Little Black Everything

by Alex Coleman

  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 t
errible 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.

  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 –”

&n
bsp; “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.