Chapter 18

Friday morning was downright weird. Holly had only limited experience with recreational drugs but she supposed that one or more types of high felt something like this. Colours seemed brighter. Sounds seemed louder. Movements seemed exaggerated. Peter Fogarty approached her in the staff room when she arrived and for one terrible moment she thought she was going to scream. He was taller than she was, granted, but those few inches surely couldn’t account for the way he seemed to loom over her like a city-destroying mutant from a Japanese movie (she felt quite convinced that everything had darkened as she fell under his immense shadow). There was no sign of James, which was probably a good thing, she decided. Given her fragile state, who knew what visions she might project onto him?

Her first classes of the day went by in a flash, largely because she talked non-stop throughout them. She was relieved when the bell rang for the mid-morning break and she got a couple of minutes in which she could try to compose herself. It was just lack of sleep, she told herself. She’d probably had no more than three hours in total and that was bound to have an effect on a person, especially when you added nervous excitement to the mix. She started for outside in the interests of getting some fresh air. Halfway along the corridor, a new fear gripped her: what if James wasn’t in today? There was no way she’d be able to get through the weekend with her sanity intact. She abandoned her fresh-air plan and made her way to the staff room where she threw the door open like a cop raiding a drugs den. James was standing by the sink, sipping on a glass of water. Barry Dwyer and Julie Sullivan were there too, talking across him, both jabbering at once. He looked over to Holly and made the tiniest adjustment to his smile. Holly was sure that it meant Help: rescue me. She stepped across and butted in. Sure enough, Barry and Julie were discussing the history of their relationship; they should have known that such talk was pure poison to a single man. Holly made a few attempts to deflect the conversation in new directions but when the happy couple showed no interest, she was reduced to smiling sympathetically at James, who smiled sympathetically back. Two couples, she thought. Before very long, we could be the school’s two couples. She felt a surge of confidence and all at once, she knew what she was going to do. When time came for them to return to class, she tugged on James’s arm and suggested a lunchtime stroll. He agreed immediately. It was a nice day and he was feeling kind of sluggish. Holly left it at that and strolled off in the direction of her next class. What, she wondered, had all the fuss been about? They would go for a walk and somewhere along the way she would ask him if he wanted to go for a drink at the weekend. And he would say yes. It all seemed so clear now, so simple.

At lunchtime Holly arrived in the staff room before James. He sat on the other side of the table from her, near the end. There was another seat immediately to his right that he could have taken. Doing so would have meant he was a little closer to being directly opposite her. She started to wonder why he hadn’t sat there but quickly gave herself a mental slap across the face. The time for fretting and obsessing was over. She would have her answer within the hour. As soon as James had finished his lunch, she took her plate and cup to the dishwasher. It was difficult not to look back to see if he had followed her but she managed it. And then, just by her left shoulder, she heard him say her name. Were they going for a walk or what?

They took the same route that they’d taken the last time. For the first few minutes, they talked about their mornings. Holly, naturally, left out the bits about feeling frantic and drugged-up and restricted herself to pleasant inanities. James reported that he’d had four classes so far and that three of them had featured discussions on the new Bond movie. He was beginning to worry, in fact, about one first-year boy who seemed to be dangerously obsessed with all things 007. He had breathlessly declared his interest right at the outset when he learned his new teacher’s name and James had thought nothing more of it. But there had been several occasions recently when he’d caught the lad staring at him in the manner of a humble peasant who’d been visited by a God. Frankly, he was beginning to wonder if his sense of reality was as finely honed as it could be. Holly did her best to listen and to offer coherent responses, but it wasn’t easy. She was so busy rehearsing her opener – Any exciting plans for the weekend? – that the words seemed to be the only ones that she had access to. She felt incapable of forming a sentence that didn’t use them. When they came to the chemist, Holly pretended to need shampoo and greatly enjoyed James’s reaction when she made a move for the door; it was a special treat when he took her wrist to halt her progress.

Shortly afterwards, James said that they should probably head back. It had been nice to get a bit of fresh air but he had a couple of phone calls to make before the first class of the afternoon. So they turned around. They had taken no more than a few steps in silence before Holly started to panic that they might walk the whole way back without saying another thing. It was hardly a romantic atmosphere. Her mind spun. There had to be something she could say. Jesus, what did they usually talk about? And then the words just fell out of her mouth.

“Any exciting plans for the weekend?”

She almost slapped a hand over her gob. It was too soon! She was supposed to have carefully picked her moment! But it was out there now. There was no time for analysis. The trick was not to panic, to segue easily and naturally into her follow-up – the main event. And then she noticed that James was taking a long time to respond. She moistened her lips with her tongue.

“James?”

“Yeah . . . uh . . . actually, I’m going to be seeing Aisling.”

A great hammer swung into Holly’s chest. It felt as if every ounce of oxygen in her lungs was expelled at once. She only just stopped herself from doubling over. Say something quickly, a Sergeant Major in her head commanded.

“Really?”

James scratched the back of his head. He was still walking at his normal pace but Holly was suddenly finding it tough to keep up. “Yeah. We, uh, got together a while back but we haven’t managed to see much of each other since.”

“The play?” she said through barely parted lips.

“That’s right, yeah. That was the start of it. Seemed to be something in the air that night, eh? Orla and John, me and Aisling . . .”

Holly forced a nod. Her body was seizing up. Every movement required conscious effort. “Hm.”

“Look,” James said and rubbed his forehead. “You’re probably wondering why we didn’t mention it.”

“Hm.”

“The thing is . . . Shite, this is going to sound weird, but I’m just gonna . . . The thing is, we didn’t want to say anything for a few weeks, just in case it turned out to be nothing. Aisling said there was no point in upsetting you –”

“Why would I be upset?” Holly said. Then she thought, If he says, “Because you obviously like me,” I’m jumping into the traffic.

James frowned. “Aisling has this idea that you might feel a bit . . . left out. Because everyone around you is coupling up. Us, Orla and John. Your mum, even.”

The laugh that burst forth from Holly was bitter and brittle. She realised as much when she heard it and issued a second, fabricated version that sounded a little warmer.

“I’m well used to being the single one, James,” she said. “There’s no need to worry on that score.” Now that she had faked nonchalance almost by accident, she set about reinforcing the image. Light and easy, the Sergeant Major barked. Step to it. “So you’ve been out a few times then?”

“Yeah, just the usual, you know. Drinks, dinner. We’re going to spend the day together tomorrow. See if we can stomach each other for more than a few hours.”

Holly took a deep breath as subtly as she could and forced a smile. “I’m sure you’ll manage. Aisling’s pretty easy to be around.”

“Oh yeah. Tell you the truth, I can’t believe my luck.”

Her smile hardened. “You can’t believe your luck or you can’t believe her looks?”

He smiled back. “Bit of both.”

Holly could tell that he was relieved to see that this was going well. It was entirely to her advantage, she knew, that it should continue to do so. “Funny how things work out, isn’t it?” she said. It was already becoming easier to fake a positive reaction. Every word she uttered made it easier still. “You started out trying to do a good deed for John and you ended up doing one for yourself.”

“Well, you’re the lynchpin here, don’t forget. You’re the one we all have in common.”

“Yay for me.”

“I’m serious. What do they call it? A . . . social hub? You’re a social hub, Holly. You should be proud.”

This statement was a little patronising, but she decided to ignore that. Nothing good could come from her getting angry. They spent the rest of the walk back to school discussing options for James and Aisling’s day out. Holly presented a brief argument for the National Gallery, citing the wonders it had done for her mother and Charlie. James wasn’t sure. He liked the idea of having something outside themselves that they could talk about, but he thought that the zoo might be a better idea. They went back and forth on it with neither one fully convincing the other – largely because one of them wasn’t really trying – until they arrived at the front entrance. Holly had frankly astounded herself with her performance. By the time they said goodbye, the look of relief on James’s face had given way to excitement. He had a new girlfriend. They were about to step things up a gear. And the only person who might possibly have a problem with it had been dealt with. As he skipped away to make his phone calls, she wished him good luck with the zoo or gallery or whatever, just in case she didn’t see him again. He thanked her as he disappeared around the corner. Then she stepped outside again and reached for her own phone. She’d done a great job of keeping reality at bay so far, but it was scrabbling at the door and rattling the windows. Any minute now, it would break through. The call had to be made, so it might as well be now while she was still in the zone.

“Hi, Aisling,” she said when the call was picked up.

“Ah, Miss Christmas. How’s tricks?”

“Grand. Listen: I’ve just been talking to James. About you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. What’s with all the secrecy?”

Aisling didn’t answer right away. Holly used the time to straighten her back and redo her fake smile.

“I just . . . ” Aisling began. “I don’t know, I just didn’t want you to feel . . . left out. I know you’re . . . sensitive about all that . . . being single . . . stuff.”

“I’m not made of glass,” Holly said. Her voice didn’t sound as cheerful now. The façade was beginning to crumble.

“I know, I know. It was silly. But it was just a casual thing, with us, to begin with. There was no point taking the risk that we might annoy you for no good reason. Tell you the truth, we had half a plan to try to get you hooked up with someone before we told you.”

“I might have been up for that,” Holly lied.

“Yeah. But we couldn’t think of anybody . . . suitable.”

Holly closed her eyes. “Right.”

“It’s weird though, isn’t it? We try to get Orla fixed up and wind up getting a twofer.”

“Yeah. Weird.” One last big push, she thought. “Anyway: I better get back to it. Just so you know, I’m chuffed for the pair of you. Of course I am. And for Orla and John too. Why wouldn’t I be? There was no need to keep it to yourselves.”

“Aw. Thanks, Holly. You’re a star.”

“Okay then. I’m away.”

“All right. See ya. Thanks for the call.”

Holly hung up and put her phone away. She didn’t have a class straight away. That was good. She re-entered the building and turned down the first corridor. Just put one foot in front of the other, she told herself. That’s all there is to it. Left, right, left, right. Faces floated past her as she walked. Boys, scurrying to beat the bell, Greg Tynan and Nuala Fanning, heads almost touching as they spoke in low whispers about something or other. Holly felt sure that she was going to bump into Eleanor Duffy but she was spared that, at least. When she emerged on the other side of the main building, a first-year boy – she didn’t know his name – ran smack into her, head-butting her breasts. He looked up at her in horror and seemed unable to believe his luck when she just shook her head at him and walked on. The apology that he delivered to her back seemed genuine.

The school’s gym was a separate building, set some distance back from its parent. Holly had always hated the sight of it. There was no reason for it to be pretty, she knew, but at the same time, there really didn’t seem to be any excuse for it to be quite this bland. It looked as if it had been drawn by a child – two straight lines for walls, two angled lines for a roof. She approached it slowly; it was quite likely that it would be in use by some PE class. But there was no one around. She made her way down the side and around to the rear. “The back of the gym” was the Wild West in school folklore. It was the place where fights happened, the place where cigarettes were smoked. And now it was the place where Holly Christmas came to sit on the grass and cry.

In the middle of the night, while staring at her bedroom ceiling, she had tried to imagine how she would feel if James turned her down. The best she could hope for, she’d concluded, was for him to say that he just didn’t fancy her. There was very little she could do about her looks, after all, and besides, she had never been particularly insecure on that front. She wasn’t exactly stunning, she knew that. But she didn’t frighten children in the streets either. It would be terrible but manageable. The worst possible outcome was that he would say no and then go on to explain that, despite her recent efforts, she was just too much of a smart-arse, too sarcastic, too blah blah blah. So now what? She was in no man’s land. He had rejected her by default and she would never know why. It was going to drive her mad. Was it too late, she wondered through her tears, to ask him now? As soon as this thought had crystallised, she twisted her body in disgust. How the hell would that work? Hey, James, you know the way you never asked me out? Why was that, exactly?

It was starting already. She was losing her marbles.