Little Black Everything

by Alex Coleman

  James scratched the tip of his nose. “Well . . . a little bit, yeah.”

  A small smile grew on John’s face. “Aw. Cheers.”

  “Oh. Right. Don’t mention it.”

  “Wait a minute,” Holly gasped. “You’re pleased?”

  He shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “That’s so cute,” Aisling said and gave his shoulder a little pat.

  He recoiled as if she’d punched him and then stared at his feet, obviously trying not to smile. It was, Holly had to admit, quite an endearing sight. Then he suddenly looked up again.

  “I’ll tell you something I’m not that chuffed about though. And I want an honest answer. She said you only thought we’d be a good couple because we’re both . . . y’know . . . a wee bit . . . plump.”

  “What?” Holly and Aisling cried together.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Holly added.

  “Mental,” Aisling agreed.

  “Look,” James said. “Here’s the truth: we just got to talking the other day, me and Holly, about our friends and what-not, and we realised we both knew someone who was single and looking. So we decided that maybe we could try to get them together. That’s all there is to it.”

  John gave this some thought, but not a lot of it. “Fair enough,” he said then.

  Aisling and Holly turned to face each other. “Sometimes, I wish I was a man,” Aisling sighed.

  Holly nodded. “That’s just what I was thinking. Look how simple it is! And look at the nightmare we’re facing.”

  “I tried to tell her she isn’t plump,” John said. “But she wouldn’t listen.”

  “She isn’t,” James agreed.

  “I can’t believe she said that to you,” Holly tutted. “Ridiculous.”

  “Shocking,” Aisling nodded. “And not true.”

  “Yeah,” John began and then paused for a deep breath. “Tell you the truth, I think . . . I think she’s kind of cute.”

  The other three exchanged little glances.

  “Well, you’re pretty cute yourself,” Aisling told him.

  This time her intervention seemed to make him positively faint. He rocked back and forth on his heels for a moment and seemed to be on the point of reaching out for physical support. Holly couldn’t help but wonder if he’d have reacted in the same way if the compliment had come from her. Almost certainly not, she concluded.

  “So,” she said. “What are we going to do now?”

  “Well,” Aisling said, “it’s not going to be easy, but if we can get Orla to just –”

  “Not about that,” Holly snapped. She gave Aisling a serious glare. John had, in fairness to him, been reasonably subtle in putting down his marker. Despite the evening’s shortcomings, he was interested. They could have all just left it at that. It would have been nice and neat. Now it was anything but. “I mean, what are we going to do right now?”

  “Oh.”

  “No reason why we shouldn’t keep bowling, I suppose,” James said.

  Holly looked around. The place seemed to change right before her eyes. Now it looked just as it did when she first arrived – crowded, dirty and entirely without appeal. The two women in the next lane were bellowing more loudly than ever. The carpet was sticky under her feet. The air was stale. The game itself was pointless. Whatever changes James had wrought in her attitude, it seemed that they had been temporary.

  “Or we could say to hell with bowling and go for drinks,” she said.

  James tapped on his chin. “Drinks, you say. I’ve heard good things about drinks.” He raised an eyebrow in John’s direction. “What do you think?”

  John pursed his lips. “I dunno . . . ”

  “Oh, go on,” Aisling said, leaning in towards him. “It’ll be a laugh.”

  She had barely finished speaking before he started nodding. “All right then,” he said. “Why not?”

  Chapter 10

  On Sunday mornings Holly usually had what she like to call a cub – a “little lie-in”. Nothing serious – she was invariably up and about by ten thirty, even when she’d had more to drink the previous night than was strictly necessary. This particular Sunday was different. When she finally opened one eye and used it to peer at the alarm clock by her bed, she saw that it was just after one thirty in the afternoon. A second realisation quickly followed: her knees were killing her. Holly put these facts together and concluded that she had – or rather would shortly have – a hangover. Most people, she understood, knew they had a hangover as soon as they awoke. Hers tended to sneak up on her. She could be fine all day long and then, wham, at four or five or six o’clock some invisible someone would tiptoe up behind her and hit her over the head with a lead pipe. Over the years, she had learned to look for signs that her day was doomed and she shouldn’t make any serious plans. Weirdly, the most reliable indicator of trouble brewing was sore knees. Why exactly an excess of alcohol should make her knees hurt, she had no idea, but as a clue, it had never let her down. She had even honoured it with a little mnemonic: Sore knees in the morning: hangover warning; sore knees at night: doesn’t really mean anything.

  She rubbed her eyes and set about reconstructing her movements. They had gone from the bowling alley into the bar right next-door. It was a horrible pseudo-American sports joint whose name she hadn’t even bothered to register. And there, sitting at a small table all alone, they had found Orla. Apparently, she had intended to spend the rest of the evening at home with at least one bottle of wine but was in such a bad way that she had required a quick vodka to give her the strength to find a taxi.

  It was a disaster at first, of course. Orla made to bolt when she saw the others arriving and, for a moment at least, had to be physically surrounded. Since there was no way they could pretend that they didn’t all know exactly where they stood, things came to a head immediately (James and John stole away to the bar, giving the girls room to fight). There were ugly accusations and heartfelt pleas for reason. There was finger-pointing and ego-stroking. Claim and counter-claim. Tears and taunts and threats. Sighs and snorts and sneers. Orla made to leave on several more occasions but always thought of one more thing she wanted to get off her chest first. Gradually, however – it took quite a while – the tone softened and the volume decreased. There was no dramatic breakthrough, no turning of a corner, no moment of joy and reconciliation. Instead, a sort of exhaustion seemed to settle over the three of them. Things weren’t great, but given that Orla’s storm-out had happened less than twenty minutes previously, they didn’t seem hopeless either. Holly distinctly recalled thinking that at least they could now part on semi-reasonable terms.

  What she could not recall, distinctly or otherwise, was how they wound up looking for a table that could accommodate all five of them. One of their number had suggested it, presumably, but she had no idea which one had done it and what form of words had been used. In any event, they found a table easily enough and took their seats gingerly, each wearing a pale imitation of a smile. What happened next was entirely predictable. They were uncomfortable, they were Irish, and they had easy access to alcohol. There could only ever be one outcome. Even so, the speed with which their collective condition degenerated had been remarkable. Usually when Holly performed this sort of postmortem, she could look back at a part of the evening when she could and should have drawn the line; she thought of it as “pleasantly sloshed”. In this case, there seemed to have been no such period. Apparently, she’d gone straight from stone-cold sober to rubber-legged pissed and skipped everything in between, like someone who’d managed to drive from Canada to Mexico without visiting America.

  The words “Hard Rock Café” flashed in her mind. She rubbed her right temple and frowned, wondering why that was. Then it came to her and her hand moved from her temple to her mouth. The pub – “sports bar”, rather – was one of the worst she’d ever been in and she’d said so. Everything about it was not only fake but not worth copying in the first place. And it was all wrong for Dublin. There wer
e baseball bats on the walls, for God’s sake. Themes were just plain wrong in her book and anything that employed one – a pub, a restaurant, a party – was doomed to failure. James disagreed with considerable enthusiasm. This specific pub was fairly awful, he admitted, citing in particular the fact that there was a blaring TV stuck to every surface – but what about the Hard Rock Café? Had she ever been in one? They were terrific! Holly’s memories of the subsequent exchange were reasonably vivid. She remembered assuming that he was joking and taking some convincing that he was not. She also remembered the sense of ambush that swept over her when Aisling piped up to counsel James that there was no point in trying to argue the point. Themed bars and restaurants were on Holly’s list, and that was that. Once a concept made the list, it stayed put. James was intrigued. What else was on this list? Aisling was quick to fill him in. Well, there was astrology, obviously, as he may have noticed earlier. Reality TV. Mothers who have their baby’s ears pierced. Organised religion in all forms. The phrases “At the end of the day”, “If you ask me”, “This isn’t rocket science”, “Very unique”, “Your call is important to us” and many, many others. Waiters who keep asking if everything’s all right. People who emphasise their sneezes . . . At some point, Orla joined in, quietly at first but with ever-increasing zeal. What about creationists, she said? And psychics. That man with the ghost show on Channel Four. Products that are as individual as you are. Drivers who take up two parking spaces. Nicotine beard stains. Tiny hotel kettles. Cyclists on footpaths. People who whistle tunes that they just made up . . .

  Holly did her best to smile throughout all of this but eventually decided that enough was enough and spoke up in her own defence. They were making it sound as if she hated everything and everyone, she said to James (who regarded her with a sly smile), but that wasn’t true. The only difference between her and everyone else was that she was comfortable talking about the things that annoyed her while everyone else bottled it all up. She recalled ending this observation with an unconvincing grin. It had felt silly at the time and felt doubly so now. James had responded by saying that she didn’t have to defend herself to him and that, somehow, had made her grin all the harder. Looking back now, she couldn’t remember how the conversation had moved on but she had a terrible suspicion that she had maintained the ridiculous leer for quite some time.

  Her next semi-clear memories were of the moment when she realised that their physical arrangements had settled down. As the night wore on and they made their multiple trips to the bar and the loos, they had shifted and rotated into a wide variety of seating plans. Eventually, however, they’d become a table of two halves. On one half, Holly and Aisling faced each other with James, perched at the end on a low stool that made him look faintly preposterous, forming the apex of their triangle. The other half was Orla and John’s. There was no obvious physical divide between the two groups. A passer-by would have called it a table of five. But the separation was very real. Holly’s half of the table never got the chance to discuss this remarkable development, but she recalled a great many raised eyebrows and head-points. When she tuned in to Orla and John’s conversation, as she regularly did, she found it to be polite and safe and friendly – work this, family that. Nevertheless, the fact that they were having what amounted to a private chat had seemed remarkable. As far as memories went, that was almost it. The rest was a series of blurs of varying hues and intensity. She could glimpse images – John spilling a drink, Aisling having a fit of the giggles – but could form no cohesive narratives. There was something in there about a taxi too, but it was vague in the extreme. Yup, that was almost it. Almost. She did seem to recall something about deciding that James Bond was the man for her.

  It was nothing specific, nothing that she could put her finger on at any rate. In retrospect, it seemed as if the feeling had just crept over her. She’d arrived in the sports bar thinking he was a nice guy and she’d left it thinking he was a nice guy that she wanted all to herself. He hadn’t said or done anything in particular. It was just his . . . She pulled the duvet up to her nose and struggled to find words other than “essence” or “spirit” – words that wouldn’t make her feel like a fourteen year-old drawing love hearts on the back of her geography book. It was his . . . himness? His himissitude? She sighed. It was just him. The way he was. The way he acted, the way he spoke. She’d met happy-go-lucky people before and she’d always hated them with a sizzling passion. They were always so insufferably twee, bouncing around in their pastels, humming stupid songs and babbling about upside-down frowns. And that wasn’t all. She’d never met one who hadn’t wanted her to be just like them, either by “cheering up” in the short-term or completely transforming her life in the long-term. James was different on both counts. Somehow, he managed to be positive and upbeat without being insufferable. And he didn’t seem to give a damn if she – or anyone else, for that matter – followed suit. It was a combination that she found . . . tantalising.

  She lay there for another hour, staring at the ceiling, feeling tantalised.

  It was almost four o’clock when the phone call came. Holly had emerged from a hot bath and was curled up at one end of the sofa half-watching an old movie in which Cary Grant was getting himself all worked up about Katherine Hepburn. Claude was at her feet dreaming vividly; his little paws were twitching so much he seemed to be receiving mild electrical shocks. As predicted, her head had started to pound and her stomach was churning ominously.

  “Hello,” she sighed into the phone, not bothering to make an attempt at sounding pleasant.

  “Hello, Holly,” her mother said. “You don’t sound very pleased to hear from me.”

  “Mum. Sorry. It’s just . . .” She paused. No reasonable excuse presented itself. “Well, I overdid it a bit last night, that’s all. Feeling a bit delicate.”

  “Oh dear. You don’t need alcohol to have a good time, you know.”

  This was all Mrs Christmas ever had to say on the subject of booze. This was perhaps the five hundredth time Holly had heard her say it.

  “Yeah. You’re right. I know.”

  “So . . . what does ‘delicate’ mean? Are you bedridden?”

  “God, no,” Holly replied and then immediately regretted it. She had been trying to portray herself as someone who’d had two glasses of wine instead of her usual one, rather than someone who could scarcely remember how she’d made it home. But she hadn’t considered the possibility that her mother wanted her to go somewhere or do something. Now she had painted herself into a corner.

  “Good,” her mother said. “Because tonight’s the night. For meeting Charlie, I mean. Obviously.”

  Several of Holly’s organs seemed to swap places. The possibility hadn’t even occurred to her. It seemed too soon. “You’re joking me.”

  “No. Why would I be joking?”

  “It’s not much notice, is it?”

  “Sure what do you need notice for? And besides, I didn’t get any notice myself. He’s only after ringing me. He’s talking about dinner in town.”

  “And what did you say? ‘Can my daughter come too and do you mind if she brings a notebook?’”

  There was a small chuckle on the other end. “I did very well, Holly. Do you know what I said to him? I said I already had plans to meet you and you were really looking forward to it and all – but I supposed we could join the two things together.”

  There was a pause during which Holly slowly came to understand that she was supposed to be issuing congratulations. “Well done,” she said through her teeth.

  Another chuckle. “I know, I was all pleased with myself. So – what do you say?”

  “Where does he want to go?”

  “Why? What does that matter? Are you not coming if it’s not swanky enough?”

  “Mum . . .”

  “It’s called The Green Panda. Chinese. South William Street. Great reviews in the papers, so he says. Have you heard of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what hav
e you heard?”

  “Yeah. It’s supposed to be lovely.”

  “Oh good! Chineses don’t always agree with me, as you know, but Charlie says this is nothing like a take-away down the road.”

  “Hm. What time? This is a school night, you know, so I can’t –”

  “Seven thirty. Nice and early. You’ll be home again before you know it. So you’ll be there?”

  Holly had immediately regretted the schoolnight remark. She’d agreed to this, after all. There was no point in complaining now. She closed her eyes and gave the heartiest “Of course!” that she could muster.

  When it came time to leave the house, Holly realised that she was facing something of a dilemma: should she drive or take a taxi? In other words, should she leave open the alcohol option? Her hangover had developed rapidly. Mercifully, it had stopped getting worse at around six but had not yet started getting better. All things being equal, she couldn’t see herself having another drink for the remainder of the decade. Then again, what if all things turned out to be unequal? What if she found herself gagging for a softener and unable to do anything about it? She thought about it long and hard as she oscillated between bedroom and bathroom and ultimately came down on the side of driving herself. Even if the meal was a disaster, she could hardly sit there and get plastered. Why go to all that hassle and run the risk of having Bernard Manning for a driver just so she could have what undoubtedly would amount to no more than a tipple?

  The trip into town took longer than she’d allowed for and she found it necessary to speed-walk the short distance from the car park to the restaurant. This unexpected spurt of physical activity had two unfortunate consequences. Firstly, it made her head throb a little harder. And secondly, it covered her in a thin film of what Aisling called “dew” and everyone else called “sweat”. When she finally arrived, she discovered that the interior of The Green Panda was much more spacious than the exterior promised. At first glance, nothing about it said Chinese. There wasn’t a dragon or a fan to be seen. It was decorated in muted pastel tones and delicately lit. The owners seemed to have gone out of their way to make sure that every edge was straight and every angle a right one. The lampshades and candle-holders were cuboid. The picture frames and menus were square. Holly decided at once that she liked it. There was a pleasant hum of activity and the air itself seemed tasty. She was greeted by a startlingly beautiful Chinese woman who wondered if she had a reservation. Holly was tempted to say that she wasn’t happy about the whole Tibet situation but decided that the joke was too obscure and would probably earn her nothing more than a squint and an “Excuse me?”.