‘Ah,’ Trish catches her breath. ‘But it’s so … random.’
‘Love …’ John reaches his hand out to her.
‘No, I know what you mean,’ I say, a singsong in my voice that always pipes up when I’m trying to impress somebody. I definitely would’ve used it had I been given the chance to meet Jack’s parents prior to yesterday. ‘Out of context, it’s a very bizarre – to use your word, Mrs Carmichael – photograph. I can see how you think it’s random. But to Jack and to me, it represents a special moment, and also a boss holiday, and provides us with endless laughter, still.’
‘You went to Thailand with Jack?’ John asks.
‘Yeah. In March.’
Trish swivels from left to right, her arms folded. She’s still looking at the picture, but she isn’t laughing any more.
‘In fact,’ I continue, no stopping me now. ‘We always kind of joke about how one day we’ll go back there, to that spot, and find that man. Or go to the place where he works, because can you see he’s wearing a uniform and there’s a badge, see? Top right of his shirt. We just wanna meet this fella – say a proper hello! Ask him what he was doing in the shopping trolley. Find out his name; shake his hand.’
I’m expecting some sort of response, but I get zilch. The thick silence sits in the triangle between us all. I realise I just talked at John and Trish using Jack in the present tense. I hadn’t meant to do that, but they naturally picked up on it, loud and clear. I hug the paperback plays tight; feel them squash against my braless chest.
Trish stretches out her arm and taps the breakfast bar three times. This must be some sort of code for them to leave, because John stands up, puts his hand to the small of Trish’s back and picks up her orange Michael Kors handbag, carrying it for her. They float past me like ghosts and disappear into the hallway.
‘Look, I’m so sorry for your loss,’ I call after them.
They pause by the bookshelf, a particularly creaky floorboard beneath their feet. John looks over his shoulder and gives me a pained, but kind, smile. Trish is frozen, the back of her head facing me.
‘Take all the time you need, Chloe,’ she says. ‘We won’t be coming back here today.’
And she opens the door and leads the way outside, John following, his head bent low. He closes the door behind him gently, but the flat seems to shudder, just as it does every time a double decker bus trundles past the road. Oh God. I want to run after them, ask them seriously, what the fuck happened? Who is to blame? There’s always somebody to blame, isn’t there? And how … how did he actually—
SLAM!
I run into the kitchen. Jack?!
5
I spin a full circle, expecting him to spring up from behind the breakfast bar and shout ‘BOO!’ – I know there’s a good chance I’m losing the plot.
It’s just the back door shutting, from the draught when Trish and John left.
‘You never told them about me,’ I say.
The silence pinches me, hard.
I go to the fridge and take out the plastic tray of grapes. I think I’m hungry. Or thirsty.
Neither.
Jack will never be hungry or thirsty again.
I have to get ready and go to school, but the sofa beckons and I flop down. I place the tray of grapes onto the carpet beside my feet and rock forward, my head falling into my hands. This has all happened so fast – too fast. I can’t label how I’m feeling. Hollow? Sick? Grieving? Does grief happen straight away, or will it hit me tomorrow? Or the next day?
Is this grief? This?
‘Jack?’
I stare beyond the windowsill, cluttered with burnt-out tealights. Some are in beaded holders, some not, and there’s a ukulele that neither Jack nor I have ever played. My gaze burns past the frame, the window, the stone steps leading down from street level towards our front door. The remote is in my peripheral vision. I think about reaching for it. An ambulance siren sounds, gets louder, fades away. Footsteps from the ground-floor flat above pace about; a suitcase being wheeled. I’ve never met the fella who lives there. He travels a lot, according to Jack. A bird is chirping outside in the garden. I’m still pondering whether to reach for the remote.
I shake myself out, make a noise that resembles something like ‘Wuoghhh.’
How long was I spaced out for? A minute? Five?
Fuck me, thirty-five?
I put the grapes back in the fridge, pausing as I close the door. The magnet of the Leaning Tower of Pisa draws me to the photo of Jack on his dad’s shoulders in Majorca. A little lad, his whole life ahead of him …
No magnets on this fridge belong to me. I gave the one we bought in Thailand of a tuk-tuk to my nan. What does belong to me is confirmation for a ski lesson, printed off and Sellotaped up there by Jack on the chance I might ‘accidentally’ delete the email …
The flyer for Jack’s mate’s comedy gig is held up by a magnet I personally find very cute: a mini bowl of noodles. There are even teeny, tiny prawns inside the bowl. Jack got that in Vietnam, a place he was eager to revisit with me …
A flip-flop that doubles up as a bottle opener has a business card for Antonella tucked beneath it, the restaurant I’ve reserved a table at for Jack’s birthday …
There’s another business card popping out behind: some estate agent that Jack had been chatting to, keen for us to move out of this bunker flat to somewhere with a better view …
Beside that hangs the invite to my brother’s wedding …
And tickets to Mamma Mia! Jack won at a raffle in work last month …
Oh my. This is our life. Right here, on the fridge.
Even the gas bill is there.
‘I’m jealous you’re off work tomoz,’ I’d said, my head resting on Jack’s chest as we lay in bed the other night. ‘What you gonna do?’
‘Pay the gas bill,’ Jack said, his voice dry, lazy, already half asleep. ‘And then, fuck all.’
But he didn’t pay it. I know this because the gas bill wouldn’t still be on the fridge. It would be ripped up and in the recycling; done and dusted. Jack was a total geek about things like that. He’d get angry if he found an out-of-date Sainsbury’s Nectar coupon in his wallet.
I flatten the bill against the wall, iron out the creases with my fist, tickle the bold letters spelling ‘Jack Carmichael’. This banal, boring piece of paper no longer belongs to the world I exist in. It’s history. Yesterday morning, it had colour: it was presumed continuous. But today …
Today!
I have to phone the school. Tell them I won’t be in. I’m sick. Very sick. Vomiting, diarrhoea; it’s come on quickly. I’m sorry. I almost sob. I gather myself. Once again, I’m sorry. I know I’m new to the school. This isn’t normal. It’s odd. Very odd. They understand. I’ll be in on Monday. I promise. I’m sure it’s just a twenty-four-hour thing. It can’t be permanent.
It can’t be.
I pay the gas bill online. Then I slip back onto the sofa, my gaze fixed on a crack in the paintwork on the ceiling. Here I remain, all day.
6
I spend the weekend pretty low key, in my comfies. I listen to Jack’s latest playlist on Spotify – some Beach Boys, Bowie, a lot of Creedence Clearwater Revival – his iPad is still connected to the speaker on the breakfast bar. Breakfast is skipped. Lunch is whatever I can find: toast; crisps; a tin of spaghetti hoops, cold. I order takeaway for my dinner, lots of it; a habit we’d gotten into. I don’t eat a single bite. I just stare at the boxes. It’s incomprehensible that I’ll never do this with Jack again, ever.