Sunshine on a Rainy Day: A funny, feel-good romantic comedy. Bryony Fraser
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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