Chapter 19

The weekend barely existed for Holly. She didn’t leave the house at all and spoke only once on the phone. That call was from her mother. It seemed to serve no purpose other than to report the news that she and Charlie were still together. Holly’s monosyllabic replies (she was sorry she’d picked up) led to the obvious question: was she all right?

“I’m fine,” she said. “I haven’t been sleeping very well. I’m tired, that’s all.”

There was just one other call at the weekend – from Aisling. Holly ignored it. The recorded message spoke of a lovely day out at the zoo. Over the course of the following week, she wandered around like a ghost, interacting with nothing and no one. The only time she spoke voluntarily was when she was teaching and even then, she said as little as possible. People noticed, of course. Was she all right, they asked, again and again and again? Holly brushed them all aside.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I haven’t been sleeping very well. I’m tired, that’s all.”

James was one of those who made enquiries. When he asked what was up, Holly made a special effort. Just between them, she said, she was suddenly having something of a career crisis. Teaching seemed like a bit of a chore these days. Nothing to worry about. It would pass. James seemed to buy it. He offered some kind words and left it at that. Through a combination of shrewd tactics and luck, Holly managed to avoid Eleanor Duffy for quite a while. Last thing on Friday, however, just as she was struggling to believe that a whole week had floated by since D-Day, she came around the corner by the staff room and ran straight into the encounter that she’d been dreading. Holly was not at all surprised to learn that Eleanor had noticed her bad humour – she’d been able to avoid a private conversation, but she hadn’t been able to avoid contact altogether. They went through the routine. Eleanor didn’t seem to find the tiredness excuse as convincing as everyone else had done, but she didn’t press the issue. Then she asked if there was any news on the James front. Without hesitation, Holly reported that there wasn’t and there wasn’t likely to be, either. Apparently, he was going out with one of her oldest friends. Had been for a while. They seemed very happy together. As Eleanor paled, Holly ran through some lines about being fine with it and then – either daringly or ridiculously; she wasn’t sure – went back to lying about how knackered she was and how keen to get home. By the time Eleanor had stopped wringing her hands and started talking again, Holly was already moving away and wishing her a pleasant weekend.

Just after lunch on Saturday, Holly’s mother called. Like its predecessor, the call seemed to have but one function: to verify that she was still seeing Charlie. It was only after they’d hung up that Holly allocated any of her beleaguered mental resources to it. That tone had been there again too – Happy now? What was all that about? It was something to worry about, almost certainly, but that worry would have to wait for another day, possibly even another month. She simply didn’t have the energy right now. The phone rang twice more that day. Once call was from Aisling, the other from Orla. For fear of giving the game away, Holly answered Aisling’s. When her mood was questioned, she was careful to mirror the reply she’d given to James. Just between them, she said, she was having something of a career crisis. Teaching seemed like a bit of a chore these days. Nothing to worry about. It would pass. Aisling said that, yeah, she’d heard as much. It should have come as no surprise, of course, but somehow Holly was taken aback by the realisation that she had been a topic of discussion between the happy couple. She found it impossible not to picture the scene: the two of them snuggled up together, Aisling holding forth: Pay no attention. Holly’s always been the dark’n’moody type. That’s why she can’t keep a man for more than ten minutes. She made an excuse and got off the phone before her voice betrayed her distress. As for Orla’s call, she simply ignored that. The recorded message was cheerful to the point of parody.

On Sunday night, while Holly was standing in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil, Claude poked his head through the catflap. He paused, half in and half out, and looked up at her. Then he stepped inside. The flap swung back behind him but didn’t close. Holly narrowed her eyes. Before she even had time to think about what might be blocking it, it started to open again. And slowly, tentatively, the Cat of Many Colours poured in. Holly’s first reaction was to marvel at the ingenuity. So that was how she was gaining access – she was tail-gating. Her appreciation of this clever stratagem was short-lived, however. When the two of them sat in front of her, looked up and cried in perfect unison, she was overcome by a feeling of resignation. She had acquired another cat. There was no point in complaining or trying to find a way around it. It was a sign from God. She was indeed destined to be a little old cat lady and would be alone forever. The knowledge that she didn’t believe in signs or God, much less signs from God was of no comfort. Quite the reverse, in fact – it seemed to reinforce her conviction that, on top of everything else, she was losing her grip on reality. The circular nature of this notion – the sign from God was all the more awful because she didn’t believe in signs from God – made her head swim.

She stared down at the cats for a while, feeling utterly paralysed. They stared back. The Cat of Many Colours looked a bit more healthy than she had done on her first visit. Compared to Claude, she was still a ragged little tumbleweed of a creature, but she didn’t seem quite as skinny now and her bloody Mohawk had gone. The staring competition ended when Claude padded forward to rub himself against Holly’s lower leg. She snapped out of it and got a couple of food pouches from under the sink. Once their contents had been deposited in the bowl, the cats attacked them from opposite angles, their heads side by side, their ears twitching as they touched. Holly made her cup of tea and, having no better idea what to do with herself, sat down at the kitchen table to watch them eat. The Cat of Many Colours would have to be spayed. And she would need her own magnetic collar. It might be best to get a batch of collars, in fact. For all Holly knew, God might be planning on sending her a few more signs, just to make sure that she really got the message.

The school week that followed was much like its predecessor. Holly was there, but not there. She spoke when it was strictly necessary, but otherwise stayed mute. No one, not even Eleanor, asked her if she was feeling okay. It took a couple of days for her to realise that this was not a good thing. They weren’t avoiding the question because she’d already told them she was feeling tired; they were avoiding the question because it had become obvious that she’d been lying and they didn’t want to delve any further. When she got home on Friday evening, she realised that she couldn’t remember having a single conversation with anyone all week. It was not healthy, she knew, that she sincerely hoped she wouldn’t have any over the weekend either.

At around eight o’clock, just as she was finishing dinner (a boil-in-the-bag beef curry), the phone rang. It was Orla. Holly bit her lip. It would be poor form to ignore two calls in a row. On the other hand, what were the chances of her sitting through another sermon about John without saying something massively inappropriate? In the end, she picked up out of simple guilt. The guilt deepened when Orla made no mention of her new boyfriend but concentrated instead on Holly. She’d been very quiet lately. Aisling said so too. Was anything wrong?

“I’m all right,” she said. “Just having a bit of a career crisis these days. Nothing serious. Sometimes I feel a bit –”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Sorry.”

“You heard me. I have a theory of my own. Do you want to hear it?”

“Would it matter if I said no?”

“I think you’re pissed off because everyone around you is coupling up.”

“Is that right.”

“Yep. Do you not think it’s weird that we haven’t even had a gossip about Aisling and James getting together?”

This was dangerous territory. Holly moved quickly. “It’s nothing to do with my love life, or lack of one. I’m delighted for Aisling and James. I’m delighted for you and John. I’m delighted for my mother and Charlie. And I’m delighted for Claude, even if they are just good friends.”

She hoped that this last statement would generate a follow-up question and thus divert the conversation. But Orla was undeterred – and unconvinced.

“Holly, I know what it’s like to be lonely and think that there’s no one special for you. But you can’t just give up. You have to put yourself out there, stay open to possibilities.”

Now this, Holly thought, was really something. Orla had only had a boyfriend for ten minutes herself and now she was giving advice? And she hadn’t “put herself” anywhere. She’d been set up. Even then, her initial reaction had been to run away to drink alone in the nearest pub. Although she was sorely tempted to say all of this and more, Holly ultimately decided that it would be a mistake to raise the temperature.

“For the last time, I’m just tired,” she said. “I mean – it’s just work.”

“Okay then,” Orla sighed. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” she said. “Not really.”

There was a long silence. Then Orla said, “We’re going out for dinner tomorrow night, myself and Aisling and the two boys. Nothing fancy. Pizza and a few glasses of wine. Why don’t you come along?”

Although she tried hard, Holly was unable to prevent herself from forming a mental picture of the scene. Her skin crawled. Sooner or later, she would have to face them all, of course. But if she had any say in the matter, it would definitely be later.

“Thanks, Orla. But no thanks.”

“Fine,” Orla said somewhat angrily. “Suit yourself. Give me a ring any time if you want to talk about it. Your school problems, I mean.”

Holly thanks her, mumbled some promises about getting back into society soon and then got off the phone as quickly as possible.

She would be discussed over pizza the following night, there was no doubt about that. What would they say, she wondered? Her career-crisis story had probably held water for a couple of days but it was obviously past its sell-by date now. She could just about stomach the idea of them talking about her being miserably single. Her real fear was that one of them would hit on the idea that she had wanted James for herself. All she could do, she supposed, was hope that they wouldn’t.

After another half hour of staring at the TV without even registering what she was watching, she began to contemplate going next door. She had almost gone several times in recent days but had always stopped herself. Why should she go to see them? They knew she’d been about to ask James out. If they cared, wouldn’t they already have come knocking to get the latest? She started down that mental path again now, but the frenzy of righteous indignation ended when she reminded herself with a sigh that there was no point in grumbling; Mark and Lizzie simply didn’t do visits. They’d been in her house precisely once, not long after she’d moved in, and only came then because she’d literally begged them to judge some paint samples she’d daubed on the kitchen wall.

Mark and Lizzie greeted her in sombre tones. They had of course guessed that it had all gone wrong and had assumed that she would talk to them when she was good and ready. Over the course of two large glasses of wine – they didn’t offer any opinions on it, which spoke of their solemnity, she felt – Holly gave them the headlines. They listened attentively and made appropriately sympathetic noises. When she told them about the Cat of Many Colours, she thought she saw Mark stifling a giggle, but was gratified to see that Lizzie, at least, maintained a look of concern.

“The worst part,” she said, “is that I don’t know where I stand with the stupid positivity experiment. The night I started trying it was the night he took up with Aisling. He wasn’t paying the remotest bit of attention to me all along. Not that I was any good at it anyway. I tried, I really did, but it wasn’t easy. So what am I going to do now? Should I try it again on some other poor bastard? Maybe try . . . harder?”

And then she began to ramble. She knew that she was doing it, looping and backtracking, repeating the same points over and over again, but she didn’t seem able to stop herself. It was a consequence, she supposed, of having been essentially dumb for a fortnight. Her meandering rant had been going on for some time when Lizzie butted in. There was something about the manner of her interruption – the raised finger, the deep inhalation – that made Holly instantly nervous. She braced herself.

“I want to ask you something,” Lizzy said, after a dramatic pause. “Are you really sure that you fancied James in the first place?”

“What? What’s that sup–”

“The reason I’m asking is that all your current complaints are exactly the same ones you had when Kevin dumped you. Is it your own fault that you’re single, would being a bit more happy-clappy make any difference, cat lady this, doomed to be alone that, yada yada. There’s nothing in there about James himself.”

Mark nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. You’ve never gone all soppy over his manly jaw or thick, wavy hair or piercing blue eyes or whatever. The only time you ever complimented him, actually, was to say that he was, what was it, ‘intriguing’ because he was so different from you.”

Lizzie clapped her hands together and turned to face him. “Yes. That’s it. She was never really attracted to this James in the normal sense. She just picked on him because he was so unlike her, so chirpy and cheerful, stupid name and all. He was a challenge, that was the point. She isn’t sorry that she hasn’t acquired him as a boyfriend; she’s sorry that she still hasn’t found out if the problem is her personality.”

She clapped again. This time she seemed to be applauding herself.

Holly fell back into her chair, cradling her empty glass as if it was a favourite cuddly toy. She felt as if some tiny tornado was laying waste to her mind, up-ending and uprooting as it went. As the seconds ticked by, the sensation grew so strong as to be mildly nauseating.

When Mark rose from his seat to pour more wine for everyone, Holly avoided his eye. She sipped from her glass for a moment and then finally mumbled a response.

“Bullshit,” she said. “Of course I fancied him. Fancy him. I know I’m not exactly on top of my game these days but I’m not crazy.”

Mark and Lizzie failed to reply at first. Then Mark said, “There is some good news. Now that you know the thing with you and James was a figment of your imagination, you don’t have to avoid him and Aisling any more.”

Holly gaped at him. “That’s your idea of good news? I – I have to go.”

She was up and moving before they could even ask her to reconsider.

Back in her own house, she found Claude and the Cat of Many Colours lying at either end of the sofa, apparently waiting for her. She wasn’t in the least surprised. It seemed like a perfectly logical next step in her downward spiral. She sat down between them and gave them each an absent-minded tickle. Claude leaned into his straight away. The Cat of Many Colours was more hesitant at first but soon got the idea. She was making herself at home now. Settling in.

Over the course of the next couple of hours, Holly moved only to pet the cats. Around about the time when her hand began to go numb – she looked down at one point and realised that she was stroking a cushion – an idea occurred to her. Although she found it interesting at first, she soon pushed it away on the grounds that it was utter insanity. But it wouldn’t stay pushed away. The harder she pushed, in fact, the more forcefully it returned; she felt as if she was slamming a tennis ball against the side of a house. After a while, she surrendered and started to give the idea serious thought. Somewhere along the way, it started to sound less insane. Risky, certainly. But not insane. By the time she got up to go to bed, it didn’t even feel all that risky any more. The word for it, she decided, was . . . bold. Yes. She would be bold. Tomorrow was as good a day as any. All she needed was a hammer.