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?’ the DJ’s voice said into the microphone, and then started laughing, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it appears that our singer is currently in the toilets.’ The entire room erupted in laughter.
‘Sharon!’ Holly’s voice trembled in fear. She felt as though the angry mob were about to break down the door; strip her of her clothes and carry her over their heads to the stage for her execution. Panic took over for the third time.
Sharon rushed her next sentence. ‘Anyway, Holly, all I’m saying is that you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. Nobody here is forcing you …’
‘Ladies and gentlemen, let’s let Holly know that she’s up next!’ yelled the DJ. ‘Come on!’
Everybody began to stamp their feet and chant her name.
‘OK, well, at least nobody who cares about you is forcing you to do this,’ stammered Sharon, now under pressure from the approaching mob. ‘But if you don’t do this, I know you will never be able to forgive yourself. Gerry wanted you to do this for a reason.’
‘HOLLY! HOLLY! HOLLY!’
‘Oh, Sharon!’ Holly repeated, panicking. Suddenly the walls of the cubicle felt like they were closing in on her, beads of sweat formed on her forehead. She had to get out of there. She burst through the door. Sharon’s eyes widened at the sight of her distraught friend, who looked like she had just seen a ghost. Her eyes were red and puffy with black lines of mascara streaming down her face (that waterproof stuff never works) and her tears had washed the rest of her make-up away.
‘Don’t mind them, Holly,’ Sharon said coolly. ‘They can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.’
Holly’s lower lip began to tremble.
‘Don’t!’ Sharon said, gripping her by the shoulders and looking her in the eye. ‘Don’t even think about it!’
Her lip stopped trembling but the rest of her didn’t. Finally, Holly broke her silence. ‘I can’t sing, Sharon,’ she whispered, her eyes wide with terror.
‘I know that,’ Sharon said, laughing, ‘and your family knows that! Screw the rest of them! You are never gonna see any of their ugly mugs EVER AGAIN! Who cares what they think? I don’t, do you?’
Holly thought about it for a minute. ‘No,’ she whispered.
‘I didn’t hear you – what did you say? Do you care what they think?’
‘No,’ Holly said, a little stronger.
‘Louder!’ Sharon shook her by the shoulders.
‘No!’ Holly yelled.
‘Louder!’
‘NOOOOOOOOO! I DON’T CARE WHAT THEY THINK!’ Holly screamed so loud the crowd began to quieten down outside. The two of them smiled at each other and then began to giggle at their stupidity.
‘Just let this be another silly Holly day so we can laugh about it a few months from now,’ Sharon pleaded with her.
Holly cast one last look at her reflection in the mirror, took a deep breath and charged towards the door like a woman on a mission. She opened the door to her adoring fans, who were all still chanting her name. They all began to cheer when they saw her and she took an extremely theatrical bow and headed towards the stage to the sound of claps and laughter, and a yell from Sharon saying, ‘Screw them!’
Holly had everybody’s attention now, whether she liked it or not. If she hadn’t run into the toilet the people who were chatting down the back of the club probably wouldn’t even have noticed her singing, but now she had attracted even more interest.
She stood with her arms folded and stared at the audience in shock. The music had started without her even noticing, and she missed the first few lines of the song. The DJ stopped the track and put it back to the start.
There was complete silence. Holly cleared her throat and the sound echoed around the room. Holly stared down at Denise and Sharon for help and her whole table gave her the thumbs-up. Ordinarily Holly would have laughed at how corny they all looked but right then it was strangely comforting. Finally the music began again and Holly held the microphone tightly in her two hands and prepared to sing. With an extremely shaky and timid voice she sang: ‘“What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me?”’
Denise and Sharon howled with laughter at the wonderful choice of song and gave her a big cheer. Holly struggled on, singing dreadfully and looking as if she was about to burst into tears. Just when she felt she was about to hear boos again, her family and friends joined in with the chorus. ‘“Ooh, I’ll get by with a little help from my friends; yes I’ll get by with a little help from my friends.”’
The crowd turned to her table of family and friends and laughed, and the atmosphere warmed a little more. Holly prepared herself for the high note coming up and yelled at the top of her lungs, ‘“Do you neeeed anybody?”’ She even managed to give herself a fright with the volume and a few people helped her out to sing, ‘“I need somebody to love.”’
‘“Do you neeeed anybody?”’ she repeated, and held the microphone out to the crowd to encourage them to sing and they all sang, ‘“I need somebody to love,”’ and gave themselves a round of applause. Holly felt less nervous now and battled her way through the rest of the song. The people down the back resumed chatting, the bar staff carried on serving drinks and smashing glasses until Holly felt that she was the only one listening to herself.
When she had finally finished singing, a few polite tables up the front and her own table to the right were the only people to acknowledge her. The DJ took the microphone from her hand and managed to say between laughs, ‘Please give it up for the incredibly brave Holly Kennedy!’
This time her family and friends were the only people to cheer. Denise and Sharon approached her with cheeks wet from tears of laughter.
‘I’m so proud of you!’ Sharon said, throwing her arms around Holly’s neck. ‘It was awful!’
‘Thanks for helping me, Sharon.’ Holly hugged her friend.
Jack and Abbey cheered, and Jack shouted, ‘Terrible! Absolutely terrible!’
Holly’s mother smiled encouragingly at her, knowing she had passed her special singing talent down to her daughter, and Holly’s father could barely look her in the eye he was laughing so much. All Ciara could manage was to repeat over and over again, ‘I never knew anyone could be so bad.’
Declan