Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [29]
‘You know it does,’ Katherine reminded her. But gently, sensing this was important. ‘Remember, the thatch on Billy Queally’s roof was set on fire during one storm, then two years later he was electrocuted and thrown across the kitchen when he put on the toaster during another.’
‘I didn’t mean it literally,’ Tara said miserably. ‘But thanks anyway.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Katherine comforted. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’
‘It mightn’t be anything,’ Tara said heavily.
‘Come over tonight when I get home from work.
’ ‘Thanks, you’re a sweetheart.’
Katherine had guessed what it was about. She’d never thought Thomas would last longer than a couple of weeks so she’d been poised for Tara and him to end for nearly two years.
She hadn’t been keen on Thomas right from the very first night. Of course, she was delighted that Tara had met a new bloke – witnessing her pain after Alasdair had finally given her the slip had been excruciating. Not to mention that, with the best will in the world, sharing a flat with someone who’s recently had their heart broken becomes a small bit tedious after the first three months of hysteria and bizarre behaviour.
But some instinct had screamed at her that Thomas wasn’t Tara’s Mr Right, or even Mr Keep The Wolf From The Door.
‘Looks like she’s made a new friend,’ Fintan had murmured to Katherine, as Tara and Thomas ate the faces off each other in Dolly’s kitchen, oblivious to everyone around them.
‘Mmmmm,’ Katherine said noncommittally.
‘What is it?’ Fintan asked.
‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s his brown jeans.’
‘Brown is the new black.’
‘But they’re horrible. And look! His shirt is brown too.’
‘Don’t be brownist,’ Fintan advised. ‘And he’s probably a dead nice person.’
But later on, when Thomas came home with Tara, Katherine and Liv, he wouldn’t contribute to the taxi-fare. ‘No,’ he said bluntly. ‘If I weren’t here, you’d have to pay what you always pay. It’s daft if you profit from me being here. I speak as I find.’
Katherine burst out laughing. Maybe Thomas was OK, after all. ‘ “I speak as I find?” That’s a good one.’ In a poor Yorkshire accent she’d continued, ‘ “Better wi’ nowt tekken out. Where there’s muck there’s brass. Tetley’s make teafolk make tea. I’m made up for our kid. You don’t get owt for nowt.” I love those Northern sayings. Any more?’
Suddenly she realized that Tara, Thomas and Liv had gone very still. At the exact moment that Tara hissed, ‘Katherine! Close your fat yap,’ Katherine realized that Thomas hadn’t been joking.
In grim silence Tara paid the taxi-man. And as Katherine watched Thomas swagger into the flat, and be led straight to Tara’s bedroom, she thought she’d explode with injustice.
‘I speak as I find,’ was Thomas’s favourite phrase. And what he found was rarely to his liking.
And then he spoke about it.
The day after Tara first met him, when they were all strewn about the living room, Katherine decided it was time to do some tidying, though she knew there would be objections.
‘I’ve something to get off my chest,’ she began.
‘You call that a chest,’ Thomas interrupted.
Tara screamed with laughter, so much so that even Thomas began to look alarmed. And when Katherine recovered from her shock and tried to object, he interrupted loudly, ‘But it’s TRUE, in’t it?’
‘That’s not the point,’ Katherine said coolly. ‘It’s very bad manners –’
‘BUT IT’S TRUE, IN’T IT?’ he said again, louder. ‘You haven’t got tits. It’s a fact and I’m not going to lie to you.’
‘No one asked you to say anything at all,’ Katherine said.
‘You can’t tek the truth, can you?’ He shrugged. ‘You’re too bludeh soft. I speak –’
‘– as you find,’ Katherine finished. ‘I know.’
In a matter of days, Thomas had managed to insult all of Tara’s friends. He called Liv a giantess, and as soon as she’d looked it up in the dictionary she was very upset. When he was formally introduced to Fintan, the way he hesitated about shaking hands, and the speed with which he wiped his palm on his jeans straight afterwards, made it abundantly clear that he didn