Last Chance Saloon

by Marian Keyes

  Back in the office, Tara itched to ring Thomas. Usually she felt no need to call him at work, especially as it involved getting him out of a classroom. Besides, as her office was open-plan, it was impossible to have an intimate phone conversation – Ravi, in particular, took great interest in Tara’s life. But because she was afraid something was out of kilter with herself and Thomas, she craved reassurance. She wanted to know if she’d imagined his hostility on the phone this morning.

  However, after she’d steeled herself to make the call, Lulu, the school secretary, wouldn’t fetch Thomas. She always acted as if she owned him. ‘I’ll tell Mr Holmes you called,’ she lied.

  ‘Thick tart,’ Tara muttered, putting down the phone.

  ‘Who? Lulu?’ Ravi bellowed.

  ‘Who else?’ said Tara. She spent a short while consoling herself that at least she hadn’t set the peelers on Thomas. She shuddered with horror at the thought. He’d never forgive her for that, never. Still upset, she rang Liv for a moan. She got her answering-machine, so tried her mobile.

  ‘Hello,’ Liv said.

  ‘It’s me. Are you busy?’

  ‘I’m in Hampshire with a terrible woman who wants everything in her house to be gold,’ Liv wailed.

  ‘Yuk. Like bathroom taps and door-handles?’

  ‘No, like kitchen units and garden sheds.’

  ‘Oh, no. Anyway, how are you getting on with Lars?’

  ‘Very good.’ Liv sounded uncharacteristically optimistic. ‘He says he’s really going to leave his wife this time.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ Tara forced herself to say. She’d believe it when she saw it. She didn’t like Lars. Just because he was tall, blond and craggy it didn’t give him licence to string Liv along for fifteen months with his spurious talk of wife-leaving. ‘When’s he going back?’ Tara asked.

  ‘Saturday.’

  ‘Right, I’ll be round then for the mopping-up operation.’

  ‘I must go,’ Liv hissed. ‘Midas Woman is returning.’

  ‘Has he left his wife yet?’ Ravi asked, when Tara hung up.

  ‘He says he’s just about to,’ she said, and they rolled their eyes at each other. Next, Tara dialled Fintan’s number. Vinnie gave her a sharp look. ‘If I don’t ring people, I’ll e-mail them,’ Tara thought it only fair to point out to him.

  ‘Oh, don’t do that,’ Ravi objected. ‘How else will I know what’s going on?’

  ‘Just as well you’re both good at your jobs,’ Vinnie grumbled.

  Fintan wasn’t in work. Sick, allegedly. Tara knew what was up with him. At twelve o’clock, the night before, as she was leaving Katherine’s, Fintan and Sandro had been on their way out. The evening was only beginning for them. ‘I’m going to get off my mong,’ Fintan had declared.

  Tara rang his home number.

  ‘Fintan hung over, eh?’ Ravi asked.

  ‘I’d stake my granny’s life on it,’ she replied. The phone rang and rang for ages before Fintan finally answered. ‘What’s up with you, you piss-head?’ Tara asked cheerfully.

  ‘There’s something wrong with my neck. I’ve an enormous lump on it.’

  ‘God, you’re so vain.’ Tara sighed. ‘Everyone gets spots.’

  ‘No, Tara, it isn’t a spot. It’s a swelling that makes me look like the Elephant Man.’

  ‘I’d an awful turn myself with my Black Death this morning,’ Tara empathized. ‘The boils!’

  ‘Tara, really,’ Fintan insisted. ‘I’m serious. I have a lump the size of a melon on my neck.’

  ‘Go on. What kind of lump?’

  ‘The lumpy kind!’

  ‘But it’s hardly the size of a melon?’ She smiled at how much of a drama queen Fintan was. ‘A grape, maybe?’

  ‘No, much bigger. Tara, I swear to you, it genuinely is the size of a melon.’

  ‘What kind of melon? A honeydew? Galia? Cantaloup?’

  ‘OK, maybe not a melon. But a kiwi fruit, certainly.’

  ‘Try putting Savlon on it.’

  ‘Savlon! It’s drugs I need.’

  ‘You’d better go to the doctor, so.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ he said sarcastically. ‘I just thought I’d lie around here waiting for my neck to return to its correct size of its own free will.

  ‘I’ve an appointment for this evening,’ he added.

  He sounded upset, and she half regretted her jokey response. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Then she muttered, close to the phone, ‘Vinnie’ll let me off if I say I’ve my period, that always embarrasses him. Some months I have two or three and he’s too shy to mention it.’

  ‘Ah, no, I’ll be grand.’

  ‘What time will you be home?’

  ‘I don’t know how long it’ll take, but say about eight to be on the safe side.’

  ‘OK, I’ll give you a shout then. Good luck, but I’m sure it’s nothing.’

  As soon as she hung up, Ravi gasped eagerly, ‘What’s happened to Fintan?’

  ‘Swollen glands or something.’ Tara shrugged. ‘He’s such a hypochondriac.’

  Next she rang Katherine, but she wasn’t back from lunch yet. At three thirty? Tara thought. That’s not like Miss Diligent.

  ‘Right, Vinnie, I’ve rung everyone.’

  But as Tara settled back to work, she found herself thinking about Fintan. What if he wasn’t just being a drama queen attention-seeker? What if there really was something wrong with him? Something serious? That was the problem whenever a gay friend became sick. The A-word always cropped up. Then she felt uncomfortable with her train of thought – did she think gay people and Aids were uniquely linked?

  Her worry about Fintan moved smoothly on to worry about Thomas. What was the weirdness that was hanging between them? Perhaps it was only in her head. But she was brought back relentlessly to what he’d said on Saturday night and couldn’t decide whether she should be freaking out with worry or if she was better off ignoring it in the hope that it would go away.

  She couldn’t do any work, so at four o’clock she prepared to leave.

  ‘Excuse me, where are you going?’ Ravi asked suspiciously.

  ‘Thought I’d try a soupçon of retail therapy.’

  ‘No!’ Ravi tried to block her path, as instructed. ‘You must stop spending money.’

  ‘Thank you, Ravi.’ Tara tried to skirt past him. ‘I appreciate your vigilance but I don’t want to be stopped today.’

  ‘You said even if you begged I was to take no notice.’ Ravi squared up to her fiercely.

  Tara made a leap to the side of her desk to try and get through the gap there, but quick-as-a-flash Ravi had her marked. There was a brief skirmish.

  ‘Vinnie, call him off!’

  ‘He’s only doing as you asked.’ Vinnie shrugged wearily. No wonder he was losing his hair.

  They faced each other – Ravi bent at the knees, his many muscles tensed and ready for action, his hands crossed, poised to do a kung-fu chop. Tara bitterly regretted ever enlisting his help. ‘Can we start tomorrow?’ she wheedled. ‘Please?’

  In disappointment, Ravi dropped his en-garde stance. ‘Off you go, then.’

  So Tara went shopping and tried to pretend that she wasn’t starving. She had high hopes that looking at clothes would take her mind off things, but found she couldn’t wrap her head around the idea of being size sixteen. Shopping for clothes was a pleasure that no longer belonged to her; instead it had become an exercise in damage limitation.

  There were so many clothes that she was automatically disqualified from; sleeveless tops, fitted macs, knitted dresses, anything involving jersey, Lycra, pleats or no bra. She couldn’t tell you the last time she’d worn trousers.

  The only consolation lay in looking at sexy, funky shoes. Shoes were the fat woman’s friend. Shoes still looked beautiful when all else had gone to hell in a handcart.

  Hair mascara also struck her as a good idea – she always had an eye out for diversionary tactics. Interesting jewellery, mad handbags and technicolour ma
ke-up were all part of the look-over-there factor. A blue fringe was as good as anything to distract people from her rotund belly.

  By the time she’d bought a strawberry-flavoured tree air-freshener for the car, a pair of high black dolly shoes, blue hair mascara, purple hair mascara and the knitting pattern, knitting needles and wool for Thomas’s jumper, she’d missed her step class.

  She pretended she felt let down. She had the option of going circuit training, but that was always full of beefy men doing one-handed press-ups and grunting a lot. She couldn’t take it, not in a pink leotard. I’ll start tomorrow, she vowed.

  18

  On the way home, on impulse, she called in on Katherine. She hadn’t been able to get her on the phone all afternoon and she felt like having a chat with her.

  Visiting Katherine unexpectedly wasn’t something she normally did. They’d been affected by the ethos in London, where it was considered the height of rudeness to drop in on someone unannounced. The words, ‘I was just passing…’ were considered to be as much of a social gaffe as ‘You’ve a really big nose.’ Many Londoners, used to being able to screen their telephone calls with the aid of an answering-machine, were sent into a flat spin by an unexpected ring on their bell. A person! In the flesh! On their doorstep!

  If they were sure it wasn’t the postman, Londoners often simply refused to answer the door. The usual drill was to flatten themselves against the wall and try to peek out the window, like someone in a police shoot-out. Not with the idea of letting anyone in, but simply to get some notion of who this social deviant was and cross them off their Christmas card list forthwith.

  Katherine was having a shower, but Tara thought she was being ignored because she hadn’t made the requisite appointment. She pulled out her mobile to ring Katherine and order her to open the door but she’d forgotten to charge the battery.

  ‘It’s me,’ Tara called, stepping back from the intercom and standing in the tiny front garden, looking up at Katherine’s front window.

  ‘Let me in.

  ‘You hairy-arsed eejit,’ she yelled in frustration. ‘I know you’re up there, I can see the light.’

  ‘Hello,’ said a voice. ‘Looking for Katherine?’

  Tara turned around and someone, who must have been poor Roger, was advancing towards the front door with a key.

  ‘Yes.’ Tara could barely look at him, considering the other occasions they’d had contact – Roger banging his ceiling with a broom handle and Tara screeching drunkenly, ‘Lighten up, would you, you young fogey?’

  ‘Thanks,’ Tara gasped to Roger, running away from him and up the stairs to Katherine’s. While Tara pounded with her fist and shouted, ‘Let me in!’ Katherine calmly opened the door. She was wearing a short, silky white nightdress and a longer, matching robe, which swung open, showing off her lean little legs. She radiated feel-goodness, but Tara was too agitated to notice.

  ‘Hello.’ Katherine treated her to a smile. ‘How did you get up here?’

  ‘Roger the codger let me in.’

  ‘Poor Roger,’ Katherine said. ‘I must apologize to him sometime for all the noise. What’s wrong? Why were you trying to batter the door down?’

  ‘I thought you were ignoring me.’

  ‘Why would I do that?’ Katherine asked, with another wide smile. Katherine had lovely feet. Small and dainty, her toenails painted iridescent. Although why she went to the fuss of painting her toenails was beyond Tara. She wouldn’t bother her barney if she didn’t have a boyfriend. In fact, even when she did have a boyfriend!

  Tara found a strange comfort in watching Katherine’s pretty little feet move nimbly about the thick carpet as she led Tara into the living room and asked her if she’d like a cheese sandwich.

  ‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ Tara said. ‘I’ll just have a cup of tea. Even though I could eat a nun’s arse through a convent gate, I beg of you, don’t give me any food.’

  She was safe with Katherine. There was scant danger she’d be planning to have a high-calorie, high-fat meal, which Tara would be forced to join in with. Most nights if you asked Katherine what she was going to have for her dinner, she’d say vaguely, ‘I don’t know, toast or something.’ Whereas Tara would have known since the previous Wednesday.

  ‘I’ll boil the kettle,’ Katherine said.

  The bag of Hula Hoops on the shelf in the living room had been there from the night before. Tara distinctly remembered seeing it. How could Katherine have left all those lovely Hula Hoops there overnight without eating them? She wouldn’t have got a wink of sleep herself. As it was, she was going to eat them now. Being face to face with food melted her resolve. Besides, she’d missed her exercise class, the damage was already done. She launched herself on the bag just as Katherine came back.

  ‘No,’ Katherine yelled, and Tara jumped.

  ‘Put. The Hula Hoops. Down,’ Katherine bellowed across the room. She cupped her hands to form a megaphone. ‘I repeat. Put. The Hula Hoops. Down.’

  Tara froze, taken aback by Katherine’s uncharacteristic rowdiness.

  ‘Down,’ boomed Katherine. ‘On the floor. Slowly now. Don’t try anything funny.’

  Tara found herself placing the red bag carefully on the ground beside her feet. Katherine isn’t normally like this, she thought, in confusion.

  ‘OK,’ said Katherine. ‘Place your hands on your head.’

  Tara obeyed.

  ‘Now kick the Hula Hoops over to me.’

  The red Cellophane pack skittered across the carpet and Katherine grabbed it when it arrived, a huge grin on her face.

  ‘Thanks,’ Tara said, as they both laughed – Tara mildly hysterically and Katherine brimming over with joie de vivre. ‘That was a close call.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be buying these things if you’re worried about your weight,’ Katherine scolded good-humouredly.

  ‘I didn’t. They’re yours. How come you don’t see these things?’ Tara moaned. ‘The minute I walked in the bag started to glow like a beacon. Demanding my attention. Parading itself in front of me. Cavorting licentiously. If it wore clothes it would have taken them off…’

  Katherine laughed and Tara noticed vaguely that she was looking extraordinarily well.

  ‘I bought the wool for Thomas’s jumper,’ she announced.

  ‘Hot news.’

  ‘It is, actually. It’s me taking control of my life. Knitting, dieting and not spending money. The new me.’ Tara drew a mental veil over the thirty-five-minute-old shoes that were almost throbbing with illicitness on the back seat of her car. ‘So where were you today? I rang you at half three and you were still at lunch.’

  Katherine didn’t answer.

  ‘Where were you?’ Tara repeated.

  ‘Hmmmm? Sorry?’ Katherine asked dreamily.

  What the hell is up with her? Tara wondered. Something was different. A glitteriness about the eyes, a knowingness about the mouth. She was giving off suppressed-excitement vibes. ‘For your long lunch, where were you…?’ Tara paused and said falteringly, ‘Are you listening to me?’

  ‘Yes,’ Katherine declared unconvincingly.

  Tara looked at her again. Her skin was flushed and peachy-looking and she had that cocooned air of someone with a pleasant secret. ‘You haven’t been… have you… You’ve been having sex with someone, haven’t you?’ Tara demanded.

  ‘I have not!’

  ‘Well, there’s something doing you good. Do you fancy someone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Does someone fancy you?’

  ‘No,’ Katherine said, but Tara had picked up on the tiniest little hesitation.

  ‘Aha,’ she sang. ‘Ahaaaaa. Someone is after you, who is he? Tell me.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell,’ Katherine said stiffly.

  Tara was excited. Glad that something was going right for one of them. ‘I bet he’s magnificent,’ Tara urged. ‘Your fellas always are.’

  On the rare occasions that Katherine had a boyfriend, they were usua
lly extraordinarily beautiful. Total hunks. Real stunners. Way out of Tara’s league. Mind you, they never lasted long, but however.

  ‘It has to be someone at your work,’ Tara surmised. ‘Where else would you get to meet a man?’

  ‘Behave,’ Katherine said.

  ‘What’s up with you? What’s wrong with fancying someone?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Well, what’s wrong with someone fancying you?’

  Katherine didn’t reply. But all her glow had faded and she now wore a face that would stop a clock.

  ‘Katherine,’ Tara said gently, ‘I know we’ve had fights about this before, but being in love is nice, it’s a good thing. And I know you don’t like to relinquish your famous control, I know you don’t like being vulnerable, but sometimes you’ve got to take a chance.’

  ‘Relationships are misery from start to finish,’ Katherine said coldly.

  ‘Not at all,’ Tara spluttered, and opened her mouth to say, ‘I mean, look at me and Thomas, see how unmiserable we are,’ then found she couldn’t.

  ‘I’m perfectly happy on my own,’ Katherine said, her face like stone. ‘Being alone doesn’t mean lonely.’

  ‘You can’t duck and dodge for ever,’ Tara said in exasperation. ‘Falling in love is part of the human condition. Without it you’re only living a half life. Everyone needs a partner, it’s a basic human need.’

  ‘It’s not a need,’ Katherine said. ‘It’s a want. And what I want, more than a person to argue with over who loves who the most, is absence of pain. Falling in love leaves you open, relationships mean pain.’

  ‘Relationships aren’t all about pain,’ Tara protested, alarmed at Katherine’s intransigence. She seemed to have become more entrenched since the last time they’d had this row.