Fur Coat No Knickers (25 page)

As my mind spun, something
else began to trouble me. It suddenly occurred to me that the response time from my life-saving emergency team was suspiciously short. They also seemed to be very knowledgeable about my ordeal.
What was that all about?

‘Excuse me
,
you two,’ I broke in, as the pair argued urgently about a strategy to destroy Travis. ‘How
did
you two even get in here, and so quickly after this all happened?’

‘Ah yes, well, er
r… you see - we were, err… doing a stock count upstairs,’ fumbled James, looking over at Siobhan for support. ‘Weren't we
Siobhan?’

Even though Siobhan nodded enthusiastically
, it was easy to see this was a blatant fabrication.

‘There’s nothing up there but cobwebs and sawdust
, you fibbing, spying toe-rags!’ I shrieked.

‘Oh
, okay, don’t go on about it, woman,’ said Siobhan, waving away my protest. ‘We just wanted to make sure that you were okay, isn't that right, James? Which reminds me, it’s all on your CCTV if you still wanted to go to the press with a sex tape. We could blur your face out and everything. You would make a fortune.
’

James turned to me with a curious pout on his face. Oblivious to my baleful look,
he leaned in conspiratorially; ‘Would now be the wrong time to say,
I told you so
about your back garden?
Any hole is a goal,
you know. I saw your face change to a very peculiar shade… It did that to me the first time, but I never looked back since.’

I cupped my face in shame,
‘Oh God… you saw that as well? Is
nothing
sacred?’

‘H
mm… no,’ they both shrugged in turn. ‘Not now we have CCTV and the internet. It could even go viral with that kinda footage,’ they both agreed, nodding.

‘Carry on,’ egged Siobhan, turning excitedly to James. ‘Tell us more about
your
first time James.’ 

Not on
e to turn down a request for a life story, James sighed and gave a huge grin, ‘Well, if you insist. See… I knew that I wasn't a diner for vagina after my first and
only
hetro encounter. The smelly bitch tasted like a nine-volt battery. I actually had to gargle white spirit to get rid of the taste.’

‘I’ve never so much as even had a
suppository up there,’ I spluttered, but the words fell on deaf ears. James’ story was clearly far more entertaining. ‘He committed one of the worst sins possible under the eyes of the heavenly father and worst of all,’ I whispered, sobbing, ‘I didn’t exactly
hate
it either.’

‘Fook o
ff,’ gasped Siobhan, still ignoring me completely. ‘We taste like batteries?’

‘He’s a complete gobshite
, doing that to me and taking my bum-ginity without my permission…’ I carried on, largely to myself, ‘an outrageous invasion of the worst kind.’

The phrase ‘bum-ginity’ seemed to finally catch their attention and they both swung round to face me.

‘Here,’ said James, ‘knock this back.’

He passed me the glass of warm
, flat wine that I had left earlier. ‘It will calm you down. Siobhan and I will clean this up. Stay calm – we’ve got everything under control.’

I felt so dirty and so used; everything was spinning around my head in a twisted mess. I was overcome with the
discrepancy of my strong commitment versus Travis’ complete lack of any loyalty whatsoever.

‘He’s a complete shambles of a very well-endowed beast,’ ranted James
, picking up the overturned chair.

‘Stamina like that would give you an early heart attack,’ added Siobhan thoughtfully, as she bent over to pick up the appointment book.

I broke out, sobbing and wailing like a banshee again. ‘But I really love him,’ I cried, ‘I will never meet anyone as gorgeous as that…
ever again.’

‘Course you will
- listen to me,’ said Siobhan. ‘Sex is like bungee jumping; you know you’re gonna enjoy it but - if he’s really butt ugly, just don’t look down.’

‘But I don’t want babies with just
anyone.
He was my last hope.’

‘Oh
, darling,’ hushed James. ‘Whilst he’s undeniably delicious looking – and, in fact, I would go so far as to say built like a human tripod, with two legs and a third
huge
stump in the middle – he’s a total shit. I mean to say; shagging you senseless and just abandoning you in split seconds like that. What a dastardly man-whore!’

‘I hate to say it,
’ agreed Siobhan, ‘but I think he planned it that way.’

‘So do I,’ whispered James, rubbing my arm tenderly. ‘Never see that poor excuse for a man
ever
again. Tomorrow, I shall wear a black sequin armband in his memory, out of respect for you of course,’ he added with a pout, clicking his tongue.

‘Shall we have a group hug?’
asked Siobhan. The thought of which, made me sob uncontrollably again.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I’m not sure how I made it through the next couple of weeks. I was in a complete daze. I certainly didn’t hear from Travis and for a short while I was happy about that. But then, once the shock wore off, I started to see things differently. Maybe he was just over-excited and on a high from winning the match and hadn’t realised how much he’d hurt my feelings. I mean, if it makes him happy, maybe a little rough sex is okay every now and then. Or worse – his silence could be his way of punishing me for that ‘faked orgasm’ text I accidently sent him at the hotel?

I had resumed text
ing him about a week after our Salon encounter, but he’d not answered even one of my increasingly desperate messages. I just couldn’t understand what I had done so wrong. I hadn’t even complained about, well… what he’d
done.

So here I was, yet again, hiding away from the world in the Glamma-Puss staffroom. I’d been doing it for so long now, no one even bothered to pop in anymore with some inane bid to cheer me up. Even the indefatigable Siobhan seemed all out of crazy ideas. James too was strangely distant. A constant pain in the pit of my stomach didn’t help my mood. It was a physical pain too, not just one of those I-have-a-broken-heart pains. Plus, the misery of it all left me feeling so horribly tired all the time.

For a few fleeting moments, I’d considered it may be the
telltale signs of early pregnancy. There might be a happy ending to that first fairy-tale night after all.
Perhaps a baby might be all I needed to tame Travis. Maybe at this stage in both our lives it would be the perfect solution to bring us together as a proper family at last.

Logically though, it couldn’t be baby pains. Bloody hell, it was only a few poxy weeks ago. It didn’t stop me hoping though
- or making an appointment to see a doctor. I didn’t want one of those blue line pregnancy tests from Boots to tell me my big moment. I wanted a white-coated hunk of a doctor to look deeply into my eyes and say: ‘Miss Ryan, I have the most incredible news. You’re pregnant.’

I
closed my eyes tight shut and muttered yet another silent prayer.

Dear God, if Travis
phones now and everything is okay, I will be so good - you’ll never believe it. I’ll go to church every Sunday and will help poor people and everything.

I waited with baited breath, my eyes still tight shut. Then, my prayer was answered. My phone rang. It was surely a miracle. My eyes flew open and my heart started hammering in my chest.

Then I saw the name on the little screen. ‘Laura’. Shit.

‘Hi Tara, do you
have time for a little chat?’ asked Laura, in her usual, patronising manner.

‘Hi
… what about?’ I asked, deliberately sounding as unfriendly as I could. I really was not in the mood for one of her lectures.

‘I’m rather concerned about you
… you seem so unhappy - and I hear that you’re spending less and less time at work,’ she continued, blithely ignoring my reaction to her call. ‘Is he worth all this heartache?’

‘I’m fine,’ I insisted, switching my tone to sound as no
nchalant as possible. Maybe this was the best way to get her to butt out of my life. ‘I’m entitled to some time off Laura. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll hear from him soon, then I’ll be okay.’

‘So you’re only
okay when you hear from him?’ she brutally continued to interrogate.

‘That’s not what I meant!’ I protested. This wasn’t going well. I didn’t have the strength or energy to see off her clever
,
psychobabble
questioning.

‘He loves me, Laura, I know he does,’ I lied, hoping this would see her off at the pass. Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound. I’d better make this sound convincing.

‘In fact, he text me last night and told me again how much I mean to him,’ I said airily
(oh I wish).
‘In fact, we had text sex till 3am!’

In actual fact, the incident in question had been weeks ago. Not long after the night in the hotel
, we’d gone through an orgasm-inducing series of messages when he’d text me out of the blue at 2am one night. But, the minute his manly-hood had cum, he was gone, leaving me to play with my lady-garden while staring at a non-responsive phone. The gobshite had disappeared off the face of the earth. All the time I was texting, ‘I’m nearly there, I’m nearly there,’ (well if I’m honest, by the time I had written the text, I wasn’t there at all). For all I knew, he had probably switched his phone off and gone to bed.

‘But Tara,’ sighed
Laura, ‘that’s not real. Did he call you? And
actually
speak with you?’

She had a point. In fact, in our entire relationship, I could count the number of times he had text me on
two hands. As for real-life calls, well that was probably only one hand’s worth. Bloody hell, I had only seen him three times in my entire life and on two of those times he had shagged me and then buggered off!

I shook my head to get rid of the unwelcome thoughts. I knew he loved me
. He’d said so, hadn’t he? It was just… well… complicated.

‘I don’t mind, because I know how much pressure he’s under,’ I began to stammer, drying up almost immediately because I couldn’t think of how else to defend him.

I could feel the tension as my sister fell silent. She always did this. It was something they taught her at ‘Shrink School’ I guess. I hated it when she did this. My mind reeled as I desperately sought ways to excuse Travis’ behaviour.

‘Laura,
he texts me as often as he can. Why would he waste his time contacting me at all if he didn’t love me?’

‘Love,’ said Laura, primly, ‘
is an
action
word. If he really loved you, he would show you.’

Lickarse!
Only
she
would know something like that. I never did get that grammar stuff at school. All those ‘action’ words, ‘doing’ words and God knows what else. Please don’t even get me started on the ‘pro-nouns’, what the feck were they? Heck, nerdy lickarse even knew how to do ‘logarithms’ - I had always thought they were some kind of street dance.

‘
So what
if he puts his actions in a text and doesn’t see me very often. Don’t you think he cares about me at all?’ I spat, recovering my poise somewhat valiantly, I thought.

‘But your so-called relationship is
purely
virtual
,
’ she said, beginning to sound exasperated. ‘At best, it’s a fantasy pantomime played out over a plastic handset.’

I sniffed hard and had to bite my tongue
to refrain from telling her to feck off.

‘I’m sure he does care about you, but he does seem wildly sporadic and inconsistent,’ she added, poking at my insecurities like they were on display.

‘Please stop confusing me with your big words, you sound like you have eaten a dictionary!’ I blurted out, trying my utmost to steady my quivering voice.

‘Okay, sorry. It just makes me feel sad when I hear you so down,’ she said, switching to h
er ‘soothing’ shrink routine. ‘It just seems that Travis is nearly
always
the cause.’

She was right,
but there was no way I would admit it. I wanted
everyone
to love him. I hated the thought of my family not approving of Travis. I would have to be careful what I told them in future.

‘Okay
… but I do really feel I have met
the one
and, you know Laura, they do say
the course of true love never runs smooth,
don’t they? We have
so
much in common. He’s a Virgo and I’m a Taurus, so we are
both
earth signs. Also both of our names begin with the letter
T.’

Warming to my theme, I prattled on excitedly.
‘If you think about it, what were the chances of us ever meeting, with him working in Ireland and me living over here? Yet, we both just happened to be out on the same night. I think the universe pulled us together. It was like fate and destiny all wrapped up in one!’

As I paused for breath, I could hear Laura sighing down the phone. She wasn’t buying it. But I needed her approval, I always did. Nicknames notwithstandin
g, I admired Laura so much. Nothing ever seemed to phase her. She always came up smelling of roses. After her husband walked out on her, she didn’t fall apart for a moment. She simply dusted herself down, went to university and studied Psychology. Now she had an amazing, high-flying career. If I could have just a drop of her drive and confidence, I’m sure I wouldn’t be in the situation I am today; hurtling towards forty, childless and in a (now clinically diagnosed) dysfunctional on - but mainly off - relationship with the world’s most elusive man.

‘It may appear that you have a lot in common,’ she continued
, ‘but these commonalities are just circumstantial - they don’t really mean anything. You’re not looking at the relationship itself.’

Each sentence was a like gunshot wound and yet she just wouldn’t stop.

‘It’s not really a relationship when you think about it. Those few conversations you have had are just hollow words typed on a mini keypad that get sent through the airwaves. Your two ‘dates’ have been extended, meaningless shagathons. You know each other more orally then emotionally. I bet you've had more conversations with his balls than his face. How can you base a loving relationship on
that
alone? Where is the effort there? Have you two even been out for a meal?’

I was devastated. My head started to throb and I felt like it was about to explode. I felt sick and dizzy and the pain in my stomach now felt like someone was stabbing me with a knitting needle. I had to end the conversation quickly.

‘Laura, I have to go now, I have an appointment at the hospital and I’m running late.’

It was tr
ue. In precisely one hour, ‘Dr. White Coat’ could step into my life and make all my dreams come true. I was vaguely aware Laura was beginning to launch into her next attack as I dug about in my handbag for my diary to double-check the time on my hospital appointment. My hand fell upon the Perspex of the small plastic vial the surgery receptionist had given me with the curt instruction to bring a urine sample. I headed for the loo and put Laura on loudspeaker, placing her on top of the cistern and flushed it (not the short flush, the long flush), drowning out her lecture, literally.

Did people really pay for this kind of demoralising bullshit?

I sighed heavily, yanking my tights and knickers down and placing the narrow vial underneath myself. Even though I could feel it was in the correct place, I just had to tuck my head down in between my legs making sure that enough urine was being collected.

It wasn't.
Instead, my wee shot out in every conceivable direction and dribbled down my hand.

For the love of God
!
I stopped mid flow and adjusted my stance.

My lady-garden used to pee out in the most beautiful
, reliable, straight and gentle stream. Now it resembled that of an old, broken showerhead; leaking and pissing all over the place. I peered through my legs, concentrated and tried again. Managing to catch the some of the spraying splutters that were shooting to the left, I screwed the lid on and popped the sample beside Laura. I inhaled deeply, shook my head, pulled up my underwear and washed my hands, only to find that she was
still
talking…

‘Okay, look, I’m sorry if it appears t
hat I’ve been a bit hard on you; it’s just… I don’t want to see you get hurt,’ Laura summarised. ‘How about you do a little work on yourself?’

‘What do you mean?’ I queried, snapping out of my r
everie about my peeing ability. I didn’t understand… I had already had more Botox than I was allowed.

‘Well, how about trying some emotional-personal develo
pment? Try and fill your life with things that don’t involve
him
, some structure of your own that fulfills and nourishes you.’

‘Structure? Actually Laura
, that’s not such a bad idea. Sheila was going on about a new nourishing filler that can plump your cheeks out, I might give that a go…’

‘Not
that
type of nourishing structure,’ sighed Laura impatiently, ‘I meant in the
emotional
sense.’

Are you serious,
I thought? I’m not exactly the happy-clappy personal therapy type. I realised quickly that if I didn’t get off the phone fast, I’d probably never get away.

There was nothing else for it. I’d have to humour her.

‘Yes, yes, that’s a great idea,’ I said, trying to sound enthusiastic, ‘well done you. You really are so clever, Laura. Thanks so much. I do have to go now, but I swear I will do some personal stuff. Call you later.’ I stabbed the hang-up button on the phone so hard, I chipped a nail.

(Sigh)… Personal feckin’ development! What the feck’s she on about now? She has no clue of how I’m feeling. In fact, I really don’t like her attitude today,
I thought, as I stuck my two fingers up at the phone.