Never Google Heartbreak (15 page)

‘Look, buster, my friend isn’t interested.’ He smiles vacantly. ‘Can you move, please? She’s not interested.’ She turns to me. ‘I don’t think he speaks English.’ I peer around the doorframe and his face lights up, wet red mouth winking. I slam the door on him.

‘What are you doing, Viv? We can’t stay in here.’

‘No . . . he’ll be gone now.’ I open the door confidently, but he steps into the space, looming over us. There’s only one thing for it – I need to say something science fictiony. Something fit for a face-sucking monster. I step forward, holding my hand up in a stop sign.

‘You will let us pass!’ I say solemnly.

He hesitates. I keep my hand up and repeat the command, avoiding eye contact, until he writhes away like a scalded snake.

At the end of the night I think I might have to find a therapist. See someone. Maybe I’m depressed. As the slow dance plays I stand on my own, while Lucy smooches around the floor with Model Man. He’s rubbing her bottom; she’s massaging the back of his neck. The lights go on and I feel suddenly exposed and hot in my jumper. I feel like Lucy’s mother who has come to collect her in a Fiat Panda.

The cloakroom can’t find my jacket and I end up being crammed into the back seat of a speeding minicab listening to the squelch and slurp of Lucy and Model Guy exploring each other. They’ve insisted on dropping me home. Every now and then Model Guy breaks off and asks me a polite question like, ‘How long have you lived in London?’ while sliding a hand up Lucy’s dress. I rest my forehead against the steamy window, watching kebab shops and taxi ranks zoom by. A girl in a strappy black dress clings to a lamppost and vomits on her shoes. I imagine the kind of evening Rob and Sam have had: dinner somewhere exclusive and expensive, champagne, sparkling conversation and then home. And I’ve turned myself inside out with jealousy and pain.

1. Do you have a support network of people to lean on when life gets tough?

a. Yes, I have a large circle of friends and a loving family.

b. No, even my work colleagues have stopped listening.

c. Yes, but I can’t let them know what a fool I’ve been.

2. Do you believe a problem shared is a problem halved?

a. Yes, it’s always better to open up about what’s worrying you.

b. No, I can’t think of a single person I’d share a problem with.

c. There are no problems that can’t be fixed by a party.

3. Do you have a special person in your life to help you to discover your true worth and potential?

a. Yes, my closest friends.

b. Yes, my ex.

c. I have no worth or potential.

Answers

Mostly A
– you are making healthy choices. Making some new happy memories with family and friends will set you well on the road to recovery.

Mostly B
– you may need to make some connections with the outside world. Do not mope alone. Do some fun stuff.

Mostly C
– seek professional help.

Sunday morning is a time for lovers. There’s not a radio programme that isn’t devoted to it. Why do people ring up to say how ‘in love’ they are? Who are they trying to convince? It’s really pathetic, actually.

I’m practising stillness of body and mind. It’s chapter four of
Find Your
Own
Way, Be Free
, about quietening the mental voices and achieving a peaceful soul. The author photo shows a woman with the kind of neat hair you can trust. Her smile says,
I know
. I’m in bed realising that keeping still is actually very difficult. I’m approaching what I think could be the beginning of stillness when Lucy calls.

‘How are you?’ she asks.

‘Pretty shit,’ I say, without moving my jaw much.

‘Shitter than yesterday?’

I think about this. I’ve never before considered levels of shitness. ‘Probably less shit than yesterday. How was it with Model Guy?’

‘Unfeasibly small penis.’

‘Oh.’

‘It was a good night, though, hey? And you pulled!’

‘Yeah . . . hideous . . . Actually, is there something about me that attracts other life forms?’

‘I think they just pick up your scent. So, fancy coming to a singles’ lunch today? It’s at the Jug and Goblet. Everyone gets off their heads, goes crazy and you will not go home alone. Guaranteed!’

‘Wow. That sounds amazing, but I can’t.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘So, what will you do instead – mope around your flat, gazing at pictures of Rob?’

‘No.’

‘Study pictures of Rob’s new girlfriend? Make yourself a barbed-wire shirt? Stay in bed reading self-help books?’

I glance at
Find Your
Own
Way, Be Free.
‘I might.’

‘Viv, come on. You have to get a life!’

‘Actually, I’m going to Nana’s.’ I’ll call her in a minute – it’ll be all right.

‘Oh, very rock and roll.’

‘I’ve invited Max.’ I’ll call him too.

‘You are living the dream!’ I’m not sure why she thinks this tough love thing is helping. It crosses my mind that she might be heartless.

‘Don’t you have to meet your fuck buddy today or something?’

‘No. That’s the idea of a fuck buddy. You don’t
have
to do anything.’

‘Oh.’

‘You all right? You sound weird.’

‘Oh yeah, I’m fine. Talk to you later.’

‘Later.’ She hangs up. I listen to the fizzing drone of the handset and wonder what comes next and how long it will take. After a while, when nothing happens, I drag myself to the kitchen and pull open the fridge. The shelves grin. I take out a packet of smoked salmon. I read words like ‘finest’ and ‘wild’ on the recycled packaging. It was full of promise on Friday. I hold the pack in my hands like a prayer book, gazing through the kitchen window at the summer sky. I slide the glass up, looking down onto the back alley where discarded pizza boxes and empty cans have collected. I see a used condom lying flabbily on top. I examine the salmon I was once so hopeful about and let it drop. It falls among the Saturday-night remains, a nugget of wholesomeness in the wasteland. I get the cream cheese and the croissants and hurl them out too. I take the strawberries and fire them one by one into the sky. A couple ricochet off the windowframe and roll onto the floor. I consider the champagne, then grab it by the neck and rip off the foil. There is no pop as the cork slides out. Rob told me it’s vulgar to pop. To think – before he educated me, I used to pop
and
cheer. Leaning against the worktop, I swallow down a flute of blush bubbles. Then I let the last of my glasses drop onto the kitchen tiles. It smashes, sending shards scattering spectacularly. I close the fridge door with my foot and shuffle off to get dressed.

Max arrives early. This is not his natural behaviour. He’s even combed his hair, and when I kiss him on the cheek, I notice he’s shaved and is smelling of some weird citrusy scent. His jeans are clean and he has on a shirt I’ve never seen before – blue checks. I look him up and down.

‘Look at you!’

‘What? What’s wrong with me?’ He looks around as if I just shouted, ‘It’s the cops!’

‘Nothing’s wrong.’ I smile. ‘You look quite nice.’

‘Well, you know nanas, they like this kind of thing, don’t they?’ His grin is a bit like a pirate’s with the chipped tooth.

‘Nanas do?’

‘Ah, shut up, Viv. What have you come as, anyway?’

‘Me? Er . . . a girl who hasn’t done her washing and has had to pick from the back of the cupboard.’ I know my three-year-old bleached jeans make my arse look enormous, and the sleeveless blouse is less ‘retro floral’, more ‘sad loser’.

‘Fancy a drink?’

‘Have you any whisky?’

‘No. Anyway, it’s Sunday morning.’

‘Anything then.’

‘I’ve got champagne. It’s pink.’

‘Grand.’ He follows me into the kitchen. ‘You rang me on Friday. I tried to call you back.’ My cowboy boots crunch on the shattered flute. Max doesn’t mention it. ‘You all right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Yeah? Because you sounded not all right.’

‘Rob wants to get rid of that red chair.’

He nods in a way that shows he has no idea what I’m talking about.

‘I bought that chair for him . . . We went for a walk on this really perfect autumn day and we passed a little junk shop. We went inside and I spotted the arm of this chair under a pile of stuff. It was such a lovely tomato red.’ I glance at Max. He’s staring at the floor. ‘It was almost orange, really. We got the guy to drag it out and there it was, a perfect old reading chair with a wingback. I secretly bought it for his birthday and I had it re-stuffed and cleaned and all that. He loved it. Now his fiancée doesn’t like it, so he wants to know what I want to do with it.’

‘Tell him to stick it up his arse.’

‘Just like that, though. What do I want doing with it? Unbelievable. And it’s made me realise – it’s not that he didn’t want to get married; he just didn’t want to marry
me
.’ I stare at Max’s face, trying to concentrate away the tears, then slowly turn my gaze to the living room, sniffing and imagining the chair there. ‘I can’t have it here. It’d be like a big fat ghost sitting in the corner, reminding me. But I can’t get rid of it . . .’ I hear my voice waver and wonder why this whole chair thing has become so huge for me.

‘Look. I’ll go and get it off him and keep it at mine until you realise that you love the chair but that he’s a cock-end. Then we’ll bring it here and have a chair party.’

‘God. What would that be like?’

‘A chair party? Well, it would involve you and me and the chair and not many clothes . . .’

‘No – what would it be like to realise he’s a cock-end?’

He puts his arm around my shoulders. ‘Ah, Viv, I promise one day you’ll be so adored you’ll not give a shit.’

I rest my head on his shoulder. ‘You promise, do you?’

‘I do.’

* * *

Nana’s street is shaded green by the summer trees. The pavement shimmers in the early heat. As we approach the house she throws open the front door and stands on the step in a full-length peacock-blue sundress, her twiggy arms outstretched.

‘Max! Max Kelly!’ she calls like a Shakespearean actress.

He reaches for her, doing a side-to-side dance. ‘Hello, Eve.’ She seems small as a child in his vigorous embrace. ‘Good to see you.’

‘Max, you look so
well
. Doesn’t he look well, Viv?’

He turns to me, grinning like a goon.

‘Yes, I suppose he does,’ I mutter.

‘I am well, Eve. And how are you keeping?’

‘You know, I can’t complain. Now . . .’ She leads us into the house and downstairs to the heat of the kitchen. I smell a joint of beef roasting. She kisses me and fusses over drinks. Max’s presence is making her giggly and silly, and I feel a flash of embarrassment. ‘You take this lovely man out to the garden, Vivienne, and I’ll bring out a tray.’

We push open the French doors and step onto the sunlit patio. The stones are cracked like a crumpled roadmap, and spread with moss. A rusting table and four chairs are shaded by a tattered canvas umbrella. Max turns his face to the sun and puts on sunglasses.

‘It’s looking like a beautiful day,’ he says.

‘You’re very popular.’

‘Yeah, well, me and Eve go way back.’

I tut, feeling childishly left out. ‘She should do something about the garden,’ I mutter, and climb up the three bowed steps to the sloping lawn. Max follows. We brush past straggly, scented jasmine, and I stop for a moment before Nana’s angel statue. She stands in the centre of the lawn. I look at her beatific gaze and I’m seven again, whispering secrets to her sad stone eyes and hanging daisy chains on her wings. I used to think if I talked to the angel, my mother could hear. Bless me. Fruit trees shade the dappled lawn and windfall apples shine through the long grass, giving off a faint sickly perfume. We wander to the end of the garden where old roses tangle together, their blousy heads nodding with the attention of bees. ‘I really love English roses,’ I tell him. I watch his suntanned hand as he brushes the underside of a peach-white bloom.

‘Me too,’ he says. I glance at his face. He’s smiling down at me, eyes full of warmth and humour. I turn back to the roses. He shifts on his feet and says, ‘I’ll go and help your nan with the drinks.’

I turn round as he bounds down the steps. Taking off my boots, I walk barefoot on the cool damp grass and wander past the forgotten vegetable patch back to the angel.

‘What do you know?’ I ask her, touching the tips of her chipped fingers.

There’s shouting and laughter coming from the kitchen; then Nana steps out wearing a wide-brimmed white hat, followed by Max in a straw fedora, carrying a tray at shoulder height. Nana shades her eyes and calls to me, her voice becoming comically loud and posh.

‘Viv, look, we’ve gone all Riviera! I’ve made margaritas!’

Max stands behind her, grinning; his white teeth and tanned face with the dark curls escaping the hat at the sides make him look like a wicked Greek waiter out to seduce susceptible tourists.

‘You’re both ridiculous.’ I step onto the warm patio and we sip cocktails under the umbrella. Max lights a cigarette and Nana picks up the packet.

‘May I?’

‘Sure.’ He slides over the lighter.

‘You don’t smoke!’ I exclaim.

Her face scrunches up as she inhales. She holds the cigarette awkwardly away from her, its filter now smeared with coral lipstick. She gives a little cough as she exhales.

‘Well, it’s something I’ve always wanted to take up, but I’ve been waiting until I’m seventy.’ She sits with her skirt hitched up, sunning her thin, veiny legs.

‘Why would you do that?’

‘Well, it can kill you, you know,’ she says, taking another drag, this time coughing the smoke straight back out. ‘In any case, I don’t think I like it. Would you like this back, Max?’

He leans forward and takes the cigarette from her, putting it out in a saucer. ‘Is there anything else you want to try, Eve? Hang-gliding? Class-A drugs?’ he asks.

‘Drugs, most definitely. Especially that one that’s good for arthritis. Hang-gliding, no, but perhaps a balloon ride. I’d like to have got married in a hot-air balloon.’