Last Chance Saloon (35 page)
Fintan had been invited to Katherine’s for the great preparations, but had unpleasantly declined to come. So, hoping it would cheer him up, they decided to show him the fruits of their labours before Katherine met Joe.
Sandro answered the door, white and worried, swathed in a miasma of oppression. Silently, tight-lipped, he nodded towards the front room.
Fintan was thrown on the couch wearing a Diana Ross and the Supremes beehive wig. The first sight of him and his wasted grey appearance was always a jolt. Even though it could be put down to the after-effects of the chemo and the drop in his white blood cell count, it was impossible to avoid the impact that they were staring death in the face. But the shock receded quickly – they’d been told he had to get worse before he got better.
‘How are you?’ Tara asked him.
‘Shite!’ he declared.
‘But no worse?’ Katherine asked.
‘No,’ he conceded, grumpily.
Even a couple of weeks before, they’d have devoted half an hour to discussing his health but, reassured that there were no new tumours, or swellings, or inexplicable pains, things seemed almost normal.
‘Are you sitting comfortably?’ Tara asked, building dramatic tension.
‘No. My arse has all but disappeared.’
‘Listen to him showing off. Are you ready, Katherine?’
At her nod, Tara declared, ‘Da-dah! I give you Katherine Casey,
überbabe
, sex-kitten and Joe Roth fancier. This girl is on a promise, and no mistake.’
Katherine rushed into the middle of the floor and did a dance, modelling her new clothes, opening her jacket and sticking her pointy little hips this way and that.
‘You were always a crap dancer,’ Fintan said, startling Katherine into stunned, hurt immobility.
Just then Tara noticed the open can of Sapporo on the table in front of him, and fear lunged at her, dropping her temperature. Her eyes met Katherine’s. She’d noticed too.
‘Katherine’s off on her date with Joe Roth today.’ Tara couldn’t avoid using the slow, patronizing way that people speak to the mad or afflicted.
‘Don’t bother on my account, dear,’ Fintan said, bitchily.
‘But aren’t you glad?’ Tara faltered, while Katherine became very still. ‘Aren’t you excited? I mean, you made it happen. In a way, sort of…’
‘I think you’re confusing me with the cancer patient who gives a shit.’
‘But she’s done it for you.’ Tara was suddenly dying for a fag.
‘No, she hasn’t,’ Fintan retorted. ‘She’s done it for herself.’
‘I
did
do it for you,’ Katherine insisted, croakily.
‘Well, you can stop now.’
‘It’s a bit late.’
‘Not at all. Better late than never. You’re off the hook. In fact, I don’t want you to meet him, I’m asking you not to,’ Fintan threw like a dagger at Katherine.
‘You can’t do that.’ Tara yelped. ‘She’s bought a Dolce and
Gabbana jacket. And Agent Provocateur underwear. And boots from Prada – show him the boots, Katherine, pull up your jeans, look at those
heels
, Fintan. And though the jumper only came from French Connection…’
As Katherine obediently pulled up her jeans her face was a plea of horrified beseechment. The thought of not going on the date with Joe was unbearably disappointing.
‘You see,’ Fintan said, his mouth twisted in a bitter smile, ‘you want to meet him. This has nothing to do with me. I was just a catalyst.’
Conflict raged in Katherine. She hadn’t wanted to have anything to do with Joe. Well, she
had
, but she’d never have done anything about it. And she had been genuinely afraid that Fintan would deteriorate if she didn’t do what he asked. But she was forced to admit that there was a part of her which had welcomed the excuse to come on to Joe. And she didn’t want to stop now. She felt it no longer had anything to do with Fintan.
Perhaps, other than his illness being a trigger, it never had.
This made her horribly uncomfortable, and she suddenly understood how Tara had felt, being told to leave Thomas.
‘But why did you ask me to, if you were only going to change your mind?’ she mumbled.
‘I’ve cancer, dear. I can do whatever I like.’ Fintan’s tone changed to weariness. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time, Katherine. It really did. I thought that if you and Tara lived life to the full, I’d be OK. Liv tells me I was going through the third phase of response to bad news – bargaining.’
‘What’s the first and second?’ Tara asked.
‘Denial and depression.’
‘And where are you now?’
‘Mired in phase four.’
‘Which is?’
‘Self-pity. Isn’t it obvious?’
‘It’s not self-pity, actually.’ Katherine, too, had been informed by Liv. ‘It’s anger.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Is there a phase five?’ Tara asked, warily. What could they expect next?
‘Yup. Acceptance, apparently. But I’ll be dead by then.’
Tara opened her mouth to begin an automatic clamour of denial, but Fintan stopped her. ‘Please don’t. Being patronized is so supremely irritating. Just look at me, still with my kiwi-neck despite superhuman, baldy-bastard doses of chemo. I’m a walking tumour, so what am I to think?’ He turned to Katherine, and said, half apologetically, ‘Oh, go on. Go out with him, have fun, enjoy yourself.’
She wavered, reluctant to admit openly that she was seeing Joe Roth because she actually wanted to. Desperate to still involve Fintan, she said, ‘If it all works out with Joe I’ll bring him to see you.’
‘Don’t bother.’
‘Well, er, I’d better go,’ Katherine said. ‘If not I’ll be late.’
She made for the tube station, power-walking in her four-and-a-half-inch heels, trying to go fast enough to shake off the anger and confusion that clung to her.
Tara was left alone with Fintan. She was horribly uncomfortable with him, and so was Sandro, judging from the way he avoided coming into the front room. Once Fintan’s life had been a vessel that overflowed with sweet joy. Now it had become a
small, sour, worthless thing. She was dreading him mentioning Thomas. Though he’d absolved Katherine – even if the nasty way he’d done it hadn’t seemed like absolution – Tara didn’t know whether she, too, was off the hook. Instead, perhaps everything was riding on her now and she couldn’t bring herself to ask. ‘Should you be drinking that?’ She nodded at the beer can on the table.
‘Why? Do you want it? Isn’t it a bit early in the day for you?’
‘I might ask you the same question.’
‘Ah, but I’ve cancer.’
Tara sighed inwardly. ‘All the more reason.’ She plucked up her courage to ask him, ‘Would you like us to do a visualization together?’
‘A what?’
‘A visualization. From the book. You know where we visualize you being filled with,’ at his savagely amused expression, she faltered, ‘goodness and purity and light and, ah, all that.’
‘How’s Thomas?’ he threw at her. The question she’d been dreading.
‘Um, I had a chat with him, and I suspect it’s no-go on the marriage front and I haven’t forgotten what you said about leaving him and, er, it’s on my mind, I’m thinking about what you said, you know –’
To her surprise he interrupted, repeating what he’d said to Katherine earlier. ‘Don’t bother on my account, dear.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I couldn’t give a flying fuck what you do. Spend the rest of your life with him, if you want.’
‘You don’t want me to leave him?’
‘No, Tara. I couldn’t give a fiddler’s. Marry him or don’t marry him. Stay with him, be a doormat, just like you are now.
It’s your life, not mine, so do what you like with it. Waste it – that’s what everyone else does.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘Life,’ Fintan said, heavily, ‘is wasted on the living.’
‘So I’m in the clear?’ Tara asked, tentatively.
‘Free to go now and all that.’
‘Well, er, that’s good, then.’ She managed a smile. ‘I didn’t know whether it was just Katherine that you’d changed your mind about. But, well… thanks, you know.’
She waited for the burden to roll away from her, she waited to feel free, soaring, liberated. Everything was all right. She could stay with Thomas. Fintan had given her his blessing and she could stay with Thomas as long as she liked.
Yippee
, she yelled in her head. She could stay with Thomas for ever. She could stay with Thomas
for ever
!
Why did that suddenly sound more like a threat than a dream come true?
Joe was waiting in the ticket hall of Finsbury Park tube station as arranged. There were so many people milling around, wearing Arsenal shirts, that for a moment she didn’t see him. Then she spotted him leaning against the wall, his hands in his jacket pockets. He wore a pair of faded jeans, tough workman’s boots and a big square leather jacket. A lick of dark hair hung on to his forehead and his brown eyes were distant. As she nervously walked towards him his face remained shut, stony almost. She began to regret she’d come.
She was almost nose-to-nose with him before the closed face altered.
‘Katherine!’ He pushed himself away from the wall, and stood up straight, making him much taller than her. ‘I didn’t recognize you.
‘I didn’t recognize you,’ he repeated, as, shamelessly, he checked out her hair, her jacket, her jeans, her boots. Shaking his head in disbelief, he exhaled long and hard, lifting the lick of hair from his forehead. ‘Wow!’
She squirmed self-consciously. ‘I don’t look that different.’
‘No, but…’ His grin spread and grew as he didn’t even attempt to hide his appreciation.
She flicked a smile at him, then had to look away again, embarrassed, happy. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said.
He looked at his watch and sucked his teeth. ‘Three and a
half minutes, Katherine. You really had me worried there.’ She had actually. ‘But at least you came. This way.’ He steered her out into the street. As they walked to the ground, he didn’t touch her. No hand-holding or even elbow-guiding. But he stayed close, providing a safe force-field around her. He was as pleasant as he’d been at the height of his niceness to her, but she no longer took it as a reason to be cruel or dismissive of him.
The stadium seemed enormous. After they’d shown their tickets, they had a quick drink in the bar. Then it took nearly ten minutes, jostling with hundreds of others along walkways and up steps, before they emerged into the cold open air, to the sound of chanting, near and far away.
The tickets were numbered and there was a huge canopy to protect against bad weather. All very civilized. A far cry from elbowing on the terraces in the rain, trying to see over other people’s heads, as Katherine had initially visualized.
And there were women there – lots of them. She wasn’t the only one! Through rows and rows of plastic seats they made their way down and along. When they found their places, they sat side by side, their thighs almost but not quite touching, their arms wedged together, Joe’s big black shoulder towering over Katherine’s dainty blue one. She was amazed by the number of people there.
Thousands
. Below her, rows and rows of people’s heads led down to the pitch. She twisted around for a look behind her and saw acres of torsos forming an almost vertical pattern up to the metal roof. Then she leant forward and watched yards of knees stretching out from her in both directions. The three other stands were packed too, the people so far away that moving en masse they looked like red seaweed in the tide. It was awesome.
The clapping and drumming of feet echoing against the metal roof of the stadium was deafening and somehow primal. Powerful and very macho. Her blood pounded in time to the thundering stamping. She could feel it in her stomach.
Joe turned and murmured, ‘OK?’
‘OK.’ She nodded up at him, with the teeniest of smiles.
‘Are you warm enough?’
She nodded again.
‘Can you see?’
Another nod.
‘Not that there’s anything to see yet, of course,’ he added.
After a short pause. ‘Would you like a hamburger?’ he asked. ‘Or a look at the programme?’
Joe had gone into a mild panic that maybe Katherine wasn’t as thrilled with this date as he was.
Reassured by his anxiety she found herself saying, ‘I didn’t think it would feel this…’
He watched her anxiously. ‘This what?’
‘Exciting,’ she admitted.
Gratitude and gratification rushed through him, filling every corner. He was right, he’d always been right about her! There was untold fire and passion going on beneath her cool exterior. ‘You think this is exciting,’ he grinned, ‘wait till later!’
Startled, she opened her eyes wide. How presumptuous of him!
‘After kick-off, I mean,’ he stuttered.
The singing started all around her.
‘My old man
Said
, “
Be an Everton fan
,”
I said
, “
Fuck off
,
bollocks
,
you’re a
…” ’
Luckily Joe didn’t sing. She just wasn’t sure how she would
have felt about. But the tribal energy was highly potent, very male and sexy. Though the day was cold, it didn’t seem to matter.
‘Have you been a football fan for a long time?’ she asked, shyly.
‘Oh, yeah. Long before Nick Hornby made it fashionable for the middle classes. I’ve been a devoted follower of Torquay United since I was four.’
Katherine thought of Joe as a four-year-old boy and briefly her heart twisted with yearning. ‘And are Torquay United good?’
‘Christ, no.’ He shook his head vehemently and grinned. ‘They’re… How shall I put it? Success-challenged. Or maybe it’s talently challenged. They’re only in the third division.’
‘So why do you support them? Sticking up for the underdog?’
Again he shook his head. ‘Nah. It’s a question of where you’re born and brought up. I’m from Torquay so I don’t get any choice in the matter.’
‘Kismet.’ She understood.
‘That’s right.’ What a woman! ‘Destiny. Fate.’ Every other woman he knew, no matter where they were from, supported Manchester United and wanted him to also. He gave her a sidelong smile. Every time they made eye-contact, her stomach squeezed with nervy pleasure.
‘So why are we at an Arsenal match?’ she asked.
‘Because when I first moved to London, traipsing down to Devon every other weekend just wasn’t on. And I happened to be living a hundred yards from the Arsenal ground and seeing some football was better than nothing…’
‘I see,’ Katherine said, sternly. ‘So it’s not because you love Arsenal as such?’
‘I do now.’ He hurried to reassure her. ‘But, back then, I was anybody’s.’ He crinkled his eyes at her. ‘But, hey, I was young, merely a boy. I knew nothing about loyalty.’
‘And you’re mature now?’ Katherine smiled back at him.
‘Oh, very.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ she said solemnly.
‘And though it was a slow burner, eventually I fell in love.’ He swallowed and added hastily, ‘With Arsenal, I mean.’
The pitch stretched ahead of them, enormous, emerald green, stripy and, as yet, empty.
‘We should be about to start,’ Joe said. And he turned, casually picked up her arm and looked at her watch. It was a nothing gesture, what anyone would do to anyone. But it was the closest, most intimate thing Joe had ever done to her. Her breath caught in her chest, as his chilled fingers closed around and held her wrist. But then he said, ‘Thanks,’ gently let her go and it was over. It took a while for her breathing to return to normal.
Suddenly a charge seemed to run through the air. ‘Here we go,’ Joe said quietly to her while, as one, the entire stand stood up, clapping, whistling and cheering. Apparently the Arsenal team had run on to the pitch, but all Katherine could see was the backs and heads of people in front of her. Then, from the booing and catcalls, she concluded that the Everton boys had arrived.
They sat down again and from the moment the game started the atmosphere in the entire stand tightened up, becoming electric with expectation and tension. The dormant aggression became overt and the thrill beneath Katherine’s skin was pleasantly just the right side of fear.
‘The team in the red and white are our boys,’ Joe murmured to her.
‘I know!’ Tara had conveyed the basics.
‘Nice one,’ Joe praised. This got better and better.
The man on Katherine’s other side was a diehard who seemed to have a personal grudge against Everton. Repeatedly he leapt to his feet and roared,
‘Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough
!’
When Everton missed an open goal he burst into lusty and triumphant song.
‘Score in a brothel
,’ he roared. ‘
You couldn’t score in a brothel Score in a bro-oth-el. You couldn’t score in a brothel
.’
Then to Katherine’s alarm, he elbowed her and said, ‘Come on, gewl, sing along. Everton bastards,
Score
,
in a brothel
…’
‘Sore throat,’ she murmured. ‘Can’t.’
Joe didn’t sing, but he was very focused and genuinely interested in what was going on. Katherine felt she should resent this – after all, why had he taken her if he’d planned to ignore her? – but she couldn’t get cross. His eyes were narrowed, flicking around, following the ball. Joe watched the match and Katherine watched Joe, his knife-handle cheekbones, his touch-me skin, his messier-than-at-work hair. Repeatedly he checked that she was all right. He was worried that she might be chilly but, though her cheeks had pinkened from the cold, it didn’t seem to matter.
Twenty minutes into the match, he shifted to her, bulky in his leather jacket. ‘You OK?’ he asked for the umpteenth time.
‘Yes.’ She flashed her little teeth prettily.
‘I can’t hear you,’ he said, quietly, angling his face towards hers. ‘Come closer.’
Thinking it was because of all the singing around them, she leant nearer and repeated, ‘I said, yes.’
‘I still can’t hear you,’ he echoed softly, his eyes dark. ‘Closer.’
Embarrassed at invading his personal space, she moved slightly more towards him, and said, ‘Yes, I’m OK.’
She was so close that she could see beneath his skin to where his stubble was growing in a mask around his jaw and mouth.
‘Still can’t hear you,’ he said again. By now his voice was nearly soundless, so that she was almost lip-reading.
Baffled, she pushed herself an inch or so further, so that they were breathing each other’s air, and reiterated, ‘I’m OK.’
‘Still can’t hear you,’ he mouthed.
There was about four inches between them, his warm apple-sweet breath surprising her chilled face. She couldn’t move any closer. Utterly still, their eyes locked, intensity in his, confusion in hers. And then she understood…
Somewhere, in another dimension, Everton missed another open goal and as her ears filled with the sound of thirty thousand Arsenal fans singing tunelessly,
‘You’re shi-i-i-it and you know you are
,’ Joe Roth moved a short, short distance, darkening her vision. And kissed her.