Free Last Chance Saloon by Marian Keyes Page A

suspected she’d put on a lot of weight since then.
    ‘Ah, go on.’
    ‘After we’ve eaten,’ she promised, hoping he’d forget about it. ‘Dinner is served!’
    She ushered him to the candlelit table.
    ‘Shepherd’s pie?’ Thomas asked suspiciously.
    ‘The surprise,’ Tara said happily, ‘is that mine is 127 per cent fat-free and yours is the standard issue fat-bastard one.’
    ‘Champion.’
    ‘Turn off the telly, please.’
    ‘But it’s
Gladiators
.’
    ‘So it is.’
    With the candles flickering, they watched
Gladiators
and silently ate their dinner. When Thomas didn’t grumble wistfully, ‘That Ulrika Johnson, she’s right fit,’ it was safe for Tara to beam, ‘This is romantic. We should do it more often.’
    After their individual blackcurrant cheesecakes (Tara’s 210 per cent fat-free, Thomas’s the normal one), Thomas once again asked Tara to put on her red dress. With mild foreboding, she went to the bedroom where she discovered that, as she’dfeared, she’d expanded somewhat since the last time she’d worn it. Pulling in her stomach and holding her breath, she displayed herself to Thomas.
    ‘Let’s have a look at you,’ he said proudly.
    His eyes flickered over her, and Tara noticed that he lingered slightly too long on her stomach. She glanced down and saw that the dress was ruched across her too-big belly. But she couldn’t suck in any further. Desperately she hoped that Thomas wasn’t going to go into one of his troughs on account of her weight. Tara’s size depressed her, but it depressed Thomas even more, and Thomas in a good mood was fine, but in a bad mood, he was very bad indeed.
    ‘It looks different,’ Thomas declared, confused and annoyed.
    Two years before, when he got off with Tara, he hadn’t been able to believe his luck. Top marks for her blonde hair, generous bosom and slim waist, hips and legs. Like many tabloid-indoctrinated men, he had high standards and rigid ideas about what ‘qualities’ his ideal girlfriend should have.
    But as soon as Tara settled back into being someone’s girlfriend, the horror of Alasdair’s rejection receded, and she began to eat again. She’d put on weight much more quickly than she’d lost it, and Thomas was bitterly disappointed. Why did women always let him down? In an attempt to recreate that perfect era, he spent a lot of time and energy trying to streamline Tara. Urging her to go running, suggesting that she join a gym, making her feel guilty whenever she ate something. Although he was no Twiggy himself. ‘Watch him,’ the dinner ladies at his school warned each other. ‘Especially on a Thursday.’ (Jam roly-poly day.) ‘He’d have the kids’ share if he thought no one would notice.’
    But despite his own tubbiness, his initial frantic devotion to Tara had waned as her size had waxed. ‘Aw, Tara,’ he grumbled, as he surveyed the red dress from all angles. ‘You look like you’ve a bun in the oven. When I first met you, you were right sexy.’
    ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’ She laughed.
    ‘You bludeh were, but if I saw you now, I’d have nowt to do with you.’
    ‘I wouldn’t blame you,’ she said lightly. ‘I’d have nowt to do with myself if I’d any choice.’
    ‘Six months gone,’ he said, nodding at her stomach. ‘That’s what you look like.’
    ‘Seven, more like,’ she suggested, with a rueful grin.
    But when he didn’t chuckle, she upped the ante by suggesting, ‘Wouldn’t it be hilarious if we found out that I
was
with child. What would we do?’
    She was hoping to jolly him out of his black mood. She usually managed to. She certainly wasn’t expecting him to say, ‘
We?
’ as if he’d never heard the word before in his life.
    ‘We?’ he said again, even more surprised. ‘What would
we
do?’
    ‘Yes, we.’ Laughingly she rolled her eyes at his denseness. ‘You know, the two people responsible.’
    Thomas retorted, with a dismissive snort, ‘I’d have nowt to do with