Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [200]
‘He mightn’t wait for you.’
‘I don’t care, Fintan! I don’t care!’
‘Marvellous, he breathed. ‘Absolutely marvellous.’
Two and a half miles across London, a violent row was in progress. Amy was screaming at Lorcan. Worn down from several months of abuse, his outrageously flirtatious carry-on with Tara’s flatmate had been the last in a long line of straws.
The argument had gone on late into the night and had recommenced at first light. ‘How could you humiliate me like that?’ Her beautiful face was contorted and tear-mottled.
‘How?’ he drawled. ‘Easy. Didn’t you notice? I just flirted publicly with another girl.’
‘But why?’ she screeched. ‘I don’t understand. Why are you with me if all you want to do is hurt me?’
Because it’s so easy.
Her voice got higher and higher, finishing with a glass-shattering shriek, ‘Why do you do what you do? What do you want from life? I mean, what do you want?’
If he’d been asked that question once he’d been asked it a thousand times. He paused and appeared to be thoughtfully considering her inquiry.
He opened his mouth and with a cruel smile said, ‘A cure for Aids.’ The last time he’d been asked that question – about two weeks before by a heartbroken pharmacist called Colleen – he had replied, ‘What am I after in life? How about a woman who fucks like a rabbit, then turns into a pizza at two a.m.?’
He was running out of smart answers. Granted, the women weren’t going to be comparing, but it had always been a matter of personal pride not to use the same one twice. However, it was a smart answer too far for Amy.
‘Out!’ She drew herself up to her considerable height and pointed with a dead-straight arm to the door. ‘Get out.’
Lorcan chuckled indulgently. ‘You’re beautiful when you’re angry.’ A patent lie. Amy looked like ten kinds of shit.
‘Out!’ she repeated.
‘Have you shares in British Telecom?’
Her face was both furious and inquiring.
‘Because,’ he laughingly explained, ‘BT profits will go through the roof when you’ve made your usual number of phone calls begging me to come back.’
‘Out!’
He lounged to the door, and just before he left stuck his head back in. ‘It’ll take me about half an hour to get home so hold off on your first call until then.’
He ambled towards the tube, tipsy with amusement at his own slick banter. But he hadn’t gone far before a type of hangover set in. His soaring high thudded sourly back to earth, the good feelings poisoned with less pleasant emotion. This kept happening. When it came to playing the role of a baddy he’d never been able to help himself. It had always been such fun. But, as the last of his buzz trickled away, he was forced to wonder if maybe it was time to do the decent thing and let Amy go; stop tormenting her and set her free. The more he thought about it the more he became convinced that he was long overdue to move on to someone else – this time to do things right. Perhaps he’d already even met that someone else…
The time had come to have a good, long, hard think about the life and times of Lorcan Larkin.
‘Hey,’ he laughed to himself, ‘I must be growing up.’
Amy picked up the phone and dialled a number. But it wasn’t Lorcan’s.
77
Katherine didn’t go to work on Monday. She asked Tara to ring in for her.
‘Why? Are you sick?’
‘Kind of.’
‘You don’t look sick.’
‘Are you going to do it or aren’t you?’
‘Why won’t you go in? You’ve never done this before.’
‘I can’t face Joe.’
‘Why won’t you talk to him? He cares so much about you.’
‘Please, Tara.’
‘And why won’t you leave the house? You haven’t been out since Saturday night.’
‘Oh, please, Tara, please,’ Katherine beseeched, with a franticness that horrified Tara.
Tara had no idea what was happening to Katherine, but she was very, very frightened. Katherine was presenting a white, dazed face to the world but, clearly, seismic mayhem was taking place below her surface. Tara didn’t want to leave her. Anything