The Men in her Life

would marry Tansy. Simon dutifully kissed Mrs Draper’s proffered cheek that smelled of stale face-powder and mothballs as old ladies’ skin often did.
    ‘Oooh, if I were fifty years younger, I’d snap him up!’ Mrs Draper squealed.
    ‘I don’t mind if I do,’ Simon told Eamon who was asking him if he wanted another Guinness.
    ‘Have you ever been to Ireland ?’ Eamon asked him.
    ‘No, always wanted to though... they say the Guinness tastes different there...’
    ‘It does... it’s a long time since I’ve tasted any, mind you. You should take Holly one day. She’s not been, have you, Holly?’
    ‘No,’ said Holly, impatiently, ‘but Simon and I are not in the business of going on holiday together. We’re just neighbours, as you know, Eamon...’
    Simon’s face said that he didn’t mind, but Holly was determined to spare him further embarrassment. Why was it, she wondered, that perfectly nice people who normally would not dream of asking personal questions became brutishly insensitive when there was a single woman in her twenties or thirties around?
    ‘Any chance of a gin and tonic?’ she asked one of the waitresses, ‘large?’
    ‘Holly’s in the film business,’ Eamon was telling one of his friends. He pronounced it fillum just as Mo did. Holly gulped the gin and tonic as if it were water.
    ‘What’s your favourite film, Eamon?’ she said, making an effort to join in.
    ‘Ah, now that would have to be Nashville ,’’ he replied.
    The answer could not have surprised Holly more. It was one of her favourite films too.
    ‘Really?’ she asked.
    ‘If it ever comes on telly, I can recommend it unreservedly,’ Eamon said, for the benefit of anyone who was not familiar with the movie, ‘it has some lovely songs...’
    Holly couldn’t work out from his twinkly eyes whether he was teasing her, or whether he had actually experienced the biting satire about American politics as a simple musical. It was a musical, she reminded herself, and it did contain some lovely songs. What did it matter what reasons Eamon had for liking the film anyway. She hated tight-assed poseurs who couldn’t enjoy themselves without going into some big intellectual analysis, and now she was becoming one of them. Holly stared at her empty glass wondering whether it was alcohol that filled her with self-loathing, or whether the self-loathing was hidden there all the time and the alcohol merely released it.
    ‘Yes, I’ll have another,’ she told the waitress.
    Eamon made a simple speech thanking everyone for being there, and one of his friends acted as best man and gave a potted history of Mo and Eamon’s relationship. They had met at a line-dancing class, he informed anyone who did not know, and he hoped that their future would be filled with music and rhythm and that their bodies would move in perfect time together. Mo blushed so pink it looked as if she were sunburnt. While he was speaking the waitresses charged everyone’s glass with the champagne that was Holly’s contribution to the feast.
    ‘The bride and groom!’
    Everyone stood up, drank the toast, sat down and began to applaud.
    ‘Do you think I should say something?’ Holly whispered to Simon.
    ‘No,’ he told her, ‘I think Mo would be embarrassed.’
    ‘No, I think I must,’ Holly said, chiming her fork against her glass.
    The room fell silent again. Holly glanced at Mo and saw pure fear on her face.
    ‘I’ve known Mo for a long time,’ Holly said, and there was a ripple of laughter, ‘and anyone who knows her can see that she’s very happy today, and all I wanted to say was I’m really pleased about that, and I hope you’ll look after her, Eamon, because she deserves the best...’ Stranded mid-sentence, not knowing where to go next, Holly decided to sit down, and everyone clapped again.
    Mo smiled at her.
    ‘That was very nice,’ she said, relieved.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Holly told her, ‘I just thought someone should speak for you... Mum, am I drunk, or have you been on a sunbed?’
    ‘Is it that bad...? Oh come on...’ She took Holly’s hand and they scuttled off to the Ladies together.
    ‘Jesus!’ Mo said looking in the mirror, ‘I thought Sonya was laying it on a bit thick... she gave me a self-tan treatment this morning...’ Mo turned on the tap and started scrubbing at her skin.
    ‘I don’t think that’s going to do it,’ Holly said, looking at herself in the mirror next to Mo. The bare light bulb was not