Last Chance Saloon

by Marian Keyes

  ‘So relationships aren’t all about pain?’ Katherine interrupted. ‘You’re hardly in a position to say that. Look at how miserable you are with that shithead Thomas.’

  ‘I’m not miserable,’ Tara said stoutly.

  Despite her anger, Katherine couldn’t help noticing that Tara hadn’t denied that Thomas was a shithead. ‘Well, if you’re happy,’ she told Tara, ‘then I’m fine as I am.’

  They stared, their faces close together, furious looks hopping from one to the other.

  ‘I’m going to ask you one more time,’ Tara said menacingly.

  ‘What?’ Katherine hissed.

  ‘Is he someone from work?’

  Katherine’s eyes popped with rage. She opened her mouth to begin a tirade of abuse, working her mouth silently as she tried to find the right words.

  ‘Yes,’ she finally said.

  19

  ‘Tell me,’ Tara ordered.

  But actually, Katherine decided, there was very little to tell. First thing that morning Joe Roth had ambled over to her desk, as he had done every morning for the previous twelve working days. Maybe it was the icy-green of the shirt that he’d worn in honour of the tampon-account presentation, or the way his cobalt-blue suit followed the lines of his long, rangy body that made Katherine admit that he was particularly easy on the eye that day. Automatically, her expression became harder, more inscrutable.

  ‘Morning, Katie,’ Joe said, with a huge smile that filled his entire face.

  ‘Mr Roth,’ Katherine said icily, with Scary Look grade three – she felt there was no need to go to a four or a five because the tone of her voice was a weapon in itself. ‘My name is Katherine and I don’t answer to abbreviations of it.’

  Katherine waited for him to slink away, cowed and beaten. Instead, when he leant on her desk and laughed and laughed, she had an unexpected premonition of disaster. She looked at his teeth, arrayed like white flags on a washing-line, and felt for herself. Be afraid, be very afraid.

  He stopped laughing. ‘Mr Roth,’ he parroted, his brown eyes looking at her with what seemed to be affection. Unmoving, she faced him, doing her best to exude the patience of a very busy but long-sufferingly polite woman. ‘Mr Roth,’ he repeated. ‘I love it. You know, Katherine, you’re wonderful. You’re simply wonderful.’

  When she continued to stare at him stonily, he said, ‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended you by being over-familiar. It’ll be Katherine from now on. Unless you’d prefer to be called Ms Casey.’

  The fraction of a second that it took before she began to protest was too long. Joe roared with laughter again. ‘You would, I see. Very well, Ms Casey it is.’

  ‘Now, Ms Casey,’ he said, suddenly businesslike. ‘We need to have a meeting about the overspending on the Noritaki beer account. But the Geetex executives are due shortly for the presentation, so why don’t we discuss it over lunch?’

  ‘Lunch?’ she asked coolly. ‘On whose budget?’

  Katherine Casey was not to be bought. Though she didn’t often get taken out for expensive, trendy lunches in the course of her work – in advertising, the accountant is a Cinderella-figure – she refused to get excited by the thought of a free goat’s cheese salad. On the contrary. She was far more likely to lose the run of herself at the thought of a campaign coming in under budget. ‘After all,’ she continued, ‘if it’s overspent it’s hardly appropriate that we discuss it while spending more money from it.’

  ‘I’ll pay for lunch myself,’ Joe offered.

  Katherine laughed. Joe was not encouraged by its timbre. ‘Nice try, Joe,’ she said. ‘But I see all the expenses claims.’

  The account directors never paid for anything. They kept receipts for everything they ever bought and attempted to claim them. Not just restaurant or hotel bills, but everything from shaving foam (‘I had a presentation, I had to look my best,’) to ties (ditto) to birthday cards to the weekly shop at Tesco. Once someone had slipped in a receipt for an Armani suit, another time a home Jacuzzi. Katherine had seen it all.

  ‘You have my word,’ he insisted. I’ll pay for lunch out of my own pocket.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come on,’ he joked. ‘Lunch. With Joe Roth. Accept no substitute.’

  ‘No.’

  His expression became serious. ‘This isn’t a come-on. I genuinely need to talk to you about the overspending on the budget.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Katherine lied. ‘I’m up to my eyes doing the end-of-year accounts.’ She’d managed to get most of the work done by coming in the previous day, but she wasn’t telling him that. ‘Why don’t you talk to my assistant, Breda?’ she suggested. ‘She’ll be able to help you and I’m sure she’d appreciate a nice lunch.’

  ‘OK,’ said Joe desolately and moved away.

  It wasn’t the kind of thing he would normally do, but he was in despair as he faced into his fourth week of rejection – he went to Fred Franklin to ask him to pull some strings. Fred was in his little glass office with Myles, a young would-be-wide-boy copywriter. ‘Fred, I need you to do me a favour,’ Joe said, dispensing with pleasantries.

  Fred knew what Joe wanted because he’d been watching him talking to Katherine. Fred understood the international language of rejection. In fact, he was fluent in it, having had no luck with women until he got promoted at the age of thirty-five. And from Joe’s body language while talking to Katherine – the pleading, outstretched arms, the earnest expression on his face – it was clear that he was being given the bum’s rush.

  ‘You’re a sick man,’ said Fred.

  ‘Are you?’ asked Myles eagerly. ‘How sick? We cater for most tastes here, mate. How about Chain in printing, if it’s kinky you’re after?’

  ‘Jane?’

  ‘Not Jane. Chain. She’ll sort you.’

  ‘What’s her real name?’ Joe asked wearily. He’d inadvertently called several of the women by their nicknames since he’d started at Breen Helmsford. Most of them hadn’t seemed to mind, but he had.

  ‘Pauline,’ Myles said. ‘We call her Chain, because… Well, if I say the words “furry handcuffs”, I think you’ll know what I’m on about…’

  ‘He fancies the frigid Paddy,’ Fred said bluntly.

  ‘Who? The Ice Queen?’ Myles said in astonishment. ‘Didn’t know you were into masochism.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You are, mate. You’re banging your head against a brick wall.’

  Myles had liked Joe Roth, had thought he was a good bloke, who was game for a laugh. He decided he might have to reconsider.

  ‘What about May in the post room?’ he suggested, desperate to save Joe. ‘You know her – nipples you could hang your coat on, arse you could park a bike in. Up for it? Not half. Just because she’s on a care-in-the-community back-to-work scheme, don’t let that put you off. Nothing wrong with a bit of mental illness, I always say. Blinding!’

  ‘What’s her real name?’ Joe asked, feeling depressed.

  ‘May,’ Myles answered simply. ‘Though I don’t know why, there’s no may about it. She’s a definite and no mistake!’

  Both Fred and Myles burst into raucous, macho laughter and Joe began to consider a career change. Was the misogyny worse here than at his last employer’s, or was he just getting old?

  He cut into the hilarity by saying, ‘Apart from anything else, I genuinely need to discuss the Noritaki budget with Katherine.’ The guffaws came to an abrupt halt.

  ‘Do you think I was born yesterday, son?’ Fred scoffed. ‘Talk to Heavy Breda about it.’

  ‘Go on,’ he encouraged, when Joe didn’t reply. ‘At least Heavy Breda has tits.’

  ‘Have a word with Katherine,’ Joe pressed. ‘And I’ll owe you.’

  Fred considered. Joe was a good-looking lad, he featured a lot in the conversations of the female employees. If he ever got anywhere with the frigid Paddy he’d immediately lose interest in her. By which time, she’d probably be very taken with him. And that would be worth seeing.
>
  ‘All right,’ grumbled Fred, heaving himself out of his leather chair.

  As Katherine watched Fred lumber across the floor towards her, she knew what was coming. Part of her was deeply contemptuous of Joe for running to the boss. But against her deep instincts of self-preservation, her interest was piqued by how hard he was trying. Although men had tried that hard before and it had still ended in tears…

  ‘Now, listen to me,’ Fred barked at Katherine. He hated talking to her. She always made him feel as though he’d just crawled out from under a rock. Ever since, three years before, in her first week at Breen Helmsford, when he’d asked her out for a drink, and she’d said, ‘I don’t go out with married men.’ Though Fred had puffed and blustered and said, ‘I’m only being friendly, trying to make you feel welcome,’ she’d given him a scathing, knowing look and when he’d finished hating himself, his hatred had come to rest on her.

  ‘You’re to go out for lunch with Joe Roth and discuss bloody budgets.’

  ‘Is this an order?’

  ‘Aye, I suppose it is.’

  ‘You’re not my superior.’ She smiled. Then she said to herself, In fact, you’re barely on the same evolutionary scale as me. And turned up the volume on her fake smile.

  ‘I know I’m not your direct boss,’ Fred admitted, utterly hating this, ‘but the lad is worried about the account. Breda is a grand lass, but Joe wants it straight from the horse’s mouth.’

  ‘A double-breasted white suit,’ Katherine said thoughtfully, ‘with a fur coat thrown over your shoulders, a Panama hat at a rakish angle, and a ho’ in a short, tight red dress on each arm.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Isn’t that what pimps usually look like?’

  ‘A pimp!’ Fred was aghast. ‘I’m not a pimp! He only wants to have lunch with you.’

  The air zinged with animosity, and briefly Katherine wished she was like other people. Why couldn’t she be a party animal? Why couldn’t she have gone out with Fred Franklin? Even had a quick fling with him? An affair with a married man wouldn’t kill her, she knew that only too well. And it would certainly have made her work life a lot easier. She knew she wasn’t popular and sometimes it got to her. Like today.

  ‘It’s only lunch,’ Fred repeated loudly, his eyes bulging with outrage. ‘To discuss work.’

  It was only lunch, Katherine acknowledged. ‘OK.’ She sighed.

  Fred lumbered triumphantly back to his goldfish-bowl office. ‘You’re in, son,’ he said to Joe’s anxious face. ‘Don’t forget to come back and tell us all about it.’

  The phone on his desk buzzed. ‘The Geetex boys have arrived,’ he said.

  Joe’s elation helped him deliver a dazzling presentation to the Geetex deputation. So powerful was his oration that they almost began to believe in the tampons themselves.

  ‘I reckon it’s in the bag,’ Myles said, as he watched the entranced Geetex men take their leave.

  Usually, after a pitch that had gone well, the team went for a lengthy, boozy lunch. However, that day Joe declined to join them. But he urged them to go with his blessing, after first checking which restaurant they were planning to descend on. He intended to take Katherine somewhere far away from it.

  In the meantime Katherine had spent the morning knee-deep in accruals. She’d switched her head off from Joe Roth completely. Not for her the spurious excuse about having to go to the bank/stationer’s/chemist, followed by a frantic dash to Oxford Street to buy a toothbrush and toothpaste, new lipstick, extra foundation, body spray, sheer stockings, high heels and a new suit with a short skirt in honour of the impromptu breaking of bread.

  She refused to let herself get excited. Years of practice ensured that fighting back anticipation wasn’t even an effort.

  Of course, work was a great help. The exquisitely ordered world of figures, where there were no loose ends. If it balanced you knew you were right; there was simply no room for doubt. And if it didn’t balance you went back into it until you found where you’d made your mistake, and then you fixed it.

  Katherine considered the double-entry system of bookkeeping to be one of the great achievements of mankind, on a par with the invention of the wheel. She wished the world was run along the same principles. Debits on the left, credits on the right, so that you always knew where you stood. Beautiful.

  At one o’clock, Joe sheepishly materialized by her desk, his earlier rush of euphoria dissolved by the embarrassment at having pulled rank on her.

  ‘Oh, right, the Noritaki discussion lunch,’ she said ungraciously, keeping him hovering awkwardly while she finished a calculation. It could have waited, but why should it?

  As she switched off her calculator she found she was dying to go to the loo, but felt too embarrassed to tell him. Perhaps she could go to the ladies’ at the restaurant. But why shouldn’t she go now? After all, he was nothing to her. In the dim and distant past, when she had fancied someone, it had been a different matter. Any bodily functions would have to be dismissed and denied, written out of the picture. But not with Joe Roth. ‘I must go to the ladies’ first,’ she said, brazen as could be. She deliberately left her handbag on her desk so that he needn’t flatter himself that she was going to brush her hair and put on lipstick for him.

  20

  The restaurant he took her to was within walking distance. Katherine thanked God. The thought of being trapped with him in a taxi made her feel like she was suffocating. Although walking wasn’t pleasant either. She felt awkward and couldn’t look at him. And they both kept going at different speeds, trying to second-guess the other’s natural velocity. Because Joe was very tall, Katherine decided he probably walked at high speed. She didn’t want to be found lacking, so she began by racing along. Then she realized she was probably going too fast, so she slowed down dramatically. Meanwhile, he’d noticed her decrease in speed and, angry with himself, deduced he’d been forcing her to keep up with his long legs, so he ground almost to a halt. Then Katherine noticed how deliberately slowly he was going, how unnatural it seemed for him, so she revved up again. So did he, thinking he’d slowed down too much for her. And in this miserable, stop-start, jerky fashion, they arrived at the Lemon Capsicum.

  It was an expensive, trendy, noisy restaurant, enjoying its fifteen minutes of popularity. With its curved front wall made of glass bricks and its surfeit of blond wood, it wasn’t unlike the place Katherine had gone to on Saturday night with Tara. She didn’t even have to look at the menu to know what was on it. She’d have staked her life on mahi-mahi appearing somewhere.

  Joe had taken the precaution of reserving a booth. Once they were installed the noise lessened and Katherine began to relax. To the point of ordering a glass of wine. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said, patronizingly. ‘I may be diligent, but I’m still human.’

  ‘I’m not looking at you “like that”,’ he said, with one of his sunbeam smiles. ‘If you want a glass of wine, you have a glass of wine. Have as many as you like.’

  He looked at her with such warm appreciation that she said crisply, ‘Let’s get down to business. On the Noritaki account, the main areas of expenditure to date have been –’

  ‘Katherine,’ he interrupted gently, and the way he said her name – almost sadly – made her want to get up and leave. ‘Let’s order first.’ And suddenly, she decided to lay off herself, to give herself a break, just for an hour. She’d had three weeks of deflecting him and she was momentarily out of ammo. To hell with it, she thought. I’m only human. Why shouldn’t I let someone be nice to me? Just for an hour. And the smile that she turned on Joe was, for the first time, devoid of sarcasm or disdain.

  ‘What starter are you having?’ he asked, nodding at her closed menu.

  ‘Probably the chanterelle risotto with truffle shavings,’ she said, with a twinkle in her eye. ‘How about you?’

  ‘The coriander and lemongrass soup. Hey!’ he exclaimed, examining his menu. ‘But there’s no chanterelle risotto with truffle shavings.
’

  ‘Ah, there must be.’ She smiled. ‘I mean, look at this place.’ She waved a hand at the obligatory textured lemon walls, the two-foot-square Zen gardens, the round metallic spotlights inset in the ceiling. As Joe laughed, she watched herself blossom in his eyes. But when Katherine opened her menu, she burst out, ‘There’s no coriander and lemongrass soup either.’

  ‘Ah, there must be,’ Joe echoed. ‘I mean, look at this place.’

  Then, to Katherine’s discomfort, it was her turn to watch Joe blossom.

  But she couldn’t fit him into one of the usual categories. Most men who pursued her this relentlessly had an ego the size of a continent. They had to have – if there were any chinks in their armour of self-belief, her disdain found them, and administered mortal wounds. But if he wasn’t a crazed egotist, he had to be as thick as a plank, or as naïve as Forrest Gump. And she didn’t think he was that either.

  The waitress arrived. ‘Let me tell you about today’s specials,’ she said. ‘As a starter we have chanterelle risotto…’

  Katherine didn’t hear the rest. She’d erupted into a huge smile at Joe, who – briefly taken aback by her warmth – returned the beam in kind. Katherine had just remembered how much fun this kind of thing could be. As she watched his long, sensitive fingers fiddling with the stem of his wine-glass, she felt an almost-forgotten plucking sensation low down in her body. Like some elastic had snapped. Oh, no!

  She ordered tagliatelle. No surrender. She refused to have a manageable date-like meal that left no room for unsightly accidents. So what if the tagliatelle hung in unruly strands from the fork as she raised it to her mouth? So what if some of it swung against her chin, coating it in Cashel blue and porcini sauce? It showed she didn’t care. She’d have ordered spinach with a view to getting it caught between her teeth but, sadly, it wasn’t on the menu.

  As they ate their starters conversation naturally veered towards the one big thing they had in common: work. But Joe talked easily about himself, which made Katherine suspect that he wanted her to respond in the same way. He mentioned something about having gone ‘home’ a few weekends ago. Then said, ‘I was thirty in July and my mum has decided that because I’m not married by now I must be gay.’ But when he didn’t leave a long silence and stare at her eagerly, like a dog hungry for his dinner, she relaxed. Maybe this wasn’t a ruse of his to try and find out what age she was and if she was spoken for.