Marry Him

by Marina Ford

  “Yes, yes,” I say, although half the things he just said went in and out of my head without attaching to any meaning.

  “What I need you to do now . . .” He keeps talking, but I notice something is different. The room has gone strangely quiet. Everybody is staring at the door. I look up.

  “Listen to me, Joe,” Kieran says. “Joe?”

  Right there, in my hotel room door, stands Harry. Siobhan gasps. Frank’s eyes are so wide, you’d think he’s seeing a ghost. Chloe looks to me.

  At first I think it’s my imagination, because by now I have pictures of him floating dead in a Scandinavian river, with one of those alcoholic Scandi-noir detectives down on her haunches examining him with a mixture of pity and cold disdain. But he’s here. His shirt is crumpled, his jeans are stained, he has sweat stains under both armpits, his hair is a mess, and he’s pale and bleary-eyed, but he’s alive and well, and right here on our wedding day. I throw off the phone and run at him until he’s in my arms. I’m hugging him so hard he laughs.

  “I can’t breathe,” he says, though his arms are around me as well.

  In the background, I hear Ollie telling Kieran that Harry is found. Siobhan and Chloe demand to know where he was. Frank says he’s opening the whisky.

  I don’t care what they say or do.

  Harry came back to me.

  Chloe herds everybody out of the room under protest. When Harry and I are alone, he takes the room in, with the curtain blackened on the floor, the trousers singed to the ironing board, the empty alcohol bottles on the table, the vague scent of dog.

  “Was there a fire in here?” he asks.

  “Oh yes,” I say. I stare at him. It’s really him. He’s here. “Where have you been? Why didn’t you call me? Did you get my messages?”

  “Yes,” he says, smiling apologetically. “I got them all at once, during a layover at Doha.”

  “Doha!” I cry. “What— Where— Why?”

  There’s a knock on the door.

  Arabella shouts, “The registrar is readying to leave, boys.”

  “Just—just hold on to him for another five minutes, okay?” Harry shouts back. He turns to me again. “Okay, promise not to be cross.”

  I remember his message again. I messed up, it said. I’m sorry. A thousand thoughts tumble through my head. What could he have possibly done to merit such a message?

  “What did you do?”

  “Okay, okay . . .” He keeps saying that word, like he’s buying himself time to think of the right way to frame his news. I know he hasn’t gone back to Kieran, so what else could he have possibly done? Maybe he met another guy altogether? That seems far-fetched even to my tired, paranoid mind.

  “Okay,” he says at last. “Do you remember how you wanted to propose to me, and you went to such lengths to plan the perfect proposal because you knew I would appreciate all the planning and preparation that you went through?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right,” he says. “So . . . so here’s the funny thing . . . before you proposed to me, I had a similar idea.”

  My heart jumps. “You—you wanted to propose to me?”

  “I wanted to do something special, you know, to show you . . .” He takes in a shaky breath, tugs at his hair. “Well, anyway, I thought to myself that you would like it if I did something wild and spontaneous.”

  I laugh. “What do you mean? What did you do?”

  “Right . . .” he says. “Er, would you like to go down and get married first, real quick? And then I tell you everything?”

  “No, you bastard, tell me now!” I say, though I can’t help laughing. “What happened?”

  Visibly nervous, he paces the room.

  “Okay,” he says, rubbing his mouth. “I don’t know how to say this without you punching me right in the face.”

  “Did you sleep with someone?”

  “God, no!” He looks outraged. “No. It’s not that. It’s . . .” He swallows. “I tracked down your birth parents.”

  My mouth falls open. For a moment, his words don’t make any sense. I think of my Jehovah’s Witness father, and I think, What did you do that for? but then the word parents connects with birth and I have another, quite different feeling rising up.

  “You—you what?”

  “I know,” he says, anxiously. “I know it was a terrible idea, but it just came to me one day. You were writing a Christmas card to that Yvonne woman, and you looked so— And I remembered all the false starts and—and then I thought, ‘Hey, here’s a crazy, spontaneous thing I could do for Joe’ . . . and then I did it. I hired a private detective and I found them.”

  I stare at him.

  “They live in Australia. I was going to leave it at that, and just let you know that they’re there, in case you wanted to get in touch. And that’s what I should have done,” he says. “But you know me. I can never leave well enough alone. So I contacted them. Just to say hi, you know? To check them out and see if they’re all right. I didn’t want you to get in touch with them and find out they’re horrible people. Which is when things started going horribly wrong.”

  “The phone calls,” I say in a sudden light bulb moment. “The phone calls in the middle of the night from Australia! Your emails! Your bank statements! How jumpy and nervous you were these past few months. Was that them?”

  “Er, yes,” he says, chagrined. “Them and their lawyers.”

  “What?”

  “Well, it turned out, after I got in touch with them, they were in legal trouble. I—I might have helped them out a bit.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  “Drugs. No, they’re not junkies or anything like that. They live in a sort of bohemian commune, and they were arrested on charges of drug dealing. They were entirely innocent,” he rushes to add, at my horrified expression, “it was all a misunderstanding, but they couldn’t afford a good lawyer, and so I hired them one. And you know me, once I’m involved in something, I involve myself in it. So this past week they had their hearing, and I thought I’d just fly out there and make sure it went okay. It was a tense week, but we managed to get them out of it. It didn’t feel like the sort of thing to tell you over the phone. I was going to be back yesterday, and then I was going to tell you everything, but my flight got delayed.”

  He sighs. I don’t know what to say.

  “At my layover in Qatar, I got all your messages,” he says. “I felt horrible and was going to ring you right back, but then we were herded onto our plane, and I thought it’s probably more important I make it here on time than call you back right away. So I’m here now.”

  Seeing my speechless face, he exhales deeply. “I don’t know how you do it. I don’t know how you just throw yourself at these schemes without a moment’s thought! I promise, I will never do anything spontaneous ever again.”

  Arabella interrupts him with another knock on the door. “Boys, the registrar is packing up. What do you want to do?”

  My head’s spinning. It’s all too much. I want to ask him a million questions. My birth parents. I couldn’t believe that he’d seen them. Talked to them.

  “I know this was way, way over the line,” Harry says, looking absolutely crestfallen. I realise that he thinks I’m wavering about the ceremony. “I’m so, so sorry . . .”

  “Boys?” Arabella says.

  “I’ll tell her to let him go, shall I? You’ll need time to process this and—” Harry begins, quietly.

  “No,” I say, snapping back to the moment. “I want to marry you. Today.”

  He looks surprised. “Y-you do?”

  “Above everything.” I take his hand.

  “Thank God,” he says, laughing with relief.

  Four and a Half Years Before the Big Day

  I was on the bus home from Frank and Gabriella’s place when Ralph rung again, offering to take me out to dinner. He was being persistent. For the past two weeks, he’d been ringing nearly every day.

  “I’m very busy at the moment,” I lied
. Then, knowing that it was what I was supposed to do, I added, “Tomorrow, maybe?”

  “It’s a date,” he said, sounding like he was smiling. Oh God.

  I rung Chloe to see what she was doing for dinner.

  “Stuck at work until late, I’m afraid,” she said. “You can have some of my leftovers. In fact, I insist. Your mother looks at me like I’m never feeding you. How are the lovebirds?”

  Gabriella was still in bed with the cold she caught while trying out hot-air ballooning for Frank’s birthday. It meant they had to spend Frank’s birthday at home, with her in bed.

  “Disgusting, as you can imagine.”

  “I can’t imagine Frank being a particularly good nurse.”

  “Actually, it was sort of sweet. Their internet went down so he ended up re-creating the last ten minutes of A New Hope for her. He kicked one of her plants across the room.”

  Chloe laughed. “I’m sure that helped with her headache.”

  “It was a distraction, at least.”

  I got off the bus and jumped over a puddle. The bus stop wasn’t far from my building, and I was still on the phone with Chloe when I went up the stairs, skipping steps. She was telling me what I could have to eat for dinner, when I nearly tripped.

  “Wah!” I cried.

  “Joe?”

  Chloe said my name at the same time as the man sitting in front of my door. It was dingy in there, but my heart stuttered when I heard the voice.

  “Harry?”

  “Harry!” Chloe cried on the other side.

  Harry got to his feet. I stared at him like he was a famous person. Like I couldn’t believe I was actually looking at Harry Byrne. I hadn’t seen him in months, and my first thought was how fucking hot he was, before I realised that he wasn’t looking very well at all.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Give him to me!” Chloe cried over my mobile. “I’ll give him a piece of my—”

  I hung up on her.

  “What happened to you?” I asked. He was unshaven, which was unusual for him, and he had lines on his face, as if he’d not slept.

  He scratched the back of his neck.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Just—just thought I’d come by and say hello.”

  I stared at him. “What?”

  Thoughts tumbled in my head: Does Kieran know you’re here? Come by and say hello? After six months? Are you high?

  I didn’t say any of that. I merely stared. He cleared his throat.

  “Can I come in?”

  I remembered the door and the key in my hand. Wordlessly, I opened it and let him pass through. Then I meticulously locked the door behind me. Buying time.

  The flat was an absolute tip, as usual. There was a painting I’d started a few weeks ago standing in the middle of what normal people would call a sitting room, and consequently the floor was covered in a paint-bespattered tarp, and the sink was black with paint.

  Harry briefly scanned the painting, smiled slightly. “That’s nice.”

  “Thank you.”

  He ran his hand through his hair, ruffling it in a way I used to find adorable, and so I looked away and waited, staring at the window.

  “How have you been?” he asked, at last.

  “Good, thanks. You?”

  He mumbled something about feeling fine. It occurred to me now that perhaps he’d come to tell me he and Kieran were getting married. Perhaps he was worried about me finding out some other way, and so he, considerate as he thought he was, decided to travel all this way, to break it to me gently.

  It came upon me like a massive wave: I would not be able to handle that. The last thing I wanted was to break down in front of him, but that was precisely what would happen. It would break me.

  I could see no way of escape. He was standing there, his eyes begging me to understand, and I knew he would subject me to this, he would do this, in the name of what he imagined to be decency.

  He opened his mouth, but I stopped him before he could say a word. “Don’t tell me. Honestly, do me a favour and just—just don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

  He closed his mouth again. The pink around his eyes was more pronounced by how ashen his complexion was. A vein stood up on his forehead.

  “If you ask me,” I said, “this is a huge mistake. I mean, massive. I mean, it’s one of those things where you can see the train wreck from a mile away, but you’re supposed to be gracious about it and not say anything. So I’m not going to say anything. I’m just going to leave it at that.”

  He stared at me, his grey eyes wide. “Uhm. What?”

  I exhaled, impatient. “You and Ötzi.”

  Harry bit his lip.

  I continued, “So if you came here to warn me or to give me a heads-up, please don’t. I don’t want to know. I’d rather live in a world where I never know.”

  As I spoke, I knew I was lying to myself. I did want to know. I just didn’t want it to be true. Frustrated, I turned away and paced over to the kitchen.

  “Do you want tea or something?” I said tersely over my shoulder.

  “No, thank you.”

  I put the kettle on anyway and started to rummage through the cupboards in search of tea. Or coffee. Or, really, nothing at all. The clutter in our cupboards was wonderful, because it gave me an excuse to busy myself with searching through every jar and rattling every half-empty box.

  “I’m not with Kieran anymore.”

  I froze.

  “We broke up. A month ago.”

  I turned, slowly. “What?”

  He shrugged. “It wasn’t working. From the start it was wrong. That thing that was broken before we split up that first time . . . it was way more broken than I think either of us realised. I just never noticed, wouldn’t have known, if I hadn’t—” he paused, looked up to meet my eyes and then, gulping, gave me one of his crooked smiles “—if it hadn’t been for you.”

  Who knew knees could actually go weak? I turned away. I’d let this happen before. I wasn’t going to let him just burst into my life, explode into my heart, wreak havoc indiscriminately until he made up his mind what he wanted.

  “So, what? Kieran disappointed you again, so you came here to shag yourself happy again?”

  His smile fell. “No . . .”

  I scoffed.

  “You have every right to be angry,” he said. “I was stupid. It was a stupid, stupid thing to do and I regretted it pretty much as soon as I had a good night’s sleep over it.”

  At my uncomprehending stare, he said, “He’d come over in the evening . . .”

  “I don’t want to know.” Panic swept over me. I’d imagined the evening of Kieran returning over and over again, until it made the edges of my sanity as solid as wet paper towels.

  “Please, let me explain . . .” He took a step towards me, but I took a step back. No way could I cope with him touching me on top of everything else. My composure hung at the end of a very thin and worn thread.

  “He’d come in the evening,” he continued, determinedly, “and we talked, and he told me how much he’d hated being in the closet, how he hated having to lie and hide all the time, and what a toll it took on him. He told me how he hated how he’d treated me, and how ashamed he was of everything he’d said and done. He’d started counselling, had made progress telling his family and colleagues at work . . .”

  All I could think of was my oblivious, goofy-arse self packing for the trip at that very same time, thinking about how much fun I’d be having with him in Vegas. I’d imagined flying together, sex in the hotel room, sightseeing. I remembered Harry’s phone call.

  “While he was doing all of that stuff for me,” he continued, “I had cheerfully moved on! I’d met you, and was having—” He paused, threw up his hands. “I was having a great time with you.” He laughed, like he was being ridiculous. “The wonderful thing is, I think at the time you seemed like a great hookup precisely because you were the last man I thought I’d ever—”

  A prick of fear
. Say it, I thought. I was the type to play with and leave, wasn’t I? I’d always been that. Say it, I dare you.

  “I honestly thought,” he said, putting his hand in his hair and pulling in frustration, “that I’d been in love with Kieran. At least at the beginning. I had no idea that I hadn’t been, ever, until I met you and fell so much harder than I ever thought was possible. And it happened so fucking quickly too. I mean, Jesus, Joe, it made no sense! I’d known you a few days and I couldn’t sleep without thinking about you. You, with your card tricks and your infectious laugh and your ready response to absolutely anything somebody might say to you. You drove me wild. And him? I’d known him for years. We’d travelled. We’d lived together! We knew each other inside and out. I’d been the one who demanded more commitment, who accused him of not loving me enough. Then you came along and suddenly— I felt so guilty and ashamed, like I’d cheated or—or gaslighted him, or something.”

  I held on to the kitchen counter. Dizzyingly, his words hit me.

  “We spoke all night,” he continued, “and I was tired, and I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t think that what I was feeling with you was . . . permanent. I thought perhaps this was the sort of thing you did all the time. Perhaps this was only exciting and intense for me because I’m boring and I—I just haven’t experienced that much before. What Kieran was saying made sense, even if I wasn’t feeling what I should have been feeling. God, I hated calling you the next day. You have no idea.”

  “Getting that call was no picnic,” I muttered.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He looked so worn and defeated; his handsome face was like an aged, deflated version of his normal self.

  “I was trying to be fair,” he said. “And somehow, in the process, I hurt everybody. I’m an idiot, and—and if I’m too late and you’re seeing somebody else or—or you’ve moved on and don’t want to bother with me anymore, I understand. I just needed to tell you.”