Just Between Us

The lights went up and the MC added that there’d be a fifteen minute break. Hands went into the air immediately, waving for wine waiters.

Tara thought the break would never end but it did. The Radio Personality of the Year, late-night talk show host Mac Levine, made a very funny speech.

Isadora squeezed Tara’s hand under the table so nobody would see how anxious they were.

‘Isn’t this wonderful?’ Isadora said between teeth clenched into a false smile.

‘Wonderful.’ Tara clenched back. ‘Will he ever hurry up before I die.’

And then it was their turn.

A glamorous female singer read out the nominations for Best Soap. There wasn’t a sound at their table as clips of the various shows were played. Tara closed her eyes in supplication and then realised how strange and desperate she’d look on film, so she opened them again. The clips were finished and the singer was taking forever to open the envelope. Tara watched French-manicured talons struggling with the paper in agonising slow motion. She could feel her heart rate slowing down to comatose level, please, please let it be us.

‘The winner is…National Hospital.’

‘We’ve won!!’ shrieked everybody with one voice. ‘We’ve won.’

Screaming with delight, the occupants of both tables stood up and hugged each other. Tara could barely see with the tears in her eyes.

‘Oh, Isadora, we’ve won, I can’t believe it,’ she sobbed.

‘Come on, Tara, get your butt over here,’ said Aaron, his voice cracking. ‘We’ve got to go up and take the prize.’

‘What, me?’ said Tara, shocked.

‘Yes, you and Isadora,’ he said. ‘We can’t have everyone on the stage, but you’ve both got to go up, you’ve both worked so hard this year.’

Isadora was off like a shot while Tara stumbled over to Aaron. He put an arm around her waist. ‘This is your year, Tara.’

‘But what about Tommy and everyone else…?’ gasped Tara, trying to wipe the tears from her face.

‘This is your year, kid,’ repeated Aaron. ‘Enjoy it.’ The entire table of actors and Isadora were already on the stage with the executive producer when Aaron and Tara made it up there.

‘Thank you so much!’ squealed Sherry, elbows together, boobs shoved up for the cameras. ‘Thank you for loving us.’

She was subtly shoved out of the way by the show’s female lead, Allegra Armstrong, a deceptively fragile-looking brunette.

‘You have no idea what this means to all of us at National Hospital,’ Allegra said warmly, ‘we’ve worked so hard for this and want to say thanks to all our fans.’

The audience applauded. Allegra was a genuinely loved star and her portrayal of a brilliant surgeon on the show had already garnered her many awards.

‘Also, we’ve got to say thanks to all the wonderful writers without whom we wouldn’t have a show,’ added heartthrob, Stephen Valli, who played hunky Dr McCambridge. Stephen Valli had also won many awards, at least half of which were for sexiest TV star and the man most women would like to wake up next to. He reached back and put one arm around Isadora and the other round Tara, who blushed. She stared blindly out at the audience. The fierce stage lights meant she could see nothing but darkness and yet she knew that everyone was looking up at the team, and her. It was a strange feeling.

Through the haze, she heard another interval being called.

‘Congratulations!’ shrieked everyone as the National Hospital team clambered off stage.

‘My name is Jill McDonnell, I’m with the Sentinel. How does it feel to be part of the team responsible for the best soap?’ said a woman, suddenly appearing in front of Tara and thrusting a tiny tape recorder in her face.

Tara stumbled on her high heels and had to cling onto Aaron’s jacket to stay upright.

‘Wonderful,’ she bleated, not able to think of anything else to say for the first time in her life.

‘Could I set up an interview with you?’

Tara smiled shakily. So this was fame. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Phone the office tomorrow and we can fix a time.’

At the table, there were more hugs and champagne appeared.

‘I must phone Finn,’ Tara said tearfully, feeling the shock waves of emotion finally wash over her. It was still the interval, so she hurried out of the room to find a quiet corner.

The home phone rang out endlessly again and she tried the mobile.

‘I’m in the pub with Derry and the lads,’ Finn yelled. ‘I couldn’t cope with sitting at home and not knowing,’ he said.

‘We won!’ said Tara, half-laughing, half-crying.

‘Oh my love,’ shouted Finn, thrilled. ‘Congratulations! I’m so proud of you.’

The final segment of the show was about to begin and Tara rushed back into the ballroom. A tall man with flashing eyes and a wild beard, like a movie version of an old Testament prophet, laid a hand on her arm to speak to her. Tara instantly recognised Mike Hammond, a mega successful producer originally from Galway who’d just worked on a season of Oscar Wilde’s plays for the HBO television network in the States.

He never even went to bashes like this; he’d be more at home at the Oscars or the Emmys.

‘Congratulations,’ he said in a soft Californian-Galway burr. ‘I’m Mike Hammond.’

‘I know. Tara Miller.’ She extended her hand. As if there was anybody there who didn’t know who he was.

‘I hear on the grapevine you’re one of the main reasons why National Hospital won the award,’ he continued.

Tara’s eyes were like saucers. Not only did Mike Hammond know who she was, but he’d heard good things about her.

‘That’s not exactly true,’ she said. ‘We work as a team. I’m just part of it. There are a lot of contributing writers and a large team of storyline people. You know that writing on that scale has to be team work or the whole thing self-destructs with a clash of egos.’

‘Modest too,’ commented Mike. ‘We should have lunch sometime.’

He reached into his inside pocket and removed a card on which he scribbled a number. ‘That’s my cellphone number. I’m going to be in the US for a few months but phone me, say in March. We can shoot the breeze, talk about forthcoming projects, whatever.’

‘OK,’ stammered Tara, taking the card.

‘Hi, Mikey,’ said a voice and a tall, striking dark-skinned woman came up and laid a proprietary hand on his Armani-clad shoulder.

‘Hi, Crystal,’ he replied, turning to her.

Tara slipped away, scarcely believing life could be quite this perfect. Mike Hammond wanted to meet her. The show she worked on had just won a prestigious award. And she was married to the most wonderful man in the world. What more could she want?

CHAPTER FOUR

Twenty-four hours after National Hospital won the Best Soap award, Tara still sounded as if she was on a high. She’d loved the congratulatory bouquet of flowers Holly had sent that morning, had spent the whole day pretending to work but being too excited to, and now she and Finn were going out for a celebratory dinner in their favourite restaurant.

‘You mean you aren’t going to stay in and watch yourself on the ceremony on TV?’ teased Holly.

From the phone came the sound of her sister groaning. ‘No way! I’m going to tape it instead and maybe one day, I’ll be able to bear to look at it.’

‘I’m going out too but I’m taping the show,’ Holly said, ‘so I can make everyone watch it in future and point out my fabulous sister, who was really responsible for National Hospital winning.’

Tara was still laughing when she hung up.

Holly, who was running late, rushed back into her bedroom to paint her nails, then sat on the edge of her bed waggling her fingers so the sparkly lilac nail polish would dry more quickly. She still had to wriggle into the instep-destroying boots she’d bought to go with her new black trousers, though she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to bend over to zip them up. The Dolce & Gabbana corset, lent at huge risk by Gabriella from the International Design department, was what could euphemistically be called a ‘snug’ fit. Breathing was difficult, bending over would be impossible.

‘It came back because it was too big for one of our best customers and it’s going in the sale in January, but whatever you do, Holly, don’t sweat on it!’ Gabriella had warned the day before. ‘And don’t smoke!’

‘She won’t,’ promised Bunny, Holly’s friend and colleague from the children’s department, who’d been the one to wangle the loan of the corset from the fabulously gorgeous Gabriella. Gamine and funky, with cropped blonde hair and a way with clothes that meant her uniform of white shirt and black trousers looked catwalk cool, Bunny was Holly’s idol. There was no way Gabriella would have loaned it to her, Holly thought, if Bunny hadn’t asked first.

Both Bunny and Holly crossed their fingers regarding the safety of the outfit: strange things regularly happened to Holly, weird and unexplainable things that ruined her clothes. Coffee miraculously leapt out of cups and flung itself at her; drunks on the street crossed perilous traffic to lurch happily against her; perfectly ordinary bits of the footpath reared up to trip her. Therefore, it was entirely possible that some unusual accident would mean the borrowed outfit would get shrunk/covered in bleach/otherwise hideously disfigured in the Bermuda Triangle effect which surrounded Holly. But Gabriella didn’t need to know that.

‘I know it’s a twelve and you need a fourteen, but they look better when they’re tight. And it’s perfect on you,’ sighed Bunny, earlier that day, when Holly had struggled into the corset in a changing room in Lee’s Department Store, where they all worked.

The two girls looked in the mirror. In a miracle of wonderful tailoring, the corset had jacked Holly’s waist into tiny proportions, giving her a siren-like hourglass figure which she didn’t have in real, non-D&G life. Bunny quickly pulled Holly’s scrunchie off so that her poker-straight chestnut hair shimmered over her shoulders.

‘Now,’ said Bunny, delighted with her efforts. ‘You look amazing. Those boots make your legs look so long. When you’ve got my necklace on you’ll look perfect.’

‘You don’t think I look fat, do you?’ Holly said anxiously. She wouldn’t have said it if Gabriella was around. Gabriella resembled a very beautiful twig on even more twiglety legs, and fat cells would have blanched at the thought of daring to even touch her.

‘Fat? Don’t be silly.’ Bunny shook her head vigorously. ‘You look wonderful, Holly. You’re going to wow them all tonight.’

School reunions should be banned, Holly muttered, testing a nail to see if it was dry. Ever since Donna had phoned with the exciting news about the ten-year reunion of their class from Kinvarra’s Cardinal School, Holly had fretted. For a woman with self-esteem so low it could limbo dance under a two-inch fence, the prospect of meeting the girls she’d been in school with was one filled with terror.

Old schoolmates would want to know what exciting things Holly was doing with her life and what sort of fabulous men she was going out with. ‘Er nothing’ and ‘nobody’ would not be adequate answers. On the plus side, at least she’d lost weight since school, but she was never going to be what anyone would call thin. And what was the point of being thinner when she had nothing to show for it?

Donna, her best friend from school, was thrilled at the very notion of a reunion, and had talked excitedly about how lovely it would be to catch up with everyone.

‘Just think, our class together again after all these years. I can’t imagine some of them as twenty-eight-year-olds: they’re stuck in my mind at seventeen. Obviously, I don’t mean Lilli and Caroline,’ she said. ‘I meet them every day at the school gates when I’m dropping Emily off and they’re just the same, really. But there are so many girls and I don’t really know what they’ve been up to. So many of them are living in the city or abroad…It’ll be wonderful to see everyone again, won’t it?’

‘Yes,’ bleated Holly.

‘I heard that Michelle Martin’s coming too, which is a coup for the organising group. Who’d have ever thought that one of our girls would be a big TV star.’

‘Donna, she’s a news reporter, not Britney Spears,’ Holly pointed out, overcoming her anxiety in order to set the record straight. Michelle had been a total nightmare at school: loud, overopinionated and determined to get the shy girls (like Holly and Donna) involved. Anyone who didn’t go along with her (Holly and Donna, again) received contemptuous glances which implied that amoebas were more fun. ‘We used to hide from her, if you remember.’

‘No we didn’t.’ Donna sounded cheerful. ‘Oh it’s going to be such fun. You are coming, aren’t you, Holly? I know you’re madly busy and probably have zillions of glamorous Christmas parties to go to, but this will be fantastic. I know December’s two months away but I’ve already told Mark he’ll have to baby-sit because I’m going to stay overnight in Dublin. That’s the whole point of having it in a hotel, so there’s no awfulness about getting taxis and lifts home.’

Donna still lived in Kinvarra, but many of the school’s old girls had moved to the city, which was why a hotel in Dublin had been chosen for the party. Donna was doubly pleased at this. For a start, there’d be no chance of wild misbehaving at a reunion in her home town where gossip spread like wildfire. Secondly, she loved visiting Dublin and this trip would mean a bit of blissful shopping the next day without having to manoeuvre a buggy round too.

‘The only problem is what to wear?’ mused Donna, before going on to list possible outfits and why they weren’t suitable because they were old/unfashionable/too tight on the hips. ‘Of course, you won’t have that problem, Holly. When you’re going out every night like you, you know exactly what to wear. Mark and I never get further than Maria’s Diner these days and you can turn up in a sweatshirt covered with baby sick and nobody bats an eyelid.’

After a few more minutes of this, Donna’s toddler, Jack, began crying loudly and she had to go.

Holly hung up slowly and smiled ruefully at the very notion of her having a wild life with zillions of glamorous parties to go to and the perfect wardrobe for every occasion. Dear Donna, she hadn’t a clue. She thought anyone who’d escaped the clutches of rural Kinvarra automatically entered some sort of Hollywood-style twilight zone where life was wildly exciting, invitations crammed the mantelpiece and gorgeous men were forever on the phone, demanding to know why you wouldn’t go to Rio with them.

Holly had given up trying to explain that being a sales assistant in the children’s department in Lee’s was short on glamour and actually involved a lot of time in the stock room patiently folding T-shirts for four-year-olds. The only way a man would ever throw himself at her was if one fell down the stairs on the 15A bus when she was on her way up. This had actually happened, although the man in question had been a deeply embarrassed teenager and had practically run off in mortification afterwards. Holly had been bruised for weeks.

And as for going out, Holly was far too quiet to merit inclusion in the Lee’s party-animal gang. Parties in general filled her with horror. She became obsessed with what to wear, inevitably ending up in black for its slimming properties, and even more inevitably ending up in the kitchen because of the crippling shyness that overwhelmed her on social occasions. Holly’s ideal outing was the pub with Kenny and Joan, who lived in the flat opposite.

She had once explained this to Donna, but Donna would have none of it.

‘You’re only trying to cheer me up,’ she’d insisted. ‘There’s no point denying it. Exciting things happen in cities, not like in this dump. For God’s sake, they nearly declare a state of emergency in Kinvarra when Melanie’s Coffee Shop runs out of fudge cake.’

‘Kinvarra is a lovely place,’ protested Holly.

‘If it’s that lovely, why did you leave?’ demanded Donna, refusing to admit that there was any comparison between the fleshpots of the city and a small, pretty town sixty miles away.

‘Ah, you know, I just wanted to travel a bit,’ Holly said.

Holly wrote down the date of the reunion in her diary and began a plan of worry. This was similar to a plan of action but involved no actual action and, instead, lots of soul-searching ‘how-can-I-get-out-of-it?’ moments in the dead of the night. She also wondered how Donna had grown so confident that she was looking forward to this reunion. Marriage and motherhood must be a fiercely powerful combination, Holly decided. Why had nobody put that in a pill? Those pharmaceutical firms were slacking.

At school, she and Donna been drawn to each other by virtue of their quietness. They’d never been part of the reckless but popular gang of girls who cheeked the teachers, knew how to roll joints and went to wild parties with wild boys. Holly would have been struck dumb if faced with either a wild boy or a joint. She and Donna spent their school years in the anonymity of being good girls and Holly would have bet a week’s wages that half the girls in the school wouldn’t remember either of them now. Except as the skinny girl with the big glasses (Donna) and the plump, shy youngest sister of the Miller trio. The people she’d really like to see were the other anonymous girls, but they were the very people who probably wouldn’t turn up. Holly tried to remember them: Brona, who spent all her time in the library and Roberta, a terminally shy girl who was forever drawing pictures in a sketch book and who could never look anyone in the eye.

As the reunion approached, Holly considered coming up with a previous engagement and avoiding it altogether, but then her mother had heard about it (Kinvarra was clearly still a hotbed of gossip where no snippet of information went unrecorded) and had phoned up to make sure she was going.

‘Darling, it’ll be wonderful,’ Rose had said. ‘I can still remember Stella’s ten-year reunion.’ Her mother’s voice was wistful. ‘She loved it; and to think it’s coming up to her twentieth. Time certainly flies. Are you going with Donna?’

‘Of course,’ Holly said automatically. There was little point in explaining the difference between going to a reunion when you’d been as adored at school as Stella, and going when you were one of those people that nobody would remember. Or even want to.

‘What are you going to wear?’ Her mother’s voice was suddenly a mite anxious, as if she suspected Holly of going to the party clad in some wild creation.

‘Joan’s making me a Lycra and leather mini dress,’ Holly said, unable to resist the joke. Joan was a fashion student who lived in the flat opposite Holly, and her idea of chic was ripped, heavily graffiti-ed clothes with the words spelt incorrectly. Her mother liked Joan but wasn’t so keen on her eyebrow stud. ‘Only kidding,’ Holly added quickly. ‘Something from Lee’s, I think.’ She crossed her fingers. She was terminally broke, as usual.

‘Oh good,’ Rose said, relieved. Lee’s had a reputation for beautiful, expensive, clothes.

‘You’re such a label snob, Mum,’ teased Holly.

‘I am not,’ insisted her mother firmly. ‘I simply want you to look your best.’

On the other end of the phone, Holly grinned wryly. That made two of them.

By the time the reunion was upon her, Tara, Stella, Bunny, Joan and Kenny were also involved in her nervous state.

‘You’ll enjoy it, I know you will,’ Stella had said sincerely. ‘I loved mine, although I know you feel a bit weird at first because everyone looks so different and you’ve lost that intimacy you used to have.’

Dear Stella, Holly thought fondly. For Stella, school hadn’t been a place she’d been eager to escape from.

‘And I do understand that school was a difficult time when you were hung up about your figure, Holls, but you’re so gorgeous now, that’s all in the past.’

That was Stella’s encouraging way of telling Holly that she’d moved on from being a shy, overweight girl who wouldn’t say boo to a goose in case the goose told her to go on a diet.

‘I’m, going to wear one of those sumo fancy dress costumes,’ Holly said, ‘then whip it off and give them a shock when they see I’m not twenty stone.’

Stella had laughed at that.

Tara was equally supportive when she rang, but more direct: ‘Think of what a kick you’ll get from turning up looking a million dollars. You and I have certainly improved since school. At my reunion, everyone was stunned when I turned up looking good. Go for hot, Holly. Impress the knickers off them. Make them jealous. I’m sure you’ve lots of great clubbing gear at home, and you get a staff discount in the store, don’t you?’

This was true but Holly didn’t use her staff ten per cent to purchase going-out clothes. What was the point if you only went to the pub? Tara believed her younger sister shared the same sort of lively social life she did. Tara was always at parties and glitzy media events. It was part of her job. But although Holly could wisecrack with the same insouciance as her older sister, she could only do it with close friends and family. In company, her wit deserted her and she clammed up.

Naturally, the generous Joan did offer to design an outfit for Holly.

‘I can see you in a space-age, semi-Edwardian bondage look; a comment about school in general,’ Joan said, sketching on a bit of an old envelope. Somebody had given her a video of the director’s cut of Blade Runner and she had got a bit carried away with visions of the future.

‘Space-age, semi-Edwardian bondage!’ groaned Kenny, who lived with Joan, though not as a couple, as they both constantly informed everyone. Kenny was gay, worked in a designer men’s boutique, devoured Vogue as his bedtime reading and wished Joan would give up being avant garde so she could worship at the altar of designer Tom Ford, Kenny’s greatest idol. They made ideal flatmates because they could argue endlessly about fashion and, together, they could afford the pretty flat with the balcony that neither would be able to afford on their own. ‘Holly wants to make all her classmates pea green with envy,’ Kenny insisted. ‘Not make them laugh at her. Six-stone fourteen-year-old models from Eastern Europe with cheekbones like razors can wear that type of thing but on anybody else, it looks ridiculous. What Holly wants is something…,’ Kenny paused dramatically, ‘fabulous. And credit-card droppingly expensive.’

Bunny, practical as ever, had come up with a suitably fabulous outfit which hadn’t involved any credit-card action. Holly would never be able to thank her enough. Encased in her borrowed finery – Holly had promised Bunny she wouldn’t spoil the effect by telling anyone it wasn’t actually hers – even someone as self-critical as Holly had to admit that she looked OK. Well, reasonable. Passable. All she needed to do was not spill anything on herself.

Satisfied that her nails were dry, Holly stood up and took a deep breath before attempting to bend down and put on her boots. After what felt like ages, she zipped them both up and stood up, gulping in air like a deep-sea pearl diver.

She stood in front of the mirror, gave her hair one last brushing, and then picked up her handbag. She’d have killed for a cigarette but Gabriella would go ballistic if the corset came back smelling of Marlboro Lights, so she’d had her last one before she got dressed. How she’d stay off the fags tonight, she didn’t know, but she had to. It was a small price to pay. Holly practised her tough-but-sexy look in the mirror again. She even tried her Lauren Bacall, lowered eyes, look (Holly adored Lauren), but gloomily decided that the effect was more Bogie than Bacall. It was time to go. Holly had arranged to meet her friend at the train, take her for a drink, and then travel to the hotel in time for Donna to check in and change. What she hadn’t mentioned to Donna was that this plan would make them fashionably late for the reunion. That had been Bunny’s suggestion.

‘Make an entrance,’ Bunny had advised. ‘You don’t want to be hanging around aimlessly waiting for the party to get going. Arrive twenty minutes late and you’ll look as if you’re far too busy to get to things on time.’