Never Too Late (20 page)

their only cushion into the correct position so that the

weird bump on the chair didn’t stick painfully into her

back. She’d never reposition it properly in time for the

big film.

She padded across the floor in her socks and wiped

away a droplet of conditioner which had escaped from

the do-it-yourself hair conditioning treatment that consisted

of plenty of hot oil and a load of clingfilm wrapped

around your head for an hour. It made her look like an

extra from a very old episode of Star Trek but Phoebe

swore by it.

Cara opened the door and swore. ‘Shit!’ she said. The

athletic Adonis standing outside clutching a six-pack, a

tattered woollen scarf and a plastic bag, blinked long dark

eyelashes at her and shook some snow from his silky

dark hair.

‘I meant … er, shit, I didn’t hear the doorbell ring,’ Cara gasped inanely, hand going instantly to her Star Trek hair-do. ‘Er - . . did you ring often?’

‘Only once,’ said Adonis, looking bemused. ‘You’re Cara,

right?’

She nodded, still staring at the chiselled face and the

full, sensuous lips chapped endearingly by the cold.

‘I’m Ricky.’

He looked like he’d just stepped off the pitch of an

international soccer match. He was at the peak of his

physical condition, all healthy skin, shining eyes and rippling, freshly washed hair. Faded jeans, so tight they

threatened to cut off the blood supply to his legs, were

moulded to footballer’s thighs. He wore a small gold cross

on a chain around his neck and under his dark woollen

jacket was a loose white shirt with plenty of buttons

undone despite the arctic weather outside.

Cara knew her mouth was open but she couldn’t help it.

Boy Phoebe, were you ever right? she said silently. He was

gorgeous. Abso-bloody-lutely gorgeous.

She forced her jaw shut. ‘Come in.’

He moved into the tiny hall and took off his coat. As

Cara lingered to shut the door, she found herself eyeing his

bum in the spray-on jeans. It was just as perfect as the rest

of him; taut and set off by lean hips. Woof”!

‘Go on in,’ she said, pointing the way through to the

sitting room as if it was a palatial drawing room instead of

a terminally messy kitchen-cum-sitting room with a moth

eaten fake suede sofa, two shabby green armchairs and a collection of magazines and papers dumped on the glass topped table in the centre of the room. Cara was too

distracted at the thought of being caught with clingfilm on

her head to care about the state of the flat.

‘I brought beer,’ Ricky said, turning round and giving her

the sort of heart-stopping smile that made her fervently

wish she wasn’t in her oldest, grubbiest jeans and the

sweatshirt she’d worn on the bus home from Ballymoreen

that morning.

‘I’ll put it in the fridge,’ she said, ‘although it’s so cold in here we don’t really need to,’ she added, with a little giggle.

Cara, you plonker, she told herself disgustedly as she

stuffed the beer into the fridge along with the remains of

their Christmas consignment of booze. You actually giggled. All it takes is one handsome man to walk into the room and you’re giggling like some dozy sun-bedded blonde

with zero qualifications apart from a degree in men. Ugh!

‘Will I light the fire?’ Ricky offered.

And he was useful too. Cara would have swooned if she

knew how.

‘Sure. That’d be great. It’s hard to get those briquettes

going. I think they’re a dodgy batch.’

‘No problem,’ he replied, attention turned to the fireplace.

‘I’ll

tell Phoebe you’re here.’

Cara tried to exit the room as gracefully as you could

with a headful of conditioner encased in clingfilm. She

shoved open the bathroom door and was enveloped in a

cloud of steam.

‘You never told me he was that gorgeous,’ she hissed at

Phoebe as they immediately banged into each other in the

six foot by five foot space.

‘I did too,’ Phoebe said slowly, her attention on getting

her tights straight.

‘Does he have any brothers?’ Cara demanded, rubbing a

bit of steamed-up mirror to see precisely how hideous she

looked.

‘No. But he has lots of friends.’

‘If they all look like him, I’m coming with you on your

next date. Lucky cow!’ she added.

Phoebe smiled radiantly. She’d spent ages blowdrying

her hair until it was a mass of non-frizzy curls that fell

flatteringly around her face disguising her round milkmaid’s

cheeks. Wearing a short lacy skirt, shiny black tights

and a tight little floral top, none of which was suitable for

an evening in a flat with no central heating, she looked

brilliant.

Cara told her so.

‘Do you think so?’ Phoebe asked, twiddling with her bra

strap to hoist up her boobs, eyes glued critically to the

mirror.

‘Fabulous. He’ll be in paroxysms of lust as soon as he

sees you. Maybe I should go out for the evening and give

you two the chance to have fun on your own?’

‘No,’ Phoebe said firmly. ‘We’re all watching Gone With

The Wind. I told him we were having an evening in. He’s

broke too, so we’ve no money to go out.’

‘I’ll wash the gunk from my hair,’ Cara said, hanging her

head over the bath and reaching for the shower attachment.

Scarlett

had married poor Charles Hamilton and was

living it up in Atlanta purely to spite Ashley Wilkes by the

time Cara returned to the sitting room. Her hair was

half-dry, she’d changed into a clean sweatshirt and had

borrowed some of Phoebe’s LouLou perfume. She didn’t

know why she’d bothered to make herself look more

presentable. Ricky was Phoebe’s boyfriend after all, and

Cara would have rather run around Leinster Square naked in the snow than steal her flatmate’s man, but when he’d turned up and found her looking as if she’d just been

bathing in turkey fat after spending the day working as a

brickie, Cara had felt mortified. She didn’t want this

handsome bloke to think she was a slovenly slapper who

thought washing powder was rationed.

Especially since Phoebe had made such an effort and

looked ten times dressier than she usually did when she

wasn’t stuck behind the bank counter doling out crisp

tenners. Phoebe’s weekend uniform was jeans and a sweatshirt,

just like Cara’s. For slobbing around watching TV, the

pair of them generally wore their ragged towelling dressing

gowns and looked like they’d stepped off the set of a sit-com about people in hospital.

Cara grabbed a bottle of Beck’s from the fridge and slid

into her seat again. The furry leopardskin cushion was gone

and now supported Ricky’s dark head, which was angled

very closely beside Phoebe’s fair one. One of his long

fingered hands lay snugly on her glossy knee, fingers curved

inwards under the hem of her flirty little skirt.

Cara would have bet a week’s wages that it wouldn’t be

long before the fingers and the hand were moving stealthily

upwards. She felt an unaccustomed stab of envy at the

thought.

He turned to look at her as she settled herself into the

chair.

‘What’s happening?’ she asked brightly, as if she hadn’t

seen Gone With The Wind at least fifteen times already. It

was Evie’s favourite film and when Cara had been young,

it had been as much a part of Christmas as crackers and a

tinsel-encrusted tree that the dogs had knocked into ten

times a day.

‘Nothing much,’ Ricky said in bored tones.

Cara looked at him sharply. What did he mean: nothing

much? He was talking about a wonderful movie, certainly

one of her favourites.

She took a swig of beer and tried to concentrate but only

a few minutes had gone by before Ricky’s hand began its

careful ascent up Phoebe’s leg and under her skirt. Cara

tried not to look.

Phoebe giggled softly and Ricky whispered something in

her ear. She giggled again, huskier this time, and moved

sideways so he could wrap his other arm around her.

Cara shifted uncomfortably on her chair so she could

barely see them and wished she wasn’t there. For another

ten minutes she tried to block out what was happening

in the room and concentrate on Scarlett but it was

impossible.

‘Another beer, anyone?’ she asked, launching herself out

of her chair energetically and trying not to look in their

direction.

‘No,’ said Phoebe in a muffled voice.

Cara shuffled off to the fridge, feeling as in the way as a

male stripper at a lesbian coffee morning. She was hungry

again and the fridge was, predictably enough, empty.

About to extract another beer, she suddenly changed her

mind. She’d phone Zoe. Perhaps they could go for a drink

or even out for something to eat. Anything to get away

from the misery of watching young love in action when

she was so undeniably a spinster.

It wasn’t that she begrudged Phoebe the gorgeous Ricky:

not at all. Lord knows, Phoebe deserved a decent bloke

after the miserable years it had taken her to get over her

childhood sweetheart’s dumping her and marrying someone

else. No, Cara wished nothing but the best for her

friend.

It was just that the pair of them usually lurched from

crisis to crisis together, manless - apart from the selection

of losers Phoebe routinely ended up going out with for one

drink - and happy. With Phoebs in boyfriend bliss, they

were no longer the Two Musketeers. They were One

Normal Woman, Now Part Of A Couple, and her Oddball

Flatmate who never had lovers, apart from the unmentionable

drunken liaisons with office motorbike couriers. Wallowing

in self-pity, Cara decided to treat herself to the last

Mars Bar ice cream in the ice box. She deserved it. That,

and some serious whingeing with Zoe would cheer her up.

Zoe arrived in Slattery’s half an hour later looking

marginally more depressed than Cara. Her cropped red

hair was flattened to her skull with rain that had seeped

through her crochet hat, and her nose was like a bulbous

crimson lump on her face, thanks to a streaming head cold.

‘Heddo,’ she said in bunged-up tones. ‘I’ve gob a cold.’

‘You poor thing,’ said Cara pityingly, putting an arm

around her friend’s skinny little frame. ‘Hot whiskey will

cure you.’

Being a statuesque five foot eleven, it was no bother to

Cara to push through the crowded pub like a snow plough

with Zoe in her wake until they found a couple vacating a

table and two stools.

Diving past a slow-moving guy in an anorak who also

had his eye on the vacant table, Cara grabbed both stools

and sank on to one, giving Anorak Man a hard stare, her

gypsyish face haughty. He looked as if he was about to

complain until he realised Cara was at least four inches

taller than him and fierce-looking, so stalked off, grumbling.

There were times when it was useful to be an

Amazon, she thought, flicking back her long black hair and

giving Zoe a mischievous grin that made her high cheekbones

look more Apache princess than ever.

After one hot whiskey, Zoe’s nose was de-bunged

enough for her to talk intelligibly.

‘My brothers and I went into Tralee on Stephen’s Night

and on the way back, Damien’s car broke down. We had to

walk the last mile home and it was lashing,’ she said,

cradling the hot glass in her hands. ‘We all got soaked. You

know me, I just have to look at rain and I’ve got the ‘flu.

This cold just won’t go away.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Cara said, immediately contrite. ‘I

shouldn’t have asked you out tonight. It’s pelting down

outside.’

‘I’d rather be out than sitting at home watching

Christopher and his latest boyfriend drooling all over

each other,’ grumbled Zoe, who lived in a tiny rented

town house with an outrageously camp fashion stylist

named Christopher. ‘They insisted on watching Funny

Girl and wouldn’t let me watch EastEnders. Then they

spent the entire film whispering sweet nothings in each

other’s ears and discussing whether they preferred Yentl or What’s Up, Doc? in between screaming about how “gorgeous” Barbra is. I thought I’d hit Christopher.’

‘Join the club,’ Cara said. ‘Phoebe has finally got Mr

Bureau De Change to visit and they’re so welded together,

you wouldn’t fit a ten-pence piece between the two of

them. They were probably re-enacting a slushy movie on

top of the kitchen counters five seconds after I slammed

the front door. True love can be very depressing,’ she said

in maudlin tones.

‘Bugger true love!’ exclaimed Zoe. ‘It’s true lust I’m

talking about. I haven’t had a man fiddling around with my

underwear since I was at the doctor’s for that cervical

smear last September. I need a man,’ she rasped in her best

Marlene Dietrich voice.

Several men swivelled around on their bar stools with

grins on their faces, eyeing up the tall dark girl and the

small redhead huddled in a voluminous cardigan.

‘She doesn’t mean immediately,’ Cara informed the