Last Chance Saloon (34 page)

Sandro intercepted her at the door. ‘Fintan’s gone bananas on the shopping channel,’ he whispered. ‘He’s bought an abdominizer, a country-and-Western album that you can’t buy in the shops, a horrible gold chain and bracelet set and a cross-country skiing machine. He is constantly on the phone telling them our credit-card details!’

Fintan was enthroned on the sofa, wearing a Diana Vreeland turban, and a sourpuss face. Since he’d got out of hospital he’d been rancid and nasty, like milk that had turned. He glanced at Vinnie’s article, then spun it aside. ‘Tara, every time I see you you’ve found some new form of mumbo-jumbo for me to try. Homeopathy, acupuncture, raw diets, massage, colour therapy, meditation and now Chinese herbs.’

‘But, Fintan,’ Tara said, desperately, ‘they’re all worth a try. They can’t do any harm.’

‘Turn on the box,’ he interrupted, rudely. ‘Let’s have some entertaining nonsense. As opposed to the non-entertaining variety.’

‘Fintan,’ Sandro wrung his hands, tearfully, ‘please, you mustn’t. You will have no friends left, you’ve been so rude to everyone…’

‘I’ve no worries about Tara,’ Fintan said, archly. ‘The worse men treat her, the more devoted she becomes.’

Tara flinched as if she’d been slapped, but Fintan, unresponsive to her hurt, pressed the remote. As the lights of the television played over them, Tara sat in silence, her face burning with shame. She hated being an object of pity and derision. But what was she to do?

Katherine arrived – strangely enough, not until about nine o’clock – with her calculator, allegedly about to help Fintan and Sandro work out a financial plan until Fintan got redundancy money or disability benefit.

‘You must stop spending money,’ Sandro pleaded and Fintan rewarded him with a glare.

‘Oh, by the way,’ Katherine reached into her bag and pulled out a page torn from a newspaper, ‘there was something in today’s
Independent
about chakra healing. It might be worth a try…’

Fintan had the grace to smile – albeit bitterly.

Hoping that Katherine’s great news about Joe’s e-mail would lift Fintan from the pit of bile he was mired in, Tara made her escape home to Thomas.

When she reached the Holloway Road and circled the block looking for a parking space, she was not prepared for the thought that spun idly into her head.
If I didn’t live on this road any more, I’d choose somewhere that had residents’ parking
.

She caught herself in amazement. When Fintan had first suggested she leave Thomas, her denial had been automatic. But something had obviously filtered through.

Then she thought of what it would be like being on her own and her innards froze.

She let herself in. The first thing she did every time she came home was wonder what kind of mood Thomas was in. Tonight
he was hunched over a bundle of essays, his vicious red pen turning each page into a bloodbath.

‘Where’ve you been?’

‘With Fintan.’

‘Hhhhumph.’

‘How’s Fintan, Tara?’ Tara surprised herself by saying, ladling on the sarcasm. ‘He’s not too good, Thomas, but thanks for asking.’

‘And what about me?’ Thomas asked. ‘When do I get to see you?’

Thomas’s resentment of the time and attention that Tara lavished on Fintan was worsening. Because he was insecure. But Tara was weary of making excuses for him – and that’s what they were, she realized in sudden shock, excuses.

‘I thought we might go out tonight,’ Thomas said. ‘Go round the corner for a curreh.’

‘I’m not eating.’

Thomas was on the horns of a dilemma. ‘Bludeh good for you, Tara.’ But he didn’t want to go on his own to the curry-house. ‘But I don’t mind if you have a night off.’

She shook her head firmly.

‘You ate plenty, all the times you were in the hospital with bludeh Fintan!’

‘
I’d have to get a van
, she thought.
All my stuff won’t fit in the car
. Then the aperture shut again, as she considered a life on her own.

She flicked on the television and, interestingly, what came on was a documentary about women who flip one day and murder their partners after years of abuse.

‘That’ll be me.’ Tara laughed, watching Thomas for a response.

‘It’ll be me, more like,’ he countered, confidently.

As she watched him scoring lines through teenage essays, Tara realized, with unprecedented clarity, how much she’d grown to dislike Thomas since Fintan got sick. Her habitual trepidation mysteriously lifted, making her reckless and daring. Reckless and daring enough that – ironically – she thought now might be the time to ask him
that
question.

She opened her mouth and instantly her heart began to beat like the Kodo drummers.

She wondered exactly how she should frame it.

‘Thomas?’ she asked. She could hear nervousness in her voice and she didn’t like it.

‘What?’ He didn’t even look up from the pile of essays.

‘Nothing.’

They eddied back into silence. Then the feelings propelled her forward once more.

‘Thomas?’

‘What?’

‘Why don’t we get married?’

Eyes still down, he chuckled. ‘Don’t talk daft.’

‘Oh. OK.’

‘That’s a good one.’ He laughed quietly to himself. ‘Us getting wed!’

Silence resumed in the brown basement sitting-room, the air heavy and gloomy. Tara felt a peculiar absence of emotion – no loss, no disappointment, no surprise – nothing. She had expected to feel heartbroken.

‘Why?’ Thomas asked, after a while. ‘Are you up the duff?’

‘Hardly.’ They hadn’t had sex since her birthday, more than a month before.

Another ten minutes of silence elapsed.

‘You
look
like you’re up the duff,’ he said.

‘You’re not exactly Kate fucking Moss yourself,’ Tara countered.

He looked up from correcting, his eyes stunned and childlike. ‘That was mean.’ He was surprised.

‘Now you know how I feel.’

‘But I say it for your own good.’

‘I’m saying it for your own good, too.’

Thomas looked at her and, in one of his quick, about-turn changes of mood, grinned suggestively. ‘It takes a big hammer to drive a big nail.’ His crotch was angled towards her, and the leer on his face said it all.

She looked at him, bewildered, her forehead furrowed like she was trying to read tiny writing. Why did he look like a gnome?

She didn’t want to sleep with him. That was the only thing she was certain of.

‘You laugh at the idea of us getting married then you expect me to go to bed with you. What’s wrong with this picture?’

Thomas looked genuinely confused. ‘Aw, Tara, come on,’ he whined. ‘You’ve got me all horny. Don’t be such a tease.’

‘Make your own arrangements.’ Then she stood up and walked from the room.

She wasn’t upset. She didn’t know what she was. Other than hungry.

But the thought of food made her queasy.

In the past when she’d been too hungry to sleep she took two Nytols to knock herself out. It worked for her then and it worked for her now. But her last thought before she descended into drugged sleep was not – unusually –
I’d love a bacon sandwich
. Instead it was,
I wonder how Alasdair is?

She was humiliated by Thomas’s amusement. What was so funny about wanting to get married? They’d been together for two years. People sometimes got married, it wasn’t that bloody hilarious. She smarted with rejection, even if he hadn’t known that’s what his careless words had done.

Though she insisted unconvincingly that she wasn’t even sure
she
wanted to get married – after all, she’d spent her teenage years shouting about what a bourgeois institution marriage was – she wanted some indication that Thomas took their relationship seriously.

On the drive to work, she was tortured with anxiety about what was going to happen next. Surely things couldn’t just stay as they were? Or could they? She had a horrible feeling that she was obliged, for her own self-respect, to do
something
, make some stand. As she should have done a month before.

But she didn’t want to. She’d rather tiptoe through her life, as though through a condemned building. Afraid that the whole edifice could come toppling down if she put a foot wrong, stood on one rotten floorboard, leant against one shaky beam.

It used to be nice with Thomas, she thought. It used to be lovely. Perhaps she didn’t need to be worried, she bolstered herself in a burst of wild hope. The entire relationship hadn’t
blown up in her face. Essentially nothing had changed and the structure still seemed sound.

Perhaps
sound
wasn’t quite the word, she admitted. But it looked the same as before. Whatever that was.

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Care to discover if it’s doughnut resistant?’ He waved a sugary ring in front of her. ‘Sorry,’ he said, when she winced and looked away. ‘How about a coffee?’

Ravi fetched her a cup of coffee, and Vinnie, Teddy, Evelyn, Slim Cheryl and Sleepy Steve couldn’t help downing tools in order to see what happened when Tara’s mouth came into contact with the side of her mug. She lifted the coffee to her lips, took a tiny sip, then held out the mug for all to see. Everyone exhaled a big ‘Oh’ of disappointment at the sight of a taupe, lip-shaped curve on the yellow enamel. ‘It said it was
long-last
,’ Ravi consoled. ‘It never said it was
indelible
.’

Tara sighed and said, ‘I think I’ll just give up. This is not something I’m going to win.’

After work she went for a couple of drinks with Ravi and some of the others, and didn’t mention Thomas or Fintan or anything unpleasant. But her head wasn’t her own and she couldn’t manage to shake the elusive but omnipresent dread.

So she went home and the minute she saw Thomas her stung humiliation increased. Forcing a conversational tone, she said, ‘Guess what? Katherine’s going on a date tomorrow.’

He snorted. ‘Will she be taking the padlock off her knickers?’

She clamped her mouth shut. Losing her temper was a luxury she couldn’t afford. But she couldn’t help watching them both
from a faraway place and thinking what an odd way for two people who were supposed to love each other to behave.

What a bizarre way to live. What a
waste
.

Though she couldn’t say when they’d crossed the line, it hadn’t always been this way.

She was so tired. She’d lived with enough weirdness for the moment.

‘Get me a drink,’ she said. ‘A glass of white wine.’

Startled he obeyed.

Something fundamental was in the process of shifting for Tara. She just didn’t know what it was yet. And she wasn’t sure she could bear to find out.

Almost combusting with excitement, she arrived at Katherine’s.

Katherine was wearing a bra and a pair of tight jeans, the zipped front emphasizing her flat stomach and visible hipbones.

‘It’s because you know how much I wish I could wear them, isn’t it?’ Tara said, gleefully. ‘It’s because you’re very fond of me.’

‘It’s because there’s not much call for short black dresses at a football match,’ Katherine replied.

‘Not at all, you’re just being kind to your fat chum, letting me wear jeans vicariously. How I wish I was you,’ Tara said wistfully, ‘with your no-bum and your skinny legs. Just as well you’re my friend, else I’d have to murder you.’

Tara looked around the flat. Something was wrong. The place was still a shambles, though it was nearly a week since the O’Gradys had left. The living-room carpet could have done
with a good Hoover, everything looked dusty and askew and through the open kitchen door the sink was piled higgledy-piggledy with dirty plates.

‘Oh.’ Katherine twirled her hand vaguely. ‘Yeah, I know. I’d planned to do a big clean when they left, but, ah…’ Her voice trailed away. ‘It doesn’t seem so bad. It’s fine. Messy, but at least it’s clean.’

It wasn’t, actually, but Tara swallowed anxiously and said nothing.

‘Do you know, I miss them,’ Katherine admitted. ‘I’d got used to them.’

‘But they were driving you bonkers,’ Tara exclaimed. ‘Milo using your Coco Chanel body-lotion that time.’

‘We have no actual proof it was Milo,’ Katherine defended. ‘It could have been JaneAnn or Timothy.’

‘It
smelt
like Milo. You know, I think he’s got a real taste for nice things.’

‘He’s taken to Liv’s lifestyle like a duck to water,’ Katherine agreed.

Tara began sniffing the air. ‘What’s the pooey smell?’ She inhaled again. ‘Singed hair?’

Katherine looked uncomfortable. ‘I might have overdone it with the hair straightener.’

‘God, it really is all systems go on Project Joe Roth. So what happens if you get off with him? Aren’t you worried that your flat’s a bit…’ she faltered ‘… untidy?’

‘I’ve bought expensive new underwear,’ Katherine confessed. ‘I’ve tempted fate enough.’

‘More
underwear?’ Tara choked. ‘If you wore a different pair of your knickers every day between now and when you die, you’d still have a pair or two left over!’

‘There we go again, assuming we’re going to live for ever,’ Katherine said lightly.

Immediately Tara went pale. ‘Every time I think of it, it’s as bad as the first time. He’ll be OK, won’t he?’

‘Maybe. Hopefully.’

Death hung in the air until Katherine interrupted, ‘Come on, do what you came here to do and help me get dressed.’

Despite everything, Tara couldn’t help filling with excitement.

‘What should I wear on top?’ Katherine wondered.

Tara flicked through Katherine’s immaculate hangers. ‘You and your capsule wardrobe,’ she muttered, in a schoolmarm voice. ‘Buy in neutral colours, make sure the item fits in with the rest of your wardrobe, at the beginning of each season choose a few staple items – a grey trouser suit, a navy skirt suit, narrow-legged black pants and a black skirt – and build on them.’ She’d come to the end of the hangers. ‘Sorry, Katherine, I see no tops here that are sexy, and you can hardly wear a work blouse with those jeans.’ She put her hands on her hips in a wit’s-end way. ‘I don’t suppose you’d just go in your bra?’

Katherine surprised her by saying, uneasily, ‘Well, actually, I went shopping…’ she pulled a bag from under the bed ‘… and I bought this. But it’s not really me,’ she added apologetically. ‘It’s a boomerang.’

Tara looked perplexed.

‘I mean, it’s going back,’ Katherine explained.

‘Let me see.’ Tara pulled a raspberry-coloured little sweater from the bag. ‘On!’ she ordered. ‘This minute.’

‘But –’

‘On!’

Katherine stood awkwardly before Tara. She looked beautiful. The dark-pink colour made her face glow as if it had uplighters within it. The silky fabric clung to her arms and breasts and was just short enough to give a tantalizing glimpse of her concave stomach. Tara wished they’d thought in time of getting Katherine’s belly-button pierced – something she’d love to get done herself except she feared they’d need the equipment that excavated the Channel Tunnel to burrow through the fat to pierce the hole, then the ring would have to be the circumference of a dinner-plate.

‘You’ve got to wear it!’ Tara was passionate.

‘I can’t,’ Katherine protested. ‘I look so obvious. And it’s too young for me.’

‘Please,’ Tara begged. ‘You look sexy and waif-like. And he’s so used to seeing you all buttoned up in your bumlick suits that he won’t know what’s hit him.’

‘But it’s November. I’ll get a cold.’

‘Colds are caused by viruses. And you’ll have a coat. Which were you thinking of wearing?’

There was an unexpected pause and Katherine’s face was an agony of guilt. ‘Well, when I was shopping I saw this,’ she confessed, pulling another bag from under the bed. ‘But I shouldn’t have bought it. I’m going to bring it back on Monday. It’s just here for a little holiday in Gospel Oak. I don’t know what I was thinking of…’

Tara grabbed the bag from her and pulled out a three-quarter-length petrol-blue jacket, in liquid-soft leather, still in its tissue paper. ‘Jesus Christ! What else is under there?’ Tara hit the floor like a hostage in a bank raid.

‘Nothing,’ Katherine said, hastily. ‘Only a pair of boots. And some jewellery and make-up. Oh, and a few pieces of underwear.
But they’re not me,
at all
, whatever about the other stuff, these were a big, big mistake.’

‘Baabaa ‘oots!’ Tara was under the bed, her voice muffled, but ecstatic.

Katherine took it to understand that Tara had found the Prada boots. ‘Please come out.’

Tara re-emerged. ‘So that’s why you didn’t get to Fintan’s until nine o’clock on Thursday night. You were shopping!’

Reverentially she began to unfold the jacket. ‘Oh, God, I don’t believe it,’ she exclaimed, when she saw the label. ‘Dolce and Gab –’

‘We won’t talk about it,’ Katherine interrupted smoothly. ‘The unbearable guilt, you understand.’

Tara felt relieved. Katherine had behaved wildly out of character by splurging on impractical, expensive clothes, but at least she had the decency to feel horribly guilty about it.

Finally Katherine was ready, wearing the new top, jacket, boots, choker, earrings, thong knickers, lacy bra, lipstick, eyeliner and a squirt of Boudoir on her neck, wrists and modest cleavage. She even let Tara put her hair in bunches.

‘You look about fourteen,’ Tara said. ‘Go forth in sin, my child.’

‘You can depend upon it.’

‘Not really? Not on a first date?’

‘Life is for living,’ Katherine quipped. ‘We could be dead tomorrow.’

She really seemed to believe that and Tara’s anxiety started up again. She could have done without Katherine going weird on her.

As they left the house, Tara glanced furtively up and down the road.

‘Who are you looking for?’

‘Ravi. I wouldn’t put it past him to cosh you on the head, steal your clothes and impersonate you to get your ticket.’

‘It’s that big a deal, is it?’ Katherine was pleased.