Hello, Heartbreak Read online

  Hello, Heartbreak

  Amy Huberman is from Dublin, where she still lives. She is an actress, best known for her role as Daisy in the popular RTÉ series The Clinic. Hello, Heartbreak is her first novel.

  Hello, Heartbreak

  AMY HUBERMAN

  PENGUIN

  IRELAND

  PENGUIN IRELAND

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland

  (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published 2009

  1

  Copyright © Amy Huberman, 2009

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-0-14-194323-7

  For Mum and Dad

  1

  What in the name of sweet, gentle, divine and suffering Jesus did I look like?

  A life-sized Zapf doll mixed with a half-melted Dolly Par-ton waxwork model.

  ‘Keelin, you said these things were going to boost my confidence,’ I whimpered, my bottom lip quivering again, ‘so why do I feel like going outside, lying on the road and waiting for an articulated lorry to come and end this misery?’

  ‘Izzy, for God’s sake, you’re such a drama queen. They’re only a pair of Spanx,’ she huffed, as she and Susie continued to hoist the horrific tube of flesh-coloured elastic up my body.

  ‘But why would you do this to me?’ I wailed. ‘Have I not suffered enough?’ I watched my reflection in the full-length mirror as the two traitors on either side of me continued to make me despise myself even more than I already did. Every upwards whoosh lifted my feet a few inches off the floor, and every time I thudded down my shoulders slumped even further.

  ‘Izzy, you really aren’t making this easy. Do you want us to put you in a back brace as well?’

  ‘Oh, why not go right ahead, Susie? Then I’ll be just about ready for the hair shirt and orthopaedic shoes you’ve lined up for me.’

  ‘We’re trying to help you here, Iz.’

  ‘Then why exactly have you shoved me into a horrific, flesh-eating,’ I twanged at the thick elastic digging into my thighs, ‘tit-deforming, ass-annihilating body condom? Is this some sort of last humiliation I have to suffer before I become –’

  ‘A martyr? Yes, that’s right, Izzy. Now, arms up!’

  ‘I hate you both.’

  ‘Up!’

  They slid something over my head, which I figured was most likely the hair shirt. But as I slowly prised open my eyes in terrified anticipation of the next bout of enforced dressing, I realized how badly I’d misjudged the situation.

  ‘Oooh,’ I cooed. I watched the silky material fall gracefully to my knees, and I knew that this was no hair shirt. Oh, no. This was my gorgeous new sparkly gold dress.

  The dress.

  As in, the one I’d bought especially for tonight.

  The same one I’d thrown out of my bedroom window when I got home after trying it on in front of my full-length mirror. I seem to recall it had something to do with being a fat, violently unattractive pathetic lump, or something along those lines. Anyway, that didn’t matter now. Not when it looked like this.

  Not when I looked like this.

  If I hadn’t hated myself quite so much as I did at that moment, I might even have gone so far as to say I looked human. And not a fat-violently-unattractive-pathetic-lump human – oh, no. A passable human with a lovely cinched-in waist, pert boobs and tight arse.

  My! My! My!

  I flitted from left to right in front of the mirror, grinning inanely. ‘Where would I be without you guys?’

  ‘Lipstick?’

  ‘Yep!’

  ‘Perfume?’

  I squirted some more on to my wrists. ‘Check!’

  Ow! That was stinging now. I must remember that I didn’t have to spray myself with perfume or go again with the lipstick every time Keelin ran through the checklist.

  ‘Don’t forget your kohl eyeliner,’ Susie warned, as she whizzed past me to get her coat.

  Kohl eyeliner. Check. Eyeliner sharpener. Check. Bronzer. Rouge. Pen thingy to make under my eyes look less knackered. Check. Mascara: one lengthening, one thickening. Hairclips: one grippy, one knotty. Serum. Comb. Check. Check. Check.

  Okay, one last quick look to make sure I hadn’t slathered my fake tan on in cement-like mounds in the manner of an over-enthusiastic bricklayer. Damn, not so pretty workmanship around the ankles. Hmm. How long would it take to buff down about three layers of skin with an exfoliating loofah? Oh, bollocks to that! If men were looking at my ankles when I was wearing this dress, my troubles ran far deeper than I’d thought.

  Front-door key.

  Check.

  Mobile phone.

  Ciggies.

  Charger in case phone dies.

  Spare battery in case charger gets lost.

  Spare sim card in case the spare battery freakishly turns out to be ‘not charged’. Although charging it for around thirty-six hours ought to have done the trick.

  I know this all sounded highly neurotic, but everything just had to go like clockwork. I’d been planning this for days, and far too much was at stake for anything to go wrong.

  I wanted my life back.

  I wanted it back!

  Okay. Breathe.

  Maybe, maybe, I was just about ready.

  Shit. I couldn’t close my bag.

  Why the hell not? It wasn’t like I’d thrown in any nonessentials, for crying out loud. Basics was all. Basics! For the love of God, could someone out there not design a bag to accommodate the measly basics of a woman’s night out? Please? In the form of, say, an incredibly cute clutch? Was I really asking too much?

  Fine. I suppose I could leave the curling iron and the hair straightener at home.

  ‘Back in one, Izzy!’

  ‘But – but it’s in a pint glass.’

  ‘Back. In. One.’

  Christ, they were animals.

  I necked it and grabbed my coat.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘Ready,’ I squeaked.

  ‘I said, are you ready?’ Keelin repeated, like a sergeant major on speed.

  I gulped. The alcohol burnt the back of my throat.

  ‘Ready!’

  ‘Okay, let’s do this!’ Susie shouted, and bustled us out.

  ‘Wait! Stop! For the love of God, stop!’ I
yelled, wedging my foot in the front door. ‘I can’t do this!’

  ‘Izzy? Whaaaaat?’

  ‘You don’t understand –’

  ‘Izzy, you have got to be kidding! I swear to God above…’

  ‘Not like this!’

  ‘Izzy, you’re doing great. You’re nearly there.’

  ‘I’ve forgotten my eyebrow brush!’ I half screamed, silencing them both. They blinked back at me.

  I think they’d grasped the seriousness of the situation. I was one eyebrow brush away from complete and utter hysteria. This required sensitivity, the compassion of a loyal friend.

  ‘Isobel Keegan, do you know that you’re a fucking mentaller?’

  I looked around the nightclub, searching.

  Was he here?

  He was here somewhere. He had to be.

  I couldn’t see him.

  My stomach churned and my head spun with anticipation.

  Of course, there was a fair chance the spinning was down to my having necked that pint of vodka and tonic. And now Susie was cranking open my jaw and pouring a baby Guinness down my throat. She pushed my chin up, allowing me to close my mouth. ‘Get that down you.’

  ‘I think I may have had enough,’ I slurred.

  ‘Nonsense!’ she said briskly, prising my lips open with two fingers. Even though my teeth were clenched, the Sambuca still managed to filter through and slide down my gullet.

  ‘What if he doesn’t come?’ I felt like crying at the thought.

  ‘Oh, he will,’ Susie replied. ‘He’s a predictable wanker, I’ll give him that.’

  She was right. That was Cian. Predictable to the core. Predictable in all the wrong ways, unfortunately. Like being tactless. And stubborn and insensitive. Not to mention thoughtlessly cruel.

  So why was I there? Same old, same old. For every reason I had to hate him, there seemed a million more why I couldn’t shake loving him. For one, he’d been part of my life every day for the past three years. And he was Cian. My first and only love.

  Had been. Had been a part of my life. It still didn’t seem real. It felt like some awful half-dream that was slowly sucking the air out of my world. And I was stuck right in the middle of it, not knowing what to do, or where to go, or even how it had happened. And no matter how much it hurt or how much I cried, no one was coming to wake me up.

  ‘Holy shit! He’s just arrived!’ hissed Keelin, as if she’d witnessed the second coming of Christ.

  Uh-oh. He was here!

  I wanted to puke. I wanted to cry. I wanted to run and hide behind the DJ box and curl up in the foetal position and call my mum.

  But if I did that, then it would pretty much definitely be over between us. I’m not exactly sure how much more ‘definite’ I needed it to be, seeing as I’d found out he’d been having sex with another woman and all. But, you know, I still wasn’t really getting it as such, so perhaps a little more clarity on that front might help to clear things up for me.

  Anyway, I couldn’t fail tonight’s mission – not after all the work the girls had put into getting me here. The mission was for Cian to see me so that he could realize what an awful mistake he’d made. Then he’d drop to his knees and beg me to take him back. I would play hard to get for a suitable length of time, then jump his bones and straddle him for all I was worth. Simple.

  After that, everything would be okay again. I’d be the old Izzy and life wouldn’t seem like a steaming pile of shite. My heart was broken without him. After three years, he had to feel even a little heartbroken himself, right? He just needed to remember how great we’d been, and then he’d want us back.

  ‘Izzy, what do you want to do?’ Susie asked.

  ‘Go over and say hi!’ I shrugged.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. What else would I do? I’m cool, Susie, I’m breezy. I’m out with my friends, just casually getting on with my life, while coincidentally wearing a magnificent dress with my hair professionally blow-dried. It’s going to be absolutely fine. You don’t have to worry.’ I went to rest my hand on her arm reassuringly, but I missed and ended up petting Keelin’s boob. There were no two ways about it: I was trolleyed.

  Keelin and Susie exchanged nervous looks as I made my way over to him. It felt like the longest walk in history. Like a pilgrimage to Knock from Dublin, trudging over broken glass, in bare feet, against 60 m.p.h. winds. I squinted, trying to pull his face into focus. He was standing with a group of his friends, his back to me. My stomach flipped at the familiarity of the back of his neck. Not far to go now, just across the dance-floor and over to the other bar…

  ‘Iz, we’re nearly there. What now?’

  ‘You guys stand here and pretend you’re just chatting and I’ll come from over there to join you. It’ll mean I’ll have to pass him, and then he’ll see me and I’ll be a picture of nonchalance.’

  ‘Okay, Angelina, go get your Oscar.’

  After seven attempts at the same routine, the fish still hadn’t bitten. God damn it! Bite, fish, bite! The girls even tried calling my name as I walked over, but the music was so loud he couldn’t hear it. Then, on the eighth go, it happened. I was sashaying to perfection, like they do on Britain’s Next Top Model, and my hair was falling perfectly around my shoulders and I’d just reapplied my lip gloss, when – good God – he saw me. Cue soaring music. Here we go. This was it. Finally, the Moment!

  ‘Izzy?’

  ‘Cian! My goodness! Hi, what are you doing here?’ My heart was banging against my ribs and I had to steady myself against a bar stool so I didn’t fall over. I could see Keelin and Susie in my peripheral vision, clinging to each other in suspense.

  ‘Erm, well, it is Club Life, Iz. I mean, we always come here.’

  That’s exactly why I’d known he’d be here. Here was our social life. Here was where we ended up every Saturday night. It was where we all came to worship the gods of booze and cheesy music. Most of all, it was our spot, where we’d been known for three years as the couple who couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Good Lord, how soon could we get the pleasantries out of the way and skip to that bit?

  ‘I, eh, didn’t expect to see you here,’ he muttered.

  Hang on a minute. He looked uncomfortable and his voice sounded cold. And he was staring at me like he’d just caught me out on something. I looked into his eyes and was suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling that coming here tonight had been a terrible mistake. ‘Well, why wouldn’t you expect to see me here?’ I said, with a defiance I didn’t feel.

  I swiped a baby Guinness off a passing tray of drinks and slugged it back in one. ‘I’ll get you back,’ I lied, replacing the empty glass on the tray and shooing the waiter with my hand.

  ‘Maybe you should go home, Izzy,’ Cian said.

  I searched his face. Nothing. No emotion. Just… blank. If my heart was a shiny red helium balloon full of hope and love and expectation, he’d just popped it with a pin. And I hung there, withered and deflated, as the gas disappeared into the ether around me.

  I had to look away. All of a sudden I felt so embarrassed. So pathetic. He wasn’t on his knees begging me to come back to him, proclaiming undying love. Far bloody from it. I was annoying him. He didn’t want me here.

  What had I been thinking? That I could come here tonight in a gold dress and some nice shoes and that would be enough to convince him to love me again?

  Christ, how could I have been so stupid? I felt like my face was being slapped and each slap spelt out a different kind of hurt.

  Rejection. Betrayal. Heartbreak. Slap. Slap. Slap.

  Reality. Slap.

  It was over.

  He was gone.

  My boyfriend, my lover, my confidant, my friend – all gone. Every little piece of our relationship had been pulled apart and discarded, as though they’d never fitted together in the first place. My heart ached for him, and before I knew it, trails of hot, salty tears were streaking my painstakingly made-up face. In that moment – the mom
ent it dawned on me that it was over, that I’d lost him for ever – standing amid hundreds of people, I don’t think I’d ever felt more lonely in my life.

  Then something unexpected happened. It was as if someone had pressed ‘play’ on some 3D horror film in which I unwittingly had a starring role, but the sound was muted, so I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on. A sequence of terrifying moving pictures started to unfold in front of me. What the hell? Why was an exotic beauty sidling up to Cian and draping her arm around him? Why was he looking at her like she was a Bond girl he wanted to have sex with? And why the bloody hell was she calling him ‘baby’?

  Oh, fucking hell, it was her! The woman who’d been sleeping with Cian behind my back… my Cian. I felt unbearably hot, as if someone had buttoned me into an Aran sweater and locked me into a sauna. My head felt as if it was about to detach itself from the rest of my body and float away.

  Jesus Christ, they were together. I’d thought, you know, it must have been a fling. A bit of excitement, maybe. A mistake, definitely. But here they were, standing in front of me, carrying on like a couple of lovesick teenagers.

  I looked her up and down. So this was the owner of the voice at the other end of the phone. The shameless hussy who had called my mobile to leave a message with Cian’s ‘assistant’. At first I’d thought I was speaking to someone with crazily outdated views on gender roles and women’s rights, but as she rattled on, I realized she thought I was his PA. Just as I was about to inform her otherwise, she told me to tell Cian thanks for the fantastic weekend away and that the little gift he’d sent fitted her perfectly, but he was so naughty to buy it for her. Then the phone went dead. Followed by my entire world. Shut-down.

  And now here she was, with her long, elegant limbs and long, silky hair. This was the infamous Weekend-Away-With-the-Diamond-Thong Girl, as I had christened her in drunken rants to the girls. Of course, I didn’t know what little gift had fitted her so goddamn perfectly, but I was pretty sure he hadn’t bought her a pair of long-johns and some novelty socks. I’d convinced myself he’d imported diamonds from South Africa and hand-sewn them to an Indian silk pink thong.

  Not that I’d thought about it much.