Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [203]
‘If you’re sure?’
At Katherine’s nod, the counsellor had said, gently, ‘OK, there’s a clinic in Liverpool. I’ll go and make the phone call. When can you go?’
‘Now.’ She’d tried to stop her voice from wobbling. ‘As soon as possible.’
The counsellor had left her alone, sitting on the edge of her chair, in the tiny room. After fifteen minutes she’d come back, with a warm smile that she knew wouldn’t melt the block of ice in Katherine’s stomach. ‘It’s arranged,’ she’d said, quietly. ‘I’ve written all the details here. There’s a ferry that leaves this evening at eight. It’ll get you in at…’
Katherine had heard the information from far away. Trains, maps, taxi to the clinic, return trip, back-up counselling. ‘Thanks,’ her voice had said.
She’d wandered Dublin for the rest of the day but, thereafter, she couldn’t remember one thing about it. With nothing else to do she’d got to the port miles too early. Hanging around in the shed-like waiting room she’d suddenly became aware of a hot, wet feeling. Hefting up her little bag she’d run, breathlessly, to the ladies’ where she saw that she was bleeding. It was only then that she’d noticed the pain.
The boat sailed without her and the following morning, no longer pregnant, she’d got the train back to Limerick, still feeling as though she was living in a nightmare.
‘So you didn’t have an abortion,’ Tara attempted to cheer.
‘No, but I would have,’ Katherine admitted, dully. ‘It’s as bad as if I did.’
‘It’s not.’
‘It feels like it.’
‘And then you came home to Knockavoy and wouldn’t talk about it,’ Tara remembered. ‘You were so bitter. Now I can see why.’
‘Then I wrote to my father,’ Katherine admitted. In for a penny, in for a pound.
‘And what did he say?’ Tara tried to remain calm. If her father had rejected her so soon after Lorcan’s carry-on, was it any wonder that she was so uptight?
‘He was dead,’ she said, simply. ‘He’d died six months and six days before.’
‘How did you feel?’
Katherine wavered, before finding the right words. ‘Like dying too.’
Tara breathed out in quiet horror.
‘Then we moved to London and I had one disastrous relationship after another, and here we are.’ Katherine tried a watery smile.
‘But I’ve had one disastrous relationship after another too,’ Tara insisted.
‘Not the way I had.’
Tara had to agree. ‘It must be something to do with finding out about your father so soon after the terrible stuff with Lorcan.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Thank God you’ve told me about it. Obviously Lorcan was meant to walk in here on Saturday night.’ Katherine’s eyes lit up and Tara’s heart descended. ‘Because it’s blown your past wide open,’ she said quickly. ‘Now you can get over it.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘So, am I right? You were waiting in in case he called?’
‘Please, Tara, try and understand. It’s never felt finished. It’s haunted me.’
‘What made you think he’d come?’
‘Instinct.’
Tara eyed her shrewdly. ‘Desire, more like. But even if he had arrived around here, what would you have achieved by seeing him? It’s not as if you’d consider getting off with him again?’
She was appalled when Katherine didn’t immediately deny it.
‘I don’t know what I want,’ Katherine despaired, and her confusion was genuine. ‘I just don’t want to feel this way about my life and my past.’
‘And you thought the way to do it would be to get involved with him again? After the way he treated you, you’d have been better off being extra, super-duper horrible instead!’
‘But I will be.’
Even this made Tara anxious. Lorcan was too good-looking, too charming, too sexy, too dangerous. He would always be the winner. And the fantastical way Katherine was talking, as if he really was going to arrive on their doorstep any minute, was even more alarming.
‘What had you planned?’
Katherine thought about all her fantasies, and said vaguely, ‘I don’t exactly have a plan. It all depends.’
‘But it’s not going to happen,’ Tara said, soothingly. ‘And you can still get over everything that happened. We’ll arrange for you to get professional counselling,