Page 21 of A Good Heart is Hard to Find
‘And you’ve losht …lostyour bat.’
‘I’m just grateful that’s all I lost,’ I said darkly. When I carried the drinks over to Orla he followed me. (It sometimes seemed to me that he may be the reincarnation of an Irish wolfhound, except that they are the most equable of dogs and Jason had a quick temper.)
Orla was looking a little more alert.‘How was the stag night?’ she asked me.
‘I was thinking maybe supply teaching is safer.’
‘That bad?’
‘Rugby players. I was lucky to escape relatively unscathed, except for the mental scars, and poor Clive is a goner.’
‘Clive?’ she asked, puzzled.
‘My vampire bat.’
‘Oh? Well, he’s made of rubber, isn’t he? He’ll probably bounce back.’
‘I don’t think so, and I don’t intend going back to findout. How did yours go?’
‘Birthday party. They were drunk and persistent – made me sing “Happy Birthday” three times, with lots of pouting, so I’m all pouted out. But please, Cass, don’t stop doing the Crypt-ograms. You’re one of my most popular acts.’
‘What do you mean, “one of”? You’ve only got four including yourself.’
‘Yes, but I’m still building the business. And I promise not to send youon any more stag nights,’ she wheedled.
‘’Cept mine,’ slurred Jason, who had been sitting sleepily staring down into his glass looking deceptively cuddly, though actually those sudden bursts of bad temper were probably what had finally driven Tanya away. Who wants to live with a volcano?
‘Jason looks like Alice’s dormouse,’ Orla observed critically.
‘More like a Wookie.’
‘Are you getting married,Jason?’ she asked.
‘When Cass says the word.’
‘The word isno,’ I said automatically. ‘And not only are you not divorced, Jason, you know you don’t really want to marry me.’
‘Come on, Cass!’ he said, smiling at me. ‘Marry me, live with me – whatever you want!’
He really is rather attractive in a large, loose-limbed, craggy way.
‘Why waste any more of your life waiting for an old man, whenyou could be sharing it with me?’
‘He’s not an old man,’ I objected automatically, thoughMax was certainly no spring chicken. He was a whole decade older than Jason and me, andourdewy bloom of youth had long since evaporated.
Somehow this didn’t seem the right moment to tell them that my lover was Suddenly Single but hadn’t bothered to inform me of the fact, though it might have explainedjust why I found it balm to my wounded feelings to have Jason looking at me that night as though I was everything he’d ever wanted for Christmas.
Perhaps I might even have given him just a bit of encouragement … unconsciously, of course, for my feelings for him were really more of the sisterly variety.
And after a couple of drinks I certainly began to wonder just why I was being faithful tosomeone who was, as Orla often pointed out, unfaithful. Who had made promises he hadn’t kept, and hidden me in a sort of limbo for half my life (and just aboutallmy reproductive life).
Could there be that many eggs left in the basket at forty-four and counting? How many of the little lions had climbed off and ambled away, yawning? For we are born with all the eggs we’ll ever have, and no onehad ever gone to work on my Year of the Lion cache. I’d be even older by the time Max came back and we got married –ifhe came back and wedidfinally get married – and it might be too late even then.
Too late.
Also to be taken into the reckoning was Max’s performance in bed, which had declined over the last few years to the disheartening point where I thought the sight of his golf clubs excitedhim more than I did. This was not likely to help.
I was starting to feel really dismal, not to mention a teeny touch of the bitter and twisted. I may even have been muttering under my breath like a malevolent hag. It was the perfect mood for my graveyard shift, though, so wrapping warmly in my purple velvet cloak I set off.
