When Zoe walked through the front door, Win raced down the stairs as if he’d been watching out for her. She felt quite bedraggled after spending a sticky four hours on a train then wrangling her suitcase and the several carrier bags she’d acquired home from King’s Cross. She’d also had another little weep in the smelly train toilet when she’d thought about coming back to a Beyoncéless house but that didn’t compare to the reality. There was no frantic whimpering, no scrabble of claws on the floor, no small, compact body set on a collision course for Zoe’s shins.
‘Good journey?’ Win asked brightly as if he hadn’t noticed Zoe’s dejected stance.
‘The air conditioning broke down before we’d even got to Berwick-on-Tweed,’ she said as she gratefully relinquished her carrier bags, which had dug welts into her wrists, to Win’s care.
‘Sounds grim. Do you want a shower? Cold drink? I made us something to eat.’ Win employed a strange jazz hands-style gesture, which was most unlike him. It was as if he were nervous, though Zoe couldn’t imagine what he had to be nervous about. Unless he hadn’t performed a single act of DIY while she’d been away, in which case he had every reason to be nervous. Shouting could wait though.
‘Cold drink first,’ Zoe decided and Win hadn’t even kissed her hello, although she was sure she smelt a little ripe and she definitely had gin breath so maybe it was for the best. ‘I travelled back with my agent. I told her about The Amazing Adventures of Beatrice and Beyoncé and she wants me to have a draft ready to be submitted by September. Also, there’s a new guy started at the agency who’ll hopefully get me some illustration work. I’m feeling properly fired up for the first time in ages.’
Win blocked Zoe’s path down the hall. ‘That’s good. Fired-up Zoe is one of my most favourite Zoes.’
‘She’s a lot more fun than mopey Zoe.’ She tried to move him aside. ‘Win! All I’ve been able to think about for the last five hours is the ice-cold can of Diet Coke I’m about to drink.’
Win didn’t budge. ‘You have to close your eyes. I have a surprise for you.’
‘Have you been baking?’ Zoe’s nostrils twitched. Her sense of smell overcoming her own sweatiness and the stale gin fumes to pick up the mouthwatering scent of cake; all buttery and lemony and warm. ‘How have you been baking when we don’t have an oven?’
‘No more backchat, just shut your eyes,’ Win said and Zoe sighed but did as he asked and let him guide her down the hall towards the kitchen and then he stopped, which meant Zoe had to stop too. ‘OK, you can open them now.’
Zoe opened her eyes then she shut them again, sure she was hallucinating. It couldn’t be true. Considering how long it took to do anything in the house – fitting a ventilation unit in the bathroom had taken weeks – Zoe had only been gone seven days and yet in that time, they suddenly had a kitchen.
A bare shell of a room was now transformed into an actual working kitchen with fitted cupboards, a French plate rack and a Belfast sink that Zoe immediately rushed over to so she could stroke it again and again as if it were a lover returned from a long trip to faraway lands.
‘Do you and the sink need some alone time?’ Win asked from where he was standing by the pantry, which had a new door in the same very hideous, very dark wood veneer as the rest of the kitchen, which actually was not what Zoe would have chosen.
‘It’s not quite what we discussed, is it?’
‘It was literally being given away,’ Win said very quickly. ‘Someone up the road was ripping out their old kitchen. Me and Gavin had a chat with their builders and they let us have it, all in, for four hundred and a crate of lager.’
‘Four hundred quid?’ Zoe squeaked. She looked round the room with new, far more appreciative eyes. ‘Even the range?’
‘Even the range and no veneers either: it’s all solid wood,’ Win added a little defensively as Zoe opened the nearest cupboard door and rapped on it with her knuckles.
‘OK. OK. Yeah, it’s quite eighties rustic at the moment but we can work with that. I’m thinking that we repaint in a light cream, or even a pale sage green with a very matte finish and cup handles in that gunmetal silver we both liked. Wow! I can’t quite take this in.’ Zoe turned a slow circle. ‘We have a kitchen table! Chairs! This is amazing. A new kitchen just slotted straight into place.’
‘It didn’t just slot into place,’ Win recalled with a shudder. ‘It took much measuring. Also a huge amount of cutting to fit and unbelievable amounts of effing and blinding.’
Zoe looked around again. There was a lot still to be done. Painting, sealing, and at some point apparently Gavin was going to show her how to tile and grout the splashback but they now had a kitchen. ‘Oh my God, what is that smell?’ She sniffed the air again. ‘Oh! Don’t tell me. It’s your boozy lemon drizzle cake, isn’t it?’
‘It is,’ Win confirmed and things hadn’t been this good between them, this happy, this playful since… last November. Zoe dropped to her knees in front of the range so she could peer through the glass like a contestant on The Great British Bake Off checking on the progress of their signature bake. ‘Zo, are you kissing the oven door?’
‘Maybe. Just a little bit,’ she admitted.
‘It’s just I have one more surprise for you,’ Win said and when Zoe turned round, he had such a smug smile on his face that she was immediately suspicious.
‘What have you done?’ She’d seen that smile before when Win had signed them both up for a charity fun run, even though there was nothing fun about running ten kilometres, or the time he’d decided to reorganise the fridge and found the very expensive, budget-busting chocolate truffles she’d been hiding behind the mustard. ‘Is it a nice surprise?’
‘Well, I think so,’ Win said and he waited for Zoe to take a can of diet cola out of the fridge, because their fridge was now in its rightful place in the kitchen, and finish it in five greedy gulps. He winced as she burped.
‘Sorry.’ Zoe wondered if the surprise could wait until after she’d had a shower but Win was already hustling her out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
‘So, I have to tell —’
‘It’s weird not to have Beyoncé rush to greet me…’ Zoe pulled a face. ‘You were saying.’
‘I know that you’re going to miss her so I got you a little something to make up for it.’ Win’s voice was pitching up and down now like a kite on a windy day. ‘It’s in the bedroom. You coming?’
‘Just what kind of present is it?’ It probably was time for them to resume their sex life but Zoe wished that she wasn’t so sweaty, that she was more in the mood but then, there were times when Win could be very persuasive.
Zoe opened the bedroom door and there, asleep on the bed, a pink bow tied round her neck was… ‘The dog formerly known as Beyoncé,’ Win said and the sound of his voice woke Beyoncé up from the kind of slumber that only came from two hours chasing squirrels in Highgate Woods. She yawned, stretched, then saw Zoe standing behind Win and began running in circles on the spot.
‘Oh, Win, you didn’t…’
He had and he stood aside so the dog could launch herself off the bed with a joyful yelp straight into Zoe’s arms so she could paint Zoe’s face with her tongue.
‘Are you crying?’ Win asked Zoe, which was a completely redundant question when tears were streaming down her cheeks. ‘Oh God, I know you agreed that we couldn’t have a dog right now, but I’ve got so used to having her around, I suppose I sort of love her, and I was pretty sure that you did too…’
He waited for Zoe to say something but she just shook her head, her arms full of squirming Staffy/pug/French bulldog cross.
‘I should have asked first but I wanted it to be a surprise and you are OK with this, aren’t you? I mean, you did seem really upset when I said she’d been adopted by a really nice couple, not a lie by the way because we are a really nice couple, but you did point out how expensive owning a dog was but we can get a good deal on the pet insurance if we go with the same company we get the —’
Zoe looped one arm round his shoulders and pulled Win in for a slightly sour-smelling hug so he could get his fair share of the face licking. ‘Best present ever, Win,’ she said, her words thick with emotion. ‘And you? Are you really OK with her bankrupting us?’
‘We’ll be fine. We might have to make some more economies and stop splurging on the fancy quilted loo roll, but I think she’s worth it, don’t you?’
Because it was a special occasion, they pulled up a third chair to their new kitchen table and gave the official addition to their little family a small bowl of watermelon as they had dinner. Win kept one hand on Zoe’s knee and entertained her with a long funny story about a band whose finances he’d been managing since they signed their first deal, who’d always had delusions about their own greatness. ‘Now, apparently, they’re number five in some obscure iTunes chart and they want me to set up an offshore account for them,’ Win said. ‘I had to give them a very stern talking-to.’
Zoe grinned and stroked the hair back from Win’s face then turned to look at Beyoncé who was gazing at their platter of watermelon, feta cheese and budget-brand ham with her tongue lolling and two delicate trails of drool starting to descend. ‘What did you mean when you said the dog formerly known as Beyoncé?’
‘I’m not shouting Beyoncé across the playing field any more, Zo, I have my limits,’ Win said sternly. ‘I’ve been calling her Florence-ay for the last two days, and in a week or so we can start calling her Florence. It will make her feel more at home. All the other dogs in Highgate have names like Ruby and Daisy and Archie, like they work below stairs at Downton Abbey.’
‘How do you feel about your new name, Florence?’ Zoe asked, and the former Beyoncé instantly turned her head to gaze at both of them with a look of utter adoration as if she understood that she’d never have to worry where her next organic dog treat was coming from. Zoe shrugged. ‘Florence it is then.’
It wasn’t until they were clearing up after dinner, Zoe washing as Win dried because they both agreed it would be profligate to run their old dishwasher, which had been reinstalled, that he cleared his throat. ‘The dog’s not a child substitute, is it?’ he asked as if he were genuinely curious to hear Zoe’s answer.
Zoe knew that they were nowhere near ready to have this conversation yet here they were, having it. ‘I don’t want a child substitute. I want a child, Win.’ It was hard to keep the longing in her voice corralled. ‘Not right now. But soon.’
Win’s hands stilled around the plate he was meant to be drying. ‘Back up for a second, will you? You don’t even know if… after what happened. The accident.’ He turned away from her, ostensibly to put the plate he’d been drying in the plate rack. ‘We don’t have to have children, you know.’
The pain was sudden and overwhelming. As if he’d just slammed her hand in the cutlery drawer or picked up one of the knives, still smeared with feta cheese and plunged it into her heart. It was hard to speak. ‘You don’t want children?’
‘I’m not saying that.’ Win shook his head as if he weren’t sure exactly what he was saying. ‘I don’t think you’re in a position to think about this rationally yet.’
‘There’s nothing rational about it. It’s a need. A biological imperative, which guarantees the survival of the species,’ Zoe said, which sounded very pompous even if it were true.
‘Channelling David Attenborough there,’ Win muttered. ‘Look, where is this even coming from? Because, well, we agreed we’d wait at least another two years.’
‘But that was before.’ How to even explain the new feelings that were sweeping her grief and sadness to one side? ‘I don’t know where this has come from. But I’ve spent a week surrounded by kids and I’ve seen how you are with Bey — Florence. You’re lovely with her, Win. You’d be such a great dad.’
He pulled a face like he could smell something foul. ‘I don’t know about that,’ he muttered. ‘Not sure Terry passed down any great fathering talent in his DNA.’
‘What rubbish!’ Zoe couldn’t help but roll her eyes. ‘Ed had Terry as a father too and he’s managed to raise four gorgeous boys and the nephews adore you. Maybe you do have good dad DNA and it skipped a generation with Terry.’
‘Maybe.’ Win didn’t sound convinced. He held his tea towel in front of him like a matador’s cape to deflect any more of Zoe’s thrusts and parries. ‘Let’s just park this for now, shall we?’
‘I don’t want to park it.’ She was fed up with having to put her feelings away until a time when Win wanted to deal with them. ‘This is like a primal thing. Another couple of weeks more of this ache to have a child and I’m probably going to pin you down, rip off your clothes and beg you to impregnate me.’
Win looked alarmed rather than aroused. He put down the tea towel, folded it into quarters, and then stared at the neat square rather than at Zoe. ‘I’m still undecided on the whole kids thing.’
‘And how long is it going to take for you to reach a decision?’ Zoe demanded.
‘I’m sorry, Zo, but I can’t pretend to feel something that I don’t,’ Win said and it was probably best that he was being honest. Setting his stall out, as it were. Determined not to give Zoe false hope, but then again he hadn’t given her an outright ‘no’.
‘I want to go and see someone, a consultant,’ Zoe insisted. ‘I was meant to have my six-month check-up a couple of months ago but I couldn’t face it then. I need to know what our options are. If I even can conceive. But there’s always IVF and —’
‘Don’t get carried away.’ Win’s lips twisted when Zoe glared at him. ‘Well, OK, I can agree to seeing a consultant,’ he said as if Zoe was asking his permission.
She knew to let the subject drop and there was so much else to talk about; Beyoncé (Zoe didn’t know if she’d ever be able to remember to call her Florence-ay), the fraught installation of the new kitchen, how to work the range… and if things were a little scratchy between them, they both tried hard to ignore it.
But now that she knew that Win had absolutely zero interest in making love, though it had been months since they’d last had sex, Zoe got undressed in front of him for the first time in all those months. Though Win lingered in the doorway of the bathroom as Zoe brushed her teeth, he was hardly overcome with lust at the sight of Zoe in her underwear. ‘I remember what I wanted to ask you now,’ he said, as Zoe rinsed out her mouth. ‘That suitcase…’
‘What suitcase?’
‘The one we found that first night with the clothes in it… Did you know that it was still in the cupboard in the back bedroom?’ Win asked. ‘I thought you were going to drop it off at the solicitors or throw it out.’
Zoe clutched onto the side of the sink for support. ‘You didn’t, did you?’
‘No. I wondered if there was some reason you were keeping it.’
‘Aren’t you even a little bit curious about what we found inside it?’
Win pulled a face. ‘It’s ghoulish. Creepy.’
‘It’s not. I’ve been reading Libby’s diary,’ Zoe admitted. It felt like she was confessing to a crime though Win seemed more confused than anything else.
‘Who’s Libby?’
It had been weeks since Zoe had checked in with Libby. The last thing she’d read was the letter from Hugo arranging a tryst in the mansion block not five minutes’ walk from their house. The letter had made Zoe see Libby in a new, not altogether flattering light and so she’d packed her away, concentrated on getting her own house in order. Her only daily link with Libby was the button that she’d transferred from coat pocket to jacket pocket and now that the weather was too warm for even a cardigan, the button lived in a side pocket of her handbag.
‘Come with me.’
Win followed Zoe into the bedroom and watched as she took out the diary. Then he sat down on the bed next to her and took the book, turned it over, but didn’t open it. Instead Zoe told Win about Libby. That she’d been keeping up with Libby’s year as her own year unfolded, but that it was a slow process because Libby’s handwriting was almost indecipherable. Told him about the house in Hampstead and its occupants. The job in a school that was long gone. About Hugo (‘he’s her lover’) and Freddy (‘he’s in Spain, reporting on what’s going to become the Spanish Civil War. There’s lot of his clippings in the diary’).
‘I suppose it’s all quite romantic.’ Zoe took out Hugo’s last letter and handed it to Win, who took it as gingerly as if Zoe had handed him a full poo bag to be deposited in the nearest bin. ‘No one ever pledges their undying love by letter these days, but I don’t understand why they’re going to spend the night together without any funny business. You’d think funny business was all they had in mind.’
Win made a noncommittal noise but he started to read the letter as Zoe opened the diary and angled the bedside lamp the better to pick up the faint trace of Libby’s pencilled entries. In some ways Zoe felt as if she knew more about Libby than some of her own friends and in other ways it was impossible to know someone when you were following paper trails in an eighty-year-old diary.
It was June in 1936. Libby complained about the heat, headaches, a run-in with Millicent over her laundry then another letter from Hugo to Libby, which made it clear that Hugo was in love with Libby. Was writing not to just talk about their divorces but so that Libby had ‘proof of my feelings, my regard, my love for you.’
‘It was actually really hard to get a divorce back then,’ Win piped up, causing Zoe to nearly slide off the bed in alarm because she was so intent on Libby and Hugo she’d forgotten all about him. ‘We did study divorce law as part of one of my accountancy modules. Problem is I’ve slept since then.’
‘But Win, you never forget anything,’ Zoe said, because his memory was elephantine and he could always be relied upon to drag up the most obscure facts when she was stuck on the general knowledge crossword.
‘I’m thinking… thinking… That’s it! Nineteen thirty-eight Marriage Act!’ Win clicked his fingers in triumph. ‘Before that, the only grounds for divorce was adultery. So, even if there wasn’t adultery, or if your lover didn’t want their reputation tarnished in court, you’d go to a hotel with a paid witness, a co-respondent, jump into bed with them, make sure the maid caught you at it or a private detective was prowling the place with a camera and you had your proof for the court. There was a bit more to it than that, but you get the gist?’
Zoe did and it made some of the mysteries of Libby’s diary clearer and in other ways, she was still fumbling in the dark. There was one thing in particular that struck her. ‘It’s odd, that it was so hard to get a divorce back then,’ she said, closing the diary. ‘Now divorce is so easy, it’s the staying together that’s hard work.’
Win froze on the bed next to her. ‘Oh. So you’ve thought about divorce then?’
‘What? What? No! Never!’
‘Are you sure about that?’
Win was hurt. Zoe could tell he wanted reassurance, which was reassuring in itself but if anyone should have been worried about divorce, it was her.
‘You were the one who walked out,’ she reminded Win, because she still hadn’t made her peace with that. Didn’t think she ever would.
Win rested his hand on her knee. ‘But I came back.’
‘Only because I made you,’ Zoe reminded him. She rested her hand on top of Win’s. ‘And why do we still keep arguing? We never used to argue this much.’
‘I know.’ Win leaned over so they weren’t just sitting next to each other but pressed side by side. ‘We are going through a rough patch.’
Zoe rested her head on his shoulder. ‘I was hoping we were past that.’
Win’s sigh ruffled her hair. ‘I’d say it’s still ongoing. But, let’s get this into perspective; we’ve managed nearly thirteen years and this is our first rough patch, so I’m hopeful, actually I’m certain, that we’ll come out the other side.’ He tapped the diary that was on Zoe’s lap. ‘So, anyway, what happened to the baby?’
‘What baby?’
‘The baby clothes in the suitcase? What happened to the baby? Any clues about that? I guess, yeah, maybe I am a little curious,’ Win said with a smile.
Zoe’s smile faded. ‘She lost the baby.’ She began to gather up the detritus from the diary, slot it back into the right places. ‘But Libby’s working towards being happy again.’
Even to her own ears it sounded weak and Win looked spectacularly unconvinced. ‘You really need to get rid of this stuff.’ He gestured at the diary again. ‘I’m sorry, Zo, but I don’t see how this can lead to anything good.’