by Cathy Kelly
Trust Caroline, she thought, as she stared at the formal invitation which invited ‘Holly & guest’ to a party in a city-centre hotel in ten days time. The ‘& guest’ bit really irritated Holly. She could imagine Caroline filling that in with a certain relish. Poor Holly, she hadn’t any significant other to bring with her, so she could bring a guest, the unattached woman’s face-saving device.
‘I sort of imagined you’d have a party in Cork rather than Dublin,’ Holly remarked.
‘Caroline’s moving to Dublin next month. She thought it would be a good way to start her life up here with a party,’ Tom explained.
‘Oh.’ Holly wondered how many of Tom and Caroline’s friends would be devoted enough to make the six-hour round trip from Cork and back for a mid-week party.
As if Tom could read her mind, he said: ‘A lot of the Cork crowd probably won’t be able to come, but Caroline says we’ve enough new friends here.’
Holly felt a certain sympathy for Caroline’s old friends, ruthlessly consigned to the bottom of the pile as she went in search of new ones. She cast around for something else to say. ‘Is it going to be a big party, then?’
A flash of irritation crossed Tom’s face, so fleeting that Holly thought she must have imagined it. ‘You know Caroline, she likes to make a splash. She’s trying to get Vic’s brother’s band to play.’
At the mention of Vic’s name, Holly cringed inwardly. Tom wouldn’t know how things had ended with Vic: Holly still squirmed when she thought of that.
Suddenly, she was too weary to spend any more time having a wooden conversation with a man she’d cared for from afar. Tom belonged to someone else anyhow, and he obviously disapproved of what he believed to be her whirlwind relationship with Vic. Holly had had just about as much of other people’s disapproval as she could cope with. She stood up. ‘I’ve got to go out, Tom,’ she said apologetically. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘Oh yeah.’ He got up quickly. ‘Me too.’
‘Yeah,’ Holly glanced at her watch. ‘Time flies and all that.’
‘Yeah.’ A brief smile flashed across his face. ‘So you can come to the party? With Vic?’
Somehow, Holly managed to fix a noncommittal look on her face. ‘I’m sure I’ll be able to,’ was all she said.
When Tom was gone, her enthusiasm for the launderette had vanished. But it had to be done. Holly pulled her denim jacket on, grabbed her wallet and the washing, and set out.
Soapy Susi’s was virtually empty, apart from one gloomy looking man in a shabby suit who’d clearly had a bad day at the office. Holly averted her eyes from his miserable face. She stuck her washing in the giant tubs and wished she had enough money to afford the service wash all the time. Or a washing machine of her own. It had been lovely when Kenny wasn’t too busy for laundry duty: he liked doing the washing. Holly made herself comfortable on an old vinyl chair, carefully opened the foil wrapping on her chocolate bar and flicked to the first page of her magazine.
She was deep in an article on celebrity break-ups when the door of Soapy Susi’s squeaked open. She didn’t look up. Eye contact was fatal in the launderette. With no diversion (you couldn’t count the wonky television set high up on one wall and permanently tuned to the shopping channel), it was easy to get embroiled in a two-hour conversation with a complete nutter. Holly’s Bermuda Triangle effect meant that if a weirdo of any variety was in the vicinity, they would somehow detect her presence and rush, open-armed, to find her. Her most disastrous encounter had happened the previous month when she’d been there with Joan. The sweet, confused, elderly man in yellow paisley pyjamas hadn’t lost his way and wandered in by mistake. No. He’d been a flasher who’d gleefully flashed the whole of Soapy Susi’s clientele just as a well-intentioned Holly was asking him if he knew where he was and could she phone anyone to come and pick him up. Joan had laughed so much, she’d sounded like a hyena.
‘I thought he might be lost and we should phone the police or someone,’ said a bewildered Holly when Pyjama Man had legged it out the door before any of the astonished customers could get a hold of him.
‘We could phone the police, all right,’ screeched Joan between hyena noises, ‘but they might say we’re wasting their time over a flasher wielding nothing more than a cocktail sausage.’
Holly had learned her lesson. Eyes down and don’t get involved: that was her new motto.
She turned the page, still nibbling her chocolate. Holly could make one chocolate bar last ten minutes as she savoured every forbidden sliver. What’s Your Love Match? screamed the headline at the top of a feature on horoscopes and picking the perfect partner. Holly instantly looked up what sort of man liked Cancerians. Her ideal partner would be strong, kind and able to nudge gentle, shy Cancerians out of their shell. Your ideal mate understands that even though you appear reserved, you’re still passionate and wild under that gentle exterior.
Holly popped the last square of chocolate into her mouth, scanning to see if Cancerians were compatible with Taureans, Tom’s sign, when somebody loomed over her. On lunatic-alert, she jerked her head up to see Tom himself, holding an empty sports bag.
‘I’m glad I’m not the only one with thrilling Saturday night plans,’ he said ruefully, grinning at her. He sat down beside Holly, stretched out his long legs, and leaned back in the vinyl chair.
Holly couldn’t resist seeing the funny side of it. ‘Wait till nine, then this place comes alive,’ she said. ‘You have no idea…Man, it’s hot. There’s dancing, occasionally nudity, and the shopping channel gets really interesting.’
‘Fancy that,’ said Tom, still grinning. ‘Tell me about the nudity bit. You mean people come in and strip down to their underwear, like that old Levi’s ad?’
Holly had a sudden vision of Pyjama Man and she started to laugh.
‘You wouldn’t believe it if I told you,’ she said.
‘Try me.’
He laughed at the story, but not as heartily as Joan had. ‘You must have been upset,’ he said, probing gently.
‘Well, not really. If Joan hadn’t been with me, I’d have cried. But she laughed so much that it sort of made it funny.’
‘Good for Joan.’
‘You see, normally, I’m on my own when these mad things happen. It’s the magnetic effect; I attract strange people.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ Tom looked irritated that Holly would think this of herself.
‘No, it’s true,’ she said. ‘I am magnetic in a bad sense. Some women have an aura that makes men swoon at their feet. I have an aura that makes drunks chase me.’
‘Come on,’ laughed Tom. ‘You’re joking. They don’t.’
‘They do,’ insisted Holly. ‘On the bus, drunk people always sit beside me. Even in work, there’s this wino called Rasher who sleeps outside the store and if the security man turns his back, Rasher rushes in and he always comes to me!’
‘That’s because he knows you’re kind and that you care,’ Tom pointed out. ‘I bet nobody else in Lee’s even knows his name.’
‘Well, no. Security know his name because they have to make him leave. I mean, all I do is talk to him when I pass him.’
‘See, you’re kind and the world’s lonely, sad people can sense that.’
Holly’s inappropriate blushing mechanism went into action.
Tom, noticing, changed the subject. ‘What are you reading?’
The blush moved from plain old crimson to an interesting shade of magenta. ‘Er…nothing,’ mumbled Holly. She didn’t want Tom to see her poring over an article on finding her ideal date via their star sign. Men thought horoscopes were daft. In fact, the only man she’d ever known who was into horoscopes was Kenny, who was more in touch with his feminine side than most men. But Tom had gently taken the magazine from her and was reading, fascinated.
‘What’s your sign?’ he asked.
‘Cancer. Because I’m crabby,’ she added jokily.
‘There are lots of words to describe you, Holly, but crabby
wouldn’t be one of them.’ Tom kept reading. ‘I’m Taurus,’ he said.
‘Really?’ she said innocently.
She watched him read and it looked as if he was reading the piece on Cancerians. But he couldn’t be, unless Caroline was one too.
‘What’s Caroline’s sign?’ she asked.
‘Leo,’ he answered shortly.
Extrovert, passionate, memorable, driven to success. People noticed Leos, in Holly’s opinion. And Caroline was certainly all those things, she just wasn’t very nice. Holly wished Tom had picked a nicer Leo, a kind, genuine one. Caroline was too hard-edged for him. But then, what did she know? Holly stopped reading over Tom’s shoulder. It was nice sitting talking, almost like they used to talk before Caroline had daintily crash-landed into Holly’s life.
Tom flicked a couple of pages.
‘Oh, Brainbox or Bimbo: Test Your Brain Power. We’ve got to do this, Holly,’ he said enthusiastically.
Whatever she’d planned for the evening, Holly had never expected that she’d be sitting in a launderette with Tom, arguing good-humouredly over the answers in a quiz. It took them ages to finish it and there was a definite squabble over the spatial relations bit.
Then, they turned to the puzzle page, and ended up with the crossword. At intervals, they both checked their laundry. The time flew. They were still struggling with the group term for larks when Holly noticed that her tumble dryer had stopped. For the first time ever, she wished she could spend longer in the laundry.
She got up and began unloading the machine, folding everything carefully, anything to delay. When she had finished, she smiled at Tom. ‘I suppose I should go,’ she said.
‘You could wait for me, mine will be finished soon,’ he said.
Holly hesitated and glanced at her watch, more because she didn’t want to look too puppy-dog eager than for any other reason, but somehow Tom misinterpreted this gesture.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s getting late. You should go. Say hello to Vic for me.’
Holly was horrified. He thought she was meeting Vic. She opened her mouth to say that she and Vic weren’t seeing each other any more, but would that sound worse? Like she was a total floozy and bedded Vic after three weeks only to dump him a week later. These thoughts raced through her mind at record speed. What could she say?
Tom resolved the issue by handing her the magazine. ‘Thanks for keeping me company,’ he said. ‘It was fun.’ That guarded look was back in his eyes.
‘Yes, it was,’ said Holly dully. She took the magazine, shouldered her bags of washing, and went out into the night. If only Tom knew.
She walked slowly up the street and replayed her mental Vic: The End video.
Feeling cowardly, she’d managed to avoid Vic’s phone calls for two days. Finally, he’d turned up to pick her up after work in Lee’s.
‘He’s cute,’ Bunny said to Holly as Vic wandered round children’s wear. She hadn’t seen Vic before, having been on holiday at the time of Joan’s fashion show.
‘He is cute,’ agreed Holly, ‘but I just don’t fancy him.’
‘Does he know that?’
Holly sighed heavily. ‘No, I have to tell him tonight.’
She and Vic sat in a juice bar waiting for their drinks, strawberry surprise (Holly) and a wheatgrass shot (Vic).
In all her twenty-seven years, Holly had never dumped anyone. She’d always been the dumpee and simply didn’t know how to handle things from the other side. The dumpee bit their bottom lip, became fascinated with their cuticles, and managed to hold the tears back when they nodded that ‘Yes, you’re right. We’re not suited, we need some space, of course we can still be friends.’
She’d thought that was bad, but being on the other side was worse. For the past two days, she’d gone through every permutation and combination of saying ‘I like you as a friend but not as a boyfriend.’ Now, all those carefully-chosen words deserted her.
‘I’m sorry, Vic,’ she blurted out. ‘I just don’t…I can’t…em, I don’t think we’re right for one another.’
Vic took this remarkably well, but then, he hadn’t been the brightest guy in his year in med school for nothing.
‘It’s Tom Barry, huh?’
Holly felt six inches tall.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, hanging her head. ‘I’m not involved with him or anything.’
‘But you are crazy about him?’ Vic said shrewdly. ‘I’d almost prefer if there was someone else,’ he said. ‘Otherwise, it means that I’m such a hideous bore that you can’t bear to be with me. And I did always have an inkling that you liked Tom more than you let on.’
Holly felt a mist of tears shimmer over her eyes.
Their juices arrived and Vic knocked back his shot in one. ‘Yeuch, this stuff is vile.’
‘It takes a while to get used to wheatgrass,’ snuffled Holly.
Vic took their bill from the table top. ‘I’ll pay this and go,’ he said.
Holly shook her head and reached out to take the bill from him. Her wrist caught the top of her untouched juice drink and knocked it all over the table. Quick as a shot, Vic grabbed a wedge of napkins from the counter and soaked up the sea of shocking pink.
‘Sorry,’ said Holly tearfully. ‘Sorry about everything…’
‘Don’t get upset,’ Vic said gently, hunkering down beside her chair. He handed her a napkin to wipe a glob of strawberry juice from her hand. His kindness made her feel even more upset and her snuffles threatened to turn into full-blown sobs.
‘Don’t cry. You’re a pretty special person, Holly. It’s a pity I’m not your sort of guy. But, hey?’ He shrugged. ‘You win some, you lose some. Nobody died here today, right?’
She nodded, wiping her eyes with the napkin.
Vic got to his feet and smiled down at her. ‘See you around.’
And he was gone. Holly had sat there for ages, hating herself. Vic was such a lovely, decent man. Why couldn’t she love him? Or was she destined to always hanker for what she couldn’t have?
The laundry felt like it was growing heavier every second, and Holly was grateful when she reached home. She left the bags in the hall and immediately turned the TV on. She didn’t care what sort of rubbish was on, she’d watch it. Tonight, she didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
‘So tell me, what sort of research do you do?’ The reporter blinked at Tara from behind discreet gold-framed glasses, her tape recorder at the ready, her every gesture earnestly probing. ‘Do you get inside the minds of your characters? How difficult is it to write about subjects like, oh, say euthanasia or adultery? Those have been fabulous storylines, by the way. And is it true that there’s a big alcoholism storyline coming up?’
Tara did her best to wipe the look of misery off her face. It wasn’t the poor reporter’s fault that National Hospital’s recent storylines could have been plucked from Tara’s personal life and whacked up on screen without any rewriting whatsoever. The guilt about going to bed with Scott Irving grew inside her like an abscess, getting bigger and more painful with every day. When she stared at her computer screen, she could see Finn’s face. Every sentence she wrote made her think of him. Every scene seemed to have some resonance with her guilt. And it felt as if everyone and everything were conspiring to make her feel worse.
Bea, newly-hired junior features writer with women’s magazine Style, allowed her gaze to flicker past Tara’s preoccupied face. Everything was so interesting on the set. People rushed around all the time, with mobile phones and headsets, talking and gesturing, discussing camera angles, dragging huge cables around. Bea could barely believe she was spending the whole day on the National Hospital story and she’d been promised access to all areas, which included watching some of the show being filmed. She hoped she might get to interview that gorgeous Dr McCambridge who really was her favourite but there was no sign of him anywhere…
Tara dragged herself back to the task in hand. Aaron had specifical
ly asked her to talk to Bea. On the set, they were about to film a pivotal scene where one of the main characters owned up to an affair with a colleague. She was a junior doctor and originally Tara had wondered, given the workload of real junior doctors, how the hell the poor woman would have the energy to have sex with her husband, never mind an extramarital fling. These days, Tara tried very hard not to think about the concept of extramarital flings full stop.
‘Research is key,’ Tara heard herself saying. She hated the word key. It was real middle-management gobbledegook and just using it was proof that her thought processes were as scrambled as satellite TV signals. ‘All the writers sit around and brainstorm when we’re working on a particular storyline. We bounce ideas off each other. It doesn’t work as well when you’re sitting at home on your own. Working with the team is what makes it happen.’
Bea was fascinated, holding her tiny tape recorder under Tara’s nose as if Tara was revealing the meaning of life, plus how to get rid of cellulite.
‘But where do the ideas come from?’ asked Bea, eyes flicking down to the huge list of questions that she’d spent the previous night thinking up. ‘Like the scene today with Dr Kavanagh. I’m a huge fan and I’ve been watching those episodes where you know her husband is going to find out and she’s doing her best to cover it up. Oh, it’s so real. You really get into her heart and see how awful she feels. It must be difficult to get inside someone’s head like that?’
Tara managed a thoughtful expression, as if she was mulling over the precise way to answer all these knotty questions. It would certainly make for an interesting article if she said ‘Yes, I know all about adultery because I just cheated on my husband with one of the scriptwriters. I’m talking about Scott Irving, who’s pretty hunky and goes like a train but now he’s not talking to me, which means the atmosphere on set is icy and uncomfortable. And my husband suspects, so he’s not talking to me either, which certainly helps my understanding of the subject. So yes, personal experience heightens your ability to write about something…’ Instead, she shrugged. ‘I didn’t write today’s scene,’ she said. ‘I’ve been working on a different storyline, the one about Tony Carlisle.’