Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [133]
Finally he spoke. He said, his watchful eyes never leaving her face, ‘I’ll think about it.’
She thought she was going to kill someone. Nodding, flushed, forcing a smile, she got up, her knees trembling. Clumsy with rage and shock, she stumbled en route to her own desk.
She had to go out. She walked around Hanover Square and up to Oxford Street, mimicking, over and over again in a namby-pamby voice, ‘I’ll think about it. I’ll think about it.’
As emotion invaded her like a virus, she swore that Fintan O’Grady would pay for this.
She went back to the office, picked up her tap-dancing gear, which hadn’t been used since Fintan got sick, and went to the gym. She never usually had any truck with the gym, but she felt the need to pound the stuffing out of a punch-bag, seeing as it was illegal to do it to Joe Roth. Or Fintan O’Grady, for that matter.
The instructor tried to tell her that she hadn’t got the right shoes, but her rage was somehow very persuasive. And when she began, her forearms were a blur, as she belted the punch-bag again and again and again. With a furiously red face, she stood in little flared shorts and patent dance-shoes with a big bow across the instep and pounded out her terrible anger at Joe and Fintan and Tara and the person who’d made her this way in the first place.
People, mostly men, came to look. Such a slight girl, with such great strength! ‘She could box for England,’ one huge, muscle-bound jock commented, in admiration. Katherine stopped for a moment. Normally a grade three (deep contempt cut with savage antagonism) or grade four (deeper contempt cut with even more savage antagonism, often delivered with a silent snarl) would suffice, but, hell, this was no ordinary day. So she flashed him one of her grade five looks (an entrail-freezing promise of actual bodily harm), and permitted herself a smirk as he stumbled back in dazed shock. Then she started up again, pummelling away her vulnerability, the hot flush of exposure. Shunted it out of her, in the hope that she might feel like herself again.
Abruptly she stopped boxing, to the disappointment of the small crowd who’d gathered. She’d suddenly realized what she had to do. She had to leave and find someone. Someone who’d make her feel better. Someone who would make everything all right. Someone who always made everything OK, one way or another. Tara.
49
When Tara opened the door, Katherine nearly keeled over at the dreadful stench, but couldn’t let herself be distracted from her main purpose.
‘I’m sorry,’ Katherine said quickly, before Tara could slam the door in her face. ‘I’m sorry for the fight. I’m sorry for the terrible things I said to you. I’m really, really sorry.’ She swallowed the aching lump in her throat. ‘I got you these.’ She thrust a bunch of twenty-four-hour-shop flowers at Tara. Tara’s face crumpled. ‘I’m sorry they’re so cheap and nasty,’ Katherine’s voice quaked, ‘but all the other flower shops were closed.’
‘They’re lovely.’ Tara’s eyes swam with tears. ‘I’m sorry too, for the things I said to you, Katherine. I had no right.’
‘You had every right,’ Katherine exclaimed.
In a floodtide of sentiment, they body-slammed each other and hugged tightly, both of them sobbing, ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’
‘Oh, Tara, be nice to me!’ Katherine begged into Tara’s neck.
‘Of course I will. What’s wrong?’
‘Joe Roth was horrible. I’m so humiliated! How can I ever go to work again?’
‘Oh, my God, you mean you did it… Oh, poor Katherine.’
Tara squeezed and rocked her in her arms until Katherine simply couldn’t bear any more.
‘Tara?’ she asked, in a little voice. ‘What’s the terrible smell?’
Tara sighed heavily, and her eyes were far away. ‘Come in and I’ll tell you all about it.’
Katherine followed her into the brown cavern.
‘I’ve done something that I shouldn’t have,’ Tara admitted. ‘But I was desperate.’
‘You haven’t…?’ Katherine was frightened. ‘You haven