CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      It was three years ago that Holly had taken to the stage for her debut karaoke performance.

      Not coincidentally, it was three years since Holly had taken to the stage to do karaoke.

      A huge crowd of her friends had gone to their local pub in Swords to celebrate one of the lad’s thirtieth birthdays. Holly had been extremely tired as she had been working overtime for the past two weeks and she really wasn’t in the mood to go out partying. All she wanted was to go home, have a nice long bath, put on the most unsexy pair of pyjamas she owned, eats lots of chocolate and snuggle up on the couch in front of the TV with Gerry.

      After standing on an overcrowded Dart all the way from Blackrock to Sutton Station, Holly was definitely not in the mood to stand all night in a packed stuffy pub. On the train, half her face had been squashed up against the window and the other half lodged underneath the sweaty armpit of a very unhygienic man. Right behind her a man was breathing alcoholic fumes rather loudly down her neck. It didn’t help matters that every time the train swayed he ‘accidentally’ pressed his big beer belly up against her back. She had suffered through this ordeal everyday going to work and coming home for two weeks and she could take it no longer. She wanted her pyjamas.

      Finally she arrived at Sutton Station and the very clever people there thought it was a great idea to all get on the train while passengers tried to get off. It took her so long to fight her way through the crowd to get off the train that by the time she reached the platform she saw her feeder bus drive off, packed with happy little people smiling out the window at her. And because it was after six o’clock, the coffee shop had closed and she was left standing in the freezing cold waiting for another half-hour till the next bus arrived. On top of everything else, this strengthened her desire to cuddle up in front of the fire.

      But a good evening at home was not to be. Her beloved husband had other plans. She arrived home tired and extremely pissed off to a crowded house and thumping music. People she didn’t even know were wandering around her living room with cans of beer in their hands and slumping themselves on the couch she had intended to inhabit for the next few hours. Gerry stood at the CD player acting DJ and trying to look cool. At that moment in time she had never seen him look so uncool in her life.

      ‘What is wrong with you?’ Gerry asked her after seeing her storming upstairs to the bedroom.

      ‘Gerry, I am tired, I am pissed off, I am not in the mood to go out tonight and you didn’t even ask me if it was all right to invite all these people over. And, by the way, WHO ARE THEY?’ she yelled.

      ‘They’re 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