Just Between Us. Cathy Kelly
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Название: Just Between Us
Автор: Cathy Kelly
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
isbn: 9780007389322
isbn:
‘Brona Reilly,’ Lilli whispered to Caroline. ‘She hasn’t changed a bit.’
‘You’d think she’d have made more of an effort for tonight,’ Caroline whispered back. She and Lilli had pulled out all the stops and had made a trip to the city to check out wildly expensive, fashionable looks they could copy. They’d both had their hair and make-up done professionally for the night and Caroline, though she hadn’t told Lilli, had even had a seaweed wrap in Kinvarra’s poshest beauty salon in order to lose a few inches. Her corset-style dress was very unforgiving round the middle.
They pretended they hadn’t seen Brona and watched her go hesitantly up to the bar and order a drink. The reunion might have been about meeting people, but it was important that they were the right people.
Brona had been one of the people that the girls in Michelle’s gang had ignored. Mind you, so had Donna, who was now a friend of theirs. But that was different.
Any mild guilt over how they’d once treated Donna had vanished, because Donna herself didn’t seem to remember it. When Caroline, Lilli and Donna had accidentally met up three years ago at the school gates on the children’s first day, there hadn’t been any bad feeling at all.
‘Imagine, three little girls the same age,’ Donna had sighed. ‘They can go to school and be friends like us.’
Caroline, who was more thoughtful than Lilli, blushed at this, remembering how the more popular girls like herself used to ignore the school mice like Donna except when they wanted to copy their homework. Now that she was a mother herself, Caroline would have personally ripped apart any child who dared to ignore her own beloved Kylie. But Donna clearly had no bad memories of either school or Caroline and Lilli. All was happily forgotten.
‘Would you like to have coffee in my house when we drop the girls off?’ Caroline had said quickly that day, wanting to make amends.
‘That would be lovely,’ Donna smiled.
And that had been the start of their friendship. But despite three years of trying to get them together, Donna had never managed to reintroduce them to Holly.
Both Lilli and Caroline were eager to see what Holly looked like now. Her sister was famous and they were keen to see if any of the gloss of Tara Miller had rubbed off on her. Tara was in the papers occasionally, and had been photographed at several high-profile premieres. Consequently, Holly was more interesting than she had been when she was just one of the quiet, mousy girls in school. Fame by association was better than no fame at all.
Donna revealed that Holly lived in a fabulous apartment in Dublin, had a wonderful job in Lee’s and partied like mad. She also said that Holly looked like a million dollars. Caroline and Lilli, remembering the plump shy girl with the round, earnest face, wanted to see this for themselves.
Donna was frantic by the time she and Holly pulled up outside the hotel at five past eight. ‘We’re so late,’ she shrieked, leaping out of the cab and thrusting a tenner into Holly’s hand. ‘Here’s my share. I have to check in. We were supposed to be here at half seven, the meal will have started five minutes ago and I’ve still got to get changed…’ She fled up the hotel steps into the lobby.
‘What’s the rush?’ said the taxi driver chattily as Holly paid him. ‘When God made time, he made plenty of it. And it’s Christmas: no party starts on time at Christmas. I’d say you’d be lucky if you get your dinner by ten tonight, never mind by eight.’
Holly smiled at him. ‘My sentiments exactly.’ Bunny’s plan for being late had been a good one. When Holly had picked Donna up from the train station and taken her for a pre-reunion drink, she’d assured her that they’d get a taxi to the party and be there in five minutes. Pre-Christmas traffic, driving rain and the mayhem of late-night shopping combined to make it more like forty minutes.
‘Thanks a million,’ Holly said, climbing out of the cab and slamming the door. She moved away and realised that her scarf had got stuck. The driver began to drive off.
‘Stop!’ roared Holly in panic. He slammed on the brakes.
Naturally, her scarf had somehow infiltrated the door locking mechanism and it took five minutes of fervent dragging to disentangle it.
‘Thanks again,’ she said weakly, holding the frayed ends of the scarf and hoping that she could cut off the destroyed bits. At least it hadn’t been the corset.
In the hotel, Donna had checked in and was about to race up to her room to leap into her party dress when Holly appeared. ‘Come on!’ she yelled at Holly.
While Donna’s hysteria mounted as she snagged tights and spilt glitter powder on her dress instead of on her shoulders, Holly sat in a chair by the window and looked out onto the wet streets wondering why she’d come in the first place.
‘Let’s go.’ Donna was ready, still panting from her last-minute rush.
Holly got to her feet, both the corset and her new boots creaking ominously.
She shook back her hair and breathed as deeply as was possible with several hundred pounds’ worth of designer corset glued to her.
‘I’m ready,’ she said.
‘That’s a fabulous outfit,’ grumbled Donna as they went downstairs. ‘I hate this old dress. You look great and I look like I’ve been out milking the cows all day and only stopped ten minutes ago to get dressed.’
‘You don’t have cows,’ pointed out Holly, smiling at Donna’s mad logic. ‘And you look great.’
‘You know what I mean. You have that city gloss about you and I look like a bumpkin.’
‘No you don’t. And I borrowed this,’ Holly confided, breaking her promise to Bunny. ‘I was so scared that I’d look awful and the rest of them would think I’d never changed from being boring, fat old Holly Miller.’
‘But you look beautiful,’ said Donna in astonishment. ‘You’ve looked great for years. Haven’t you got a fabulous life and everything? What have you to feel scared about?’
‘Are you on drugs?’ demanded Holly, mystified as to how her friend had this inaccurate view of her life. ‘I don’t have a fabulous life, I work in a shop, I live in a flat I can’t afford, if I didn’t do overtime, I’d never be able to pay the electricity bill and my last date was a disaster.’
‘How am I supposed to know these things if you don’t tell me?’ said Donna crossly.
‘I’m sick telling you but you’re convinced I’m lying. You seem to think that living away from Kinvarra is like magic dust that transforms your life. It doesn’t.’
Donna stopped walking. ‘Right, so. We won’t mention this, though. I told the girls that you were getting on brilliantly and had men coming out your ears.’
Holly goggled at this. ‘You did what?’
‘I thought you were having a great time. Ah forget it, we’ll say nothing. Caroline and Lilli are great fun, you know,’ СКАЧАТЬ