Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [5]
Tara nodded. ‘I’m too fragile for a wild celebration. I need to be comforted by a small group of good friends on this sad day.’
‘What I actually meant was, where’s Thomas?’ Fintan had a glint in his eye.
‘Oh, he felt like a quiet night in,’ Tara said, slightly shamefaced.
There was a chorus of protest. ‘But it’s your birthday! He’s your boyfriend!’
‘He never comes out with us,’ Fintan complained. ‘The grumpy bollocks should have made an effort for your birthday.’
‘But I don’t mind,’ Tara insisted, earnestly. ‘And he’s taking me to the pictures tomorrow night. Give him a break. I admit he’s not the easiest man in the world, but he’s not nasty, just emotionally scarred –’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Fintan interrupted. ‘We know. His mother abandoned him when he was seven, so it’s not his fault that he’s a grumpy bollocks. But he should treat you better. You deserve the best.’
‘But I’m happy with my wash,’ Tara exclaimed. ‘Honest to God. Your vision of me is too… too…’ she pawed around for the right word ‘… too ambitious. You’re like those parents who want their child to be a brain surgeon when all they’re good for is being a bin-man. I love Thomas.’
Fintan was mute with frustration. Love is blind, there was no doubt about it. In Tara’s case it was also deaf, dumb, dyslexic, had a bad hip and the beginnings of Alzheimer’s.
‘And Thomas loves me,’ Tara said firmly. ‘And before you start telling me I could do a lot better than him, might I remind you that I’m in the Last Chance Saloon. In my decrepit, thirty-one-year-old state, I’d probably never get another man!’
Liv handed Tara her card and present. The card was covered in hand-painted silk and the present was a slim, sleek, cobalt-blue glass vase.
‘It’s gorgeous. You’re so stylish it hurts,’ Tara exclaimed, hiding her disappointment at not getting the Clarins anti-cellulite serum she’d hinted at so heavily. ‘Thanks!’
‘Are you ready to order?’ Darius had arrived, pen in hand.
‘I suppose,’ they all mumbled. ‘Someone else go first.’
‘OK.’ Tara smiled up from her menu. ‘I’ll have the pan-seared Mars Bar served with a Weetabix coulis, and the parsnip cappuccino.’
Darius stared at her, unamused. She’d done this the last time too.
‘Sorry.’ Tara giggled. ‘It’s just that it’s a bit funny, all these mad combinations.’
Darius continued to eyeball her stonily.
‘Please,’ Katherine muttered at Tara, ‘just order.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Tara cleared her throat. ‘OK, I’ll have the beef brûlé with coriander pesto, curried shoestring beetroot and a side order of chocolate mash.’
‘Tara!’ Katherine exploded.
‘No, it’s all right,’ Fintan hurriedly reassured her. ‘That really is on the menu.’
Katherine looked down. ‘Oh, so it is. Sorry. In fact, make that two.’
After the food arrived – each plate more elaborate than the last – the conversation turned to matters concerning age. After all, it was someone’s birthday.
‘Despite what everyone says,’ Katherine insisted, ‘it’s not wrinkles that depress me. It’s the fact that over the past ten years my entire face has –’
‘Dropped,’ chorused Tara and Liv. They’d played this game many times before.
‘I know exactly what you mean.’ As smoothly as a relay-race runner, Tara took up the theme. ‘If you look at my passport photo that was taken nine years ago my mouth was up around my forehead, but now my eyes are totally droopy and down on my chin – Which chin? I know you’re thinking – and my temples have dropped nearly as low as my waist.’
‘How lucky we are to have the plastic surgery,’ Liv said passionately.
‘I don’t know,’ Fintan said thoughtfully. ‘I think it’s wonderful to grow old gracefully, to let nature take its course. An aged face has so much character.’
The three women looked at him sourly. Obviously he couldn’t visualize what it was like to see his looks literally falling away from him. But what were they to expect? Even though he was gay, he was still a man. Blessed with such high levels of collagen he thought he was Dorian Gray. But give him another ten years and then let’s hear his nonsense of growing