Last Chance Saloon Read Free Page B

me. I’m just too immature.’
    ‘Look at what happened to poor Emma,’ Katherine agreed. Emma, an old friend, had been the goodest of good-time girls, until she had two babies in quick succession. ‘Once upon a time she was
fabulous
. Now she looks like an eco-warrior.’
    ‘The loss of a good woman,’ said Tara. ‘No time to wash her hair because she’s busy wiping bums. But she’s happy.’
    ‘Think of Gerri,’ Katherine reminded. Gerri was another erstwhile party-girl who’d had a baby and promptly turned into one herself. ‘She’s completely lost the ability to speak like an adult.’
    ‘But she’s potty-trained and can count to ten,’ Liv said. ‘She’s happy too.’
    ‘Then there’s Melanie,’ Katherine said, darkly. ‘Used to be so liberal. Now she’s turned into a right-wing Fascist who’d give the National Front a run for their money. That’s what having a child can do to you. She’s so busy signing petitions against suspected paedophiles that she’s forgotten who she is.’
    ‘But think what it would be like to hold your own little baby in your arms,’ Liv said, softly. ‘The joy! The happiness!’
    ‘Mush alert!’ Tara giggled. ‘She’s going all mushy. Stop her, someone.’
    ‘What did Thomas give you for your birthday, Tara?’ To stop Liv from bursting into broody tears, Katherine spoke before thinking.
    ‘A ten-shilling note?’ Fintan suggested.
    ‘Ten shillings?’ Tara scoffed. ‘Have sense. He’d never be that flash,’ she added. ‘A farthing would be more like it.’ She banged her fist on the table and, in a Yorkshire accent, announced, ‘I’m not mean, I’m just careful.’ She sounded uncannily like Thomas.
    ‘A flowerpot covered in Polyfilla, with shells stuck to it, that he’d done himself? A used biro?’ Fintan pressed.
    ‘He gave me a Thomas Holmes special.’ Tara reverted to her normal voice. ‘A jar of magnolia hand cream and a promise of liposuction when he wins the lottery.’
    ‘Isn’t he hilarious?’ Fintan said sarcastically.
    ‘Was it a
new
jar of hand cream?’ Katherine kept her tone expressionless. ‘Or did he steal it from the ladies’ toilets at work?’
    ‘Please!’ Tara was disgusted. ‘Of course it wasn’t new. It’s the same one he gave me last Christmas. I just threw it in the bottom of the wardrobe and he obviously found it and recycled it.’
    ‘What a meaner!’ Liv couldn’t stop herself exclaiming.
    ‘He’s
not
a meaner,’ Tara objected.
    Liv looked surprised. Usually Tara was the first person to say what a tightwad Thomas was, beating everyone else to it, to show how much she didn’t mind.
    ‘He’s a mean
ie
,’ Tara finished. ‘Come on, Liv, say it.’
    ‘Thomas is a mean
ie
,’ Liv parroted. ‘Thank you, Tara.’
    ‘Anyway, you can see his point,’ Tara said. ‘They
are
all moneymaking rackets – Christmas, Valentine’s Day, birthdays, all that lark. I admire him for refusing to be manipulated. And it doesn’t mean he never buys me presents. A few weeks ago, unprompted, he bought me a lovely furry hot-water bottle for my period pains.’
    ‘Too stingy to buy you Solpadeine every month, more like,’ Fintan scorned.
    ‘Ah, don’t.’ Tara half laughed. ‘You don’t see what I see.’
    ‘So what do you see?’
    ‘I know he seems very gruff, but actually he can be very sweet. Sometimes,’ she looked slightly sheepish at this, ‘he tells me lovely bedtime stories about a bear called Ernest.’
    ‘Is that a euphemism for his willy?’ Fintan asked suspiciously. ‘Does Ernest do a lot of hiding in dark caves?’
    ‘I can see I’m wasting my time here.’ Tara giggled. ‘Have you any gossip? Come on, tell us a scurrilous story about someone famous.’
    In Fintan’s job, as right-hand man to Carmella Garcia, a coke-fiend Spanish designer who’d been hailed simultaneously as a stunning genius and a mad bitch, he was privy to all sorts of startling information about the rich and