The Starter Home

by Bryony Fraser

  I sipped my drink, wondering whether my face was aflame as it felt. ‘Right. They broke up,’ I said as neutrally as I could. That was the first definite news I’d had of it.

  ‘Oh my god, didn’t he tell you?’

  I looked at him. ‘Tricky as it may be to believe, discussing our sex lives with one another is still kind of taboo at the moment.’

  ‘So you do have a sex life?’ Iffy looked at me, one lascivious eyebrow raised. I sighed, and Iffy looked disappointed. ‘I feared as much. So no communication about this stuff at all?’

  ‘We tell each other when we’re seeing someone else. I guess it’s a bit harder to say when we’ve stopped seeing them. So back in June, Jack told me that he was going to New York with Jessica.’ Iffy gave me a look. ‘Well, he said afterwards that they’d been. And I was fine with it.’ He coughed. ‘Kind of. But he hadn’t mentioned this.’

  ‘Well! How little you know after all, my dearest Zo. He wasn’t supposed to be going to New York with her – she just turned up at the airport, saying that head office had said she needed to go along too. Jack didn’t think anything of it—’

  ‘Too trusting.’

  ‘Exactly. But she was at all his meetings, they stayed in the same hotel … Hold on, don’t do that face, nothing happened there, but they did a lot of hanging out, and eventually she said to him, “Well, shouldn’t we do more of this when we get back to London?” Then he discovered that you were seeing someone, so when they got home, he did give her a call. They hung out for a while, but I went out with them once—’

  ‘Judas.’

  Iffy stopped. ‘Do you want me to tell this story, or not?’ I put my straw in my mouth, muting myself. ‘Anyway, I went out with them to dinner and she was … Not. Fun. Poor Jack was so serious all night, kept checking she had enough water, was warm enough, that she was enjoying her food.’

  ‘Sounds like he really liked her.’

  ‘No! She made him so neurotic, and all Jack could do was dance around, trying to work out what he could do to make her happy. Like, he was so miserable, thinking it must be something he was doing wrong. It was so different when he met you, Zo.’

  I sucked my straw again.

  ‘So. That’s the story. He broke things off a little while ago. She took it badly, is trying to make things awkward for him at Gillett, doesn’t want to know him,’ he rattled off, counting on his fingers. ‘The end.’

  A few weeks ago … That meant the binned meal had definitely not been for Jessica. I didn’t want to tell Iffy about that, though – not yet. I didn’t fully understand myself what I’d be telling him. I changed the subject, and Iffy didn’t mention Jack again all night.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  One year earlier

  ‘But Dad, I don’t know if I want to!’

  I was sitting with him at our family kitchen table, sharing a pot of tea while Mum played with William in the living room.

  ‘You don’t want to be with him?’

  ‘No! I definitely want to be with him. I don’t know what I’d do without him. But this wedding stuff … all the planning … it’s not something I’d ever have chosen. But it’s making him so happy, and he’s so clear about how he sees our future together.’

  ‘But it’s not how you see it?’

  ‘It’s exactly how I see it. Just without the marriage bit. But … with his mum leaving, it’s become so important to him, to prove that we’re different from her and his dad. That we can make it work.’

  ‘So everything apart from marriage – plans, kids, jobs, you agree on all that?’

  ‘Yup. Completely. But I don’t know how to even discuss this with him. And it’s the first time I’ve ever felt that way with him, to not be able to tell him something I’m feeling. And it feels so huge.’

  ‘The path of love isn’t always that clear, I’m afraid.’

  ‘But you and Mum knew instantly, didn’t you?’

  Dad let out a little laugh. ‘Not exactly, love. I know your mother likes to tell that story, but it’s not really what happened. For a start, she wasn’t interested in me at all when we first met. She fancied my best friend at the time, Larry Pearson. He took her to the pictures, tried to kiss her, and she threw a tub of popcorn over him. Wouldn’t talk to me for weeks afterwards, as if I was to blame for his scoundrel ways.’

  ‘What! I nearly had a different dad?’

  ‘No, love. No. Whatever smudges your mother wants to make to our early days, I always knew that she and I would end up together. Although I don’t think she did. Our first date was almost as bad as hers and Larry’s.’

  ‘Did she hit you with her handbag?’

  ‘No,’ he chuckled. ‘We went to an Italian restaurant in Battersea and the waiter poured my spaghetti and meatballs all down the front of my bri-nylon suit. Had to eat the whole dinner with my napkin in my collar and your mother’s napkin on my lap. Looked like I’d murdered someone when I walked her home.’

  ‘But after that – you both knew after that?’

  ‘Yes, love. But knowing something doesn’t always mean you’re right.’

  ‘So you’re saying I shouldn’t marry Jack.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know anything about that, love, I’m just a silly old man who landed the most wonderful woman in the world. All I’m saying is – know what’s important to you. Know what it is that makes you happy, then hold onto that for as long as you possibly can. And don’t order spaghetti and meatballs when you’re in your best clothes.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad,’ said Zoe, hugging him.

  ‘S’alright. It’s important for us of the older generation to pass on our wisdom.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  Now

  I had back-to-school September blues as I lay wrapped in thick fleecy pyjamas, heavy socks and a plush dressing gown on the sofa, painting my fingernails with Ava’s green polish and Kat’s glittery nail pen, pinched last time we’d all been at Mum and Dad’s. I was trying to ignore the marking that had already built up from the first week back, which lay sprawled across the coffee table in a tired slump. My phone and the doorbell went at the same time; Jack leapt out of the bedroom towards the door, saying, ‘I’ll get it, I think I know what this is.’ I glanced at my phone, seeing a message from Esther: No dice talking to Kat, so I’ve looked at her phone – she’s meeting him tomorrow night at Blue Bar in Soho at 8. Me and A will meet you outside at 8.30 xxx

  I took a deep breath and tried to tuck my dressing gown around me with my feet, holding my wet nails up, as two delivery men came in, carrying in four, five, six, seven boxes, addressed to me and Jack.

  Jack signed their clipboard and they left. I said, ‘Did you know this was coming?’

  ‘No, not all these.’ He looked around at the boxes. ‘They’d called and said it might be this week, but I wasn’t expecting them today.’

  I held my nails a little higher. ‘Do you want to open them?’

  ‘Do you?’

  I indicated my nails. ‘I can’t,’ I said, avoiding the real question.

  Jack went to the kitchen and came back with the scissors, slicing open the top of the first box. ‘Do you want me to …’

  I didn’t say anything, so he pulled out the first item. A metal milk jug, to go with the coffee machine we’d added to our list all those months ago. A huge, thick blanket; we’d chosen it thinking we’d share it in the evenings, on the sofa, watching films together and being content after our Perfect Wedding. Wine glasses, for all the dinners we’d share with each other, and with friends. Then a set of six espresso cups. In the second box, a lamp we’d debated. Next came a big wooden salad bowl and matching servers. In the third box, larger and flatter than the others, were four chairs and a little folding table for the garden, for our summers together. On and on, item after item, gift after gift, reminding us of the life we thought we’d have, all unwrapped in silence, lined up on the floor and piled up on the coffee table and the kitchen hatch, a shadow of the unpacking before our wedding. Everything we’
d chosen but couldn’t use now, because each gift was meant for Zoe-and-Jack, and Zoe-and-Jack didn’t exist anymore. In the final box we found the coffee machine, the same one we’d wanted back then, the same one we’d kept when our own marriage hadn’t yet fallen apart. The one we had kept from all those months ago was scratched and chipped now: this one was beautiful, unblemished.

  We sat for a while and looked at all the things around us – shiny, new and whole.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ said Jack.

  I looked at him.

  ‘With this stuff, I mean?’ He didn’t look back at me.

  ‘I don’t want it.’ I tried to soften my tone. ‘I mean, I can see that it’s not right for us to keep it.’

  ‘So we send it back?’

  ‘No. I don’t know. That still seems … Sell it?’ I picked up the espresso cups from the coffee table. ‘Sorry. I don’t mean that. That’s a terrible idea. Yes send it all back, I suppose.’

  ‘You’ve smudged your nails.’

  Two of the fingers on my left hand had caught the edge of the table, and the delicate gold design had smudged into ridged lines across each of the nails. I stared at the cups. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Shall I just … take care of it?’

  ‘Yeah. Is that ok?’ I couldn’t stop looking at the cups, thinking of who we were when we’d chosen them together. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘S’alright. So you don’t mind—’

  ‘No. Just … do what you think is best.’

  ‘And there’s nothing—’

  ‘No. It’s fine. Honestly. They’re not … Just do whatever you like with them. Thanks.’

  Jack reached to take the espresso cups from me, to pack them back in the box, but I put them down on the coffee table instead of putting them into his hand. He waited a moment, then picked them up gently to return them to their packaging, along with the jug and glasses and blanket, packed up for another couple who’d have dinner parties and film nights and hot milk together into their twilight years, snug and comfy and fond of these, their wedding gifts from the loved ones who had faith in their union.

  Jack picked up a smaller box that had fallen under the armchair, and put it on the coffee table. ‘This box doesn’t seem to go with the others.’ He stopped. ‘Oh. This is what I was expecting today.’ He nudged it towards me with a slight shrug. ‘I didn’t know if you’d want to see it.’

  I looked at it for a second, then felt myself sag a little. ‘Hang on.’ I got up and made us each a fresh cup of coffee while Jack kept packing up the gifts. I brought the coffees through, perched them carefully amongst the remaining gifts on the table, then sat down on the opposite sofa and opened the box. On the address label, along with both of our names, was the logo of our wedding photographer, gold-printed confetti and intertwined birds. I took a deep breath and lifted out the photo album, which had a close-up of Jack and me smiling at each other on the cover.

  It was sixty-four pages of us dancing, laughing, beaming, looking lovingly at one another, hugging each other, mixed in with shots of our nearest and dearest. In not one photo did I look nervous or anxious or unsure. I was clearly having a whale of a time with Jack by my side, without a care in the world. I stopped at one picture: the two of us cracking up at something, his arm round the back of my chair, my hand on his knee, laughing into each other’s faces, not aware of anyone else in the room.

  Did I look that happy about anything now? Did anyone look that happy ten months after their wedding?

  Jack came around the table to sit right next to me. Before I could stop myself, I’d twitched my leg away from where his pressed against it.

  I looked at him, trying to undo the action. ‘You knew this was coming too?’

  He held his hand out for the book, not looking back at me. ‘They emailed last week to say it had been dispatched. They apologised for the delay. With all the hold-ups on the wedding gifts I’d forgotten all about it.’ He flicked through, stopping at the same picture I had. He let out a huge sigh.

  ‘Good party, wasn’t it?’ I ventured.

  ‘Yeah. It was.’ He chuckled. ‘Do you remember Liz dancing on the table?’

  I laughed with him. ‘Oh my god, yes. And did you see Iffy get up there too? Half the staff must have given him their numbers.’

  ‘Or when the popcorn machine broke open, and William started rolling around in that fountain of popcorn?’

  ‘And your stepmum got so drunk, but kept insisting she was only falling over because she had an ear infection, even when she was trying to breakdance with Iffy?’ We were both laughing now.

  ‘And when your sisters’ speech was heckled by your aunt?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I laughed. ‘And Mum said she couldn’t tell her off because she looks so much like my grandma now that she was scared to …’

  There was a moment when we were both still laughing, frozen, before both our thoughts congealed into memories of that broken photo frame, the picture of my grandma torn and smashed. The poison that had rotted the roots of this marriage before they could even find a hold.

  I went to get up from the sofa, just as Jack said, ‘Zo …’ but when I turned back to him again, he was looking at the book.

  ‘What? What, Jack?’

  He kept his head down. ‘Nothing. Sorry. Carry on.’

  ‘No. Were you going to say something?’

  He let out a puff of breath and his shoulders dropped. ‘It just seems like a waste, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Of a good party?’

  ‘No.’ He laughed, bleakly. ‘Kind of. It’s just … a waste. It was good before we got married, wasn’t it? So good. I just wish I’d known. That it could … get ruined.’

  I took the book from him. ‘I’m glad we did it.’

  ‘The party?’

  I laughed. ‘No. All of it. I’m glad we did all of it. Even if some of this year has been …’

  ‘Unbelievably shit?’

  ‘Well.’ We sat in silence.

  ‘You don’t regret it?’

  I didn’t know what to say: I didn’t regret the wedding party, I didn’t regret meeting Jack, I didn’t regret loving him enough to agree to marry him. But did I regret our behaviour over this year? Did I regret watching the one relationship that mattered most to me in the whole world slowly turn to dust and become a toxic cloud? Did I miss our old relationship every single day and kick myself that I’d gone ahead with something I’d been so unsure about? Did I feel responsible? Yes.

  ‘No, not unbelievably shit.’ I nudged his shoulder with mine. ‘It’s been … interesting.’

  Jack blinked, then his face changed, somehow. He wasn’t upset, but there was something beneath the surface as he looked at me.

  ‘Sorry, Zo, I’ve just remembered – I’ve got to go out. I’ll clear the rest of this later. I’m sorry.’ He grabbed his coat and almost ran out of the flat, without another word.

  I was lost. We’d finally managed to have a conversation about our relationship without fighting, without hurting one another. We hadn’t been entirely honest – at least I hadn’t been – and getting our words out had seemed impossible at times, but we owed it to each other to end this relationship well. With kindness. The least I could do was to be civil to Jack: no more notes, no more sabotage. This pain I felt was natural, I told myself, it’s how you feel when something you love dies. Just because it had become such a mess, it didn’t mean I couldn’t grieve for the relationship that had gone before.

  It was a disaster, the two of us caught up in terrible carnage just because we’d got on the boat marked ‘Marriage’. I’d never wanted to get married, not once, never fantasised about weddings, but I had dreamed of meeting someone who made me feel the way Jack had. I’d never wanted to stay with someone for the rest of my life – until him. But I still hadn’t wanted to get married. The second they handed me the marriage certificate I’d felt like it was burning my fingertips.

  I wanted mortgages, kids, finding ourselves struggling for money bu
t basically alright, caring for each other’s parents when they got old and ill, caring for each other when we got old and ill. I wanted all the shittiness of a long-term relationship – boredom and complacency and routine. I just couldn’t bear that damn ring on my finger, and the garbage that had come with it. It had ruined everything.

  Before I knew it, I was lying on the sofa, clutching the photo album, and howling. I bawled so hard I gave myself hiccups, and burst a tiny blood vessel in one eye that I spotted when I peered in the mirror to check how miserable I looked. That mark might last longer than my whole marriage, I thought, with dramatic self-pity, setting myself off again. I kept going until I was completely dehydrated and felt much calmer. Then I made myself a cup of tea, and I went through the photo album again.

  It was ok. Yes, we looked happy, but I’d be happy again. Jack would, too. We wouldn’t be happy with each other, but that was the way of the world. I might hurt today, but it wouldn’t last forever. After all, I’d probably die one day, wouldn’t I?

  I cried until I fell asleep on the sofa, and woke up in the morning with a pile of blankets over me. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt this way if it hadn’t been for Chuck; maybe I would. But I knew one thing: I wasn’t about to let him wreck another Lewis woman’s life.

  I wrapped my scarf around me and turned up my coat collar as I left the school grounds. I had somewhere a little better to be, for once.

  After last night’s tears, I’d woken up this morning with a dull ache, but the early morning sun had bleached it away. And now, meeting George by the school gates as we’d arranged, I was happy just to walk with him, saying little, heading for a bar. The calm after the storm of a busy day.

  It was easy. Maybe it was down to spending our days trying to charm moody teens into wanting to enjoy our company, but there were no awkward silences between us. And because neither of us was throwing stuff or swearing under our breath, a feature many of our classes couldn’t claim, it was … relaxing.

  As the evening wore on, one drink became two, which swiftly rolled onwards into a third and a fourth. We were sitting closer to each other now, and we were laughing about some of the kids we taught, comparing classes, comparing teachers. This was what I’d needed. I felt something like real affection stirring, mixing up with my four gin sours.