Page 29 of Seven Rules for a Perfect Marriage

I look at the floor because I’m not sure where else to look. Pathetically, I can feel my neck getting red with pride. I can’t remember the last time Jessica said something about me which wasn’t a criticism. But then, when was the last time I said something kind about her? We’re rustier at this than I had realised.

‘This is going to sound a bit obvious,’ I say, moving my gaze to the bottom of my champagne glass. I’d really like to brush this off with a joke. But that’s not what we’re doing here. ‘But sometimes I forget that Jess needs a cheerleader, because she’s got literally a million of them online. But that’s me getting complacent about what a force of nature she is. We’re all standing here because of her. She built this. She’s a powerhouse like no one else I’ve ever known.’

My stomach twists as I force myself to look up, to see whether I’ve said the wrong thing again, if I wasn’t supposed to suggest that the bulk of the Seven Rules work was done by her. But she’s smiling her real smile, the one she trained herself not to do because her stepmother once said it made her look squinty.

‘Well, what a great place to end the introductions,’ says Suze. ‘Shall we go through to dinner?’

The First Holiday

Jack

‘Cabin crew, prepare for landing,’ the pilot’s voice crackles over the speaker.

‘Ready to land?’ I ask Jessica, who is gazing out of the window taking photos of the wing of the plane on her new pink phone.

‘Can’t wait.’ She smiles. She’s got heart-shaped sunglasses perched on her head and her skin is a deep terracotta from the tan I helped her apply last night. I find it a bit confusing that she can’t go on holiday without already looking like she’s been on holiday, but given that Jessica is miles out of my league and constantly looks incredible, I don’t feel the need to share this thought.

‘I know. An entire week of wine, sun, sleeping and shagging.’

‘I thought you’d be looking forward to the museums and all that lame shit,’ she laughs.

‘Actually, the thing I’m most looking forward to is watching you speak Spanish.’ I lean in for a kiss. ‘Bonita.’

She told me once, when we were first emailing back and forth, that she’s too self-conscious to use her Spanish in England, that she only speaks it when she’s in Spain. This week, I’m finally going to get to see the woman I fancy so much I might explode do the sexiest thing that a woman can do and speak another language fluently.

She starts putting everything back into her handbag, haphazardly stuffing a paperback in, pages splayed open. ‘In like, five hours, we’re going to be sitting on our own terrace drinking wine and watching the sun go down,’ she says.

We started planning this holiday, like a pair of total clichés, the day we got home from our families’ for Christmas. We’d bothhad miserable times, obviously, because that’s the point of family at Christmas. The damp flat where she lived was freezing, she’d left a load of wet laundry in the machine by accident and it had grown a forest of mould. I’d dropped my phone between the train platform and the train on the way to her place. ‘We need something to look forward to,’ she’d announced, with complete certainty. ‘Let’s book a trip.’

It turned out, in the process of organising our first grown-up holiday, that Jessica and I had different ideas of what a holiday looks like. For me it was always a long car journey, usually north of Cambridge, often to the Lake District. I’d be between my taller brothers, agonisingly bored, while we listened to a tape of Greek myths and legends. We’d arrive late and I’d get out with cramping legs, covered in crumbs from the car picnic. And then we’d spend the following days tramping through the rain to houses where famous politicians or poets had once lived. I’d watch my parents carefully reading little plaques next to paintings, and in the evenings they’d read their books on the floral sofas of whatever cottage they’d rented, while I wondered what it would be like to go to Center Parcs.

Jessica’s parents were from a more glam school of travel. She describes flights to upmarket package holidays where smiling twenty-somethings who had trained as dancers would meet them at the airport and usher them on to an air-conditioned coach and drive them to a compound with a view of the sea where the food was reassuringly not foreign. She’d be packed off to kids’ club every morning while her parents slow-roasted themselves on the beach. She mentioned once that she’d longed to be allowed to join them, that she had spent her childhood wondering how old she’d have to be before she was allowed to lie next to them in silence, feeling like a family.

So, given that we’d both had fairly depressing experiences of holidays growing up, we decided to do something different. Jessica found a little apartment on some new website where you can rent people’s houses, and I rented us a car. And for the five months between booking the trip to Spain and getting on the flight, it became a sort of prayer, like a meditation. When we were cold or grumpy or had bad days, we’d talk about sitting outside the little villa drinking Fanta Lemon and eating crisps, swimming, rubbing sun cream into each other’s skin. She talked about linen sundresses and buying really big tomatoes at the market; I talked about finally getting time to work on my novel, plotting away in a Moleskine notebook.

We arrive at Madrid-Barajas to discover that they’re having a heatwave. We get off the plane, descend the metal steps and then wait for the better part of an hour, on the tarmac, in the bus which doesn’t have air conditioning.

‘Apparently this is the worst airport in Europe,’ Jessica says cheerfully, looking up from her phone with a smile. ‘One to tick off the bucket list.’

‘A superlative is a superlative,’ I say, kissing her. We’re far too in love to be bothered. It was cold at home, it’s hot here. ‘Anyway,’ I tell her, ‘this way when we get through passport control, our bags will be waiting for us.’

Obviously this tempted fate, because we make our way through the longest, slowest queue imaginable and arrive at baggage reclaim to watch a handful of suitcases circling around like the last dishes at a YO! Sushi. We sit for another ten minutes before it becomes clear that our suitcases have not made it to Spain.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Tell you what. I’ll go and get the hire car, and you go fill out a lost luggage complaint.’

Jessica looks blank. ‘Why me?’

‘I don’t think the car hire place will need much Spanish, but you’re going to have to convince them to give you some money upfront to get new clothes, and give them the forwarding address for the house and stuff.’ She looks blank again, which is starting to confuse me. ‘You’re the only one who speaks Spanish?’

A look of realisation crosses her face. ‘Oh. Yes. Of course. Because I speak Spanish.’

I head off to the car queue, pick up the keys and locate the Fiat 500 we’re driving for the week, which has been parked in direct sunlight and therefore has door handles so hot that I can barely open it. I sit inside, running the air con for a bit like some kind of billionaire, and thinking how great it’s going to be when Jess gets here and I’ve made it all nice and cool for her.

Half an hour later, she’s still not back. I call her, and there’s no answer. So I lock the car, walk back to the terminal and arrive, sweating, to find Jessica standing in front of the lost luggage desk, her face streaked with tears, doing a complicated mime.

‘Los baggos,’ she says, very slowly. ‘Mi baggage, est non ici.’

‘Jess?’ I say from behind her. She jumps, then whirls around to look at me.

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