The Starter Home

by Bryony Fraser

  Later on, we walked through Covent Garden, buzzing from our drinks. I saw a bar I remembered from somewhere – I couldn’t think where – and grabbed George’s hand, pulling him towards it. He laughed. It was so easy! Just to hang out with someone! Someone with a face like an angel, but still, there was hope for me. There was a future out there, still rolled up and merely waiting to be unspooled.

  ‘Honestly. There are some seriously great drinks in here,’ I insisted.

  ‘Your round this time?’

  ‘My round,’ I nodded, as he stepped forwards and held the door open for me. The inside looked familiar too, but I still couldn’t put my finger on it. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I’ll get a booth, you order the drinks.’ Handing him some crumpled notes, I raced off and plumped down at the most distant table, a curved seat in the corner that felt comfortable and romantic.

  George came back shortly after. ‘They’re bringing the drinks over. So how do you know this place, then?’

  I closed one eye to help my memory. ‘I … don’t know …’ I said thoughtfully, then we both started giggling.

  A waitress brought the drinks over. George reached for mine but managed to knock over the whole container of toothpicks in the middle of the table. He began apologising profusely, but I laughed and said to the waitress, ‘Don’t mind him, Jack’s always clumsy with—’

  I stopped myself, suddenly feeling completely sober, all the alcohol disappearing from my body in a finger-snap. I saw George’s face, and I saw the waitress’s face – not a waitress at all, but Nic, Jack’s favourite bartender in the whole of London. We were in Jack’s favourite bar, the location of our first formal date. With experienced understanding, Nic swept the toothpicks onto her tray and slid the bill under the empty holder, giving me a short nod and heading back towards the bar.

  ‘George, I—’

  ‘It’s ok.’

  ‘Really, I’m—’

  ‘It’s ok, Zoe.’

  ‘It’s not ok!’ I put my face in my hands.

  ‘It’s not ideal, no,’ I heard him say softly, as he pulled my hands from my face. That happy future was dissolving, burning up in its spool even as I held it in my hands. There wouldn’t be a happy ending for me. Everything I touched was still going to be poisoned.

  George spoke again. ‘But I’m the one who asked you out again when you said you’d wanted to be friends. I think you’re a good person, Zoe Lewis, and maybe we will be friends one day. I’d like that.’

  I looked at him and tried to smile back, swallowing the tears that would follow when I was safe in bed, tears for George and for me, and for daring to hope. ‘Me too, George.’

  He took my hand and shook it formally, though he was still smiling. ‘I guess we’re just not destined to be good people together.’

  At the weekend, I found myself staring into Mum’s sink. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been there when Dad came up behind me and peered over my shoulder.

  ‘What are we looking at?’ he whispered.

  I pointed my finger. ‘The teabag.’

  ‘Oops, let me get that,’ he said, reaching in and pinching the teabag out, lifting it into the bin.

  ‘You always do that, don’t you?’

  ‘Throw your mum’s teabags away? Done it as long as we’ve been together, I suppose. I don’t even think about it now.’

  ‘But why do you do it? Doesn’t it bother you?’

  He laughed. ‘If I didn’t do it, who would? And no, it doesn’t bother me. It’s just part of living with her, I suppose. Part of the rich tapestry that makes up your mum.’

  ‘Don’t you find it … gross?’

  ‘It’s just a teabag, love.’

  ‘I know. But it is a bit gross. To just leave a cold teabag in the sink.’

  ‘I’ve noticed the apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree in that respect – I’ve seen plenty of teabags in your sink.’

  ‘I know. I think I’ve just realised … why it would bother someone, though.’

  ‘There are a lot worse things to do than that, love. Your mum and I – we’ve made a lot of compromises over the years. But I wouldn’t change her for the world. Teabags or no.’

  I kept staring at the tiny brown tea stain by the plug, until Dad turned the tap on and washed the whole thing away in a single moment.

  At school, coursework demands were building up. My seven-hour day became a twelve-hour day, spent in the classrooms and Science office, and as I got home one night I realised that I hadn’t even seen the sun that day. I yawned and stretched my arms high over my head, and said out loud, ‘Ugh, I need a holidaaayyy.’

  ‘You and me both, Zo.’

  I jumped several inches off the floor, then winced at the muscle I’d pulled in my back.

  ‘Jesus Christ, you scared me.’

  Jack walked out of the bedroom. ‘I didn’t know I was supposed to wear a bell.’

  ‘It was so quiet in here, I didn’t think anyone was home.’ I tried to stretch my back out. ‘You’re lucky I don’t carry pepper spray.’

  Jack chuckled. ‘Sounds like you had a good day at school.’

  ‘It was fine,’ I said, tenderly feeling my pulled muscle. ‘I just really would like to get away for a while.’

  ‘No plans with your boyfriend?’

  ‘Oh. No. That’s … We’ve definitely finished that.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ Jack turned away and busied himself with something in the kitchen hatch.

  ‘No romantic holidays ahoy, sadly. But it if we’re talking about this, can I ask – what happened with Jessica?’

  He looked away. ‘It … just didn’t work out.’

  ‘Can I ask why?’

  ‘You can ask. I don’t think I know, though. It was going and then it wasn’t. What happened with you and that George guy?’

  Now it was my turn to look away. ‘Same. It just works or it doesn’t, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe next time,’ Jack said. I couldn’t look at his face.

  ‘Yeah. Maybe next time,’ I muttered.

  THIRTY

  One year earlier

  Zoe was weeping with laughter, tears rolling down her cheeks, as she dabbed at her running nose. She was clutching the edge of the table, rocking back and forth, as Liz put her hand on Zoe’s shoulder, in a similar condition herself.

  ‘Don’t – don’t—’ Zoe tried to shake her head.

  ‘And the worst thing was – I didn’t even know the guy who was in there! It was just some dude from the bus station!’

  Zoe and Liz were both gasping, vaguely aware that others were watching them. Zoe couldn’t breathe for a moment as she imagined the terrible, terrible situations that Liz somehow always managed to find herself in, in some form or other. She’d just about managed to calm herself down, hiccupping, when Liz muttered, ‘As if I’m meant to carry bananas around the whole time, just in case,’ and they were both off again, Zoe’s mascara running down her face and her breath catching.

  Eventually they calmed themselves, and Zoe’s breathing had returned to normal, with the aid of a dose of cold water, when Liz asked, semi-casually, ‘How’s the wedding planning going? I know you love that question.’

  Zoe quickly sobered up, pushing around the scraps of food left on her plate. ‘I don’t know. It seems like ages away. Do we need to do anything now? Isn’t there some honeymoon period of being engaged where you don’t have to actually do anything else yet?’

  ‘And are we hoping that honeymoon period lasts around sixty to seventy years?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Zoe smiled. ‘What would you do in this situation?’

  ‘If I was engaged to someone I wanted to marry? I dunno – book a venue, buy a dress, get the drinks in?’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t want to be engaged to Jack …’

  ‘But it’s the bit after that you don’t fancy?’ She cleared her throat. ‘Look, let’s think about it this way: if you imagine yourself in one, or three, or ten years’ time, already married to Jack, how does
that make you feel?’

  Zoe clutched at her throat and started making choking noises. ‘I feel … interesting?’

  ‘Right. Perhaps I won’t book that hen-weekend spa break just yet.’

  Zoe slumped in her seat. ‘But how do I tell him? “Sorry I said yes, Jack, I actually don’t want to marry you and never will”?’

  ‘But you do still love him?’

  ‘Yes! Hugely! I want to be with him, and only him, for as long as I can possibly imagine. But I just don’t want the wedding and the marriage and all that stuff. And we’d talked about it, we’d agreed that we weren’t going to get married, that we were fine just as we were – that’s what I can’t get my head around. And he knows all about … the Chuck stuff. Well. Enough of it at least.’

  ‘Blimey. Right, so you’re not breaking up with him. Maybe try and talk to him about all of this then. And if it looks like he’s freaking out, maybe just ask how he’d feel about a very, very, very long engagement. It’s not cancelling the wedding, it’s extending the pre-wedding.’

  ‘Nice. Ok. You’re right, this is crazy. I shouldn’t be keeping something like this from him.’ Zoe rolled Jack’s engagement ring around her finger. ‘I could live with an indefinite engagement. If that’s what it took. A pre-wedding. I can do that.’

  Somehow, she’d known something was wrong before her key had even reached the lock. Afterwards she’d wondered if the sound of Jack’s voice had seeped through their front door into the shared hallway. Her heart was pounding by the time she was through, and she could see him, pacing in front of the sofa, almost shouting into the landline receiver in his hand: ‘WELL FIND SOMEONE WHO DOES THEN.’ As he saw her, he collapsed, banging his leg against the corner of the coffee table and lying crumpled in a grey heap against the sofa. Zoe gently took the phone from him. She heard the voice on the end, speaking in Spanish and broken English, talking in a gentle tone, gently but repetitively saying over and over, un accidente and coche and tu madre. It was the language and the tone that told her everything, just as it had told Jack before her, and they only needed a translator at the other end to confirm that their worst impression was, in fact, the correct one.

  Somehow she found herself writing notes, listing the details of what they would need to take to Spain, the things they had to do, and then she was making Jack drink a strong, sugary tea, while she also looked up flights. Later, there was a howling from the bedroom – Jack howling, tears drowning his face. She pressed herself against him as though she was trying to get into his skin and carry all of this pain for him, because what use was anything if she couldn’t help the person she loved most in the world, right at this moment? Then he was asleep, and it was dark, and she called her parents because that was the only thing she could possibly do now, and they cried too, but in a way that made her feel better. Her mum said she’d be over in fifteen minutes, even if she had to jump every red light there was. When they’d hung up Zoe thought for a horrible moment, Is that how Linda died? Jumping a red light? And there was a horrible quarter of an hour where Zoe thought her mum would never arrive and they’d get another call, this time in English.

  Eventually, she was there on her doorstep, holding Zoe and squeezing her. She knew they were both thinking, though neither of them could say it, that one day she wouldn’t be here to squeeze Zoe like this, and this shared, silent thought made them both hold each other even tighter, until Jack woke again and Zoe’s mum was in their bedroom, holding him like she’d held Zoe, as he howled into her shoulder. Zoe sat on the sofa, staring at the pattern on her socks until Jack was asleep again and her mum was next to her.

  When she finally went to sleep that night, almost as the sun was coming up, she was glad that she hadn’t said anything about pulling out of the wedding to anyone in the family. She decided that she’d never think about it again.

  They flew out the next evening, with bags someone had packed. Her mum had offered to come too, and Zoe had wanted to say yes, but Jack had said, No, thanks very much, but no. That night, they slept in Linda’s spare room. Neither of them could bring themselves to open Linda’s bedroom door, but they were alive enough to wash and dress the next morning, taking a taxi to the crematorium. Everything felt hurried. Jack just wanted everything done. Here. Now. Graham wasn’t coming – he was himself in hospital, having developed a touch of pneumonia. Zoe couldn’t help but think that at any other time they would have worried themselves sick about him. But this time, there were other things to focus on.

  It still seemed like a dream.

  They’d spoken to Linda only a few days before. She’d teased Zoe about the wedding, and Zoe hadn’t really minded, because it was Linda, wasn’t it? How could they be standing here, doing this? Listening to these words she didn’t really understand? She felt dizzy. Just an accident on the road, they’d explained, a dangerous corner, maybe an animal had scared her, maybe she’d just lost concentration, but that was all it took to switch from Linda Alive, teasing Zoe on the phone while Jack mouthed jokingly I’m not here in their kitchen, to Linda Dead, in a box, about to be burnt up, Zoe thought wildly.

  She felt sick. She took Jack’s arm, and he pulled her to him, holding her so she couldn’t see the box going in, even though Zoe felt it should be her protecting him from such a monstrous sight. They both cried and Zoe could feel him shaking and shaking, every last part of him.

  Afterwards, they emerged outside, the sunlight disconcertingly bright and warm on their skin, although both of them looked grey. Some other people followed them out – local friends of Linda’s who had somehow heard of the funeral – but Jack just looked at Zoe, wanting to avoid conversation with the other mourners. He lifted her hand to his mouth, kissing her finger where her engagement ring was, and Zoe understood then that any wedding ceremony was purely a formality. She was married to Jack now, as far as it mattered.

  Over the next few weeks and months, they didn’t talk much about the wedding at all. Nothing had been settled by then anyway: whatever had been a point of discussion was now just understood, with details to be signed and sealed later on. Jack was deep in his grief, and Zoe just tried to focus on being there with him, carrying him through those moments where he wasn’t at work, concentrating and nodding and smiling and reassuring his professional world that yeah, it was shit, but he was ok.

  Every day he went to his shop like he was on autopilot. At home he would sit in silence, on the sofa or at their little table, no radio or TV on, just staring into space, with Zoe, Iffy or sometimes even Liz looking on. They’d make him warm drinks, encourage him to sip them, and have a slice of toast or some chopped fruit, which mostly he’d do, uncomplainingly but mindlessly taking what they gave him, chewing and swallowing without noticing what it was. Jack would sometimes come to her parents’ house; the first time, Zoe’s dad had hugged him, then all of her sisters had come and wrapped themselves around him too, and they’d stood like that for a long time. Zoe’s mum made him meal after meal, meals that he’d thank her for but leave to cool and congeal on his plate. Her parents would turn up at the flat from time to time, separately, with yet more food, or a magazine, or a book, or some fresh fruit from the market.

  Once, when Zoe came home from school, Jack was just standing at their window, staring out, wrapped in a duvet over his work clothes. She came to stand with him and he opened up the duvet to her, and they stood there for over an hour, until it was completely dark and she put him to bed.

  A month after they had brought Linda’s ashes back from Spain, Zoe met Ava to catch up over coffees and bagels at their favourite café. ‘I just don’t want him to ever feel that I’m waiting for him to get over it, to be … normal again,’ she said, thoughtfully.

  ‘Which you are,’ Ava said.

  Zoe sighed. ‘I just want to stop him hurting, that’s all. I know he’s grieving, and he’s got to grieve, and it’s right for him to grieve, but I want to be able to do something. To just have to watch and not be able to make him feel any better, ever … It’
s torture.’

  ‘That’s normal too, Zo. You love him, and you want to fix him.’

  ‘But I know that I can’t. That it’s not something that can be fixed.’

  But honestly, Zoe did want to fix him, and she was waiting for the day when life would return to some semblance of normality. She’d never admit it, never out loud, but there were tiny fragments of moments where she’d think, Oh Jack, is this how it’s going to be forever? If I could wave a magic wand with just one wish, I’d make all of this pain go away, set us all back to normal.

  She understood the theories of the importance of grief, but she also knew how much she missed Jack, her Jack, and how different everything felt in her life while he found a new way to live with his loss. She wanted to carry him through a time when he didn’t even seem touchable. She wished things were how they used to be.

  Then, one day, he started coming back. She woke up one morning and he was in the kitchen, making bacon-and-egg sandwiches for them, although she could see no external change in circumstance between that day and the day before. One day she got home and the lights were on in the flat, and Jack was humming a little as he ironed his shirts in front of the TV. They had sex again, which had seemed an impossible silence between them, she realised once it had been broken. He went to one of Iffy’s dinners, and though he was quiet on the way home and went straight to bed, cocooned in the duvet, Zoe still knew that progress had been made. The progress wasn’t linear – some nights he woke her, woke them both, crying in their bed, confused and lost and full of pain – but he was coming through something, a different shape, but coming back to her, each of them full of joy at being together again.

  Then, one morning, over marmalade toast and a cafetière of brewing coffee, Jack pulled down the newspaper she was reading and with a huge smile of glowing joy, said, ‘Shall we just get on with this? The wedding, I mean. Life’s too short. Let’s just get married.’