Little Black Everything Page 3

  “It doesn’t have to be dance lessons,” Mark replied. “You could take up the guitar or something. Learn a language. Painting. There’s loads –”

  “This is a crappy idea,” Lizzie interjected. “Holly can’t do lessons! She’s not exactly a joiner-inner, is she? She’s more of a standing-at-the-edge-taking-the-piss type.”

  “Well, that’s true,” Mark admitted, “but sometimes sacrifices have to be made.”

  Lizzie still wasn’t buying it. “Come on. Can you see her in a painting class? She’d just do angry clowns all the time. And they criticise each other’s work in those things! She’d have them all in tears.”

  Holly noisily cleared her throat. “Hello? I’m still here, you know.”

  “Sorry,” Mark and Lizzie said together. They took simultaneous sips of their wine.

  “Listen,” Holly said then. “I want to ask you something. That stuff Kevin came out with. About me being sharp and blunt and all that. Not like ‘other women’, whoever they are. I’ve heard that sort of thing before. Several times.”

  “No shit,” Mark snorted.

  Holly bristled. “From men, I mean. While they were . . . dumping me. You don’t think it’s anything to worry about, do you? You don’t think maybe this is the reason why I’m always . . . why I can’t . . . keep a . . .” Her voice trailed off. The thought was too depressing to complete.

  There was a horrifying pause. “You’re just unusually honest,” Lizzie said then.

  “You call a spade a spade,” Mark added brightly.

  “You don’t suffer fools gladly.”

  “You don’t suffer them at all, in fact.”

  They smiled briefly at each other, evidently pleased with their joint performance.

  Holly waited for them to say that these were admirable traits and nothing to worry about. After a minute or two, Lizzie broke into a smile and said, “I love this song.” She reached out and tickled the back of Mark’s hand.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Lovely.”

  Holly strained to hear what they were hearing, but she couldn’t make it out. It occurred to her that this might be a useful metaphor for something, but she didn’t want to think about it too hard.

  “I think it’s time I went home,” she said.

  When she opened her front door and stepped inside, Holly found Claude sitting perfectly upright in the centre of the hall. She knew it was silly to attribute human emotions to a mere pet, but she sometimes found it hard to avoid. In this instance, for example, everything about his posture seemed to say, And what time do you call this? All he was missing was a wristwatch that he could tap accusingly.

  “What’s new pussy-cat?” she said as she closed the door behind her.

  Claude didn’t react. Even when she hunkered down beside him and gave him a tickle behind his left ear (a notorious hot spot of his), he stared straight ahead, utterly immobile.

  “Come on. Don’t give me a hard time. I’m here now.”

  He kept up the cold-shoulder act for another few seconds and then finally melted, turning slightly to rub his cheek along the backs of her fingers.

  “That’s my boy,” she whispered. “I knew you’d come round. You like me just the way I am, don’t you?”

  He looked up at her and issued one of his silent miaows, a sure sign that he needed – or rather wanted – to be fed. Holly went down the hall and into the kitchen. Claude followed, jogging along by her ankle, already purring. She grabbed a pouch from under the sink and squeezed its contents into his bowl, grimacing slightly at the smell. He got tucked in straight away, pushing his head so far into his supper that he seemed to be in imminent danger of suffocating.

  “You’re welcome,” Holly said. “Seriously – don’t mention it.”

  Claude munched on, oblivious. Now that she had satisfied his desire for food, she knew that he would more or less forget that she existed until some other urge presented itself. That was fine by Holly. It was one of the things she loved about him and cats in general – you always knew were you stood. She left him to it and went back into the living room where she flopped down on the sofa and tucked her legs up underneath her.

  There wouldn’t be anything worth watching on TV. She knew that, but she grabbed the remote from behind a cushion and switched it on anyway. It took her about thirty seconds to click through every channel and confirm that her original assessment had been correct. “Shite . . . Shite . . . Shite . . . ”

  Once upon a time, she would have left it on MTV and turned her attention to something else, safe in the knowledge that sooner or later they were bound to play a song she liked. But MTV didn’t do music videos any more. Somewhere around the turn of the century, its executives seemed to have decided that people were no longer interested in that sort of thing. What people wanted now was something called “reality” which, as far as Holly could see, involved little else but rich, obnoxious teenagers getting drunk, feeling each other up and declaring things to be either “awesome” or “gay”. Holly had always known that one day MTV would make her feel out of touch. But she’d always thought it would do it by featuring music and haircuts and clothes that, try as she might, she just didn’t get. She greatly resented being made to feel out of touch because she couldn’t understand why a channel called Music Television could get away with showing no obvious interest in music. That seemed unfair, somehow – a moving of the goalposts.

  She peered at the shelf suspended underneath the coffee table and saw that it was home to a grand total of one magazine. It proved to be a two month-old copy of Hello. A few minutes later, she had flipped through it in much the same way that she’d flipped through the TV channels; it now lay splayed on the floor, where she had dropped it in disgust. She knew that she must have read it before at least once, yet none of the stories that she’d sped past had seemed familiar. What was the point, she asked herself plaintively, of an experience that left no lasting impression on your consciousness and wasn’t even fun at the time? And how could it be fun? How were pictures of Anthea Turner “relaxing at home” supposed to enrich her life? Why was she supposed to care that Baron so-and-so, eighteenth in line to the Danish throne, had a “lovely new bride”?

  Just as she was vowing never to buy the bloody thing again, Claude padded into the room and hopped up beside her. He licked his chops, looking very satisfied with life, and then head-butted her hand to indicate that he was ready for his petting now. Holly absent-mindedly obliged, running her fingers around his neck and periodically tickling him under his chin. After a couple of minutes, he lay down on her feet and fell instantly asleep. She kept petting anyway. As she did so, her mood darkened further still.

  She saw herself as if from the other side of the room, a single woman, living alone with a cat, complaining. Maybe this was how it started – the long, slow, slide. Next thing you knew, you were deciding that your cat might be lonely and you should probably get him a little friend. The two of them turned out to be so cute together that you went ahead and got a third. On those rare occasions when you brought boyfriends home, they poked fun and you laughed along. It was no big deal and you knew the cats would be there long after the boyfriends had gone. Meanwhile, you got more and more angry about the crap they printed in magazines and the crap they showed on television and the crap they talked on the radio and the crap they sold in the shops. Everything was going to pot – how come you were the only one who could see it? You got the blues for quite a while at one point – doctors were involved – but you cheered yourself up by getting another cat. Number four seemed to add a certain something. Two little couples, you told yourself – like Abba. One day you found yourself writing to an editor because you liked a laugh as much as the next person, but something-or-other had gone too far. Your letter didn’t get published, but you felt better because you had taken a stand; you had called a spade a spade. Somebody had to and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be this generation coming up, was it? They didn’t give a damn about anything, just standing around, laughi
ng at nothing, calling you names when you went past. When you were their age, people had a little thing called respect . . . You had five cats by now. They took a lot of looking after, but they were worth it, weren’t they? They were good company, especially at night.

  And then one day you realised that you hadn’t been on a date for a long, long time. And you looked in the mirror and you could see why. And you weren’t twenty-eight any more, you were forty-eight. You were a forty-eight-year-old woman who lived alone with a bunch of cats and you spent your life giving out. Holly dabbed a tear from her cheek and looked at Claude with a sense of terror.

  Back to school on Monday.

  Chapter 3

  When people who had just met Holly learned that she was a teacher, they didn’t bat an eyelid. If they stuck around and got to know her, however, sooner or later they would give her a curious look and ask her to explain why. The question was always delivered in the same way, in a tone of incredulity. They weren’t looking for a run-down of the attractions and benefits of the teaching life; they were wondering why she personally would do it. The words “don’t seem the type” were invariably added somewhere. Holly had a stock answer: she was sick of being surrounded by morons and teaching seemed to be the simplest way to do something about it. This usually raised a laugh and, as often as not, a sigh of relief; suddenly, everything made sense again. Holly had given the stock answer so many times over the years that she could no longer remember if it was a joke or not.

  When she first started teaching at St Brendan’s in Harold’s Cross, she was delighted with it. The students – the majority at least – were pleasant and had a passing interest in learning. Her colleagues were like people anywhere. Most of them were perfectly nice and a handful were insufferable. The principal was a friendly, slightly manic creature named Ursula McCarthy. It didn’t take Holly very long to discover that she was top dog in name only. The real centre of gravity for the teaching staff was a woman named Eleanor Duffy. Eleanor was primarily an English teacher, although she dabbled (as she invariably put it) in geography and history. She was in her late forties, a little on the short side, a little on the tubby side, and forever smiling. She’d been at St Brendan’s for her entire career and knew it inside out. Everyone liked Eleanor, which was perfectly understandable; she was easy to like. Holly thought of her as the sort of person who made you try a little harder in everything you did – the way you carried yourself, the way you did your job, the way you stirred your coffee. You wanted her to notice you and you wanted her to be impressed by what she saw. But life around Eleanor wasn’t all roses. By the end of her first month, Holly had formed a theory; the more she looked for evidence, the more evidence she found. The bottom line was that her colleagues – not all of them, but most of them – had a label. The label was first applied, and then repeatedly reinforced until it stuck, by Eleanor. The thing about Peter Fogarty was he did magic. The thing about Greg Tynan was he used to live beside Colin Farrell. The thing about Ursula McCarthy was she couldn’t boil an egg. The thing about Louise Dillon was she was always moving house. The thing about Larry Martin was he knew a lot about old movies. The thing about Enda Clerkin was he collected antiques. As soon as the truth dawned, Holly began to worry about her own fate. Would she be getting a label of her own? And if so, what would it be? The thing about Holly Christmas . . . Her initial assumption was that Eleanor would go with the obvious: the thing about Holly Christmas was that she was called Holly bloody Christmas. And, of course, comments were made, jokes were cracked, questions were asked, some of them by Eleanor. Holly did her best to respond pleasantly – initially, at least – and concluded that it could be worse. But then she noticed to her surprise that the subject of her name was more or less dropped (by the teachers, at least; the students never quite got over it). It got an airing again in December, naturally enough, but no more than she would have expected. By the time school broke up for her namesake holiday, Holly was beginning to think that maybe she would be one of the lucky ones and would remain unlabelled. It was a pleasing thought, one that soothed her just a little through the ragged torment of the yuletide season.

  Then, one morning in the first week of the new year of 2006, a little amber light appeared on the dashboard of her car. She consulted the owner’s manual and discovered that it related to the Engine Management System. Somehow, this news filled her with her horror. She hadn’t expected good news – it was hardly going to turn out to be the Everything’s Okay indicator – but still, the word “Management” sounded terribly ominous. Holly had never been particularly car-proud and had cheerfully ignored many a knock and rattle in the past, but she lost no time in getting the battered Micra round to the nearest garage.

  And that was where she met Dan.

  It was one of those modern, family-friendly establishments with a waiting area that featured a coffee dock, a selection of comfortable chairs and a kids’ toy box. Dan was a sort of receptionist. He sympathised with her recent difficulties and seemed genuinely tickled by her fear that the car was about to blow up.

  “An explosion is unlikely,” he told her. “But I couldn’t rule out an implosion. Worst case scenario is the formation of a black hole that consumes the Earth, then the nearest planets and finally the sun itself. This is an urgent case if ever I saw one. I’ll get someone on it right away.”

  Holly liked that. And she liked his face too. It was the face of a man who knew how things worked – things both mechanical and physiological. They chatted for a few minutes and might have chatted for a few hours if a queue hadn’t started to form. She reluctantly stepped aside and took the seat with the best view of the reception desk. When her car had been seen to – his promise of prompt attention had not been an idle one – she took the keys from him and made sure their fingers touched. He smiled. She smiled back. They were having a moment, she was sure of it, but she didn’t know what to do next. Eventually, she concluded that just standing there smiling was making her look like a mental patient, so she reluctantly said goodbye and slipped away to collect the car, which was now parked round the side. She had just got herself settled down in it – hadn’t even turned the key in the ignition – when her mobile rang. It was Dan.

  “I got your number from the form,” he said. “Look – a braver man than me might have said this to your face, but there were too many people around and I didn’t want anyone to see me crying if it didn’t go well. Would you like to go out for dinner some time? Some time like tonight, maybe?”

  Holly held the phone away from her face and issued a muted squeal of delight. “Well,” she said, “my schedule’s pretty packed. But I’m sure I could make room.”

  He named a time and a place and she said she’d be there. Then his voice dipped low. “There’s one other thing,” he said. “When I was getting your number, I couldn’t help but notice your surname. I’m sure you’re sick to death of talking about it. I just want you to know that I won’t bring it up over dinner tonight or over any other dinner we might have in the future.”

  A vivid thought flashed in Holly’s mind. It was not like any regular thought. It seemed to have colour and fragrance and, somehow, texture. The thought was this: I am falling in love. It took a while, maybe a couple of weeks, before she stopped worrying that she might be imagining things. Dan, apparently, was a mind-reader. At every turn, he knew exactly what to do and say to make her fall a little bit further, a little bit harder. He pulled her chair back in restaurants but took it for granted that she knew how to change a plug. He complimented her on her eyes and, once in a while, on her ass. He asked her opinion on things and when he thought she was talking rubbish, he told her so – then seemed to greatly enjoy her fighting back. He sent her sexy text messages late in the evening when he was sober but not in the middle of the night when he was drunk. He gently mocked the limitations of her wardrobe but said it wasn’t a big deal because no one could wear black like she could. When he didn’t want to see her, he told her so; he didn’t show up under duress and th
en sigh and fidget all night long, looking at his watch. He made her laugh, which was good, and she made him laugh, which was better. In marked contrast to everyone else she’d ever gone out with, he seemed to get a real kick out of her rants about the endless torrent of mouth-breathing nitwits with whom she was obliged to share a planet.

  Orla and Aisling, her oldest and closest friends, had always been harsh judges of her romantic choices (few and far between as they were), but they liked Dan right from the start. Aisling liked him a little too much, in fact. She rang Holly at seven o’clock one Saturday evening, already cocktail-tipsy.

  “There’s something bugging me,” she said, “and I want to get it out in the open.”

  “Go on,” Holly said, intrigued.

  “Okay. Okay. Okay, the thing is, I seem to have developed a bit of a thing for Dan. There have been . . . dreams. And daydreams. I’m not doing it on purpose. But I feel like shite about it and I want to get it out in the open.”

  Aisling had been mistaken for Jessica Biel on at least two occasions that Holly knew of and had no trouble garnering male attention. As a result, she had very high standards indeed. Holly took this drunken confession as a serious stamp of approval and tried to keep the smile out of her voice as she graciously accepted it. Apart from Orla and Aisling, there was only one other person whose opinion really counted, and that was Holly’s mum. Mrs Christmas lived in permanent fear that her daughter would wind up on the loftiest and hardest to reach of all shelves and as a consequence had standards every bit as lax as Aisling’s were strict. Even so, Holly was amazed by her mother’s reaction to Dan. At the end of their first meeting, she hugged him for what seemed like half an hour and then called him “son” – twice. Holly spent the journey back to hers feverishly vowing to Dan that her mum used that word all the time and hadn’t meant anything by it.

  “I mean, you don’t have to worry. We won’t have to get married this weekend or anything! Ha! Ha!”