Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [121]
‘Well,’ Lorcan chuckled indulgently and circled his hand in a halo around his head, ‘look at the state of it. It’s a mess!’
After the sexual shenanigans it was undeniably all over the place. A little curl stuck up on either side of the front of his head and in her humiliated, stunned state, they seemed to Adrienne like horns. Gleefully, Lorcan spotted a little jar of styling wax on her dressing table. Not what he’d usually apply, and certainly not a reputable brand – as far as he remembered it had only got two out of five stars in a survey he’d studied in Hairdressing Now! – but needs must. ‘How do you find this?’ He held the shiny magenta pot out to Adrienne. ‘I hear it gives good hold but can leave the hair slightly sticky.’
‘How can you talk about hair? I want to talk about our relationship!’
Lorcan’s face creased with amusement. ‘Our what?’
She didn’t answer. That had been a mistake.
‘You’ll never be happy,’ Adrienne declared thickly, parroting what some of Lorcan’s other leavings had said.
Lorcan shrugged, briskly rubbing a penny-sized piece of pink wax between the palms of his hands, as instructed.
‘Why are you doing this to me?’ she demanded.
Why indeed? He began lovingly to stroke the wax through his hair. There, my beauties, my pretties.
‘Speak to me,’ she shouted in frustration. ‘What do you want from life? What are you looking for? I mean, what do you WANT?’
Lorcan looked at her reflection in the mirror for a long, thoughtful moment. ‘World peace.’
In fact, as Lorcan let himself out of Adrienne’s flat he felt oddly bleak.
In the three weeks since the Real Butter fiasco he hadn’t got any work. Nor had he been given the opportunity to leap from his understudy role and set the world ablaze as Hamlet. His numerous prayers that Frasier Tippett would break his neck or catch meningitis had come to nothing. What kind of God was there? Lorcan often raged. What kind of sick world was he running? Was there no justice?
To fill in the gaps in his self-confidence, he continually reminded himself that he was irresistible to women, playing power games with them when no one else would play with him. But as he lounged up the road away from Adrienne’s he didn’t feel triumphant or restored. Instead he felt mild disgust. For Adrienne? Well, who else? But he realized his contempt for her had something to do with Amy.
Lorcan burrowed through unfamiliar feelings, trying to figure it out. Finally he came to rest: Adrienne should have shown more respect for Amy, he decided. It hadn’t been very considerate of Amy’s feelings when Adrienne had put her hand on his thigh and said meaningfully, ‘I do a hundred pelvic-floor exercises a day.’
Yes, Lorcan tut-tutted sanctimoniously, it was no way for her to treat Amy.
44
On Saturday night Liv and Milo became officially boyfriend and girlfriend. They launched their relationship by announcing coyly that they were going to a late-night film, to which Timothy responded joyously. ‘Grand! Let’s go to a horse opera. Is there a Clint Eastwood one on?’
An awkward silence fell, then Liv blushed and muttered, ‘You see, it’s just Milo and I who are going.’
JaneAnn was thrilled. ‘Every oul’ stocking meets an oul’ shoe,’ she opined. ‘I knew he’d find someone in the heel of the hunt. Milo’s a fine man, but there’s no one in Knockavoy for him to make a match with. Isn’t it true that travel broadens the mind? He deserves a good woman. Especially after he was so badly,’ she paused and bit back tears, ‘disappointed by Eleanor Devine. I warned him,’ she went on. ‘I said to him not to trust any of that crowd out of Quinard. I know them seed, breed and generation. They wouldn’t be above stealing a cow on you and blaming the poor tinkers. But we’ve to make our own mistakes, I suppose.’ She smiled dreamily. ‘Liv will love it in Knockavoy.’
Tara and Katherine exchanged astonished looks. JaneAnn already had Liv and Milo married off.
‘It’s the best ever that she’s a good Catholic,’ JaneAnn said. Although Liv was also a good Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Christian Scientist, Jew