Last Chance Saloon (7 page)

‘But we’re only going to the pictures.’ It was a while since she’d last worn it and Tara strongly suspected she’d put on a lot of weight since then.

‘Ah, go on.’

‘After we’ve eaten,’ she promised, hoping he’d forget about it. ‘Dinner is served!’

She ushered him to the candlelit table.

‘Shepherd’s pie?’ Thomas asked suspiciously.

‘The surprise,’ Tara said happily, ‘is that mine is 127 per cent fat-free and yours is the standard issue fat-bastard one.’

‘Champion.’

‘Turn off the telly, please.’

‘But it’s
Gladiators
.’

‘So it is.’

With the candles flickering, they watched
Gladiators
and silently ate their dinner. When Thomas didn’t grumble wistfully, ‘That Ulrika Johnson, she’s right fit,’ it was safe for Tara to beam, ‘This is romantic. We should do it more often.’

After their individual blackcurrant cheesecakes (Tara’s 210 per cent fat-free, Thomas’s the normal one), Thomas once again asked Tara to put on her red dress. With mild foreboding, she went to the bedroom where she discovered that, as she’d
feared, she’d expanded somewhat since the last time she’d worn it. Pulling in her stomach and holding her breath, she displayed herself to Thomas.

‘Let’s have a look at you,’ he said proudly.

His eyes flickered over her, and Tara noticed that he lingered slightly too long on her stomach. She glanced down and saw that the dress was ruched across her too-big belly. But she couldn’t suck in any further. Desperately she hoped that Thomas wasn’t going to go into one of his troughs on account of her weight. Tara’s size depressed her, but it depressed Thomas even more, and Thomas in a good mood was fine, but in a bad mood, he was very bad indeed.

‘It looks different,’ Thomas declared, confused and annoyed.

Two years before, when he got off with Tara, he hadn’t been able to believe his luck. Top marks for her blonde hair, generous bosom and slim waist, hips and legs. Like many tabloid-indoctrinated men, he had high standards and rigid ideas about what ‘qualities’ his ideal girlfriend should have.

But as soon as Tara settled back into being someone’s girlfriend, the horror of Alasdair’s rejection receded, and she began to eat again. She’d put on weight much more quickly than she’d lost it, and Thomas was bitterly disappointed. Why did women always let him down? In an attempt to recreate that perfect era, he spent a lot of time and energy trying to streamline Tara. Urging her to go running, suggesting that she join a gym, making her feel guilty whenever she ate something. Although he was no Twiggy himself. ‘Watch him,’ the dinner ladies at his school warned each other. ‘Especially on a Thursday.’ (Jam roly-poly day.) ‘He’d have the kids’ share if he thought no one would notice.’

But despite his own tubbiness, his initial frantic devotion to Tara had waned as her size had waxed. ‘Aw, Tara,’ he grumbled, as he surveyed the red dress from all angles. ‘You look like you’ve a bun in the oven. When I first met you, you were right sexy.’

‘I wouldn’t go that far.’ She laughed.

‘You bludeh were, but if I saw you now, I’d have nowt to do with you.’

‘I wouldn’t blame you,’ she said lightly. ‘I’d have nowt to do with myself if I’d any choice.’

‘Six months gone,’ he said, nodding at her stomach. ‘That’s what you look like.’

‘Seven, more like,’ she suggested, with a rueful grin.

But when he didn’t chuckle, she upped the ante by suggesting, ‘Wouldn’t it be hilarious if we found out that I
was
with child. What would we do?’

She was hoping to jolly him out of his black mood. She usually managed to. She certainly wasn’t expecting him to say, ‘
We?
’ as if he’d never heard the word before in his life.

‘We?’ he said again, even more surprised. ‘What would
we
do?’

‘Yes, we.’ Laughingly she rolled her eyes at his denseness. ‘You know, the two people responsible.’

Thomas retorted, with a dismissive snort, ‘I’d have nowt to do with it.’

‘Sleepless nights, dirty nappies.’ She winced playfully. ‘Who’d blame you? The poor child would probably die of neglect.’

And that, she hoped, would be the end of that. But the conversation wouldn’t lie down and play dead because Thomas repeated, in the same confrontational tone, ‘I’d have nowt to do with it.’

She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t stop herself asking, in a voice much diminished, ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean what I said. I’d have nowt to do with it.’

Tara was assailed with a creeping sense of dread. The whole thing was only meant to be a joke, but Thomas wasn’t laughing.

Let it alone, her head urged her. Let it lie. Don’t open any doors you can’t close. He’s not serious. And if he is, you don’t want to know. ‘You mean, you wouldn’t…’ She stopped, just before she said the words ‘Marry me?’ She’d scared Alasdair away with that concept and she’d sworn she wouldn’t make the same mistake with Thomas. Instead she said, ‘You mean, you wouldn’t stand by me?’ And belatedly managed a very brittle, unconvincing smile.

Thomas sat down on the couch and stared at her. Tara was very, very sorry that she’d ever opened her mouth. She had a horrible sensation of déjà vu, and an awful presentiment of what was coming.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, flatly.

Tara’s heart plummeted through her body, carried on a waterfall of cold fear. ‘Surely you’d stay with me and make a go of things?’ she asked, desperately. Her voice sounded muffled, as if her ears were blocked.

Again he stared at her. ‘I don’t think I’d want to,’ he said, as if he’d just undergone a revelation.

It’s not surprising
, she breathlessly reminded herself.
How can he believe in families? After what happened to his parents
.

This was scant comfort.

‘But you love me,’ she protested.

‘Aye, but…’

‘Would you give me money for the baby?’ Tara croaked, feeling as panicky as if there really was a baby.

‘Tara, you earn twice as much as me,’ he said bitterly.

‘I suppose,’ she admitted, ashamed.

Silence fell, a taut thread of tension stretched between them.

Horrible questions clamoured in Tara’s head. What did all this mean? What kind of future had they?

‘But, if you wouldn’t –’ Tara started and abruptly stopped. Why lever the lid off a can of worms? ‘This discussion is mad, because I’m not pregnant,’ she exclaimed, forcing a grin, as she frantically worked on patching up the rip. Quick, quick, before he noticed. Quick, quick, before
she
noticed. ‘Fat, certainly, but not pregnant. There’s nothing to worry about!’

Thomas was looking at her differently. In confusion, almost. As if questions were occurring to him, too. He opened his mouth to say something.

‘Let’s go,’ Tara blurted, in an attempt to stop him. ‘We’ll be late for the film.’

He wavered on the brink, his breath drawn to speak. But between the breath and the utterance, the lethal light in his eyes died. ‘OK,’ he said, putting his arm around her. ‘Let’s go.’

No more was said about it. But after the pictures, instead of going out to a party or club as they often would, they came home instead, and watched telly, smoked and drank a bottle of wine in silence. When the wine was finished, Tara went to the kitchen and had a huge, secret gin and tonic. Then another, and another. She drank enough to fell an elephant, but couldn’t get happy.

Later that night, as Thomas snored beside her, she made drunken plans. Though she wasn’t going to examine it, she knew she’d been given some sort of warning tonight. She simply
must try harder to make this tormented, scarred man of hers happy.

It was within her power to do so. He’d been mad about her at the start.
Mad
about her. God, how she yearned to return to those wonderful days when he smiled all the time and told her what a cracking bird she was. When they had sex around the clock. When he said she had the best figure of any girl he knew. When she felt adored and cherished and powerful.

She couldn’t say when they’d slipped into their current baddish patch. But it was only temporary. Good times were just around the corner. All she had to do was try a little harder.

She gritted her teeth as she swore blind that she really was going to lose weight. And because her extravagance annoyed him she was going to stop spending money. She would buy lots of sexy underwear.
Cheap
sexy underwear, obviously, if she was going to stop spending money. She’d become a complete raunchbag, and tackle him to the floor as soon as he came in from work, and have sex in the hall. She’d cook lovely meals for him. And nothing for herself.

She stared into the darkness, racking her brain, as she tried to think of something really special to do for Thomas. What was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her? Actually, as far as Tara was concerned, the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her was when she was nine years old. She’d begged her mother to buy her a denim skirt and waistcoat like the one she’d seen in
Jackie
, but perpetually skint Fidelma Butler couldn’t afford to. However, what she did instead was go to Ennis on the bus and buy a pattern and enough brushed denim to hand-make the skirt and waistcoat. Which she did exactly to Tara’s specifications, right down to where she explained, ‘There’s got to be two lines of orange stitching around the edge,
Ma. And you’ve got to be able to see it.’ And even though Fidelma was mortified by the idea of sewing a hem that was visible to the naked eye, she bit the bullet and went right ahead and did it, because that was what Tara wanted.
That
was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her, Tara decided. Even when her father looked over his newspaper and sneered, ‘You can dress a goat in silk, but it’s still a goat,’ nothing could have ruined her joy in her new outfit.

All the same, she couldn’t imagine Thomas being terribly thrilled at the suggestion that Tara hand-make a brushed denim skirt and waistcoat for him. But the idea of making something to clothe him appealed to her, and suddenly it was very clear what she would do. She was going to… going to… going to…
knit him a jumper
!

Despite her night-time vow to go on a diet, Tara was viciously hungry. It was how hangovers affected her. They made some people so sick they couldn’t face food all day. But they made her feel as though she’d never eaten anything ever before in her whole life. A stomach-growling, head-lightening hunger that was almost primal. She craved carbohydrates. At the thought of toast, she felt a rush of adrenaline that almost lifted her off the floor.

Surreptitiously, she closed the kitchen door so that Thomas wouldn’t smell what she was doing, and put on two slices of toast. Frantic with impatience, she stared at the toaster, willing it to work faster. Hurry up, she passionately urged, put your back into it. If she didn’t get something to eat
right now
,
this exact moment
she’d make a start on her own foot. But all there was in the cupboards was dried pasta, tinned tomatoes and cat food. Thomas had long since purged the kitchen of biscuits and crisps in a self-sacrificing attempt to remove temptation from Tara’s way.

Her toast popped up and her hands shook as she covered one slice with cheese, the other with jam. While she crammed them into her, she put on two more slices. Then two more. An orgy of toast and she was in heaven. Toast with peanut butter, toast with cheese, toast with jam, toast with Marmite.

Covered in crumbs, she practically inhaled each slice whole, as she leant against the kitchen door, listening for Thomas.

A face appeared at the kitchen window and she jumped guiltily out of her skin. Until she realized it was Beryl, her green eyes contemptuous and condemnatory in her black little face. Tara stuck two fingers up at her, then turned her head from the window and back to her toast. Until she went to put on two more pieces and found there was no bread left.

Oh, God! She’d finished the sliced pan! Thomas would notice, he’d wonder where it had all gone. She had a moment of panicky fear before she calmed down. What’s the problem? she asked herself. You’re being silly. You can simply go out and buy another, under the guise of buying the Sunday papers. If the Pakistani grocery wasn’t open yet – although she’d never known it not to be, day or night, as they slaved to make a living – then she’d go to the twenty-four-hour garage. She quietly got dressed, desperate not to wake Thomas, then went out into the damp misty morning, watched suspiciously by Beryl. She wouldn’t put it past that bloody cat to tell on her.

The grocery shop wasn’t open so Tara went to the garage and bought bread and newspapers. She also found herself buying three doughnuts – a chocolate one and two custard ones, how she loved custard – which she ate on the deliberately slow walk back, disposing of the wrapping in a dustbin in someone else’s front garden. Vigorously brushing telltale
crumbs away, running her tongue around her teeth to dispose of any lingering evidence, she braced herself for a return to the flat.

Thomas still wasn’t up, which meant she was free to eat more if she wanted. But the frenzy had passed. I’m only eating like this because of my hangover, Tara soothed herself, lighting a cigarette. I’ll be starting the diet proper tomorrow, but I’m going to try hard for the rest of today also. She sat at the kitchen table, smoking and trying to read the paper. Wasn’t it dreadful to wake up too early on a cold, damp Sunday morning in October? she asked herself. She supposed she could go back to bed with the paper, but she was afraid of waking Thomas. With that she finally let herself see what was in the sack of doom on her back. It was what he’d said to her last night.

Instantly she felt another pang, of something like hunger trying to fight its way through the food and emerging as nausea.

With a firmness born of terrible fear, she spoke common sense to herself. So what if he didn’t want her to get pregnant? She didn’t want to get pregnant either – the mere thought! She and Thomas had had a meaningless, hypothetical discussion. Big banana.

This was nothing like the Alasdair situation. She was
living
with Thomas. And it was he, not she, who’d suggested she move in with him. Proof positive that he loved her – even if she’d suspected his eyes had lit up with pound signs rather than the light of love.

She’d played it so safe for the past two years, never putting pressure on Thomas, never even mentioning marriage, that things
couldn’t
fall apart, the way they had with Alasdair. If she continued to play the waiting game as well as she already had,
it would all come right in the end. There was no need for her to be worried, he loved her and this one would work. Lightning didn’t strike twice.

She rang her mother because she wanted to talk to someone who loved her, but instead she got her father.

‘Your mother isn’t in,’ he said, grumpy as ever.

‘Where is she at this hour of the morning?’ Tara asked.

‘Where do you think, you pagan?’ he replied.

Still desperate for comfort, she rang Katherine. No fear she’d be at Mass. ‘Sorry,’ she apologized. ‘I hope I didn’t wake you.’

‘It’s OK,’ said Katherine. ‘I’ve to go to work anyway.’

‘On a Sunday? You advertising whizz-kids.’

‘End-of-year accounts, it wouldn’t usually happen.’

‘I feel terrible,’ Tara said.

‘Vitamin C and a bracing walk.’

‘I’m eating Disprin like they’re Smarties, in fact I wish they
were
Smarties. But anyway, I’m not talking about my hangover, mammoth though it is.’

‘What is it, so?’

‘Not now, I don’t want to make you late for work. Just tell me one thing. Lightning never strikes twice, does it?’

‘You know it does,’ Katherine reminded her. But gently, sensing this was important. ‘Remember, the thatch on Billy Queally’s roof was set on fire during one storm, then two years later he was electrocuted and thrown across the kitchen when he put on the toaster during another.’

‘I didn’t mean it
literally
,’ Tara said miserably. ‘But thanks anyway.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Katherine comforted. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

‘It mightn’t be anything,’ Tara said heavily.

‘Come over tonight when I get home from work.

’ ‘Thanks, you’re a sweetheart.’