Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [188]
‘I shouldn’t have,’ Joe said, miserably. ‘It’s not the kind of thing I’d normally do. But I’m a human being and I make mistakes.’
‘I’m sure Angie Hiller wouldn’t like to hear of herself being referred to as a mistake,’ Katherine said haughtily.
‘No, I didn’t mean that. But getting involved with her was.’
‘Involved? I thought it was only one night.’
‘It was.’
‘Must have been pretty intense if you’re talking about being –’ she took a deep breath before spitting contemptuously ‘– involved.’
‘It’s just a word. Obviously the wrong one.’
Katherine held her breath, waiting for him to tell her that all he’d done was kiss her or that he’d slept on the couch or that he’d been too drunk to perform. But he didn’t, so she asked, ‘So you slept with her?’
‘Yes.’
‘What I mean is, you had sex with her?’ She felt she was going to throw up.
He nodded. Yes.
Her seasick stomach churned faster. ‘And then you went around and told everyone to call her Gillette. That’s very mature, Joe.’
‘I didn’t.’ He looked alarmed and disgusted. ‘I don’t know who started that – Myles, probably – but it was nothing to do with me.’
‘Well, you obviously went around telling everyone you fucked her. Very nice, Joe!’
‘I didn’t tell anyone. Angie told Myles, if you must know.’
‘So did you see her again?’
‘Not in that way. The following morning we talked about it, I explained that I was sorry it happened and that it wouldn’t happen again.’
‘And how do you think she felt?’ A sharp, vicious little upsurge of rage maddened her. ‘You get her into bed, screw her, then tell her once is enough. How gentlemanly.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘For what?’ she said, coldly. ‘You’re a free agent.’
‘Please don’t be like this,’ he said, softly.
‘Like what?’
‘Why are you so angry? We weren’t seeing each other then. In fact, it was just after you implied I was sexually harassing you –’
I know, she wanted to scream.
‘– and I thought you didn’t give a toss about me. And, to be honest, Katherine, I was really cut up –’
‘And what other way to deal with it than sleep with another woman. Oh, how like a man.’
‘It shouldn’t have happened,’ he repeated. ‘I was sorry it did. It’s no excuse but I was drunk and cut up. I was out of order, I was wrong, I made a mistake. People do.’
She clamped her mouth in a hard, cold line.
‘Everyone has a past, you know,’ he said, gently. ‘No one comes to a relationship with a clean slate.’
Still she wouldn’t speak. Then rent the silence by snarling, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I tried. But you told me that you didn’t want to discuss our past romances, remember?’
‘Yes, but… I only meant that I didn’t want to tell you about mine. I wanted to hear about yours.’
He sighed. ‘That’s not really fair, is it, Katherine?’
‘You told me about Lindsay,’ she accused, changing tack. ‘If you told me about Lindsay, why didn’t you tell me about Angie?’
‘I tried,’ he exclaimed. ‘But you told me you needed time and that you found it hard to trust. So I respected that. I tried not to push anything or move things too fast for you –’
‘How do you think I feel?’ she interrupted. ‘I’ve been going in to work day in, day out, and now I find out that Angie Hiller was having a good laugh at me all along because she slept with my boyfriend.’
‘But she didn’t know about us. And why would she laugh? You’re the one who’s my girlfriend, not Angie.’
‘Oh, so I’m the lucky one, am I?’ she sneered.
She knew she was out of control,