The Starter Home

by Bryony Fraser

  He picked up my bottle of nail polish. ‘I dunno. Doesn’t it just seem easier if you do your own washing?’

  ‘And my own cooking? And cleaning? And next time we go to a restaurant, shall we divvy up the bill according to who had what?’

  ‘Hang on – I do the cooking, ninety per cent of the time.’

  ‘It’s hardly ninety per cent! As if I only cook a meal every ten days!’

  ‘Neither porridge nor bringing something from your parents’ house counts.’

  ‘Oh. Well, that’s not even the point. Please Jack, I am asking you – and I am happy to put this in writing if that’s what you need – please will you please put some of my washing in when you do some of yours. Please.’

  He stroked the nail polish brush along his thumbnail, turning it the same sludgy grey colour as my toes. ‘Can’t I just do most of the cooking and you do that stuff yourself?’

  ‘No no no, don’t say “that stuff”. Things like “that stuff” are just millimetres away from other things like “women’s stuff”, and you know there will be none of that dismissive That’s Not For Men talk in this house.’

  ‘You sound like your mum.’

  ‘Good!’

  Jack looked at me with a glimmer in his eye, and kissed my nose. My anger began to subside. I just wanted us to be happy again. ‘Now go and make me one of these ninety per cent meals, please.’

  When he came back an hour later with squash and feta empanadas, my bad mood had dissolved almost entirely.

  ‘Zo! Zoe!’

  I’d fallen asleep with a cup of tea in front of an old western, where the cowboys were generally making life a hell of a lot worse for the Native Americans. For a moment, I couldn’t work out where I was. Was someone invading my settlement?

  ‘Zoe! Please can I just show you something?’

  I stumbled into the kitchen, hoping it was another batch of empanadas.

  ‘Look.’ Jack was pointing at the sink. I leant forwards. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘A teabag? Did you really wake me up for that?’ I felt Jack’s forehead. ‘Are you ill? Did you really not recognise it? Well, now that we’ve sorted this taxonomical mystery out, I’m heading back to the sofa. Sweet dreams, cowboy.’

  ‘Hold on, hold on. One more question.’

  ‘Is it “how great does this other thing I’ve cooked taste”?’

  ‘No. Please can you show me where the bin is?’

  With exaggerated slow motion, I turned around, bent down and pulled out the bin drawer. ‘Ta-da! Now, if there’re no further conundrums to address, I really must be getting back to ruining tonight’s sleep.’

  ‘Since you’re clearly a little sleep-addled, I’m going to show you the conclusion of this wonderful interchange I’ve been enjoying so much.’

  Uh-oh. This was serious talk.

  ‘Watch!’ Jack lifted the teabag from the sink, pinching it between two fingers. ‘Wait!’ He held up the forefinger of his other hand. ‘Marvel!’ He leant over the open bin and released the teabag into it. ‘Ta-da!’

  ‘Jack. You can just ask me to put teabags in the bin, you know. Pantomime season is over.’

  ‘Can I, though? Can I just ask you, and you’ll never leave it in the sink again?’

  ‘I’m sorry I always forget. I just can’t understand why it bothers you so much, though – a teabag is literally the smallest thing you can put in the sink without it going down the plughole. And I put them in the bin at the end of the day.’

  ‘No, you don’t! I do!’

  ‘Only because you get there first. I’d never leave it in there overnight!’

  ‘Yes, because that would be ludicrous and gross.’

  I rubbed my face. ‘Nnnggg – how can it bother you this much? Jesus Christ! It is only a single teabag—’

  ‘It’s never just a single teabag—’

  ‘And it is in the sink. Not on the side. Not on the floor. Not placed delicately in the centre of your pillow. It’s in the sink.’

  ‘It’s massively unpleasant. It bothers me. Please can you do this favour for me?’

  ‘Like you do my laundry?’

  ‘You know it’s not the same thing.’ There was a silence, while we shifted gears.

  I launched first.

  ‘You’re damn right it’s not the same thing—’

  ‘I have to use this kitchen too, in fact I use it more—’

  ‘And if you really want, I can show you where we keep the washing powder—’

  ‘And I ask you for one favour when you use this space we share—’

  ‘Except, oh no, you already know where it is, because you’ve just used it for your own, exclusive, Jack-only wash—’

  ‘And it’s something so small, that takes no effort, and no time—’

  ‘As if just doing something for me when you’re already doing that exact same thing for yourself already—’

  ‘But your way of doing things is the only way it could ever be done—’

  ‘Because it’s the right way! It’s a teabag! It’s wet! Wet stuff goes in the sink!’

  ‘Now you definitely sound like your mum.’

  ‘Stop saying that like it’s a fucking insult! We are talking. About. A TEABAG.’

  ‘It’s rubbish and it belongs in the bin! What are you keeping it for?’

  ‘Finally. A perfect summary of how I feel about this marriage.’

  Jack looked winded. I was shaking.

  ‘Just … Can you please not fucking leave your teabags in the sink. It’s fucking gross.’ In despair, he threw down the handful of cutlery he was holding, fresh from the drying rack, and turned to leave the kitchen. But the cutlery, bunched together, didn’t land square on the counter – one fork flipped up, bounced by a heavy knife handle, and I watched it travel up and through the hatch, in horrible, inevitable slow motion, until it hit, with a crunch, a framed photo. My grandma’s.

  ‘What the …’ I followed Jack out of the kitchen, and over to the smashed frame, trying not to step on the broken glass. ‘Jack! JACK!’ He was right next to me, when I turned round, looking down at the mess on the floor. ‘Are you kidding me?’

  ‘What?’ He looked baffled. ‘Did I just do that?’

  ‘Jack! That was the fork you just threw!’

  ‘I didn’t smash it.’

  ‘Wait – is that supposed to imply that I smashed it?’

  ‘No—’

  ‘You just threw that cutlery down, and it—’ I looked down at the picture, torn and punctured by the broken glass it had landed against. ‘It destroyed a picture I love so much—’

  ‘Zo, I’m sorry, but that was just a terrible accident—’

  ‘Look at it, Jack! It’s ruined!’ Surprising myself, I started to cry. ‘But it’s my fault you got angry enough to break it?’

  Jack looked almost as surprised as me. ‘But— I didn’t—’ I felt bone tired. ‘I’m sure we can fix it. Zo?’ I crammed my trainers over my slipper socks and picked up my handbag while Jack stood there with his mouth open, staring at me like he had concussion. I opened the front door and shouted, ‘I’M GOING TO AVA’S – SEE YOU LATER,’ slamming the door closed before my words even reached his ears.

  Ava lived a bus ride away, a bus on which I watched a teenage couple in front of me kiss passionately. I got an unfortunate eyeful of him licking her ear with a hygienic thoroughness of which even Jack would have approved, before her phone bleeped and they descended into wicked bickering, culminating in her demanding that the driver let her off between stops as she couldn’t bear to be on a bus with this stupid little prick for moment longer and couldn’t be held responsible for my behaviour otherwise. The driver let her off. At the next stop, he met my eye in the mirror and chuckled. I smiled back at him, but thought, I don’t know why I’m smiling – I just had a worse argument with my husband. Yet again.

  The word ‘husband’ closed up my throat. This seemed exactly as life with a husband would be, I thought grimly. Spending your weekends arguing
about household chores. Just like I always dreamed. Marital bliss, sandwiched between It’s Your Bloody Turn and I Already Did It This Week. I may have agreed to marry Jack, but I didn’t promise to start behaving like a Stepford Wife in his perfect home – particularly not if he thought it was acceptable to do separate washes for the rest of our lives.

  By the time I’d walked the three streets from the bus stop to Ava’s flat, I was hurt and furious all over again. Unexpectedly, it was Kat who opened the door, immediately taking in the look on my face. ‘The oppressive patriarchal regime of marriage treating you well, then?’ I grunted in reply, and showed her the bottle of wine I’d picked up from the shop at the end of the road.

  ‘Your ticket has been validated, come on through,’ she said, opening the door wider and pulling me inside.

  I gave her a hug. ‘How’s your new job, by the way?’ I peered closely at her, and she pulled back.

  ‘Fine, thanks. Why are you being weird?’

  ‘Is it ok? Your colleagues ok? Your boss?’

  ‘Yes, thanks. Is this how teachers talk to each other? Because it really is very weird.’

  She seemed fine, for now, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to keep my eye on her. Not with Chuck in her office, not with him as her boss. ‘Good. I’m glad.’ I headed further into the flat while she took the wine away to open. ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ I called after her.

  ‘Nice to see you too, dear sister. Guessing by your demeanour, the same as you – I’ve come for the wisdom of our elders,’ she said from the kitchen.

  ‘Careful,’ said Ava, coming in and pulling me into a hug. ‘Wanting me to give you a pedicure is not seeking the wisdom of your elders.’ She switched to a whisper: ‘Kat seems fine. She’s not said anything about Chuck, or work. She seems ok, Zo, honestly. Anyway,’ she said at normal volume, ‘it looks like Zoe might need it more.’

  ‘What?’ Kat wailed. I poked my tongue out at her when Ava gave me another hug. Once she’d found wine glasses, brought me a blanket and tipped a giant bag of crisps into her fruit bowl – after removing a lone, shrivelled tangerine – I not only felt calmer, but brave enough to talk about the situation.

  ‘Go on. I can see it in your face. What have you done?’ said Kat, pouring the wine.

  ‘Thanks a lot.’

  ‘Kat!’ Ava threw a cushion at her.

  ‘That reminds me, I saw Liz the other day. Her new boyfriend is the worst. And I say that as a direct quote from her.’ I sighed, hard.

  ‘Hey. Did Jack do something?’ Kat asked. ‘Don’t tell me the bubble has burst already?’

  ‘I think it burst a long time ago. Or maybe there wasn’t even a bubble in the first place. Do you think that’s possible? Seriously – do you think we got married, and maybe …’

  ‘You shouldn’t have?’

  Ava threw another cushion. ‘Kat, I’m serious,’ she growled.

  ‘No! Bloody hell, Kat. No!’ I frowned at her. I only wanted them to tell me how ridiculous Jack was in this argument. Or I was. I didn’t want to discover they felt our whole relationship was a mistake. ‘No! We just had a fight. And it was shitty.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Zo.’

  Ava slipped away and came back a few moments later with a huge square bowl of gently steaming water. I pulled off my trainers, then my socks, and sank my feet into the water. Rain started up, drumming against the darkening windows. Kat turned on low lamps around the room and I closed my eyes and let out a deep sigh. ‘Well that sounds serious,’ Ava said in a soft voice.

  I opened my eyes again, feeling increasingly calm. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think it is. Everyone fights when they first marry, don’t they? Either that or they never have a cross word for seventy years, but I don’t think Jack and I were ever going to fall into that category. It’s just … shittier than I thought it would be.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘It was stupid, really.’ I shrugged, and leant back against the sofa. ‘Jack refuses to do any of my laundry and I always leave teabags in the sink.’

  ‘Oh Christ, like Mum? Urgh,’ Kat moaned. Even Ava was pulling a face.

  ‘Don’t you start! They’re wet, aren’t they? The sink is where wet stuff goes.’

  ‘Or the drying rack. Why don’t you just drape them over the plates and cups there?’

  ‘It’s not a legal offence, for god’s sake! It’s a teabag. And why have I spent my afternoon saying that?’

  Ava intervened. ‘I have to say, that laundry thing definitely isn’t ok, though.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Does he do his own laundry?’ Kat asked.

  ‘Of course he does! He’s not a monster. But he ran a half load today, rather than risk ever damaging any of my clothes.’

  Ava took one of my feet out of the bowl and dried it on a towel in her lap. ‘Isn’t that quite thoughtful?’

  ‘Did he call you and tell you to say that?’ I said. Admittedly, I’d like to see the man who tried to make Ava say anything. ‘Fine. Yes, it’s officially thoughtful, but it’s day-to-day bullshit. I’m not going to live with someone for who knows how many decades and still be doing separate laundry loads. What if we have kids? Whose responsibility will that fall under? It’s insane that he can treat me like some German flatmate who he’ll share meals and sofas with, but wouldn’t dare be so inappropriate as to wash their delicates. Oh, it’s so hard to stay as angry as I’d like when you’re giving me a pedicure.’

  ‘Should I stop? You can get really angry and throw things at Kat. I find it immensely soothing.’

  I gave a beatific smile to Kat, and said, ‘No, I think enough damage has already been done to her poor brain. We should leave her the few faculties she has left. Like wine pouring.’

  Kat took the hint and topped up our glasses, giving herself twice as much as me and Ava.

  ‘He smashed my photo of Grandma, too,’ I added.

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth I realised my mistake. I saw their horrified faces and suddenly saw Jack through their eyes. ‘No, I mean – it was an accident—’

  ‘That’s what they all say,’ hissed Kat.

  ‘No, I mean it – he chucked some cutlery down on the worktop and a fork pinged up through the hatch and knocked the glass out.’

  ‘Oh.’ Kat looked deflated.

  ‘Zo!’ Ava said, with gentle rebuke.

  ‘I know. I phrased that wrongly. But on top of our arguments already … I know it was an accident, and it could have happened at any time, but it just felt like a sign.’

  ‘A sign of what?’ Kat was picking her nails, looking at the polish bottles lined up.

  I sighed. ‘Maybe that Grandma wouldn’t approve. Of what we were doing.’

  ‘Arguing all the time?’

  I closed my eyes and didn’t reply.

  Ava lifted my other foot from the water onto the towel, removed my nail polish and rubbed my feet, covering them in thick, rich shea butter, before wrapping them up again in soft muslin cloths. While I kept my eyes closed, she and Kat talked softly about the best nail colours, hand creams, dinner at Mum and Dad’s, Kat’s new job. I listened to them, smiling, content in my nest on the sofa. This is what I wondered if marriage would feel like in a perfect world: warm, comfy, safe. It’s how I used to feel with Jack, before we said I do, but it didn’t feel like that anymore. It wasn’t just today’s fight, either. It was a growing unease, a discomfort that I’d been stamping down ever since Jack proposed, which had threatened to erupt on our wedding day but which I’d managed to trap in a box and mostly ignore since then. It hadn’t gone away, though. I was just as suffocated by the thought of our lifelong marriage as I had been on the night Jack first asked me. I loved him so much, and was so desperate to do the right thing, that it had seemed my only option was to say yes and to agree to marry him, even though the suffocation when he’d hugged me and started phoning our families was overwhelming. Instead I’d just ignored it. And now that suffocation was matched by my so
uring temper, and my inability to just be with Jack, to have our easiness back.

  In my more optimistic moments, I’d thought the day-to-day disagreements that are a part of any normal relationship might be ironed out by marriage; that this was the advantage to getting hitched, that all these silly quarrels would just become history. I’d reassured myself the whole time: if I made this choice freely, the reward would be freedom from the constant fear that every disagreement would end with our relationship ending too.

  Either that, or you divorced.

  I opened my eyes.

  It was the first time I’d thought of that word, and it made me feel sick to my stomach. But it also – just a little, just a flicker, just a tiny speck of a flash of a fragment – made me feel free.

  I drained my wine glass. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ I started, ‘and absolutely don’t say anything to Mum. But do either of you know anyone who’s divorced?’ Kat’s jaw dropped. ‘I mean it. Don’t you dare tell Mum I asked that.’

  Ava peeled open one of the muslin wraps around my feet. ‘Is that what you’re thinking about? After this fight?’

  ‘I’m not thinking about it. And it’s not this fight. I was just wondering, that’s all.’

  ‘We know loads of people Mum and Dad’s age,’ Kat said tentatively. ‘Most of my friends’ parents were divorcing during GCSEs and I felt really jealous because I could never get out of any extra revision sessions like them.’

  ‘Yeah, bloody Mum and Dad’s secure relationship. Ugh,’ I tried to laugh.

  ‘I know, right? But no, none of my friends are even married yet. Ave?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Two couples I know. One set got divorced last year, the others are just getting started. The first ones tried counselling but it just didn’t take. I think they realised almost instantly that they didn’t really like each other that much, but it turned out they couldn’t get divorced for a year. He moved out two weeks after the wedding and they only saw each other again to do the paperwork.’