessions in the flat, so she had to go to the office wearing a grey suit and brown shoes. In a vague, exhausted way she was mortified.

  As Katherine pushed open the office door she was hit by the atmosphere of tension and exhaustion. Cigarette fug swirled in the air, coffee cups and takeaway bags littered the ‘creative’ area, four or five of Joe’s team were slumped around a storyboard, looking dishevelled, grey-faced and sleep-deprived. ‘You look as if you’ve been here all night,’ she said, in surprise. She wouldn’t usually have commented, but her defences were down and normal services were suspended.

  ‘That’s because we have,’ Darren replied wearily. ‘Presentation to Multi-nut Muesli this morning. Bastards never told us they were adding chocolate chips to their recipe. Only found out five o’clock yesterday. Had to change everything.’

  Katherine couldn’t stop herself glancing at Joe – now that he no longer came near her, she was constantly aware of him. He was unshaven and bad-tempered-looking. For a cold moment he held her eyes, then stood up and stretched. Hypnotized, Katherine watched as his shirt pulled itself out of his trousers, revealing for a brief, breath-catching moment the pearly skin of his concave stomach, the line of hair that trailed like a frayed rope from his navel. Then he slumped his
arms back down by his sides and the beautiful view disappeared. Katherine felt bereft.

  ‘I’m going to have a shower,’ he announced, and stalked out of the office.

  There was a shower in the gents’ at Breen Helmsford, ostensibly for occasions such as this – although company rumour had it that the real reason was that the head honcho, ‘Call me Johnny’ Denning, had insisted on it so that he could wash off traces of the sex he’d had with his employees before going home to his wife.

  Katherine sat down and tried to make a list of things to delegate to Breda. But she couldn’t concentrate on her work, hadn’t been able to since Tara had made that life-altering phone call on Monday. For once, though, instead of agonizing about Fintan, Katherine was transported, imagining what would happen if – just if – she followed Joe into the shower. The steam, the slipperiness of the soap as she rubbed herself against his thighs, his stomach, his groin. His erection flipping stiffly, heavily, this way, then that, as she moved against it. The feel of his big hands on her waist, her buttocks, lathering the soap, using it to lubricate between her… Christ Almighty! She exhaled in a shudder and forced herself to stop. Work. She was here to work.

  An awful thought hit her. Where the hell was Angie? Breathlessly she scanned the office and to her relief saw her at her desk. Good. If she couldn’t have a shower with Joe Roth she was damned if Angie Hiller could.

  Joe returned to the office in a cloud of sharp freshness. His dark hair was wet and slicked back and he was dressed in his suit. But his tie hung loosely around his neck and his shirt was open a few buttons down. Through the gap in his shirt, Katherine stared at the hair on his chest. She was shocked. Deeply affected by the incongruity of having such naked sex appeal in a place as inappropriate as an office. And alarmed by the intensity of her own response.

  She couldn’t stop herself watching as he buttoned up his shirt, then grasped both strands of his tie.

  ‘I really need a mirror for this,’ he realized, and, as he made to return to the gents’, Angie was over to his desk waving a little compact.

  ‘I’ve got one here. I’ll hold it for you,’ she offered.

  Briefly, Joe looked discomfited, then smiled, ‘Thanks,’ and began deftly to knot his tie, folding it back and forth on itself, as he hunched over and stared into the mirror with great concentration.

  Clammy dread flushed down Katherine’s body. Angie holding the mirror was a gesture that was way too intimate for Katherine’s liking. But weak with wanting, she kept watching, as Joe rubbernecked backwards and forwards, from side to side, tying a big, fat knot. Why did she find this such a turn-on? Was it his single-mindedness as he tried to get it right? Because it was such a uniquely male thing? Echoes of masturbation?

  Smoothly Joe glided the knot along the shaft of the tie, until it was in place. Katherine felt another wave of desire. Then he gave a final tug, his big hand clasped around the length of fabric and her mouth went dry. He looked great. His shirt collar snow-white against his shaven jaw, the tie knot fat and even. ‘Thanks.’ He smiled at Angie.

  ‘No problem.’ She smiled back, snapping her compact closed. She lingered in front of him, smiling goofily. Katherine tasted metal in her mouth. There was no mistaking the intimacy, the connection between the two of them. Joe Roth had to be the mystery man, Mr Gillette. Katherine felt terrible. But whom could she blame? Only herself. She’d messed it up. She could have had him and she’d sabotaged it.

  Then she thought of Fintan lying in his hospital bed, not knowing whether he was going to live or die, and waited for things to assume their correct proportions. To her great shame, they didn’t. Joe and Angie still seemed important.

  37

  A little hospital-visiting routine got going so that Thursday followed much the same pattern as Wednesday. Tara spent the morning at the hospital and Katherine did the afternoon shift.

  When Tara and the O’Gradys arrived at nine a.m., Sandro was already there, his head next to Fintan’s, both of them chatting intimately. They looked so close and united that everyone felt uncomfortable at disturbing them.

  ‘Sorry to bother ye,’ JaneAnn said, wondering why she wasn’t jealous of Sandro.

  ‘No problem,’ Sandro smiled, ‘I’ve been here for hours.’

  ‘He couldn’t sleep,’ Fintan said.

  ‘The bed’s too big without him,’ Sandro said, then horror zigzagged across his little face. Had he offended JaneAnn?

  But although she was mildly shocked, she couldn’t find it in her heart to hold it against him. Either of them. Somehow it didn’t seem that important, no matter what the Church’s view on the matter was…

  Next to arrive was Liv, who stayed only a short time because she had to go to work in Hampshire.

  ‘You’ll miss Supermarket Sweep,’ Milo teased.

  ‘Watch it for me, then tell me what happens.’ She smiled, shyly.

  Supermarket Sweep had already become a fixture in the morning and Fifteen-to-One in the afternoon. Half an hour twice a day when reality was suspended. Something other than craven dread to unite them.

  ‘We’re normalizing the abnormal,’ Liv, the behavioural expert, explained. ‘It’s a survival technique.’

  ‘I just thought it was because I liked Dale Winton,’ Sandro said.

  ‘Don’t be silly!’ Liv admonished. ‘You’re simply responding to a terrible trauma.’

  In contrast to the previous day Fintan lay in lethargic apathy.

  Suddenly his caustic tongue seemed far more desirable. The only time he stirred was when a nurse walked into the ward, and automatically he began struggling to roll up his sleeve. Already he inhabited the strange world of the sick person, Tara thought, stricken with exclusion, seeing the huge gulf between them, they who’d always been so close. She could never share in what he was going through, or be part of the relationship he had with his nurse. He belonged to other people now.

  At one thirty, when Katherine was sitting at her desk, completely unable to decide whether to have a cheese or a chicken sandwich for her lunch, her phone rang, breaking the deadlock. Cheese! Cheese, it would be. Cheese, without a doubt. Unless, of course, it was chicken…

  Desmond the porter was on the line, saying there was a ‘gentleman’ in the lobby who wanted to see her. From the heavy irony with which he said ‘gentleman’ Katherine was led to believe her visitor was anything but. Confused, she got the lift down and found Milo, grinning his head off, an A–Z in his hip pocket. ‘How did you get here?’ she asked in astonishment.

  ‘Piccadilly line to Piccadilly Circus,’ he said, the words sounding incongruous in his soft Clare accent. ‘Then Bakerloo line to Oxford Circus. Fintan’s asleep, JaneAnn’s doing some heavy-duty praying, Timothy is reading, so I thought I’d have an adventure.’

  ‘Do you know this man?’ Desmond asked, looking in disdain at Milo’s mad hair, his work-worn dungarees, his big boots.

  ‘Yes, Desmond, thank you.’

  As Desmond disbelievingly shook his head, in a exaggerated version of it’s-always-the-quiet-ones, Katherine turned back to Milo. ‘And you didn’t get lost or anything. Fair play.’

  ‘Oh, I did get lost. I went the wrong way from South Kensington, but I got off at Earl’s Court and asked a woman for directions.’

  ‘And she helped you?’ Katherine sighed in relief.

  ‘No, she didn’t. She said – I must see if I can remember the exact words. She said, “Do I look like a fucking talking map?” ’

  ‘Oh, Milo.’ Katherine touched his arm protectively, and barely noticed Joe Roth and Bruce passing through the lobby. ‘I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘Not at all!’ Milo declared. ‘I thought it was the height of hilarity. I’m getting used to this London place now – it’s all about people speaking their minds. It’s refreshing.

  ‘Do I look like a fucking talking map?’ he chuckled to himself. ‘A talking map? How do you like that? I never heard the beat of it. Right, now I’m off to Hammersmith to see Tara. Piccadilly
or District line. And, er, I’d visit Liv if I knew where she worked.’

  Katherine looked at him with indulgent amusement. ‘She’s down in Hampshire.’

  ‘What line is that on?’

  JaneAnn prayed incessantly. She had a set of rosary beads in her hands at all times and frequently visited the chapel in the hospital, often accompanied by Sandro. In an attempt to win her approval, he had told her many elaborate lies about his religious experiences and his visits to Catholic shrines. But it was when he’d hinted heavily that he’d actually had visions that he’d realized he’d bitten off more than he could chew.

  ‘Child!’ JaneAnn had gasped, clutching his collar fervently. ‘You’ll have to tell your parish priest. It’s your duty. You can’t keep this to yourself.’

  Sandro had set about back-pedalling with great haste and managed to talk JaneAnn down by saying that the visions were probably just due to too much to drink. She was so disappointed that, to compensate, he upped the time spent in the hospital chapel with her.

  ‘With all the praying the pair of you are doing for Fintan,’ Katherine said, ‘I’d say we’re in with a fighting chance.’

  ‘Not at all.’ JaneAnn sniffed. ‘I wouldn’t say our prayers are having their normal impact because that chapel in the hospital is only a non-denominational one.’

  ‘But isn’t it all the one God?’ Tara made the mistake of asking.

  JaneAnn cast her a disgusted look and murmured, ‘Learn your catechism, child. Tell her, Sandro.’

  On Friday morning as they left Katherine’s flat, JaneAnn dropped a bombshell. ‘I’m dying for Sunday,’ she said, greedily. ‘A good oul’ Mass. I might even go a couple of times.’

  Katherine and Tara gave each other horrified looks. Mass? Neither of them had any idea where Katherine’s local Catholic church was. For the first time in days they were worried about something other than the biopsy result. As soon as they could they went into a head-to-head outside Fintan’s ward.