Last Chance Saloon (41 page)

Fintan ushered her into the kitchen, where a baking tray with one remaining bun on it sat on the worktop.

‘Hash brownies,’ Fintan explained. ‘Sorry, Tara. Sandro managed to score a twenty-spot of blem this afternoon. Could have saved you and Ravi the bother. Man,’ he also added.

‘Oh, don’t worry about us, it was great fun, I haven’t done anything like that in ages. So have the brownies helped with the pukiness?’

‘I’ve only just scoffed them. But I hope to Christ they do the trick. It’s so
boring
constantly feeling like throwing up.’

‘Fingers crossed! So what’ll we do tonight?’ Tara asked. ‘It’d be so tempting to get stoned out of our minds, then stagger up to the twenty-four-hour garage and try to buy their entire stock of Maltesers –’

‘– but not be able to speak because we’re in hysterics at nothing.’

‘Of course we must remember the gear is purely medicinal, we mustn’t abuse it. It’d be nice to get a little bit stoned, though. It’s been years.’

‘Only problem is,’ Fintan said, ‘I’m going out.’

‘Going out?
Where?’

‘Sandro’s Christmas party.’

‘Already? On the first of December?’

‘The only night they could get a table at Nobu. Would you believe it’s fully booked until the fourth of January?’

‘But are you strong enough to go?’

‘Where there’s a willy there’s a way.’ He laughed. ‘I want to have fun. Eat, drink and be merry.’

‘Are you sure? After all, you’re not well…’

‘Oh, there’s the bell, my taxi must be here.’ Fintan began to gather himself up, and Tara noticed something that tightened her throat.

‘Is it a fancy-dress Christmas party?’

‘No.’

‘So why have you a walking stick?’

‘Oh, that. In all the excitement over the drugs and the sick stomach, I forgot to tell you.’

‘Forgot to tell me
what?
’

‘The last lot of chemo played havoc with the nerve endings in my feet.’

‘What kind of havoc?’ she asked, fear yawning inside her. This got worse and worse.

‘They feel kind of tingly and it hurts to put too much weight on them, so a stick helps.’ He laughed at her face. ‘Oh, don’t look so upset, it’s only temporary, Tara. When I’m finished the chemo, it’ll eventually get better. Now, is my wig on straight?’

She watched him, a skinny creature in a Tina Turner wig
doing a knock-kneed hobble to the door and thought,
He’s only a year older than me
. ‘Will I visit tomorrow night?’ she asked, following in his wake as he switched off the lights.

‘No. I’m going clubbing with twenty-seven of my closest friends, but you’re welcome to join us.’

‘You’re going
clubbing?
’

‘That’s right, Tara. Clubbing,’ Fintan’s voice had a tight little edge. ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light, and all that. So I’m doing like the man said and I’m raging.’

Tara’s heart thumped into the back of her throat as she realized that Fintan wasn’t quite as Zen as she’d thought. ‘You’re angry?’

‘Not exactly angry. At least, not at this precise moment. But if I’m stuck in the Last Chance Saloon I’m going to make the most of it.’

She couldn’t say anything, muzzled by an odd mixture of shame and admiration.

‘I’ll go out fighting,’ he promised. ‘Or at least dancing. While there’s breath in my body and Sister Sledge on the turntable, life goes on.’

‘Busy time of year?’ Katherine asked, sympathetically.

‘Don’t talk to me!’ Tara declared. ‘We had the project dinner last night, the team lunch yesterday, the office lunch the day before, our floor’s drinks today, the department lunch tomorrow, Marketing’s mulled wine do tomorrow afternoon and then the entire company party the night after. Bloody Christmas, I’m destroyed from it! My liver is begging for mercy.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Katherine agreed.

However, in Breen Helmsford, the difference between the crazed partying of the festive season and the crazed partying of the rest of the year was hardly visible to the naked eye.

The Christmas-party season couldn’t have come at a better time for Tara. All the alcohol and high spirits kept her one step ahead of her demons. ‘Though I have to admit I’m a human Third World country from it all,’ Tara said. ‘I’m skint!’

‘You’re always skint,’ Katherine reminded her.

‘I’m worse than usual. Drink and taxis and… drink and taxis. And clothes, of course. I might have to cut my credit cards up again.’ Tara couldn’t stop buying clothes. Though it was cold comfort, she was able to fit into things that wouldn’t have gone near her six weeks previously. ‘A couple more weeks
of this agony,’ she winced, then forced a smile, ‘and I’ll be able to wear jeans. Look at the lovely skirt I bought for our department lunch tomorrow.’

‘Fabulous,’ Katherine admired. ‘Where’s it being held? Somewhere nice?’

‘Actually, no.’

It had been decided to hold their department lunch in-house because it had been impossible to secure a booking at any of the local restaurants. Either they were already booked out or else word had reached them of the performance GK Software’s development department had put on last year, when the lunch had spilled over to the evening bookings and a hard-core of eight or nine rowdies had still refused to leave.

Even now, nearly a year later, one of the local Polish restaurateurs blessed himself and crossed the road rather than walk past the offices of GK Software and its savage staff.

‘What d’you think, Ravi?’ Tara asked, modelling her new skirt.

‘What am I looking at? Clothes or lipstick?’

‘Lipstick, shlipstick! I’m afraid that self-renewing one wasn’t exactly the final solution. Suckered once more.’

‘Oh, Tara, I’ve something for you.’ Ravi rummaged around in his desk drawer. ‘This could be the answer to all your problems. Here it is.’ He brandished something torn from a
magazine. ‘Tattooing! On your lips. There’s a place in California that can colour your lips in permanently. Sounds bloody grim, but at least you’d never have to worry about your lipstick coming off again.’

‘Thanks, Ravi, but no.’ Tara was deeply touched. ‘It’s very sweet of you to bother, but what, for example, if I wanted to try a different colour –?’

‘Sorry. I just thought it was worth a try.’

‘Oh, but it was!’

At one o’clock, thirty people piled into the boardroom for sherry, reheated turkey and shoddy crackers. Everyone drank enthusiastically. As usual Tara and Ravi sat next to each other and batted funny comments back and forth.

‘Look at Vinnie.’ Tara laughed, her face flushed. ‘He’s twisted. Even his scalp has gone red.’

‘He doesn’t get out much so he’s lost the skill of drinking.’

‘Pour us another sweet sherry there, Ravi, good man.’

‘Just the one,’ he said in his mincing ‘lady’s’ voice and they clinked glasses coyly.

At some stage, responsible people like Vinnie went back to work, but several more stayed where they were, Ravi and Tara in the thick of them, spirits high.

However, at about half past four a combination of not having eaten for several weeks and having more alcohol than blood in her circulatory system meant things suddenly turned ropy for Tara. She started to cry about Fintan, then about Thomas, then about Fintan again. ‘’Sawful,’ she wept. ‘’Sunbearable. Whaf he dies? Doan say he woan cos he’s prolly goan to. ‘Slike a knife through my heart. Worse than losing Thoms, miles worse.’ Then she looked at Ravi beseechingly and said, ‘Ravi, ‘mgoing to puke.’

‘Gangway!’ Ravi bellowed, as he half dragged, half carried Tara to the ladies’. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, to the startled trio of girls from the payroll department who were preparing in front of the mirror for their department dinner. ‘It’s an emergency.’

‘We can see that,’ they said, jumping nimbly out of Tara’s way.

‘That’ll be us in a couple of hours,’ one of them said hopefully, watching Ravi as he held Tara’s hair back from her face while, into the sink, she parted company with her sherry.

‘C’ngo home, pliz, Ravi?’ Tara begged him when she’d finished. ‘Will you take me?’

‘Course. Stay here and I’ll order a taxi. Keep an eye on her,’ he told the payroll girls.

The moment Ravi was gone, one of the payroll girls whipped a tube of toothpaste from her bag and insisted that Tara rinse her mouth out with it. ‘Off!’ Tara flailed weakly with her hand.

‘He’s cute,’ the girl insisted.

‘’S not cute. ’S Ravi.’

But the mouth-washing was a pointless exercise because no sooner was it done than Tara threw up again. And again.

When the taxi arrived, Sleepy Steve knocked on the door of the ladies’ toilet.

‘Before we go, do you need to… again, you know…?’ Ravi asked discreetly. But no, Tara was all puked out, for the time being anyway. She was in floods of tears again, however.

The door opened and in swept Amy, willowy and gorgeous. ‘Tara,’ she gasped, ‘what’s wrong? Why are you crying?’

Though she hadn’t seen her in ages she hadn’t forgotten how nice Tara had been after she’d set the police on Lorcan.

‘M’ friend’s dyin’ an’ ‘sail over with m’ fella.’

Amy seized on the worst piece of news. ‘Oh, no. That’s
terrible. It’s all over with your boyfriend. Oh, you poor, poor thing.’ Then she had a wondrous, joyous idea. ‘I know! My boyfriend has a lovely friend. You’d be just right for each other. His name is Benjy, well all go out in a foursome in January.’

‘Sounds nice,’ Tara said, through her tears. ‘Does’t it, Ravi?’

‘Great.’

‘So long as you don’t fall in love with Lorcan.’ Amy giggled nervously.

‘’Slong’s I doan.’

Ravi assisted Tara, weeping and shambolic, through the reception area, where a cluster of smartly dressed men from the payroll department was about to depart for their dinner. They looked open-mouthed at the bleary-faced state of Tara.

‘Something she ate,’ Ravi said stoutly.

But as Ravi helped Tara down the short flight of stairs that led from the reception area to the exit, Tara began to heave again.

‘Just a minute…’ Ravi gasped, looking around in panic for something for Tara to vomit into. ‘Try not to –’

But it was too late, Tara was unable to stop herself from puking the last of her sherry on to the small metal handrail that ran beside the steps. ‘Sorry, Ravi,’ she said, thickly. ‘I’m ’sgusting.’

‘You’re OK, sweetheart,’ Ravi soothed, hoping to Christ that the taxi-driver wouldn’t refuse to take them. ‘Could someone clean that up, please,’ he called over his shoulder. But, of course, no one did. The staff from the payroll department had no intention of running the risk of splashing someone else’s puke on to their good going-out clothes. If anyone’s puke was going to be splashed on to them it would be their own.

Seconds later Alvin Honeycomb, the managing director of
GK Software, rushed out of the lift and into the reception area. Tall, distinguished of temple (grey, in other words) and handsome, he swept through in a navy cashmere overcoat, carrying a clunky briefcase and an I’m-a-busy-and-important-man air. He, too, was on his way to a function. ‘Night all,’ he called, in his deep, mellifluous tones as he galloped towards the exit. He prided himself on being pleasant to his staff and waited to hear the chorus of ‘Goodnight, Mr Honeycomb.’ He always ran down the short flight of stairs to the exit, as though doing a dance. A flurry of perfect little steps executed in his soft, slip-on Italian shoes, that led him on to the street, invariably just in time to hail the empty taxi that would be approaching. But this night, as he placed his hand on the railing to begin his little tap-dance into the street below, he connected with some of Tara’s recently regurgitated sherry. To Mr Honeycomb’s great alarm, his arm whooshed straight to the bottom of the rail, carried on a tide of vomit, the rest of him following rapidly, as though he’d just dived into a swimming-pool. His feet tried and failed to regain contact with the steps, and before he knew it he had tumbled down the entire seven steps and rolled into the street below, sustaining a bruised shoulder and a nasty crack to his chin. His briefcase skittered across the icy pavement, and for a few moments he remained sprawled, balanced on his chin, his arse in the air, too stunned to get up. A well-dressed couple en route to a work do sighed as they stepped over him and said, ‘Honestly, some people take this Christmas thing too far. They shouldn’t drink if they can’t handle it.’

Then she drove to work, strangely disconnected from what she was doing. When she got in, she passed Mr Honeycomb on the stairs. How did he get that big cut on his chin? she wondered vaguely. Probably out on the piss and fell flat on his face. A fine example to be setting his staff.

With shrugs and smiles she deflected the torrent of concerned inquiries from everyone in her section. ‘Thanks,’ she mouthed at Ravi, grateful that for some reason guilt and shame didn’t seem to be a problem. She was mercifully numb.

Until she found that someone – probably Vinnie – had booked her in for a ten o’clock appointment with two irate punters. In fact, they were already there, hanging around and looking indeed irate, as advertised. Just as well she’d managed to come in, instead of spending the day lying in bed roaring for a basin, as one might have expected.

But just as Tara was welcoming them into the meeting room, it suddenly dawned on her that she was still very, very drunk. Not only that but she was actually slurring her words. ‘Mishter Forde, Mishter Ransome, pleashe take a seat.’

Her tongue had swollen up to mammoth proportions and she could hardly unpeel it from the roof of her mouth. She began to sweat with fear. ‘Yesh, I quite undershtand your complaints about the servish we’ve been providing,’ she said desperately.

Was this a dream? she wondered.

She couldn’t defend herself. She couldn’t think of the right things to say. Her central nervous system was broken, the signals that normally zinged from one nerve-ending in her brain to another were bogged down in some treacle-like substance.

The little room was way too hot.

And then she smelt it. An odour that wasn’t ever appropriate in the meeting room, and certainly not at ten fifteen in the morning.

Alcohol. She could smell alcohol. Warm and rank. Exuding from her fear-enlarged pores.

Enough
, she decided, there and then.
That’s enough
. She’d had her mandatory, post-split-up, drinking and partying, self-destructive spree. But now it was time to try to stop.