Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [207]
‘Sooner or later he’ll go off me,’ she said sadly. ‘They always do.’
‘He won’t. You’ve gone past that stage with him. He knows you.’
‘Why is this one different?’
Tara frantically sought a reason. ‘It might be because of Fintan,’ she tried wildly. ‘You’ve been so worried about him you haven’t had time to be neurotic.’
A stab in the dark, but to her great surprise, Katherine nodded slowly. ‘Jesus, maybe you’re right.’ She lowered herself and balanced on the side of the bath. ‘God, I think you’re right.’
‘And if you don’t cop on to yourself really quickly and stop this malarkey with Lorcan, you’ll lose Joe.’
‘I’ll lose Joe,’ Katherine repeated, and the thought of being without him rocked her off balance. She couldn’t bear it.
A film reel of memories unspooled themselves. The night she and Joe had attempted to cook a dinner from scratch and nearly set Joe’s kitchen on fire, all the hours Joe uncomplainingly gave to Fintan, the arm-wrestling matches that he let her win, videoing Ally McBeal without having to be asked, buying her a Mac lipstick in almost the right colour, his insistence on trying to fix her car when it broke down for the umpteenth time, his unconditional acceptance when she’d managed to tell him about her father. The togetherness of it. And it was mutual. She thought of the compassion with which she’d consoled Joe after Arsenal lost five-nil to Chelsea, the new Wallace and Gromit socks she’d bought because his old ones had holes, the cashew-nut butter she’d tracked down and kept in her kitchen cupboard because he’d once mentioned he liked it, the time and effort she’d put into learning how the Premier league worked for no other reason than she hoped it would please him, the way she didn’t mind when Joe hadn’t been able to do a thing with her car and it still had to go to Lionel the mechanic, who said that Joe had made things worse.
Before she’d met Joe her life had been a cold, sterile white page, now it was awash with mesmerizing, swirling colours. She couldn’t go back, it would kill her. Astonished by the crystal-clear overview of her before-and-after life, she acknowledged how far she’d come, how much she’d changed, how full and rich her present really was.
And to think that she had been prepared to throw it all away for a man who would happily and effortlessly destroy her.
It was like waking up from a dream. A dream where the craziest of things had made perfect sense. But which, with the benefit of wakefulness, were clearly illogical and ridiculous.
‘Do you know something, Tara?’ Her eyes were full of wonder. ‘I think you’re right. It’s real with Joe, isn’t it? I’m not imagining it, am I? It works? He cares about me? Tara, I’ve got to ring him!’
‘Ahem.’ Tara nodded politely in the direction of the living-room. ‘There’s the small matter of a red-haired man expecting to be serviced.’
‘What’ll I do with him? You wouldn’t take him off my hands?’
‘I wouldn’t get up on him to get over a hedge. Just tell him to leave.’
‘As simple as that? Considering he got me pregnant, then dumped me?’ Exhilarated with liberation, Katherine demanded, ‘Could I not upset him. Just a little bit?’
Tara considered, reluctantly. ‘Well, OK, but be very careful. Close contact with that fella would addle the head. If you’re not out in five minutes I’m going in to get you.’
Katherine didn’t even have to think about what she was going to say. She’d already had nine million mythical practice runs. She slinky-hipped back into the living-room.
‘Now, where were we?’ she purred at Lorcan.
‘Just about here.’ He smoothed his big warm palm along her hair and drew her face to his.
He placed his mouth on hers, but just before the kiss got into its stride, she disengaged herself.
‘No.’ She pulled away from him.
‘No?’ he hooted.
‘Sorry.’ She sighed regretfully. ‘I just don’t fancy you.’
‘Wha–’
‘You’re not the man you used to be. And do you know something?’ She looked and saw that it was actually true. ‘You’re losing your hair.