Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [162]
In the end the fear of being left made her desperate to pre-empt it. She couldn’t bear waiting for the man to gradually go off her as soon as he realized she was just an ordinary woman and not the mysterious enigma he’d expected. So she precipitated it. Began behaving like a psycho bitch from hell. All the better to hasten the inevitable. She lurched through life, long tracts of celibacy intercut with short-lived romance, followed by lengthy periods of wound-licking. Every time a man lost interest in her, and implied that she wasn’t good enough, it triggered an avalanche of old pain.
In saner moments she knew she was stuck in the past and that she wasn’t normal. It had taken her until four years ago, aged twenty-seven, to wonder if perhaps it was the discovery of her father’s death so soon after her first heartbreak that had knocked her so far off course. After all, everyone gets ditched at some stage. Only the truly weird don’t get over it. But the double wound had the effect of bricking her in, of keeping her stuck. Somehow twelve years had passed, and when she thought about it, she really couldn’t figure out where the time had gone.
Then came that day, two months ago, when she’d been introduced to the new account director, Joe Roth, and he’d begun to rain attention down on top of her in a way that was frighteningly familiar.
60
But this time I behaved myself, Katherine thought, with pride, looking around at her rumpled bed. The emptiness left by Joe’s departure had evaporated and she was skittish and overexcited after her night with him.
She picked up a pillow, pressed it to her face, and caught a faint whiff of him. A thrill of memory charged her and she wriggled with glee. She was dying to talk about it. It was nearly midday – too early to ring Tara?
Oh, Jesus – Tara! Whatever had happened to her yesterday? Katherine grabbed the phone, but just got Tara’s answering-machine. So she tried her mobile and got her voicemail. Next she rang Liv and got her answering-machine. She left a message and then rang Fintan.
‘Hello,’ he barked.
‘It’s me. Will I come over?’
‘Not now. This evening.’
‘Oh. OK. I’ll have my mobile if you change your mind.’
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