Last Chance Saloon

by Marian Keyes

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Tara breathed tearfully. ‘I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it. It’s been so long since anything positive has happened, I was fairly sure that, you know, there wasn’t much, um, you know, hope.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’d kind of come to terms – well, not come to terms,’ she said hurriedly, ‘but if he didn’t ever get better, it wasn’t going to be a massive shock, do you know what I mean?’

  Katherine nodded.

  ‘But this is brilliant!’ Tara’s eyes were shiny with tears.

  ‘I suppose we shouldn’t get too excited.’ Katherine struck a note of caution. ‘It’s such an unpredictable illness.’

  ‘Oh, come on, let’s get a little bit excited. Will we go over there now to see him?’

  ‘No.’ Katherine could hardly hide her impatience. ‘We’ll see him tomorrow. Go out on your date and have fun.’

  She was keen to get rid of Tara because there was something she’d been dying to discuss with Joe since the previous day.

  ‘OK. See you later.’

  ‘Have a nice time. ‘Bye.’

  The door slammed.

  72

  ‘Joe?’

  ‘Mmmm.’

  ‘Did anything ever happen with you and Angie? Angie at work.’

  Katherine felt him go very still, as though his blood had stopped flowing, then he moved and sat up properly on the couch. He looked at her and his face was sad.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ she lied, quickly. ‘It’s none of my business, really, but she saw us when we came in together yesterday morning and asked me if I was seeing you. And I said I wasn’t but she seemed upset. So… I wondered if anything happened with the two of you. Did it?’

  He looked at her with infinite tenderness, then frowned as though in pain. He opened his mouth to speak and she watched, willing him to say no. ‘Yes,’ he said, and she felt a heavy stone plummet through her. Don’t overreact, she begged herself. Please don’t turn into a bunny-boiler.

  ‘How long?’ Her heart was pounding. ‘I mean, what happ – I mean, did you go out with each other for a long time? Were you in love?’

  ‘No.’ He said kind of wearily. ‘Nothing like that. It was just one night.’

  One night was bad enough, she thought, her soul corroding with jealous agony. She thought of Angie’s lovely figure and wanted to kill Joe. And she had a horrible inkling she knew which night it was too. That’s what made it so bad. The day after she’d accused him of sexual harassment he’d gone for a drink with Angie and shown up at the office the next day wearing the same clothes. She’d had a bad feeling then and she had a worse one now. On and off during the last five months she’d thought about asking Joe what had happened, but she hadn’t dared in case the answer wasn’t what she wanted to hear. But after seeing how upset Angie had been, she had no choice.

  ‘I shouldn’t have,’ Joe said, miserably. ‘It’s not the kind of thing I’d normally do. But I’m a human being and I make mistakes.’

  ‘I’m sure Angie Hiller wouldn’t like to hear of herself being referred to as a mistake,’ Katherine said haughtily.

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that. But getting involved with her was.’

  ‘Involved? I thought it was only one night.’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘Must have been pretty intense if you’re talking about being –’ she took a deep breath before spitting contemptuously ‘– involved.’

  ‘It’s just a word. Obviously the wrong one.’

  Katherine held her breath, waiting for him to tell her that all he’d done was kiss her or that he’d slept on the couch or that he’d been too drunk to perform. But he didn’t, so she asked, ‘So you slept with her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What I mean is, you had sex with her?’ She felt she was going to throw up.

  He nodded. Yes.

  Her seasick stomach churned faster. ‘And then you went around and told everyone to call her Gillette. That’s very mature, Joe.’

  ‘I didn’t.’ He looked alarmed and disgusted. ‘I don’t know who started that – Myles, probably – but it was nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Well, you obviously went around telling everyone you fucked her. Very nice, Joe!’

  ‘I didn’t tell anyone. Angie told Myles, if you must know.’

  ‘So did you see her again?’

  ‘Not in that way. The following morning we talked about it, I explained that I was sorry it happened and that it wouldn’t happen again.’

  ‘And how do you think she felt?’ A sharp, vicious little upsurge of rage maddened her. ‘You get her into bed, screw her, then tell her once is enough. How gentlemanly.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘For what?’ she said, coldly. ‘You’re a free agent.’

  ‘Please don’t be like this,’ he said, softly.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Why are you so angry? We weren’t seeing each other then. In fact, it was just after you implied I was sexually harassing you –’

  I know, she wanted to scream.

  ‘– and I thought you didn’t give a toss about me. And, to be honest, Katherine, I was really cut up –’

  ‘And what other way to deal with it than sleep with another woman. Oh, how like a man.’

  ‘It shouldn’t have happened,’ he repeated. ‘I was sorry it did. It’s no excuse but I was drunk and cut up. I was out of order, I was wrong, I made a mistake. People do.’

  She clamped her mouth in a hard, cold line.

  ‘Everyone has a past, you know,’ he said, gently. ‘No one comes to a relationship with a clean slate.’

  Still she wouldn’t speak. Then rent the silence by snarling, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I tried. But you told me that you didn’t want to discuss our past romances, remember?’

  ‘Yes, but… I only meant that I didn’t want to tell you about mine. I wanted to hear about yours.’

  He sighed. ‘That’s not really fair, is it, Katherine?’

  ‘You told me about Lindsay,’ she accused, changing tack. ‘If you told me about Lindsay, why didn’t you tell me about Angie?’

  ‘I tried,’ he exclaimed. ‘But you told me you needed time and that you found it hard to trust. So I respected that. I tried not to push anything or move things too fast for you –’

  ‘How do you think I feel?’ she interrupted. ‘I’ve been going in to work day in, day out, and now I find out that Angie Hiller was having a good laugh at me all along because she slept with my boyfriend.’

  ‘But she didn’t know about us. And why would she laugh? You’re the one who’s my girlfriend, not Angie.’

  ‘Oh, so I’m the lucky one, am I?’ she sneered.

  She knew she was out of control, that she was in danger of ruining everything, but she couldn’t stop herself. She heard the sour, spiky words spilling from her, felt them relieve and burn, but couldn’t stem the flow.

  ‘Katherine,’ he crooned, in a low voice, ‘if you’re worried that it would ever happen again or that I would ever be unfaithful to you, you are way, way wrong. I’m not just saying this now because you’re angry with me, but the way I feel about you is –’ Joe stopped. He’d thought he’d heard the sound of a key jiggling in the lock. Seconds later Tara burst into the room, with what seemed like an army of people. His heart sank. The sooner Tara got her own place the better.

  As Joe tried to paste on a happy face for the visitors, Tara chattered enthusiastically, gesturing to the three people standing behind her. ‘We were just passing and I thought it might be nice for you to meet, because you’ve all heard about each other. This is Amy from my work and this is Benjy…’ She paused and mouthed exaggeratedly, ‘My fella,’ at Katherine and Joe, then discreetly clutched her stomach and rolled her eyes, indicating the desire to puke. And continued, ‘And this is…’

  Then Joe got a shock. He recognized the third person. It was impossible not to. He almost filled th
e room with his huge shoulders and great height and long red hair. It was that spoilt-brat actor from the butter commercial, Lorcan something-or-other.

  Lorcan had obviously recognized Joe also, because he interrupted the introductions by exclaiming, in loud surprise, ‘Hey, I know you.’

  Joe sighed and braced himself for unpleasantness. Until something filled him with inexplicable fear. He’d followed the line of Lorcan’s gaze and saw that Lorcan wasn’t talking to him. He was talking to Katherine.

  73

  Katherine was death-white. ‘Hello,’ she said faintly.

  ‘Hi.’ Lorcan grinned, clicking his fingers as he tried to remember her name. He just couldn’t place where he knew her from but he suspected that at some point in the past he’d had sex with her. What a guy!

  Tara’s excited introductions stopped abruptly as she picked up that another dynamic had taken over, that she was no longer in charge. ‘Do you two know each other?’ she hooted, in surprise, looking from Katherine to Lorcan and back again.

  ‘Seems to me we do.’ Lorcan gave Katherine an intimate smile. ‘Do we?’

  She nodded.

  At that, for no obvious reason, the mood in the room turned. Joe sat frozen and fearful on the couch. Mid-floor, Benjy, Amy and Tara stood silent and unsmiling. Viscous, impenetrable emotion radiated from Katherine.

  ‘I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on,’ Tara said gaily, desperate to dispel the heavy, ominous confusion. But it seemed to make everyone even more tense. Behind her Tara could sense Amy’s fear. Smell it, in fact.

  ‘You’re… ah… um…’ Lorcan tried to remember the girl’s name. Jessica? Inez? Mary? Christ, it could be anything. The catch-all ‘Babe’ had saved Lorcan’s life on many occasions, especially those mornings when he woke up and couldn’t remember the name of the woman lying beside him, but it wasn’t going to work here. And where the hell did he know her from exactly? ‘I’m hopeless with names,’ Lorcan smiled his please-forgive-me smile as he looked down on Katherine slumped in a daze. She was a cute little thing, actually, he wouldn’t mind refreshing his memory!

  Despite her shock, Katherine was raging with herself. How many times had she prayed for this moment when she finally met him again and pretended that she hadn’t a clue who he was? How many years had she practised reducing grown men to frightened children with one arch of her perfectly shaped eyebrow, just so that when the time came she’d be able to use it on him? And now she couldn’t even raise her head from the back of the couch.

  More shaming than her physical debilitation was that she wanted him to remember her. Trembling, she watched, willing him at least to know her name. But it had been a long time ago…

  ‘It’s Katherine,’ she whispered.

  With a dazzling smile Lorcan smacked the palm of his hand against his forehead. ‘Of course it is. Katherine, now I remember you.’

  ‘That’s Katherine with a K,’ Katherine emphasized slowly.

  Lorcan repeated, with an indulgent grin, ‘That’s right, Katherine with a…’ Abruptly, he paused, the blood draining from his face. He’d just remembered who she was. Christ! Instantly he regretted having ever opened his mouth about semi-recognizing her. ‘You look different,’ he blurted.

  ‘It was a long time ago.’

  ‘Yeah, it was, wasn’t it? It must be, at least, let me see, seven years.’

  ‘Twelve and a half,’ she said, before she could stop herself. Then she really, really hated herself. How could she have been so transparent?

  ‘You’ve been keeping track.’ Lorcan laughed nervously. He was now very, very keen to leave, but as he started moving towards the door, he noticed the man sitting beside Katherine with a K. Holy Jesus, what was going on here? It was the pretty-boy exec who’d had him thrown off the butter ad. With sudden, heart-clenching paranoia, Lorcan wondered if this was a set-up. A type of court, or a roll-call of his life? His past finally running him to ground? Were there several more pissed-off women and disgruntled ex-colleagues lurking in the bedroom, ready to make an appearance? Then he told himself to stop being stupid. Coincidence. That’s all it was. ‘Hey,’ he tried to hide his anxiety with raucous, belittling laughter, ‘it’s Joe, Joe Roth.’

  ‘Lockery Liggery.’ Joe nodded with hostile politeness. ‘What a surprise.’

  ‘The name’s Lorcan.’

  ‘Isn’t that what I said?’ Joe’s innocent tone fooled no one.

  A gleam appeared in Lorcan’s eye. He hadn’t forgotten the humiliation he’d suffered on the day of the ad, or the poverty he’d lived in since, or the career that had remained in the doldrums.

  ‘Are you two…?’ Lorcan slowly moved his finger between Katherine and Joe.

  ‘Are we two what?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Going out with each other?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’ Joe asked politely.

  ‘No, don’t tell me, you’re married’ Lorcan laughed.

  ‘We’re not married,’ Katherine said, her voice small and faraway.

  ‘Great!’ Lorcan said heartily. Then, to general alarm, he sat down on the other side of Katherine and, with slow deliberation, kissed her cheek. ‘Still hope for me, so.’

  Amy made a tiny, anguished noise and Joe started angrily. ‘Just a –’

  But, as everyone watched, stricken with disbelief, Katherine gave her shoulder to Joe and turned, like a flower reaching for the sun, towards Lorcan.

  74

  She’d never been able to resist him and she wasn’t about to start now.

  She’d been almost nineteen, standing at a bar in Limerick, earnestly chatting to a lady she worked with, when Lorcan had first spotted her. He’d been feeling bored and irritable, like a cat without a bird, and suddenly the ennui lifted. ‘Look at that cute little girl there.’ He elbowed his friend, Jack.

  ‘She doesn’t look like your usual type,’ Jack said, in surprise.

  ‘She’s a girl,’ Lorcan pointed out. ‘That makes her my usual type. Cover me, I’m going in.’

  When Delores, the woman she was with, went to get cigarettes, Katherine was surprised to hear a mellow, chocolatey voice behind her asking intimately, ‘Did it hurt?’

  Startled, she turned. And found herself looking into the face of the most handsome man she’d ever seen in her – admittedly sheltered – life. He was lounging, elbow on the bar, smiling down at her, burning her face with his naked admiration. ‘Did what hurt?’

  He paused and fixed his sherry-dark eyes on her intently. ‘When you fell from Heaven.’

  She flushed, as she wondered if she was being ‘chatted-up’. If she was, it was a first. ‘I’m not from Heaven. I’m from Knockavoy.’ She’d always known she wasn’t very witty but, nevertheless, she was still bitterly disappointed with her answer.

  But Lorcan laughed. ‘I love that. “I’m not from Heaven, I’m from Knockavoy.” That’s a good one.’

  Some sort of nameless good feeling started to warm Katherine.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Lorcan asked, softly.

  ‘Katherine. That’s Katherine with a K,’ she added, with a solemnity that enchanted him.

  ‘And I’m Lorcan. Lorcan with an L.’

  She giggled, entertained at the thought. ‘It’s hardly likely to be Lorcan with a K. Unless,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘unless the “K” was silent.’

  Then she giggled again and Lorcan looked at her small white teeth, her dewy, make-up-free skin, her straight, shining hair, her little-girl self-possession, and felt the old rush. He knew he’d have to handle this one delicately because there was a purity about her, a cleanness. Not just with her appearance but with her behaviour: no coquettish lowering of her eyelids, no double-entendres, no flirty pouts. He was powerfully attracted to her air of virtue. Because he wanted to sully it.

  ‘So tell me, Katherine with a K, what brings you to Limerick?’

  ‘I’m training to be an accountant,’ she said, proudly.

  He managed to give the appearance of acute interest as he
asked all about her, and got the full nine yards. How she’d got great results in her Leaving Cert, had been living in Limerick for nine months, how lucky she’d been to get her placement in Good and Elder, how she lived in a nice bedsit with her own kettle, how she missed her two best friends in Knockavoy, Tara and Fintan, but that she sometimes managed to ring them from her office and she went home every second weekend.

  ‘Why don’t they come and work in Limerick?’ Lorcan asked, all concern.

  ‘They’ve got jobs in the hotel at home. They’re saving to go abroad.’

  ‘Well, I hope they at least come and visit you.’

  ‘Not really,’ she explained awkwardly. ‘You see, they’ve to work most Saturday nights and I’ve to work during the week, and study at night, so there wouldn’t be much point…’

  ‘And the people you work with? Are they nice?’

  ‘Well, yes.’ Katherine flicked a glance around her and lowered her voice conspiratorially. ‘It’s just that they’re all a bit old.’

  ‘So you don’t have many friends here?’

  ‘Not many, I suppose.’

  That didn’t stop Katherine introducing Lorcan to the bunch of dusty old fogies she was with, and he was forced to make conversation with them for ages. When he could take no more he leant close to her ear. ‘Why don’t you and I escape,’ he whispered, ‘and go somewhere we can have a proper conversation?’ Once out on the street, Lorcan suggested casually, ‘Let’s go to your place.’

  Katherine paused. Did he take her for some thick little girl just up from the country? ‘No,’ she said, firmly. ‘We’ll go to another bar.’

  Lorcan burst out laughing. ‘There’s no flies on you, Katherine with a K. Quite right to be careful, but you can trust me.’

  ‘But you would say that!’

  ‘Do I look like a rapist?’ he asked, in wounded innocence, spreading his arms wide beseechingly.

  ‘How would I know what a rapist looks like?’ she asked, tartly.

  Lorcan stopped, put his big hands on her tiny shoulders and moved himself close to her. ‘I wouldn’t hurt you,’ he promised intently, in his low, melodic voice. ‘I mean it.’