Win was always cheerier when he had a project on the go and very soon he had a spreadsheet devoted to the housewarming party, which he lovingly tended of an evening. Zoe was in charge of the guest list and food, while Win totted up columns of figures and drove himself into a frenzy cross-checking the price of Prosecco across half a dozen supermarket websites.
It also helped that Henry, Win’s physio, had decided that Win could finally begin running again. Nothing too strenuous – just one lap of Highgate Woods, keeping an eye out for exposed roots, rocks or small dogs, and if anything started hurting Win was to stop immediately. Within days, his face had lost its haunted quality, which he’d worn for so long that Zoe thought it had become a permanent feature, and in the mornings, Zoe could hear him whistling in the bathroom.
It was odd, what with the September days getting shorter, that Zoe was imbued with purpose too as if it were spring, rather than late summer. She was… optimistic. Her book was out on submission, which was always scary but hopeful too. Cath and Theo had decided that they would stay on at Clive’s so that meant Cath was only down the road, and best of all, Zoe’s parents were due back from Vietnam and were staying for a couple of weeks before they travelled on to Yorkshire.
Zoe had imagined that after spending four months travelling through South-East Asia and six months building an orphanage just outside Saigon, her parents would want to put their feet up. Maybe take a couple of gentle strolls up to Hampstead Heath…
‘Put my feet up? Why on earth would I want to do that?’ Nancy Richardson had demanded when Zoe suggested it on their first day in London. She and Zoe’s father, Ken, were determined to stay up, jaws clenched to stifle their yawns, and not give in to jet lag.
‘We can put our feet up when we’re dead,’ Ken had added. They were sitting at the kitchen table, new sliding doors open. He nodded his head in the direction of the barren expanse of land outside. ‘Anyway, we said we’d sort that out for you.’
The garden was a plot of churned mud bordered by collapsed and rotting fence posts, its only redeeming feature two apple trees that needed serious pruning. Within the space of a week there was proper fencing and foundations dug for a patio. They even had a lawn (which had started life as what Zoe called a ‘massive grass carpet’ and her mother called ‘rolled turf’) with flowerbeds dug out on either side. It was almost ready for the housewarming, which had become a barbecue as it looked like the good weather would hold and because they were homeowners now and didn’t fancy people spilling wine on their new rugs.
Despite Win’s best efforts, the invite list soon spiralled out of control. Originally, they’d planned to invite all the friends they’d barely seen in months but Zoe pointed out that if they were going to invite Gavin, because he was family and a friend, then they had to invite his crew to thank them for all their hard work and it would be rude not to invite their wives, girlfriends and kids too. They also owed favours to all their immediate neighbours for putting up with the noise, rubbish and lorries coming and going at all hours. But Elysian Place was such a friendly street (or as Win put it ‘everyone is all up in everyone else’s business’) that somehow Zoe ended up inviting all the neighbours, apart from Pernicious Peter across the road, who’d tried to do a land grab on their drive when they’d first moved in. It all added up to a hell of a lot of people.
Fortunately, the Saturday of the barbecue was a glorious, late September day. Mellow and warm, with not one hint of autumn crispness to the afternoon. Zoe had given her parents strict instructions that they weren’t to do anything but sit on the new garden furniture and be waited on hand and foot but Ken quickly commandeered the grill and at the other end of the patio, Nancy had created a salad station and was supervising Cath and Theo who were setting up a makeshift bar, even though Cath insisted she was an expert at drinking alcohol so serving it couldn’t be that hard.
Win was ferrying food from kitchen to garden and Zoe was meant to be on front door duty but when she greeted each new arrival standing on the doorstop clutching a bottle of something cold, the first words out of their mouths were: ‘So, are you going to give us the guided tour, then?’
It never got old though. Explaining how the house had just been a shell. ‘No carpets, buckled window frames, don’t let’s even talk about the roof,’ then throwing open doors and hearing the gasps of admiration and the barrage of questions: ‘Is that French linen grey or Parisian grey?’
There was a real sense of pride in intimately knowing every centimetre, every corner of the house because Zoe had sanded, primed and painted most of it herself. Had agonised over the muted blue tones that ran through the downstairs because she’d decided to make a feature of the two-tone blue of the fireplaces. Had fought long and hard for her Edison bulb/timber beam light fixture in the kitchen. Had hung thirty-seven framed prints along the stair wall; the little sketches of Camden Town life she’d drawn for Win long, long ago. Had hunted down all the jumble sale, car boot sale and eBay finds to furnish each room.
Talking about the house made it easier to face her friends. At least Win had met people for lunch, sometimes gone to the Monday night pub quiz. He’d been present and Zoe had been… absent.
She simply hadn’t been strong enough before. But now when Chloe, one of Zoe’s old Central St Martins friends, or Olivia, one of her writing buddies, or even Mercedes who was the first person Zoe had become friends with when she’d moved to London, tilted their heads and asked, ‘Really, Zo, how have you been?’ or variations on that theme, Zoe could truthfully say, ‘Busy. We bought a derelict house and we got a dog.’
‘And you’re better?’
‘Yeah, I’m still sad about losing the baby, these things break your heart, but they happen, don’t they?’
Every time she said it, Zoe would get something back in return: a hug, a brush of lips against her cheek, a hand squeezing hers. A few months ago these gestures would have reduced her to tears. Now they made Zoe wonder how many of her friends and acquaintances had suffered a miscarriage or cried when a missed period arrived weeks late. Experienced a hurried trip to A&E then a phone call to work claiming a tummy upset or food poisoning. They lived in an age of TMI, where every waking moment, each thought, was posted on social media, and yet there were still things that people never talked about.
During the week as they’d dug out flowerbeds together (Nancy was always more comfortable having a heart-to-heart while doing something else, whether it was peeling vegetables or pulling up weeds), Zoe had talked to her mother about the baby, about desperately wanting to try again despite Win’s reluctance. Then Nancy had set down her spade and said that when Zoe was a month shy of her second birthday and they’d been living in Northern Ireland, miles away from home and Nancy’s own mother, she’d had to deliver an almost full-term baby boy who’d inexplicably died in the womb.
‘Most of the women back at the army base could hardly bear to look at me when I left hospital,’ her mother had said. ‘I think it was a case of there but for the grace of God, but I felt so alone.’
‘Why did you never tell me?’ Zoe had asked, putting down her own spade so she could take her mother’s hand.
‘Because it was the very worst time of my life and it hurts even now to remember it. It’s a very hard thing to grieve, much less talk about, a person who was never there,’ Nancy had said with a surety because she’d had years to come to terms with these painful feelings. ‘You have no real memories of them, just the memory of all the hopes and dreams you had for them.’
It was comforting, rather than dispiriting, to Zoe to know she’d always carry the grief around with her. That the baby, though he’d never grown beyond the size of a jellybean, would never be forgotten, would stay in her heart.
The party was in full swing. It was standing room only in the kitchen as people clutched drinks and talked, mostly about property prices.
Zoe stepped out onto the decking where Amanda and her mum, Linda, had taken over the salad station. Ed was arguing with Gavin and his brother, Steve, over how long to cook a medium rare burger. Florence was in her element as she gleefully herded a small pack of children made up of the nephews, Maisie and Milo from next door and a few stragglers up and down the garden, when she wasn’t darting off to scavenge for stray bits of sausage and burgers. Zoe was going to be clearing up dog vomit in the very near future.
‘Thought you might need a refill,’ Zoe called out when she was a few feet away from Jackie and Nancy who were sitting on the little bench outside the shed Ken had built and painted a jolly sky blue.
Jackie obligingly shuffled up so Zoe could sit down and held out her glass to be topped up. ‘I was just saying how nice the garden looks and trying to persuade your mother to overhaul mine.’
Nancy beamed. ‘I’m sure Ken could manage without me for a week or so in the spring if Zoe wouldn’t mind putting me up.’
‘I warn you, she has very strong opinions about the ratio of lawn to decking,’ Zoe told Jackie, then turned to her mother. ‘Actually, Clive was looking for you. Wanted to know if you and Dad still fancied going out for lunch tomorrow?’
‘Oh, yes! We did make vague plans earlier in the week.’ Nancy immediately got to her feet. Zoe watched her mother hurry up the garden, her steps brisk, so much life and vitality in her small, trim figure.
‘I love my mum but she makes me feel like such a slacker,’ she remarked. ‘When I told her that occasionally Win and I spend a weekend having a boxed set binge, she was horrified.’
Jackie made a noncommittal noise and took a sip of her wine. Zoe liked to think that she and Jackie were close. Over the last decade, she’d spent more time with Jackie than her own mother. When she’d woken up in hospital, it had been Jackie holding her hand. Nobody could be further from the stereotypical, tyrannical mother-in-law, but now they sat there in silence, which felt like the safer option.
But safe wasn’t always an option.
‘I realise that I never thanked you for looking after me when I lost the baby,’ Zoe said, stumbling only slightly over the words. Jackie immediately stiffened.
‘You never, ever have to thank me for that, Zo,’ she said firmly. ‘It was the least, the very least… I wish I could have done more.’
‘You did so much,’ Zoe insisted but Jackie put a hand on her arm, a warning, and when Zoe glanced over at her tanned face, it was set and tight and she was blinking rapidly to stave off the tears. It was exactly how Win looked when he was overcome with emotions that he wanted nothing to do with. ‘I just wanted you to know how grateful I am, how much I love you.’
Jackie patted Zoe’s arm, which was an ‘I love you’ back, then she wiped away an imaginary crumb from her mouth. ‘So…’ she began heavily, ‘Gav said you and Win have been rowing a lot. That he dreaded turning up in the morning in case you’d murdered each other. Now, you know I don’t like to interfere…’ Jackie pulled an agonised face at the very thought of being even a little bit like Reenie, Gavin’s mother, a ninety-year-old cockney matriarch who had made interfering into an art form.
‘You don’t ever interfere,’ Zoe rushed to assure her. ‘And I thank you for that as well.’
‘But you and Win; you’re all right now, aren’t you?’ Jackie asked hopefully.
Zoe nodded. ‘Yeah, we’re getting there.’ It wasn’t fair to get Jackie involved but desperate times and all that. ‘I really want us to start trying for a baby but Win’s on the fence about it. I think he’d be an amazing dad, but he’s not convinced.’
Jackie caught Zoe’s eye and they both shook their heads, looked up to the heavens. ‘He would be an amazing dad,’ Jackie agreed. She wiped away another phantom crumb. ‘Terry, when he could be bothered, was a good dad. Or he was a better dad than he was a husband. Not that that was hard.’
‘Win never talks much about Terry… he goes all twitchy if I even mention his name. It makes me sad for Win.’ Zoe took a sip of her wine. ‘Makes me sad for Terry too because he’s lost out on so much by not having Win, or Ed, in his life any more.’
‘I know the boys took it hard that Terry cut all ties…’ Jackie took a huge gulp of her wine too. ‘Between you and me, and you have to promise not to tell Win… do you promise?’
She and Win didn’t have secrets, or rather they didn’t use to and Zoe wanted to get back to them being the most open of books. But she also wanted to know more about Terry, why things had broken down so irrevocably and why Jackie had the most anguished look on her face as if she couldn’t keep the truth in any longer. ‘I promise,’ she said rashly.
Jackie touched glasses with Zoe by way of a solemn and binding agreement. ‘Terry didn’t walk out, I threw him out,’ she said quickly, as if she wanted to be done with it. ‘The way we lived, it was so unfair on the boys, but you end up getting used to even the most awful situations. When I brought Ed home from the hospital we were living in a static caravan in Borehamwood. Terry always said it would get better… but it never did. Not for long, anyway.’ Zoe wanted to take her mother-in-law’s hand, but she didn’t know if Jackie would let her so instead she scooched over to be closer. ‘So many times I thought about leaving him, when he was away on one of his trips, which actually meant that he was in prison…’
‘You pretty much raised Win and Ed single-handed,’ Zoe told her. ‘And you did a bloody good job of it.’
‘I need a tissue.’ Jackie sniffed, then looked around for her handbag. She bent her head as she retrieved one then blew her nose. ‘I put up with so much for so long, thought the boys were better off with us together. The last time he got sent down, it was only for a month for handling stolen goods, but I told him I was done. He swore on his mother’s life that things would be different. We moved into a nice house in Winchmore Hill and I really thought he’d turned over a new leaf. We’d only been there a few weeks – I came home from work and I thought some of his associates had done over the place.’ She blew her nose again. ‘That shouldn’t be your first thought when you come in and find your house ransacked. I went into Win’s room and his moneybox was lying on the bed completely empty. So was Ed’s. It turned out that Terry owed someone something he couldn’t pay back so he’d stolen from his own sons but I didn’t know that then. I just stood there in Ed’s room and he hadn’t even unpacked because he knew that we’d be moving on in a few weeks because we always did. Enough was enough. The boys deserved so much more. I got my dad and my uncle to track Terry down and I told him that he couldn’t live with us any more. You never met my uncle Ron, he had a boxing gym under the old railway arches in King’s Cross, and you really did not want to get on the wrong side of him. Anyway, so Terry went and I’m sorry…’
‘You don’t have to be sorry.’ Zoe decided that it was time to put her arm round Jackie. ‘You deserved more than that too. And I love how the three of you look out for each other. That’s something special. You should be proud about that.’ She let out a shaky breath. ‘Do you miss him?’
There was a pause and Zoe wondered if she’d pushed too hard. Jackie ducked her head as if she didn’t have enough courage to look Zoe in the eye. ‘I’m sorry that the boys missed out on their dad being around.’ She swallowed hard, like she was choking down a sob. ‘But we were happier, much happier, without him. And it was down to Terry that he never wanted to see the boys after that. Never got in touch on their birthdays or Christmas. That’s what I really can’t forgive.’
Zoe had to let go of the older woman because she was in danger of crying too. It was her turn to sniff and Jackie smiled tremulously then lifted her hand to smooth it through Zoe’s hair. ‘I would hate it if telling you this makes you think less of me.’
‘Of course it doesn’t.’ Zoe felt as close to Jackie as if the bond between them weren’t simply a by-product of marriage, but made of flesh and blood. ‘But you should probably tell Win. You know what he’s like. On some level, he probably blames himself for Terry disappearing so if he knew what had really happened, it would give him some peace of mind.’
Jackie nodded like she’d give it some thought. ‘You’ve been so good for him, Zo. Even as a kid, he was so quiet, sensitive, that sometimes I don’t think he was truly happy until he met you.’
The love she had for Win at that moment felt as if it couldn’t be contained by the frame of her body and was seeping out of Zoe’s pores. ‘Well, I’m not saying he’s perfect and God knows, I’m certainly not, but I think we’re good for each other.’
‘But if the worst did happen…’ Jackie persisted.
‘It’s not going to,’ Zoe said, because even the thought of it made her guts churn and she really didn’t know what she’d do if Win decided that he didn’t want children. It would shatter her heart into a million pieces.
‘But if it did, Gav and I have already discussed it, and we’re getting custody of you. Win will have to fend for himself,’ Jackie said, as if Zoe without Win was so unthinkable that it was all right to make jokes about it. Zoe really hoped that was the case.
‘Look, if our relationship can survive the Sunday that you dragged me to every architectural salvage yard in the Home Counties before you found the right size Belfast sink, then it can survive anything.’
Jackie smiled, just as Zoe had intended. ‘I don’t know about you, Zo, but I really could do with some more wine. Wish I hadn’t brought the car now. I told Gavin that he was all right to get a bit pissed because I’d drive us home.’
‘Have some more wine,’ Zoe said firmly. ‘Get the bus. It’s a ten-minute ride. You can pick up the car tomorrow.’
‘Well, if you’re going to twist my arm.’ Jackie was already holding her glass up. ‘But can you break it to Gav that we’re taking the bus home?’