Hello, Heartbreak

by Amy Huberman

  I jumped up. ‘Fine! Stay where you are. Don’t move.’

  ‘Yee-ha!’ Gavin whooped, rubbing his hands. ‘That’s my girl!’

  I was back two minutes later with a biro and the inside cut out of a cereal box. It was all I could find. I got to work, scribbling away furiously. ‘Stop moving!’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, smiling. ‘This is kind of unnerving.’

  ‘Tough shit, you asked for it. Now shut up.’

  I held the cardboard away from me and studied what I’d done so far. Was it okay? I looked back to Gavin’s face. ‘You should be a model,’ I told him.

  ‘Shut up and get on with it.’

  But I was serious. As I drew the details of his face, I saw how technically perfect it was: strong cheekbones, a defined jaw, the slightly large nose that I’d always thought very attractive on a man. And he had the longest, darkest eyelashes I’d ever seen on a bloke. I shaded in his stubble. That was so Gavin. He was always a bit unkempt. And his long, dark shaggy hair was raked back and tucked behind his ears. He had a good neck. Great shoulders, too. He was strong without working too hard at it.

  ‘I need to sneeze,’ he said.

  ‘Permission granted.’ His dimple appeared and I drew it in quickly. That was my favourite feature.

  ‘Nearly there?’ he asked, sneaking a glance.

  ‘You’re so impatient!’

  ‘Just give me a little peek.’

  ‘No, it’s not ready.’

  ‘Just a tiny one and then you can take it back.’

  ‘No.’

  He suddenly reached over and whipped it out of my hands.

  ‘Oi!’

  He studied it intently. And kept studying it. For ages! He wasn’t saying anything. Uh-oh, he thought it was shit and now we’d have to sit here and figure out another career path for me. Or maybe he was insulted because I’d drawn his nose a bit too big.

  ‘Izzy…’ He looked up.

  ‘You have a lovely nose,’ I said quickly.

  He laughed softly. ‘Thank you. I grew it myself. Izzy, this is amazing.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked, squirming a little.

  ‘Really. And, as I said before, you’re extremely talented.’

  Wow! Gavin had a way of taking you by surprise when he was serious. Usually he was messing or joking or so laidback that when he spoke to you seriously, it was as if he was directly connected to you.

  ‘Give it back,’ I said, getting to my feet to take it from him. He held it out of my reach. I swooped for it and he trapped my hands with one speedy manoeuvre and held them pinned. How the hell did guys do that with absolutely no effort? I had to twist and contort every muscle in my body to open a pot of jam.

  I moved my foot to dig him in the shin, but he shuffled his legs quicker than I could blink so that mine were locked tightly between his. I wriggled to get loose. Although I guess you couldn’t call it wriggling, really, because I didn’t budge an inch. It was more like I’d just twitched. Like when I get trapped in a size-six dress after I’ve tried to convince myself that I might get away with it – I always end up having to call an assistant to help me out.

  I suppressed a grin as I stared down at him.

  ‘Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?’ he asked, tapping his fingers on the arm of the chair.

  ‘I could spit on you,’ I threatened, my face hovering above his. Even for a girl, I think I could probably have aimed it okay. Gravity was on my side. If I missed, I really would have to rethink taking up darts.

  ‘I’ve hung people over the balcony by their ankles for less. And I must warn you that I have a zero-tolerance policy for spitters.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have the nerve.’

  ‘Well, actually, your mum called over last week with a fresh baked apple and raspberry crumble. I dumped it straight into the bin, grabbed her by the ankles, swung her over the balcony and told her I only ate chocolate fudge cake, and if she ever called over with a fruit crumble in future, I wouldn’t be quite so lenient.’

  ‘Is that why she hasn’t been in contact with me?’ I asked.

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Fine, you win this time, Balcony Bully.’

  ‘Good. I’m keeping this,’ he said, holding the picture defiantly in his other hand.

  ‘Fine. I’m going to get more wine. Release me, you brute.’ I plodded into the kitchen to open another bottle of wine. My eyes were dazzled by a collage of shifting white speckles from being out in the sunshine. I blinked, and headed to the fridge. Which turned out to be the oven. Definitely no wine in there. My next guess was right and I plucked a cool bottle from inside the door.

  Wasn’t this lovely? Sitting in the sunshine, chatting, drinking… drawing again. It’d been far too long. And I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed doing it. I was kind of disgusted with myself that I’d more or less given up on account of Cian. I was so used to hearing him say that art should be a hobby that I’d allowed it to sink in. ‘Enjoy it in your own time, Izzy,’ he’d say, ‘but it’s the tangible things like law, business, accountancy that’ll impress people. They’re the stepping-stones to success.’

  Puke. What an arrogant, self-righteous prick. Gavin was right: he was a twat. A twat who thought phoning his ex-girlfriend in the middle of the night eight months after he’d broken her heart was acceptable behaviour. Euch. I was angry, though, that it still bothered me. It had been so easy for him to call me out of curiosity or some other selfish impulse and I hated him for making me think about him. It was too cruel.

  I went back outside and Gavin and I chatted for a while longer, laughing about Laurence’s love of primary colours. He said it was his only outlet of creativity these days – his little colour-appropriate rhymes. Gavin let me in on this week’s display of ingenuity: ‘If it’s debit loans you said, simply file it with the red!’

  Then he told me about Geraldine setting Eve up on 98FM’s morning crew, getting them to phone her and tell her that she’d won the Most Fantastic Employee Award in Ireland. And she’d totally believed it! She’d told them live on air how she was at her desk before anyone else in the office and it wasn’t unusual for her to work straight through her lunch hour.

  Priceless.

  Before I had any more wine, I headed upstairs to pack some of my stuff before I got too pissed to care. I threw a few things into a holdall and bundled some other bits and bobs into a pile to collect in a few days’ time. Just as I was about to head back downstairs my phone beeped.

  Did u get my msg? Call me when u get a chance. Cian X

  What the fuck? X as in a kiss? Well, kiss my arse, you pretentious anti-art capitalist Philistine! Little shit couldn’t bear to be ignored. Could he not see that I didn’t want to speak to him? I shoved the phone back into my pocket before I got so angry that I flushed it down the loo.

  I headed downstairs in the hope that Gavin would distract me. When I walked out to the balcony, he was engrossed in some article in Hot Press.

  ‘I’m going to miss it here,’ I said, and suddenly realized how much I meant it.

  ‘I’ll miss having you here,’ he said softly. ‘You know, for a girl, you weren’t too bad a flatmate. Except for all the crying and screaming and leaving boxes of tampons around the place.’

  ‘And I got used to your empty beer cans thrown in the bath too.’

  ‘Yeah, baths are no fun without a six-pack of Bud.’

  I sighed. ‘Right, I’d better head,’ I said. ‘And, Gav, thanks so much for everything.’

  ‘Izzy, before you go…’ He paused. ‘There’s something I need to ask you.’

  Sounded serious. What did he want to say? That Kate officially hated me for being a squatter? That I hadn’t removed all the hair from the bathplug?

  ‘Sit down,’ he said, indicating the empty chair on the balcony. I inched towards it, my heart racing.

  ‘Listen.’ He stalled. Listen, what? ‘Remember I was telling you about the documentary thing I had in mind?’

  I nodded.
>
  ‘Well, it’s a pretty big deal, really. It’s a competition and only ten get in out of a possible five hundred entries. The winner gets a contract with the best documentary production company in Ireland and the UK.’

  ‘Wow.’ I was seriously impressed.

  ‘As you can imagine, the selection process is pretty hard and other entrants will have way more experience than I do –’

  ‘You’re gonna get in!’ I yelped, jumping to my feet.

  ‘Not so fast, Ms Positive. Here’s where you come in… hopefully.’

  Oh, shit! Gavin wanted to make a documentary about me! Uh-oh. What would it be about? My shit taste in men? My hermit era? The length I’d allowed the hairs on my legs grow to? Hmm. Would I be able to say no, considering he’d been good enough to let me stay in his apartment?

  ‘To be accepted as an entrant, you have to get chosen on the merits of your proposal.’

  Here we go – proposal as follows: My Friend the Hairy Desperado.

  ‘Izzy, I’d be honoured if you’d draw the storyboards for me.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘It’s okay if you don’t want to. I wouldn’t be able to pay you what you should be paid –’

  ‘Gavin, are you mad? If you think I’m good enough, I’d be happy to do them for free.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Izzy, thank you so much. Really.’

  ‘Done.’

  ‘Brilliant. I’ll get some of my plans down on paper and then maybe we could get together to have a meeting about it over the next few days.’

  A meeting no less. Someone thought my drawing was good enough to entail a meeting!

  I skipped off into town to get some art supplies so I’d be fully equipped with nice cartridge paper, graphite blocks, charcoal, ink, pencils, and markers for whenever Gavin wanted to get together for our meeting. I didn’t actually need markers, but it was always nice to buy some. Who doesn’t love a brand new set of every-colour-under-the-sun markers?

  What a day!

  19

  On my way over to Mum and Dad’s on Sunday, I darted into town to buy Dad a birthday present. Question: why is it virtually impossible to buy presents for men? It’s not like they’re a minority group or anything. They account for fifty per cent of the world’s population. Why hasn’t someone come up with a few viable options other than socks and golf balls?

  Guys reckon we’re high maintenance, but we’re so easily pleased in comparison. If it sparkles, smells nice or comes in a Brown Thomas bag, we’re sorted. But what do you buy for a man in his fifties? One who doesn’t play golf, only wears the aftershave his wife buys him, owns every book that exists in the world and has so many socks that if he were to tie them all together they’d stretch from here to St Petersburg (rough estimate).

  I resisted the urge to leg it into Sock Shop and splurge on a three-pack of knee-highs. Instead I wandered aimlessly from shop to shop, looking at the assistants, hoping they would instinctively know by my pained expression that I faced the near-impossible task of Buying a Present for a Man. Maybe then they’d rush over and cradle me and tell me not to worry, that together we’d work it out.

  I ended up buying Dad a karaoke machine and some posh hair gel. I knew Mum would shoot me, seeing as Dad only liked to sing Céline Dion songs. And he was completely tone deaf. But at least he’d look good while he was at it.

  After the mandatory half-hour wait for a Sunday bus, I was on my merry way out to the leafy suburbs of Blackrock. There, I walked up our driveway and before I’d even taken my keys out, Emma swung open the door, leapt forward and hugged me.

  ‘Thank God you’re here! Mum’s freaking out because the parsley’s not organic and she’s making me scrub the potatoes! Izzy, look at my hands! They’re raw red!’

  My sister, the drama queen.

  ‘Will you peel the carrots? I don’t think I can cope with them too,’ she pleaded, on the verge of tears.

  ‘Yes, Emma, I’ll peel the carrots.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She did some tortured-smile thing I’d only ever seen in Danielle Steel movies.

  Far from freaking out, Mum was in the kitchen whistling along to some Joe Dolan song on the radio. Knowing my health-food-junkie mother, she probably had let out a whimpery squeak when she’d discovered the parsley wasn’t organic, but not to the extent Emma had made out. Dad was perched in front of the TV, watching a programme about owls – he’d been excused any chores because it was his birthday. I gave him a big hug and made him open his birthday present. At first he thought the karaoke machine was a microwave, and seemed delighted to discover that it wasn’t. Then he headed off to the bathroom to ‘style his hair’ for lunch while I went into the kitchen to deal with Carrotgate.

  I peeled while Emma sat on the counter with her hands slathered in eight-hour cream, ‘recovering’. She pawed through the fashion supplement of the Sunday Times and complained about not having any Roberto Cavalli clothes. I told her not many people did, let alone third-year arts students. She sighed and nodded nobly like the trooper she was. Mum finished making the stuffing and we bunged the whole lot in the oven and set the table.

  ‘Where’s Stephen?’ I asked, wondering why he wasn’t already there, tucking into a beer and complaining about football. My brother supported the worst team in the world – some club in the third division that wore a dodgy pink-and-yellow strip. He’d met one of their players when we were on holiday in Wales years ago and followed them ever since. The only other famous people he’d met were Stephen Roche and a retired RTÉ weather presenter.

  ‘He’ll be over soon,’ Mum said. ‘He has to pick his girlfriend up on the way.’

  ‘He has a girlfriend?’ I screeched. ‘But he’s a sl–’

  Good God! I’d nearly told my mother that her son was a slut. Which he was, but I shouldn’t tell her that. ‘But he’s usually… always single,’ I told her instead. No, it didn’t make grammatical sense, but I’d saved her from the truth.

  ‘I know he’s usually single. Your speech is slurring, love, are you hungry? Your blood sugar’s probably low. Have a barley sugar,’ she said, unwrapping it and forcing it into my mouth.

  ‘Thanks,’ I replied. I wondered if anyone under the age of fifty ever bought barley sugar.

  ‘Can’t wait to meet her. She probably looks like Jodie Marsh,’ Emma joked.

  ‘Who’s Jodie Marsh?’ Mum asked. ‘Someone in college with you?’

  ‘Eh, not exactly.’

  ‘Oh, right, probably someone off the telly, some stunner. Your brother is a handsome boy so I’m sure she’s gorgeous.’ And with that she scooted out of the kitchen ‘to put on a bit of lipstick’.

  ‘Can’t believe Stephen has a girlfriend!’ I said to Emma.

  ‘It’s mad, isn’t it? He’s so gross.’

  ‘He’s not gross, Emma, but he’s such a slut. I never thought he’d be able for a relationship. Being in one generally means you can’t shag loads of other people.’

  ‘She’s probably a porn star.’

  ‘He’s not that bad. Actually, he is. You’re right, she’s probably a porn star. Or maybe he’s changed. Maybe he’s in love!’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Gross people don’t fall in love.’

  ‘And how about you? Still hankering after that guy in Commerce?’

  ‘Richie? God, no! Found out he was as tight as a cat’s arse.’

  ‘Wouldn’t buy you an Aston Martin Vanquish, then?’

  ‘Never heard of them! Are they the new Louboutin? Can you get them in Harvey Nicks?’

  Stephen arrived a short while later and, embarrassingly enough, we all barged off to answer the door. Stephen looked horrified to see his entire family wedged between the walls of our narrow hallway. His girlfriend went red and I liked her instantly.

  ‘Hi. Eh, this is Deirdre.’

  ‘Hi, Deirdre,’ we chorused.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, her cheeks turning purple.

  ‘Come on in, Deir
dre,’ we chanted in unison.

  ‘Thanks.’

  We spilt into the sitting room and sat down. Deirdre was pretty and understated and shy. We were so engrossed in scanning her for evidence of being involved in the sex industry that we forgot to speak. She shifted nervously in her chair and Stephen shot me an evil look. I jumped up and introduced the whole family. Mum started chatting about the weather, and Dad informed her that owls’ life spans ranged from five to twenty-seven years. That was ‘normal’ conversation for him. Emma told her she liked her shoes and I said that Deirdre was a lovely name. I fixed them both a drink, which seemed to help them recover: Stephen sighed with relief and Deirdre’s face returned to a more normal colour. Then we all sat down to eat.

  I stayed at Mum and Dad’s that night – Emma had pestered me non-stop for about half an hour.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘No.’

  I won’t keep going or you may get bored so I’ll skip to the bit where I gave in.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Okay.’

  She said she really wanted the company and that it was no fun talking about boys with Mum as Mum would usually interrupt and ask why she wasn’t going out with Colin Farrell. We slept in our old bedroom, which Emma now had to herself but my bed was still there. Somewhere. It took me a decent ten minutes to locate it under the gargantuan mountain of my sister’s clothes and the four layers of magazines stacked underneath them.

  Dad came in to say goodnight and thank us for the lovely day, then insisted on a bedtime prayer.

  ‘Dad!’ Emma protested.

  ‘Hands together, girls. Dear Lord, thank you for this wonderful day. And thank you for bringing the lovely Deirdre into Stephen’s life. I’d always assumed he was gay. And, Lord above, we were wondering if Izzy managed to buy this week’s Enough! magazine and see that article about the girl who cut off all her hair in a jealous fit of rage about her ex-boyfriend’s new lover. Where did it get her? Nowhere, Lord, only bald and cold. So, thank you for helping Izzy make some progress recently as we were all getting a bit worried there for a while that she might end up doing something similar. And finally, sweet Lord, please help Colin Farrell to fall in love with our Emma and let it be the grace of God that she stops wearing that glittery pink eyeshadow as it does nothing for her. Amen.’