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?’ 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.