friends of Conor’s and, by the way, THIS IS MY HOUSE TOO!’ he yelled back.
Holly placed her fingers on her temples and began to gently massage her head, she had such a headache and the music was driving her crazy.
‘Gerry,’ she said quietly, trying to stay calm, ‘I’m not saying that you can’t invite people over. It would be fine if you had planned it in advance and told me. Then I wouldn’t care, but today of all days when I am so so tired …’ her voice became weaker and weaker with every word, ‘I just wanted to relax in my own house.’
‘Oh, everyday’s the same with you,’ he snapped. ‘You never want to do anything any more anyway. Every single night, you come home in your cranky moods and bitch at me about everything!’
Holly’s jaw dropped. ‘Excuse me! I have been working hard!’
‘And so have I, but you don’t see me biting your head off every time I don’t get my own way.’
‘Gerry this isn’t about me getting my own way, this is about you inviting the whole street into our h—’
‘IT’S FRIDAY,’ he yelled, silencing her, ‘IT’S THE WEEKEND! When is the last time you went out? Leave your work behind and let your hair down, for a change. Stop acting like such a GRANNY!’ And he stormed out of the bedroom and slammed the door.
After spending a long time in the bedroom hating Gerry and dreaming of a divorce she managed to calm down and think rationally about what he had said. And he was right. OK, he wasn’t right in the way he had phrased it but she had been cranky and bitchy all month and she knew it.
Holly was the type of person who finished work at 5 p.m. and had her computer switched off, lights off, desk tidied and was running for her train by 5.01 p.m. whether her employers liked it or not. She never took her work home, never stressed about the future of the business because, quite frankly, she didn’t care, and phoned in sick as many Monday mornings as possible without running the risk of being fired. But due to a momentary lapse of concentration when looking for new employment, she had found herself accepting an office job that forced her to take paperwork home, agree to work late and worry about the business, which she was not happy with at all. How she even managed to stay there for an entire month was anybody’s guess but, nevertheless, Gerry had been right. Ouch, it even hurt to think it. She hadn’t gone out with him or her friends for weeks and fell asleep the minute her head hit the pillow every night. Come to think of it, that was probably Gerry’s main problem, never mind the bitchiness.
But tonight would be different. She intended showing her neglected friends and husband that she was still the fun and frivolous Holly who could drink them all under the table and still manage to walk the white line all the way home. This show of antics began by preparing home-made cocktails. God only knows what was in them, but they worked their magic, and at eleven o’clock they were all dancing down the road to the pub where karaoke was taking place. Holly demanded to be first up and heckled the karaoke host until she got her way. The pub was jammed and that night there was a very rowdy crowd who were out on a stag night. It was as though a film crew had arrived in the pub hours earlier and worked away, setting the scene for disaster. They couldn’t have done a better job.
The DJ gave Holly a huge build-up after believing her lies of being a professional singer. Gerry lost all power of speech and sight from laughing so hard but she was determined to show him that she could still let her hair down. He needn’t plan that divorce just yet. Holly decided to sing ‘Like a Virgin’ and dedicated it to the man who was getting married the next day. As soon as she started singing, Holly had never heard so many boos in her whole life and at such a loud volume. But she was so drunk she didn’t care and continued on singing to her husband, who seemed to be the only one without a moody face.
Eventually, when people began to throw things at the stage, and when the karaoke host himself encouraged them to boo even louder, Holly felt that her work there had been done. When she handed him back the microphone there was a cheer so loud that people from the pub next door came running in. There were all the more people to see Holly trip down the steps in her stilettos and fall flat on her face. They all watched as her skirt went flying over her head to reveal the old underwear, which had once been white and which she hadn’t bothered to change when she got home from work.
Holly was taken to hospital to see to her broken nose.
Gerry lost his voice from laughing so loudly and Denise and Sharon helped matters by taking photographs of the scene of the crime, which Denise then chose as the cover for the invitations to her Christmas party with the heading, ‘Let’s get legless!’
Holly vowed never to do karaoke again.
Chapter Fifteen
‘Holly Kennedy? Are you here?’ the karaoke host’s voice boomed. The crowd’s applause died down into a loud chatter as everyone looked around in search of Holly. Well, they would be a long time looking, she thought as she lowered the toilet seat lid and sat down to wait for the excitement to settle so they could move on to their next victim. She closed her eyes, rested her head on her hands, and prayed for this moment to pass. She wanted to open her eyes and be at home safely, a week from now. She counted to ten, praying for a miracle and then slowly opened them again.
She was still in the toilet.
Why couldn’t she, at least just this once, suddenly find magical powers?
Holly knew this would happen. From the moment she opened that envelope and read Gerry’s third letter, she foresaw tears and humiliation. Her nightmare had come true.
Outside, the club sounded very quiet and a sense of calm engulfed her as she realised they were moving on to the next singer. Her shoulders relaxed and she unclenched her fists, her jaw relaxed and air flowed more easily into her lungs. The panic was over but she decided to wait until the next singer began before she made a run for it. She couldn’t even climb out the window – well, not unless she wanted to plummet to her death.
Outside the cubicle Holly heard the toilet door open and slam. Uh-oh, they were coming to get her, whoever they were.
‘Holly?’
It was Sharon.
‘Holly, I know you’re in there so just listen to me, OK?’
Holly sniffed back the tears that were beginning to well.
‘OK, I know that this is an absolute nightmare for you and I know you have a major phobia about this kind of thing but you need to relax, OK?’
Sharon’s voice was so soothing, Holly’s shoulders once again relaxed.
‘Holly, I hate mice, you know that.’
Holly frowned, wondering where this little pep talk was going.
‘And my worst nightmare would be to walk out of here to a room full of mice. Now could you imagine me?’
Holly smiled at the thought and remembered the time when Sharon moved in with Gerry and Holly for two weeks after she had caught a mouse in her house. John, of course, had been granted conjugal visits.
‘Yeah, well, I would be right here where you are now and nothing in the whole world would bring me out.’ She paused.
‘What?’
