Last Chance Saloon Read Free Page A

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 old gracefully. He’ll be begging for the surgeon’s knife, they thought in grim satisfaction.
    ‘ “An aged face has so much character,” ’ Tara mimicked. ‘That’s good coming from the man who nearly had to move into a bigger flat to house his Clinique collection. A curator is what your bathroom needs. You could nearly open it to the public.’
    ‘Mee-yow!’ Fintan laughed. (Some phrases had survived his re-reinvention.)
    Then the conversation moved inexorably on to the ticking of their biological clocks.
    ‘I would love to have a baby,’ Liv said wistfully. ‘I hate having a womb on hold.’
    ‘No!’ Katherine chided. ‘You’re only looking for fulfilment and all you’ll get is misery.’
    ‘Don’t worry. It’s not going to happen,’ Liv mourned. ‘Not while my boyfriend is married to someone else. And lives in Sweden.’
    ‘At least you
have
a boyfriend,’ Fintan said cheerfully. ‘Not like Katherine here. How long is it, Katherine, since you did the nasty?’ Katherine simply smiled mysteriously and Fintan sighed. ‘What are we to do with you? It’s not like you don’t get offers from sexy men.’
    Katherine smiled again, this time slightly more tightly.
    ‘You know, I’d love a baby,’ Fintan admitted. ‘It’s my one big regret about being a pouf.’
    ‘But you can,’ Tara cheered. ‘Find an obliging woman, do a rent-a-womb contract and away you go.’
    ‘Too true. What about one of you? Katherine?’
    ‘No,’ Katherine said shortly. ‘I’m never having children.’
    Fintan laughed at her disgusted expression. ‘The love of a good man, that’ll change your mind. What about you, Tara?Feel the old womb twang at the thought of some baby-carrying action?’
    ‘Yes, no… I don’t know, maybe,’ Tara dithered. ‘But, let’s face it, I can hardly take care of myself. Having to wash, feed and dress someone else would be the undoing of