Hello, Heartbreak

by Amy Huberman

  ‘Your man Greg and Keelin’s twin getting it on together in the wee hours of Friday night.’

  ‘No way!’ I said aghast. ‘But, he’s, well, the guy who buys people goldfish and listens to Eurovision music, and she’s so virginal!’

  ‘Literally dry-humping.’

  I choked on my wine as I tried to laugh and swallow at the same time. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Cross my heart and hope to die,’ he said, making a criss-cross over his chest.

  Wow, even my ginger tagalong had moved on. I was definitely losing my mojo. And Keelin’s twin? Dry-humping? It was like trying to process one of those mad maths theorems in school – they made no sense but you had to try to take them in anyway. Keelin’s twin couldn’t have been more pure. When they were born, Keelin was three pounds heavier than Aoife, and I’m convinced she got all of the DNA that was meant to be Aoife’s fun, wit and sex appeal. There was no way you’d think they were sisters, let alone twins. You’d be hard pushed to imagine they were even of the same species.

  ‘Let’s see… what else did you miss after you crashed out? What time did you head to bed at?’

  I sighed heavily into my glass of wine. ‘I didn’t exactly go to bed. Well, technically I did. But not to mine.’

  ‘Did you end up crashing in with Susie and Aidan? Lucky you,’ he said, winking.

  I circled the rim of my glass with a finger, wondering whether to tell him or not. I probably should, I thought, so I’m not living in denial about the whole thing. If I wasn’t honest about it, I wouldn’t be facing up to it. Jesus, I’d done enough pretending. If I was honest with Gavin, it would never happen again. Right? God, I hoped so. Just thinking back to Saturday morning rattled the clarity I’d felt only moments ago about everything being okay.

  ‘You did what?’

  His eyes glazed with an expression I’d never seen in them before. I shuffled nervously on the couch. Perhaps I should have kept it to myself. I couldn’t expect him to be as understanding as Keelin and Susie – he wasn’t one of my girlfriends. Also, my case evokes much more sympathy when I’m telling it while roaring crying. Without the tears and the snot, it can sound slightly pathetic.

  ‘Well, you see…’ I started in a fluster ‘… he called over last week, trying to get me back… and it was really hard. I tried my best to be strong.’

  What was going on? I’d never felt so nervous around Gavin before. I didn’t know where to put myself, whether to look at him or not. I felt like I had when I was a child and I’d let my dad down. Now I was sinking under an unbearable weight of disappointment. I felt as if I’d let myself and Gavin down. Was that ridiculous? It had had nothing to do with him – so why did it feel like it did? I wanted him to shrug and laugh it off, tell me playfully what an idiot I’d been. I searched his face for some sort of resolve along those lines that I could grab on to.

  Nothing of the sort. Just that expression in his eyes. It rattled me further. What must he think of me? ‘Believe me. I know how stupid it was.’

  ‘Good,’ he said sarcastically.

  ‘Gavin, please. I really don’t need a lecture. I feel bad enough about it already. I shouldn’t have told you.’

  ‘I’m glad you did, actually.’ His tone was laced with disdain.

  ‘Just leave it, will you?’ I said, shifting myself to get up.

  ‘Why did you tell me, Izzy?’

  ‘Well, I just thought…’

  ‘What? That you’d tell me and that I’d be happy to just sit here and pick up the pieces with you – again? After listening to you go on about that fucking gobshite I don’t know how many times before? The same fucking gobshite that isn’t worth one millionth of what you are. Did you honestly think I’d just sit here and tell you that you’re the best in the world and not to be so silly for worrying about doing the most stupid thing in the whole fucking world?’

  His words tore through me and I swallowed hard to dispel the rising lump in my throat.

  ‘How do you not know your worth, Izzy?’

  I was so shocked at his anger that I couldn’t find my voice right away. I got to my feet and shrugged my shoulders awkwardly. ‘Well, you’ll be happy to hear I’ve learnt my lesson now. Things didn’t go too well afterwards.’

  ‘Why am I not surprised?’ he said, the sarcasm returning. ‘And, no, I’m not happy to hear anything.’

  This was horrible. What the hell was going on here?

  ‘When did you become judge and jury?’ I said, trying to remain calm.

  ‘When you told me you slept with your arsehole of an ex-boyfriend, Izzy.’

  ‘Fuck this,’ I said, grabbing my coat and bag. ‘Cheers for being a mate.’

  ‘Don’t throw that in my face. I’ve been a damn good friend to you.’

  ‘I know,’ I said quietly, battling with the lump in my throat again. ‘I’m going to go now.’

  ‘Yes, I think you should. Goodbye.’

  I stalled for a moment or two. God, I just wanted to crawl onto his lap and hug him. Try to fix whatever had just gone wrong. But he was so angry. And I was too raw to attempt to convince myself that it might be a clever or rational idea.

  I left his apartment.

  I stood in the street, confused. Had I just had an awful row with Gavin? With Gavin? I hadn’t imagined it possible. Okay, we’d had a tiff a couple of weeks ago, but that had just been a misunderstanding. We’d had a laugh about it and got over it. This was different.

  Oh, Izzy! What have you done?

  Should I go back? But what could I say? I couldn’t change what he thought – that I was a slutty little doormat – or take back what I’d told him. I bit my lip. I felt utterly rotten – worse than I’d felt all weekend. I could try to deny it as much as I liked, but what had happened with Cian was a fait accompli. How much more proof had I needed? Had I really thought there would be a happy ending?

  But I’d done what I’d done. My decision. Why did Gavin have such a problem with it?

  I supposed he was right, though. I’d been looking for sympathy from him, and reassurance. And for him to cheer me up. Like he always did. Because he was loyal and funny and kind. Did I do enough for him? I should have asked him if he was okay about Kate. Why is it always just about me? God, I was a selfish bitch.

  I’d go back and ask him about Kate. I’d show him I could cheer him up like he did me. And I’d tell him I knew it was time for me to grow up and hear some cold hard truths about myself. He was only being honest and that was what true friends were. Even if it hurt sometimes.

  I marched back towards his apartment, full of intent and purpose. But as I stood poised at his door, I realized how childish I was being. And, again, how selfish. I only wanted to fix things so I could feel better. He didn’t want me there, asking how he was about Kate or telling him a joke. It would be insulting to him. And I’d only end up making even more of a fool of myself than I’d done already. And what joke was I going to tell him? I racked my brains. The only one I could think of was: What’s a shih tzu? A zoo with no animals.

  Pathetic.

  I stared at his door. The crack in the wood down the left-hand side. The key scratches around the lock. The weather-beaten brass number 9. It was all so familiar. Had I lost Gavin’s respect? Maybe even his friendship?

  I walked away, wondering if I’d ever again be welcome to the door with the crack in the wood, or the key scratches, or the weather-beaten number 9.

  30

  The last time I was at Dublin airport the sleeve of my jacket got caught in the suitcase carousel and I thought I was going to die. And I don’t mean in a when-I-discovered-there-wasno-milk-for-my-tea-I-thought-I-was-going-to-die kind of way. I mean, I thought I was actually going to die. Two very different things. The latter makes you scream like a wild pig, which is neither cool nor dignified when it happens in a highly populated public place. As with any crisis, all my brother and sister could do was laugh and point. Although after I’d been dragged a good few feet, Emma decided
that she shouldn’t be pointing and laughing – she was putting her Dublin-airport street cred at far too much risk by doing that. Instead she turned away and hid her face in shame. Stephen, great brother that he is, dutifully kept up the laughing and pointing. Mum was off ‘doing a wee’ and we hadn’t seen Dad since we’d stepped off the plane. He had a strange fixation with airport trolleys and always dashed off in a panic to find one in case, God forbid, there weren’t enough to go around. What can I say? He was a war baby. Rationing must have scared the shit out of him.

  Anyway, back to me nearly dying. Some American dude with a handlebar moustache and a Kiss Me I’ve Been To Ireland cowboy hat jumped onto the carousel and pulled me to safety just before I disappeared behind the black plastic flaps into the suitcase-mulshing chamber… for ever.

  It took me a further four minutes to stop doing the wild-pig scream. And when you think about it, that’s a significantly long time to keep screaming when you’re no longer facing death, simply standing at a suitcase carousel beside a big American in a silly hat.

  Emma said afterwards that I wouldn’t have died, even if I had been dragged into the suitcase-mulshing chamber, that I’d just have come out the other side with a flat-packed buggy stuck up my arse. Stephen said I would have been dumped in overweight baggage after all the eating I’d done on the trip away. He’s such a knob.

  So here I was, back in Dublin airport, still alive but with a mild phobia of baggage carousels. I passed a sign pointing to Baggage Reclaim and thought I was going to wee a little bit. (I didn’t, by the way, which was good.)

  I spotted the Aer Lingus check-in desk at the opposite end of the hall and ran over to it, even though I was in no rush. It always made me feel as if I was in a movie when I did that.

  ‘I’m going to London. I need to get on that plane!’ I said breathlessly, to the lady behind the desk.

  ‘Okay… Ms Keegan,’ she replied, looking up from her computer with my passport in her hand. ‘That shouldn’t be a problem. Your flight doesn’t leave for another two and a half hours.’

  I beeped when I passed through the security checks, as I always did. I keep asking Mum if I have a metal plate in my head that I don’t know about, from some operation as a young child. She keeps telling me I don’t, that it’s probably just my underwired bra, but I’m not entirely convinced.

  I knew I’d have to be frisked so I glanced at the bunch of security personnel to see which one would make the first move. A butch-looking woman stepped forward to perform the task. Her hands scooted over my arms and legs and down my back, and then she waved me through. That was probably the only action I was going to get for quite some time now that Cian had turned sex into an act of hate for me.

  I sauntered through the shops, telling myself not to buy things I didn’t need. Like the turquoise beaded shawl from Accessorize that I could only get away with wearing if I lived in Fiji. Or the burnt-orange Mac lipstick that I could only have pulled off if I’d had hair, eyes and skin of an entirely different colour. I still bought them, though. Sure, why not? I decided to get a pair of sunglasses too, seeing as they were reduced after the summer. And they might disguise the bags under my eyes from the stress-induced lack of sleep.

  I put them on and looked at myself in the mirror. Much better. Now perhaps I could find a burka to hide the rest of my head.

  As soon as we touched down in London, I fished my mobile out of my bag and switched it on, silently praying for a message. One came through and I held my breath.

  It was from Mum and I needed a first-class honours degree in cryptography to decode it. Padd t7gp, luw Mtm xx, which roughly translated as ‘Safe trip, love Mum xx’. She reckoned she was getting the hang of predictive texting. Any day now, I’d told her.

  Still no word from Gavin. Not that I was expecting to hear from him, but you live in hope.

  I tried to avoid eye-contact with the stewardesses as I left the plane in case they tried a last-ditch attempt to make me buy something else. The Aer Lingus alarm clock they’d talked me into having was more than enough for one flight, thank you very much. I’d only had it five minutes before I gave it to the little boy sitting beside me in the hope that he’d stop trying to stick his blue crayon into my ear.

  Okay, confession time. I did something awful when I got to Baggage Reclaim. I put my sunglasses on and asked a man nearby if he could help me retrieve my luggage from the carousel. It was either that or never pluck up the courage to collect it myself in case I was dragged to my death again. But I did give a pound to the lady collecting for guide dogs on the way to the Underground in the hope that it would pay off any karma debt I’d incurred at the baggage carousel.

  I’m not sure when I’d told myself I’d be staying in the Ritz Carlton. Probably around the same time that I’d told myself I might pick up a few bits and bobs in Harrods. Had I forgotten I was the office runner for a small production company in Dublin and not Scarlett Johannson? Yes, I had, I concluded as I checked into the Stockwell Arms in South London. Picture a derelict pub in a council estate that someone had painted pink and yellow, with an ‘Accommodation’ sign over the front door. That was pretty much my hotel. Only everybody had London accents instead of Dublin ones and the local scary hoodlums had Staffordshire bull terriers instead of horses.

  ‘’Allo. Name?’

  ‘Isobel Keegan.’

  ‘Room three one five. Don’t use the lift as it gets stuck and my hearin’ ain’t great so if you get trapped and start screamin’ there’s a good chance I won’t hear you and you could be in there for a few days.’

  Christ almighty.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Just use the apples and pears.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Stairs, mate, stairs. Cockney, innit?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Breakfast is served in the morning between eight and eight fifteen. We have corn flakes and Shreddies. There’s your key.’

  ‘Right.’

  I took it and headed up the stairs, waving goodbye to my Ritz-Carlton-and-Harrods fantasy. However dingy my dwelling, I was relieved to be out of Dublin for a few days. My head was swimming, and the temporary change of scene could only be a good thing. And it was probably for the best that Jonathan Ride Cunningham was in America, as I wasn’t doing too well with the men in my life at the moment. I was safer with girls and rabbits. I mean that in a far less kinky way than it sounds.

  31

  The BCM office was everything I’d imagined it would be, and then some. It was a very impressive glass building right in the heart of London’s West End, with an endless stream of important-looking people whirring through the giant brass revolving door. Everyone looked like they belonged in the movies, even if they weren’t actors, and I suddenly wished I’d worn something a bit funkier. Or that I’d managed to dry my hair properly before the hair-dryer had burst into flames.

  The girl at the reception desk with a head-set microphone took my name and asked me to sit in the waiting area. She told me Jonathan wouldn’t be long.

  ‘Jonathan?’

  ‘Jonathan Cunningham? You’re here to see him?’

  ‘Oh, no, he’s in America. I’m here to see…’ I fished out the business card Margaret had given me ‘… Vivienne Shortt.’

  ‘Miss Shortt replaced Mr Cunningham on the US trip at the last minute. So, if you’ll just take a seat…’

  I sat down and took out my mobile phone for the thousandth time already that day. Nothing from Gavin. The awful feeling crept back and nestled in the pit of my stomach. What would I do without him? What if I never spoke to him again? You hear of friends drifting apart, break-ups, splits, and if someone doesn’t want to see you any more you just have to respect it.

  ‘Izzy?’

  ‘Jonathan. Hi.’

  ‘Great to see you. I was delighted to hear they were sending you over.’ He winked.

  We stood there grinning at each other, and I tried to think of something interesting to tell him, like I’d taken up a
night course in astrology or cycled all the way to Wexford without stopping. Couldn’t think of anything. Only that I’d had a row with Gavin over sleeping with Cian. But Jonathan Ride Cunningham probably didn’t need to know that.

  ‘Come on… I’ll introduce you to the man himself.’ As I followed Jonathan up the marble staircase, with the rather delectable view of his butt ahead of me, I reminded myself that although the head of BCM was revered as royalty in our Lights! Camera! Action! office, he was not officially a king, therefore to curtsy when I met him would be plain ridiculous.

  For the second time that day, I attempted to dry my hair. They weren’t overly concerned with health and safety at the Stockwell Arms, I thought, as I turfed the spare hair-dryer from Reception into the bin after another pyrotechnics display.

  I looked at the bed. I really wanted to crawl into it, pull the duvet up around my ears and watch Coronation Street. Mind you, I could only get reception for the telly if I stood by the window, which didn’t appeal. No, I just needed to get going and I’d be fine. And once I saw my foxy date, I’d perk up.

  The restaurant was located in the corner of a beautiful cobbled courtyard not too far from Soho. I wrapped my shawl tighter around my shoulders as an autumn chill crept into what had been a beautiful summery September day. I walked across the cobbles, trying not to snot myself in front of all the elegant diners. Walking in heels on cobbles is difficult enough, but when your heels are so high that they’ve already given you a mild bout of altitude sickness, it’s even trickier.

  Gosh, it’s beautiful, I thought. Clusters of fairy-lights sat in the branches of the trees that lined the courtyard, blinking and twinkling – the sky seemed to have been drizzled with glitter. The sound of laughter and clinking wine glasses bounced off the stone walls. If only I could rally myself into feeling just a little bit excited. I’d been thrilled when he asked me out that morning after all the flirting that had gone on between us. I’d run through it once more, I decided. He was gorgeous, check. He wanted to take me out for the night, check. I was young, free and single, check. The last person I’d been with was Cian, check. I needed to change that ASAP so he wasn’t hovering over me like an awful sex shadow, check, check, check.