by Marian Keyes
Tara looked at the half-smoked cigarette that she held in her hand. ‘I’ve started so I’ll finish,’ she murmured. Then amid great ceremony she crumbled and broke her last sixteen cigarettes into an ashtray in Forman’s.
‘Ouch.’ Timothy O’Grady winced. ‘I bet that hurt.’
‘No,’ Tara lied, airily. ‘My own personal Ramadan starts here. No eating, drinking and, most definitely, no smoking!’
Fourteen hours later, Katherine and Tara were sitting in the non-smoking part of Shannon airport, awaiting their flight back to Heathrow.
‘It’s fourteen hours since I had a cigarette,’ Tara announced proudly. ‘Fourteen hours.’
‘You’ve been asleep for eleven of them,’ Katherine said drily.
‘Look at your man over there.’ Tara indicated a man in the smoking section, sucking on a cigarette as though his life depended on it. ‘Isn’t it disgusting? How could he do that to himself? Putting that revolting gear into his body?’
Ten minutes later Tara broke open a packet of Nicorette. ‘This is the business,’ she said, chewing frantically. ‘Who needs fags?’ Twenty minutes later Tara was sitting in the smoking section, still chewing the piece of Nicorette and inhaling deeply on a cigarette she’d bummed from the man.
‘I’m a smoker,’ she sadly told him. ‘I suppose I’d better just come to terms with it.’
68
Tara started evening classes. Now that she wasn’t going on mad benders every night of the week – it was down to every second night and sometimes only every third night – she had to fill the time somehow and going to the gym and visiting Fintan weren’t adequate distraction. But the banjo lessons lasted only a night. ‘It was too hard,’ she complained, ‘and have you any idea how much a banjo costs? You’d be bankrupted.’
The mosaic-making didn’t fare much better. ‘Miles too fiddly. All those little tiles, they’d drive you mad.’
And as for the Portuguese lessons, ‘Full of weirdoes. But never mind,’ she said cheerfully, ‘they still have vacancies in meditation, batik-making and canoeing. One of them is bound to be nice.’
They weren’t.
‘Meditation. God, the tedium! And my nerves were in shreds from the silence, it was like a particularly awkward dinner party.’
After the batik-making she demanded, ‘Do I look like a hippie?’
She didn’t say much about the canoeing. Just limped in dejectedly, her hair streely and straggly.
‘How was it?’ Joe asked.
‘Not very nice. They turned me upside down into the water and I thought I was going to drown. I bumped my knee and my hair is ruined.’
She was very low that night and horribly aware of her single status. She craved comfort and affection, someone to put their arms around her and squeeze away the shock of being unexpectedly immersed in cold water, someone to kiss her poor bruised knee better.
No more evening classes, she decided. She’d loved the infusion of hope at the start of each class, the excitement as she waited for the activity to fix her. But it didn’t work. There was no point trying to escape her loneliness through a new interest.
Now her only hobby was Not Ringing Thomas, which was still a teeth-grittingly difficult exercise. Not a day passed that he wasn’t the first thing she thought of when she woke up. But Katherine made her remember how much more excruciating it had been in the beginning, ten weeks previously. ‘Remember,’ she said, ‘you barely slept and you never ate. I know you still feel horrendous but you’ve made progress. I haven’t had to stop you driving round to him late at night since before Christmas.’
‘I suppose,’ Tara said slowly, ‘I’ve done well not to ring him. Because I’m very weak, you know. I’ve the willpower of a gnat.’
‘You’ve been marvellous. And you’ll get over him all the quicker because of the lack of contact. Making the break slowly only prolongs the agony. It’s like pulling off a plaster. If you’re brutal, it’s more painful initially, but better in the long run.’
Katherine’s words both comforted and unnerved Tara. She wanted to get over Thomas, but in a mad, paradoxical way the thought of him being consigned to her past made her sad.
She trudged on through her life. Sometimes she’d catch a glimpse of herself. A thirty-something woman with a good job – even if she was as poor as a church mouse it wasn’t the fault of her job – who worked hard, went to the gym daily, bought nice clothes, hadn’t a hint of a man on the horizon, and who filled in the gaps with good friends and white wine. She felt like a cliché and a failure.
She yearned for the days when she was so porky she had to stop buying Vogue because looking at all the beautiful clothes she couldn’t fit into broke her heart – at least back then she’d had a boyfriend.
For Tara, Katherine, Milo and Liv, visiting Fintan was something that had become automatically built into their routine, as reflex as brushing their teeth in the morning. Daily visits were so much the norm that they felt odd if they didn’t see him.
The extremes of emotion they’d felt in the early days of his diagnosis had evened out. Despite living with terrible, ongoing anticipation where any twinge or ache of Fintan’s triggered wild anxiety, the horror wasn’t as accessible as it used to be. The acute shock had receded and the aberrant had been assimilated. There was no other way, Liv explained. ‘When you’re carrying a burden, you eventually get used to it. It’s still a drain and a strain, but the immediate shock of finding it weighing down your arms goes away.’
Nor did anyone have the same hope that they used to have – after four doses of chemo he’d made no visible progress.
Even Fintan’s rage, despair and hope didn’t reach the outer limits of the pendulum swing. In a way it all felt very ordinary.
Only now and then did the bizarre awfulness of the situation break through. Like the night that Katherine, Joe and Fintan went to a play, and Fintan couldn’t get a taxi home afterwards.
‘What a bummer I can’t give you a lift,’ Katherine lamented, as they stood on the street, taxi after taxi passing with their lights off. ‘That’s the problem with two-seater cars.’
‘I could sit on Joe’s lap,’ Fintan offered.
Laughing, Katherine began to berate him for his constant flirting with Joe, then saw he was serious. The shock deepened when she realized that it was possible. Fintan was shrunken and wasted enough.
She couldn’t speak as she drove them home, the once strong, healthy Fintan perched like a ventriloquist’s dummy on Joe’s knee, Joe’s arms cradling him protectively.
Milo put his farm up for sale and announced he was going to become a landscape gardener. ‘I love London, but I miss the land,’ he said. ‘I like the feel of earth between my fingers. We all have our own way of living.’
Liv looked like she was going to swoon from admiration.
‘Are you happy, Liv?’ Tara asked softly.
‘Happy?’ she said doubtfully. ‘I don’t really do happy. But I’m off my Prozac, St John’s wort, evening-primrose oil, vitamin B supplements and my light-box and I haven’t had a suicidal thought in ages.’
‘But are you happy with Milo?’
Liv lit up. ‘Oh, he’s wonderful. I can’t believe my luck. He’s changed the way I see the world. When it starts to rain instead of worrying that his hair might go frizzy, he doesn’t even notice it, or else he says things like “It’s a lovely, growthy rain, good for the crops.” Although,’ Liv added hurriedly: never let it be said that everything in her garden was rosy, ‘you must remember that we met because of Fintan’s illness. It’s made us closer in one way, but in another… It means we have worry and guilt. And, of course, JaneAnn is cross with me. Nothing is ever perfect.’
‘No, indeed it isn’t.’ Tara tried not to smile.
‘But,’ Liv had the decency to admit, ‘I think this is as good as it gets.’
Around mid-February news reached them that Thomas had a new girlfriend. She was Marcy, the woman who’d told Tara at Eddie’s birthday party that she was trying t
o get pregnant from a sperm bank.
‘It figures,’ Tara said, bravely. ‘She must be really desperate.’ Though everyone rallied round it was a major setback for her. ‘The jealousy is killing me,’ she admitted, taut and pale. ‘All I can think of is how nice he used to be to me.’
‘He was never nice to you.’ Katherine attempted to cheer her up.
‘Yes, he was, Katherine. He was lovely in the beginning. He was mad about me and he acted like I was gorgeous. Why else would I have got off with him? And why else did I stay with him for so long?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Because I was trying to get back to the way it was in the beginning. I know I’m well out of it, but I still feel he’s mine. And now he’s being lovely to her instead of me.’
‘He’ll make her life a misery.’
‘That’s no comfort. It should be my life he’s making a misery.’ Tara put her head in her hands and moaned, ‘I’m just so tired of feeling this way. And what makes it twenty times worse is that she’s so bloody skinny.’
‘Have you looked in a mirror lately?’ Katherine eyed Tara’s starved and Stairmastered body.
‘She’s permanently skinny,’ Tara whispered. ‘She’s a real skinny person. I’m only an impostor and I’ll be fat again soon.’ Then she rallied, courageously. ‘This is just another hurdle. Once I’m over this I’ll be much better. It just means,’ she added sadly, ‘that now there really is no going back.’
‘But you weren’t going to go back.’ Sandro was shocked.
‘No, but… It’s a new level of “over” when your ex meets someone new.’ She smiled weakly. ‘It’s a shock. And it’s not pleasant to think of him getting on with his life without me.’
‘But you’re getting on with your life without him,’ Liv consoled.
‘Ah, I’m not really. I haven’t met someone else. It really pisses me off that it always takes men no time whatsoever to hook up with someone new. Three months is all it took him. It’s very unfair.’
‘You could hook up with someone if you were really desperate,’ Fintan pointed out. ‘You’ve managed to sleep with two men in the last month.’
Tara shuddered. ‘Blind-drunk one-night stands with two of the most hideous men in the northern hemisphere. Elephant Man and Elephant Man’s ugly brother. I only slept with them to get some affection.’
‘Them’s the rules.’ Fintan was jolly. ‘Women have sex with men for affection, men are affectionate to women to have sex with them.’
‘One-night stands make me feel even worse. They’re really not worth it,’ Tara insisted.
‘How’s that sweetheart Ravi?’ Fintan asked, innocently.
‘Ravi? The Ravi who I work with? The Ravi who’s three years younger than me? The Ravi who stays up all night playing Nintendo? The Ravi who thought Die Hard was a documentary? That Ravi? He’s fine, Fintan, why do you ask?’
‘Only being polite.’ He smirked. ‘Is he still going out with Danielle?’
‘No, they split up at Christmas.’
‘Is that right?’ Fintan and Sandro nudged each other in delight. ‘Is – that – right? So he’s on the loose. You could do worse than consider him.’
Tara looked darkly at Fintan. ‘If I ever even think about it, somebody shoot me.’
The next day, Tara bumped into Amy in the entrance hall at work.
‘Hi.’ Amy beamed. ‘How are you? I haven’t seen you in ages. Not since before Christmas.’
‘Oh, cripes.’ Tara put her face in her hands. ‘I’ve just remembered. I met you that awful day when I was plastered and throwing up. Oh, the shame.’
‘Don’t worry. I got alcohol poisoning that night, and had to get an injection in my bum to stop me vomiting.’
Tara laughed in relief. She was in awe of Amy’s pre-Raphaelite beauty and it was nice to know she was human.
‘We really must go out one night,’ Amy went on. ‘Unless you’ve got back with your bloke?’
Tara shook her head heavily.
‘I don’t know if you remember, but I told you that my boyfriend has a lovely friend called Benjy, and I bet you two would really like each other. So why don’t we all go out?’
‘OK,’Tara said, a slow burn of excitement beginning. Maybe he’d be half decent. ‘When?’
‘Saturday night?’
‘Can’t. The Saturday after?’
‘Done.’
‘And he’s nice, this Barney?’
‘Benjy. He’s lovely.’
‘Well, if he’s anything like your boyfriend he’s bound to be gorgeous,’ Tara praised. She turned away too soon to see alarm zigzag across Amy’s porcelain face.
69
‘For the thirty-first year running, the award for Best Collection of Molecules goes to Katherine Casey.’ Joe smiled down at Katherine, who was sprawled naked and languid on his bed. ‘And that’s not just on planet Earth, you know,’ he added, knowledgeably. ‘That’s universe-wide.’
‘We have to get up for work,’ she said, without much conviction.
‘You’re going nowhere, young lady.’ Joe was stern. ‘Not until the doctor has examined you.’
Katherine giggled, but her heart squeezed a slow thump of excitement. This game was even better if you were wearing clothes to start with, but what harm?
‘Now what appears to be the problem?’ Joe’s expression was severe.
‘It hurts.’
‘Where?’
She wavered, then pointed to her abdomen. ‘Here.’
‘Show me,’ he ordered, strictly. ‘I’m a busy man, show me exactly where.’
‘Here.’ She touched herself lightly and squirmed with embarrassment and arousal.
Joe placed a cool, doctorly hand on her pubic bone and, with his thumb, began to stroke in an idle fashion. ‘Here?’
‘Lower down.’
‘Ms Casey, you must show me exactly where!’
Her eyes closed, she took his hand and moved it.
‘Here?’ he demanded.
‘In more,’ she gasped.
‘Here?’
‘Yes.’
Some time later Katherine’s muffled voice emerged from under Joe. ‘We really have to get up for work now.’
On the way for her shower she almost tripped on the collection of free weights that were gathering dust by the door. Then went into the bathroom where there was a long-dead plant on the windowsill, the only shampoo was Head ‘n’ Shoulders and there wasn’t any conditioner at all.
Joe’s flat was reassuringly that of a single man. But not for much longer. Katherine had every intention of changing it.
She darted back into the bedroom wrapped in a beige, threadbare towel. ‘I’m late. I must iron my shirt.’
Joe tried to pull the towel off her and she scolded him, ‘No. Leave me alone and have your shower or you’ll be late too.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Dejected, he trudged to the bathroom.
She was dressed when he returned and he checked her out in her slim pale-blue suit. ‘Possibly the best girlfriend in the world,’ he said softly.
‘I bet you drink Carling Black Label,’ she replied, her gaze focused on his groin. ‘Now get dressed.’
‘OK.’ He sighed.
She dried her hair, put on her make-up and rummaged in her purse.
‘Oh, Joe, I need change for my tube fare.’
‘Help yourself.’ He swept aside the jacket of his suit and angled his hip at her.
‘No,’ she giggled, ‘I’m not putting my hand into your trouser pocket.’
‘If you want your tube fare,’ he grinned, wickedly, ‘you’ll have to.’
She hesitated for an awkward moment, then slid her palm into the secret cave of his pocket, over the slippery cool lining and the jut of his hipbone and into the recess weighed down by coins. But she’d lost interest in the money because under the pocket she could feel something else. A luscious, squeezy swelling. Expanding and moving, unfurling and hardening, coming to life b
eneath her. Her hand began to seek and stroke, moving and…
‘No!’ she exclaimed. ‘We’ll never get to work at this rate!’
She pulled out a pile of coins, selected what she needed and returned the rest, letting them fall and jangle back in.
‘Sorry.’ She was sheepish. ‘I’ll get you later.’
‘Too right.’ He smiled. ‘How about a session in the gents’ at work?’
‘No.’
‘Aw.’
‘I was saving that for your birthday. Now you’ve ruined the surprise.’
‘Were you really?’ he asked, curiously. He never really knew with Katherine, she was such a funny mix of the prudish and the raunchy.
‘You’ll have to wait until July to find out, won’t you?’ She gathered up her things. ‘Gosh, this phone weighs a ton.’
Katherine had unplugged the phone from the wall of her flat and taken it to Joe’s, just in case Tara had any ideas about ringing Thomas in her absence. ‘See you at work.’ She kissed him. ‘Give me a ten-minute head start.’
‘You don’t have to tell me every morning, Katherine,’ he said, gently. ‘I know. But I wish we didn’t have to be a secret from everyone we work with. Are you ashamed of me?’ He laughed, but she realized there was real hurt in the question.
‘No,’ she blustered. ‘Of course I’m not ashamed of you. I just don’t like people knowing my business. I have to maintain an air of authority at work and if they know I’m boffing you they’ll think I’m human. Next thing they’ll be trying to pull fast ones with their expenses and overspend the accounts…’ She thought about it for a moment. Perhaps she was being too uptight. What the hell? ‘OK, so long as we don’t actually walk in together.’
They’d been seeing each other for almost five months now and, as far as Katherine was concerned, every day was another miracle. If only she’d known last November that they’d still be an item come April! A lesser man would have run screaming from all the drama in Katherine’s life, but Joe had just rolled up his sleeves and got on with it. He’d witnessed first hand Tara’s post-Thomas shenanigans, hadn’t balked at listening to her tales of woe and had refereed the occasional, late-night tussle where Tara tried to wrest the phone from Katherine.