Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [166]
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 from 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.’
‘Understand concern. Tomorrow night?’ she replied.
‘Am concerned I may slip. Tomorrow night very far away,’ came the reply.
With fingers shaking with delight Katherine keyed in, ‘Understand concern. Tonight may be the safest option.’
Not once had they made eye-contact.
All day they were ultra polite whenever they had any dealings with each other. At one stage Joe was coming into the office while Katherine was going out. He stood back to let her pass and they took great care not to touch each other.
‘Excuse me,’ Katherine murmured.
‘By all means.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
At times Katherine felt she could barely contain the thrill of it all, like her skin was going to split open from too much excitement. She had to rub her legs together under her desk to disperse the overflow of joy. Sometimes, looking at Joe, tall and professional in his suit, she had a mad urge to stand up and shout out to the office, ‘I’ve seen Joe Roth in the noddy. I could describe every inch of him to you. And he’s bloody gorgeous!’
Katherine’s phone rang in the afternoon.
It was Tara. ‘I may have to ask you a favour.’
‘Ask away,’ Katherine said breezily. Nothing could faze her.
‘Can I move in with you?’
‘Oh. Oh, God.’
‘I’m so, so, so sorry,’ Tara said, abjectly. ‘I really pick my times, I know. There’s you with a new fella and you’ll be wanting to do it all over the place, and you’ve been celibate for two years and I could have left Thomas in