The Starter Home

by Bryony Fraser

  Inside was a leather photo frame, a travel frame that folded up, with two photos facing each other. On the left was the picture of my grandma that had been wrecked, but this was in perfect condition, repaired and reprinted, mounted carefully, the leather of the frame matching her sweater perfectly, just like my original frame.

  On the right was a photo I’d never seen before. It was of me, at a party when I was fifteen or so, long before I knew Jack. Mum or Dad must have given him this. I was in a green jumper and dark jeans, and in an almost identical pose to Grandma’s. We looked like strange twins, separated by decades and by infinitely different lives. But we both looked so happy. We looked so loved.

  But all I could think of was where Jack was now – what state was he in, the meticulous Jack, to leave his home in this condition?

  I called Iffy to see if he knew anything. His tone was carefully neutral.

  ‘I haven’t seen him since yesterday, Zo. He wasn’t in a good way, though.’

  I looked around the flat again. ‘I could have guessed as much.’

  He sighed. ‘What happened with you two?’

  ‘… Nothing.’

  ‘Oh, nothing like at my party?’ I didn’t say anything. ‘You didn’t honestly think I wouldn’t know about that, did you? I thought you’d have sorted everything out after that, but then I saw you the next morning, and Jack got together with that awful Jessica …’

  Just then, I heard the scraping of a key in the lock. ‘I think – he’s here, I’ll call you back, Iff.’ I didn’t wait to hear his reply, just rushed to Jack, who looked like I felt. ‘What happened to you? Are you ok? Jack, are you hurt?’

  He swung his head round to look at me, and left it hanging, gently weaving back and forth. I realised he was unbelievably, uncontrollably hammered. He tried to speak, but then settled on slowly shaking his head, and pursing his lips.

  ‘Are you hurt anywhere, Jack?’ I was speaking loudly and slowly, scared and angry and heartbroken to see him like this.

  He squinted and gave me an A-ok sign, missing his thumb with his forefinger a few times before using the other hand to bring them together.

  ‘Ok. Ok, let’s get you into bed.’ He slowly smirked at me, before blinking hard at the new action of his face. I got closer and smelled him. ‘No, new plan, shower first. Come on.’

  I took his arm and drew him into the bathroom, where I peeled off his clothes, gagging, and ran the shower. It was worse than the time I’d left fruit in the glove box of Dad’s car one summer, and our old dog Sandy had eaten the subsequent maggots and been sick on baby Kat. I helped him step under the water, then I washed him, hair and face and body, wrapped him in my dressing gown and took him to bed.

  By the time I’d got back from the kitchen with Lucozade, a banana and crisps, he was fast asleep, but I woke him to drink some water and take two paracetamol. Then I sat on the sofa, texted Iffy to let him know Jack was still alive, and waited to check whether that was actually true.

  At 11 p.m. I heard a croaky voice calling my name. Jack was trying to sit up in bed, so I put pillows behind him and passed him the Lucozade. He drank thirstily, stopped, then took a few more sips. He was certainly more sober now, but he didn’t seem any more able to communicate than before. He stared at the bottle in his hands.

  ‘You feeling better?’

  He hesitated a minute, gave a tiny shrug, and nodded.

  ‘What happened?’ I said, and he finally looked at me.

  ‘What happened?’ His voice had almost entirely disappeared, but I could still hear the pain in it. ‘Are you seriously asking me that?’ He swallowed, painfully.

  ‘I mean, what happened to you these last few days? When I saw the flat and realised you hadn’t been here, I was worried sick.’

  Silence.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me. Sorry. You don’t owe me anything. But I was worried. Jesus, I thought you’d vanished, Jack—’

  He laughed, a harsh bark. ‘I vanished? I wake up after the best Christmas night I’ve ever had, and don’t even get a goodbye from you? I waited for hours for you to come back. I thought you’d just gone out for some milk. Then I thought you’d just nipped to your parents’. By the end of the day, I was going to text you, but then it finally clicked … you weren’t planning on coming back.’ His voice was just a flat hiss. ‘But I’m the one in trouble for vanishing? Why do you keep doing this? What do you think is going to happen here?’

  ‘I’m really sorry. Jack. Please look at me.’ I took his hand, but he gently pushed it away.

  ‘No. Aren’t you getting tired of this routine yet?’ He folded himself further into the bed, tucking his hands away. His face looked grey again. ‘How much do we need to keep hurting each other, Zo?’

  ‘Jack. Please. I’ve fucked all this up so much. Please …’ I couldn’t say it. He didn’t look at me. ‘Please let me say sorry to you. You might not want to hear it now, but maybe one day you’ll understand how sorry I am. I thought I was doing the right thing, for you, for both of us. Please, Jack.’

  He shook his head slowly and turned over in bed. ‘Just leave me alone. You really need to go now.’

  So I did. I left him a note, saying I’d be back to pack all my stuff up before the tenants moved in, that he could take what he wanted, then I took the bus back to Mum and Dad’s. And that was that.

  I stayed on the sofa for another couple of days, sleeping there under a duvet Kat had brought down for me, not talking, not washing, not eating. On the morning of New Year’s Eve, Mum finally got me to have a shower, then gave me her big purple dressing gown and tucked me into my own bed, pulling the Strawberry Shortcake duvet cover up over my stomach. She sat down beside me, on the edge of the bed, and took my hand.

  ‘Zoe, there is something I must say to you.’

  I pulled the duvet up higher, over my chest, up to my shoulders, squinting against the sun coming through the windows. ‘Please can we do it another time? I’m just so exhausted.’

  ‘No, Zoe, you must listen to me now.’

  ‘Mum, I know you’re disappointed about the divorce. I know that I’ve let you down, that you didn’t want me to end up like this.’

  Mum grabbed my other hand too, holding both, and shook them, hard. But her voice was gentle. ‘My darling girl. I have loved you since the very moment I set eyes on you, when you were passed to me in that hospital room. In that moment, with just the two of us, you were the most beautiful, the most strong, the most smart girl I had ever seen, and I knew what greatness you had ahead of you. When you introduced us to Jack, I was so happy; someone to make my Zoe as happy as she deserved. I saw you, the two of you together – because he made you so happy, he made your father and me happy too. We loved him. But we loved him because you did. And when you told us that the two of you were getting divorced, I thought, I do not understand it. But that’s ok. I do not need to. Because what matters is that you have the happiness you deserve, however that may be. I don’t care if you have a hundred husbands or no husbands. You could join a convent, or be like – what is her name? With all of the husbands?’

  ‘Elizabeth Taylor.’

  ‘Yes, puh! Elizabeth Taylor. You could be like her and it would not matter to us one little bit, do you understand? What has always, always, always been important to us is that you are happy. Sometimes you will be happy on your own, and sometimes you will be blessed enough to find someone to share your happiness with.’

  ‘But, Mum—’

  ‘No, my girl, listen to your mother. If you really do not want to be with Jack’ – she mimed throwing something over her shoulder – ‘it is no problem. And you might find someone to be with for the rest of your life, someone who makes your life better, and who makes you better, or you might not. And if you don’t, my darling, smart, strong, beautiful girl, if you don’t, it will be ok, because you are a smart, strong, beautiful girl. The most smart, strong, beautiful girl. And if you spend your life only with yourself, you will live the most amazing life th
e world has ever seen. You need to know this. Do you understand me?’

  And I did, even if I wasn’t sure it was true, but I couldn’t answer because I was crying so hard and she was hugging so tight, and I wondered if anything would be any different if Mum had said that before we’d got to the wedding.

  Dad came in with three cups of tea and a plate of biscuits, and he sat on the bed with us, and Mum took turns telling me stories about their life together, to make me laugh. How they’d met; how Grandma had taken against Dad immediately, but had eventually come to call him her second son; how they’d moved in together, scandalising everyone, and decided to have children; what we were like as babies, as young kids; how they’d coped with family life, with each other. We laughed and laughed, and I had hiccups from laughing and crying, and sometimes I’d laugh so hard I’d be crying again, properly, but Mum or Dad or both would put an arm around me and I’d feel better. Then eventually I felt really calm, almost sleepy, and they kissed me and put the duvet back over me and went back to the kitchen. I wished I could stay here forever, thinking about what they’d faced, and how they’d done it together.

  I thought about what Mum said, too. About how maybe I’d meet someone who would make me happy, who would make me a better person. Someone I would want to be with for the rest of my life.

  I thought of someone who wouldn’t do my laundry. Who wouldn’t always see my friends. Who sabotaged my favourite handbag. I thought of someone who made me laugh. Who knew me inside and out. Who always saw the best in me. Who would always support me. And who I always wanted to support. Who I could always make laugh. Who I got, even when he baffled me. I thought about the rest of my life, and I thought about who I wanted to share it with.

  I looked at the clock radio on my bedside table, still covered with scratch-and-sniff stickers from twenty years before.

  And I realised that it was time for me to go.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Dad took one look at me when I came downstairs, and said, ‘Car, love?’

  Mum looked at me too. ‘Jack’s flying out today? Sandwich?’ I nodded at all three questions, and in an impossibly short amount of time, Mum was at the front door with a tinfoil-wrapped chicken sandwich, while Dad gave a short toot on the horn outside. Mum kissed me. ‘Good luck, my lovely girl.’

  In the car, Dad and I didn’t speak. He drove faster than I’ve ever seen him go, heading straight through ambers and even, once, not letting someone out from a junction. When we reached the flat, I kissed him on the cheek. ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  ‘No problem, love. Good luck. Give him a hug from us.’

  I ran in the front door, pulse pounding, but the flat was empty – really empty, like when a heart has stopped and the spirit has left the body. Jack’s stuff had gone, either off to the airport or packaged up in brown parcels, neatly labelled in one corner, behind the door. On the mirror was a spare print-out of Jack’s tickets; he was due to take off within a couple of hours.

  Right, airport it is, I said to myself, heading to the door to try and flag down Dad before he disappeared. I was just locking up, my hands shaking with adrenaline, when Upstairs Jan came out. I hurried faster, desperate not to get caught today.

  ‘Hi Zoe! I’ve been meaning to ask —’

  ‘Hey, I’m sorry about the noise, but I’ve got to run.’

  ‘No no, it’s not that,’ she started.

  ‘Ok, shall we grab a coffee and talk another time? It’s just that I’ve got to catch someone.’

  There was a momentary pause while we both heard my offer echoing down the years of no coffees, all the times I’d never wanted to talk to her.

  ‘Um, no, that’s – it’s just—’

  ‘I’m really sorry, I do have to go though, is it alright if we do this later?’ I started backing away from her. I had to find Dad.

  ‘It was only that I wanted to say I’m glad your bag is ok.’ She indicated my bag, looped across my chest.

  I stopped altogether. This might be the strangest small talk I’d ever been offered.

  ‘My … bag?’ I clutched it to me.

  She nodded, embarrassed.

  ‘We weren’t watching you, or anything – we were just having dinner – but you’d come in quite late, and you were a little … well, we could hear you were a bit tipsy, and we looked out the window and you were in the garden, trying to smoke a cigarette in the rain or something, and you just dropped your lovely bag on the grass and went back inside. We tried to knock to let you know, but you didn’t answer …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘When we knocked. I was a bit worried, but then we heard Jack get back later, and I thought if you needed anything, he’d be there …’

  ‘I dropped my bag?’

  ‘Yeah, I was banging on the window—’

  ‘But it was definitely me?’

  She gave me a look that said, Yeah, I’m pretty sure I don’t see too many drunken women falling over in your back garden, before she remembered to swallow it. ‘Definitely you.’

  ‘And Jack wasn’t out there?’

  ‘He didn’t get back until much later. Hours later, I reckon. Your poor bag just sat out there in the rain.’

  ‘Oh god.’

  ‘Did I … Was that not the right thing to say? Anyway, I’m glad it was ok. I kept meaning to ask, but you know what it’s like, everyone’s always rushing in and out …’

  ‘Oh god. I’ve – shit, I really do have to go. Thank you! Really, thank you!’

  I slammed out of the building before she could react and raced up the hill, running, running, lungs bursting. Up the hill to Dad’s turn-off, where I could see him waiting, indicators blinking, back to his thoughtful, generous, three-miles-below-the-speed-limit driving, thank god. I thought for a moment I might have given him a heart attack when I slammed into the side of the car as he began to turn, but he just wound down the window and said, ‘Airport?’

  I jumped in and off he drove, back up to exactly the speed limit, the fastest he’d ever gone. Dad looked at my shaking hands, and said, ‘Maybe it’s time for that chicken sandwich now, eh, love?’ It had got slightly squashed in my pocket, but we split it and ate in silence on the journey.

  When we were nearly there, backed up in holiday airport traffic, I remembered something. ‘Dad. On our wedding day, you said to me that I should get married, even if it seemed like the hard thing to do.’

  Dad nearly stopped the car. ‘I did no such thing!’

  ‘We were in the pub? I was panicking on the way to the register office?’

  He took his eyes away from the road to look at me for a moment, amazed. ‘No, love. I said that you had to do what was right, even if you thought it was the hard thing to do.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Zoe, I could see you were struggling with the idea. Your sister was completely different on her wedding day. I just wanted you to know that you could stop the whole thing, if you’d wanted to, and even if it seemed hard, we’d have been there for you. I just didn’t want you to feel I was trying to push you one way or the other – particularly since your mum and I had got married a few months before.’ He reached over and patted my hand.

  I was stunned. He had understood. And he hadn’t been telling me I should go through with it. If only I’d known.

  Eventually, ten minutes before Jack’s plane was due to take off, Dad pulled up in the drop-off zone and said, ‘That was exciting, wasn’t it, love? Now, off you go. Take some money for your journey home.’ He pressed a folded ten-pound note into my hand.

  I hadn’t even considered the journey home. I couldn’t. Not yet.

  Inside the airport, there were people and luggage and trolleys everywhere – familiar chaos. Everything was chaos at an airport, and even more so today, on New Year’s Eve, everyone rushing to get to where they could start their fresh new year. The optimistic part of me couldn’t help thinking that planes were late all the time – he might still be on the ground! I could get through boarding somehow and reach him!
I could do this. I could find him. It didn’t have to be too late. My heart swelling with joy, I started running again, racing to the departure boards, sweating, shaking, and scanning back and forth across the times for Jack’s plane. I looked, took a deep breath, and looked again. His plane was taking off in the next five minutes, and I suddenly realised that I wouldn’t even make it to the security line in that time. I stared at the boards for at least another five minutes, as if that would make the departing plane de-board everyone and send them rushing back to the check-in desks. I scrubbed my face with my hands, hard, took another deep breath, and wondered what the hell I was going to do with myself.

  I’d have to face the flat, bare of Jack. And I’d have to face living without him, forever, constantly replaying the last year over and over in my head, wondering what I could have done differently.

  After a long time of staring with desolation at the departure boards, I heard my mother’s voice in my head: First things first. Food. Then thinking.

  At the burrito counter, the server winced a little as she looked at me – I hadn’t thought what I’d looked like, having had no time to clean myself up after my crying jag back at my parents’ house – but grabbed a soft tortilla. ‘One with everything?’ she said, and I nearly started weeping again. I didn’t feel one with everything at all. I felt like I was the crumbling core of disaster, everything disappearing away from me only to hurtle back just to knock me down.

  Instead I nodded, swallowed the sob, followed her round to the till point, paid, and grabbed my burrito and tortilla chips, ready to take any spare seat still left in the busy airport.

  I scanned the chairs. There was one seat free.

  I felt my mouth twitch. In this whole restaurant, in this whole airport, in this whole town, in this whole world, there was only one seat for me. I headed over, my mouth twitching harder. I put my food down at the table, pulled out the chair, and sat down.