Never Google Heartbreak (34 page)

‘That is fucking amazing.’

‘I’m glad you like it.’

He turns to stare at me with booze-soaked eyeballs. ‘What?’

‘Michael, is everything okay?’

‘She’s not coming. She left me.’ He sucks his bottom lip, blinking very slowly.

‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

‘’S’not your fault!’ Chairs scrape and I turn to see the last of the guests heading for the door.

‘Cheers, mate!’ one of them calls. Michael raises his hand without turning, but as the door closes he spins round and hurls the spice donkey. It bounces on the concrete step and rests on its side.

‘Thanks for coming,’ he says.

‘Right, that’s it, he’s had enough,’ declares the barmaid.

‘’S’a free fucking bar!’

‘Not any more. Not when you start chucking things. It’s time to go.’

‘What? This’s my engagement party!’

‘Come on, sunshine . . .’

‘I’ll take him home,’ I say. ‘Just give us a minute, would you?’ Michael rests his head on the bar. She looks at him with such pitying disgust, it makes me hope for the day her platinum-blonde heart gets broken.

‘Michael?’ I say gently. ‘Michael?’

He turns his head, eyes closed. ‘I love you,’ he murmurs.

‘Michael, shall we go?’

‘Hmmmnnn?’

‘Let’s go, hey?’ I nudge his elbow slightly and he starts to move off the stool, eventually standing with both arms around my neck.

‘Dance with me, Marion.’

‘I’m Vivienne, Michael.’

He opens one eye. ‘Dance with me.’ He shuffles me towards the dance floor. ‘You, music.’ The barmaid rolls her eyes and presses ‘play’ on the iPod. Herb Alpert echoes into the empty room. ‘This guy’s in love with you,’ Herb sings. We shuffle round in a tight circle while the barmaid clears up. ‘She loves this one,’ he mumbles. ‘Marion!’

‘Let’s go. Have you eaten?’ I manage to shuffle him towards the door.

‘Wait, wait!’ He stoops to collect the donkey and I haul him out onto the street where the cool air hits us both like a slap. ‘Marion. Marion,’ he says, over and over. We make it to the main road.

‘Look, I’m going to try and get you a taxi.’ I raise my arm at a yellow-lighted cab, but the driver takes one look at the swaying Michael and drives on. Michael tries to step into the road and stop a car, but I wrestle him back to the pavement where he stands quietly crying and clutching the donkey.

‘Don’t cry, Michael.’ I give him a hug.

‘She left me.’

‘I know.’

‘She doesn’t want to marry me.’

‘You don’t know that. She might just have stage fright or something.’

‘She sent a text. Wanna see it?’

‘Not really.’

‘I’ve been dumped by text!’ he shouts at a group of passing girls, making them giggle. He cries in thin little whimpers.

‘Aw, come on, Michael. Look, the best thing is to go home now.’ I put my arm around him again.

‘She’s gone.’

‘I know.’

‘She’s gone.’ He’s crying quite loudly now. ‘My Marion.’

‘I know, come on. I really know how it hurts, but you’ll be okay.’

‘And I’ve got nothing,’ he sobs, ‘nothing. Except this shitty salt-and-pepper donkey.’ It occurs to me that my engagement present may just have tipped Michael over the edge. We stand in the breeze, him crying softly and me half holding him up, desperately trying to wave down a cab.

Finally a car pulls up alongside and I throw money at the driver to take Michael home. Michael stumbles forward and makes to climb in, but suddenly stops, holding on to the door for support. ‘Vivienne, I don’t suppose you’d . . . help me make it through the night?’ He gestures to me to get in.

‘No, Michael.’ He looks into my eyes, his face all blotchy with tears. ‘It’s a lovely offer, but no, it would be wrong. Good night,’ I say, and he nods and sinks into the back seat. I watch his ponytailed head disappear as the taxi turns the corner, thinking it’s true what the song says: everybody hurts, sometimes.

BLOG TO MAX #3 – OTHER PEOPLE’S BREAK-UPS

Days since I saw you: 27

I’m starting to wonder whether the whole marriage and wedding thing just complicates love. I know it’s a big deal for someone like me to think that – being as how I’ve owned three wedding dresses and had a subscription to
Bride
magazine for three years. But really, where did the concept come from that causes us all to go around expecting another person to commit their whole lives to us and then practically selling our souls to create one perfect day on which everyone we know can witness us doing just that? Why can’t we just love until we don’t any more, whether it be death that do us part or the gym instructor? Sorry, I realise I sound mad, but it’s been a tough evening.

I love you pure and simple and I don’t need any of the trimmings.

V x

PS: Your Facebook group has 800 friends.

It’s 30 August, Nana’s wedding day, and I’m waking up in the single bed of my childhood. No Take That posters any more, but the collection of miniature pottery animals remains intact, and God, how I still really love the squirrel.

I pull on last night’s jeans and T-shirt and open the window. It’s one of those promising mornings – hazy blue with just a hint of a chill to be burnt off in the heat of the sun. There’s a van on the drive – ‘Special Days Caterers’ are here. I go downstairs to find them already busy in the kitchen, being directed by a short woman in knee-length white jeans and a striped shirt with the collar turned up. I get in the way trying to make coffee.

‘The chicken wings, Dominic!’ she calls to a floppy youth, and rolls her eyes. I smile. ‘My son,’ she says.

‘You don’t look old enough,’ I reply, being kind. How old would she be, maybe forty-five?

‘I’m thirty-seven,’ she says. Christ! Only five years older than me and with a grown-up son. Actually, looking at her now, she’s a bit rough for thirty-seven. Her eyes look baggy – well, baggier than mine. I realise she’s waiting for me to say something.

‘Well, good on you!’ I nod in what I hope is a friendly way and take my coffee into the garden.

I suppose I’m the unusual one, really, for not being married with kids at thirty-two, and the caterer woman is normal. I’m ‘not normal’. I walk across the lawn and up to the statue and think of my mother having me at seventeen. It was very brave of her, really, even if she couldn’t finish what she started. Having a teenage mother probably damaged me in some way. I’m probably unconsciously pushing love away. I’m sure I read that in
Find Your
Own
Way, Be Free
. I touch the statue’s wings. My mother is on tour in South America, apparently, so she won’t be coming today, which is a relief really as she’d only cause some kind of scene like a wicked fairy godmother and spoil everything. I sip my coffee and I suddenly feel a kind of forgiveness towards her that I’ve never had before. What did she know at seventeen? What do any of us know at any age?

I turn back towards the house. Chairs are already set out on the patio – simple wooden chairs, each with a satin ribbon tied to the back, just as we planned. I walk slowly down the aisle and stand under the arbour of roses. I asked the florist to deliver extra roses along with the bouquet. I want to decorate Nana’s wheelchair with them as a surprise, but I need to get her out of it first. I look up at the house shining in the sun with its climbing honeysuckle and ramshackle charm. Nana appears at an upstairs window, peering down at the garden.

‘Morning!’ I call, and she waves.

‘Any sign of the tables?’

‘Not yet. The caterers are busy, though.’

‘They’re supposed to be here. I want the tables setting up under the apple trees.’

‘It’s only nine o’clock.’

‘I can’t do a thing stuck in this chair.’

‘Hold on. I’m coming up.’ I weave my way back through the smell of garlic chicken roasting in the kitchen and climb the winding staircase, the sun-bleached pink carpet now threadbare on the edge of each step. I find Nana in her little private bathroom trying to get the plug into the plughole from her wheelchair. ‘What are you doing? Let me help you.’

‘Damn it! I can’t do it on the crutches, either – can’t get down low enough.’

I press the plug in and turn on the taps.

‘Would you put some of that bath oil in?’

I take the bottle and pour, and a sweet earthy scent fills the room. I wheel Nana over to the mirror. ‘It’s a lovely day for a wedding.’

‘Look at the bride, though – a skinny old woman in a wheelchair.’

‘Don’t say that.’ I start to brush her hair to set it in rollers before her bath.

‘Ow, you’re pulling!’

‘Sorry,’ I say as she winces. ‘Sorry.’

‘I don’t want it all bouffant at the back. I don’t want to look like a pensioner on a coach.’

‘You won’t. You’ll look beautiful.’

‘I used to be able to
get
beautiful with a bit of effort. Not any more.’

‘You’ll always be beautiful – look at those cheekbones.’

‘I’m thinking that dress is a bit much now.’

I look at the dress hanging on the wardrobe door. It’s a long, simply cut gown in a sort of pearl colour, with half-length sleeves and a bit of draping at the back. Perfect. ‘It isn’t “a bit much”. What are you on about?’

‘A bit young?’

‘No. What’s this crisis of confidence all of a sudden?’

‘Nerves . . . and not being able to move; it’s driving me mad. And I hate this fucking ugly chair!’ Tears spring to her eyes. I stop mid-curler and put my hand on her shoulder. ‘And I know it might seem odd because I’m getting married to Reggie and everything, but I miss your granddad very much today.’ Her voice cracks.

‘I know.’

‘I thought by now I would have stopped wanting to share things with him.’ I sit beside her and take her hand. ‘I mean, I know he’s gone and I’ve faced it, and I’m fine . . . It’s just sometimes I forget and I’ll make him a cup of tea or think I’ll tell him about this or that and it’s a shock all over again to know he’s not here any more.’ She pauses to blow her nose and I give her a little squeeze, blinking away my own tears. She’s never really talked about this before. The last thing she needs is me blubbering, but she notices.

‘Don’t you start!’

‘I can’t help it.’ Now we’re both weeping like a pair of lost children.

‘You know, I wake up and my mind is still programmed to what it knows, to life as it was with him, so for a split second I think he’s still here. Then I realise, because I’m doing something so totally unexpected.’

‘What, like marrying Reggie?’

‘Yes!’ She laughs and wipes her eyes, and we look at each other.

‘He makes you happy, though, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes, he really does.’

‘Good, because I want you to be happy. Granddad would want you to be happy.’

‘I know.’ She leans forward and hugs me. She smells my hair and squeezes the back of my neck, then takes a breath and exhales. I feel her gathering herself up and when she looks at me again, all the vulnerability is gone. She gives me back my hand.

‘Anyway, I’m fine. I’m fine. What about you, though, Vivienne? And where’s Max?’ I feel a jolt of excitement at hearing his name.

‘Well, that’s the big question.’

‘So I read.’

‘You read?’

‘In the
Gazette
.’ She points to the dressing table. ‘Apparently your Facebook search has caused a stir.’ The paper’s open at page seven and at the bottom is a small column. I glance at the headline.

‘“Lovestruck Woman Uses Facebook to Find Her Man.”’ There’s the photo of Max holding me up at Jane’s wedding, along with some of the text from my blog. I read out loud:

‘“The search for Max Kelly has captured people’s imagination as far afield as Australia and Mexico. The ‘Where’s Max?’ group has a thousand friends and counting . . .” Wow.’

‘I was rather surprised to see your face in the paper.’

‘I’m surprised. I didn’t know about this.’ She waits for an explanation. ‘I mean, I am doing a kind of campaign to find him and I sent a press release out, but I didn’t dream it would be in the paper this quickly.’ I feel quite excited to get the story in a newspaper. Media interest! He’ll be found, he’ll see how much I love him, and we’ll sail off into the sunset.

Nana smiles and looks down at her hands. ‘A campaign?’

‘Well, the press release and a couple of Sunday papers promised to cover a website I set up, so I told them about searching for Max as well, and we’ve had some T-shirts designed with “Where’s Max?” printed on them. Hopefully they’ll be on sale in Topshop soon.’

‘Topshop. Gosh.’

‘What?’

‘Well, do you think he’ll like all this fuss? He might have just gone on holiday.’

‘We slept together.’

‘Naturally.’

‘He told me he loved me; then I turned up to the “Meet the Artist” night of his exhibition with Rob.’

‘Oh dear, I missed a lot in hospital, didn’t I?’

‘And, Nana, I love him. So much. But he thinks I betrayed him. I didn’t. I’d never hurt him and now he’s disappeared. I just want to find him and this is what I know.’ I wave the paper. She nods slowly as if I’m six and have just put on a puppet show. ‘What?’

‘Nothing. You’re just so dramatic, I admire you.’

‘I don’t think I’m being dramatic.’

‘Most people just accept things as they are and go merrily along, but not you. Always searching for something . . . wanting to change the world since you were a little girl,’ she says, half to herself, and I feel the words settle sharply around my heart.

‘Well, maybe I’ll find what I’m looking for one day.’

‘Or maybe you’ll just stop searching and let it find you.’ Her eyes dart to my face; there’s a moment’s silence.

‘But probably not,’ I laugh to get her off my case. ‘Anyway, enough about me. Are you getting hitched today or something?’

She smiles with her halo of rollers. ‘I am,’ she says. ‘I am.’

I wheel her back to the bathroom and there’s an awkward moment as I help her into the water. Your nana naked is not something you ever expect to see. She holds onto my neck as I take her dressing gown away at the last possible minute, trying not to look at the bones of her hips and jutting shoulder blades. She sinks beneath the bubbles and we’re both relieved.