Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [164]
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 delighted. 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