Just Between Us

From the grateful look on the boy’s exhausted father’s face, it appeared that Bunny was winning the war.

‘You can swap the shirt for anything you like once we’re at the restaurant,’ the father said eagerly once the despised shirt was wrapped and bagged in the Lee’s Department Store’s trademark red and gold carrier bag. Thank you,’ he added gratefully to Bunny.

‘Forget it,’ grinned Bunny. ‘It’s my job.’

Bunny’s speciality was small boys, especially when they came attached to good-looking fathers.

‘What’s your name, so I can ask for you again?’ the customer said.

‘Bunny.’

The man smiled as if this was a perfectly normal name for a grown-up. Bunny was the only person Holly knew who could carry off a child’s pet’s name and get away with it.

‘My father thought it was cute,’ was Bunny’s answer that first day, before Holly could even ask why she had such a weird name. ‘I’m actually Colleen but nobody ever called me that. Why Holly?’ she asked conversationally. ‘Are you a Christmas birthday person?’

‘July, actually,’ Holly replied. ‘My mother likes unusual names. My father wanted us all to have traditional names but my mother won. My eldest sister is Stella Verena, I’m Holly Genevieve and my middle sister is Tara Lucretia.’

‘After the Borgias, I hope? How cool,’ said Bunny. ‘Is Tara Lucretia a poisoner type of girl?’

Holly laughed. ‘The only person she’s ever likely to poison is our Aunt Adele. Tara writes scripts for National Hospital.’

‘Wow,’ said Bunny, impressed. ‘You see, that proves my dad’s point which is that people with unusual names end up doing out-of-the-ordinary things. Although I think he was hoping for more from me than the kids’ department of Lee’s.’

Holly soon discovered that, in typical Bunny fashion, this wasn’t strictly true.

Bunny had just finished an English degree and was taking a job to finance her year off round the world, when she planned to veg out in India before a stint working as an English language teacher in Japan.

Bunny was one of those people Holly felt utterly comfortable with, and they’d instantly become good friends.

Now Bunny waved off the grateful customer and turned to where Holly was studiously folding sweatshirts on a display. All it took was one person rifling through the clothes for an entire display to look hideously untidy. Miss Jackson, the department head, took a dim view of untidiness even in the war zone that was the pre-Christmas rush.

‘Do you mind if I take first coffee break?’ Bunny asked. One of the pitfalls of working in the same department was that Bunny and Holly couldn’t take their breaks together. There were four of them in children’s clothes and there had to be three members of staff on duty at all times.

‘Fine,’ said Holly, wishing she’d asked first.

‘I could kill for a fag.’ Bunny started rooting about in the under-till cupboard for her cigarettes and her cardigan. Lee’s was strictly non-smoking, so smokers congregated on the rooftop level of the store car park. ‘See you in fifteen minutes.’

Fifteen minutes more and Holly could pour herself a huge coffee. She closed her eyes and wished she could learn how to press the stop button when it came to red wine.

‘Are you feeling all right, Holly?’ inquired Miss Jackson, appearing from the baby wear department.

‘Fine, great,’ said Holly brightly. She smiled so broadly that her face felt as if it would crack.

Miss Jackson approved of Holly Miller. Diligent and polite to the customers, she was always scrupulously turned out, and never gave a moment’s bother, even if she was a little on the quiet side. But then Miss Jackson had seen Holly chatting away nineteen to the dozen with Bunny, so perhaps she was only quiet with management.

‘If you have a moment, perhaps we can sort out the fancy dress rails…’ Miss Jackson began.

‘Have you got this in age ten to eleven?’ inquired a woman, holding up a pair of boy’s trousers.

Saved by a customer. ‘Let me check,’ smiled Holly, turning her attention to the woman gratefully. Sorting out the fancy dress stuff was a nightmare job at the best of times as customers thought nothing of rampaging through the fairy and wizard costumes like tornadoes when they were looking for a particular size. The last time she’d done it, Holly had absent-mindedly stuck a pair of kitten’s ears on her head, forgotten to take them off, and had spent the morning serving customers with fluffy pink and black ears bobbing eccentrically until Miss Jackson had noticed.

As soon as Bunny came back from her break, Holly raced off for hers. Desperate for coffee, she bypassed her usual cigarette-stop in the car park, and made straight for the canteen. This proved to be her undoing.

There was a small clique of the store’s party girls in there gossiping about a Christmas drinks they’d all been to. Holly steeled herself for the inevitable queries about her social life. The clique never talked about anything else but parties and men, and they didn’t understand why anyone (Holly) didn’t share their fascination. Consequently, they thought Holly was a bit stand-offish, not realising that she was simply shy.

She quietly made her way to the coffee machines and poured herself a cup, then, because it would seem rude to go and sit by herself, tentatively sat at the edge of the circle and listened. Pia (ground floor, Clinique counter) was keeping the group enthralled with tales of what happened next, after Tomás, he of the melting foreign accent, had told her she was beautiful enough to be a model.

‘It’s not as if I haven’t heard that before,’ Pia said without arrogance. She was stunningly beautiful after all. Skin like caramel silk, doe eyes and the grace of a ballerina. Men must surely always be telling her how beautiful she was, Holly thought wistfully.

‘But he really is a photographer,’ Pia went on.

The group were impressed. Men pretending to be photographers in order to chat up Pia was nothing new. One actually turning out to be a photographer was a surprise.

‘Which one was he?’ inquired Rebecca (ladies’ hosiery). ‘Not the tall, older guy? I noticed him talking to you but then I went to the mezzanine for a smoke with Leo and we ended up there for ages.’

‘The tall one, yes. He’s Hungarian,’ Pia said dreamily. ‘I thought you’d given up smoking, anyway?’ she added.

Rebecca grinned. ‘You know me: two drinks and I’m scabbing cigarettes from everyone.’

‘Oh yes, and what went on in the mezzanine with Leo?’ demanded Fiona (millinery). ‘It can’t be the same I-never-want-to-see-you-again Leo, can it?’

Rebecca’s grin widened. ‘Same story as with the cigarettes,’ she said wickedly. ‘Two drinks and I forget all my good intentions.’

They all laughed.

‘I was talking to your Tomás earlier, Pia,’ Fiona pointed out. ‘He never said he was a photographer.’

‘He was probably lying,’ Pia said easily.

Fiona, Rebecca and Pia all smiled. Men. What were they like?

‘What about you, Holly?’ asked Rebecca kindly, dragging Holly into the conversation because it wasn’t nice to let her hang on the edge. ‘Do anything interesting last night?’

‘I was at a school reunion,’ Holly said shyly.

The other girls smiled but the languid Pia looked unimpressed. School reunions were very far down her list of exciting events. Real parties involved rock stars, possibly a footballer or two, and at least one gossip column photographer recording the event for posterity.

‘I’d never bother going to a school reunion,’ said Pia. She eyed Holly speculatively, her cool gaze reminding Holly of Lilli the night before. Pia and Lilli were like sisters under the skin, Holly thought. Both keen to gauge a person’s success by the wrong standards.

Holly wished she could say something witty in return but, as usual when faced with people like Pia, words failed her. She smiled weakly, knowing she looked like an idiot.

Fiona began talking about some fabulous new high-heeled boots she’d bought that looked madly expensive even though they weren’t. Everyone nodded respectfully at this. Cheap, fashionable stuff that looked expensive was a favourite topic of conversation because none of them were on very good salaries despite their glitzy lifestyles.

‘Oh, you won’t believe the new shoes I got on Monday.’ Rebecca held the floor.

Holly drank her coffee and flicked through the old magazine that somebody had left on her chair. She couldn’t concentrate on it because she was wondering why she was such a wimp.

She drained her coffee and got to her feet, her movements graceful. Say something, she told herself, say something. ‘Better go back. See you.’ Oh well, it was better than nothing.

She’d just left the canteen when she realised she’d left her cigarettes on the table and doubled back to pick them up. Which was when she overheard them talking about her.

‘Do you believe that about a school reunion?’ asked Pia in a poor-dear voice. ‘I certainly don’t. In fact, I don’t think she has a social life at all. She’s a total oddball, really. She never has a word to say for herself.’

Hovering outside the canteen door, Holly was shocked into immobility.

‘She’s shy,’ protested Rebecca.

‘Well, I think she’s just rude,’ Pia continued dismissively. ‘Or stupid. Somebody should tell her. I’d kill myself if I was as dumb as she is.’

‘Don’t be such a bitch, Pia,’ said Rebecca. ‘Not everyone’s as confident as you.’

‘I don’t understand shyness,’ Pia said haughtily. ‘If you stammer, you can get that sorted out. If she’s shy, why doesn’t she go to classes or something? There’s no excuse for that type of thing.’

‘Poor thing. And I don’t think she ever has a boyfriend. I know, why don’t we introduce her to someone?’ suggested Rebecca. ‘That might give her a bit of a social life.’

‘Waste of time.’ Pia was scathing.

Outside, Holly’s face burned with embarrassment and pain. Blindly, she hurried to the staff stairs, and raced down to the basement and the comfort of the children’s wear department. Taking deep breaths to try and stop herself shaking, Holly leaned against the wall hoping that her legs wouldn’t let her down. How could they let Pia say such awful things? Grimly, Holly thought of all the things she’d like to say to Pia if only she had the courage. She’d show her. She’d get a bloody fantastic life together and make Pia jealous of her, she would.

Like all the best tear-stained plans of revenge, by evening, Holly’s thirst for retribution had vanished and she simply felt miserable and lonely. It was Friday night and as she walked slowly through the streets to catch her bus, she felt convinced that everyone else on the whole planet had exciting pre-Christmas party plans while she was going home alone for a date with Ben and Jerry.

Her mobile buzzed and, for once, she managed to find it in her bulging shoulder bag before the caller had given up.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi Holly,’ said Joan. ‘Spill the beans. How did last night go?’

‘’kay,’ said Holly despondently.

‘What’s wrong?’ demanded Joan. ‘You sound like Cinderella when the pumpkin coach hits the dust.’

‘Nothing’s wrong.’ Holly couldn’t bear to have this conversation in the middle of the street. She might burst into tears, which would undoubtedly give Pia more ammunition for the ‘Holly Miller is an anti-social nutcase’ theory. Her phone began to crackle. ‘The signal’s bad here,’ she yelled at the phone but it was too late. She’d been cut off. Feeling more wretched than ever, she switched the power off.

Joan and Kenny were both going out that evening, so she wouldn’t see them until the morning. She’d tell them about the awful incident in the canteen then. But not now.

Her flat was in a crumbling Victorian monstrosity that had been built onto so many times, the original architect would never have recognised it. It was situated on Windmill Terrace, a long, winding road made up of a strange mix of vandalised old tenements and sprawling Victorian houses which canny property developers were doing up in advance of the area being gentrified. When that happened, Holly’s landlord would undoubtedly eject all his tenants out onto the street and sell up. Holly was crossing her fingers that this wouldn’t happen until she had saved money for a deposit on a flat of her own, although that prospect was still a long way off. Her current apartment was one of two on the second floor. Across the hall was Joan and Kenny’s flat, a much bigger, two-bedroomed establishment with its own miniature balcony, a bathroom with a cracked roll-top bath instead of the shower Holly had, and a kitchen that was never used for anything except making coffee and toast. Kenny and Joan had moved in two years ago, at the same time as Holly, and once they’d discovered that she loved to cook, they turned up at hers at least twice a week looking hungry. Consequently, they pooled the food money and treated their floor like one big flat, with Holly in charge of cooking. Joan, who as a student had the best working hours, did most of the grocery shopping, while Kenny took care of the laundry and ironed. Holly was dangerous with an iron because of her ability to singe holes in all her most precious garments. Anyway, she knew she’d never be able to get knife-edge creases into trousers the way Kenny did.

The walk from the bus stop was cold and she was chilled to the bone by the time she wearily opened her door. She switched on lights and the kettle, hung her heavy winter coat on the door and sighed with relief to be home. It was a tiny flat, but one of Holly’s great skills was making a house into a home. With her own special brand of shabby and very cheap chic, she’d transformed the place. All the walls were painted a calming apple white with big colourful prints in distressed white frames grouped on them, and in pride of place stood a big dresser with glass doors which Holly had bought for €20 from a market and had distressed herself. The dresser contained all sorts of treasures: china, books, antique brocade bits and bobs could be seen through the glass, while an embroidered Japanese kimono in saffron silk hung from one knob. Beaded tea lights, an enamelled French lamp and a pretty, carefully-mended chandelier provided the lighting. Two small couches, at least fifth-hand but expertly disguised by two amber velvet throws and a variety of mismatched cushions made of chintzy scraps of fabric, made up the seating arrangements. The single divan bed in her box-like bedroom had a draped canopy that wouldn’t have shamed the Empress Josephine and even her clothes hangers were padded floral ones, in colours that went with the rag rugs on her wooden floors.

Her home, unique and utterly individual, expressed her personality in the way she so often was too shy to do herself.

That night, Holly did what she always did when she was upset: she cooked. She slotted Destiny’s Child into the CD player, pushed the volume up, poured herself a glass of red wine, lit a cigarette and started cutting up fat juicy tomatoes for her pomodoro sauce. When the sauce was bubbling, she opened her small but perfectly organized freezer and took out a portion of frozen fresh pasta. Purists might have shuddered at the thought of freezing pasta, but it was home-made, then frozen into portions for the occasions when she didn’t have time to make it fresh. Her pasta machine had been a huge investment but was one of her most prized possessions: there was something infinitely calming about kneading the pasta dough gently and slowly feeding the sheets in and out of the gleaming stainless steel machine. It made her feel grounded, at home, as if endless Italian mamas or her own, Irish one, were looking kindly over her shoulder, helping her and comforting her.

The doorbell rang at half seven and Holly knew who it would be: either Joan or Kenny. She bit her lip, knowing that whichever one of them it was, they would instantly drag the humiliating story out of her.

‘Omigod what a day,’ groaned Joan, erupting into the room. She was thinner than a pipe cleaner but somehow seemed to take up a lot of space. She was in a purple phase this week, and dressed as befitted a fashion design student: Morticia Addams blue-black hair, an eyebrow stud, dyed purple army fatigues and a hand-painted lilac T-shirt decorated with her version of Japanese calligraphy. Kenny, who, when he wasn’t fantasising about Xavier, was cherishing a long-range crush on a handsome Japanese student who lived in a house down the street, was always begging Joan not to wear the T-shirt because he was convinced it said something rude in Japanese. Joan ignored him on the grounds that the Japanese student wasn’t gay and wouldn’t look twice at Kenny no matter what Joan’s T-shirts said. Now she tweaked Holly’s cheek, stuck a finger into the tomato sauce to taste it, turned the volume of the CD player up to trouble-with-the-landlord level and threw herself onto Holly’s smaller couch, all in a matter of seconds.

‘I didn’t make enough dinner. I thought you were going out tonight,’ said Holly.

‘I might be,’ hedged Joan, who was sure something was wrong with Holly and was determined to get it out of her. ‘What’s up?’ she inquired. ‘You look like you’ve had a shit day, too.’

‘No, why do you think that?’ asked Holly.

‘Your mouth is all droopy and you look like you might cry any minute,’ Joan pointed out. ‘So either you’re depressed or you’ve aged very badly in the twenty-four hours since I last saw you, in which case I recommend Botox. What happened, and tell me all about last night’s reunion? Did you look a million dollars and did you thump any of the horrible old bitches who used to ignore you?’

‘Are you hungry?’ asked Holly, only asking the question to avoid having to answer others. Joan was always hungry. Kenny said she had a tapeworm inside her.

‘Yes, and what’s wrong?’

Holly moved away from the counter which separated the tiny kitchenette from the sitting room. With her back to Joan, she lit up another cigarette. Joan was always nagging her to stop but Holly needed the crutch of smoking, and anyway, if she stopped, she’d just balloon up into a fat girl again. And then she’d be anti-social and fat…

She stifled a sniff but Joan heard.

‘Holly, what’s wrong?’ said Joan again in a gentle voice.

Faced with her friend’s kindness, the whole story came tumbling out: how Holly had felt good because everything had gone well at the reunion, but then how stupid she’d felt for lying about a boyfriend. And then, how utterly hurt she’d been by what Pia had said.

‘Stupid bitch!’ raged Joan, threatening death, destruction and the reorganisation of Pia’s facial features. ‘I don’t know why you didn’t go back and hit her. Did you mention this to Bunny?’ Joan and Bunny were on the same wavelength. Both were tough, unafraid of anyone and fiercely protective of Holly.

‘No,’ said Holly miserably. ‘I couldn’t tell her. I am a mess, Joan. Pia was right.’

Like many sensitive people, all it took was one push and she was down.

‘You’re not a mess,’ screeched Joan furiously.

‘When I lied to the people at the reunion, the boyfriend I invented was gay! I can’t even lie like normal people.’

‘Kenny is cute,’ Joan pointed out.

‘It wasn’t Kenny, I’m dating Xavier.’

Joan grinned. ‘Mr Throw-Pillow-Bottom Lip. Holly, love, you have to lie at school reunions.’ She decided that Holly needed cheering up before her morale could be boosted. ‘What else are you supposed to say? Everyone has a fantastic life according to what they say when they meet old enemies. Did you ever hear of anyone at a reunion who said: “I got thrown out of college, was busted for drugs and avoided a jail sentence by doing eight zillion hours of community service, plus I live in a squat, have never had sex and my job involves spending all day saying ‘would you like fries with that?’”

Holly burst out laughing. ‘Compared with that, I have a fantastic life and I don’t know why I bothered lying.’

‘I do,’ Joan said, ‘you lied, and it was only a teeny, weensy lie, by the way, for the same reason everyone lies – because we’re all basically insecure and we want people to think we’re wildly successful. Am I right or am I right?’

‘Right,’ Holly replied hesitantly. ‘But that makes me a very shallow person if I give in to that sort of thinking.’

‘Everyone does it.’ Joan was matter of fact. ‘My sister tells people her husband is in the merchandise relocation business when he drives a truck, and my mother tells my grandmother that I dress like this because we have to wear strange clothes in college. It’s easier than telling my grandmother to eff off because she’s an interfering old cow.’

‘That’s different,’ Holly said. ‘I lied because it was easier than admitting that I’m hopeless with men and just can’t talk to them. I lied so that all the girls I was in school with wouldn’t look at me the way Pia looks at me. She said there was no point in them fixing me up with a man because it would be a waste of time.’ Holly looked so downcast that Joan’s blood began to come to the boil again. Pia was so dead. ‘We’ll just have to find a fabulously hunky boyfriend for you then, someone who can race into the children’s department just before closing and ravage you on top of the Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer pyjamas, and that would show dopey Slut Face Pia.’

‘I can’t speak from experience but I daresay that type of behaviour would get me fired,’ Holly pointed out.

‘But at least the girls would know you had a hunky boyfriend.’

‘I’d also be jobless.’

‘Just an idea.’ Joan twiddled a bit of spiky hair thoughtfully.

Holly stabbed out her cigarette and went back to stirring her sauce miserably.

‘Enough already,’ said Joan, changing the conversation. ‘Was everyone at the reunion impressed with your outfit?’

Holly grinned for the first time all day. ‘We’re talking eyes popping out of heads. They couldn’t believe it was chubby little Holly Miller.’

‘That’s what I call a result. I can’t imagine you as a chubby kid,’ Joan added. ‘You are so not fat.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Holly mumbled. ‘But I was and I still don’t feel different, Joan. I still feel like the old me.’

Joan regarded her grimly. ‘The problem isn’t other people, Holly,’ she pronounced, ‘it’s you. It’s in your head.’

The doorbell rang again, a long insistent ring made by somebody keeping an impatient finger on the bell. Only Kenny rang like that. The word ‘impatient’ failed hopelessly to convey the notion of how much in a hurry Kenny always was.

‘Don’t mention this to Kenny,’ begged Holly as she went to open the door. She couldn’t cope with the two of them giving out to her all evening for being a neurotic wimp.

‘Hello sweeties. Is there enough din dins for me?’ inquired Kenny, once he’d hugged Holly and examined the contents of the saucepan bubbling on the stove.

In contrast to Joan’s fashion college rig-out, Kenny was beautifully dressed in a charcoal shirt that clung snugly to his slim torso and a pair of elegant grey trousers that looked as though they had been made for him. Gucci and Hugo Boss respectively. Kenny loved labels and could identify any item of clothing at fifty paces. A senior salesman at an exclusive menswear boutique, Kenny was branching out into working as a stylist. His dream was to stop working in the shop altogether and freelance.

Holly thought he could work either side of the camera. He had cropped dark hair with a Richard Gere-esque sprinkling of early grey, and a handsome face with dark stubble. Kenny couldn’t cross the road without women looking admiringly at him. Joan’s favourite method of teasing him was to sigh and say, ‘Isn’t it a waste you’re gay. Why don’t we give it a go? I’m sure all you need is the love of a good woman.’

Kenny’s answer to this was to roll his eyes theatrically and shudder: ‘Don’t go there.’

Holly hunted in the freezer for more pasta. ‘There’s enough dinner for everyone,’ she said.

‘Goody.’ Kenny bounced onto the couch beside Joan and the two of them looked happily up at Holly, with eager hungry expressions on their faces. They reminded Holly of two kids expectantly watching Mummy cooking. The three of them were certainly a little family unit, she thought ruefully. Although they took turns being Mummy, because there was always one of them in some trauma. Kenny was plunged into gloom roughly every month because his love life never ran smoothly and there was always some gorgeous hunk of a man who wasn’t returning his phone calls. Joan’s traumatic incidents involved her finances – she spent all her grant on clothes, regularly ran out of rent money and scattered IOUs around like confetti. Holly’s problem was herself, which was handy in that it didn’t involve outside influences.