Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [79]
Then, on Friday morning, he said bluntly, ‘Your hair wants doing. Put the yellow stripes in it.’ Which sent Tara to work all aglow – she found his Northern, uncompromisingly macho ways so sexy and was touched that he took an interest in her appearance. An interest that, for once, didn’t have to do with her size.
She thanked God that the ominous anticipation which had been unleashed the previous weekend seemed to have died away. Briefly, she wondered if maybe she’d just got used to it.
She spent most of Saturday having her hair highlighted, mistakenly thinking that if you improve your hair you can improve your life. Sure enough, when she got home, Thomas was in a foul mood because Huddersfield had lost at home to Bradford.
‘Three nil,’ he roared, as she let herself in. ‘Three bludeh nil.’
‘Do you like my hair?’ she asked foolishly.
‘It looks like a load of bludeh straw,’ he thundered. ‘How much did that set you back?’
Tara was so angry she felt like crying. He’d wanted her to get it done – he’d practically ordered her. She thumped down her bags and strode from the room – she would never let herself cry in front of him. Not since he’d complained about his last girlfriend, Bella, ‘She were always bludeh sobbing.’ Bella, apparently, had been clingy, oversensitive and demanding, and Claire, the girlfriend before Bella, hadn’t been much better. When she’d seen Thomas’s contempt for them, Tara had sworn to herself that she’d be totally different. She’d please Thomas by never getting drippy and upset, by being a much better, less irritating girlfriend.
As she hyperventilated with humiliation in the bedroom, she told herself that Thomas didn’t mean to be such a prick. He was just angry with life and had to take it out on someone. She shouldn’t take it so personally.
That night Tara was under orders from Thomas to go to his friend Eddie’s birthday party. As she wasn’t exactly wild about Eddie, she rang Fintan to beg him to come and provide her with moral support, but just got his machine. So she rang his mobile and it went straight to voicemail. She hadn’t spoken to him since Monday night. They normally spoke to each other daily, but as he’d been in Brighton all week and she’d been so trembly from not eating, as well as slightly stung and mortified by their conversation about HIV tests, she hadn’t dwelt on it.
Next she rang Katherine. She hadn’t seen her all week either.
‘Come to Eddie’s party, please,’ Tara pleaded.
‘No,’ Katherine said, gently. ‘I’m sorry, but I hate Eddie. It would choke me to wish him a happy birthday.’
Katherine regarded Eddie as simply a better-paid version of Thomas.
‘But I haven’t seen you since last Monday,’ Tara said sorrowfully. ‘I know it’s mostly my fault, spending all my evenings going to the gym, but still. So what will you do this evening? Have a quiet night in with your remote control?’
‘I was supposed to be going out with Emma but Leo’s got croup.’
‘Oh dear. I really must visit Emma…’
‘Then I was supposed to be going to a party with Dolly but she fell off her new five-inch stilettos and sprained her ankle.’
‘Cripes. If Fintan’s assistant is wearing stilettos, they really must be back in. I’d better get into training.’
‘Anyway, the upshot is, I’m going to the cinema.’
‘On a Saturday night? That’s a bit sad.’
‘Not as sad as Eddie’s party is going to be.’
‘Who are you going with?’
‘On my own.’
‘God,’ Tara said enviously. ‘You’re so cool.’
‘Tell me what’s up with Fintan. I can’t get hold of him.’
‘Don’t ask me, I can’t get hold of him either.’
Then Tara rang Liv.
‘Sorry,’ Liv said, ‘but Lars is returning to Sweden so I have to stand in Terminal Two and embarrass both of us by crying and begging him to leave his wife and come and live with me.’
Despite starving herself all week, getting dressed to go out was still utter torment for Tara. Being