Hello, Heartbreak Read online

  The liquorice allsort was repeating on me. I needed to change the subject before I threw it up whole. ‘It’s roasting today, isn’t it?’ I tried.

  ‘Nothing new to me, Izzy. I’ve been sweating non-stop for the past two and a half years now and counting. My doctor still won’t give me HRT because I’ve high blood pressure, so I just have to put up with it. Feel like I’m being deep fried.’

  ‘Where’s Eve?’ I asked, desperate now to move on. Once Geraldine got on to the subject of HRT, she was like a Live-line caller on crack cocaine.

  ‘She’s in talking to Fintan,’ she replied, fanning under her arms with a copy of this week’s Now!.

  ‘Is she in trouble?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘Ha! No such luck, love. She’s after a raise again, so she’s in there doing handstands with her skirt over her head, trying to convince him she’s the most instrumental part of the film industry.’

  Just then a fit of fake laughter erupted from Fintan’s office. Seconds later Eve swung open his office door and trotted out of his room in her five-inch Louboutin heels. She was a knob and she had the most perfect pair of black patent Christian Louboutin court shoes – what’s not to hate?

  ‘You are too funny!’ she squealed at him, wagging a forefinger, then made some bizarre clicking noise with her mouth.

  Fintan Norris was our boss and the executive producer of Lights! Camera! Action!. He was quintessentially uncool, but somewhere along the way he had convinced himself he was a cross between Harvey Weinstein and Brad Pitt. He thought that an expensive suit, long glossy hair and a winking habit could make up for the fact that he wasn’t funny, interesting or hugely intelligent. He was harmless enough, if a little cringy. He loved the way Eve flirted to get what she wanted. Luckily enough for Phyllis, his missus, Eve’s interest in Fintan was only wallet-deep. He was too far beneath her for her to entertain any serious ideas about him. And thank God for that. He’d spent so much on the happy-family portraits on his office walls that it would have been a travesty if he’d had to take them all down. Every spare inch of hanging space was covered with black-and-white soft-focus photographs of Fintan, Phyllis and their three freckly, gap-toothed teenage daughters striking a thousand different poses. It was like Chevy Chase’s National Lampoon meets Miss Teen USA.

  ‘You are so the funniest person I know.’ Eve gave him a sleazy wink and closed his door behind her.

  ‘What did he say that was so funny, Eve?’ said Geraldine. ‘That the back of your skirt is bunched up into your knickers?’

  ‘What?’ Eve whipped around.

  ‘Gotcha!’

  ‘Shut up, you old wench, or I’ll turn up the heat. You won’t be so smart then, will you?’ Eve plonked herself down at her perfectly dusted, polished and organized desk.

  ‘Old wench?’ Geraldine hissed back. ‘Not exactly in the first flush of youth yourself, are you, pet? Ah, sure, you’re not a hopeless case yet, I suppose. You’ve still got that blind boyfriend of yours. Maybe he’ll agree to marry you one day.’

  ‘Hilarious, Geraldine. Your jealousy is so transparent. If you did more exercise than simply trudging to the fridge for ice-cream refills, maybe you’d be able to keep that fat ugly husband of yours interested in you and that way you wouldn’t need to pick on Philippe.’

  Eve’s boyfriend’s name was plain old Philip, but he thought that too drab and uninteresting for someone of his social (climbing) status. He was the male version of Eve so they were a perfect match. Actually, it was probably Eve who had forced him to change his name, over a steamed-tofu stew, so she could refer to him as ‘my Philippe’ in a quasi-French accent.

  ‘Now, if you’ll all excuse me,’ she continued, ‘I just have to pop down to the boiler room to hike up the heating.’ She marched out of the office.

  ‘Izzy, pet, pass me over Eve’s salad box there till I flush it down the loo.’

  Brilliant!

  I spent the rest of the morning trying to get Laurence to play ‘Who Wore It Best?’ by printing off pictures of two different celebrities wearing the same outfit. He refused to play after his third go, saying there was no way that Posh Spice wore the stripy pants better than J.Lo. It was after Geraldine started talking about smear tests that he got really pissed off and reached for his ear-mufflers. His cousin was a foreman on a building site and had given him a pair of industrial ones, which he wore whenever he’d had enough of us going on about ‘girlie shite’.

  Just before lunch he checked his emails and informed us that Gavin would be in that afternoon, thanks be to God – he’d feared he was going to grow a set of moobs, there was that much oestrogen in the room.

  Yippee! Gavin was coming in! Today wasn’t going to be so disastrous and mind-numbing after all. I was dying to see who he’d pick as the winner between Madonna and Rhianna in the pink jumpsuit.

  Just before lunch, Eve put an end to my fun by making me fold 570 copies of the shooting schedule into halves and then quarters – for no other reason, I was convinced, than to bug the shit out of me. I tell you, the only shooting schedule I had in mind involved a revolver, a single bullet and her head.

  I was applying a plaster to my fourth paper cut of the afternoon when I heard Gavin mutter, ‘Snog Me Now, You Dublin Whore.’ He had walked into the room, talking into his mobile.

  ‘Ah, Gavin, you come up with the cutest little nicknames for me. But I don’t care how charming you are, I won’t snog you. You have a girlfriend,’ I carolled.

  ‘Shut up, you!’ He laughed, and sat down at Eve’s desk. ‘The financier keeps putting me on hold here.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. Who the hell is going to want to give their money to fund this film? Gavin, you’re not ringing senile old grannies again, are you? Promising you’ll play bridge with them if they give you their life savings?’

  ‘No, I’m offering them signed photos of Gerry Ryan.’

  The door to Fintan’s office opened and Eve sashayed out. When she saw Gavin, she almost purred. ‘Gavin, darling! I’m delighted you’re with us this afternoon. I need your help with something. Isobel was supposed to have sorted it for me, but I can’t understand a word she says when she’s confused, which, let’s face it, is quite often!’ She laughed, haw, haw, haw, and winked at me as if I knew what she was talking about. ‘Let me just have a bite to eat and I’ll be right with you!’ she said, tapping his arm.

  Round about the time I was praying that Eve wouldn’t notice we’d stolen her lunch, she screamed, ‘Who the fuck stole my lunch?’

  I could feel a sweat moustache on my top lip as I realized that my part in the great salad-flushing incident had not, perhaps, been such an award-winning idea. I gave Gavin a tell-my-parents-I-love-them-and-that-they-must-try-to-get-on-with-their-lives-when-I’m-gone look.

  ‘Well?’ she screeched, nostrils flaring.

  Clearly sensing I might be bludgeoned to death with a five-inch Christian Louboutin heel (I could think of worse ways to die), Gavin took charge. ‘Listen, Eve. I’m really sorry, I knocked against your desk and the lunchbox fell to the floor and popped open. I had to throw it in the bin. I’m really sorry. How about I run out and pick you up a sandwich?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about it, Gavin. I just thought those immature children had done something.’ She glowered at us and I got back to my shooting schedule origami so I wouldn’t have to look at her. ‘But it’s fine, Gavin, I’m on a diet anyway. Can’t keep your buns this solid without a little sacrifice!’ She chuckled, smoothing the back of her skirt.

  Phew! God bless Eve’s crush on Gavin. I’d live to be bludgeoned another day. Hoorah! Did he even realize how charming he could be? I don’t think so. He was such a lovable rogue that he always got away with it. All people ever wanted to do was ruffle his scruffy black hair and pinch his dimpled cheeks. I mean, look at Eve. Us, she could happily eviscerate; him, she came over all coy and sweet, happy to do anything he wanted. He had never even so much as blinked in response to her come-ons, but he was the only one in th
e office who could coax her out of scratching someone’s eyes out with her creepy, square-tipped gel nails whenever she was in a bad mood.

  ‘Thank you!’ I mouthed at him, and stuck on my fifth plaster of the afternoon. I was sorely tempted to ring that number from the have-you-had-an-accident-or-injury-at-work-that-wasn’t-your-fault? ad and file a report about Eve. But I decided I’d cheated death once today and should quit while I was ahead. So I faffed around on the Internet instead. After half an hour of emailing friends, I perused the latest drool-inducing jewels on the Tiffany website, incandescent delights of silver, platinum and gold, diamonds, emeralds and sapphires. It was too cruel. The starkly contrasting reality of my multi-pack of sparkly bits from Accessorize taunted me. I could feel myself turning into Verucca Salt every time I looked at the website. But I resisted the urge to burst into song and decided to email Gavin instead.

  Help me! Eve’s evil stares are lasering into my brain. I’m getting a migraine here.

  Serves you right. There’s no rearing on you. Did your mother never teach you not to steal other people’s things?

  I didn’t steal it! I flushed it down the loo!

  Oh, well, then! I needn’t have been so worried about your morals after all. I have to pop out on a few research-related bits in a while. If you promise to buy Eve some organic mung beans by way of an apology, I’ll tell the boss I need to bring you with me to help me out.

  Oh, my God, I love you! Yes! And I’ll get her a kilo of the most expensive tofu in town! By the way, where are we going on our research mission? Perhaps we could do some research at the Brown Thomas summer sale while we’re at it?

  Em, not exactly outlined in the research guidelines of Snog Me Now, You Dublin Whore, but I’m sure we could manage it if we finish up early.

  Thank you, thank you, thank you! Gosh, you are so important and authoritative! Thanks for agreeing to hang out with the lowly office muppet.

  Any time, Miss Piggy.

  This is Izzy, not Eve.

  Now now, Ms Keegan! What did I tell you about being nasty? Nasty youngsters don’t get to go on day trips out of the office.

  Okay, okay. Eve is so beautiful and kind. One day, I hope to grow up to be just like her.

  That’s more like it. Get your bag, we’re outta here!

  After we had delivered a few files to an office at the quays, and after he’d spent a nerdy half-hour discussing boring business-related topics with one of the people who worked there, I was feeling rather scared about the prospect of having to get back on Gavin’s scooter. He was a pretty safe driver so there was really no need for me to start screaming every time I climbed on to his Vespa but I always did, just as soon as I’d flung my leg over the seat. Maybe I wasn’t such a scaredy-cat at all, really, maybe it was just the inner fashion victim in me freaking out because, as most women know, even those who don’t read Vogue or shop on net-à-porter, a big black balloon helmet somewhat kills the ra-ra skirt and wedges look.

  ‘Yes, Izzy, I promise not do wheelies at traffic-lights,’ Gavin said patiently, as I sat behind him, flipping about like a fish with epilepsy. ‘Just wrap your arms around my waist and hold on tight.’ After ten minutes of Gavin zipping in and out past cars, trucks and articulated lorries, and me sitting behind him screaming like a chimpanzee in labour, we eventually pulled up in O’Connell Street beside a lamppost to which he could lock the bike.

  ‘I think I’m deaf,’ he said, tapping his left ear. ‘You pierced the drum at a new octave today, Izzy. Well done.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I replied. ‘I’ve been practising my technique to images of Eve telling me she’s my long-lost sister.’

  ‘What do you want to do now, so? Head to Brown Thomas? Though if you stand there and force me to decide which colour eyeshadow I prefer, when clearly they look exactly the same, I’ll shoot you.’

  ‘Hey, that was one time! And, I’m sorry, but the difference between fawn and soft beige is huge!’

  ‘My ears are bleeding.’

  ‘Oh! I think I should get a bike!’ I shouted – anyone listening would have thought I’d just solved the last clue in a murder mystery. No one was listening, as it happened, except Gavin, who told me I couldn’t wear a bike and would I not think of getting something a little more user-friendly, like a T-shirt or a pair of trousers?

  ‘Hilarious. But how great would it be if I had a bike? I could cycle to work, or into town or to the shops. It could be my new exercise regime. And it’s so friendly to the environment.’

  ‘You’re so ecotistical, Izzy.’

  ‘Ha, ha.’

  ‘You can’t bear being on my bike, so how are you going to manage one of your own?’

  ‘That’s like comparing a racehorse with a one-legged Shetland pony. A one-legged Shetland pony I could handle.’

  ‘Not sure they sell them in BT’s. We may have to go to a rescue centre for one of those. Or Finglas.’

  I folded my arms and frowned at him.

  ‘Okay, okay.’ He laughed. ‘Let’s go bike hunting.’

  We strolled off in search of a bicycle shop and Gavin asked if I was going to start doing newspaper rounds on weekends. I told him I might, and that if he was really lucky, I’d nick some of the freebies from the Sundays and keep them for him. He said he was worried I had a problematic penchant for stealing things.

  Finding a bicycle was more difficult than I’d anticipated. Usually I left it up to Santa to decide: I’d send a note to the North Pole saying something along the lines of ‘Need new bike. Brother crashed and broke last year’s one. Also need a Slime Ball to put in brother’s bed when he’s not looking. And I’m not saying you have to but my advice would be to ignore his request for a Scalextric and give him a lump of coal instead. Thanks and safe journey. PS Mince pies will be in the usual place. Help yourself.’

  A bike was a bike, right? I knew there were different types, like apples, but you just choose one and get on with it. Let me tell you this: apples and bicycles are two totally different things.

  The first one I climbed on to made me feel like a 1930s coal miner, with its enormous wheels and cast-iron black frame. The second made me look like a simpleton who hadn’t accepted that the 1950s were over. It had a wicker basket strapped to the front and streamers dangling from the handlebars. Maybe it was the inner simpleton in me, but I kind of liked it. Vintage clothes were cool, as were vintage cars, so why not vintage bikes? Okay, so one of those crazy ones with the huge front wheel and the tiny back one would look a bit silly, but perhaps I could introduce Dermot to the sights of Dublin City on this little beauty. We could spend many a happy afternoon cycling around town, with his little head poking out of the top of the basket, his ears flapping in the wind with the multi-coloured streamers. We’d be like Elliot and E.T.! People would say, ‘Ah, there’s that lovely skinny girl and her gorgeous rabbit out for a cycle again…’

  If I was going to stick to my aim of looking less like a boy, I suppose I shouldn’t really have made inquiries about the blue BMX with the bright yellow wheels. But I had a pair of yellow wedges that would match it. OK?

  No. It was still a boy’s bike. Next.

  Gavin had to talk me out of a cute little sparkly sky blue Raleigh bicycle on the grounds that it was for seven-to-ten-year-olds and had stabilizers.

  I finally decided to take the wicker-basket number. I paid for it and the man took it off to pump up the tyres, but as I was pushing it out of the shop I noticed a beautiful shiny red and gold bell fastened to the handlebars that hadn’t been there before.

  ‘Gavin, that bell wasn’t there earlier, was it?’ I feared I was having one of my hunger-induced hallucinations. God, they could be troublesome. I was once convinced I’d seen Brian O’Driscoll walking down Grafton Street and decided to tell him what a disgrace that whole spear-tackle in New Zealand thing was. So I ran after him, asking how his shoulder was. Turns out it wasn’t Brian O’Driscoll at all, just a guy wearing a number-13 jersey. Worst thing was, I knew him. He used to live on o
ur road. And he was a complete ride. The stranger looked at me as if I was the most pathetic person alive in Ireland. ‘Rugger-hugger,’ he scoffed, and walked off. Which was so unfair because I wasn’t at all. It’s just I knew a girl who’d dislocated her shoulder and I wanted to tell Brian she’d made a full recovery. I went off and ate a sambo before I embarrassed myself again.

  ‘No, it wasn’t there earlier. I just got it for you as a little good-luck thing. Consider it a house-warming gift for a bicycle.’

  ‘Ah, Gav, thanks a mill, I love it!’

  I gave him a backer as we cycled around town, showing off my new set of wheels. Every now and again I’d get the opportunity to ring my lovely shiny bell at random death-wish pigeons who wanted to play dodge with my front wheel. Gavin suggested we pop in and say hi to Kate as we passed the Rotunda Hospital, where she worked. I swung a sharp left through the hospital gates, nearly throwing Gavin off the back and giving myself a wedgie in the process.

  Kate was on a break when Gavin phoned her, so we waited in the car park for her to come out. She was working in obstetrics and had been overseeing a labour when the woman in question had suddenly decided she didn’t want kids. Bit late, really, so one of the ward sisters was inside telling her to ‘cop on’ that she didn’t have a choice at this stage. When Kate trotted down the front steps, Gavin scooped her up in a big hug. They were such a gorgeous couple. Kate was tall and willowy, with long brown hair and delicate features, while Gavin was taller again, with broad shoulders and a strong build. His dark messy hair was always unkempt in a non-contrived way and his green eyes had a glint of mischief. The Clothes Catalogue Couple. That’s what I called them. But, thankfully, they didn’t wear sweaters tied across their shoulders or point up at the sky, smiling at nothing.

  ‘Hi, Izzy,’ Kate called, and waved to me.

  I wheeled my bike over to where they were standing. I always felt so small beside them. Like a little child. I could be a child in one of their catalogue shoots.