Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [27]
She couldn’t say when they’d slipped into their current baddish patch. But it was only temporary. Good times were just around the corner. All she had to do was try a little harder.
She gritted her teeth as she swore blind that she really was going to lose weight. And because her extravagance annoyed him she was going to stop spending money. She would buy lots of sexy underwear. Cheap sexy underwear, obviously, if she was going to stop spending money. She’d become a complete raunchbag, and tackle him to the floor as soon as he came in from work, and have sex in the hall. She’d cook lovely meals for him. And nothing for herself.
She stared into the darkness, racking her brain, as she tried to think of something really special to do for Thomas. What was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her? Actually, as far as Tara was concerned, the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her was when she was nine years old. She’d begged her mother to buy her a denim skirt and waistcoat like the one she’d seen in Jackie, but perpetually skint Fidelma Butler couldn’t afford to. However, what she did instead was go to Ennis on the bus and buy a pattern and enough brushed denim to hand-make the skirt and waistcoat. Which she did exactly to Tara’s specifications, right down to where she explained, ‘There’s got to be two lines of orange stitching around the edge, Ma. And you’ve got to be able to see it.’ And even though Fidelma was mortified by the idea of sewing a hem that was visible to the naked eye, she bit the bullet and went right ahead and did it, because that was what Tara wanted. That was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her, Tara decided. Even when her father looked over his newspaper and sneered, ‘You can dress a goat in silk, but it’s still a goat,’ nothing could have ruined her joy in her new outfit.
All the same, she couldn’t imagine Thomas being terribly thrilled at the suggestion that Tara hand-make a brushed denim skirt and waistcoat for him. But the idea of making something to clothe him appealed to her, and suddenly it was very clear what she would do. She was going to… going to… going to… knit him a jumper!
10
The following morning Tara woke very early. Something was wrong. Hangover time. I’m too old for this, she thought, as she swallowed a handful of painkillers. I can’t hack it any more. Yet even though the pain lifted, faint sensations of impending doom draped themselves around her, like will-o’-the-wisps, and followed her from the bedroom to the bathroom to the kitchen.
Despite her night-time vow to go on a diet, Tara was viciously hungry. It was how hangovers affected her. They made some people so sick they couldn’t face food all day. But they made her feel as though she’d never eaten anything ever before in her whole life. A stomach-growling, head-lightening hunger that was almost primal. She craved carbohydrates. At the thought of toast, she felt a rush of adrenaline that almost lifted her off the floor.
Surreptitiously, she closed the kitchen door so that Thomas wouldn’t smell what she was doing, and put on two slices of toast. Frantic with impatience, she stared at the toaster, willing it to work faster. Hurry up, she passionately urged, put your back into it. If she didn’t get something to eat right now, this exact moment she’d make a start on her own foot. But all there was in the cupboards was dried pasta, tinned tomatoes and cat food. Thomas had long since purged the kitchen of biscuits and crisps in a self-sacrificing attempt to remove temptation from Tara’s way.
Her toast popped up and her hands shook as she covered one slice with cheese, the other with jam. While she crammed them into her, she put on two more slices. Then two more. An orgy of toast and she was in heaven. Toast with peanut butter, toast with cheese, toast with jam, toast with Marmite.
Covered in crumbs, she practically inhaled each slice whole, as