Last Chance Saloon (18 page)

Then she went home to Knockavoy, hoping she’d outrun the pain. Unannounced, she arrived on the bus one September afternoon. Everyone was surprised to see her, because she hadn’t been home much all summer. They were even more surprised
when it transpired that she was back for good. She had been the class of ’85’s one big success story, the one that got away. Now she was home, and wouldn’t say why.

Tara and Fintan’s initial delight at her return soon changed to alarm. She’d obviously been very badly burned by the boyfriend she’d had in Limerick. Something to do with the snide way she sneered any time either of them said they fancied a boy gave it away. ‘What’s the point?’ she’d scorn, heatedly. ‘They pretend to be mad about you, then as soon as you’re sucked in they leave.’

‘I wouldn’t mind being sucked in.’ Fintan laughed, while Katherine glared.

‘You’re far better off on your own,’ she insisted, her face a twisted, pained mask.

She’d always been so sweet and sunny before. Even if she didn’t partake of boys herself, she’d never had any objection if they did. What had happened?

‘Please tell us,’ they asked over and over, with increasing desperation. ‘It helps to talk about it. I swear to you, we know what it’s like.’

But she wouldn’t be drawn. She
couldn’t
be drawn.

Meanwhile, locked in her silence, the longing tore her apart. And wouldn’t go away.

She’d been brought up in a women-only house, had no male uncles, had never had a real boyfriend before, and she’d always been happy. But now that she’d experienced the presence of intense masculinity in her life everything was different, and she’d tapped into a great well of need. She wanted love and balm – from a man. Though it didn’t make any sense to her, she felt that only a man could take away the pain inflicted by another.

But what was she going to do? The idea of falling in love again filled her with terror. Besides, she’d never get over her
broken heart. Then, one sleepless night, two weeks after her return from Limerick, she thought of Geoff Melody, her father. And everything fell into place.

Immediately, the desire to meet him was powerful and all-consuming. She wanted to get out of bed, there and then, and go to England to look for him. What baffled her was how she could have left it until now. How could she not have felt this gaping absence before? Why had she wasted so much time?

Fresh, sweet hope swept aside her bitter pain and suddenly Katherine had a reason for living. She’d thought her life was over, that no one would ever love her again, but she’d been given another chance. Instantly her father became the repository for all her dreams and aspirations. He’d understand her – he was probably just like her. He would be her salvation, she was certain of it. It was obvious that everything would be okay now.

What would he be like? No point asking her mother, she was bound to give him a bad press. The nice thing was, though, that if her mother didn’t like him, it meant she, Katherine, was bound to.

Katherine’s thoughts ran away with themselves as she saw a bright, happy future unfold ahead of her. She’d go and live in England with her dad. Who needed a husband or a boyfriend when you had a father? He’d put a different spin on her past as well as her future, and she’d never mess up again, because she’d have the guidance of a man.

She lay awake fantasizing about what he was like. She bet he had an allotment. Englishmen of a certain age had allotments. He’d grow rhubarb for her. She’d sit with him, just the two of them, while he tilled the soil, and she’d tell him about her life, and he wouldn’t say much but what he did say would be full of wisdom.
Male
wisdom.

Or he might be really lively and cheeky, with a Cockney accent and funny sayings. ‘Stroike a loight, Kaffrin, me old choina,’ making his living ducking and diving.
Legal
ducking and diving, mind. No funny business. One less-than-respectable pillar of the community was enough in any set of parents.

Or perhaps he’d be a bit of a toff. Call her ‘m’dear’, his terse delivery not hiding the warmth he felt for her. Maybe he had other children but didn’t really get on with them and needed someone to take over the family accountancy business, and she’d arrive at just the right moment.

In her head her father became a combination of Arthur Fowler, Dick Van Dyke and Rumpole of the Bailey.

She barely considered that Geoff Melody mightn’t be interested in her. Her need was so great that she couldn’t contemplate it not being reciprocated.

It took her a long time to write the letter. She’d learnt that men don’t like to be faced with naked need, so she couched her desire to meet Geoff Melody in casual, no-strings-attached terms. She knew he would fix her, but there was no need to scare him away by telling
him
.

I will ask you for nothing
, was the subtext.

Ten days after she sent the letter, Katherine received an envelope with an English postmark. Her father had replied! From the stiffness of the expensive cream stationery it seemed that Geoff Melody was more Rumpole of the Bailey than Arthur Fowler.

But the letter wasn’t from her father. It was from the executor of his will, informing her that her father had died from lung cancer six months previously.

While the end of her love affair had felt like a bereavement, her bereavement felt like the end of a love affair.

And she felt no need to ponder why, if he had that much integrity and decency, she wouldn’t go out with him.

All anxiety was gone by the time she breezed into the office. When she saw Joe leaning against the wall by the coffee-machine, she couldn’t help smiling at him. Until a closer look showed him to be unshaven, dishevelled and very weary. He looked lots more than a day older.

She swept her eyes over him and noticed, in nightmarish slow-motion, that his clothes were the same ones he’d had on the day before. Could she be imagining it? She forced herself to check again. Oh, God! Exactly the same suit. Same jacket that he’d taken off yesterday afternoon. Same shirt whose sleeves he’d rolled up. Same tie that he’d loosened. A sure sign he hadn’t gone home.

A stillness settled on her. Her blood felt like it had stopped flowing, as though the shock had brought it skidding to a halt.

He didn’t return her rapidly disappearing smile. His brown
eyes, which usually twinkled with warmth and puppyish good humour when he saw her, remained cold. Grimly he nodded at her, chucked his polystyrene cup in the bin and turned away.

Like a sleepwalker, Katherine took off her coat. Maybe he’d stayed with one of the lads, she told herself. It didn’t have to be Angie, small and skinny though she was.

As she switched on her computer, she had a powerful, unexpected flash of dislike for her desk. What was wrong with it? Irritably, she looked at it, trying to identify what was lacking. Then she realized: Joe wasn’t sitting on it.

All morning, as she pretended to busy herself with spreadsheets, Katherine perfected the art of looking without seeming to, discreetly checking for any signs of rapport between Joe and Angie. Neither of them approached the other but, as Katherine well knew, that meant nothing. Often when people slept with each other they ignored each other the next time they met. In fact, the more they ignored each other the more
likely
it was that they’d had sex.

Both Joe and Angie were at their desks, busily keying stuff into their computers, but Katherine found no comfort in this – they were probably sending each other erotic e-mails.

Katherine noticed something else disquieting. If you took away Joe Roth’s boyish, puppy-like friendliness, what were you left with? A grim, sexy man, that’s what. Rough, stubbly and in yesterday’s clothes, Katherine had never seen him looking so good.

She kept half an ear on the office banter, mostly to hear if they called Angie a name other than Angie. Something vulgar, which would mean that someone had slept with her. But nothing doing. Just a running commentary on how sick and hungover they all felt. How they were never going to drink again. How
they couldn’t remember a thing past ten o’clock. How Darren had puked in a doorway. How they’d been asked to leave Burger King.

She was back to feeling bleak and weird, never in the heart of life, always hovering on the edges.

‘Excuse me, Icequeen.’ Katherine’s head shot up to find Angie standing in front of her. For a brief mad second she thought Angie was there to tell her that she hadn’t slept with Joe Roth. But just a moment…

‘
What did you call me?
’

‘Icequeen,’ Angie said, nicely.

At Katherine’s expression, Angie faltered. ‘Isn’t that your name?’ She was now confused. ‘But that’s what everyone calls you. I thought it was Irish. I’ve a cousin called Quiveen…’

‘My name is Katherine, and your colleagues and mine call me the Ice Queen because I happen to respect myself enough not to sleep with people I work with,’ Katherine snapped.

‘Oh, fu –’ Angie looked mortally embarrassed – and slightly ashamed. Ashamed because she
hadn’t
respected herself enough not to sleep with a person she worked with?

‘Now I understand –
the
Ice Queen. I’m sorry! I just wanted to give you my tax-free allowance for the payroll.’ She flung her tax code on the table. ‘So that I won’t be put on emergency tax.’ Then she legged it.

Katherine looked at the piece of paper in front of her. It would be so easy to make a mistake and put Angie on one of the most vicious tax codes in existence, so that her net take-home pay would be a negative figure of several thousand. Of course, it would have to be fixed the following month, but wouldn’t it be worth it just to see the look on her face?

I’m a professional, she reminded herself, and the madness
stopped. It had been a lovely fantasy, but that’s all it was. With an inaudible sigh she started work again. She’d be OK. It might take a few days for it all to calm down, but she’d be OK.

Even though there was no obvious reduction in her size, Thomas seemed pleased with her for trying so hard and he’d been uncommonly affectionate.

On Wednesday night he’d said, ‘C’mere, you old baggage,’ and held her hand as they watched Real Madrid versus Barcelona. On Thursday night he’d thrown his arm over her in his sleep. She’d savoured being beneath its heavy weight, lying very still, afraid to do anything that might disturb him and make him take it away again.

Then, on Friday morning, he said bluntly, ‘Your hair wants doing. Put the yellow stripes in it.’ Which sent Tara to work all aglow – she found his Northern, uncompromisingly macho ways so sexy and was touched that he took an interest in her appearance. An interest that, for once, didn’t have to do with her size.

She thanked God that the ominous anticipation which had been unleashed the previous weekend seemed to have died
away. Briefly, she wondered if maybe she’d just got used to it.

She spent most of Saturday having her hair highlighted, mistakenly thinking that if you improve your hair you can improve your life. Sure enough, when she got home, Thomas was in a foul mood because Huddersfield had lost at home to Bradford.

‘Three nil,’ he roared, as she let herself in. ‘Three bludeh nil.’

‘Do you like my hair?’ she asked foolishly.

‘It looks like a load of bludeh straw,’ he thundered. ‘How much did that set you back?’

Tara was so angry she felt like crying. He’d wanted her to get it done – he’d practically
ordered
her. She thumped down her bags and strode from the room – she would never let herself cry in front of him. Not since he’d complained about his last girlfriend, Bella, ‘She were always bludeh sobbing.’ Bella, apparently, had been clingy, oversensitive and demanding, and Claire, the girlfriend before Bella, hadn’t been much better. When she’d seen Thomas’s contempt for them, Tara had sworn to herself that she’d be totally different. She’d please Thomas by never getting drippy and upset, by being a much better, less irritating girlfriend.

As she hyperventilated with humiliation in the bedroom, she told herself that Thomas didn’t mean to be such a prick. He was just angry with life and had to take it out on someone. She shouldn’t take it so personally.

That night Tara was under orders from Thomas to go to his friend Eddie’s birthday party. As she wasn’t exactly wild about Eddie, she rang Fintan to beg him to come and provide her with moral support, but just got his machine. So she rang his mobile and it went straight to voicemail. She hadn’t spoken to him since Monday night. They normally spoke to each other
daily, but as he’d been in Brighton all week and she’d been so trembly from not eating, as well as slightly stung and mortified by their conversation about HIV tests, she hadn’t dwelt on it.

Next she rang Katherine. She hadn’t seen her all week either.

‘Come to Eddie’s party,
please
,’ Tara pleaded.

‘No,’ Katherine said, gently. ‘I’m sorry, but I hate Eddie. It would choke me to wish him a happy birthday.’

Katherine regarded Eddie as simply a better-paid version of Thomas.

‘But I haven’t seen you since last Monday,’ Tara said sorrowfully. ‘I know it’s mostly my fault, spending all my evenings going to the gym, but still. So what will you do this evening? Have a quiet night in with your remote control?’

‘I was supposed to be going out with Emma but Leo’s got croup.’

‘Oh dear. I really must visit Emma…’

‘Then I was supposed to be going to a party with Dolly but she fell off her new five-inch stilettos and sprained her ankle.’

‘Cripes. If Fintan’s assistant is wearing stilettos, they really must be back in. I’d better get into training.’

‘Anyway, the upshot is, I’m going to the cinema.’

‘On a Saturday night? That’s a bit sad.’

‘Not as sad as Eddie’s party is going to be.’

‘Who are you going with?’

‘On my own.’

‘God,’ Tara said enviously. ‘You’re so cool.’

‘Tell me what’s up with Fintan. I can’t get hold of him.’

‘Don’t ask me, I can’t get hold of him either.’

Then Tara rang Liv.

‘Sorry,’ Liv said, ‘but Lars is returning to Sweden so I have to stand in Terminal Two and embarrass both of us by crying
and begging him to leave his wife and come and live with me.’

Despite starving herself all week, getting dressed to go out was still utter torment for Tara. Being fat made her feel so much less human, shunted to life’s margins, with no outlet to indulge her femininity. She’d love to have wiggled about confidently in a short, tight, flirty little dress, but the best she could hope for was to wall-hug in a wide, baggy top which covered a multitude of sins and sent Thomas into a flinty-eyed fouler.

Cronyless, she had to endure three hours in the pub, drinking diet Coke, lasciviously eyeing the peanuts, and yearning for the day when they invented reduced-fat lager. Then they all went back to Eddie’s flat in Clapham for the party. Which, as Tara realized, surveying it in disappointment, wasn’t much of a party. There were only about twenty guests and every single one of them
had been invited
. There would have been a bigger turnout, except after the pub multitudes had to leave early to relieve their babysitters.

The music was on too low for anyone to want to dance. People stood and sat in little clusters, discussing the wonders of MDF, door-handles in the Conran Shop, good sofa-shops – and some of these were straight men!

Tara listened in on a conversation between Stephanie and Marcy who, from the sound of things, were trying to get pregnant. Lots of talk of folic acid and how very acceptable it was to have your first child at thirty-seven.

‘Is your partner supportive?’ Stephanie asked Marcy.

‘What partner?’

‘Er, the man, the father…?’

‘Oh.’ Marcy laughed nervously. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t met him.’

‘But I thought you said you were trying to get… pregnant?’

‘Sperm bank.’

Tara hastily made her excuses and went over to Mira, Paul’s girlfriend, who wore a short black rubber skirt – no fear she’d be talking about sofas and folic acid.

‘It’s only small,’ she sighed, blissfully, ‘but I love it.’

What was she talking about? Tara wondered. Her tattoo? A nose-ring? Paul’s penis?

‘It’s a real sun trap,’ she enthused. ‘In the summer the rhododendrons along the back wall are
glorious
. They thrive like wildfire…’

Jesus! Gardening. Tara was disgusted. I mean,
gardening
.

Aimlessly, she wandered into the kitchen, where Thomas and his circle of pals stood, necking lager and trading insults. Turning their mouths upwards to show how ‘good-natured’ it all was. Eddie laughingly belittled Thomas’s badly paid job, while Thomas retaliated by calling Eddie ‘a flash bastard’. Thomas scorned Paul for supporting a third-division football team and Paul swaggered that at least he had loyalty. Paul doubled over with mirth when he heard that Michael’s girlfriend had dumped him. Michael nearly had to be hospitalized when he heard that Eddie had totalled his car during the week.

While they clutched their beer cans and howled with hilarity, Tara retained a polite smile. Making sure Thomas wasn’t looking, she flicked a quick look at her watch. One thirty. Hopefully they could go home soon. What a let-down of a Saturday night. She’d nearly have been better off going to the pictures with Katherine.

The merriment continued. Roaring with laughter, Eddie said that Thomas’s flat was a dreadful investment and that he was bound to be in negative equity for the rest of his life. In high
spirits, Thomas told everyone that Paul’s ex-girlfriend said that Paul could do with a course of Viagra. With a great display of amusement Paul grinned at Thomas: ‘At least my mother didn’t run off and abandon me.’

Tara anxiously realized that things were about to break through the maintenance-level hostility when, luckily, someone put ‘One Step Beyond’ on the tape deck. Suddenly the living-room carpet was aswarm with thirty-something men dancing for the one and only time that evening.