Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [186]
Benjy nodded carefully.
‘You say to her, like you’re just making conversation, and that it’s got nothing to do with her busting out of her clothes, you say that it’s a myth that men like thin women. Tell her that you never hear men saying to each other, “She was gorgeous, so skinny, all her ribs were sticking out, like a skeleton or like a famine victim, I nearly sliced meself open on her hipbones, I’d a hard-on just looking at her.” Compris?’
Benjy assented.
‘Next – like you’re just making idle chit-chat – you start complaining about models. Say that no red-blooded male wants a woman who looks like an anorexic teenager. Mention Jody Kidd. Of course, you know and I know that a night with Jody Kidd would be up there with the greats, but don’t tell that to Fat Tara. Because, before you know it, Fat Tara thinks she’s died and gone to heaven and is ready to deliver the goods.’
‘Jesus, you’re unbelievable. You’ve no morals whatsoever.’
‘Thanks.’ Lorcan shrugged and said shyly, ‘Listen, man, no need to lay it on with a trowel. What are friends for?’
‘There’s only one problem,’ Benjy admitted awkwardly. ‘I don’t know if I’d like a fat girl.’
‘Fat girls have good points. What am I always telling you?’
‘To ask women what shampoo they use.’
‘Apart from that?’
Benjy didn’t know and Lorcan exploded, ‘Amn’t I worn out telling you that fat girls try harder?’
‘Oh, right, of course.’
‘I feel like I’m just wasting my time here, Benjy.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Do you listen to anything I tell you?’
‘I do. I do. Sorry.’
‘Ah, you’re OK. You’re doing your best. Now another little gem I’m going to pass on to you – and not a lot of people know this – is that fat girls feel very nice.’
‘Would you sleep with a fat girl?’ Benjy asked hopefully. If Lorcan, his hero and mentor, would, then maybe it was all right.
‘Sure I would,’ he declared, magnanimously. ‘Sure I would. Mind you,’ he added, ‘I wouldn’t be seen in public with one of them. But in the privacy of their own home I’d have no problem playing hide the salami.’
‘Right. But perhaps Tara will be nice.’ Benjy was infused with wild hope.
‘Yeah.’ Lorcan’s eyes were narrowed, thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps she might be.’
Lorcan went to the bathroom to get ready. He felt strangely depressed. What was wrong with him? He’d had new and worrying feelings in the last six months or so and helping Benjy didn’t thrill him the way it used to. He had neither the energy nor the stomach that he once had. He still went through his bad-boy motions with Amy, driving her insane with misery by neglecting her or flirting with other women when she was present. But it didn’t feel as nice as it used to. He’d always roared with laughter at the thought of settling down again and, even worse, having children, but lately he’d had strange, endearing flashes of the thought of a little Lorcan. And perhaps a little girl, too. Who knew?
He was nearly forty. He sighed. Midlife-crisis time.
With a flourish, he swept Amy’s brush through his vivacious, silky hair and his heart lifted. His hair never failed to cheer him. He played one of his favourite games for a while, which consisted of running the brush right down to the ends of his hair, stretching as far as it could go, then whisking the brush out and watching his hair bounce and spring with joyous elasticity back to its original position. He could never grow tired of it.
He entertained himself for a while longer by fluffing and fiddling, stroking and patting, twiddling and rearranging, then picked up the brush again – and saw something that made his blood curdle in his veins. There was hair caught in the bristles of the brush. Lots of hair. Red hair. His hair.
The brush fell from his lifeless hands as he instigated a frantic investigation of his crowning glory. Everyone moulted hair, but did the hair in the brush imply something more sinister? With minute detail he fingered his way through his scalp and to his horror his hair seemed to be thinner on top than it used to be. He was losing his hair! Black patches scudded before his panic-stricken eyes. He couldn