Never Google Heartbreak (14 page)

‘I have to go.’ He stands up.

‘I want us to be together. I think—’

‘It’s over, Viv.’ He brushes the back of his hand gently against my cheek. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart, but you left me – remember?’ He slings his glossily lined jacket over one elegant shoulder and saunters out. He doesn’t look back.

1. Cry your eyes out.

2. Howl like a banshee.

3. Smash stuff.

4. Do not call. You will regret it.

5. Don’t even think about it.

The taxi stops at the end of the road. I rummage in my bag for money, pushing aside the spare pants now tangled up with the toothbrush.

The driver eyes me patiently. ‘It’s not the end of the world, love. It’ll all look better in the morning.’

I drip tears as I hand over a twenty. ‘It is, actually. It really is the end of my world.’

He hands me the change. ‘You take care now, love.’

I nod numbly and limp to the door, whimpering like a wounded dog. Snot and tears drip as I fumble with the keys. Once inside I curl onto the sofa, hugging my knees. A distant scrap of reason reminds me that I left Rob, over two months ago, and I was coping well. But only because I was so sure he’d be back. Now
he
really has left
me.
He hasn’t even tried to come and get me. It’s final. My mind filters through ideas and scenarios like a flick-book. When it rests on an image of Rob walking away, I howl. Then there’s
her
! How can I compete with that supermodel? I can’t keep still for the pain of it. I need a drink.

In the fridge I find half a can of flat Coke and a bottle of vodka. There’s no time to mix them in a glass, so I swig first one and then the other and pace like a caged tiger. What a fool to think I had any kind of upper hand when actually he never wanted me. He’s running down the aisle with someone else, someone
younger
, taking all my white-wedding hopes, having stolen good fertile years of my life, and smashing everything we built.

‘I’m on the scrapheap,’ I wail, pacing and swigging. ‘I’ve been replaced!’ How did I get here? What did I do to deserve this? I let out a big shout and it clatters around the bare walls. I stare out of the window as the vodka burns its way down, at all the lit squares of life in the buildings around me, the homes, the lamps and TVs, imagining the meals cooking, the couples cuddling.

I stand in the dark, feeling as if my heart has popped open like a broken zip and the desperate black of night is whistling through. I crouch by the sofa with my hands around my knees. I’m frightened of being alone. I don’t know how to cope with the terror of it.

‘It isn’t fair!’ I shout. ‘I can’t do this!’ I rock backwards and forwards and call out to him. I shout at him as if he’s asleep in the next room and then as if he can hear me across the city.

I swig more vodka as I sit in the light of the strange greenish glow from my phone. I say his name and whisper it. I pick up the phone and find his name in the contacts. If I could just explain to him, just hear his voice, he’d come. He wouldn’t let me suffer; surely he’d see. I get his voicemail message:

‘You’ve reached Robin Waters. Unfortunately I’m unable to take your call. Please leave a message after the tone, or press the hash key to be put through to my secretary. Thank you. Goodbye.’

That lovely, lovely voice. I just want to hear him say my name. I hang up and redial.

‘You’ve reached Robin Waters . . .’

And again. And again. And again and then a few more times.

1. Stand before a mirror, naked, take a deep breath and say in a very calm, quiet voice, ‘I am a warrior princess and I deserve love. I will be stronger and better next time.’

2. Repeat above.

3. Get a pet or a plant, anything, nurture something.

4. Take up a new sport.

5. Redecorate.

When I open my eyes, I’m looking directly under the sofa. There’s a gold hoop earring I’ve been missing, a plate, dust and a balled-up sock. My head feels like a walnut in the jaws of a nutcracker with my brain the rattling, shrivelled contents. A headache fizzes behind my eyes. I lie in a shaft of hothouse sun burning from the window with the wool fibres of the rug scratching my face. I roll onto my back. Dust specks circle and fall beneath the glass dome ceiling light. To my right a vodka bottle sparkles like mountain water; I push it upright with my fingers and the remaining splash gathers at the bottom. Oh hell. I drank a lot of vodka.

I try to recall the evening. I think I just came home and drank myself blind. I mean, it wasn’t a high point of my life, but at least I didn’t humiliate myself. There’s comfort in that. I lie still, concentrating on my body, feeling the double whammy of grief and hangover kick in, and I’m aware of something pressing into my left shoulder. I move to the side, trying to keep my eyeballs still, and I find my phone. I lift my head a little and squint at the display. I called Rob
ten times
! I drop the phone onto my chest. Pain crackles in my head, forking into my eyes like lightning. What a total and utter loser. Why, why, why do I get that dially finger when I’m drunk? It only ever leads to disaster – like the time when I tried to get back with my childhood ex, Ginger Roge, who’s now gay.

The phone vibrates, buzzing with a chirpy tune. I fumble with it, pressing buttons randomly.
Make it stop. Make it stop.

‘Hello?’ I rasp, like a witch.

‘Hi, it’s Rob.’

A crazy banner unfurls, screaming, ‘He wants you back!’ Be cool, be cool.

‘Yes? How can I help you?’

‘Well, you could start by not repeatedly ringing me and then hanging up.’

‘Oh, did I? Sorry. I must have sat on the phone without the keypad lock thingy on.’

‘Right, well . . . you okay?’

‘Me? Yes, fine.’

‘I thought you might have been upset. You know, after last night.’

‘No! I’m fine – just off for a run.’

‘A run?’

‘Oh yeah. I try to do half an hour a day now. Loving it, actually.’

‘I can’t imagine you running, Viv.’

‘Yeah, I’m just warming up. Got to watch those hamstrings.’

‘Well then, I should let you go. You won’t keep ringing me, though, will you? Sam wasn’t too pleased – we were watching a film.’

I feel my heart rip like an old rag.

‘Noooo. No, I won’t.’ There’s a sob brewing in my throat, gagging me.

‘Anyway, look, while you’re on, I have a few bits and pieces of yours . . . I just wondered what you’d like me to do with them.’

‘Bits and pieces?’

‘Uh, just photo albums, a couple of plants from the patio and the red chair.’

‘But I bought the red chair for you. You love that chair.’

‘Yeah, uh . . . Sam’s not a fan. She’s redecorating. Quite keen to be an interior designer, actually.’

‘Really?’ I imagine her falling off a high ladder. A tear trickles down my cheek and soaks into the parched rug.

‘Anyway, you have a think and just text me what you’d like done with the stuff, yeah?’

‘Righty ho.’
Righty ho?

‘
Ciao
for now.’ He hangs up.

‘Yeah,
ciao
.’

I lie on my back, letting my face get soaked with tears. There’s no sobbing or wailing, just water. I wonder how long it’s possible to cry. I wonder if it’s in
The
Guinness Book of Records
.

Patticake:
I broke up with my boyfriend two months ago and I thought by now I’d be feeling better than this. Any tips on how to get over him?

Swedishblonde:
Ask yourself, Was I really in love with this man, or do I just love the idea of being with somebody? Do you miss his particular smell, or his way of walking, or are you just annoyed because you’re alone?

Golumismyex:
To get over him you need to get under someone else.

Prettylacey:
So many men and so little time. Get yourself out there, angel. Get busy. Join clubs. Have a makeover. Pretend you’re over it and eventually you will be.

Golumismyex:
Ask yourself, Will I care about this a year from now?

Voodoowitch:
I can make you a powerful love spell to cause your desired one to fall deeply in love with you again. I also sell a wide variety of wax effigies . . . but you must obtain a hair from his head.

Since I’m not basking in rekindled love, encircled within the arms of my fiancé, I’m out clubbing with Lucy. I’m quickly realising there is nothing so depressing as clubbing in London on a Saturday if your heart is broken. Where do these people come from? It’s as if the city has been sucked dry of its usual population and filled with people in fancy dress. The clubs are packed with tourists, day-trippers and fun-time goons on the pull. Lucy has brought me to Nite Spot – apparently the cheesiness is ironic and therefore über-cool. When I suggest we might just go to the pub, she shrieks, ‘Action!’ She’s ‘taken me under her wing’, so here I stand in her high heels with a watery Long Island iced tea, feeling as animated as a hollowed-out log.

‘Right, Viv, is there anyone here you fancy?’ Lucy snakes her hips in time to the beat. I stare gloomily around the room. There are groups of men loitering by the dance floor where the girls shake out moves like lap dancers. Occasionally a lone wolf breaks away and begins to gyrate suggestively next to one of the girls and is either ignored or encouraged. The whole scene is only missing a David Attenborough voiceover.

Lucy is now shimmying up and down in her clingy, sparkly dress, singing along to the music about break, break, breaking someone’s heart. ‘Well? Spotted anyone?’

‘Yeah, you.’ I dance a few comedy moves in front of her.

‘No, I’m serious. If you had to shag someone in here or die, who would you chose?’

‘Still you.’

‘I mean a man!’

‘I know what you mean. I just don’t feel like this is really helping.’

‘Because you’re not even trying!’ She hands me a tequila shot. I finish it in three sips while she downs hers in one, shouts, ‘Yee-ha!’ and slams her empty glass on the bar. ‘Right, choose, or I’ll tell the barman you want to fuck him.’

I glance at the grinning Polish guy tending the bar, then hurriedly scan the low tables, eventually spotting a guy with glasses and a kind smile.

‘Okay, him over there.’

‘In the black shirt? Nice!’ She smiles at a male model in a studded belt.

‘No, over there, sitting down. Glasses. Kind-looking.’

‘Oh my God, you
are
joking!’ She looks at my face. ‘You’re not joking!’

‘He looks like he’d be nice to talk to.’

‘You don’t want to
talk
to him, Vivienne!’

‘Don’t I?’

She holds my arms and then pulls me close. ‘Oh, you poor love. When was the last time you were screaming in sexual ecstasy?’ She makes it sound like an everyday occurrence, like buying milk.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever—’

‘Just as I thought. Tonight we’ll fix that, my lovely. Let’s get more shots!’

We’re on our third round of something that tastes like Benylin when I get it – I’m feeling a tingling beginning in my stomach and radiating outwards to every extremity and I’m also . . . so pretty! We move onto the dance floor and I slide up and down back to back against Lucy. As I twirl round I know that every girl in there wishes she’d worn a polo-neck jumper just like me. Then someone is dancing close to Lucy and I’m spinning on my own. The music is so great I just have to
move
. Large black shoes shuffle in front of me. Someone’s dancing with me and he’s feeling this groove too – his legs, in black trousers, step to the beat. I look up, see a stripy unbuttoned shirt, then an enormous Adam’s apple. I grab the back of his neck and shout, ‘Amazing!’ in his ear. He nods, touching my waist. I grab him again and shout, ‘Adam’s apple!’ He holds my waist and dances closer to me. I notice his big nose. I like it! The tips of his fingers are beginning to touch my bottom. I dance back a few steps and point at him, shouting, ‘Cheeky!’ He shimmies up close to me and I feel his breath on the side of my neck. I smell soapy aftershave. Lifting my hands above my head, I snake my hips. I’m
the
most desirable woman in the world!

Now he’s behind me, unmovable, like a wall. The bass is vibrating, the lights moving, and he’s holding my hips, pushing them around. It’s a bit weird, actually. His lips brush the side of my face. I turn to move away and he locks them on my mouth, using an uncomfortable suction to hold on, and I feel the mollusc-like tip of his tongue, probing. I pull away, turning my head, and he suckers onto my neck.

‘Uh, don’t do that,’ I shout. He tries again, this time sucking up my ear like a hoover fish. ‘No, thanks!’ I shriek, and dance a little more, aiming to casually lose him. He smiles and makes another lunge for my face. I see the wet mouth looming as I dodge away.

I find Lucy dancing with the model guy. She’s swaying close to him with her eyes closed. She sings, ‘Make love and dance . . .’

I shriek, ‘Toilet!’ in her ear.

I’m trying to pee while holding the door shut and balancing to avoid the yellow-splattered seat. It’s not easy in heels. Lucy is shouting from next door.

‘I’m taking mine home – he’s hot! What about you?’ I’m out of the cubicle now, but Lucy is still peeing strongly. She didn’t get the nickname ‘Hoss’ at uni for nothing.

‘Christ, no! He’s like something from
Star Wars
!’

‘Not in a cute way?’

‘He’s like a face-sucking alien.’

She finally emerges, still pulling down her dress. ‘You ready to go, then?’ She smiles naughtily. She’s pulled, so end of evening.

‘Er, no. I want to dance.’

She looks disappointed.

‘You yourself said I needed a good night out. It’s only one o’clock.’ I glare at her as I pull open the door, but as I turn I come eye to eye with the freaky face-sucker. He lunges towards me, lips puckered, tentacles reaching. I only just manage to slam the door in time. I lean back against the wood, feeling like Sigourney Weaver. ‘I can’t go out there!’ Lucy tuts and pulls open the door, but he blocks the way, lurching wildly.