Page 90 of Fling

‘You’re right. It seems like everyone is getting the ride except me! Even my mother has more sex appeal, apparently!’ Tara laughed.

‘Well, maybe you should go and shake what your mama gave ya,’ Shannon laughed.

‘You’re right. I’m not going to let Colin’s betrayal define me. I’m a strong feminist and I’ll rise above this,’ Tara said confidently.

‘Ah, pet, you’re not still a feminist after all these years, are ya?’ Shannon asked.

‘Mam, of course I believe that women are equal to men!’ Tara said, shocked.

‘But, pet, that doesn’t mean men are equal to women. I’d hate for us women to have to lower ourselves down to equality with men,’ Shannon smiled.

‘You had me worried there for a minute, Mam,’ Tara laughed.

‘Well, your worrying stops now. After that tarot reading, it’s clear what you have to do.’

‘I have to meet Jack. I have to find out who he is,’ Tara said with certainty.

‘And never forget what I’ve always taught you, pet,’ Shannon said, wise as ever. ‘Everything happens for a reason.’

Chapter 30

While Tara was receiving spiritual advice from her mother, Colin found himself waking up to the mother of all hangovers. His head pounded like a hundred drums at once and his mouth felt like a bag of sand. He got up off the couch and immediately began gulping down as much water as he could from the kitchen sink. His condition improved slightly but he was still far from over The Fear.

He had drunk himself into a hole when Tara had stormed off and the events of the night before were suddenly coming back to him. The things Tara had said came flooding back and he wasn’t sure whether or not she had come home after storming off.

‘Tara?’ he shouted through the empty house. There was no reply.

He knew things must have been bad if she hadn’t come home. He remembered her last words before she left. Something about her going to have an affair of her own. Surely that was just an empty threat to try and hurt him. Still, where the hell was she?

Colin took out his phone and immediately called her. The call rang once and then went straight to voicemail, as if she had denied the call.

‘Hi, you’ve reached Tara. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you,’ her voicemail said.

‘Tara, it’s Colin. Where are you? Please come home so we can talk through this. I love you,’ Colin said, before hanging up.

When he walked back into the living room, he registered the pub signs on the floor and remembered that Tara had thrown them at him. He knew the least he could do was take down the rest of the signs and dismantle his man cave. He needed to fix the mess he had made. He had to do everything in his power to save his marriage to the love of his life. He gathered them all up and stacked them into a pile.

While carrying the signs to the shed, Colin saw his motorbike lying sideways on the ground and remembered that Tara had tried to destroy it. Although she had given it a few decent whacks, he knew it had survived. He wasn’t sure, however, if the same was true for his marriage. His wife had disappeared without telling him where she was going and he honestly wasn’t sure if she was coming back. She would return to the house eventually, of course, but he wondered if she would return to him.

Even though he hadn’t slept with Claire, he knew the optics of the situation didn’t help his case. Tara had witnessed him go into a hotel room while lying to her with an alibi of working late. If a jury was to assess the situation, he wouldn’t have a hope. He may not have been guilty, but that didn’t make him innocent. Despite not believing in a higher power, Colin felt as if he was experiencing some kind of divine punishment. He had not committed adultery but he had coveted his neighbour’s wife. The fact that two of the ten commandments were about cheating meant there was no escaping judgement.

He felt an overwhelming sense of regret. The entire idea of Fling suddenly seemed so sordid. The fact that he had put his marriage on the line for another woman, and one who had stood him up twice, made him breathlessly angry, winded by his own self-contempt. And yet, he still couldn’t banish thoughts of Claire from his mind. Her siren call was still ringing in his ear despite the fact she had already destroyed his ship. He wanted to punch a stone wall and break every bone in his hand. The hand that had downloaded Fling in the first place. The once idle hand that had become the devil’s plaything.

Colin put his stack of pub signs on the bike’s seat and wheeled the remnants of his manhood back into the shed from whence it came. He leaned it up against the back wall and sat down on the floor beside some old storage boxes. He wondered if there was any chance of Tara forgiving him. She was hurt, and she did have a tendency to nurse grudges. ‘I forgive but I don’t forget,’ she would often say.

He considered telling her everything when she came home. From downloading Fling, to matching with Claire, to trying to meet her for a drink and booking the hotel room just in case she wanted to have sex. But as he thought about the events in chronological order, it made him seem like a monster. His actions suddenly seemed so premeditated. If an affair had just happened in the spur of the moment, it might have been more understandable, but Colin had come upon many junctions to turn off the road to ruin.

He just hadn’t taken them.

To his left, Colin could see a storage box that read Tara: College. He dragged it towards him and opened the box. The first thing he saw in the box was Tara’s old Magic 8 Ball. He used to make fun of her for having so much faith in the plastic oracle. He smiled as he picked it up and pondered what he would ask it.

‘Is Tara the love of my life?’ he said, shaking the ball.

YES, DEFINITELY, the ball read.

‘OK . . .’ Colin said, pondering once again. ‘Are my feelings for Claire real?’

YES

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