Cathy Kelly - Just Between Us

As Michelle hadn’t turned up, Holly was certainly the most fashionable and interesting ex-Cardinal girl there that night and Caroline and Lilli attempted to stick with her. Holly would have preferred to talk to the other non-gang girls from school but she didn’t see any of them there. She’d met Andrea who used to sit beside her in art class, and Geena Monroe had thrown her arms round Holly and hugged her happily. Caroline’s once-great friend, Selina, who’d never even spoken to Holly in school, had been fulsome in her praise of Holly’s outfit, necklace and general improvement. But she hadn’t seen lovely quiet Brona Reilly who’d sat on her other side in art class, or Munira Shirsat and her best friend, Jan Campbell.

‘I think I saw Brona earlier, but a few of the girls didn’t reply to the letter,’ Caroline said when Holly asked her about Brona, Jan and Munira. ‘You’d think they’d want to meet up with everyone again. After all we shared together.’

Holly wondered if the other girls had been so nervous of a reunion that they had deliberately not replied.

‘You’ve heard all about us,’ Lilli said, when they were waiting for dessert, ‘and we haven’t heard a thing about the man in your life.’

‘Or should that be men ?’ giggled Caroline, who’d decided that Holly was simply being enigmatic by not talking about herself. That this glamorous woman could be shy never occurred to her, and anyone who looked so amazing must have some gorgeous bloke in the wings. ‘Go on,’ she urged. ‘Tell us.’

‘There’s nothing to tell,’ said Holly.

Donna kicked her under the table. ‘What about that guy you were telling me about earlier?’

All Holly could remember was Donna talking about reinventing herself.

‘I bet he’s a hunk,’ said Lilli enviously.

‘Look!’ sighed Andrea, as waiters converged to place plates of butterscotch mousse, double chocolate cake and Hawaiian Surprise in front of them.

Donna took advantage of the lapse in everyone’s concentration to whisper into Holly’s ear.

‘Make someone up!’

‘Why?’ Holly hissed back.

‘Because I’ve told them you’ve got this fabulous life and I don’t want you to let me down. We were boring at school, we’ve got to make up for it now!’

Three spoonfuls into their dessert, attention turned back to Holly. She wished more than anything she could have a cigarette, otherwise she was going to eat all her mousse, and lick the plate, and she couldn’t afford to burst out of her outfit.

Caroline, Lilli, Selina and Andrea were waiting eagerly. Donna was smiling, encouragingly. Holly thought of how bad she was at lying, and then thought of how flattering it was that Caroline and Lilli really imagined that she could have a sexy boyfriend.

‘Is it someone famous?’ demanded Lilli, suddenly suspicious.

‘No,’ stammered Holly.

Donna gave her another kick under the table and Holly winced. She’d be black and blue tomorrow.

‘Well…’ They all looked at her eagerly. In fact, their entire end of the table was looking at her eagerly. All conversation seemed to have ceased as everyone waited for news of the new, improved Holly Miller’s man.

‘Go on,’ urged Donna.

Holly gulped. For some deranged reason, the only man who came to mind was the current object of Kenny’s longing: a male model named Xavier. Hard-bodied, blond-haired and with the face of a pouting archangel, Xavier reeked of sex, although Holly had it on good authority (from a drooling Kenny) that the only sex Xavier was interested in was not the female of the species. Trust her to come up with a fantasy boyfriend who was gay. Kenny would wet himself laughing when he heard.

‘Tell us,’ demanded Caroline.

Holly proceeded to describe Xavier in each perfect detail, leaving out the vital facts that he was gay and not going out with her. Lying by omission, she knew. What had Kenny said? ‘His lower lip is like a big biteable, coral silk throw pillow. Yummy.’ Kenny’s imagination knew no bounds when he was in lust.

‘A throw pillow, imagine. He sounds amazing.’ Even Lilli was impressed.

Holly smiled hollowly and took a huge gulp of wine. She’d kill Donna later.

But as Caroline and Lilli began describing their other halves in glowing terms in order to prove that Holly wasn’t the only one who could nab a handsome man, Holly began to realise why she’d gone along with Donna and lied. Feminism was a wildly outdated concept to Caroline and Lilli. Having a man was a status symbol to beat all others. Without one, Holly was low caste.

‘Hi, Holly,’ said a voice.

It was Brona, one of the few girls in school who’d been shyer than she was. Whereas Caroline and Lilli had disdainfully seen Brona as dull and unstylish, Holly’s kind eyes saw an old friend whose eyes glittered with a spark of fun.

Holly leapt to her feet and hugged Brona warmly. ‘How are you!’ she said delightedly, ‘it’s so lovely to see you. You haven’t been here all night, have you? Where were you?’

‘At the back of the room, I didn’t like to interrupt,’ Brona said, sliding mischievous blue eyes in the direction of Caroline and Lilli.

Holly grinned and bore her off to a quiet corner to talk.

‘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?’