Читать книгу Sunshine on a Rainy Day: A funny, feel-good romantic comedy - Bryony Fraser, Bryony Fraser - Страница 10

When Jack got back that night, the flat was filled with the smells of jollof rice, his favourite of my mum’s dishes and one of the few I managed to get even close to Mum’s quality. I’d lit candles, drawn the curtains (you only make that mistake once – thanks to one amorous night when we forgot to close them, our blushing neighbours opposite now ran like rats whenever they saw us) and poured the wine. As he dropped his bag and coat, he said, ‘Well, someone should have hangovers more often, if this is the result.’ I laughed, then he added, ‘I thought we were married already – do we still have to keep trying to seduce each other?’

I didn’t laugh, although I knew it was a joke; it seemed too close to what I’d been worrying about in the small hours this morning. Why couldn’t we keep seducing each other? What was the alternative – that we’d come back each evening to find our other half in an egg-stained fleecy dressing gown watching EastEnders and picking the hardened bits of a Pot Noodle out of the bottom of the cup?

Jack saw my face and came over. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and kissed me.

I sighed. ‘No, I’m sorry. I was doing this to apologise for this morning, and now you’re apologising to me.’

‘Ok, we’re both sorry. Although not as sorry as you looked this morning—’

‘Thank you.’

‘But we’re both sorry.’

‘I’m sorry for being so vile this morning.’

‘And I’m sorry for the ill-judged joke. This smells and looks amazing.’

‘And for trying to lift me out of bed?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘And you’re sorry for trying to physically lift me out of bed this morning, even though I didn’t want you to?’

‘Zo, you were going to miss a whole day!’

‘Of course I wasn’t! I made it to school.’

‘Eventually. I didn’t know that though, did I?’

‘You didn’t ask. You can just take it as read from now on that you’re free to treat me as an adult, able to make my own decisions about my own life, ok?’

‘I know that you’re capable, I just don’t know if you always do.’

‘I’m twenty-nine, Jack, I managed an awfully long time without you telling me what to do.’

My last comment hung in the air between us.

‘I’m sorry. Again. I’m still hungover, and you know it makes me a bastard. Let’s just stop. Let’s have this nice meal, and … who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky.’

‘Maybe you will.’ Jack brought our glasses over, still misted with cold, and cheers-ed.

When I arrived home the next day, our post was waiting on the table; Jack must have picked it up. Junk mail, junk mail, junk mail – and then one that was addressed to ‘Mr and Mrs Bestwick’. Jesus Christ, the ink wasn’t even dry on our marriage certificate yet. How the hell had – what was this, an insurance company – managed to get our names? Was this it, now? The choice to keep my name – which, let’s not forget, is an absolutely fucking absurd thing to even make a choice about – didn’t even matter, because everyone would just assume I was Jack’s chattel, to be named and catalogued along with his other possessions. This was why I’d always felt so uncomfortable with the idea of marriage. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, per se, it’s just that all the assumptions and faff that came with it, including the name-changing rigmarole, wasn’t something I’d ever seen myself having to put up with. And yet here I was.

I tore it in half with an ugh of despair. Jack came around the corner, carrying two cups of tea with a plate of salted-honey toast on top. ‘Bad day at school?’

‘No! Good day. I love my work. And I should clearly enjoy it while society still permits married women to actually hold down jobs that men could be doing.’

‘I’m sensing … this isn’t about your day at work.’

I held out the two pieces of the letter. ‘Awww,’ Jack said in a mock-touched voice. ‘That’s nice. How did they know?’ He looked at me, saw I wasn’t smiling, then said, ‘No, that is creepy. I get your ugh now.’ He screwed his face up. ‘How did they know?’

I relaxed slightly, realising that this wasn’t Jack’s fault. ‘I’m feeling slightly … disappeared when that happens.’

Jack put on a soft, exaggeratedly soothing voice. ‘Does Hulk want to smash the patriarchy?’ I nodded. ‘Does Hulk want to come and smash the patriarchy on the sofa with some tea and toast?’ I nodded again. ‘Does Hulk want to do that on the sofa while a man cooks and cleans tonight as a token gesture of patriarchy-smashing?’ I nodded again, smiling and giving him a kiss on the nose as I took the plate and a mug and lay full length on the sofa.

Taking a bite of the toast, I said, ‘How’s your week going?’

‘Fine. Good. Nice and busy today, which is unusual for this time of year.’

I could hear cupboards being opened and closed as Jack got things out to make dinner.

‘Jonjo thought it was funny to tease me about not being allowed out anymore, when I said I wanted to get back here tonight after closing up.’

I pulled a face. ‘Jonjo’s a dick.’

Jack stopped, and looked at me through the kitchen hatch, mouth agape. ‘Oh my god! That’s exactly what I said to him.’

‘We’re like two peas in a pod.’

Jack laughed. ‘Well anyway, besides the small matter of me abusing my employees, everything’s been fine. January sales still going well.’

‘We’re still going through the cake and prosecco I got on Monday.’

‘You teachers. Always living the high life.’

‘And I didn’t have to swear at any colleagues.’

‘Enough, enough. Alcohol and cake, and not forcing you to mistreat co-workers? They’ll be giving you the vote next.’

I threw my toast crust at him, which landed perfectly in his hair. Jack reached up, deadpan, and slowly drew it down and popped it in his mouth in one bite. ‘That’s some good toast, though I say so myself.’

‘You’ve got to have some skills if you want women to keep you guys around.’

‘Not women. Just woman. You’ll do me, thanks.’ Jack gave me a panto wink.

I found an old New Yorker stuffed down the side of the sofa and read a piece about Malala Yousafzai, while the smells of Jack’s cooking filled the flat. Maybe married life wasn’t the absolute worst thing in the world after all.

After a quiet weekend, I headed to the bar. It was crowded for so early in the week, but I found a table before Liz had arrived. She brought drinks over and hugged me.

‘So, how is life as a married woman?’ The question from her was tender, rather than wry. We clinked glasses.

‘Fine.’ She looked at me. ‘It is fine, really. Do you want to talk about Adam?’

She’d been seeing him on and off for a few years; they’d repeatedly talked about living together, but she’d always backed off. Going by his absence at our wedding, she must have backed off pretty far this time. She shrugged. ‘I dunno. Seems like a bit of a downer.’

I laughed. ‘Given the downers you’ve had from me, Liz? Please. What happened?’

She shrugged again, a bit brisker. ‘No, not tonight. Is that ok? I just … I want to think about something else.’ She stopped. ‘You know, I’ve always wanted something like you and Jack have. Is that weird?’

‘Us?’ I yelped. ‘Liz, you know better than anyone how I’ve been feeling—’

‘Yeah, but that’s just you. It’s not the two of you. You two have a better relationship than most people I know. And me and Adam, I just kept thinking, what if there’s something better, just around the corner, and I … No. Listen. I really don’t want to start on this tonight. Please. Save me from myself. Tell me about your school. Your sisters. International military policy. Anything.’

‘Well, Kat’s got a new job, which everyone’s delighted about. I still don’t really get what it is though. Some ad agency thing. We’re all going to Mum and Dad’s on Sunday to have a big meal – toast Kat, toast us, that kind of thing.’

‘That’s great news about Kat. How will you cope with the toasting to you too, though?’

I laughed. ‘You’ve met Kat, haven’t you? I don’t imagine Jack and I will get much of a look in there.’

‘Which suits you fine, I imagine.’

‘Exactly.’ I took a sip of my drink. ‘This job of hers might turn out to be the best thing that’s happened to me recently. Between Esther’s toddler, whatever spirit-lifting social-work case Ava’s currently on and the Job of the Century from Kat, I don’t think I have to worry about the focus being on us at all.’

Liz and I clinked glasses again.

By our second week of marriage, things felt completely steady again between me and Jack, enough that we spent the evening semi-ironically filling out a questionnaire Jack had been sent by his stepmum: What’s Your Newlywed Score? We had to answer things like ‘Where do you see yourself in ten years’ time?’ and ‘What’s your happiest childhood memory?’ – topics which neither of us had the courage to point out are maybe things you should discuss before the wedding, rather than after, but whatever. We opened a fancy bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, a leftover from the wedding, and sat curled up together on the sofa.

Jack started. ‘Ok, what would you save in a fire?’

‘Besides you, of course?’

‘Thank god. I think you get some bonus points for that.’

I thought for a moment. ‘My picture of Grandma. Easy.’ It was the first thing I’d put up when we’d moved into this flat: a colour photo of my grandma from when she was in her thirties, back in Nigeria, in a pair of black slacks and an emerald green sweater, laughing over her shoulder at someone just beside the photographer. Although I wouldn’t be born until a few decades after that photo was taken, it was how I remembered her: smiling, beautiful, with the same dark bronze skin my mum, sisters and I had all inherited, and the same long arms. I remembered them wrapped around me when I was little, when she’d tell me stories and teach me about life, chuckling through her soft accent and keeping me safe from everything in the world.

I’d had the photo mounted in a frame to match her sweater, and the feeling of her looking over us as we’d moved into that little flat had felt like a blessing she could no longer give in person. She’d died when I was eleven, and I still thought of her almost every day.

‘Right!’ I shook myself. ‘My turn. What’s your dream job?’

‘Honestly? Probably this one. I love the shop. It took me a long time to get it all together, to get Henderson’s to where we are now. So … this. You?’

‘Same. I love my job. I don’t know if I’ll do it forever, but it’s certainly the thing that gives me the most pleasure.’

Jack coughed.

‘Except you, of course?’

‘Better.’

I offered him the list to take his turn. ‘Right. Where would you like to live in the world, if not here?’

‘Berlin!’ I said, without hesitation.

‘Of course. Your favourite.’

‘Would you? Live there?’

‘Yeah.’ Jack thought for a moment. ‘Yeah, I definitely would, although I can’t imagine how that’ll ever come about – I can’t imagine how I’d ever leave the shop. But of all the places in the world, besides London, Berlin is probably where I’d most like to go.’

‘Maybe when we’re old, then?’

‘Deal.’

We carried on with the list for another hour or so, and it was a strangely enjoyable time. We talked about children (we both want a couple, but not for a few years), films (the fact that he picked neither The Godfather nor The Shawshank Redemption reminded me how much I loved him), religion (him: lapsed Catholic; me: pretty agnostic, despite Mum’s best efforts), food (him: my mum’s rice; me: beef wellington followed by chocolate mousse) and houses (we both dream of a magic house with a garden and a big bright kitchen and large windows, and which never raises any concerns about leaky guttering or cracking plaster or subsidence. Like I said, magic). The whole questionnaire forced us into enough of that emotional intimacy stuff that by the time we went to bed, let’s just say I didn’t have to undress myself.

On Saturday, I could hear Jack clattering about in the living room, moving all the wedding gift boxes around.

‘Zo, what are we going to do with all this stuff? We don’t want any of it.’

‘Except the coffee machine.’

‘Yes, except the coffee machine.’ I could hear it humming away in the background as I joined him, and we looked at the endless repacked boxes of someone else’s wedding presents.

‘What if we return all this stuff and find out no one’s bought us anything?’ I was beginning to regret the pact we’d made not to look at what gifts had been picked off our wedding list.

‘Zo, I’m reasonably sure that at least one of your sisters will have got us something. And Iffy. So that’s two. Liz?’

‘Fine. So will you call the place and have them come and collect it?’ I pleaded, batting my eyelashes at him.

Jack winked at me, and a few minutes later I could hear him speaking in his most charming tones to someone in customer services, explaining the confusion about the boxes and how, in all the mix-up, the coffee machine had been opened and used before we’d realised the mistake.

‘Oh, really? Really? Wow, that’s awfully kind. Are you sure? Wow, that’s really, really kind of you. Thanks so much. Yes, tomorrow would be absolutely fine, we’ll make sure at least one of us is in. Yup, thanks so much. Ok. Bye.’ He hung up, and did a tiny dance.

‘Well?’

‘They said we should keep the coffee machine as an apology from them for their error, and they’d make sure all the other gifts and a new machine made it to the other couple.’

‘Sweeeeeeet.’

‘I know. What can I say – the gods were smiling on us for our wedding day.’

I looked at the boxes again. ‘But who is this other couple? How can they have so much need for tweed sofa cushions and garden kneelers and – oh my god. Do you think they’re old?’

‘Uh-oh. Have an older couple married? Ugh, maybe they’re doing it. That’s gross. I’ll call the police – quick, pass me your phone.’

‘No. It’s nice. It’s nice that an older couple might be still so …’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know, marrying when you need a garden kneeler. Optimistic?’

‘Maybe they’re not an older couple. Maybe they’re Tories.’

‘Nah, I don’t have the energy for the sabotage of the boxes that particular truth would warrant. Let’s just imagine they’re a happy couple of indeterminate age who enjoy gardening and rabbits and tweed.’

‘And coffee.’

‘Well, not while we’ve got their espresso machine, they don’t.’

Jack handed me another perfect cup of coffee (by now he’d mastered the art of the coffee machine), and headed off to dress for the shop while I stared at the chaos around us.

* * *

I tried as hard as I could, blinded with rage as I was, but I couldn’t rip an entire catalogue in half. It was simply too thick.

‘What are you doing?’

I looked up, sweating slightly, from where I was half crouched by the table beside the door. I thrust the catalogue at Jack, who had just come in with the Saturday papers.

‘Yes, good, a babywear catalogue.’ He paused, and blinked at me. ‘Wait. What have you got this for?’

‘That’s what I want to know!’ I realised I was shouting, and tried to pull my volume down a notch. ‘I don’t know why it’s here! Why is it in our flat? Why has it got my name on it?’

‘Did you order it?’

‘No, I didn’t fucking order it! Do you not think if I’d ordered it this mystery might have been solved a bit quicker? I didn’t order it, I don’t want it, and I definitely don’t know why it’s in my fucking flat!’

‘Zo. Zoe!’ I looked at Jack. ‘It’s just a catalogue. It’s ok.’

‘It’s not ok! This never happened before we got married! Ever! But suddenly, somewhere, someone’s ticked some “married” box against my name and I’m Mrs Bestwick all of a sudden, who’s into babies and … wicker wine bottle holders and washable floral sofa covers and genuine porcelain models of royal babies—’ I realised Jack was trying not to laugh.

‘You didn’t really get a catalogue of porcelain royal babies, did you?’

I bit my smile back too. ‘No. But I bet it’s on its way.’

Jack pulled me into a hug. ‘That’s grim. I’m sorry they’re doing this.’

‘But it doesn’t happen to you, does it? You haven’t been getting any mail for Mr Lewis, have you? You’re not suddenly getting letters about joining your local Shed Club, are you?’

‘Not … exactly.’

‘Not exactly?’

‘It’s the ads on my computer. I used to get … holidays. And fashion brands. And … I don’t know, cars and shit. Now I get terrifying ads about leaving your family without a will, and life insurance, and health insurance, and mortgage deals. I know it’s not the same, but someone’s ticked a box against my name somewhere too.’

‘That son of a bitch.’

‘I know. And one day, we’ll hunt them down—’

‘Tell me more.’

‘And we’ll force them—’

‘Yes.’

‘To read all the spam and junk mail they’ve sent to us.’

I gasped.

‘I know, I know, strong words. But these people will never learn otherwise.’

I put my head on his shoulder. ‘This bit of twenty-first-century life is weird enough – unsolicited messages from companies who presume to know us best. But when it’s a name I don’t use and stuff that’s got nothing to do with where we are in our lives …’

‘I know. It’s weird.’ He kissed the top of my head. ‘Come on, let’s go and do something fun and fancy-free which we can look back on nostalgically when we’re old and decrepit.’

‘Like interacting in person with other humans? Seeing family?’

‘You got it, kid. Your mum’s expecting us within the hour. Shall we do it?’

We grabbed our stuff and starting heading out the door.

‘Hang on – one question. You did actually do all that wills and health insurance stuff though, didn’t you?’

Jack looked at me. ‘God yeah. Clicked right on through and tapped my bank details in straight away. I might not be a boring middle-aged husband and father yet, Zo, but I’m no idiot. You need to fill in your stuff, by the way.’

I grabbed my bag. ‘Cool. Please will you leave me everything except your cigar collection?’

‘Those are very valuable cigars!’

‘They were very valuable cigars. I suspect that after keeping them in a box in a bag at the bottom of our old flat’s damp wardrobe, they’re now the world’s most expensive firelighters.’

‘Hmmm, fine. But you have to make sure your section of our will is super detailed. If I’m dealing with the grief of losing you, I don’t think I can handle your sisters falling out over who gets your Chanel handbag on top of that.’

I laughed, although our laughter felt sad. I couldn’t be without Jack, even in a hypothetical future. I kissed him again, and he wrapped his arms around me, breathing in deeply.

‘Come on,’ he said at last. ‘All that face-to-face family fun isn’t going to enjoy itself.’

‘I love you,’ I said. And I knew that whatever was to come, I did.

At Mum and Dad’s, we were the last to arrive. Esther’s husband, Ethan, had three-year-old William in the lounge, sticking flat plastic jewels onto a congratulations card for Kat. Ethan waved and grinned at us, which made William turn around and race over, grabbing Jack by the legs before trying to shimmy up him, eventually holding his hands up to be carried. I smiled as Jack and William babbled to each other, thinking of that baby catalogue I had no intention of needing in the near future, and left Ethan to continue carefully sticking decorations onto his son’s smudgy, wonky card.

In the kitchen, Mum, Dad, Kat, Ava and Esther were all gathered around the kitchen table, chopping vegetables, stirring bowls, pouring mugs of tea, snatching tastes of things and arguing amicably.

‘Jack! Zoe! You’re here at last, my darlings. Now we can all celebrate!’ Mum came over and kissed us both, hugging us and handing us steaming cups of tea from a tray.

‘Er, excuse me, haven’t we just celebrated those two at their wedding? Didn’t we in fact spend a whole day celebrating them? They got gifts and everything. I believe it’s now—’ Kat pointed to herself. ‘Kat Time.’

I moved around the table to hug her. ‘Congratulations, Kat. I am all in for some celebratory Kat Time: we brought wine …’

Kat grabbed it in one hand and hugged me back with her free arm.

‘And flowers for the prima donna, and flowers for you too, Mum. Thanks for having us all!’

‘Oh, darling, it is family! It is my pleasure to have you all here, and see your happy faces. Maybe one day you will know that feeling for yourself …’

I looked at Jack who very deliberately didn’t look at me, just stood with his hand frozen halfway to the crisp bowl, his nostrils flaring in panic. I laughed again at his exaggerated terror and he unfroze, smiling back at me conspiratorially.

‘Mum!’ said Esther. ‘Leave the poor girl alone. She’s only been married five minutes.’

‘Oh, you young girls, you think you know everything better than your mother. It is always the same-same with you!’

‘Come on, love.’ Dad pulled Mum into a one-armed hug. ‘Let’s leave these youngsters to tidy up in here, since they know so much better. Your grandson’s in the other room, and I don’t think he’s realised how little we know yet.’ He turned and winked at us all over his shoulder as he led Mum out. Then he put on a stern tone, adding to us, ‘You better do a good job in here, or you’ll have me to answer to.’ As Mum made her way into the front room, he whispered, ‘Oh, and your mum’s done some lovely ginger snaps, in the tin in the cupboard. Don’t tell her I told you, though.’

Kat and I raced to the cupboard to get the tin out first; she beat me to it, but she needed two hands to open it, so I got the first biscuit. ‘Aha!’ I muttered triumphantly, only to see her stuff four biscuits into her mouth at once in retaliation. I shook my head at her. ‘I hope you’re not going to behave like that at your new job.’

‘What is it anyway, if I’m allowed to ask?’ Ava said, dipping a biscuit into her tea with her enviable quiet grace. Ava, the second oldest of us, was a social worker, but far too kind to ever assume everyone else’s jobs weren’t just as important as hers.

‘It’s a digital marketing agency, and I’ll be in planning and management. It’s unbelievably boring to describe, and I can’t believe I made it through the interview without gagging at some of the buzzwords I had to use—’

‘How bad was it?’ I asked.

‘I had to strategise the outcrop of dissolving mindsets in a twenty-second-century digital mob.’

Jack bit his fist, looking comically panicked.

‘Exactly. But the money’s good, and I do actually like the work, just not having to talk about it. I suppose I’ll get immune to that soon enough, at which point you’ll just have to stop speaking to me.’

Esther took another biscuit. ‘Are you nervous?’

Kat chuckled. ‘Have we met? They’re the ones who ought to be nervous. I am going to boss it. But you guys can see for yourselves – it’s their annual family day next month, where all the employees can bring in their partners or kids or parents or whatever. I guess you twenty-second-century digital mob will have to do.’

‘When is it?’ Esther said, fishing out her phone. We all checked our calendars: Jack and I had a date with Iffy and his girlfriend that we couldn’t get out of, but Esther and Ava promised to report back everything about the company.

‘And let me know what her boss is like. If he’s smoking, etc.,’ I said. Jack coughed politely at my elbow. ‘I meant for Ava!’ I insisted, pointing to her. ‘I meant for her.’ Kat snorted at me, and Jack gave me a kiss on my hand, before releasing it to grab another biscuit himself.

Wednesday was an exhausting day at school – the revving up to reports time and parents’ evenings had begun in earnest, with no consideration for how many hours we actually had in our days – and all I wanted to do was curl up on the sofa with Jack. I made myself a cup of tea and sat down, ready to finally exhale the day, but Jack doubled back to the sink.

‘Zo, you do realise that I literally just finished doing the washing up, don’t you?’

‘Um … thanks?’

‘You just dumped your teabag and teaspoon in here – it would have taken you five seconds to wash that spoon.’

‘And it’ll take me five seconds to wash it once I’ve actually sat down for five seconds too. It’s not going anywhere.’

‘I know it isn’t! Unless I wash it up.’ He looked exasperated.

‘Jack, I really didn’t leave it there for you to wash up. I’m knackered and I just want to sit down with you for a little while. I’ve been looking forward to this all day.’ I sighed.

‘I know you don’t mean anything by it. That’s the problem.’

‘Jack! Please don’t be a dick about it?’

Jack rubbed his face with his hands. ‘I’m pretty sure if you’d just spent an hour on a boring chore you’d be delighted to hear me calling you a dick.’

‘I didn’t call you a dick! And I thought you liked washing up.’

Jack almost laughed. ‘I don’t like washing up! This isn’t the hugest flat in the entire world, and I like living in a clean and tidy house, so I make sure there’s not dirty laundry and dirty plates and dirty cutlery piled up everywhere! It’s hardly a disorder. So no, I don’t like washing up. I just understand that it needs to be done, and that, unlike some people, I don’t have a magical fairy who comes and does it all while I sit on the sofa and reflect on my day.’

‘Please, I’m sorry,’ I said, feeling sick at how this argument was rolling out of my reach. ‘Didn’t we say we wouldn’t still bicker about chores once we were married?’ I didn’t want to get into a lifetime habit of debating my teabags being dumped in the sink.

‘No one’s waved a wand to make housework go away, Zo. It still needs to be done. It just depends on how much you’re willing to pay attention to that. Because I hate living in a pigsty.’

‘Our flat is always tidy! It’s never a pigsty!’

‘Because I never let it get that bad!’

‘We can’t keep arguing about this for the rest of our lives!’ I yelled.

Neither of us said anything, letting my last comment echo around us.

‘Right,’ Jack said, washing up my spoon. ‘I’m actually pretty tired so I’m going to go to bed now. Are you coming?’

‘I … I need a bit of time to unwind. I’ve only just got in.’

I ended up washing my hair and watching four hours of American sitcoms until my eyes were itching and my mouth was dry.

Another magnificent evening, Zoe. Really well played.

* * *

When I got into school the next morning, Benni was hovering around my desk.

‘Hello, darling. I was just scribbling you a note – it’s that fun time of year, updating all our details for the council’s records!’

‘Oh no, and I didn’t even get you a card.’

‘All you need to do is log in with your work email and make sure everything’s up to date. Yay! Thanks, darling. And … pub after work? Gina’s taking the boys to the theatre. Or—’

‘Don’t.’ I narrowed my eyes at her.

‘I was going to say have you got too much on here, but clearly there’s something else going on. Pub it is,’ she announced before hurrying off.

I decided to get Benni’s request out of the way before I got sucked into the school day. It was simple enough: just as Benni had said, I just had to make sure all my personal and health details were up to date. Name – yes, goddammit, Zoe Lewis – date of birth, National Insurance number, blah blah blah. Oh. ‘Cohabiting’ now needed to become ‘Married’, so I unchecked the cohabiting box, and ticked the married box. Suddenly, half the options on screen were greyed out, and other options popped up below them. What the hell? The whole section on hobbies and interests had become unclickable, but another section had popped up asking how many dependants lived with me. Had I somehow slipped back to 1954? I unclicked ‘Married’ and the boxes ungreyed. Click again, greyed. Married life: children, dinner parties full of painful pointed subtext, the closing in on your inevitable death. Unmarried? You’re probably just into scuba diving, mountain climbing and retaining your will to live. I clicked, unclicked. Clicked. Unclicked. Clicked. Unclicked. All the while watching my options fade in and out.

After a while I realised Benni had come back and was watching over my shoulder.

‘Is someone having an existential crisis?’ I raised a horror-filled face to her as she shook her head in sympathy. ‘You should try telling these things that you’re a female and so is your wife.’

I laughed a little. ‘It isn’t just me, is it?’

She bent forwards and looked closer at the screen, clicking and unclicking as I had. She laughed too. ‘Bloody hell, that is a bit on the nose, isn’t it? I reckon some bitter programmer’s having a small dig. It’ll probably be all over social media in the next half hour. Now, in the meantime, just tell them you’re not dead yet and we’ll leave it at that, ok?’

She watched me send off my details – including a checked ‘Married’ box – and led me into her office for some actual curriculum talk. We had a new exam board and a whole range of different topics to cover in our upcoming parents’ evenings. For the next forty-five minutes, I managed to focus on what she was saying, making notes, and asking questions. But in another part of my brain, I was still simmering, perhaps more than I would have done if I’d not found out the night before that I hadn’t been invited to someone’s weekend away in Ibiza because they’d assumed I wouldn’t go as a newlywed. Sorry!!! she’d texted, I thought you’d want to be with new hubby at the mo ;).

I just … I didn’t understand. It was a choice, wasn’t it? I might know a few people who’d changed their names to match their husband’s when they’d got married, but I didn’t know a single person who’d become a full-blown housebound Stepford Wife. I still dressed the same, I still did the same job. I even had the same friends – or so I thought. It seemed that assumptions would just be made no matter what I said or did, all because I’d signed that piece of paper agreeing to marry Jack.

After the meeting with Benni, I tried to focus for the rest of the day, working through lunch to get my head around the curriculum I’d be explaining to some of our more difficult parents, and to keep myself distracted. By seven thirty, I was starving, and very, very ready to leave.

‘Right!’ said Benni, as I stood in her office doorway. She slammed her laptop shut. ‘Let’s all go and right some wrongs.’

I didn’t stay long – Benni and I only managed to right three wrongs each (if you count ‘wrongs’ as ‘delicious and very strong cocktails’) – and left her, along with Miks, his girlfriend from the English department, and a large bottle of wine, so I could get back to have dinner with Jack, having not seen him much for a few days due to our criss-crossing work schedules.

At just after eight, I had my head, slightly dizzily, in the fridge when Jack came out of the shower.

‘What do you fancy?’ I called through to him.

‘Don’t worry about me, I’m out tonight, remember?’

I didn’t remember. ‘Whereabouts?’

‘Don’t know yet. Just out with friends.’ Immediately, my hackles were up.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I knew I shouldn’t pick a fight, but I needed a way to vent my disappointment at an evening spent apart yet again.

‘I did. Last week. I didn’t realise I needed written permission. I’m just out with Iffy and people.’

‘People? And Iffy who you saw yesterday?’

‘Yeah, people. And yeah, Iffy. I know I saw him yesterday, but it’s a group of us and we’ve had tonight in the diary for ages.’

Hearing myself, I couldn’t help but think of what Jack might be saying about us when they did hang out.

‘So do these people have names?’ I realised I was slurring slightly.

‘Well, this is a delightful conversation.’ Jack cocked his eyebrow. ‘What’s up with you, Zo?’

I crossed my arms. ‘I just didn’t know you were going out, and suddenly there are these people that you absolutely have to see. I left my departmental drinks early to see you.’ The alcohol in my system was making me sound much angrier than I’d ever have felt sober.

‘I’m happy to cancel, although given the way this conversation is going, I can’t begin to imagine why we’d want to spend the evening together instead.’

I thought of all the things I could do tonight if Jack wasn’t about: have a long bath, watch a trashy film, call Ava for a chat, take an early night with Jilly Cooper flopping open at all the right pages. Lie really still and wait for the room to stop spinning. In all honesty, I didn’t care that he was going out. And yet, something – utterly unreasonably – still rankled.

‘Fine. Go. Have a nice time.’ I gave him a brief kiss on the cheek and a tight smile, and before I knew it he was gone.

I was shaking. I was so angry at myself. I didn’t care – I’d never cared – if he was seeing friends.

But I was also angry at his tone, and the creeping realisation that if I’d asked him to stay with me, he’d have had to tell his friends a lie, and they wouldn’t believe the lie, and how they’d tease him for months about his wife being in charge now. Then, if I insisted on him staying with me again, they’d eventually stop teasing, and stop calling. Ugh. I didn’t want to star as the worst kind of clichéd spouse. I couldn’t stop seeing it from his angle too: his partner, suddenly turning the flame-throwers on him. But then I flipped back again: if I was feeling this bad, why was he going out? And yet, why was I feeling this bad if he hadn’t done anything wrong? Then back again: I felt bad because I’d been a weasel to him. This was my problem, not his.

Back and forth, back and forth I went, the whole evening, sitting in front of unsatisfying TV, not doing anything I’d planned, losing my evening, losing my mind, feeling my pub-buzz sour. I scuttled to bed when I heard his key in the main door, throwing my clothes off and hunkering under the duvet as he opened our front door. I pretended to be asleep when he came in, wrapped up in fleecy pyjamas, not up to facing what I, or he, or we, had done, with one tiny, toxic argument.