Hello, Heartbreak Read online

  ‘… spearmint or peppermint, but the Ice Cool is definitely up there as my favourite flavour. You can’t beat it. It’s so refreshing and I find it really clears your nostrils so all you want to do is take really deep breaths, but then sometimes you feel light-headed, so you have to be careful…’

  Dear Lord, if you could just send Josh Hartnett to save me right now, that would be greatly appreciated.

  ‘Izzy, did you know that if you ring a certain number, I can’t remember what it is now, I think it could be… No, it’s gone – God, I just hate when that happens, don’t you? I know all the numbers there are, you know, ones like six, three, seven, nine, five, for example, it’s just I don’t know necessarily what order they go in for certain phone numbers. Because there are so many. Like what’s yours?’

  ‘Our house phone got cut off because Susie spent all our money for the bills on… tomato ketchup [What?]… she just loves the stuff. And my mobile phone fell down the loo the other day so I don’t have any phone numbers at all! Pity, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’re right, Isobel, it is, because I could have phoned you to give you this number I was talking about. When you call it you can choose from loads of different songs to have as your very own ringtone on your mobile phone!’

  Although I wanted to very badly, I didn’t shout, ‘I don’t care! I want to go and talk to someone else. I don’t care!’ in his face. Instead I said, ‘That’s incredible.’ I wondered if my face would ever go back to normal after holding a rictus grin for so long.

  ‘Right? Well, I chose from a list of Eurovision winners so anytime anyone rings my mobile, Johnny Logan’s “Hold Me Now” starts to play and I can sing along to it. Classic hit. Except I’ve learnt the hard way not to sing along when I’m on the bus. One time I was on the number eleven going home and just as I was singing the really emotional bit about tears having no place in her heart – you know that bit? – well, some – sorry to use the word – skanger who was sitting at the back of the bus threw a can of cider at the back of my head. See that scar there? The hair on that patch doesn’t grow any more. Bald.’ He started to fondle a tiny bit of his scalp. ‘You can still see the scar, even though I put Bio Oil on it every night before I go to bed. Give me your finger there so you can have a feel…’

  Just as he was reaching for my hand, I jumped up and blurted, ‘My phone is buzzing in my pocket! What if it’s an emergency and someone’s in trouble? I must leave the table and check it immediately!’

  Had I not just told him my mobile was broken? Had I been watching too much Inspector Linley? Not to worry, I was up now and nearly out of the room. I legged it past everyone and up the stairs to the toilet just as Greg was shouting across the table to Susie that if she wanted any tomato ketchup there was some on a saucer in the fridge.

  ‘Freedom!’

  Wow, Braveheart had inspired me more than I’d thought. Not that getting away from Greg was in the same league as Scotland being liberated from centuries of English oppression, but it was enough to make me want to jump on the back of a horse and, with blue warpaint slapped on my face and a sword raised over my head, ride up to him and roar, in a Scottish accent, for heightened effect, ‘You can try to take my sanity, but you can never take my freeeeeeedom!’

  I ran into the bathroom and banged the door shut behind me. Silence – at last! I took a few deep breaths, and refreshed my makeup. Keelin had told me that a few more of Caroline’s school friends were arriving after dinner, so perhaps there’d be some potential flirtees. It had been a while, but I reckoned there had to be a pulse beating somewhere in my charm department.

  I practised fluttering my lashes in the mirror and doing a little coy, pouty sort of a thing. Hmm, looked more like Bell’s palsy than ‘come hither’ – but nothing a few more glasses of vino couldn’t fix.

  As I applied more lipgloss, someone knocked on the door. ‘Isobel, are you in there? Hello? Isobel, are you in there?’

  ‘Yes, Greg. I am. I’ll see you downstairs in a while, okay?’

  ‘How long will you be? It’s just that I found that number for the ringtones and I’ve written it on a napkin. Do you want me to give it in to you?’

  ‘Oh, thanks – don’t come in, though! Em, you can just pass it under the door.’ Will, Caroline’s flatmate, had been meaning to install a lock on the bathroom door for the past year and a half. He was still ‘getting around to it’. Apparently the choice at Homebase was ‘mind-boggling’.

  ‘Okay, and I think you should get the Johnny Logan song too because then we could get people to phone us at exactly the same time and do a duet together when our phones ring!’

  ‘How lovely. ’Bye!’

  Thank God he didn’t walk in. I didn’t know how Greg would have reacted to seeing me sitting on the loo peeing. He probably would have roared laughing and traipsed everyone up the stairs to have a look. But then, just as I was pulling up my jeans, the door swung open.

  ‘Greg, for God’s sake, I’ll ring the number later on,’ I muttered.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry – em, it’s not Greg. I’m Jonathan.’

  I looked up and froze. Oh, holy divine God!

  Incredibly good-looking random stranger standing in the bathroom. Jeans half-way up my thighs, hideous ratty old pair of knickers on full display. Were there any strays poking out? I’d say most definitely. Hermits who have only recently come out of hiding are not, as a general rule, well groomed. All of a sudden, the heady mixture of panic and alcohol became too much and I tripped over my foot and stumbled awkwardly towards the bath, arms flapping madly, desperately searching for something to grab on to. Missing the sink, I lunged at the shower curtain, pulling the whole thing down on top of me as I landed arse first in the bath.

  ‘Shit! Are you okay? I’m so sorry. That was completely my fault. Did you hurt yourself?’

  I opened my eyes to see the incredibly good-looking random stranger leaning over me as I sat wedged in the bath with my legs dangling over the side. I turned bright red, muttered, ‘Em, I think so,’ then tried to hoist myself out. All I managed to do in the process was knock a bottle of Head and Shoulders off the shower rack and on to the floor, where I watched it ooze out over his shoes. How had this little mini-disaster crept up out of nowhere? I’d been doing so well.

  ‘Here, grab my hand and I’ll pull you out,’ the getting-better-looking-by-the-minute guy said, and pulled me to my feet. Had he said his name was Jonathan? I couldn’t remember. I could barely remember my own name, such was my shock and embarrassment.

  Eureka! I’d tell him my name was… Lorna! Lorna Quigly! Then I’d leg it out of the bathroom and into Caroline’s bedroom, where I would rummage through her wardrobe and change into a different outfit. After that, I would come back downstairs as Isobel Keegan and tell Jonathan that Lorna had had to go home early, which was a pity because although she was very clumsy she was also a genuinely lovely girl. It was the perfect plan, and I could totally get away with it as my face was currently disguised by a bright red glow. He’d never know.

  ‘You’re Izzy, aren’t you?’

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Gutted that my plan had been foiled, I didn’t even lift my head to look at him.

  ‘Lorna Quigly,’ I whispered, a little sorrowfully and in such a hushed tone I barely heard it myself.

  ‘Hey, you banged your head when you fell – you have a bit of a bruise coming up on your forehead.’ He swept my hair back from my face. ‘Do you feel okay?’

  ‘I think so.’

  I tried to button up my jeans on the sly without him noticing. Thinking I’d got away with it, I looked up to see that he was doing a fairly convincing impression of someone who was fascinated by bathroom tiles.

  ‘Listen, I’m so sorry about that,’ he blurted, when he thought a sufficient amount of jeans-buttoning time had elapsed.

  ‘Don’t be silly – it wasn’t your fault,’ I replied. ‘I’m Izzy, but you already knew that, and now you know the colour of my knickers.’
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br />   ‘I could show you my boxer shorts if it’d make you feel any better.’ He laughed.

  Ding-dong! Yes, please!

  After a moment or two of silence, and Jonathan looking increasingly uncomfortable as I stared expectantly at his crotch, I realized that he had been joking.

  ‘Okay!’ I clapped my hands together. ‘I’m going to head back to the party.’ Before he had time to respond, I was out of the door and down the stairs. ‘Who the hell was he?’ I asked the contents of Caroline’s fridge as I grabbed more wine from the shelf and refilled my glass. He was so bloody gorgeous. I shut the door and leant against it. Was he a friend of Caroline’s? Who else did he know here? When had he arrived?

  Stop the press.

  What if it turned out he’d only been some kind of vision that had appeared before me in the bathroom and no one else believed me when I told them I’d seen him? Had it been so long since I’d been with a guy that I was imagining chance meetings with good-looking strangers? Now that I thought about it, Jonathan had reminded me a bit of Josh Hartnett. And I’d definitely made up chance meetings with him.

  So, getting back to Jonathan. Perhaps it had been just another Josh fantasy, but as I was now mildly pissed, I’d only come up with a second-rate Josh. Alcohol can easily cause things to get muddled in your head.

  I wasn’t buying this. My fear was that an incredibly hot man had in fact seen (a) me fall backwards into a bath with my jeans half-way down my thighs, ripping a shower curtain in the process, and (b) that I hadn’t had a bikini wax since the Before era. Oh, and (c) me mildly sexually harassing him by staring at his crotch for an uncomfortable length of time.

  An hour and a half and five more glasses of wine later, I had completely recovered from the trauma caused by points (a), (b) and (c) and was rechoreographing a Beyoncé song on top of the dinner table with Keelin. ‘Look at me, Keelin! I’m out past nine thirty on a Saturday night!’ I beamed proudly, waggling my arse at her like a feather duster.

  ‘I’m so proud of you, Iz,’ she slurred back, ‘but what happened to you? You look like you’ve a boob growing out of your forehead.’

  ‘You know on Dr Phil when someone’s repressed something so horrific from the past that when they finally tell someone they have an emotional breakdown?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, the same thing might happen to me if I drag up what happened, so I’m not going to tell you.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  Shit. I was kind of hoping she’d ask me if it’d involved a complete random stranger called Jonathan. When she didn’t, I asked, ‘Who’s Jonathan?’

  ‘He’s Will’s cousin, from London. He works in film too, so Will said. He’s quite hot, isn’t he? Not Simon hot, but definitely hot.’

  Was he what? Why had Will never told me he had a cousin? I was so hurt – although I didn’t think Will knew much about my extended family either so I’d leave him off.

  So it appeared I hadn’t been plagued by the Single and Desperate Virus and that Jonathan was indeed a real live person and not a fevered hallucination. Good to know, too, that my desire to sleep with Josh Hartnett wasn’t morphing into a morbid obsession that I’d need to speak to a professional about.

  ‘I’m gonna go find him,’ I said to Keelin, who’d now started break-dancing.

  ‘Do! Go find him!’ she encouraged me, spinning around on her elbow. She was going to be one sore little madam in the morning. I hadn’t seen her bend like that since Sister Eileen’s gym class in the early 1990s.

  Time to go and find Jonathan and try out my Bell’s palsy face on him. If I was really lucky, he had a bad memory and/or wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box so had already forgotten what had happened in the bathroom. It might also help to distract me from the few Cian thoughts that were creeping into the back of my mind.

  Go away, Cian Thoughts! Please!

  But I couldn’t help wondering where they were tonight, Cian and Edna McClodmutton. Were they out at Club Life? Were they having a shagfest lockdown weekend? Was she participating in some beauty pageant while he sat in the front row clapping? When was I going to stop missing him, thinking about him? When would the day come that I didn’t crave seeing him, talking to him or just hearing him laugh? When was it going to stop kicking me in the gut every time I thought about it?

  When?

  Wheeeeeeeeen?

  No.

  No, Izzy! Stop this!

  I slapped myself across the face. Snap out of it. I wasn’t going to let this happen. Not tonight. Not when I was dolled up and out for the night, bravely being a butterfly after months of living like a caterpillar. I was out past nine thirty, having fun with my friends. This was progress. Of course there were times when I allowed myself to indulge in daydreams – little fantasies of being back with him, watching a movie together, going for a drink, sitting on his knee, him twirling his fingers around loose strands of my hair. Well, bollocks to that! Now wasn’t going to be one of those times. Especially not when I’d been drinking buckets of cheap wine. Good God, I’d have to move back home altogether if I got upset now, rang Cian and left a ten-minute ‘WWWWWHHHHHYYYYY?’ on his voicemail.

  No, this was the time to brush off the cobwebs, to tell myself that Cian was a prick of the highest order and that I was better off without him. Onwards and upwards!

  I wished Gavin were here. He’d slap some sense into me quick smart. I’d only have to mention Cian’s name and he’d roll his eyes and mumble, ‘Prick,’ under his breath.

  ‘Izzy, I just saw you slap yourself across the face. What’s wrong? Tell me. Do you wanna take your mind off it by teaching me some of your Buoyancy dance moves?’ Greg whined, as I trotted past him.

  ‘My what moves?’

  ‘Hello? Your Buoyancy moves! Lead singer of Density Child! Although maybe you shouldn’t, now I think about it. I have a corn on my little toe and my chiropodist has warned me that excessive –’ That was all I heard before I disappeared out on to the balcony to see what the others were up to.

  A drinking game, as it happened.

  At five thirty, when everyone else was long gone, Will had to carry Keelin, Susie and me in from the balcony and out of the front door to where a taxi was waiting impatiently for us.

  ‘My shoes. Susie threw them over the balcony.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She wasn’t impressed when I told her there were no size fives left in the shoe sale. Like it was my fault! She’s had way too much to drink,’ I scoffed. ‘Excuse me,’ I protested, as Will shoved my head through the door of the taxi. ‘I need to get my shoes!’

  ‘I’ll drop them round to you tomorrow.’

  ‘What if one of your neighbours nicks them? Will? Will, my shoes!’ I croaked into the night sky as the taxi drove off. ‘My lovely new peep-toes from the Brown Thomas summer sale!’

  I sat back into the taxi seat and wondered if Will’s old pensioner neighbour Mrs Boyle would be spotted clopping along in my new peep-toes on her way to Mass in the morning. Then I started to think about Will’s gorgeous cousin, Jonathan, whom I hadn’t seen at all after the bathroom incident. Where had he been for the rest of the evening?

  ‘Jonathan!’ I shouted.

  The taxi driver rolled his eyes and asked me if I’d forgotten my boyfriend and did we have to turn back.

  ‘Not my boyfriend, Mr Taxi Man,’ I slurred, ‘but your positivity is touching. Thank you.’

  ‘Come here to me,’ Keelin mumbled, grabbing my face awkwardly in her hands and leaning in to me as if she was about to enlighten me with the most amazing piece of information. ‘You gotta shag him.’

  ‘I do, don’t I?’ I accepted bravely.

  ‘You must!’ Susie piped from the front seat, then slid across her seat and rested her head on our driver’s shoulder.

  ‘I must,’ I repeated to myself.

  ‘He’s the perfect get-over-Cian guy. You must sleep with him!’

  ‘You must! You must! You must!’ Keelin, Susie and Mr Taxi Ma
n chanted.

  ‘I must! I must! I must!’ I murmured, then slumped onto Keelin’s shoulder and fell asleep.

  12

  ‘Excuuuuse me! Get your rotten grubby notes off my desk. Yes, my desk – you have your own, you know. Just because you have issues with slovenliness does not mean you burden me with them.’ She patted her scraped-back bun without even looking at me, but I could see that her nose was flared in disgust. She had quite a hooked one already, but when she was cross the tip of it curled down so that it almost touched her top lip. The orange lipstick she’d just reapplied was painful on the eye and I had to look away.

  ‘Eve, for God’s sake, they’re not even on your desk,’ I said.

  ‘Isobel, I think you’ll find that they are, in fact, on my desk. Did we or did we not discuss that my desk also includes the space around my desk, which, if I remember correctly and I always do, is exactly another two and a half inches from where the edge of my desk ends? Now, you may be going blind but I most certainly am not. I take two antioxidant tablets every day, as well as a vitamin A supplement, both of which have proven effects for one’s eyesight. By my judgement your notes are invading the extra two-and-a-half-inch periphery of my desk. What’s more, you haven’t stopped sneezing all morning, so those notes are going to be covered with your filthy germs. Well, get snappy. Move them! Off, off, off!’

  ‘Eve, relax, I don’t have SARS,’ I grumbled, as I gathered my splayed papers together and attempted to arrange them in neat bundles.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if you did. I know how fond you are of Chinese takeaways.’

  Chinese takeaways? How ignorant was this woman? I resisted the urge to slap her. ‘Eve, the only reason I’m sneezing is because you insist on burning incense at your desk. It smells vile, like a mixture of fish slop and toilet freshener.’

  ‘Well, that would be the new cinnamon and orange ones. They’re very good at relieving stress. You see, I work the hardest in here, Isobel, so anything that soothes my mind helps me to perform more efficiently. Who knows? They might do you some good too! Although, I don’t think they’re miracle-workers – haw, haw haw!’ She was snorting wildly, like a donkey choking on a bread roll.