The Starter Home

by Bryony Fraser

  And Zoe had wondered what she’d wished for.

  Iffy would be best man, of course, and Zoe, to save bloodshed between her sisters, asked Liz to be her maid of honour. Liz had never mentioned the conversation between them about cancelling or postponing the wedding; she’d seen Jack too, had understood that in the face of such pain, this wasn’t about Zoe’s relatively minor concerns. But she had given Zoe a look, and said, ‘And are you ok with all of this? Are we happy with these plans?’ Zoe had known exactly what she was talking about, but said, ‘Yes! Yup! You’re my only choice for maid of honour!’ Liz hadn’t pushed it any further, instead just squeezing her hand and saying ‘Zo, you’re my priority at this wedding, right? So whatever you need, I’ll make sure you get it, ok?’ Zoe knew again what she’d really meant, and knew too that despite the offer, Liz couldn’t get her what she needed, which was either a decent backbone or a time machine.

  Her mum and dad agreed to walk with Zoe down the aisle, and Esther said they could borrow little William, if they wanted, as some kind of flower-carrying, ring-bearing, token cute child in the wedding party. Before she knew it, the January date was decided, the register office was booked, and a venue with a late cancellation had been found.

  ‘It’s a sign!’ Jack said, and Zoe had smiled and looked for a fire exit and tried to think about how happy Linda would have been about all of this. She didn’t want to dwell on how Linda had spent her entire life in a marriage she didn’t want to be in. And she certainly didn’t want to think about how little life Linda had been given to enjoy the way she’d wanted.

  So Zoe just watched Jack’s face, as they designed invitations and chose food and paid deposits. And she decided that for the rest of their lives, his pure, shining happiness would just have to do for them both.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Now

  As promised, Ava and Esther were waiting for me outside the bar when I arrived at 8.30 p.m.

  ‘He in there?’ I said, wrapping my arms around myself.

  Ava nodded.

  ‘And he looks so pleased with himself,’ Esther added, pulling her coat tighter. She was wearing Kat’s bright purple lipstick. ‘Listen, it’s freezing. Let’s get on with it.’

  ‘Hang on, hang on,’ I said, grabbing her arm. ‘Get on with what, exactly? What’s the plan here?’

  Ava and Esther looked at each other. ‘Tell Kat the truth, I suppose. Tell her everything you told us about him. And ask what the hell is going on with her.’

  I must have looked doubtful, as Ava said gently, ‘She needs to hear it from you, Zo. We need to know we’ve done everything we can to keep her safe from him.’ Ava put her hand on top of my hand on Esther’s arm. ‘She’ll believe you.’

  ‘If she sees how he reacts when you tell her the truth about it, she’ll have to. It’s better that he’s there,’ Esther added. ‘We don’t want him wriggling his way out of it when we’re not around.’

  I nodded at them both and we turned as one. I stepped into the bar first, and saw them straight away: Kat on a stool at the far end of the bar, Chuck leaning into her, a rich leer across his face, his hand twitching upwards behind her as it strained to make contact with her lower back.

  I didn’t even remember walking over there, but I was aware of grabbing his hand and jerking it away from her.

  ‘What the fuck!’ Chuck cried, and Kat turned around, her jaw dropping when she saw the three of us standing there.

  ‘Er … small world?’ Kat looked furious. ‘What are you three doing here?’ I released Chuck’s hand.

  Ava looked at Kat, at Chuck, and then at me, and said, ‘You need to listen to Zo. You need to listen to how she knows Chuck.’

  Chuck’s face was turning purple. ‘I don’t know her, I’ve never had anything to do with her. This is a business meeting.’

  Kat stepped back and crossed her arms. ‘You do know her. She’s your ex’s best friend, remember?’

  Chuck made a gesture of dismissal. ‘Sure, whatever. I don’t know what she’s talking about, though.’

  Esther stepped closer to Kat; our little sister towered over her in her heels, but Esther pulsated a kind of deep fury that made her the largest thing in the room. ‘Sis, you need to listen to her.’

  Kat’s anger was almost equal to Chuck’s. ‘I don’t know why you guys think this is ok, but I’m having a work meeting with my boss and this really isn’t appropriate. We can talk about this at Mum and Dad’s, but now really isn’t the time.’

  I hesitated a moment. Had we got this wrong? But then I remembered Chuck’s words to me, and our removal – twice! – from their office. If there was nothing sinister going on here, then I’d be willing to lay money on Ava making it as next year’s Ninja Warrior champion.

  ‘Kat. Listen. He’s not Liz’s ex. He’s mine. He was my boyfriend when I was in sixth form.’ Chuck made a scoffing noise. ‘He’s … he’s not a good person, Kat. You don’t want to get involved with him.’ Kat looked dubious. ‘He’s controlling, Kat. Majorly controlling. He told me where I could go, who I could go with—’

  ‘Excuse me, can we stop the tall tales now, please?’ Chuck interrupted.

  ‘He told me which uni to go to. He told me we were going to get married, gave me a ring that I wasn’t allowed to wear.’

  ‘You were engaged?’ Kat said in a quiet voice.

  ‘He – he made me sleep with him when I wasn’t ready.’ I gulped. ‘Kat, please. Please don’t give him any of your time.’

  ‘This is one hundred per cent garbage. Aren’t you embarrassed making this shit up?’ Chuck said, shaking his head sadly at me. ‘This is actual slander. Kat, can you control your sister?’

  There was a long silence, where Kat’s unconvinced look didn’t change. Chuck made another noise, like a minor explosion, when Kat didn’t ask me to leave, as he’d clearly hoped.

  ‘You’re crazy,’ he blustered. ‘Crazy! I warned you to stay away from us—’

  ‘Us?’ Kat said quietly, dangerously.

  ‘And I told you what would happen if you didn’t.’ The three of us drew closer together, closer to Kat. He turned to her, incredulous, then a snarl grew on his face. ‘Sorry, kiddo, looks like your delusional sister just cost you your job.’

  He knocked back his whisky and turned to storm from the bar with a triumphant look on his face, but his belt loop caught on the bar rail and he was jerked sharply. Esther snorted. Chuck unhooked himself, gave me a look of pure hatred, and walked slightly more carefully away from us and out of the door.

  Kat’s face showed quiet shock. She looked at her watch; I put my hands up to my face and started sobbing. I’d lost her her job, Chuck still insisted I was lying, and Kat didn’t even believe me. Then I felt her arms go around me, and she pulled me into a tight hug. ‘Shhh,’ she whispered in my ear. ‘Shhh, it’s ok.’ I was still sobbing as she put her hands on my face and lifted it to hers. ‘Zo, it’s ok.’

  ‘But it’s … all true … It’s true, Kat, I didn’t make any of it up—’

  She smiled at me, wiped my tears away with her thumbs. ‘Zo. I wish you hadn’t done that.’

  I cried harder. ‘Please, please, don’t trust him … please … please don’t listen to him—’

  She pulled me into a hug again and whispered in my ear. ‘Zo, I’m sorry. I’ve got to go with him. But don’t worry, ok?’ She gave me a soft kiss on my forehead, pulled away, grabbed her coat and followed Chuck out of the door.

  I felt myself shutting down. I had tried everything to save my little sister from a monster like Chuck, and she hadn’t believed me. She hadn’t stayed with us. She’d gone with him. I’d lost Jack, and now I’d lost her. Ava reached for me, but I couldn’t feel her. I walked to the door, pulled it open with the last of my strength, and hailed a cab.

  The next morning I was leaning on the kitchen counter, staring into space with a cold cup of coffee in my hand, wondering if I would ever see Kat again, when Jack came out of the bedroom dressed for work, and headed past me
without a word. He grabbed his coat and went straight out of the front door, slamming it closed, then the main door outside after it. After a moment, I heard him heading back in, his key rattling in the locks.

  ‘Right. Sorry, this is actually melting my fucking head. I thought I was ok but I’m not.’ His fists were balled up. ‘Why did you do it? Why did you go ahead and marry me? I didn’t put a gun to your head! I never forced you! Or did I? Did I somehow manipulate you into doing something major against your will? Please tell me exactly how I did that, Zoe, because I imagine that’ll be really fucking useful in any difficult interactions I have for the rest of my fucking life.’

  I didn’t know how to start. ‘Sorry, are we talking about this now? Just like that?’

  Jack was speaking through gritted teeth. ‘I know it’s a lot to ask, but I do feel like I deserve even the most meagre of explanations, beyond, “I just don’t really like marriage.”’

  I heard my breath shudder as I drew it in, trying to stay calm. ‘You didn’t force me. But you did … put me in a position where I couldn’t say no, Jack.’

  ‘By what? Holding your beloved pet hostage? How the fuck did I do that?’

  ‘You knew I never wanted to get married! You knew that! We’d talked about it! We’d agreed! I thought we both felt exactly the same. Then your parents divorced—’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry my parents split up, Zoe, at least you can be reassured that it won’t happen again—’

  ‘And you decided that apparently that was the perfect reason for us to get married – which, FYI, is not a romantic way to propose to someone—’

  ‘Well, thanks for letting me know.’

  ‘And then I’d wanted to call it off, once I’d said yes. I’d realised that it was a mistake, and we were better off just staying as we were, or having one of those endless engagements, then—’

  ‘Then what? Oh my god.’

  ‘Then—’

  ‘Oh my god, you’re going to do it, aren’t you?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘You’re going to blame your wrong decision to marry me on my mum dying. Aren’t you?’

  ‘Jack.’

  ‘Aren’t you? That’s what you’re going to say, isn’t it? ISN’T IT, ZOE?’

  I jumped, my heart pounding at his sudden shout. ‘I’m not saying it’s anyone’s fault—’

  ‘Thanks SO MUCH for that weight off my mind, Zo. I can’t tell you how it’s been preying on me that my mother’s unexpected accidental death was in some way responsible for your forced marriage.’

  ‘Jack, it was an awful time for you. For all of us. It was the worst thing that could have happened, in the worst possible way, and all I could think of was how to make you feel better. How to somehow make this unbelievably shitty and overwhelming situation into something fractionally less shitty and awful and nightmarish. And if that meant just sucking it up and going through with the marriage, if that’s what you wanted, and what your mum would have wanted—’

  ‘Don’t even mention her. Don’t you even say her name. You didn’t know her. You swanned in and suddenly the two of you were best friends, while she’s on the other side of Europe and you secretly don’t even want to marry her son—’

  ‘Jack, please.’

  ‘What, don’t remind you that you betrayed her? Don’t remind you that you’re saying this is all somehow her fault? What is it that I’m not supposed to do? Is it marry you? Because you had the chance to make that call and apparently never thought piping up would be at all useful or appropriate before we’d actually signed our marriage certificate.’

  ‘Jack. Please.’ He paused for a moment, hunched over in one corner, panting slightly. ‘Please, Jack. You know that I don’t want to hurt you. That I’d never want to hurt you or your mum.’

  ‘No medals for thoughtfulness for you today, Zo. Sorry, we must be all fucking out.’

  ‘Can’t you even try to understand?’ I begged. ‘I loved you so much. All I wanted was to make you happy. But you asked me to do the one thing that we’d talked and talked and talked about, and both seemed to understand would definitely not make me happy. What was I supposed to do? You tell me. What was it I was supposed to do to not be the villain in that situation?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Zoe, I was too busy grieving my parents’ thirty-year marriage and then the death of my mother to be too concerned with your moral compass.’

  I gave a low growl and smashed my cup onto the floor. ‘Jack! I’m sorry about their divorce! I’m sorry about your mum! You know how sorry I am – I was with you! I was always with you! I loved her and I loved you and you cannot throw that back in my face anymore. But for fuck’s sake, Jack, what was it I was supposed to do? It was an impossible situation you put me in, even before the car accident, and then I couldn’t tell you how I really felt once I’d finally worked it out for myself, but I’m not the monster you’re trying so hard to paint me as here!’

  ‘Loved,’ Jack said softly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. So what, then? What’s so awful about this marriage that you so desperately need to get out of it?’

  ‘It just … is. It’s not you, it’s not me. It just doesn’t work. This idea. The way we got into it. I don’t want to be with you because you don’t want to be like your parents. Or because I felt guilty about upsetting you when your mum died. I don’t want us to be tied together in all the ways that made your parents so miserable for so long, or in all the ways that my parents aren’t – and they’ve been so happy all their lives. I just never understood what was so bad about how we had it before.’

  ‘Nothing was bad! But people do get married when they love one another!’

  ‘But I didn’t want to and you made me feel like I was wrong! Can’t you understand how horrible that felt? That every single day was a reminder that no matter how much you said you loved me, we were living a life that you chose for us. In direct contradiction of everything I thought we’d agreed on.’

  Jack stared at me, then dropped his eyes to the shattered cup on the floor. ‘I didn’t realise it was so horrible for you.’

  I leant against the kitchen cabinet. ‘No, you didn’t. You never wanted to. You just wanted us to be this picture-perfect couple in our picture-perfect flat with our perfect jobs and friends and lives. You never once considered why I’d suddenly be saying yes to you when every conversation between us about marriage had always been me saying no.’

  Jack dropped down, sliding his back against the cabinets until he was sitting on the kitchen floor, at my feet.

  ‘I loved you so much, Jack.’ I saw him wince, momentarily. ‘But it was never fair to put that pressure on me. And we had talked about it! I just don’t understand how you thought just asking me – in public! Down on one knee! – would make everything I’d decided, everything I’d wanted, all my principles, suddenly completely reverse. I just never understood how you could believe that worked.’

  ‘I’d always felt the same way you did,’ Jack said softly. ‘Always. But then … this massive thing happened in my life that made me question everything, and so I thought … I thought that if I asked you, and we talked about it, and I could explain to you why I’d changed my mind, then maybe you would, or could, change your mind too. If I just asked you in the right way …’ He put his head in his hands. ‘I thought I could just do this to make sure one part of my life wouldn’t fuck up. That I could hold onto one good thing without it … disintegrating.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘I never thought – not for one second – that you still felt like you had before. I would never have forced you – I would never have wanted us to marry if I’d thought for one second that you didn’t want it. Zoe, you must know that’s true.’

  I nodded, but I felt something creeping up my throat. ‘I know. But you never asked. And I never said. And so we’re both to blame for where we are now.’

  Jack lifted his face and looked at me. ‘But what’s so bad about it? Really? Now we’re married, what’s so bad about
actually being married to each other? We’ve done the hardest bit, haven’t we? Why do we need to … What’s this divorce stuff about?’

  My hands balled into fists to match his. ‘Besides me not ever wanting to get married?’

  ‘Back then. Yes!’

  ‘And you pitching it to me as a way to beat your parents’ mistakes?’

  ‘Yeah, I said that wrong, but—’

  ‘And me feeling like it was something I had to do so you didn’t feel extra bad about your mum’s death?’

  ‘Jesus, Zo—’

  ‘And then me explaining all of this to you, right now, and explaining how I’ve felt trapped and betrayed every single day since our wedding, and I thought you might be able to understand, and then asking me again like we haven’t ever discussed a single aspect of this, why I don’t want to be in this marriage anymore? Besides all that?’

  ‘Zo, I—’

  ‘No. I think we’ve done enough talking. Now I’m going.’ My face was burning, my muscles were screaming, and it was all I could do to just remember my wallet and keys and coat as I walked out, the edges of my vision sparkling with anger and hurt at the corner we’d found ourselves in. I didn’t regret anything I’d said to Jack. I just regretted every moment of our lives since he’d decided to propose.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Benni called me into her office, looking carefully about to see that no one was following me as she closed the door.

  ‘Are we being followed? Is the room bugged?’ I whispered, pointing at the ceiling lights.

  ‘I don’t want anyone else getting any ideas. Listen, darling, are you ready for your Halloween half-term? Costume all ready?’

  ‘Ten days and counting till last day of term, Benni. Between disastrous dating, my almost-former husband and worrying about my sister, this year I’ll be going as one of the Walking Dead.’

  ‘Great!’ Benni exclaimed. I crossed my arms. ‘So how would you feel about leaving the country?’