They collected their luggage from the carousel, engaging in that subtle competition only the British can bring to the start of a holiday – eyeballing other competitors to see who’d got the prime luggage-grabbing location – before wheeling their bags towards the Arrivals door. The heat was intense; bleached white light flooded through the automatic doors ahead of them.
‘Ready?’
Jack just looked at her.
‘We can’t stay in the Duty Free shop forever, Jack.’
In reply, he started wheeling his bag towards the doors and she hurried to catch up with him. They came into the Arrivals hall together, where he stopped dead and looked around.
‘See? Not here. As if I expected anything else.’
‘Excuse me.’
Jack turned around expectantly, but it was just a fellow passenger trying to get through. Zoe pulled Jack out of the way and looked around. At one end of the Arrivals hall, waiting behind the nylon cord, an older woman was smiling at them uncertainly. She had short-cropped grey hair, a plump, comfortable body, and golden, tanned skin. She raised a nervous hand in greeting.
‘Oh my god.’
‘What?’
‘Jack. She’s here. That’s your mum.’
The woman walked over to them, and smiled in return to Zoe’s wide smile. Jack held onto his suitcase handle with both hands, mouth slightly agape. Linda looked so different.
‘Mum?’
‘Hello, darling. I’m glad you could come.’ Zoe looked at Jack and saw he still wasn’t able to move, so she stepped forwards and put her arms around Linda. Linda hugged her back, and they stood together like that for a while. Zoe worried she and Linda might both start crying. It was so wonderful to see her in the flesh after all their talks. When she pulled away, she saw that Linda’s eyes were wet too. Linda looked at Jack.
‘Right. Have you got a car? Shall we go?’ Jack said, turning away abruptly and starting to walk towards the exit. Linda’s face crumpled a little. Zoe took her arm and smiled at her, saying nothing while Linda gave her a weak smile in return, squeezing her arm as they followed Jack out into the brilliant whiteness.
It was impossible to maintain any level of anger when surrounded by so much sunshine, so Jack had to resort to staying in a different room to his mother as much as possible for those first few days. When she brought in breakfast, he would walk outside to the shared pool and float face down in it before coming up for a gasping breath, then rolling back onto his stomach. When she and Zoe came outside to the pool with glasses of fresh lemonade for them all, he would head to Linda’s guest room, saying the sun was getting a bit too strong for him. He had no chance to see how much happier she was, how much calmer. Only at the evening meal would he sit with his mother, but by then the pool and the sun had done their work and he was falling asleep at the table as Zoe and Linda made plans for the next day. Zoe couldn’t say it aloud to either of them, but she thought Jack was being unkind, even childish. He had agreed to come after Zoe had begged him, had eventually agreed to see it as a holiday, albeit one where he’d have to face his mother. It had been two years since she’d left the family home, two years since he’d seen her.
On their third night he excused himself immediately after dessert, stumbling up to the guest room where he would, from experience of the previous two nights, fall asleep on the bed fully dressed.
‘How’s he doing?’ Linda gently asked Zoe.
‘He’s alright, I think. It’s hard to tell – he barely talks to me either. It’s like the sun’s sedated him.’
‘I know he’s angry with me, but I’ve never known him so quiet, Zoe. Even as a little boy he’d chatter away to me every day after school, even if he was just talking about who he’d played with in the playground, who he’d sat with for lunch. By the time he went to university he knew better than me about everything, but he’d still talk to me whenever he called, about his course, about you. But now …’
‘It’s horrid, I know. I think … it was just harder for him than anyone would have guessed. He’s really been hit by it. I don’t … I don’t think he’d ever thought it might happen, if you know what I mean. It wasn’t like you two used to … fight, or anything?’ Zoe felt like she was on a terrible tightrope – she didn’t want to be disloyal to Jack, to say out loud that she thought he’d behaved wrongly, but she didn’t want Linda to feel like she was having to win both Jack and Zoe over at the same time.
Linda laughed a little. ‘I’m sure that’s what he thought. We never did fight. But it didn’t mean we got along. You know what Graham’s like,’ she added, looking at Zoe, who tried to smile noncommittally.
‘It was impossible, Zoe. If he agreed with me, if he disagreed with me, if he wanted something, if he didn’t want something … it was just silence. All the time. Him moving from room to room, sitting behind his paper, looking like some lost orphan just waiting to be saved, and all the time I’d be trying to get something from him, anything, and I could feel myself talking more and more just to try and get a reaction from him …’ She was almost crying now, and Zoe shuffled her chair closer and put an arm around her. ‘Jack couldn’t even begin to imagine what that was like. Feeling like the villain, him and his dad rolling their eyes at me.’
‘I’m sorry, Linda.’
She wiped her eyes. ‘Oh, my dear, it’s not your fault. It’s not Jack’s fault, either. It’s maybe not even Graham’s fault.’ She thought for a moment. ‘We just were never right for each other. It might be my fault as well, for letting him behave that way, for staying with him for so long. But what was I supposed to do when Jack was little? Leave him with Graham? I doubt he would have chosen to come with me, and even if he did, I wasn’t working – what was I going to raise him on?’
Linda got up and turned the kettle on, bringing cups and milk over to the counter. ‘Oh I know, I know, I could have managed somehow. People do, don’t they? But it just seemed … easier … to stay like that. I thought he might change, or I might get used to it, then suddenly it was our anniversary approaching and I thought, if I died tomorrow, would I be glad I’d spent my life with Graham, feeling like a stupid babbling chatterbox every single day? Everyone laughing at the wife who never stopped talking? So I packed my bags. And that was it. This is my life we’re talking about – not Graham’s, and not Jack’s. I know Jack’s finding it hard to understand why I did what I did, but I think …’ She paused. ‘I’d like him to start understanding that.’
Zoe nodded, seeing the sadness that had run through Linda for so long, in one form or another. Looking for something to do, she started clearing the table. ‘Were you … frightened?’
‘Zoe, my dear, I was petrified. I thought I’d lose all my friends, my husband, my house … I knew Jack might be upset but I never once, not once, thought that I might actually lose him too.’ She poured boiling water into the cups. ‘I was so frightened that my life would change more than I could cope with, but I never thought the one person I actually cared about more than anything else would just … stop speaking to me.’
Linda bumped the kettle down on the counter top, and started crying.
‘He’s my little boy, Zoe. I don’t know if you ever want children of your own, but I hope you never understand what this feels like, to cause your own child such pain that he can’t even look at you. And I can’t understand what I’ve done wrong. But whatever I’ve done, it must be truly awful for him to hate me this much.’
Zoe moved to the counter so she could put her arm around Linda again. She peered down at her rumpled, tear-streaked face and saw Jack in her, completely; saw how they carried their pain and saw how they cried it out when they hurt too much to ignore it any longer. Zoe put both arms around her, hugging her tightly.
‘Linda, we’re going to take care of him. Between you and me, we’ll make sure that Jack’s ok. Alright? We can look after him.’
Linda shook in her arms. ‘Zoe, I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so glad he’s got you. I remind myself over and over
that he’s got you to talk to—’
‘He’s hardly talking.’
‘But you’re there for him. I see you together, even now, even here, and I see how different you two are to me and Graham. You talk. When we got married, I was so in love with him. He was such a handsome young man, Zoe.’ Linda sat down at the table again and looked out of the window, her mind disappearing into her faded wedding memories. ‘It was a beautiful wedding, too, all our friends, my parents … I dried my bouquet and kept it for years, in a little box on top of our wardrobe. I was so proud that day, looking at Graham as I walked up the aisle, how smart he looked, how beautiful I was in that dress, and I knew everything was going to be ok once we’d signed that wedding certificate. I was so happy, Zoe. I thought Graham was going to fix all my qualms about us being together. I really loved him.’ She sighed, dry-eyed. ‘But it just wasn’t right between us. It wouldn’t have been right between us in any country, at any time, with any dress or kitchen or car or children.’
Zoe brought their teas over. ‘But you got Jack.’
Linda clasped the tea in both hands, warming herself. ‘Exactly. He’s been the best thing in my life for all these years, but it’s time for Jack to start thinking about his own family, his own life. That’s what having children means. Teaching them to leave you. And thinking about that made me realise that I owe it to myself to get on with living my own life. I can’t expect to feel different if I do the same thing every day. If I want to see Jack happy in this brief life I have, I deserve to have some of that too. So I packed my bags. And here we are.’
Zoe sipped her hot tea. ‘You raised a good son, Linda. He’ll come around.’
Linda looked doubtful.
‘He will, you know that. He’s just … Something in him is reverting to being a kid again. But he’ll be ok. We just need to give him a little time.’
Linda blew gently into her cup. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I just worry. Something seems to have shifted in him at the moment. I just don’t want him to make any decisions right now that he might regret for the rest of his life.’
That night, Zoe sat on the edge of the double bed in the guest room, and kissed Jack’s shoulder until he’d half woken, pulling her into a hug.
‘Jack,’ she whispered. ‘Jack. Your mum. She’s really sad, you know.’
‘I thought you said she was happier out here,’ he mumbled sleepily.
‘She is. But she misses you. Please, please don’t think I’m siding with her … but I don’t think you’re being completely fair to her.’
Jack woke up a little more, and opened his eyes. ‘I hate to think what that would actually be like if you were siding with her.’
Zoe kissed him. ‘She loves you. You’re her child. Please – this is really hurting her. She would never have done something to hurt you, would she? Sometimes you just need to let someone live the life they want.’ Jack closed his eyes and rolled over. ‘Jack?’
He grunted, then reached back and pulled her in with him. There’d be no more talking that night.
The next morning, Jack said good morning to his mum, dropping a quick kiss on her head as he walked past to the fridge. Linda and Zoe were both speechless. It seemed the sun was warming Jack, thawing him gently. That day he made lunch for them all, and he and Linda went to the market in the afternoon to buy ingredients for dinner. The fourth day Zoe spent entirely by the pool, on her own, listening to the faint, constant hum of Jack and Linda talking softly to each other.
By the fifth day, Zoe didn’t want to leave, and by the sixth, though he didn’t say it, it was clear Jack felt the same. He and Linda had drifted into a comfortable quietness, but all three of them felt the peace that Linda had travelled out there to find.
At the airport, Jack’s eyes filled when he said goodbye to his mother, and Linda and Zoe were just as bad. Linda wept, and Zoe dabbed at her face with the hem of her t-shirt, and they all laughed at themselves.
‘I’ll see you soon,’ Linda said. ‘You know where I am, now, right?’ She kissed Jack again, her boy, and Zoe, who’d brought them closer than they’d ever been before, and they waved at her from the far side of security, and Zoe felt something new and green and hopeful grow between her and Jack. Something had been healed in him that neither of them had realised was damaged.
TWENTY-THREE
Now
Saturday morning, a few weeks after my birthday, and Jack and I were lying around the flat, reading the papers – just like the old days, except I was on the sofa and Jack was on the bed, as far apart as we could possibly be while both still being indoors. It was almost companionable.
Jack’s phone bleeped. After a long silence, he shouted through the doorway, in a baffled tone, ‘It’s Iffy. He’s having a house party tonight.’
‘Not exactly an unforgivable crime,’ I observed, after another long silence.
His phone bleeped again. ‘Yeah, but he wants you to come.’
I narrowed my eyes, even though Jack was in the next room. ‘Why?’
‘That’s what I said. He reckons you’re his friend too and he wants you to come if he’s throwing a party.’
His words faded into nothing. Today would be mostly silence, it seemed. Eventually, I said, ‘And what do you think?’
Jack bucked the trend by replying almost instantly. ‘I don’t care. You do what you want.’
‘Thanks very much.’
‘You know what I mean. You go where you want. It’s not up to me. It’s Iffy that invited you.’
‘By texting your phone.’
‘He knows we still live together.’
I didn’t push it, but of course Iffy was asking for Jack’s tacit approval. If Jack didn’t want me to go, he wouldn’t have told me. I didn’t know if I admired Iffy’s tact, or felt exasperated at the need for Jack’s nod of assent. We’d already established how close Iffy and I actually weren’t now; it didn’t help matters that Jack was the only one who’d got the invitation. I told him I’d think about it, and headed out to lunch with my sisters.
‘So he actually invited you?’
‘Yes, but he said it was Iffy who’d really asked.’
‘Of course he would!’ Kat stuffed a lobster roll in her mouth. I’d sworn to myself that I wouldn’t ask about Chuck or her job today, despite the fact that I’d realised recently I was thinking about them both at least daily, with a growing feeling of nausea in my gut.
Esther dipped a rice ball in some wasabi. ‘Do you want to go?’
‘I haven’t seen Iffy in ages. I’d really like to, but—’
‘But do you want to go with Jack?’ she asked.
‘I haven’t got any choice, have I?’ My sisters looked among themselves. ‘I haven’t! If I want to see Iffy, I have to go with Jack. I don’t think we can arrive and leave the party separately. We can’t!’ I insisted, seeing eyebrows raised.
Ava chewed thoughtfully, and said softly, ‘And what if Jack wasn’t going? Would you still want to go?’
‘Yes, of course! I’ve missed Iffy. But it’s an extra plus that Jack and I are actually getting on at the moment, and I’m not going to turn my nose up at that, am I? We did get married at the start of the year, after all. It’ll be nice to have some neutral, amicable time together.’
‘Neutral,’ said Esther.
‘Amicable,’ said Kat.
Ava tried to hide her laughter.
‘I should never tell you guys anything,’ I muttered.
By seven o’clock, I’d made my mind up, cemented by a message from Iffy to my phone, at long last, saying, You better come or the whole party will be a waste of time. You’re welcome to ignore Jack all night long – just don’t forget me when you disappear into the sunset with husband no. 2. See you at 8 with as many bottles as you can carry x
Jack was already dressed, so as I jumped in the shower I told him I’d meet him there. I took my time; tried on a few outfits, did my hair and make-up, took off my jeans and favourite simple top and put on a party
dress and some giant, heart-shaped earrings. Better. If I was going to go, I should go big.
I pulled open the bedroom door and headed to the hall to grab my shoes and coat, and found Jack sitting on the sofa, feet on the coffee table, book in hand. I let out a surprised yelp.
‘If we’re going to the same place, we might as well go together,’ he said. Then, ‘Wow. You look nice.’
He helped me on with my coat, then put on his own. We walked to the Tube and took seats next to each other. I idly wondered whether we looked like a happy couple to outside observers, or whether it seemed like we’d had a fight. Maybe we didn’t look like a couple at all. We weren’t talking. A passer-by might say we were simply strangers.
At Vauxhall, Iffy’s stop, we got out and headed to a corner shop, picking out a bottle of wine and a spirit each.
I turned to Jack, laughing. ‘If you see me about to drink both of these, please stop me in any manner possible.’ Jack smiled for a moment, and I realised it was the first time we’d spoken since we’d left the flat. Then I realised that he had no responsibility for me anymore, and I couldn’t and shouldn’t ask him to stop me doing anything. We walked on to Iffy’s in a heavy silence again, bottles clunking in our thin plastic bags.
Iffy opened the door to us with a smile, a gold party hat perched on the top of his shiny scalp. ‘My favourite couple!’ he said, then saw both of us flinch. ‘Pair, I mean! Two humans standing next to each other! Oh Jesus, just get in here. I’ve accidentally invited the most boring people from the hospital and I don’t know how to get them to leave, so you’ve got to come in and be vivacious enough to defibrillate this party, but dull enough that they might leave early.’
‘Can we split the work?’ Jack said, giving Iffy a hug. ‘Zo can be charming about GCSE students and I can bore them senseless with stock management systems.’
It was a compliment, but I was waiting for the punchline. It didn’t come.
The Starter Home Page 17