Last Chance Saloon (45 page)

‘Hi.’ Lorcan grinned, clicking his fingers as he tried to remember her name. He just couldn’t place where he knew her from but he suspected that at some point in the past he’d had sex with her. What a guy!

Tara’s excited introductions stopped abruptly as she picked up that another dynamic had taken over, that she was no longer in charge. ‘Do you two
know
each other?’ she hooted, in surprise, looking from Katherine to Lorcan and back again.

‘Seems to me we do.’ Lorcan gave Katherine an intimate smile. ‘Do we?’

She nodded.

At that, for no obvious reason, the mood in the room turned. Joe sat frozen and fearful on the couch. Mid-floor, Benjy, Amy and Tara stood silent and unsmiling. Viscous, impenetrable emotion radiated from Katherine.

‘I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on,’ Tara said gaily, desperate to dispel the heavy, ominous confusion. But it seemed to make everyone even more tense. Behind her Tara could sense Amy’s fear.
Smell
it, in fact.

‘You’re… ah… um…’ Lorcan tried to remember the girl’s name. Jessica? Inez? Mary? Christ, it could be anything. The catch-all ‘Babe’ had saved Lorcan’s life on many occasions, especially those mornings when he woke up and couldn’t
remember the name of the woman lying beside him, but it wasn’t going to work here. And where the hell did he know her from exactly? ‘I’m hopeless with names,’ Lorcan smiled his please-forgive-me smile as he looked down on Katherine slumped in a daze. She was a cute little thing, actually, he wouldn’t mind refreshing his memory!

Despite her shock, Katherine was raging with herself. How many times had she prayed for this moment when she finally met him again and pretended that she hadn’t a clue who he was? How many years had she practised reducing grown men to frightened children with one arch of her perfectly shaped eyebrow, just so that when the time came she’d be able to use it on him? And now she couldn’t even raise her head from the back of the couch.

More shaming than her physical debilitation was that she wanted him to remember her. Trembling, she watched, willing him at least to know her name. But it
had
been a long time ago…

‘It’s Katherine,’ she whispered.

With a dazzling smile Lorcan smacked the palm of his hand against his forehead. ‘Of course it is. Katherine,
now
I remember you.’

‘That’s Katherine with a K,’ Katherine emphasized slowly.

Lorcan repeated, with an indulgent grin, ‘That’s right, Katherine with a…’ Abruptly, he paused, the blood draining from his face. He’d just remembered who she was. Christ! Instantly he regretted having ever opened his mouth about semi-recognizing her. ‘You look different,’ he blurted.

‘It was a long time ago.’

‘Yeah, it was, wasn’t it? It must be, at least, let me see, seven years.’

‘Twelve and a half,’ she said, before she could stop herself.
Then she really,
really
hated herself. How could she have been so transparent?

‘You’ve been keeping track.’ Lorcan laughed nervously. He was now very, very keen to leave, but as he started moving towards the door, he noticed the man sitting beside Katherine with a K. Holy Jesus, what was going on here? It was the pretty-boy exec who’d had him thrown off the butter ad. With sudden, heart-clenching paranoia, Lorcan wondered if this was a set-up. A type of court, or a roll-call of his life? His past finally running him to ground? Were there several more pissed-off women and disgruntled ex-colleagues lurking in the bedroom, ready to make an appearance? Then he told himself to stop being stupid. Coincidence. That’s all it was. ‘Hey,’ he tried to hide his anxiety with raucous, belittling laughter, ‘it’s Joe, Joe Roth.’

‘Lockery Liggery.’ Joe nodded with hostile politeness. ‘What a surprise.’

‘The name’s Lorcan.’

‘Isn’t that what I said?’ Joe’s innocent tone fooled no one.

A gleam appeared in Lorcan’s eye. He hadn’t forgotten the humiliation he’d suffered on the day of the ad, or the poverty he’d lived in since, or the career that had remained in the doldrums.

‘Are you two…?’ Lorcan slowly moved his finger between Katherine and Joe.

‘Are we two
what?
’ Joe asked.

‘Going out with each other?’

‘What’s it to you?’ Joe asked politely.

‘No, don’t tell me, you’re
married
’ Lorcan laughed.

‘We’re not married,’ Katherine said, her voice small and faraway.

‘Great!’ Lorcan said heartily. Then, to general alarm, he sat down on the other side of Katherine and, with slow deliberation, kissed her cheek. ‘Still hope for me, so.’

Amy made a tiny, anguished noise and Joe started angrily. ‘Just a –’

But, as everyone watched, stricken with disbelief, Katherine gave her shoulder to Joe and turned, like a flower reaching for the sun, towards Lorcan.

She’d been almost nineteen, standing at a bar in Limerick, earnestly chatting to a lady she worked with, when Lorcan had first spotted her. He’d been feeling bored and irritable, like a cat without a bird, and suddenly the ennui lifted. ‘Look at that cute little girl there.’ He elbowed his friend, Jack.

‘She doesn’t look like your usual type,’ Jack said, in surprise.

‘She’s a girl,’ Lorcan pointed out. ‘That makes her my usual type. Cover me, I’m going in.’

When Delores, the woman she was with, went to get cigarettes, Katherine was surprised to hear a mellow, chocolatey voice behind her asking intimately, ‘Did it hurt?’

Startled, she turned. And found herself looking into the face of the most handsome man she’d ever seen in her – admittedly sheltered – life. He was lounging, elbow on the bar, smiling down at her, burning her face with his naked admiration. ‘Did what hurt?’

He paused and fixed his sherry-dark eyes on her intently. ‘When you fell from Heaven.’

She flushed, as she wondered if she was being ‘chatted-up’. If she was, it was a first. ‘I’m not from Heaven. I’m from Knockavoy.’ She’d always known she wasn’t very witty but, nevertheless, she was still bitterly disappointed with her answer.

But Lorcan laughed. ‘I love that. “I’m not from Heaven, I’m from Knockavoy.” That’s a good one.’

Some sort of nameless good feeling started to warm Katherine.

‘What’s your name?’ Lorcan asked, softly.

‘Katherine. That’s Katherine with a K,’ she added, with a solemnity that enchanted him.

‘And I’m Lorcan. Lorcan with an L.’

She giggled, entertained at the thought. ‘It’s hardly likely to be Lorcan with a K. Unless,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘unless the “K” was silent.’

Then she giggled again and Lorcan looked at her small white teeth, her dewy, make-up-free skin, her straight, shining hair, her little-girl self-possession, and felt the old rush. He knew he’d have to handle this one delicately because there was a purity about her, a
cleanness
. Not just with her appearance but with her behaviour: no coquettish lowering of her eyelids, no double-entendres, no flirty pouts. He was powerfully attracted to her air of virtue. Because he wanted to sully it.

‘So tell me, Katherine with a K, what brings you to Limerick?’

‘I’m training to be an accountant,’ she said, proudly.

He managed to give the appearance of acute interest as he asked all about her, and got the full nine yards. How she’d got great results in her Leaving Cert, had been living in Limerick for nine months, how lucky she’d been to get her placement in Good and Elder, how she lived in a nice bedsit with her own kettle, how she missed her two best friends in Knockavoy, Tara and Fintan, but that she sometimes managed to ring them from her office and she went home every second weekend.

‘Why don’t they come and work in Limerick?’ Lorcan asked, all concern.

‘They’ve got jobs in the hotel at home. They’re saving to go abroad.’

‘Well, I hope they at least come and visit you.’

‘Not really,’ she explained awkwardly. ‘You see, they’ve to work most Saturday nights and I’ve to work during the week, and study at night, so there wouldn’t be much point…’

‘And the people you work with? Are they nice?’

‘Well, yes.’ Katherine flicked a glance around her and lowered her voice conspiratorially. ‘It’s just that they’re all a bit old.’

‘So you don’t have many friends here?’

‘Not many, I suppose.’

That didn’t stop Katherine introducing Lorcan to the bunch of dusty old fogies she was with, and he was forced to make conversation with them for ages. When he could take no more he leant close to her ear. ‘Why don’t you and I escape,’ he whispered, ‘and go somewhere we can have a proper conversation?’ Once out on the street, Lorcan suggested casually, ‘Let’s go to your place.’

Katherine paused. Did he take her for some thick little girl just up from the country? ‘No,’ she said, firmly. ‘We’ll go to another bar.’

Lorcan burst out laughing. ‘There’s no flies on you, Katherine with a K. Quite right to be careful, but you can trust me.’

‘But you would say that!’

‘Do I look like a rapist?’ he asked, in wounded innocence, spreading his arms wide beseechingly.

‘How would I know what a rapist looks like?’ she asked, tartly.

Lorcan stopped, put his big hands on her tiny shoulders and moved himself close to her. ‘I wouldn’t hurt you,’ he promised intently, in his low, melodic voice. ‘I mean it.’

Katherine was so moved by his sincerity that she was struck dumb. She believed him. Being in the presence of his potent masculinity felt powerfully right, as if she should always have been there. The final piece of the jigsaw of her life slotted into place. ‘OK,’ she squeaked. ‘You can come to my room for a cup of tea, but no funny business, mind.’ Sternly, she waggled her finger, which, snapping and growling playfully, Lorcan tried to bite. Katherine collapsed into peals of giggles.

‘Come on.’ Lorcan put his arm around her waist and half hurried, half carried her along the pavement.

‘I mean it.’ She looked into his face as he whisked her along. ‘No funny business.’

‘None,’ Lorcan agreed affectionately.

But funny business there was.

At her bedsit, no sooner had she handed him a cup of tea than he put it down on top of a pile of accountancy textbooks. Then firmly he took her cup and put it down also.

‘What are you doing?’ Her voice was croaky.

‘I don’t want you to spill your tea.’

‘But I won’t.’

‘You might. It’s very hard to drink tea and be kissed at the same time’

She was terrified. He was a rapist after all! She opened her mouth to protest, but he’d pulled her to him, his arm huge and hard around her back. Then he lowered his handsome face, placed his beautiful mouth on hers, and kissed her.

She felt a half-second of revulsion, but just before she shoved him away, the magic arrived. She’d been kissed before, but never like this, and by the time he stopped she didn’t want him to. When she reluctantly opened her eyes, her entire body was leaning forward, angling into him.

‘Meet me tomorrow, Katherine with a K?’

‘OK,’ she said breathlessly.

They spent every evening together, sometimes going to his flat but mostly going to hers. Where they’d lie on her single bed and, while her accountancy books gathered dust on her tiny desk, kiss each other for hours. Long, hot, probing kisses, him half on top of her, the weight of his body both frightening and delicious, his leg thrown over her, his hand caressing the curve of her waist, her body turned into his.

The smoky, grown-up, masculine smell of his jacket, the silkiness of his hair beneath her hands, the way he groaned when she tantalized the nape of his neck, the hot, sweet pressure of his mouth on hers. But when he began to fiddle with her bra-clasp she was horrified: with him for his audacity and with herself because she’d wanted him to. She made them stop, pushed him off, sat up, told him that she wasn’t that kind of girl and that he needn’t try a repeat of his behaviour. He apologized profusely.

But the next time they were together he tried it again and Katherine was like an avenging angel. ‘Go home now,’ she ordered.

He was devastated. He actually wept, and swore that he’d never do it again. But she just repeated, ‘I want you to go.’

So he went and she bawled crying and thought that it was all over. Though she’d only been going out with him for two weeks, never had she felt so abandoned or alone.

But at seven o’clock the following morning, there was a pounding on her door and when she opened it, white-faced and nauseous from her sleepless night, Lorcan was standing there, a picture of contrite anguish. Wordlessly, they flung themselves into each other’s arms, then she led him in to lie down on her bed. And when he unbuttoned the front of her nightdress and touched her breasts and used his teeth to coax her pink nipples into hot, hard peaks, she made no protest.

Though she knew it was wrong she loved it. Shame mingled with dirty, horny desire and every time they were together she wanted to, but couldn’t, tell Lorcan to stop touching her. Eventually she made peace with herself and her jumpy conscience by deciding that above the waist was allowable. After all, everyone did it – Tara had been letting boys feel her breasts since she was fourteen. And so long as Katherine and Lorcan weren’t doing anything ‘down there’ she’d be all right. Besides he was mad about her. Couldn’t be nicer. Loved everything about her.

During one of the intimate conversations they had between bouts of burning kisses, she was reassured that this was something special. Lorcan had looked at her meaningfully, his eyes half closed and said, ‘I bet you’ve had millions of boyfriends.’

‘No.’ She was too inexperienced to lie. ‘Not a lot. Just two.’

‘Now you’re making me jealous,’ he said, huffily. And he wasn’t acting.

‘No, no, no, don’t be!’ she cried. ‘They were just boys who
came to Knockavoy for their summer holidays. Neither of them was anything like… this.’

‘Well, wasn’t I worth waiting for?’ He chuckled.

‘Yes.’ That was exactly what she thought – Lorcan was her reward for being a good girl. All things come to those who wait. ‘And,’ she asked, shyly, ‘and have you had many girlfriends before me?’ She steeled herself because she knew he was bound to have had. Especially considering that he was seven years older than she was. And so good-looking.

‘One or two,’ he said idly. ‘No one special.’

In whispered phone calls from her office, Katherine told Tara and Fintan she had a boyfriend. Over the weeks she confided that he was ‘gorgeous’, that she was ‘mad about him’, and that he was ‘mad about her’. How soon could they get down to Limerick so that she could show him off?

But neither of them could come for at least a month because they were working nights.

‘Oh.’ Katherine was disappointed.

‘Sorry. We’d love to,’ Tara said. ‘We’re dying to see him. Tell us again how good-looking he is. Is he as nice as Danny Hartigan?’

Katherine gave a bark of scornful laughter. Danny Hartigan had been Tara’s for two weeks the summer before last, and was the yardstick by which every other boy was measured. But compared to Lorcan he was a
squirt
. ‘Much better than Danny Hartigan. He’s like a film star and he’s actually an actor, you know.’

‘Janey Mackers.’ Tara could hardly contain her envy. An actor! ‘Now you tell us.’

‘He’s an
actor
,’ Katherine faintly heard Tara shout to Fintan. Her voice came back on the line at normal pitch. ‘Would we
know him?’ she begged, in excitement. ‘Have we seen him in anything?’

‘Maybe.’ Katherine overflowed with pride. ‘You know the ad for fabric softener? When they’re all playing football and…?’

‘I – don’t – believe – it,’ Tara intoned. ‘Not the ref who tells them to take off their jerseys for the wash? He is FABULOUS!’

‘Fabulous!’ Katherine heard Fintan’s echoey shriek. ‘No, not the ref, actually,’ Katherine admitted. ‘He’s one of the players, in the right-hand corner at the far end of the field.’

‘Settle down.’ Tara turned from the phone to Fintan. ‘It’s not the ref.’

‘You can’t miss him,’ Katherine said. ‘He’s running away so there’s a great shot of his back… Do you know him?’

‘Maybe,’ Tara said doubtfully.

‘He has red hair and is really tall.’

‘Red hair! You never mentioned that before. And really tall? Are you
sure
he’s good-looking? He sounds more like Beaker from
The Muppet Show
!’

‘Well, he’s not,’ Katherine said huffily.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to rain on your parade. So tell me, is it serious?’

‘Oh, yes, I think so,’ she said, confidently.

‘Holy Maloney! Well, try and get a photo of him and come and see us at the hotel the very minute you get off the bus on Friday night.’

‘Oh, I can’t.’ Katherine explained, hurriedly, ‘I thought I’d stay down this weekend. To be with him, you see?’

‘Again?’