Last Chance Saloon Read Free

giants that she’d bring around and introduce.
    But a few days after Liv moved in, the reason for her enthusiasm became clear. To the alarm and consternation of Tara and Katherine, she asked if she could accompany them to Mass, or join them for the evening rosary. It turned out that Liv was searching for some kind of meaning to her life. She’d temporarily run aground on the rocks of psychotherapy, was hanging all her hopes on spiritual enlightenment, and hoped that the girls’ Catholicism might rub off on her.
    ‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ Katherine gently explained, ‘but we’re lapsed Catholics.’
    ‘Lapsed!’ Tara exclaimed. ‘What are you talking about?’
    Katherine looked surprised. She certainly hadn’t seen any signs of a recent renewal in Tara’s faith.
    ‘Lapsed isn’t a strong enough word!’ Tara finally elaborated. ‘
Col
lapsed would be more like it.’
    Liv eventually got over her disappointment. And although she spent a disproportionate amount of time discussing reincarnation with the Sikh newsagent, in most other ways she was perfectly normal. She had boyfriends, hangovers, threatening letters from her credit-card company, and a wardrobe full of clothes that she bought in the 70-per-cent-off sales, then never wore.
    She shared the flat with Tara and Katherine for three and a half years until she decided to try and banish her existentialache by buying a place of her own. But she’d spent every evening of her first six months as a home-owner around at Tara’s and Katherine’s, crying and saying how lonely it was living by herself. And she’d still be at it, if Katherine and Tara hadn’t moved out of the flat and gone their separate ways.

2
    ‘So is it just the four of us?’ Fintan sounded surprised.
    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 parentswho 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