Last Chance Saloon (13 page)

‘Now, listen to me,’ Fred barked at Katherine. He hated talking to her. She always made him feel as though he’d just crawled out from under a rock. Ever since, three years before, in her first week at Breen Helmsford, when he’d asked her out for a drink, and she’d said, ‘I don’t go out with married men.’
Though Fred had puffed and blustered and said, ‘I’m only being friendly, trying to make you feel welcome,’ she’d given him a scathing, knowing look and when he’d finished hating himself, his hatred had come to rest on her.

‘You’re to go out for lunch with Joe Roth and discuss bloody budgets.’

‘Is this an order?’

‘Aye, I suppose it is.’

‘You’re not my superior.’ She smiled. Then she said to herself, In fact, you’re barely on the same evolutionary scale as me. And turned up the volume on her fake smile.

‘I know I’m not your direct boss,’ Fred admitted, utterly hating this, ‘but the lad is worried about the account. Breda is a grand lass, but Joe wants it straight from the horse’s mouth.’

‘A double-breasted white suit,’ Katherine said thoughtfully, ‘with a fur coat thrown over your shoulders, a Panama hat at a rakish angle, and a ho’ in a short, tight red dress on each arm.’

‘You what?’

‘Isn’t that what pimps usually look like?’

‘A pimp!’ Fred was aghast. ‘I’m not a pimp! He only wants to have lunch with you.’

The air zinged with animosity, and briefly Katherine wished she was like other people. Why couldn’t she be a party animal? Why couldn’t she have gone out with Fred Franklin? Even had a quick fling with him? An affair with a married man wouldn’t kill her, she knew that only too well. And it would certainly have made her work life a lot easier. She knew she wasn’t popular and sometimes it got to her. Like today.

‘It’s only
lunch
,’ Fred repeated loudly, his eyes bulging with outrage. ‘To discuss work.’

It
was
only lunch, Katherine acknowledged. ‘OK.’ She sighed.

Fred lumbered triumphantly back to his goldfish-bowl office. ‘You’re in, son,’ he said to Joe’s anxious face. ‘Don’t forget to come back and tell us all about it.’

The phone on his desk buzzed. ‘The Geetex boys have arrived,’ he said.

Joe’s elation helped him deliver a dazzling presentation to the Geetex deputation. So powerful was his oration that they almost began to believe in the tampons themselves.

‘I reckon it’s in the bag,’ Myles said, as he watched the entranced Geetex men take their leave.

Usually, after a pitch that had gone well, the team went for a lengthy, boozy lunch. However, that day Joe declined to join them. But he urged them to go with his blessing, after first checking which restaurant they were planning to descend on. He intended to take Katherine somewhere far away from it.

She refused to let herself get excited. Years of practice ensured that fighting back anticipation wasn’t even an effort.

Of course, work was a great help. The exquisitely ordered world of figures, where there were no loose ends. If it balanced you knew you were right; there was simply
no room
for doubt.
And if it didn’t balance you went back into it until you found where you’d made your mistake,
and then you fixed it
.

Katherine considered the double-entry system of bookkeeping to be one of the great achievements of mankind, on a par with the invention of the wheel. She wished the world was run along the same principles. Debits on the left, credits on the right, so that you always knew where you stood. Beautiful.

At one o’clock, Joe sheepishly materialized by her desk, his earlier rush of euphoria dissolved by the embarrassment at having pulled rank on her.

‘Oh, right, the Noritaki discussion lunch,’ she said ungraciously, keeping him hovering awkwardly while she finished a calculation. It could have waited, but why should it?

As she switched off her calculator she found she was dying to go to the loo, but felt too embarrassed to tell him. Perhaps she could go to the ladies’ at the restaurant. But why shouldn’t she go now? After all, he was nothing to her. In the dim and distant past, when she had fancied someone, it had been a different matter. Any bodily functions would have to be dismissed and denied, written out of the picture. But not with Joe Roth. ‘I must go to the ladies’ first,’ she said, brazen as could be. She deliberately left her handbag on her desk so that he needn’t flatter himself that she was going to brush her hair and put on lipstick for him.

It was an expensive, trendy, noisy restaurant, enjoying its fifteen minutes of popularity. With its curved front wall made of glass bricks and its surfeit of blond wood, it wasn’t unlike the place Katherine had gone to on Saturday night with Tara. She didn’t even have to look at the menu to know what was on it. She’d have staked her life on mahi-mahi appearing somewhere.

Joe had taken the precaution of reserving a booth. Once they were installed the noise lessened and Katherine began to relax. To the point of ordering a glass of wine. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said, patronizingly. ‘I may be diligent, but I’m still human.’

‘I’m not looking at you “like that”,’ he said, with one of his sunbeam smiles. ‘If you want a glass of wine, you have a glass of wine. Have as many as you like.’

He looked at her with such warm appreciation that she said crisply, ‘Let’s get down to business. On the Noritaki account, the main areas of expenditure to date have been –’

‘Katherine,’ he interrupted gently, and the way he said her name – almost sadly – made her want to get up and leave. ‘Let’s order first.’ And suddenly, she decided to lay off herself, to give herself a break, just for an hour. She’d had three weeks of deflecting him and she was momentarily out of ammo. To hell with it, she thought. I’m only human. Why shouldn’t I let someone be nice to me? Just for an hour. And the smile that she turned on Joe was, for the first time, devoid of sarcasm or disdain.

‘What starter are you having?’ he asked, nodding at her closed menu.

‘Probably the chanterelle risotto with truffle shavings,’ she said, with a twinkle in her eye. ‘How about you?’

‘The coriander and lemongrass soup. Hey!’ he exclaimed, examining his menu. ‘But there’s no chanterelle risotto with truffle shavings.’

‘Ah, there must be.’ She smiled. ‘I mean, look at this place.’ She waved a hand at the obligatory textured lemon walls, the two-foot-square Zen gardens, the round metallic spotlights inset in the ceiling. As Joe laughed, she watched herself blossom
in his eyes. But when Katherine opened her menu, she burst out, ‘There’s no coriander and lemongrass soup either.’

‘Ah, there must be,’ Joe echoed. ‘I mean, look at this place.’

Then, to Katherine’s discomfort, it was her turn to watch Joe blossom.

But she couldn’t fit him into one of the usual categories. Most men who pursued her this relentlessly had an ego the size of a continent. They
had
to have – if there were any chinks in their armour of self-belief, her disdain found them, and administered mortal wounds. But if he wasn’t a crazed egotist, he had to be as thick as a plank, or as naïve as Forrest Gump. And she didn’t think he was that either.

The waitress arrived. ‘Let me tell you about today’s specials,’ she said. ‘As a starter we have chanterelle risotto…’

Katherine didn’t hear the rest. She’d erupted into a huge smile at Joe, who – briefly taken aback by her warmth – returned the beam in kind. Katherine had just remembered how much fun this kind of thing could be. As she watched his long, sensitive fingers fiddling with the stem of his wine-glass, she felt an almost-forgotten plucking sensation low down in her body. Like some elastic had snapped. Oh, no!

She ordered tagliatelle. No surrender. She refused to have a manageable date-like meal that left no room for unsightly accidents. So what if the tagliatelle hung in unruly strands from the fork as she raised it to her mouth? So what if some of it swung against her chin, coating it in Cashel blue and porcini sauce? It showed she didn’t care. She’d have ordered spinach with a view to getting it caught between her teeth but, sadly, it wasn’t on the menu.

As they ate their starters conversation naturally veered towards the one big thing they had in common: work. But Joe
talked easily about himself, which made Katherine suspect that he wanted her to respond in the same way. He mentioned something about having gone ‘home’ a few weekends ago. Then said, ‘I was thirty in July and my mum has decided that because I’m not married by now I must be gay.’ But when he didn’t leave a long silence and stare at her eagerly, like a dog hungry for his dinner, she relaxed. Maybe this wasn’t a ruse of his to try and find out what age she was and if she was spoken for.

‘Where’s home?’ she asked.

‘Devon. I’m a country boy at heart.’ Like it was something to be proud of, she thought scornfully.

But then she found herself saying, ‘I’m from the countryside too.’

And in response to his questions she told him a bit about Knockavoy. At least, about its scenery. The huge waves of the Atlantic, the way they were sometimes so high they came in people’s windows. The air that was so potent that ‘My friend Tara says you could eat it with a knife and fork.’ Poor Tara, Katherine thought. She’s right, she
is
obsessed with eating. ‘I sound like an ad for Ireland.’ She smiled.

‘It must have been hard to leave.’

‘No. I couldn’t get away fast enough,’ she admitted. ‘I like the anonymity of London.’

‘It’s an urban wasteland,’ Joe teased, ‘where people don’t care enough about each other.’

‘Maybe. But it has great shoe-shops,’ she quipped.

He laughed, and looked at her with open admiration. He really was good-looking, she thought. This annoyed her.

Their main courses arrived. Joe’s was an awesome vertical affair. ‘How do they do it?’ he asked in admiration, deconstructing it with his eyes. ‘I see. A layer of bruschetta, a layer
of chicken, a layer of basil, a layer of sundried tomatoes and a layer of mozzarella. Repeat as necessary. Blimey, don’t try this at home, viewers!’

‘Can you cook?’ She didn’t know why she’d asked. What did she care?

‘Oh, yes.’ He twinkled. ‘I make a great Thai green curry. Would you like to hear how?’

Winding her tagliatelle, she nodded, her spirits starting a slow slide. Now he was going to try and impress her with his New Man ability to cook. Oh, the tedium.

‘Well, first off you go shopping for the ingredients – any Marks and Spencer’s will do. Go to the chilled section – this is important, Katherine,’ he wagged an admonishing finger, ‘because lots of people make the mistake of going to the frozen section – and pick up a ready-made Thai green curry. Then when you get home take the cardboard off and prick the plastic cover with a fork, four times. No more.’ He paused, then continued meaningfully, ‘And no less. Then – and this is my well-kept secret – though it says on the back to microwave it for four minutes,
just do it for three and a half
.’ He nodded sagely at Katherine. ‘Then take the plastic cover off and put it in for another thirty seconds. You get a lovely, what we experts like to call,
caramelized
effect.’

He finished with a grin, and she actually laughed, entertained and relieved.

‘Well, it goes a bit hard,’ he admitted, ‘which is nearly the same as caramelizing. Then serve with rice, which can be delivered by any Indian takeaway. Now, you tell me one of your recipes.’

‘OK,’ she said, slowly getting into it. ‘Let me have a think. Right, this is a good one. Ideally you need a phone book,
although of course leaflets dropped through your letterbox will do at a stretch. Pick up the phone, dial a number, ask for a twelve-inch, thin-crust marinara with extra tomatoes, then – and this is the vital bit – tell them your address. And there you have it – a delicious meal served in under half an hour! Delivery boy’s moped permitting, of course.’

‘That’s useful to know,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘I might try that some night when I have my husband’s boss to dinner.’

‘Do you
ever
cook?’ She sensed a kindred spirit.

‘No.’ His brown eyes were sincere. ‘Never. Do you?’

‘Do you hate people who make a big fuss about cooking?’

‘I don’t exactly hate them. I just don’t understand them.’

‘I know what you mean.’

‘If God meant us to bake cakes why did he invent Pâtisserie Valerie?’

‘Quite.’

They eyed each other in companionable silence.

‘We could co-author a cookery book,’ he suggested, suddenly. ‘For people who hate cooking.’

‘We could. I know loads of recipes.’ Katherine’s face took on a gleam. ‘I’ve a lovely one for humous. Go to Safeway, buy a tub, tear off the cardboard and Cellophane, serve!’

‘I love it.’ He dazzled her with a smile. ‘Let me tell you my one for a fuss-free roast dinner. Instructions: go and stay with your mum for the weekend.’

‘And we could do glossy colour photos,’ Katherine said, enthusiastically, ‘of the microwave and the pizza-delivery boy and people eating things out of plastic containers.’

‘It would make a change from the usual gastro-porn.’ Joe’s face was alight with amusement. ‘Delia Smith, your days are numbered.’

Katherine had to admit Joe was nice. Or, at least, he
seemed
nice. Which meant he was probably a mad axe-murderer. They usually were. A silence followed, and they noticed for the first time that it had started to pour with rain outside. ‘Rain.’ Katherine sighed.

‘I like rain.’

‘You seem to like everything,’ Katherine was washed with sudden sourness. ‘Is there a male version of Pollyanna? Because you’re it!’

Joe laughed. ‘I just happen to think that most things can be turned to your advantage. Take the rain, for example. Imagine the scene,’ he invited, waving his hand with a vague grace. ‘It’s pouring down outside, and the rain is rattling at the windows, but you’re indoors, with the fire on, lying on the sofa, with your duvet, a bottle of red wine –’

‘You’re wearing thick socks and sweatpants,’ Katherine interrupted, astonished at her eagerness.

Joe nodded. ‘A Chinese is on its way…’

‘A lovely film on the telly…’

Joe’s eyes were bright with enthusiasm. ‘A black and white one…’

‘Of course…’

‘Philadelphia Story
…?’

‘Casablanca
…?’

‘No,’ they said simultaneously.
‘Roman Holiday
!’

They stared at each other. A bolt of connection shot between them, so intimate that Katherine felt he’d frisked her soul. Positively goosed it. When the waitress chose that moment to shove her face between them and ask if they were finished, Katherine could have kissed her, while Joe could have happily bludgeoned her about the head and neck.

In an effort to stave off the time when they had to go back to work Joe energetically encouraged Katherine to have pudding. ‘How about a tri-chocolate terrine?’ he suggested, reading from the menu. ‘Or a fudge and caramel praline?’

Katherine’s lips tightened. What did he think she was? A woman? ‘Are you having something?’ she asked.

‘No, but…’

‘Well, then,’ she replied coldly. And he wondered what he’d done wrong. It had been going so well.

But Katherine had looked at her watch and seen that the hour was up. In fact she’d let it go way over the hour and she was cross with herself and cross with him.

Her mask was back on. She ordered a double espresso and began barking out the Noritaki fixed and variable costs. Just to show him that the fun and games were well and truly over she took a printout from her bag. Then – and there was no other reason except to be cruel – placed her portable calculator on the table.

‘How about a liqueur?’ Joe suggested, when she was done. ‘Just one and then we’ll go back.’

She shook her head, her face closed.

‘Go on. As a very wise man once said, “Won’t you stay, just a little bit longer?” ’

‘And in the words of one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century,’ Katherine replied coldly, dropping her calculator into her bag, ‘ “That’s all folks!” ’

She stood up.

She let him pay the bill, trampling her feelings of guilt into the ground. After all she hadn’t wanted to come. But as he got up to leave, she said, archly, ‘Don’t forget the receipt, so you can claim it back.’ The look he gave her – hurt and disgust at
her gratuitous unpleasantness – almost made her wish she hadn’t said anything.

It was nearly four o’clock when they got back to the office. This shouldn’t have happened. Well, it wouldn’t happen again, she’d make damn sure of that. Anyway he was bound to be given the boot before the month was out. He was already into extra time by Breen Helmsford standards. And calculating his redundancy package would give her the greatest of pleasure.

The only problem was that he was good at his job and people liked him a lot. That gave her an unpleasant fluttery feeling of fear.

But by the time she’d got home that evening, her bad humour had been overwhelmed by a warm glow, which she wasn’t even aware of. Until Tara noticed and pointed it out to her. Then she wasn’t one bit pleased.