Chapter 3

When people who had just met Holly learned that she was a teacher, they didn’t bat an eyelid. If they stuck around and got to know her, however, sooner or later they would give her a curious look and ask her to explain why. The question was always delivered in the same way, in a tone of incredulity. They weren’t looking for a run-down of the attractions and benefits of the teaching life; they were wondering why she personally would do it. The words “don’t seem the type” were invariably added somewhere. Holly had a stock answer: she was sick of being surrounded by morons and teaching seemed to be the simplest way to do something about it. This usually raised a laugh and, as often as not, a sigh of relief; suddenly, everything made sense again. Holly had given the stock answer so many times over the years that she could no longer remember if it was a joke or not.

When she first started teaching at St Brendan’s in Harold’s Cross, she was delighted with it. The students – the majority at least – were pleasant and had a passing interest in learning. Her colleagues were like people anywhere. Most of them were perfectly nice and a handful were insufferable. The principal was a friendly, slightly manic creature named Ursula McCarthy. It didn’t take Holly very long to discover that she was top dog in name only. The real centre of gravity for the teaching staff was a woman named Eleanor Duffy. Eleanor was primarily an English teacher, although she dabbled (as she invariably put it) in geography and history. She was in her late forties, a little on the short side, a little on the tubby side, and forever smiling. She’d been at St Brendan’s for her entire career and knew it inside out. Everyone liked Eleanor, which was perfectly understandable; she was easy to like. Holly thought of her as the sort of person who made you try a little harder in everything you did – the way you carried yourself, the way you did your job, the way you stirred your coffee. You wanted her to notice you and you wanted her to be impressed by what she saw. But life around Eleanor wasn’t all roses. By the end of her first month, Holly had formed a theory; the more she looked for evidence, the more evidence she found. The bottom line was that her colleagues – not all of them, but most of them – had a label. The label was first applied, and then repeatedly reinforced until it stuck, by Eleanor. The thing about Peter Fogarty was he did magic. The thing about Greg Tynan was he used to live beside Colin Farrell. The thing about Ursula McCarthy was she couldn’t boil an egg. The thing about Louise Dillon was she was always moving house. The thing about Larry Martin was he knew a lot about old movies. The thing about Enda Clerkin was he collected antiques. As soon as the truth dawned, Holly began to worry about her own fate. Would she be getting a label of her own? And if so, what would it be? The thing about Holly Christmas . . . Her initial assumption was that Eleanor would go with the obvious: the thing about Holly Christmas was that she was called Holly bloody Christmas. And, of course, comments were made, jokes were cracked, questions were asked, some of them by Eleanor. Holly did her best to respond pleasantly – initially, at least – and concluded that it could be worse. But then she noticed to her surprise that the subject of her name was more or less dropped (by the teachers, at least; the students never quite got over it). It got an airing again in December, naturally enough, but no more than she would have expected. By the time school broke up for her namesake holiday, Holly was beginning to think that maybe she would be one of the lucky ones and would remain unlabelled. It was a pleasing thought, one that soothed her just a little through the ragged torment of the yuletide season.

Then, one morning in the first week of the new year of 2006, a little amber light appeared on the dashboard of her car. She consulted the owner’s manual and discovered that it related to the Engine Management System. Somehow, this news filled her with her horror. She hadn’t expected good news – it was hardly going to turn out to be the Everything’s Okay indicator – but still, the word “Management” sounded terribly ominous. Holly had never been particularly car-proud and had cheerfully ignored many a knock and rattle in the past, but she lost no time in getting the battered Micra round to the nearest garage.

And that was where she met Dan.

It was one of those modern, family-friendly establishments with a waiting area that featured a coffee dock, a selection of comfortable chairs and a kids’ toy box. Dan was a sort of receptionist. He sympathised with her recent difficulties and seemed genuinely tickled by her fear that the car was about to blow up.

“An explosion is unlikely,” he told her. “But I couldn’t rule out an implosion. Worst case scenario is the formation of a black hole that consumes the Earth, then the nearest planets and finally the sun itself. This is an urgent case if ever I saw one. I’ll get someone on it right away.”

Holly liked that. And she liked his face too. It was the face of a man who knew how things worked – things both mechanical and physiological. They chatted for a few minutes and might have chatted for a few hours if a queue hadn’t started to form. She reluctantly stepped aside and took the seat with the best view of the reception desk. When her car had been seen to – his promise of prompt attention had not been an idle one – she took the keys from him and made sure their fingers touched. He smiled. She smiled back. They were having a moment, she was sure of it, but she didn’t know what to do next. Eventually, she concluded that just standing there smiling was making her look like a mental patient, so she reluctantly said goodbye and slipped away to collect the car, which was now parked round the side. She had just got herself settled down in it – hadn’t even turned the key in the ignition – when her mobile rang. It was Dan.

“I got your number from the form,” he said. “Look – a braver man than me might have said this to your face, but there were too many people around and I didn’t want anyone to see me crying if it didn’t go well. Would you like to go out for dinner some time? Some time like tonight, maybe?”

Holly held the phone away from her face and issued a muted squeal of delight. “Well,” she said, “my schedule’s pretty packed. But I’m sure I could make room.”

He named a time and a place and she said she’d be there. Then his voice dipped low. “There’s one other thing,” he said. “When I was getting your number, I couldn’t help but notice your surname. I’m sure you’re sick to death of talking about it. I just want you to know that I won’t bring it up over dinner tonight or over any other dinner we might have in the future.”

A vivid thought flashed in Holly’s mind. It was not like any regular thought. It seemed to have colour and fragrance and, somehow, texture. The thought was this: I am falling in love. It took a while, maybe a couple of weeks, before she stopped worrying that she might be imagining things. Dan, apparently, was a mind-reader. At every turn, he knew exactly what to do and say to make her fall a little bit further, a little bit harder. He pulled her chair back in restaurants but took it for granted that she knew how to change a plug. He complimented her on her eyes and, once in a while, on her ass. He asked her opinion on things and when he thought she was talking rubbish, he told her so – then seemed to greatly enjoy her fighting back. He sent her sexy text messages late in the evening when he was sober but not in the middle of the night when he was drunk. He gently mocked the limitations of her wardrobe but said it wasn’t a big deal because no one could wear black like she could. When he didn’t want to see her, he told her so; he didn’t show up under duress and then sigh and fidget all night long, looking at his watch. He made her laugh, which was good, and she made him laugh, which was better. In marked contrast to everyone else she’d ever gone out with, he seemed to get a real kick out of her rants about the endless torrent of mouth-breathing nitwits with whom she was obliged to share a planet.

Orla and Aisling, her oldest and closest friends, had always been harsh judges of her romantic choices (few and far between as they were), but they liked Dan right from the start. Aisling liked him a little too much, in fact. She rang Holly at seven o’clock one Saturday evening, already cocktail-tipsy.

“There’s something bugging me,” she said, “and I want to get it out in the open.”

“Go on,” Holly said, intrigued.

“Okay. Okay. Okay, the thing is, I seem to have developed a bit of a thing for Dan. There have been . . . dreams. And daydreams. I’m not doing it on purpose. But I feel like shite about it and I want to get it out in the open.”

Aisling had been mistaken for Jessica Biel on at least two occasions that Holly knew of and had no trouble garnering male attention. As a result, she had very high standards indeed. Holly took this drunken confession as a serious stamp of approval and tried to keep the smile out of her voice as she graciously accepted it. Apart from Orla and Aisling, there was only one other person whose opinion really counted, and that was Holly’s mum. Mrs Christmas lived in permanent fear that her daughter would wind up on the loftiest and hardest to reach of all shelves and as a consequence had standards every bit as lax as Aisling’s were strict. Even so, Holly was amazed by her mother’s reaction to Dan. At the end of their first meeting, she hugged him for what seemed like half an hour and then called him “son” – twice. Holly spent the journey back to hers feverishly vowing to Dan that her mum used that word all the time and hadn’t meant anything by it.

“I mean, you don’t have to worry. We won’t have to get married this weekend or anything! Ha! Ha!”

Dan grazed her thigh with the tips of his fingers. “Just as well,” he said. “I have things to do around the house at the weekend. I’m free next weekend, though.”

Holly almost crashed into a skip.

Only once before in her entire life had she found herself going out with someone on Valentine’s Day. It was at university. His name was Paul. He didn’t bother calling around (or ringing or texting) on the fourteenth but showed up the next day with a card, inside which he had written his name in block capitals with a red pen. There was no message. It didn’t even say, “From PAUL”, much less “Love, PAUL”. It just said, “PAUL”. She hadn’t minded particularly, because she hated the concept of Valentine’s Day. It was so tacky, so unspeakably vulgar. She had said as much to Dan and he’d agreed, just as she’d expected he would. When the day dawned and she saw that her only post was a gas bill, she genuinely didn’t mind. She left for work feeling free and easy. Her colleagues knew she had a boyfriend, of course; she could barely get through a sentence without mentioning him. They were also aware that she was almost always single and that her six weeks with Dan constituted her longest ever relationship.

She wasn’t surprised, then, when the questions started as soon as she arrived at school. What, no card, no flowers? Surely Superboyfriend couldn’t forget, could he? Holly flapped them away.

“I’ve discussed this with Dan,” she said, “and we are of one mind on the subject. Valentine’s Day is for suckers, and tasteless ones at that.”

By the time she arrived home again, however, she was beginning to wonder; it was a little odd that Dan hadn’t called at all, if only to join her in laughing at the idiots who at that very moment were jammed shoulder-to-shoulder into terrible Tex-Mex restaurants, faking smiles as they exchanged cards on which fluffy teddy bears proclaimed their wuv. Then again, she hadn’t just casually pooh-poohed the idea of Valentine’s Day, she had torn it apart and set fire to the pieces. The phrase she’d used to describe those who found it amusing, or worse romantic, was “emotionally retarded”. Why on earth would Dan so much as dip his toe in it after hearing that sort of thing? He’d have to be nuts. She was being silly. Shaking her head and sighing, she got a bottle of wine from the kitchen and poured herself a half-glass. Claude appeared just as she finished it, and presented himself for petting. He’d been out and about, judging by the coldness of his paws. Holly hoped he hadn’t brought home any little presents. She got the impression that he wasn’t much of a hunter – he had trouble cornering cotton balls on the bedroom floor – but once in a while she went into the kitchen and found a dead mouse by the catflap. That, she could do without. The phone rang at about half past ten.

“Listen,” Dan said. “We have to talk. I’ve met someone else. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t go looking for her. But now that I’ve got to know her a bit, I can see that you’re . . . well, you’re all wrong for me. I need someone a bit more . . . I don’t know, bubbly. Someone not quite as prickly. It’s over with us. I’m sorry. I hope there’ll be no hard feelings.”

The whole thing took about three minutes. For more than an hour after she hung up, Holly just sat there, frowning and blinking, blinking and frowning. The only sound was Claude’s purring and the occasional hum of a passing car. Eventually, she managed to move but only as much as was necessary to pour a fresh glass of wine, a full one this time – full to the point of overflowing. She called in sick the next day and the day after that. When she did return to work, she was determined that she would not shirk the issue. If someone mentioned Dan, she would tell them the truth. She’d been dumped again. Turned out he’d been steadily going off her and she hadn’t noticed. No big deal. Someone did mention Dan. It was Eleanor Duffy. She mentioned him as soon as Holly walked into the staff room.

“Well,” she cooed, “did he come up with the goods for Valentine’s Day? Or did he take you at your word and avoid the whole thing?”

Holly hadn’t even taken her coat off yet. She cleared her throat and started to explain the situation. But she didn’t get very far. The tears began to flow almost immediately. Eleanor stepped forward and took Holly’s hand in both of hers. She wore a peculiar expression on her face. There was sympathy in there – lots of it – but there was something else too. And just like that, Holly knew. It would be a while before it was confirmed, but she knew right there and then. She had her label: the thing about Holly Christmas was she had terrible trouble with men.