Last Chance Saloon (11 page)

She’d had a bad night’s sleep, jerking awake at some godforsaken hour, seized with terrible fear. What if Thomas stopped loving her and dumped her? What if he’d realized on Saturday night that he didn’t want to be with her any more? What would become of her? Now that she was thirty-one she
really
didn’t have any time left to start again. She’d thought it was bad when Alasdair gave her the slip. But at only twenty-nine, she hadn’t known how lucky she was. Single men in their thirties were like gold-dust – it could take her
years
to meet someone else. Then, if she ever did, she’d have to bide her time and pretend she wasn’t serious for at least twelve months. By which time she could be thirty-four or thirty-five. Oh, God! That was ancient. When Tara began to get dressed, she was glad Thomas had already left for work. Watching her struggling into clothes that were too small for her would make him cross again. Despite the cold morning, she was sweating, her hands slipping as she tried to do up the button on her skirt.

She’d been wearing a size fourteen for some time now, but it was only ever meant to be a temporary measure, until she’d
lost weight and gone back to being a size twelve. Mind you, wearing a size twelve was only meant to have been a temporary measure also, until she slimmed down and went back to her correct weight, her true size, her spiritual home of size ten. But now, with the waistband of her skirt so tight it was crushing her internal organs, she reluctantly began to face the fact that maybe she’d better buy some size sixteens. Just so she could breathe. It wouldn’t be a long-term measure, of course. Only until she’d lost a bit of weight, and then she’d be back to size fourteen.

But size
sixteen
, she thought, appalled at how far she’d come. Size
sixteen
. After that came size eighteen, and then size twenty. Where would it all end?

By the time she’d got her jacket buttoned, the sweat was pouring off her and she was exhausted enough to go back to bed. She hated her body, how she hated it. Having to lug all that lard around with her, she felt as though it didn’t belong to her.

It
didn’t
belong to her, she reminded herself. It was simply an uninvited visitor that had overstayed its welcome. Its days were numbered.

She forced herself to look in the mirror before she left. She looked awful, she conceded miserably. Her smart jacket was stretched and splayed across her midriff, the round ball of her belly poking out where the jacket’s two seams no longer met.

I’m fat, she realized, in cold horror. I’m actually officially fat. I’m no longer just slightly overweight or pleasantly plump or a bit tubby. I’m fat. The real thing.

She felt herself hurtling headlong towards utter marginalization. I won’t be able to go upstairs on buses. I’ll have to pay excess baggage on planes, just for my bottom. Small boys will
throw stones at me. I’ll break people’s chairs when I go to their house for dinner. I’ll be demoted because everyone knows that fat people can’t do their job as well as skinny people. Once I’m in my car I won’t be able to get out again without a winch. People will think I’m a failure because superfluous weight is a sure sign of terrible unhappiness. I’ll have to lie and say I have trouble with my glands.

I’m not worthy to be out in the world, she told herself. I’m so ashamed of myself.

She caught lean, slinky, I-can-eat-what-I-want-and-never-put-on-an-ounce Beryl smirking at her and yearned to give her a kick. Then, very reluctantly, Tara left the flat. So great was her self-loathing, she half expected people to hoot their horns and shout, ‘Look at the fat cow,’ as she walked to her car. It was pouring with rain, and for that Tara gave thanks. People looked at each other less in wet weather. Tara’s car was a bright orange, noisy, backfiring, second-hand Volkswagen. It was a mobile skip, which stank of cigarette smoke and had tapes and cassette cases spilt all over the floor. The seats were strewn with maps, old newspapers, sweet wrappers, empty drink cans and a pair of knickers, which she used when the window steamed up.

Her windscreen wipers were broken so at every red light she had to jump out of the car and wipe the front window with a piece of scrunched-up newspaper, at the same time as fighting off aggressive youths armed with cloths and buckets of soapy water who were intent on cleaning her windscreen and extracting a pound for their trouble. The drive from the Holloway Road to Hammersmith was a long one and by the time she got to work she was soaked and exhausted, having shouted the word, ‘No!’ twenty-eight times en route and ‘Go away, I’ve no change,’ eleven times.

When she arrived at her small open-plan office only Ravi was there. As usual he was eating. ‘Morning, Tara,’ he brayed, in his cut-glass accent. ‘Care for some double-chocolate cheesecake? Twenty-seven grams of fat in every slice. Superb!’

‘How could you at this hour of the morning?’ Tara asked. She liked to pretend that she had an appetite like a normal person’s.

‘Up at five,’ he bellowed. ‘Rowed twenty miles. Bloody starving!’

Ravi did huge amounts of exercise. As well as belonging to a rowing team, he went to the gym at least four times a week and wouldn’t leave until he’d been told by the computerized machines that he’d burned off a thousand calories. His prodigious exercising was matched only by his prodigious eating. Not a morning passed that he didn’t arrive at the office weighed down with Marks and Spencer bags full of goodies. ‘Perhaps you’d like to keep the wrapper and lick it later?’ He waved a wedge-shaped piece of plastic, which she accepted. ‘How’s the new lipstick Fintan gave you? Do the trick?’

‘No, Ravi, another disappointment.’

‘Aw, boo. So the search continues.’

‘Certainly does.’

‘See Real TV on Friday night? Bloke goes up in a hot-air balloon, comes down through a skylight into a bathroom. Breaks his leg, nearly bloody drowns. Sooo-perb!’

‘Please stop. Have you updated the football-league stuff?’ Tara switched on her PC.

‘Absolutely.’ Ravi nodded, letting a thick lock of glossy black hair fall across his forehead. He looked like an Indian version of Elvis.

Ravi organized a football league for the employees of GK
Software. At the start of the football season each person predicted where they thought all the teams in the Premiership were going to be placed. After each weekend, Ravi updated the results, so everyone could keep an eye on their interim progress. People had been overheard saying that it was the only thing that got them out of bed on a Monday morning.

People began to drift in. Evelyn and Teddy arrived. Evelyn and Teddy were married. They lived together, drove to work together, worked side by side, ate lunch together and went home together. ‘Morning,’ they said, simultaneously.

‘Have you…?’ Evelyn asked Ravi.

‘Of course.’ He smirked.

Evelyn and Teddy both keyed frantically until they found the updated table.

Vinnie, Tara’s boss, arrived, a nice man in his forties, with four young children and a receding hairline. He entertained dreams of being a dynamic businessman who barked things like, ‘I’ve put my cock on the block on this one, lads,’ but whenever he tried, everyone just laughed at him and patted his fast-disappearing hair. ‘Morning all,’ he called. ‘Good weekend?’

‘No,’ everyone replied automatically.

‘Have you updated the…?’ he anxiously asked Ravi, and when the answer was in the affirmative, raced to his terminal and switched it on.

Despite working in a computer company, Tara’s colleagues weren’t geeks. They were normal people whose conversation in the office mostly revolved around holidays and food. Just as it should.

Tara’s phone rang. It was Thomas. Her heart leapt, half with anxiety, half with joy. But he didn’t want to talk to her, he said,
more brusquely than Tara considered necessary. He was simply reminding her to pay the cable-television bill.
Don’t take it personally
, she tried to soothe herself.
It’s just his way
.

On Monday lunchtimes, it was traditional for everyone from Tara’s section to go to the Italian greasy-spoon caff. It was a nod to the weekend, an assumption that everyone was nursing a hangover. From ten thirty onwards, as soon as the breakfast bacon sandwiches were out of the way, people began to plan what they’d have at the greasy.

‘Fried bread, scrambled eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, sausages, a KitKat and a glass of Coke,’ Teddy announced, without looking up from his screen.

‘Chips, two fried eggs, bacon, beans, a slice of bread and butter and an Aqua Libra,’ Vinnie replied, also remaining glued to his screen.

‘Toast, two sausages, a cheese and onion omelette, a fudge finger and a cup of tea with three sugars,’ came slim Cheryl’s voice from behind a partition. Slim Cheryl had been on Vinnie’s team for over a year, and although she’d been moved to Jessica’s team, she never broke the link with Vinnie.

‘Four sausages, four fried eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, bacon, a double portion of chips, six slices of bread and butter and a Lucozade Sport,’ Ravi said.

At twelve thirty, regular as clockwork, everyone always surrendered to their Screensavers, put on their coats and marched as a single body to Cafolla’s. One person had to stay behind to man the help-desk and field calls from hysterical customers whose entire system had just crashed. The position rotated and this Monday Sleepy Steve was the help-desk misfortunate. (Known as Sleepy Steve for his habit of getting drunk after work, falling asleep on the train home to Watford and waking
up at the end of the line in Birmingham.) Hollow-eyed, he watched the exodus, and asked in a little voice if someone would fetch him a sandwich.

‘Come on, Tara,’ Ravi ordered, loud as a sergeant-major. ‘Off we go!’

‘I don’t think I should go.’

‘Ah, boo,’ Ravi said, in disappointment. ‘Your bloody diet? You daft girl. OK, carry on without me, men, I’m staying behind with Tara.’

Tara felt guilty. Ravi mightn’t have been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he had a heart of gold. It wasn’t fair to deprive him of his mammoth fried lunch.

Besides, she hadn’t eaten a thing since she woke up, and all she’d planned for dinner was a big plate of vegetables. And let’s not forget, she reminded herself, that you’re doing a step class after work, you’ll faint if you don’t eat something now. ‘It’s all right,’ she told Ravi. ‘I’ll come.’

Sitting squashed into a plastic booth, before a Formica table, in a clattery, steam-filled caff, eating a plate of chips and beans, drinking strong tea from a thick white cup, always cheered Tara up. But not today. Thomas had been cold and impatient on the phone and the feeling she was carrying around was impending doom revisited.

After the fry-up it was customary for the menfolk to retire to the pub next door for a quick pint and for the ladies to remain behind to have a bun. Mr Cafolla took the confectionery orders as he cleared away the greasy plates.

Evelyn ordered an apple slice. ‘Apple-a slice,’ Mr Cafolla called behind the counter to his wife.

Slim Cheryl asked for a fudge finger. ‘Fudge-a finger,’ Mr Cafolla called.

‘And you, hyong lie-dee,’ he asked Tara, when it looked like she wasn’t going to order anything, ‘what would-a you-a like-a? Custard-a pie?’

She winced. Oh, the bastard. He certainly knew her weak spot. She shouldn’t. She’d never be skinny if she ate custard-a pies. But there was no way she couldn’t.

As she gazed at the bright yellow swirl of custard, so thick it could stand by itself, an appetizing sprinkling of nutmeg peppering its glossy surface, sitting in its little circle of pastry, all supported by its tinfoil container, she knew true bliss for a moment. Seconds later, when the pie was a mere memory, guilt arrived. How she hated herself for her weakness. Briefly she thought about asking Mr Cafolla for the key to the bathroom and trying to make herself puke, but whenever she’d tried it in the past it just hadn’t been a success. Hardly worth the effort. She had no idea how bulimics managed it. She took her hat off to them. Maybe there was some trick of the trade that she didn’t know about.

On Friday, with four gin and tonics under her belt, Tara had thought Amy seemed very nice. But now, as Tara inhaled so hard her ears almost met in the middle, she watched Amy glide a comb through her long, strawberry-blonde, ringlety hair and decided that she hated her. Maybe she was a good person, but with all that gorgeous hair and tall, slender beauty, she couldn’t have known a day’s hardship in her life, ever. How could two people who shared the same birthdate look so different? Explain
that
, Mystic Meg.

‘Nice birthday?’ Tara politely asked Amy. She thought she’d better, otherwise Amy might guess Tara hated her for being so thin and for her hair being in such even ringlets.

‘Um, OK,’ said Amy, with a wobbly smile. She looked very ropy, obviously had a high old time of it over the weekend,
Tara reckoned. ‘The only thing was,’ Amy said, her voice becoming thin and high, ‘I… er… had a row with my boyfriend and ended up… like… getting arrested.’

Tears began to cascade down Amy’s perfect white skin, as she spilled out the whole story of the birthday party; the huge embarrassment of her boyfriend’s non-arrival, his eventual appearance, the sandwich-eating, the order to leave, the hellish hours that followed, the myriad phonecalls, the longest Saturday and Sunday in history, the hysterical desperation, the call to the police… Tara rearranged her shocked expression and made the appropriate comforting platitudes, like ‘It was only a row,’ and ‘You know what men are like, just give him time to get over his bad mood,’ and ‘Maybe you should leave him alone for a couple of days,’ and ‘Yes, I know how hard it is to do that, really I do,’ and ‘You’ll look back on this and the pair of you will laugh,’ and ‘You know, this’ll probably make the two of you closer,’ and ‘Men, can’t live with them!’ and ‘Er, sorry for asking, but what exactly is police bail, just out of curiosity?’

Back in the office, Tara itched to ring Thomas. Usually she felt no need to call him at work, especially as it involved getting him out of a classroom. Besides, as her office was open-plan, it was impossible to have an intimate phone conversation – Ravi, in particular, took great interest in Tara’s life. But because she was afraid something was out of kilter with herself and Thomas, she craved reassurance. She wanted to know if she’d imagined his hostility on the phone this morning.

However, after she’d steeled herself to make the call, Lulu, the school secretary, wouldn’t fetch Thomas. She always acted as if she owned him. ‘I’ll tell Mr Holmes you called,’ she lied.

‘Thick tart,’ Tara muttered, putting down the phone.

‘Who? Lulu?’ Ravi bellowed.

‘Who else?’ said Tara. She spent a short while consoling herself that at least she hadn’t set the peelers on Thomas. She shuddered with horror at the thought. He’d never forgive her for that, never. Still upset, she rang Liv for a moan. She got her answering-machine, so tried her mobile.

‘Hello,’ Liv said.

‘It’s me. Are you busy?’

‘I’m in Hampshire with a terrible woman who wants everything in her house to be gold,’ Liv wailed.

‘Yuk. Like bathroom taps and door-handles?’

‘No, like kitchen units and garden sheds.’

‘Oh, no. Anyway, how are you getting on with Lars?’

‘Very good.’ Liv sounded uncharacteristically optimistic. ‘He says he’s really going to leave his wife this time.’

‘Brilliant!’ Tara forced herself to say. She’d believe it when she saw it. She didn’t like Lars. Just because he was tall, blond and craggy it didn’t give him licence to string Liv along for fifteen months with his spurious talk of wife-leaving. ‘When’s he going back?’ Tara asked.

‘Saturday.’

‘Right, I’ll be round then for the mopping-up operation.’

‘I must go,’ Liv hissed. ‘Midas Woman is returning.’

‘Has he left his wife yet?’ Ravi asked, when Tara hung up.

‘He says he’s just about to,’ she said, and they rolled their eyes at each other. Next, Tara dialled Fintan’s number. Vinnie gave her a sharp look. ‘If I don’t ring people, I’ll e-mail them,’ Tara thought it only fair to point out to him.

‘Oh, don’t do that,’ Ravi objected. ‘How else will I know what’s going on?’

‘Just as well you’re both good at your jobs,’ Vinnie grumbled.

Fintan wasn’t in work. Sick, allegedly. Tara knew what was up with him. At twelve o’clock, the night before, as she was leaving Katherine’s, Fintan and Sandro had been on their way out. The evening was only beginning for them. ‘I’m going to get off my
mong
,’ Fintan had declared.

Tara rang his home number.

‘Fintan hung over, eh?’ Ravi asked.

‘I’d stake my granny’s life on it,’ she replied. The phone rang and rang for ages before Fintan finally answered. ‘What’s up with you, you piss-head?’ Tara asked cheerfully.

‘There’s something wrong with my neck. I’ve an enormous lump on it.’

‘God, you’re so vain.’ Tara sighed. ‘Everyone gets spots.’

‘No, Tara, it isn’t a spot. It’s a swelling that makes me look like the Elephant Man.’

‘I’d an awful turn myself with my Black Death this morning,’ Tara empathized. ‘The boils!’

‘Tara, really,’ Fintan insisted. ‘I’m serious. I have a lump the size of a melon on my neck.’

‘Go on. What kind of lump?’

‘The lumpy kind!’

‘But it’s hardly the size of a melon?’ She smiled at how much of a drama queen Fintan was. ‘A grape, maybe?’

‘No, much bigger. Tara, I swear to you, it genuinely is the size of a melon.’

‘What kind of melon? A honeydew? Galia? Cantaloup?’

‘OK, maybe not a melon. But a kiwi fruit, certainly.’

‘Try putting Savlon on it.’

‘Savlon! It’s drugs I need.’

‘You’d better go to the doctor, so.’

‘Oh, no,’ he said sarcastically. ‘I just thought I’d lie around here waiting for my neck to return to its correct size of its own free will.

‘I’ve an appointment for this evening,’ he added.

He sounded upset, and she half regretted her jokey response. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Then she muttered, close to the phone, ‘Vinnie’ll let me off if I say I’ve my period, that always embarrasses him. Some months I have two or three and he’s too shy to mention it.’

‘Ah, no, I’ll be grand.’

‘What time will you be home?’

‘I don’t know how long it’ll take, but say about eight to be on the safe side.’

‘OK, I’ll give you a shout then. Good luck, but I’m sure it’s nothing.’

As soon as she hung up, Ravi gasped eagerly, ‘What’s happened to Fintan?’

‘Swollen glands or something.’ Tara shrugged. ‘He’s such a hypochondriac.’

Next she rang Katherine, but she wasn’t back from lunch yet. At three thirty? Tara thought. That’s not like Miss Diligent.

‘Right, Vinnie, I’ve rung everyone.’

But as Tara settled back to work, she found herself thinking about Fintan. What if he wasn’t just being a drama queen attention-seeker? What if there really was something wrong with him? Something serious? That was the problem whenever a gay friend became sick. The A-word always cropped up. Then she felt uncomfortable with her train of thought – did she think gay people and Aids were uniquely linked?

Her worry about Fintan moved smoothly on to worry about Thomas. What was the weirdness that was hanging between
them? Perhaps it was only in her head. But she was brought back relentlessly to what he’d said on Saturday night and couldn’t decide whether she should be freaking out with worry or if she was better off ignoring it in the hope that it would go away.

She couldn’t do any work, so at four o’clock she prepared to leave.

‘Excuse me, where are you going?’ Ravi asked suspiciously.

‘Thought I’d try a soupçon of retail therapy.’

‘No!’ Ravi tried to block her path, as instructed. ‘You must stop spending money.’

‘Thank you, Ravi.’ Tara tried to skirt past him. ‘I appreciate your vigilance but I don’t
want
to be stopped today.’

‘You said even if you begged I was to take no notice.’ Ravi squared up to her fiercely.

Tara made a leap to the side of her desk to try and get through the gap there, but quick-as-a-flash Ravi had her marked. There was a brief skirmish.

‘Vinnie, call him off!’

‘He’s only doing as you asked.’ Vinnie shrugged wearily. No wonder he was losing his hair.

They faced each other – Ravi bent at the knees, his many muscles tensed and ready for action, his hands crossed, poised to do a kung-fu chop. Tara bitterly regretted ever enlisting his help. ‘Can we start tomorrow?’ she wheedled. ‘Please?’

In disappointment, Ravi dropped his
en-garde
stance. ‘Off you go, then.’

So Tara went shopping and tried to pretend that she wasn’t starving. She had high hopes that looking at clothes would take her mind off things, but found she couldn’t wrap her head around the idea of being size sixteen. Shopping for clothes was
a pleasure that no longer belonged to her; instead it had become an exercise in damage limitation.

There were so many clothes that she was automatically disqualified from; sleeveless tops, fitted macs, knitted dresses, anything involving jersey, Lycra, pleats or no bra. She couldn’t
tell
you the last time she’d worn trousers.

The only consolation lay in looking at sexy, funky shoes. Shoes were the fat woman’s friend. Shoes still looked beautiful when all else had gone to hell in a handcart.

Hair mascara also struck her as a good idea – she always had an eye out for diversionary tactics. Interesting jewellery, mad handbags and technicolour make-up were all part of the look-over-there factor. A blue fringe was as good as anything to distract people from her rotund belly.

By the time she’d bought a strawberry-flavoured tree air-freshener for the car, a pair of high black dolly shoes, blue hair mascara, purple hair mascara and the knitting pattern, knitting needles and wool for Thomas’s jumper, she’d missed her step class.

She pretended she felt let down. She had the option of going circuit training, but that was always full of beefy men doing one-handed press-ups and grunting a lot. She couldn’t take it, not in a pink leotard. I’ll start tomorrow, she vowed.