That’s that, then, I thought, heading to my bus stop.
But I didn’t mean it.
‘Iffy!’ I squealed excitedly down the phone. It was two days after my disastrous trip to Kat’s office and I was still trying to work out my next move. But fate was finally offering me something: it looked like my persistence in trying to get hold of Iffy was finally paying off.
‘Hey, you. Long time no speak.’
‘Iffy, are you avoiding me?’ There was a moment’s silence on the line and I could picture his face: thoughtful, patient, trying to find just the right way of phrasing this.
‘Zoe, my darling, you know I’d never avoid you. You’re too fantastic not to have in my life. But right now my boy Jack is having a fairly shitty time – you’re probably aware, since I believe you two are still roomies. And he hasn’t got a great many people to make sure that he’s taking care of himself. If you know what I mean.’
Of course I did. I had Liz and Benni and my sisters – although maybe not Kat at the moment, not while I couldn’t talk to her about Chuck – and Mum and Dad, and colleagues. All of them watching, texting and calling, many of them visiting and making me food, or taking me out and sitting with me, wiping my tears and making sure, between them, that I was still a functioning human being, on the outside at least.
Jack had Graham – silent, absent Graham, always busy with his new life that didn’t seem to involve Jack at all – and he had Iffy. He was the boss to almost everyone he socialised with. I realised how short-sighted I’d been. How could I have begrudged for a moment the time that Iffy would dedicate to him, that maybe it wouldn’t be right for him to be meeting me for drinks and soothing my frayed nerves, when he was solely responsible for the care and support of my husband. Ex-husband. Almost ex-husband. Oh god.
‘Sorry, Iff. But do you think, one day, we might have a drink again?’
‘I look forward to it immensely, Zo. And who knows? In this grand new glorious future of happy friendships, maybe Jack could even tag along too?’
I didn’t know which thought was more weird: that Jack and I could ever be just friends, or that there was a vein of sarcasm that revealed Iffy was angry with me. I thanked him, and apologised again, and said I hoped we’d talk soon, but as we hung up I couldn’t imagine when that might be. I realised that no friendship was so strong that a break-up couldn’t produce a fracture that would carry all the way through, with no regard for all the nights out you’d had, all the conversations, the sharing, and the love between you. The rules were clear: Jack and I broke up, so Iffy and I had to throw away almost a decade of knowing each other.
TWENTY
Three years earlier
‘Here?’
‘Lower.’
‘Here?’
‘Mmm … tiny bit lower.’
‘There?’
‘Nearly – nearly – hold on … tiny bit … a little more …’
‘There?’
‘YES!’
Zoe picked up the pencil and drew a tiny cross on the wall. She grabbed a hammer and a small nail, and tapped the nail gently into the cross. Both the nail and the hammer went straight through the wall. ‘Oh my god, this place is the worst.’
‘You hit it too hard.’
Zoe let go of the hammer, leaving it stuck in the wall halfway up the handle. ‘I really don’t think that was my freakish strength. And anyway, last week you hung your coat on the pegs by the door and the whole rack came off.’
‘Fine. There may be a slight problem with damp in the walls here.’
‘Which our scumbag landlord refuses to do anything about. Or even acknowledge.’
‘Yes. But what’s our alternative?’ Jack asked.
‘What, just never ever touch the walls? I’m genuinely worried that I’ll close the front door one day and the whole thing will just fall forwards on me.’
‘What else can we do?’
‘Well. Rentals are generally holes. We’ll have to pay to re-plaster that hole for starters—’
‘Or we can just do it ourselves?’
‘And meanwhile, we still don’t have a picture on the wall. Or a coat rack.’
‘So?’
‘Why don’t we buy somewhere?’
Jack grinned. ‘Together?’
‘I might be doing ok at work but I’m not Beyoncé. Yes, together!’ She sat next to him. ‘What do you think?’
‘Can we afford it?’
‘I think so. We need to look at the actual figures, but we’ve both been saving. And my parents have a chunk of money for each of my sisters and me, for weddings or deposits or whatever we think is the best way to blow the only big slice of cash we’re likely to see in our lives. That’ll help.’
‘Oh my god, you’re an heiress? If you’d mentioned that before, it would have made this whole “getting together” stuff way easier.’
‘Yes, that’s right, I’m an heiress. I’m sooooooo rich we can probably get any one-bedroom flat in zone three that our hearts desire.’
‘With outside space?’
‘Well, certainly with windows that look outside,’ Zoe offered.
‘Oooooooh.’
‘I know. Don’t spread it around or our friends will all be wanting a piece.’
Jack stood up and pulled the hammer out of the wall. The plasterboard toppled out with it, landing on the thinning carpet and smattering into a hundred dusty segments. ‘So we’re really doing this?’
‘Do you want to?’
‘I really do. Can we paint the bathroom black? And get one of those massive hotel shower heads?’ Jack was looking excited now.
‘Whoah there, cowboy, I never said we could afford a bathroom.’
‘Fair enough. Can we paint our toilet bucket black?’
‘Sounds luxe. Let’s do it,’ Zoe agreed.
‘Let’s do it?’
‘Let’s do it.’
Jack looked at the huge hole and lifted up the picture frame from where it rested against the wall. As he pulled it up, the frame caught the edge of the fireplace, and the whole mantel above gave a soft cracking noise and slid down to the floor with faint whoompf. They stared at the wreckage.
‘Shall we phone for some viewings this afternoon?’
‘Let’s not even wait that long,’ Zoe said, grabbing her coat and throwing Jack his. ‘At this rate, we’re unlikely to have a flat to call from by then.’
They found plenty of terrible flats: new builds with paper-thin walls, basement flats with only the faintest memory of natural light, top-floor flats where neither of them could stand all the way upright. They contemplated fleeing abroad, to some European utopia of dirt-cheap, beautiful housing and a desperate hunger for Science teachers and shoe designers. But eventually they found one property: dark and airless, on the ground floor of a battered old terrace with a garden and a tenant on the floor above, a woman named Jan.
They’d both loved it. In a miracle of good luck, the flat was theirs within two months, and they set to scraping and cleaning windows, painting, sanding and putting up shelves, putting down floors, and refitting the kitchen when one of Zoe’s dad’s colleagues was getting rid of hers. They spent their days and their savings on paint and wallpaper, finding the perfect mirror, the right light fitting. White and wood and warmth.
It was a busy time. The plans that Jack had made to open a shop somewhere, someday, suddenly coalesced as the perfect location came on the market. Over the school Easter holidays, Jack took off some mid-week days from the shoe studio he was still working at and the two of them shuttled between the shop and the flat with brushes and trays, Polyfilla and picture frames, putting every hour and ounce of effort into making these two new homes beautiful. The shop, the flat, and Jack, and Zoe: all four shone with love.
As the days wore on, their new flat started to take shape. Still small, but light at last, even in London’s thin winter sunlessness, the lounge now had an armchair from Zoe’s mother and a huge sofa they’d decided would be their one big outla
y. The walls were white or soft pink, and the en-suite bathroom was black – just as Jack had wanted – with plants filling the sill of its tiny window. It was cosy, beautiful, and so small it sometimes felt like they were actually treading on one another as they tried to get dressed in the mornings, but gradually they choreographed a routine that worked for them: one of them making coffee for them both, one getting dressed, then one making toast for breakfast while the other dressed. The evenings were easier, as often one of them was working late; either Zoe at school, preparing lessons and writing reports, or Jack at the shoe workshop where they let him produce his own designs on their equipment after closing time. By the time they were both home, with a takeaway or something Jack had rustled up, they could slump on the sofa with plates and the TV on, or in the summer, sit on rickety chairs in the garden under the tree. It felt like bliss.
They had dinner parties around their tiny table, enjoying with self-consciousness the fact that these were their first dinner parties in their first real home. Liz brought over her wonderful new boyfriend Adam, along with two folding chairs and a box of wine glasses. Benni, Zoe’s colleague at her school, brought her wife, when they could get a babysitter for their twins. Iffy brought a succession of beautiful young men and women over several months. Everything was nights in, saving money, plus wonderful, long early nights, and meals with friends and plans for the future and holidays to look forward to.
Over the months, with Jack’s consent, Zoe had stayed in touch with Linda. Jack didn’t speak to her himself, he wasn’t ready yet, but Zoe had seen something in Linda, had understood why she’d left, when Jack couldn’t. At first it was just emails of a few lines, telling her they were looking for a flat, letting her know their new address, thanking her for the housewarming flowers she’d sent. She offered up little details of their lives, and received little details in return. Linda said she’d left the UK, wanting something warmer, and had found a little house in Spain near Bilbao. She was careful not to step on any toes: she wanted both Zoe and Jack to understand that she knew Jack wasn’t ready, that she knew he held her responsible for the divorce, that Jack saw his distant father’s further withdrawal from him as her fault. It was clear to Zoe that Linda was grateful there was a channel open between them. But in those emails, and then phone calls, Zoe and Linda grew closer, talking more openly – and with more humour – than Zoe would ever have guessed possible. Zoe would pass Linda’s news back to Jack, and tell Linda the things Jack had agreed, with a one-shouldered shrug, that she could share.
But for Jack and Zoe, everything felt ahead of them. Zoe couldn’t think too far into the future – it was dizzying to think of all the potential paths open to them, all the places they might live in years distantly ahead, all the work they might do in those places – but she felt like they were a blossoming tree, the two of them, just waiting to see what fruits might grow.
Not that she’d say that to anyone. Jack would wonder when she’d got so sentimental, while Kat would just curl her lip at such optimism. Mum would probably cry, which might be even worse. But it was there, anyway – the feeling that, despite everything that had happened, something good was ahead of them. And the nicest feeling of all was not knowing what exactly that good thing was going to be.
TWENTY-ONE
Now
Despite our non-starter date, I found that I was noticing George more and more at school. I realised I spent so much of my non-teaching time watching him move around the Science office that I never had time to think about whether I might ever want to be non-friends with him. He was great looking, definitely. And he was fun to be around, sure. But, but, but …
Maybe I should investigate Liz’s theory for myself: forget about George and find my own Henry, have some deliciously disastrous dates and discover how bad it could really be, so that I would appreciate the good all the more when it came along. Maybe George was too good for me. Or maybe I was still too close to the last too-good-for-me man.
Maybe.
In the absence of anything good to distract me, one of my most dreaded days had finally arrived, with nothing I could do to stop it.
My birthday.
For every year I’d been with Jack, he’d booked cinema tickets, concert tickets, indoor-ski-slope lessons, less as birthday celebrations and more as diversions from the annual day I loathed. But today I’d be alone, fending off well-wishers and Fun Plans single-handedly.
I woke with a groan, hiding my head under my pillow. The day had fallen during half term, thank god, and I had plans to stay inside, watching TV and otherwise doing nothing remarkable at all. I wanted something to take me out of my head today, to keep me from dwelling on another passing year, another day in my collapsing life, but I’d have to settle for repeats and whatever sugar hits they had in stock at the corner shop.
Crawling out of bed at ten o’clock, I turned my phone on and put it straight onto mute without checking my messages, before showering and dressing in joggers and a sweater – what Jack always called my outdoor pyjamas. Craving some junk food, I went to see what was in our cupboards before I ventured outside, and found a tray set up in the kitchen. On it was a teapot, just waiting for some hot water, alongside a mug, milk, bowl of muesli, quartered orange, and with a cinnamon roll on the side. Then, in Jack’s handwriting, an envelope. For later, it said. Divorce papers? An annulment? General hate mail?
Either way, ‘later’ was probably now, by now, wasn’t it? I opened it up, chewing half of the sugary roll I’d somehow bitten off already. Inside was one ticket, to the BFI, for a marathon screening of the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice this afternoon. It ran from 1 p.m. until 7 p.m.
If I went to this, pretty much my whole day would be written off.
I smiled, and ate the other half of the cinnamon roll.
After a lunch of Pringles and tinned crab from the corner shop, I caught the Tube to Waterloo, smiling to myself all the way. This was an absolutely perfect thirtieth birthday. Utter anonymity away from all the confetti and bells everyone else would want for me. And only one person in the whole world knew where I was right now.
The next day, when it was deemed safe to talk about the topic, Liz took me for breakfast and wished me happy birthday in a stage whisper.
‘And did you have the terrible, unremarkable day you always dreamed of?’ she asked, sliding a small gift across the table to me, looking both ways as if she didn’t want to get caught doing it.
I laughed. ‘Thank you! It wasn’t too bad, actually. I didn’t get breakfast in bed, but I did find it in the kitchen, on a tray.’ I opened the wrapping, and the box inside, to find a gold name necklace, Zoe in cursive script.
‘Who’d done that?’ Liz said, surprised.
‘This is gorgeous! Thank you.’ I put it on, and looked at her, bemused. ‘Jack, of course.’
‘He’s still giving you birthday breakfasts?’
I sipped my coffee, straightened the name against my collarbone. ‘I don’t know. I guess so.’
‘And are you … ok with that?’
‘Yeah. Yeah. It’s fine. Shouldn’t I be?’
‘Well. At least he didn’t give you a present. That would have made things super weird.’
I put my coffee down with immense concentration.
‘Oh my god, he gave you a present as well?’
‘It was just a ticket.’
‘To what? His bed?’
‘No! Liz! It was just a Pride and Prejudice marathon at the BFI. You know. So I could hide out there for the day. On my own! It wasn’t a big deal. It’s not a diamond necklace or something. It’s not that weird between us – we’re finally getting along, just about, and I’m not about to throw anything back in his face when he’s just trying to be nice. We’ve still got months to go until it’s all done. We might as well keep the peace.’
She held her hands up. ‘Ok, ok, it’s no big deal. It just seems all very amicable …’ She sighed. ‘I don’t know. Seems like kind of a waste.’
We si
pped our coffee in silence.
At home a few days later, Jack was making noodles on the hob when I came in. He peered over his shoulder, saying, ‘Oh, hey, I’ve made way too much by mistake, there’s loads more here than I expected – you can help yourself, if you’re hungry.’ He looked at me. ‘You alright?’
I dumped my bag on the worktop. ‘Yeah. I’ve been meaning to say, thanks for the birthday stuff. We just keep …’ I mimed a kind of ships-passing-in-the-night motion with my hands.
He waved his hand in dismissal. ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s fine. I had the ticket already.’
‘Oh. Ok.’ Liz’s words had been playing on my mind, but maybe it really wasn’t a big deal after all. I blew out a deep breath and ran the tap to fill two glasses of water for us. ‘Just so you know, things with that guy aren’t going any further.’
‘Oh. Right. You alright about that?’
‘Still yes.’ He paused, bringing two bowls down from the cupboard. ‘Sorry, yes. Fine. It was just awkward with him, something which barely compares to the awkwardness of this. Here, why don’t I tell my husband about the progress with my new boyfriend?’
‘Boyfriend? I thought you guys were just seeing how things went.’
‘Well, I guess now we know.’
Jack put the bowls on the counter, tonged in the noodles and veg, and stuck chopsticks in each bowl. ‘Ginger?’
I knew as well as he did how much he hated grating fresh ginger, ever since he lost the tips of two fingers while distracted with a mandolin, but this was the best he could do to show me he truly was trying to be nice. I took my bowl, and wondered whether the extra noodles really were a mistake. ‘No, you’re ok. Soy sauce’ll be fine.’
We crunched and slurped the food in front of the TV, and every time I looked at him, he was smiling a little.
TWENTY-TWO
Two years earlier
The flight had been easy, despite Jack’s increasing nerves. It wasn’t the take-off or the landing he worried about, it wasn’t even the bit in between which saw them cruising over Europe at 30,000 feet in a small tin can; it was the bit where Jack would have to face what was waiting for them at the other end.
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