She felt at an unexpectedly loose end. This was the first Sunday in what seemed like months that the O’Gradys weren’t staying with her. She wasn’t used to having free time. Especially when the best part of the day had already happened.
She could have scrubbed her flat from top to bottom, but felt too buzzed up to do anything boring. Or she could have spent the day sprawled in front of the telly on an omnibus binge. But she fancied that her remote control was looking accusingly at her. Worse still, she had an urge to apologize and to reassure it that she still loved it. So she drove into town and went to Selfridges but instead of making for the clothes, found herself wandering around the men’s toiletries department. Idly she picked up an aftershave, sniffed it, then put it down again. Then another. Then another. Vaguely, she worked her way from counter to counter until she picked one bottle up, sniffed it and nearly fainted. All the lust and longing of the previous night returned in a rush. She inhaled it again, deeper this time, her eyes closed in remembrance. Gorgeous! And again. She could feel his skin, the excitement that had thrashed about in her like a caged bird, the way he’d made her feel adored and cherished. She opened her eyes and looked at it. Davidoff For Men, so that was what Joe Roth wore. She half played with buying a bottle of it, but managed not to. That kind of behaviour was for mad people. Smelling it was OK, but buying a bottle was just too sad.
‘You’re looking at a fallen woman,’ Katherine declared, swaddled in a loved-up glow.
‘I don’t want to hear,’ Fintan said haughtily.
‘Well, I do,’ Tara insisted, pale and exhausted-looking.
‘And we do,’ Liv and Milo chorused.
‘And so do I,’ poor oppressed Sandro admitted.
It was later the same day, they were gathered in Fintan’s and the pizzas were on their way.
Despite her lack of sleep and the worry that Joe mightn’t ring again, Katherine was buzzing with super-alert glee. Bursting with desire to relive the entire fabulous experience.
As she related the whole story – the football match, the kiss, dinner at the Ivy, the Mr Stallone drama – everyone interrupted with detailed questions.
‘What did he smell like?’ Tara asked.
‘And how did you feel?’ Milo interjected.
‘Who made the first move?’ Sandro quizzed.
‘Did you know he was going to kiss you?’ Liv interrogated.
‘Did you have the chocolate mousse?’ Tara wanted to know.
‘And he paid the bill while you were at the ladies’?’ Liv said.
‘Were you nervous?’ Sandro wondered.
‘Did he admire your knickers?’ Tara asked.
‘Do you have the address of Agent Provocateur?’ Milo inquired.
At every detail they gasped and wriggled with relish while Katherine screamed with delight.
‘This is as good as sex,’ Tara yelped, then slumped into a brief, silent sadness. She had refused to tell Katherine what had upset her the previous day. ‘I really don’t want to talk about it. God,’ she’d added, in wonder, ‘I’m turning into you.’
Throughout Katherine’s story Fintan lay on the couch in a Mary Quant wig, his expression curdled and sulkily uninterested. But as the story hotted up, he cocked his ear (the lower one) with reluctant attention. Then he sat up, then leant forward, then made involuntary whistles and ‘oohs’, then he just couldn’t help demanding, ‘And you left your lovely black Jil Sander coat flung on the hall floor all night?’
Katherine nodded, proud and embarrassed.
‘All night?’
Another smirky nod.
‘You didn’t sneak out between bonks to hang it up on its special hanger?’
A triumphant shake of Katherine’s head.
‘Well, it was last season’s, I suppose,’ Fintan said. ‘But all the same.’
No one could believe how much Katherine told. When she got to the part where Joe stood in the middle of the floor and took off all his clothes, everyone clutched each other and shrieked, ‘Oh, my GOD!’
‘Shagtastic!’ Tara screeched.
‘Babelicious!’ Liv roared.
The bell rang. The pizzas had arrived. Sandro nearly exploded with frustration. ‘What a time they pick,’ he complained. ‘You mustn’t say anything, not a single word, until I return,’ he ordered Katherine, then ran, fussing and puffing, to the door. When he returned, his face almost obscured by the tower of pizza boxes, he demanded, muffled but anxious, ‘Did I miss anything?’
‘No, but it’s time for Ballykissangel,’ Liv felt she had better point out.
There was a vocal chorus of, ‘Bollocks to that! This is far more interesting. Carry on, Katherine. So there he was larging it, buck-naked, in your living-room …’
‘Larging it is right.’ She laughed, in shivery elation.
‘Oooooohhhhh, Missus!’
She even spilt the beans about the middle-of-the-night shower. ‘A shower! Oh, Matron!’ they gasped.
Milo and Liv exchanged a searing look.
‘I shouldn’t really be saying all this,’ Katherine admitted. ‘He might never ring me again. It’s happened before.’
‘Well, if he doesn’t ring, then you ring him,’ Tara urged.
‘No, I don’t think…’
With almost indecent haste, Milo and Liv were gathering up their things. In a flurry of hurried thanks and ’byes, they were gone.
‘But we got a good hour out of them before they had to leave and have sex,’ Tara remarked.
‘A whole hour?’ Fintan grinned. ‘I’d say it’s already peaked and they’re on the wane.’
Everyone noticed, but tried not to let it show: Fintan had smiled!
‘They’re just staying together for the sake of the children.’ Katherine laughed.
‘For the sake of their bedclothes, in any case,’ Tara said. ‘They bought a new duvet cover yesterday. I believe they’re devoted to it.’
‘Now, aren’t you glad I was a big, bossy bastard?’ Fintan slyly asked Katherine. ‘Isn’t your night of passion down to me, really?’
‘I thought you didn’t care any more what I do?’
‘I don’t. Well, I didn’t, but seeing as it’s been such a success consider me back on the case.’
‘Who’s to say it’s a success? It might just be a one-night stand, made all the worse because I’ve to work with him.’
‘There might be a message on your machine when you get home tonight,’ Fintan exclaimed. ‘He might be trying to ring this very minute. Does he have your mobile number?’
She shook her head, but she was excited. He might ring her tonight. But to her disappointment when she got home, the number of messages on her machine was a big fat zero.
61
‘Ravi,’ Tara said, ‘where would I get a van?’
‘A van? Do you mean like a removal van?’
‘A smallish one, but that’s what I mean.’
‘Dunno, we could ask the grown-ups.’ He nodded at Vinnie, Teddy and Evelyn.
Suddenly he realized the import of her question and his head jerked up in shock. ‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘First I’ll need a fag.’
‘To the smoking room!’
Tara sat in the tiny yellow-walled room and sucked hard on a cigarette, watched by Ravi who was vehemently anti-smoking, except when it was Tara who was doing it.
‘Are you going to leave Thomas?’ Ravi couldn’t believe it.
‘I think I am.’
‘But why?’
Tara managed a wry half-smile. ‘Oh, Ravi. Even you’ve tried to tell me that things with Thomas are as dodgy as anything, and you’re a boy!’
‘Yes, but you’ve always been able to give a reason for his dodginess.’
Tara winced. ‘God, the excuses I’ve made…’
‘Are you leaving him only because Fintan wants you to?’
‘No, it’s because Fintan doesn’t want me to. He’s changed his mind and doesn’t give a damn. And I thought I’d be deli
ghted. Well, I should have been, but I wasn’t. I felt depressed, and trapped.’
Ravi sighed silently. Women were so bloody complicated.
‘Then the minute I got home on Saturday afternoon it all just blew up.’
Tara dragged deep on her cigarette as she remembered the scene. As soon as she’d walked in the door, Thomas had yelled, ‘Just because that bludeh pouf has picked up some antisocial disease is no excuse for you to not stick to your diet, Tara.’
He was waving a Turkish Delight wrapper that he’d just found in her gym-bag and a huge, hot bubble of rage had burst in Tara. What was she doing with this awful man?
‘Excuse me?’ she hissed.
‘I said,’ Thomas repeated, ‘just because that bludeh pouf…’ He’d been pushing and pushing it, becoming more and more unpleasant and controlling, and this time he’d gone too far.
‘Don’t you dare talk like that about my friend!’ Tara said, with low menace.’
But I –’
‘Just don’t, right!’
‘I’m entitled to my opinion,’ he demanded, belligerently. ‘Aren’t I?’
‘No! It’s cruel and, anyway, it’s not an antisocial disease, you make it sound like it’s his fault.’
‘Am I or am I not entitled to my opinion?’
‘But –’
‘AM I,’ he shouted, ‘OR AM I NOT entitled to my opinion? Yes or no?’
‘It’s not a question of opinion.’ She raised her voice in response to his.
‘Listen to me. He is a bludeh pouf. All I’m talking is the truth.’
‘You’re a disgusting bigot,’ she said, in a deceptively calm voice. ‘A caveman with your throwback, time-warp machismo.’
He surprised her by laughing warmly. ‘Aye, I am. I like that, say it again, the bit about the machismo.’
Tara swallowed, stunned into silence. A brief window opened: with boyfriends like him, who needed enemies?
‘Go on,’ he urged, playfully. ‘Say it again.’
‘It’s not a compliment.’ Her jaw was clenched.
‘Isn’t it? Sounds like one. I’m a caveman with my throwback machismo.’ He laughed again, genuinely entertained and said. ‘But you love me for it.’
This is what you’re stuck with.
Each time she’d had a tiny revelation that all wasn’t well with herself and Thomas, she’d worked hard to obscure it, to cover her tracks. But every bit of obfuscation had now been washed away by the floodtide of her rage and she had no choice but to see. And what she saw made her despise not only Thomas but herself. She’d always detested homophobics, and here she was living with one! Where were her principles? Sidelined because her desire for a boyfriend was more important.
The dominoes began to fall and suddenly Tara saw, naked and clear, how unforgivable his refusal to meet the O’Gradys had been. His insistence on not visiting Fintan, his filthy innuendo about Fintan’s illness, his casual contempt for his future with her, the constant monitoring of her weight, the corrosive criticism of her appearance, the non-stop erosion of her confidence, the relentless borrowing of money, the playing off of Beryl against her. And worst of all were the excuses she had made for him.
She’d always tried to defend Fintan when Thomas started on him. She’d never defended herself. Just tried to tell herself it was for her good. But she’d been wrong, and she was crawling with self-loathing as well as anger.
She found she was crying. Tears of shame and rage and sorrow.
‘Why are you boohoohooing?’ Thomas demanded. ‘Have you the decorators in?’
‘What?’
‘Is it your monthlies?’
‘No.’ She sobbed as if her heart were breaking.
‘Aw, Tara, don’t bludeh cry. Do you want a cup of tea?’
‘No. Just leave me alone.’
He glared at her. How dare she? Didn’t she know how sensitive he was? ‘Fine then,’ he swaggered, ‘I will leave you alone.’
He slammed from the flat and she cried and cried and cried. For the wasted years, for the loss of hope, for the cruelty to Fintan, for her shameful self-delusion, for the happy life she didn’t have, for the empty one stretching ahead of her.
At some point Katherine rang but, gasping and choking, Tara could hardly speak.
Lighting a cigarette, she sat staring into space, wondering why nothing ever worked for her. Why me? Why can’t I have a successful relationship? Why do I always end up alone?
She’d managed to keep one step ahead of the knowledge that had been accreting slowly, especially since Fintan had got sick. But it had become too big and she couldn’t outrun it any more.
Had Thomas always been like this? Had he got worse? Or had she just not seen? Refused to see?
She was in shock. Couldn’t take it all in. It was her body trying to protect itself, breaking the news to her gently. She kept trying to tell herself there was nothing to worry about. After all, he’d offered her a cup of tea, maybe he wasn’t so bad. But she couldn’t unsee what she’d seen, much as she’d like to. The knowledge was a huge burden and she’d have to act on it even though it meant her life was over.
A few hours later Thomas returned and, behaving as if everything was fine, wanted them to go out.
‘No,’ she said, white-faced and implacable. ‘You go.’
She sat in the flat on Saturday night and prepared herself to leave. Trying to bridge the huge gap between knowing she should and actually being able to.
She spent Sunday with Fintan and made no mention of the turmoil she was in. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to, it was because she wasn’t able to. Couldn’t put words on the enormousness of the task hanging over her, like an axe waiting to fall.
Instead she watched Milo and Liv, listened to Katherine’s glowing tale, and thought, That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
‘So, Ravi,’ Tara forced a smile, ‘now you know why I asked about the van.’
‘I’ll look up the Yellow Pages immediately,’ he promised.
‘You think I should leave him, don’t you?’ She buttonholed him anxiously.
‘But you’ve just said…’
‘I was hoping you’d tell me that I was overreacting wildly.’
‘You’re not,’ he said, sadly.
‘I’m so scared.’ She thrust a cigarette in her mouth and he lit it for her. ‘Of being on my own. Of being old and on the shelf. I’ll never get anyone else.’
‘Of course you will –’
‘How do you know? A fat cow like me. Oh, Ravi, you should have seen Katherine on Saturday. The excitement, and the looking-forwardness. It was wonderful, like being a teenager again, even I could feel it.’
‘Yeah, but that mad buzz doesn’t last long,’ he said anxiously. ‘Even Danielle and I –’
‘But all the same,’ she interrupted, ‘if two people are going out with each other, shouldn’t they at least like each other?’
‘And you don’t like Thomas?’
‘No. And he doesn’t like me. If he did he wouldn’t spend so much time telling me I’m a fat cow. Isn’t there something wrong with him constantly trying to change me?’
‘Yes. Bloody right. I’ve tried to tell you.’
Tara’s face was thoughtful. ‘I knew it, but I didn’t know it, do you know what I mean?’
‘You knew it, but you didn’t want to know.’
The silent, black and white slow motion of her life suddenly clicked into noisy, normal-speed colour.
The shock was fading, the grief had receded, and all Tara was left with was anger.
Lots of it.
62
When Katherine arrived at work on Monday morning, Joe was already there, but he didn’t even look up. So that’s how it’s going to be, she thought, with unutterable misery. I got it wrong. Again.
Wearily, she hung up her coat and traipsed to her desk. In the centre of which a parcel was placed. Wrapped in blue and gold Designers Guild wrapping paper, it clearly wasn’t a batch of new tax tables fro
m the government printing office.
‘What’s this?’ she asked Charmaine.
‘Dunno, it was there when I got in.’
Katherine picked it up and felt it. Whatever was inside was soft and bendable.
‘Open it,’ Charmaine said.
‘OK…’ she said slowly, wondering whether she should be getting excited. Who would send something to her, other than Joe?
Careful not to tear the good paper, Katherine tried to undo the Sellotape.
‘Rip it off!’ Charmaine urged. ‘Go on, girl. Go crazy.’
So she did, and something white and plastic unfolded itself and flopped out.
‘Whut the…?’ Charmaine demanded.
Katherine looked at it and a broad smile slapped itself on her face.
‘What is it?’ Charmaine was going mental.
‘It’s a mat to put on the floor of your bath.’ Katherine grinned. ‘To stop you slipping.’
Under her eyelashes she looked over at Joe, but he was very, very, very focused on whatever was on his screen. Very focused indeed. Katherine could almost see his neck muscles trembling with the exertion of not looking up at her.
‘Who’s it from?’ Charmaine asked suspiciously.
‘No idea.’
‘No note?’
‘No.’
‘Weirdos.’
But when Katherine switched on her computer she’d been sent an e-mail. Saying, ‘Just so we won’t slip next time.’
Quick as a flash she typed in, ‘When would you like to not slip?’ pressed Send and waited. Then wondered if she’d been too brazen. Go on, she silently urged Joe. Reply to me.
After about three minutes, she saw him clicking his mouse. Oh, yikes, he was opening the message, he was reading it! Then, his expression remaining resolutely deadpan and smooth, he typed something at high speed.
Katherine impatiently drummed her fingers, desperate for a new message to start flashing. When it did, her heart was pounding. ‘Would like to not slip asap. Let me know what suits you,’ it said.
She did some frantic calculations and sent back, ‘Wednesday night?’ She thought that was nice and casual.
Seconds later a new message appeared. ‘Am concerned I may slip. Wednesday night very far away.’