Just Between Us

‘You look completely amazing, Holly,’ said Brona in genuine admiration. ‘Poor Lilli’s eyes are out on stalks with jealousy. How are you?’

After a thoroughly enjoyable half hour, Holly had learned that Brona was working as a locum in Donegal having qualified as a doctor three years before. In her spare time, she painted, went scuba diving and she had just bought a recently-restored fisherman’s cottage on the coast. She was utterly happy.

‘Dr Reilly,’ said Holly, impressed. ‘Let’s go back and tell the gangettes and they’ll be wildly impressed.’

Brona grinned. ‘Maybe not,’ she said. ‘I’ve learned not to want to impress people for the wrong reasons. Whenever I find myself rushing to try and let people see how clever I am, I ask myself: Why would I want to impress them?’

Holly flushed. ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ she said, shame washing over her because that’s just what she’d wanted to do: to impress her old classmates. Why had she bothered lying? She was what she was. What was the point of pretending?

‘I used to be miserably intimidated by the Carolines and the Lillis when we were in school,’ Brona revealed. ‘But I’m not quiet any more. Med school knocks that out of you, and I don’t feel the need to bother talking to people who once looked down at me.’

‘No, you’re right, I agree totally,’ Holly said.

‘I was a bit nervous of coming here tonight, you see,’ Brona said, ‘and now I have, I’m pleased because it’s shown me how much I’ve changed and become a new, stronger person.’

When Brona left, Holly sat down beside Donna again, feeling like a fraud.

The conversation hadn’t moved on from the subject of men.

‘You’re so lucky, Holly,’ Caroline said dreamily. ‘I do love being married, but there are times when I wish I was young, free and single like you. I’ve never had the chance to go out with lots of men and have wild flings…’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Donna, who was quite drunk now. ‘It’d be incredible to not be Mummy for a while, and party with gorgeous guys. You can look when you’re married but that’s it.’

‘You can look, all right,’ giggled Caroline, pointing at the waiter, who was very young and good-looking. ‘Holly’s the only one of us who can chat him up.’

‘Do you know something,’ Lilli said thoughtfully, ‘he’s the image of that guy you used to go out with, Holly. That guy you took to our debs dance. What was his name?’

‘Richie!’ said Donna, delighted to have remembered the name through the fog of alcohol. ‘Whatever happened to him?’

‘I have no idea,’ said Holly, shuddering. ‘It was so long ago I can barely remember what he looked like.’ She could, actually, but she didn’t want to even think about Richie. He’d been her first boyfriend and the first one to dump her unceremoniously. His image was embedded in her brain as the prototype guy-not-to-trust. Since Richie, Holly’s luck with men hadn’t improved. She didn’t really trust any of them.

‘He was cute, that Richie,’ Lilli said.

‘But not as cute as your new guy sounds,’ gushed Caroline.

‘We’ve got to meet this new boyfriend of yours,’ Lilli added. ‘You’ll have to bring him to Kinvarra.’

Holly glued a smile to her face. ‘Yeah, sure,’ she said.

The children’s wear department in Lee’s was heaving with pre-Christmas shoppers the following morning, which did nothing for Holly’s mild hangover. She hadn’t got drunk: you couldn’t and keep track of all the lies about a fabulous boyfriend with lips that resembled soft furnishings. But as she hadn’t been able to smoke, she’d certainly drunk more than usual – two Bloody Marys followed by a couple of glasses of wine at dinner.

Getting up that morning had been hard and she’d had to hit the snooze button three times before she could haul herself out of bed. She’d only just remembered to grab the bag with the precious corset which she’d sworn she’d return to Gabriella that day.

On her way back down to the basement from her third trip to the loos, she stopped on the staff stairs and had a little rest to revitalise herself. It was ages to her coffee break and she could kill for a sit down and the sugar hit of a chocolate biscuit.

‘Miss Miller, good morning,’ said a voice behind her.

‘Oh, er, good morning Mr Lambert,’ Holly said, fumbling frantically in her sleeve for a tissue. She blew her nose loudly so it would look as if she was preparing herself for going onto the shop floor. Trust her to get caught dossing by the store manager. Mr Lambert held the door open and Holly, still bleary-eyed and tired, had to follow him into the children’s department. Trying to inject a spring into her step, she walked over to the squashy child-sized purple and orange chairs by the changing rooms where Bunny was trying to convince a ten-year-old boy that he wouldn’t face immediate ridicule from his soccer-mad pals if he wore something as boring as a non-football-logo-ed shirt for his baby sister’s christening.

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.