Lessons in Heartbreak

by Cathy Kelly

  Anneliese smiled. ‘I bet it won’t,’ she said, ‘and I’m not on any medication, except for some new antidepressants, and they’re perfectly safe to drink with.’

  Yvonne was fascinated. ‘So you’re not taking things to calm you down and flatten you out or whatever?’ she said. ‘My mother was mad for them you know, addicted really. That was in the days when they handed them out like sweets, “Mother’s little helpers” – or was that gin?’

  ‘They did try and give me medication when I was in the hospital,’ Anneliese admitted. ‘When they realised I didn’t want everything blotted out or to be numb, that was fine, they stopped. Their aim is to get you better and you’re not going to get better if you’re in a daze of Happyland. Nothing wrong with Happyland,’ she added, ‘but it just wasn’t for me. So, no chemical numbing, but a bottle of wine will do very nicely, thank you.’

  The doorbell rang at that moment and Yvonne went to answer it. The caller was Corinne from the Lifeboat Shop, smelling heavily of scented oils and waving a big bag that contained, no doubt, all sorts of organic, smelly goodies that would make Anneliese feel perfect, naturally, darling.

  With her was Stephen from the garden centre, hidden behind a huge selection of plants in an old cardboard box. ‘I thought a bit of planting would do you good, Anneliese,’ he said, shoving the box at her.

  She grinned. The gesture was so kind, bless him.

  Yvonne opened the wine she’d bought.

  ‘That shop-bought plonk is desperate,’ Corinne was saying. ‘My homemade elderflower wine…’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Yvonne, ‘it’s totally natural. But, Corinne, it still tastes like cat’s piss. We’re not drinking it, even if you have three pints of it in the back of your car, right?’

  Corinne giggled. ‘It was only a suggestion,’ she said. ‘There’s much less free radicals in the homemade stuff.’

  ‘And more alcohol,’ said Stephen.

  ‘Exactly. That’s why you like it, Corinne,’ added Yvonne. ‘One glass and everyone is lying on the floor, plastered.’

  Corinne had brought an enormous poppy-seed cake, which she cut up and they began to eat. Whatever was said about her wine, Corinne’s cakes were legendary.

  ‘Real food,’ said Anneliese sighing. ‘I’ll tell you, I don’t know why people go to health farms to lose weight. They just need to go into the psychiatric unit of Tamarin local hospital. The food is appalling. Anyone would shift a few pounds in there.’

  ‘Do you think that could be a new diet?’ laughed Yvonne, uproarious after one glass of wine in the afternoon.

  ‘Ah no, it’s a bit radical,’ Anneliese said.

  ‘There’s always liposuction?’ suggested Stephen, and the other three looked at him in complete astonishment. Stephen was so other-worldly that the thought of him knowing anything about liposuction was as strange as if his namesake, Stephen Hawking, had started a discussion on breast implants.

  ‘Well, there was this woman in the garden centre the other day. She’s just moved into Tamarin and she’s renovating one of those houses down near the harbour and, well, you know, we got to talking.’ He went puce and Anneliese kindly changed the subject.

  It would be gorgeous if Stephen found somebody to love. He’d been single for ever. If the others teased him, he’d never mention it again.

  She was saved by the bell ringing for the second time.

  ‘Lord, it’s like Grand Central Station here,’ said Corinne happily, getting herself another hunk of her own poppy-seed cake.

  Anneliese opened the door to find Mac standing at it and suddenly something pale and woolly bashed into her, rushed between her legs and ran into the house. She whirled around, aware of a definite scent of wet dog. ‘I thought your dog was a big black thing?’ she said to Mac.

  ‘It is,’ he said, and looked marginally sheepish. ‘This isn’t my dog. She’s your dog.’

  ‘What do you mean, my dog?’

  ‘She’s a rescue dog, I thought you might take her on, being, seeing as how…’

  Anneliese looked at him. ‘You rescued me, so I’m having a rescue dog – or is it that I need more rescuing and rescuing her will rescue me or –?’

  He shrugged. ‘Yes, all of the above.’

  ‘Mac, I don’t want a dog,’ Anneliese started, ‘I’m…’ And she stopped because there was no reason why she couldn’t have a dog, it was just that, if she got one, she’d want to get one in her own time and not when somebody else turned up with one. She looked into the living room, where the dog was standing, shivering and sniffling the air. She was so not Anneliese’s type of dog. Anneliese liked medium-sized, smooth-haired dogs and this thing was – well, big with pale woolly fur and in severe need of a bath. It definitely hadn’t seen hot soapy water for a very long time, and God knows how you’d put it in a bath. The dog looked Anneliese right in the eye and blinked innocently, huge coppery canine eyes boring into hers.

  ‘Oh well,’ Anneliese said, ‘I suppose maybe we can rescue each other together. What’s her name?’

  Mac shrugged. ‘She didn’t say.’

  Anneliese bestowed one of her killer glares on him but he just grinned.

  Eventually, the poppy-seed cake was gone, so was the wine and everyone waved happily at both Anneliese and the dog as they left.

  The dog was still content to look blankly and slightly nervously at Anneliese, and cowered close to the bottom of the couch when she tried to pet her.

  ‘Please don’t cringe every time I come near,’ Anneliese begged.

  The dog still looked suspiciously at her.

  ‘Right: house rules. If you’re moving in, you have to let me pat you occasionally and allow me to give you a bath. Ah, you can understand human.’ The dog had definitely shivered a bit at the mention of the word ‘bath’.

  ‘So we understand each other after all.’

  By the time she’d finished, the bathroom was a sodden mass of towels, with shampoo foam everywhere. She’d found an old bottle of dandruff shampoo, and decided that that was suitably doggy for the task. It was also very lathery and it had taken all of her strength to hold the dog in the bath in her attempts to wash all the suds out of the dog’s coat. Finally, she was out, clean but wet, running around the house at high speed in absolute delight and shaking herself all over everything. ‘You’re like a puppy really,’ Anneliese said, laughing.

  It was so lovely to be able to laugh, she thought suddenly, and she thanked the dog for giving her those few moments of humour.

  ‘Thank you, puppy. But you’re not a puppy, are you?’

  Mac said he’d got her from the local vet, who reckoned the dog had to be five or six years old. As to a precise age, it was anybody’s guess. She looked quite well cared for, if a little thin.

  The cowering must mean that somebody had hurt her. Nobody would do that here, Anneliese told her firmly.

  ‘I suppose I could call you Nell, because being a female dog, you are theoretically a bitch,’ Anneliese said, looking at the dog. The dog stopped running around and threw herself down on Anneliese’s feet, wriggling and rubbing her back into her new mistress’s ankles, as if trying to get a back massage.

  ‘No, Nell would be cruel to you, and beneath me,’ Anneliese decided. ‘What do you want to be called, darling?’

  Finished wriggling around, the dog sat up, leaned her back against Anneliese’s legs and tilted her head backwards, so that her silky ears hung down and her eyes looked up beseechingly at Anneliese.

  Wet, the dog resembled nothing so much as a seal or a silkie, Anneliese thought. Silkies were the mythical creatures who were reputed to live off the western coastal islands, half-human, half-seal. ‘You’re a silkie,’ she said. ‘Silkie, that’s a nice name.’

  Silkie wagged her wet tail.

  ‘I guess we’re stuck with each other,’ Anneliese said. ‘I suppose you’ll want to sleep in my bedroom?’

  Silkie wriggled some more against her.

  ‘Fine. I just hope you d
on’t snore.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Six months later

  Izzie stretched her legs out and said a mental thank you that SilverWebb was doing so marvellously well, or else she’d still be counting her dollars and be stuck back in steerage as usual. She’d never flown home to Ireland in the business class section of the plane before and it was lovely not to be squashed in the middle of a row of four.

  She didn’t allow herself to think about the flights on the Gulfstream with Joe. They were part of the crazy dream sequence of the previous year and symbolised a time in her life that she didn’t want to return to. This, sitting in an airplane seat she’d paid for, was what her life was about now. Not flying in luxury with Joe.

  Joe. She closed her eyes and let him flood into her mind. She didn’t do that much lately: give him headspace. Because when he got in, he took over. Even the imaginary Joe had so much charisma he overwhelmed everyone and everything, she thought ruefully.

  The real-life version had phoned five times in the past six months but, somehow, she’d forced herself not to take his calls, just let him leave a message and then listen to it.

  I wanted to say hi, I’m thinking about you. Think about you a lot, Izzie, as it happens. Call me.

  She’d wiped the last message after listening to it three times, but she could still recall every word. Call me.

  She longed to do just that. Just to see what he wanted to talk about, if he was still with his wife, if he’d realised how much he’d hurt her, and how much of a sacrifice it had been for her to walk away…

  ‘Would you like some champagne, madam, or orange juice?’ the steward asked her, proffering a small tray.

  Izzie smiled at him, grateful on two counts. She took orange juice and a glass of champagne for later.

  Joe was the past – the present was about this trip to Ireland to see Mitzi, her baby niece, for the first time, and to see Gran.

  Not, she hoped silently, for the last time. Gran was still in a coma, alive but not alive, her life slipping away in the nursing home.

  Anneliese had warned Izzie to be ready, that it would be hard to see her: ‘She looks very frail now, Izzie, love,’ Anneliese had explained on the phone. ‘She’s still Lily but she’s not there, if you know what I mean.’

  Izzie had mumbled in response and pretended that she wasn’t crying. She’d done nothing but cry for the past months, it seemed. Over Joe and over Gran. Two huge voids in her life.

  ‘Mitzi is a little darling,’ Anneliese had gone on. ‘You’ll love her, Izzie. She’s the image of Beth when she was that age, although, as I keep saying to Beth, Mitzi sleeps.’

  Mitzi was nearly five months old and the grand family reunion was in aid of her christening. If she was totally honest with herself, Izzie hadn’t really wanted to fly home for the event. Mitzi’s birth was still a very raw place for her – not that she begrudged her cousin her darling baby, but it hurt so very much to think that even Beth had managed what she hadn’t. She’d told nobody how she felt because she was so ashamed of her feelings. Surely only a horrible person could allow themselves to feel sad that they didn’t have a child when their cousin gave birth?

  And then, six weeks after the baby was born, when Izzie had tried to assuage her guilt by sending an elaborate baby layette and a vast toy giraffe from FAO Schwartz over in the post, Beth phoned.

  It was late New York time and Izzie was slumped on her couch, slobbing in sweatpants and a sweater, flicking through the TV channels.

  ‘Beth!’ she said in surprise. They hadn’t spoken since Mitzi’s birth. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Shattered,’ sighed Beth. ‘Mitzi’s sleeping pattern is all over the place and no matter how much I try to get her into a routine, I can’t. Marcus is so busy at work and I’m doing it all myself, night feeds, day feeds, you name it.’

  Izzie felt a brief flicker of annoyance at her cousin for not realising what riches she had, but she kept it to herself.

  Finally, after a certain amount of talking about how marvellous New York must be compared to boring old Dublin, and how Beth had seen a magazine interview with Steffi, SilverWebb’s most successful signing, and how fabulous it must be to work in modelling, Beth got to the point.

  ‘The thing is, Marcus and I would like you to be Mitzi’s godmother,’ she said.

  ‘Me?’ Izzie couldn’t have been more stunned.

  ‘Who better?’ said Beth.

  ‘But I don’t know anything about kids,’ Izzie said, and knew as she said it, that it was a stupid thing to say. If all godparents had to be child-experts, then the worldwide numbers would surely be halved.

  ‘You don’t have to know one end of a baby from the other,’ said Beth cheerily. ‘It’s supposed to be about moral guidance.’

  Izzie winced. Not, she felt, her area of expertise either.

  ‘But really, it’s more about whether you’d be there to take care of Mitzi if Marcus and I were run over by a truck. Not that we’re planning on that happening. Do say you’ll do it. The christening’s in March in St Canice’s in Tamarin. We decided to have it there because it’s such a pretty church and Mum would love it. She doesn’t go to church as much as she used to, mind, but still, we all love it. Please?’

  ‘Of course, I’d be honoured,’ said Izzie, because there was simply nothing else she could say.

  When she’d hung up, Izzie hugged her knees to her chest and cried. She felt so unworthy of being this new baby’s godmother. The only thing Mitzi meant to her was the dull ache of craving a child of her own. What good could she do for the little mite under the circumstances?

  In the end, she’d all but decided to call Beth and decline, risking family fury rather than do this special thing for all the wrong reasons. She’d come to the christening because she wanted to visit Gran, but she wouldn’t be godmother.

  And then, she’d changed her mind because of Lola. After many years of dating both men and women, Lola had finally made her choice and moved in with a Danish photographer named Paula. Paula was tall and fair to Lola’s petite darkness, and together, they made a striking couple. They had also decided to adopt a baby.

  Neither woman appeared to have any worries about embarking on such a plan after only a few months together. Nor did they seem anxious about encountering any difficulties as a same-sex couple.

  ‘Why should we?’ shrugged Lola. ‘We would give our baby a wonderful home.’

  Self-doubt was what Lola lacked, Izzie realised with a jolt. Lola knew she’d be a wonderful parent and she was chasing her dream, even if the combination of biology and sexuality made it difficult. She was going for it. Self-doubt wasn’t holding her back.

  Izzie thought about what she’d done to fulfil her own dreams – she’d fallen at the first fence. She’d accepted the fact that it was unlikely she’d give birth to her own child because of her age and the lack of a suitable man. So she’d closed that book and begun to grieve.

  ‘How hard is it for single people to adopt?’ she asked Lola, who laughed uproariously.

  ‘A hell of a lot easier than for two gay women, let me tell you!’

  It was like a chink in the darkness, a chink that allowed the possibility of being a mother to enter. Izzie Silver could be a mum after all. It would take courage and effort, but it was possible. The door didn’t have to close just because there would be no Joe to share it with.

  She filed the idea in the back of her mind until later.

  Life was good, after all. She was doing something she believed in, working with women who loved themselves: that felt good, although it would never balance out the ache in her heart where Gran and Joe used to be. Not that Gran was gone really, but at night, when she was in bed and she thought of morning dawning across the Atlantic in Tamarin, it felt like it.

  The horrendous pain she’d felt after saying goodbye to Joe was lessening and the times when she wanted to phone him and beg to get back together were few and far between. She’d made her choice and she was living with it.
Perhaps she hadn’t got everything she ever wanted, but then, who did?

  Anneliese could feel the muscles in her arms cording with the exertion. ‘I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to keep up here,’ she whispered, feeling her legs wavering. This was only her third headstand and Karen was hovering close by, ready to leap into action if Anneliese faltered.

  ‘Stay a bit longer, you’re doing great. Keep your arms strong, Anneliese,’ she commanded in her soft Australian accent.

  For someone so sweetly gentle in ordinary life, Karen became quite fierce when she was teaching yoga. But it worked: in the four months Anneliese had been going to yoga classes, she’d progressed quickly and it was absolutely due to Karen’s pushing her to the limit. When she’d first come, she’d groaned every time she did the simplest move, and now, she was upside down parallel to a wall in the yoga studio, balancing on her forearms and elbows, with her legs straight up in the air.

  ‘They make you do it on marble floors in Pune,’ Karen went on. Pune in India was yoga-central for Iyengar yoga devotees and was where she’d finished her training.

  ‘They’re sadists, then,’ Anneliese gasped. ‘I thought yoga was about mind, body and spirit – not bashing your skull on marble floors.’

  Karen laughed. She loved Anneliese’s wacky sense of humour.

  ‘OK, you can come down now. You went up with your right leg so lead down with your left.’

  With a grace that astonished Anneliese, she brought her left leg down towards the floor, fluidly followed by the right.

  ‘Wow.’ She knelt on her yoga mat and breathed heavily. ‘I never thought I’d be able to do it without leaning my legs against the wall,’ she said.

  ‘You’re a natural at this,’ Karen said cheerfully. ‘Shona, do you want to try now?’

  As Karen helped another member of the small, Friday-morning class to perform a headstand, Anneliese let the feelings of achievement flood through her. It was strange how utterly exhilarating yoga was, both physically and mentally. Unlike the keep-fit classes of Anneliese’s youth, where it was all about fighting with your body and bouncing madly to keep in shape, this type of exercise worked with you. No matter how wound up she felt, an hour in the yoga studio above the art-supply shop on Stone Street calmed her down.