“OK,” Mustache Man sighed. “Well, let’s start looking then, get someone to keep an eye on the curtain.”
The camera secretly followed the three bouncers as they patrolled the club looking behind couches, under tables, behind curtains; they even got someone to check the toilets. Holly’s family laughed hysterically at the scene unfolding before their eyes.
There was a bit of commotion at the top of the club and the bouncers headed toward the noise to sort it out. A crowd was beginning to gather around and the two skinny dancers dressed in gold body paint had stopped dancing and were staring with horrified expressions at the bed. The camera panned across to the king-size bed that was tilted for display. Underneath the gold silk sheets there appeared to be three pigs fighting under a blanket. Sharon, Denise and Holly rolled around screaming at one another, trying to make themselves as flat as possible so they wouldn’t be noticed. The crowd thickened, and soon enough the music was shut down. The three big lumps under the bed stopped squirming and suddenly froze, not knowing what was going on outside.
The bouncers counted to three and pulled the covers off the bed. Three very startled-looking girls appearing like deer caught in headlights stared back at them and lay there as flat as they could on their backs with their arms stiffly by their sides.
“One just had to get forty winks before one left,” Holly said with her royal accent and the other girls burst out laughing.
“Come on, Princess, the fun’s over,” said Paul. The three men accompanied the girls outside, assuring them that they would never again be allowed back into the club.
“Can I just tell my friends that we’re gone?” Sharon asked.
The men tutted and looked away.
“Excuse me? Am I talking to myself? I asked you if it was OK if I go in and tell my friends that we had to leave?”
“Look, stop playing around, girls,” Mustache Man said angrily. “Your friends aren’t in there. Now off you go, back to your beds.”
“Excuse me,” Sharon said angrily, “I have two friends in the VIP bar; one of them has pink hair and the other one …”
“Girls!” he raised his voice. “She does not want anyone bothering her. She is no more your friend than the man on the moon. Now clear off before you get yourselves into more trouble.”
Everyone in the club howled with laughter.
The scene changed to “The Long Journey Home,” and all the girls were in the taxi. Abbey sat like a dog with her head hanging out of the open window by order of the taxi driver. “You’re not throwing up in my cab. You either stick your head out the window or you walk home.” Abbey’s face was almost purple and her teeth were chattering, but she wasn’t going to walk all the way home. Ciara sat with her arms crossed and with a huff on her face, angry with the girls for forcing her to leave the club so early but more embarrassingly for blowing her cover as a famous rock singer. Sharon and Denise had fallen asleep with their heads resting on each other.
The camera turned around to focus on Holly, who was sitting in the passenger seat once again. But this time she wasn’t talking the ear off the taxi driver; she rested her head on the back of the seat and stared straight ahead out into the dark night. Holly knew what she was thinking as she watched herself. Time to go home to that big empty house alone again.
“Happy Birthday, Holly,” Abbey’s tiny little voice trembled.
Holly turned around to smile at her and came face-to-face with the camera. “Are you still filming with that thing? Turn it off!” and she knocked the camera out of Declan’s hand. The end.
As Daniel went to turn the lights up in the club, Holly slipped quickly away from the gang and escaped through the nearest door. She needed to collect her thoughts before everyone started talking about it. She found herself in a tiny storeroom surrounded by mops and buckets and empty kegs. What a stupid place to hide, she thought. She sat down on a keg and thought about what she had just seen. She was in shock. She felt confused and angry at Declan; he had told her that he was making a documentary about club life. She distinctly remembered him not mentioning anything about making a show of her and her friends. And he had literally made a show of them. If he had asked her politely if he could do it, that would be a different matter. Although she still wouldn’t have agreed to do it.
But the last thing she wanted to do right now was to scream at Declan in front of everyone. Apart from the fact that the documentary had completely humiliated her, Declan had actually filmed it and edited it very well. If it had been anyone else but her on the TV, Holly would have thought it very deserving of the award. But it was her, so therefore it didn’t deserve to win … Parts of it had been funny, she agreed, and she didn’t mind so much the bits of her and her friends being so silly, it was more the sneaky shots of her unhappiness that bothered her.
Thick salty tears trickled down her face and she wrapped her arms around her body to comfort herself. She had seen on television how she truly felt. Lost and alone. She cried for Gerry, she cried for herself with big, thick, heaving sobs that hurt her ribs whenever she tried to catch her breath. She didn’t want to be alone anymore, and she didn’t want her family seeing the loneliness she tried so hard to hide from them. She just wanted Gerry back and didn’t care about anything else. She didn’t care if he came back and they fought every day, she didn’t care if they were broke and had no house and no money. She just wanted him. She heard the door open behind her and felt big strong arms wrapping themselves around her frail body. She cried as though months of built-up anguish were all tumbling out at once.
“What’s wrong with her? Didn’t she like it?” she heard Declan ask worriedly.
“Just leave her be, son,” her mum said softly, and the door was closed behind them again as Daniel stroked her hair and rocked her softly.
Finally after crying what felt like all the tears in the world, Holly stopped and let go of Daniel. “Sorry,” she sniffed, drying her face with the sleeves of her top.
“There’s no need to be sorry,” he said, gently removing her hand from her face and handing her a tissue.
She sat in silence while trying to compose herself.
“If you’re upset about the documentary, then there’s no need,” he said, sitting down on a crate of glasses opposite her.
“Yeah right,” she said sarcastically, wiping her tears again.
“No really,” he said honestly, “I thought it was really funny. You all looked like you were having a great time.” He smiled at her.
“Pity that’s not how I felt,” she said sadly.
“Maybe that’s not how you felt, but the camera doesn’t pick up on feelings, Holly.”
“You don’t have to try to make me feel better.” Holly was embarrassed at being consoled by a stranger.
“I’m not trying to make you feel better, I’m just saying it like it is. Nobody but you noticed whatever it is that’s upsetting you. I didn’t see anything, so why should anyone else?”
Holly felt mildly better. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure I’m sure,” he said, smiling. “Now you really have to stop hiding in all the rooms in my club, I might take it personally,” he laughed.
“Are the girls OK?” Holly asked, hoping it was just her being stupid after all. There was loud laughter from outside.
“They’re fine, as you can hear,” he said, nodding toward the door. “Ciara’s delighted everyone will think she’s a star, Denise has finally come out of the toilet and Sharon just can’t stop laughing. Although Jack’s giving Abbey a hard time about throwing up on the way home.”
Holly giggled.
“So you see, nobody even noticed what you saw.”
“Thanks, Daniel.” She took a deep breath and smiled at him.
“You ready to go face your public?” he asked.
“Think so.” Holly stepped outside to the sounds of laughter. The lights were up and everyone was sitting around the table and happily sharing jokes and stories. Holly joined the table and sat beside
her mum. Elizabeth wrapped her arm around her daughter and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“Well, I thought it was great,” announced Jack enthusiastically. “If only we could get Declan to go out with the girls all the time, then we’d know what they get up to, eh John?” He winked over at Sharon’s husband.
“Well, I can assure you,” Abbey spoke up, “that what you saw is not a regular girls’ night out.”
The boys weren’t having any of it.
“So is it OK?” Declan asked Holly, afraid he had upset his sister.
Holly threw him a look.
“I thought you would like it, Hol,” he said worriedly.
“I might have liked it if I had known what you were doing,” she snapped back.
“But I wanted it to be a surprise,” he said genuinely.
“I hate surprises,” she said, rubbing her stinging eyes.
“Let that be a lesson to you, son,” Frank warned his son. “You shouldn’t go around filming people without them knowing what you’re doing. It’s illegal.”
“I bet they didn’t know that when they chose him for the award,” Elizabeth agreed.
“You’re not gonna tell them, are you, Holly?” Declan asked worriedly.
“Not if you’re nice to me for the next few months,” Holly said, slyly twisting her hair around her finger. Declan made a face; he was stuck and he knew it. “Yeah whatever,” he said, waving her away.
“To tell you the truth, Holly, I have to admit I thought it was quite funny,” giggled Sharon. “You and your Operation Gold Curtain,” she thumped Denise playfully on the leg.
Denise rolled her eyes. “Oh, I can tell you all something—I am never drinking again.”
Everyone laughed and Tom wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
“What?” she said innocently. “I really mean it.”
“Speaking of drink, would anyone like one?” Daniel stood up from his chair. “Jack?”
“Yeah, a Budweiser, thanks.”
“Abbey?”
“Em … a white wine, please,” she said politely.
“Frank?”
“A Guinness, thanks, Daniel.”
“I’ll have the same,” said John.
“Sharon?”
“Just a Coke, please. Holly, you want the same?” she said, looking at her friend. Holly nodded.
“Tom?”
“JD and Coke, please, Dan.”
“Me too,” said Declan.
“Denise?” Daniel tried to hide his smile.
“Em … I’ll have a … gin and tonic, please.”
“Ha!” everyone jeered her.
“What?” She shrugged her shoulders as though she didn’t care. “One drink is hardly going to kill me …”
Holly was standing over the sink with her sleeves rolled up to her elbows scrubbing the pots when she heard the familiar voice.
“Hi, honey.”
She looked up and saw him standing at the open patio doors. “Hello, you,” she smiled.
“Miss me?”
“Of course.”
“Have you found that new husband yet?”
“Of course I have, he’s upstairs in bed asleep,” she laughed, drying her hands.
Gerry shook his head and tutted, “Shall I go up and suffocate him for sleeping in our bed?”
“Ah, give him another hour or so,” she joked, looking at her watch, “he needs his rest.”
He looked happy, she thought, fresh-faced and still as beautiful as she remembered. He was wearing her favorite blue top, which she had bought him one Christmas. He stared at her from under his long eyelashes with his big brown puppy eyes.
“Are you coming in?” she asked, smiling.
“No, I just popped by to see how you are. Everything going OK?” He leaned against the door ledge with his hands in his pockets.
“So, so,” she said, weighing her hands in the air. “Could be better.”
“I hear you’re a TV star now,” he grinned.
“A very reluctant one,” she laughed.
“You’ll have men falling all around you,” he assured her.
“Falling all around me is right,” she agreed. “The problem is they keep missing the target,” she said, pointing to herself. He laughed. “I miss you, Gerry.”
“I haven’t gone far,” he said softly.
“You leaving me again?”
“For the time being.”
“See you soon,” she smiled.
He winked at her and disappeared.
Holly woke up with a smile on her face and felt like she had slept for days.
“Good morning, Gerry,” she said, happily staring up at the ceiling.
The phone rang beside her. “Hello?”
“Oh my God, Holly, just take a look at the weekend papers,” Sharon said in a panic.
Twenty
HOLLY IMMEDIATELY LEAPT OUT OF bed, threw on a tracksuit and drove to her nearest newsagent. She reached the newspaper stand and began to leaf through the pages in search of what Sharon had been raving about. The man behind the counter coughed loudly and Holly looked up at him. “This is not a library, young lady, you’ll have to buy that,” he said, nodding at the newspaper in her hand.
“I know that,” she said, irritated by his rudeness. Honestly, how on earth was anyone supposed to know which paper they wanted to buy if they didn’t even know which paper had what they were looking for? She ended up picking up every single newspaper from the stand and slammed them down on the counter, smiling sweetly at him.
The man looked startled and started to scan them into the register one by one. A queue began to form behind her.
She stared longingly at the selection of chocolate bars displayed in front of her and looked around to see if anyone was looking at her. Everyone was staring. She quickly turned back to face the counter. Finally her arm jumped up and grabbed the two king-size chocolate bars nearest to her on the shelf from the bottom of the pile. One by one the rest of the chocolate began to slide onto the floor. The teenager behind her snorted and looked away laughing as Holly bent down with a red face and began to pick them up. So many had fallen she had to make several trips up and down. The shop was silent, apart from a few coughs from the impatient queue behind her. She sneakily added another few packets of sweets to her pile. “For the kids,” she said loudly to the newsagent, hoping everyone behind her would also hear.
He just grunted at her and continued scanning the items. Then she remembered she needed to get milk, so she rushed from the queue to the end of the shop to retrieve a pint of milk from the fridge. A few women tutted loudly as she made her way back to the top of the queue, where she added the milk to her pile. The newsagent stopped scanning to stare at her; she stared back blankly at him.
“Mark,” he yelled.
A spotty young teenager appeared from one of the shopping aisles with a pricing gun in his hand. “Yeah?” he said grumpily.
“Open the other till, will ya, son, we might be here for a while.” He glared at her.
Holly made a face at him.
Mark dragged his body over to the second till, all the time staring at Holly. What? she thought defensively; don’t blame me for having to do your job. He took over the till and the entire queue behind her rushed over to the other side. Satisfied that no one was staring at her anymore, she grabbed a few packets of crisps from below the counter and added them to her purchases. “Birthday party,” she mumbled.
In the queue beside her, the teenager asked for a packet of cigarettes quietly.
“Got any ID?” Mark asked loudly.
The teenager looked around in embarrassment with a red face. Holly snorted at him and looked away.
“Anything else?” the newsagent asked sarcastically.
“No thank you, that will be all,” she said through gritted teeth. She paid her money and fumbled with her purse, trying to put all the change back in.
“Next,” the newsagent nodded to the customer behind her.
“Hiya, can I have twenty Benson and—”
“Excuse me,” Holly interrupted the man. “Could I have a bag, please,” she said politely, staring at the huge pile of groceries in front of her.
“Just a moment,” he said rudely, “I’ll deal with this gentleman first. Yes sir, cigarettes is it?”
“Please,” the customer said, looking at Holly apologetically.
“Now,” he said, returning to her, “what can I get you?”
“A bag.” She clenched her jaw.
“That’ll be twenty cents please.”
Holly sighed loudly and reached into her bag, searching through the mess to find her money again. Another queue formed behind her.
“Mark, take over the till again, will you?” he said snidely.
Holly took the coin out of her purse and slammed it down on the counter and began to fill the bag with her items.
“Next,” he said again, looking over her shoulder. Holly felt under pressure to get out of the way and began stuffing the bag full in panic.
“I’ll wait till the lady here is ready,” the customer said politely.
Holly smiled at him appreciatively and turned to leave the shop. She walked away grumbling to herself till Mark, the boy behind the counter, startled her by yelling, “Hey, I know you! You’re the girl from the telly!”
Holly swirled around in surprise and the plastic handle broke from the weight of all the newspapers. Everything fell onto the floor and her chocolate, sweets and crisps went rolling in all directions.
The friendly customer got down on his knees to help her gather her belongings while the rest of the shop watched in amusement and wondered who the girl from the telly was.
“It is you, isn’t it?” the boy laughed.
Holly smiled up weakly at him from the floor.
“I knew it!” He clapped his hands together with excitement. “You’re cool!” Yeah, she really felt cool, on her knees on the floor of a shop searching for bars of chocolate. Holly’s face went red and she nervously cleared her throat. “Em … excuse me, could I have another bag, please?”
“Yeah, that’ll be—”
“There you go,” the friendly customer interrupted him, placing a twenty-cent coin down on the counter. The newsagent looked perplexed and continued serving the customers.