Armed with two very full brown bags, they made their way back out on to the street.
‘I’m so hungry I could eat a piebald pony between two bread vans,’ Tara warned. ‘Come on, hurry back to the flat.
‘It’s OK,’ she said to Liv’s aghast face. ‘Thomas won’t be back for hours and hours.’
But as they hurried past the Beauty Spot, it was open. Suddenly Tara thought how
fantastic
it would be to call in and give the toning tables a go, right there and then. And when she suggested it, Liv clutched her and yelled, ‘That’s a great idea. I’ve always wanted to go on them.’
They swung through the doors and Deedee, the beautician on duty, took one look at their red faces and manic eyes and felt a very strong urge to hide below the counter and pretend she wasn’t there. ‘We’re closed,’ she attempted.
‘You’re not.’ Tara gave a wolfish grin and drenched her with lager fumes. ‘We want to go on the toning tables.’
‘I really don’t think now is the right time.’
‘Is someone else on them?’ Tara asked.
‘No, but –’
‘Are you saying we’re drunk?’ Liv demanded, her eyes very blue in her puce face.
‘Er, no.’
‘We’re good customers,’ Tara insisted. ‘I get my wags lexed here.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I get my legs waxed here. How many times do you want me to say it?’
Poor Deedee had no choice. Reluctantly she led them into a little room that had six big pink plastic beds side by side. Tara and Liv were highly enchanted, in the way a sober person wouldn’t be. Ooohing and aaahing and saying, ‘So
that’s
what they look like,’ they hopped up on a bed each, still holding their brown paper bags. However once her ankles were strapped in, Liv declared, ‘I’m starving! How long is this going to take?’
Tara looked at her in astonishment. ‘But… but eat your nosh!’ she said. ‘Wasn’t that always the plan? That’s what I’m going to do.’
‘Oh, great,’ Liv said, delving into her bag. ‘Very hungry.’
‘I really don’t think…’ Deedee protested helplessly.
‘Have a chip,’ Liv offered her.
‘I’m switching the tables on now,’ Deedee said, in tight-lipped response.
‘Here we go,’ Tara said, as the end of the table lifted right up, taking her legs with it. ‘Wehay! This is the business.’
Up and down, up and down went Tara’s legs. In and out, in and out, scissored Liv’s, while they both lay flat on their backs, eating their chips and cheeseburgers.
‘This is wonderful,’ sighed Liv. ‘I feel so healthy.’
‘It’s very important to take care of our figures and our bodies,’ Tara said, cramming another handful of chips into her mouth. She said something else but it was muffled by the food.
‘Excuse me?’
‘I
said
, we’re worth taking care of. Awww, we’re stopping.’
Grimly, Deedee shooed them on to another table and off they went again.
‘Hey, my arms are going now!’ Tara declared. ‘Look, I’m waving at you.’
‘And
I’m
sitting up. No, sitting down again. No, just a moment, sitting up, and down again…’
When they got off, brushing stray chips and blobs of ketchup off their fronts, they examined each other and declared they could see a definite improvement in their silhouettes.
All smiles, they left, assuring a stony-faced Deedee that they’d be back to book a full course each in a day or so. Then they made a join-the-dots progress home, where they drank every drop of Thomas’s Newcastle Brown ale.
On Monday morning when Tara’s phone rang at work, she braced herself for it to be Thomas, possibly to tell her to pack her bags and move out. He’d been splutteringly angry the evening before and Tara had been so drunk she still wasn’t exactly sure why. Was it the theft of all his Newcastle Brown and his bottle of brandy? Or coming home to find Tara and Liv surrounded by pizza boxes? Or the burger wrappers he found in the bin? Or the way Tara and Liv screeched with laughter at him in his muddy knee-length nylon shorts? Or the way they’d neglected to feed Beryl?
Tara was sick with mortification. When she’d woken up that morning, Thomas had already left for work. With a mouth sticky and dry, she sat for ten minutes with her head in her hands, moaning. Then she rang Liv and whispered, ‘I can’t believe we did that. Say we didn’t, tell me we didn’t. Tell me I dreamt it, that we ate the burgers. Can you believe that we actually ate our burgers? On the toning tables? The shame, oh, the shame…’
‘We were horrible,’ Liv said, in a strangled voice.
‘I’ll have to find somewhere else to get my legs waxed,’ Tara forced herself to admit. ‘I can never go there again. I’ll even have to cross the road rather than pass in front of it.’
‘Guess what I did when I got home?’ Liv choked.
‘Oh, no. You didn’t…’
‘Ring Lars. Of course I did, I was drunk.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘The usual, I imagine. I can’t exactly remember, but I think I called him a bastard and threatened to tell his wife about us.’
‘Well, so long as you didn’t tell him you loved him.’
‘Oh, no,’ Liv gasped, as the dreadful, drunken memory was jogged by Tara’s words. ‘I did. I told him I loved him. Now, I’ll really have to ring and apologize. If he thinks I meant it, he’ll dump me.’
On Tara’s desk, her phone continued to ring. She was afraid to answer it, but as those around her gave frowning, inquiring looks, she was forced to.
‘Hello,’ she managed, in a trembling voice, hoping against hope it would be an irate punter.
‘Tara?’ It wasn’t Thomas, it was Sandro.
‘Hi!’ Tara greeted, delighted to hear from him. ‘Where’ve you and your fella been all weekend? We thought you must have been kidnapped by aliens.’
Just as Tara realized that although she and Sandro were very fond of each other, they never really rang each other directly, Sandro said, ‘I have bad news.’
In an instant Tara’s head became crystal clear. Seated though she was, the ground tipped beneath her. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s Fintan.’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s ill.’
‘
Ill
? How? Flu or something?’ But she knew it wasn’t.
‘We don’t know for sure what’s wrong with him.’
Yet
, hovered unspoken.
‘But what way does he seem? What are his symptoms? Vomiting? Temperature? A pain in his stomach?’ Vinnie, Teddy,
Evelyn and Sleepy Steve’s heads shot up from their screens. Ravi’s didn’t. He was already hanging on Tara’s every word.
‘Weakness, fever and night sweats,’ Sandro admitted.
‘Weakness, fever and night sweats,’ she mouthed, and it took only a second for the words to impact.
Immediately it was as if she’d always known. Ever since the first of Fintan’s friends had become HIV positive, this had been one of her worst nightmares. Now that it had happened there was a horrible inevitability to it – how could she ever have doubted it would happen?
She remembered the fun she’d made of the lump on his neck and her breath became short and panicky.
‘Also, he’s lost a lot of weight,’ Sandro said.
‘It’s only a week since I’ve seen him.’ Tara felt inexplicably angry. ‘He can’t have lost that much.’
‘I’m sorry, Tara,’ Sandro said.
‘Why didn’t you call me? I’ve been leaving messages all weekend. I’ve been ringing and ringing.’ She had the crazy feeling that if she’d known sooner she’d have been able to stop it.
‘I didn’t know how ill he was,’ Sandro protested. ‘I haven’t been here – I was working on a house in Norwich until yesterday.’
‘So why didn’t
he
call me?’
‘Tara, he was in the hospital much of the week.’
‘The HOSPITAL!’
Vinnie knocked over a cup of coffee and Slim Cheryl, Sandra and Dave poked their heads around the partition to see what all the commotion was. Tara noticed none of it. She was too stunned by Fintan being at the hospital stage already. She began
to cry, but didn’t know if they were tears of rage, grief, fear or compassion. ‘I thought he was in Brighton.’
‘He lied to me, also. Told me he had flu.’
‘But how could you let him go to hospital on his own?’ Tears trickled over her cheeks and she barely noticed Ravi pressing a Marks and Spencer napkin into her hand.
‘Tara, I didn’t know, I didn’t know!’ Sandro was distraught. ‘He called me in Norwich and said he had flu and not to worry if he didn’t answer the phone, that he would be sleeping.’
‘So you didn’t worry?’ Tara asked, tartly. Almost sarcastically.
‘Of course I worried,’ Sandro replied. ‘I have been worried for a long time.’
That was a shock. Tara’s anger with Sandro vanished. He hadn’t neglected Fintan. He had been worried. This was far worse than she’d realized.
‘Maybe he
has
flu,’ she said, in a flash flood of irrational hope. ‘People get high temperatures with the flu and they feel weak and lose weight. Except if they’re me, of course. I must be the only person in existence who puts
on
weight when she’s sick.’
‘He’s been in the hospital,’ Sandro reminded her. ‘It’s not flu.’
The urge to see Fintan was desperate. To know exactly how bad he was and to will him better with her presence.
‘We’re in the hospital and he’s with a doctor,’ Sandro said. ‘He’ll go home later. You can see him then.’
‘I don’t suppose…’ Tara’s sweaty hand gripped the phone ‘… that you’ve told Katherine?’
He hadn’t.
Tara dialled Katherine’s number. Often, bad news is conveyed with an odd glee. Even when there’s huge sympathy, there’s
still an undercurrent of horrified delight at the drama. As well as the macabre kudos that attaches to being the bearer of shocking news.
Tara felt none of that.
Telling Katherine was one of the most appalling things she’d ever had to do. At least she, Tara, had had a warning, an intimation that all wasn’t well when Fintan had his kiwi-neck. But, for Katherine, this was a cold call.
‘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 pool of utter silence.
‘Negative?’ Tara eventually managed to say. ‘Negative? You mean… you haven’t got Aids.’
‘I haven’t got Aids.’
‘And you’re not going to get Aids?’
‘Not if I can help it.’
‘Oh, my God!’ A bubble of joy whooshed up through Tara’s body. ‘I can’t believe it. I was so sure you were a goner. This is great, great news.’ She jumped up and flung her arms around Fintan. ‘You’re not going to die!’
‘You’ve given us the good news.’ Katherine’s voice was strangled. ‘What’s the bad?’
Everyone turned to look at Fintan.
‘The bad news,’ he said, ‘is that I have an interesting little condition known as Hodgkin’s disease.’
Katherine was chalk-white.
‘What the hell’s that?’ Tara demanded.
‘I know what it is,’ Katherine said.
‘It’s a problem with my lymphatic system,’ Fintan interrupted.
‘It’s cancer,’ Katherine said, faintly.