Zoe was weeping with laughter, tears rolling down her cheeks, as she dabbed at her running nose. She was clutching the edge of the table, rocking back and forth, as Liz put her hand on Zoe’s shoulder, in a similar condition herself.
‘Don’t – don’t—’ Zoe tried to shake her head.
‘And the worst thing was – I didn’t even know the guy who was in there! It was just some dude from the bus station!’
Zoe and Liz were both gasping, vaguely aware that others were watching them. Zoe couldn’t breathe for a moment as she imagined the terrible, terrible situations that Liz somehow always managed to find herself in, in some form or other. She’d just about managed to calm herself down, hiccupping, when Liz muttered, ‘As if I’m meant to carry bananas around the whole time, just in case,’ and they were both off again, Zoe’s mascara running down her face and her breath catching.
Eventually they calmed themselves, and Zoe’s breathing had returned to normal, with the aid of a dose of cold water, when Liz asked, semi-casually, ‘How’s the wedding planning going? I know you love that question.’
Zoe quickly sobered up, pushing around the scraps of food left on her plate. ‘I don’t know. It seems like ages away. Do we need to do anything now? Isn’t there some honeymoon period of being engaged where you don’t have to actually do anything else yet?’
‘And are we hoping that honeymoon period lasts around sixty to seventy years?’
‘Maybe.’ Zoe smiled. ‘What would you do in this situation?’
‘If I was engaged to someone I wanted to marry? I dunno – book a venue, buy a dress, get the drinks in?’
‘It’s not that I don’t want to be engaged to Jack …’
‘But it’s the bit after that you don’t fancy?’ She cleared her throat. ‘Look, let’s think about it this way: if you imagine yourself in one, or three, or ten years’ time, already married to Jack, how does that make you feel?’
Zoe clutched at her throat and started making choking noises. ‘I feel … interesting?’
‘Right. Perhaps I won’t book that hen-weekend spa break just yet.’
Zoe slumped in her seat. ‘But how do I tell him? “Sorry I said yes, Jack, I actually don’t want to marry you and never will”?’
‘But you do still love him?’
‘Yes! Hugely! I want to be with him, and only him, for as long as I can possibly imagine. But I just don’t want the wedding and the marriage and all that stuff. And we’d talked about it, we’d agreed that we weren’t going to get married, that we were fine just as we were – that’s what I can’t get my head around. And he knows all about … the Chuck stuff. Well. Enough of it at least.’
‘Blimey. Right, so you’re not breaking up with him. Maybe try and talk to him about all of this then. And if it looks like he’s freaking out, maybe just ask how he’d feel about a very, very, very long engagement. It’s not cancelling the wedding, it’s extending the pre-wedding.’
‘Nice. Ok. You’re right, this is crazy. I shouldn’t be keeping something like this from him.’ Zoe rolled Jack’s engagement ring around her finger. ‘I could live with an indefinite engagement. If that’s what it took. A pre-wedding. I can do that.’
Somehow, she’d known something was wrong before her key had even reached the lock. Afterwards she’d wondered if the sound of Jack’s voice had seeped through their front door into the shared hallway. Her heart was pounding by the time she was through, and she could see him, pacing in front of the sofa, almost shouting into the landline receiver in his hand: ‘WELL FIND SOMEONE WHO DOES THEN.’ As he saw her, he collapsed, banging his leg against the corner of the coffee table and lying crumpled in a grey heap against the sofa. Zoe gently took the phone from him. She heard the voice on the end, speaking in Spanish and broken English, talking in a gentle tone, gently but repetitively saying over and over, un accidente and coche and tu madre. It was the language and the tone that told her everything, just as it had told Jack before her, and they only needed a translator at the other end to confirm that their worst impression was, in fact, the correct one.
Somehow she found herself writing notes, listing the details of what they would need to take to Spain, the things they had to do, and then she was making Jack drink a strong, sugary tea, while she also looked up flights. Later, there was a howling from the bedroom – Jack howling, tears drowning his face. She pressed herself against him as though she was trying to get into his skin and carry all of this pain for him, because what use was anything if she couldn’t help the person she loved most in the world, right at this moment? Then he was asleep, and it was dark, and she called her parents because that was the only thing she could possibly do now, and they cried too, but in a way that made her feel better. Her mum said she’d be over in fifteen minutes, even if she had to jump every red light there was. When they’d hung up Zoe thought for a horrible moment, Is that how Linda died? Jumping a red light? And there was a horrible quarter of an hour where Zoe thought her mum would never arrive and they’d get another call, this time in English.
Eventually, she was there on her doorstep, holding Zoe and squeezing her. She knew they were both thinking, though neither of them could say it, that one day she wouldn’t be here to squeeze Zoe like this, and this shared, silent thought made them both hold each other even tighter, until Jack woke again and Zoe’s mum was in their bedroom, holding him like she’d held Zoe, as he howled into her shoulder. Zoe sat on the sofa, staring at the pattern on her socks until Jack was asleep again and her mum was next to her.
When she finally went to sleep that night, almost as the sun was coming up, she was glad that she hadn’t said anything about pulling out of the wedding to anyone in the family. She decided that she’d never think about it again.
They flew out the next evening, with bags someone had packed. Her mum had offered to come too, and Zoe had wanted to say yes, but Jack had said, No, thanks very much, but no. That night, they slept in Linda’s spare room. Neither of them could bring themselves to open Linda’s bedroom door, but they were alive enough to wash and dress the next morning, taking a taxi to the crematorium. Everything felt hurried. Jack just wanted everything done. Here. Now. Graham wasn’t coming – he was himself in hospital, having developed a touch of pneumonia. Zoe couldn’t help but think that at any other time they would have worried themselves sick about him. But this time, there were other things to focus on.
It still seemed like a dream.
They’d spoken to Linda only a few days before. She’d teased Zoe about the wedding, and Zoe hadn’t really minded, because it was Linda, wasn’t it? How could they be standing here, doing this? Listening to these words she didn’t really understand? She felt dizzy. Just an accident on the road, they’d explained, a dangerous corner, maybe an animal had scared her, maybe she’d just lost concentration, but that was all it took to switch from Linda Alive, teasing Zoe on the phone while Jack mouthed jokingly I’m not here in their kitchen, to Linda Dead, in a box, about to be burnt up, Zoe thought wildly.
She felt sick. She took Jack’s arm, and he pulled her to him, holding her so she couldn’t see the box going in, even though Zoe felt it should be her protecting him from such a monstrous sight. They both cried and Zoe could feel him shaking and shaking, every last part of him.
Afterwards, they emerged outside, the sunlight disconcertingly bright and warm on their skin, although both of them looked grey. Some other people followed them out – local friends of Linda’s who had somehow heard of the funeral – but Jack just looked at Zoe, wanting to avoid conversation with the other mourners. He lifted her hand to his mouth, kissing her finger where her engagement ring was, and Zoe understood then that any wedding ceremony was purely a formality. She was married to Jack now, as far as it mattered.
Over the next few weeks and months, they didn’t talk much about the wedding at all. Nothing had been settled by then anyway: whatever had been a point of discussion was now just understood, with details to be signed and sealed later on. Jack was deep in his grief, and Zoe just tried to focus on being there with him, carrying him through those moments where he wasn’t at work, concentrating and nodding and smiling and reassuring his professional world that yeah, it was shit, but he was ok.
Every day he went to his shop like he was on autopilot. At home he would sit in silence, on the sofa or at their little table, no radio or TV on, just staring into space, with Zoe, Iffy or sometimes even Liz looking on. They’d make him warm drinks, encourage him to sip them, and have a slice of toast or some chopped fruit, which mostly he’d do, uncomplainingly but mindlessly taking what they gave him, chewing and swallowing without noticing what it was. Jack would sometimes come to her parents’ house; the first time, Zoe’s dad had hugged him, then all of her sisters had come and wrapped themselves around him too, and they’d stood like that for a long time. Zoe’s mum made him meal after meal, meals that he’d thank her for but leave to cool and congeal on his plate. Her parents would turn up at the flat from time to time, separately, with yet more food, or a magazine, or a book, or some fresh fruit from the market.
Once, when Zoe came home from school, Jack was just standing at their window, staring out, wrapped in a duvet over his work clothes. She came to stand with him and he opened up the duvet to her, and they stood there for over an hour, until it was completely dark and she put him to bed.
A month after they had brought Linda’s ashes back from Spain, Zoe met Ava to catch up over coffees and bagels at their favourite café. ‘I just don’t want him to ever feel that I’m waiting for him to get over it, to be … normal again,’ she said, thoughtfully.
‘Which you are,’ Ava said.
Zoe sighed. ‘I just want to stop him hurting, that’s all. I know he’s grieving, and he’s got to grieve, and it’s right for him to grieve, but I want to be able to do something. To just have to watch and not be able to make him feel any better, ever … It’s torture.’
‘That’s normal too, Zo. You love him, and you want to fix him.’
‘But I know that I can’t. That it’s not something that can be fixed.’
But honestly, Zoe did want to fix him, and she was waiting for the day when life would return to some semblance of normality. She’d never admit it, never out loud, but there were tiny fragments of moments where she’d think, Oh Jack, is this how it’s going to be forever? If I could wave a magic wand with just one wish, I’d make all of this pain go away, set us all back to normal.
She understood the theories of the importance of grief, but she also knew how much she missed Jack, her Jack, and how different everything felt in her life while he found a new way to live with his loss. She wanted to carry him through a time when he didn’t even seem touchable. She wished things were how they used to be.
Then, one day, he started coming back. She woke up one morning and he was in the kitchen, making bacon-and-egg sandwiches for them, although she could see no external change in circumstance between that day and the day before. One day she got home and the lights were on in the flat, and Jack was humming a little as he ironed his shirts in front of the TV. They had sex again, which had seemed an impossible silence between them, she realised once it had been broken. He went to one of Iffy’s dinners, and though he was quiet on the way home and went straight to bed, cocooned in the duvet, Zoe still knew that progress had been made. The progress wasn’t linear – some nights he woke her, woke them both, crying in their bed, confused and lost and full of pain – but he was coming through something, a different shape, but coming back to her, each of them full of joy at being together again.
Then, one morning, over marmalade toast and a cafetière of brewing coffee, Jack pulled down the newspaper she was reading and with a huge smile of glowing joy, said, ‘Shall we just get on with this? The wedding, I mean. Life’s too short. Let’s just get married.’
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.