Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [169]
‘Thomas?’
‘What?’
‘I’ve something to tell you.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘I’m leaving you.’
He groaned. ‘Aw, Tara, what’s bludeh up with you lately? I’ve had a hard day and I don’t want to get into some premenstrual girly discussion with you.’
‘I think you misunderstand. There’s nothing to discuss. I’m leaving you. Now.’
He did his goldfish face. He goggled. ‘Why?’ was all he could manage.
‘Let’s see,’ she said, thoughtfully. ‘Could it be because you’re needlessly cruel? Or pathologically stingy? Or a mad control freak? Or just because you’re a horrible person, and I really dislike you? It’s hard to know for sure, Thomas. All I know is, I must have been out of my mind to have stayed with you for the past two years.’
His face went whiter and whiter with each sentence. ‘But …’ he protested, shaking from this unprovoked attack. ‘It’s just my way. I speak as I find, but I love you and anything I said was for your own good.’
‘You know,’ she realized, ‘I really think you need some sort of counselling or therapy. Your attitude to women is messed up.’
‘Crap.’ Thomas’s tone was scornful. Oddly enough, it wasn’t the first time something like this had been suggested by a girlfriend …
‘You don’t even like me,’ Tara said.
‘Course I do.’
‘You don’t. You’d have been a lot nicer if you did.’
Then, for the first time, Thomas noticed the bags and boxes at Tara’s feet and made the connection between them and the empty shelves. Books, videos, CDs, all gone. He was jolted to the core. ‘Are they –’ He pointed. ‘Have they your things in them?’
‘Some of them. I’ll be back for the rest during the week.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
Tara had to admit he looked gratifyingly dazed.
‘Where would you go?’
‘I am going,’ she emphasized, ‘to Katherine’s.’
‘Katherine’s?’
‘For a while anyway,’ she said, breezily. ‘Then I’ll see about buying my own place.’
‘Own place?’
‘Is there an echo in here?’ She looked around.
‘We can talk about this,’ he tried valiantly. Now that she actually seemed to be leaving, he suddenly desperately wanted her. He was that seven-year-old boy again.
‘We’ve already talked.’
‘When?’
‘The night of my birthday, for example. When you said you’d ditch me if I got pregnant.’
‘Oh, that.’
‘And last Friday night, when I suggested we get married.’
‘I didn’t think you were serious,’ he muttered.
‘Exactly!’
‘Tara, don’t go.’ He paused. ‘Love,’ he tried tentatively.
Her resolution wobbled. He’d never called her ‘love’ before.
‘I’ll admit that I’ve not always been good to you,’ he beseeched.
‘Could you say that again, please?’
‘I’ll admit I’ve not always been good to you,’ he repeated, a little sullenly.
‘That’s a good one.’ She laughed darkly. ‘You’ve not always been good to me. That’s one way of putting it.’
‘Hey. No one forced you to stay with me.’
‘I know.’ She grinned. ‘Mortifying, isn’t it? Believe it or not, I’m far angrier with myself than I am with you.’
‘How could you do this to me?’ His face had caved in.
‘How many times do I have to tell you? Because you’re awful.’
‘But you know why. I told you why. Cos of me mam leaving I find it hard to trust a woman. This is just like that Sunday morning. Coming in and finding the bags packed, it were awful, Tara.’
‘Oh, change the record!’
Thomas just couldn’t believe it. His wound, which he’d nurtured and protected, watered and nourished, was being disregarded in such a disrespectful fashion. It was his most precious commodity, enabling him to get people to behave the way he wanted them to. How dare this fat cow …!
‘Oh, now I get it,’ he said furiously. ‘You’ve met some other bloke. That’s what this is all about.’
‘I have not. It’s nothing to do with anyone else. It’s to do with you. And me, unfortunately.’
‘That Ravi. I bet you’re shagging him.’
‘I’m not shagging anyone.’
He looked at her bitterly. ‘No. I suppose you’re not. Who’d have you?’
‘That’s my Thomas. Well, goodbye.’ She put on her coat. ‘It