by Fox Brison
“Not the beach no.” I gave another goofy grin, an almost permanent fixture since I chose the ring.
“Show Mam.” Sara prodded my arm and I bashfully showed it to my Mam.
“Oh, Nat, it’s beautiful.” It was a small ruby set in a Celtic knot work silver band. I deliberated going for the traditional diamonds until I saw the setting for this. “Skye’s going to love it. I’m so chuffed, pet.”
“So where? Where, where, where?” Sara bounced on her toes.
“In the hut on the causeway. I remember once when we were driving home from Newcastle, Skye pointed at it and told me that’s where her heart began to heal. I’ll get Tommy to take us out on his boat.”
“In. The. Hut? Are you mad? That’s about as romantic as cold fish and chips.” Sara looked at me like I had two heads.
“No, Sara,” Mam interrupted, “Nat knows Skye better than any of us. I think it’s perfect.”
Live in hope and die in despair as my gran would say, I muttered to myself.
Chapter 35
Natalie
I spent the rest of the day preparing the hut on the causeway for the proposal. And yes I’m using the definite article because I didn’t intend to make another one. In my mind, ‘the proposal’ was written in neon letters the size of the Hollywood sign, complete with halogen spotlights as big as trampolines.
Stepping back, I admired my handiwork.
It would come as a surprise to most to discover I was the quixotic one, the dreamer in our relationship. In real life, despite writing several novels with amorous arcs as part of their plots, Skye and romance weren’t really on speaking terms, in fact Katy Perry and Taylor Swift had more warm and heartfelt communication.
Not to blow my own trumpet but I was pretty darned impressed with my efforts. Now all I have to do is convince Skye to come here late on Christmas Eve when it’s dark and the tide is in.
Yep, I really hadn’t thought this through properly.
***
“Nat, I’m tired. Whatever it is, it’ll have to wait until tomorrow,” Skye whined.
She was always tired, hardly surprising because she wasn’t sleeping. However, I would accept no more excuses, nor any further prevarication, procrastination or hesitation. It was the last minute of the World Cup final and I placed the ball on the penalty spot; the dry heaves were gone, the sweaty palms were wiped on my jeans. I was focussed on my target and this time I couldn’t afford to miss.
Walking to the end of my run up I turned to face the goal and inhaled deeply.
“No, Skye, it can’t wait.” I remained steadfast in the face of her mulishness.
“Nat, what on earth’s gotten into you?” she huffed. “We’re supposed to be at your parent’s by eight and I haven’t even showered yet. I look a right state.”
“Darling,” I clasped her hand in mine, “you look beautiful. Please, Skye, this is important.” A lick of my lips as I psyched out the goalkeeper giving her the eyes, or in this case, my patented puppy dog look.
“Okay, fine, if only to stop your nagging.” She then proceeded do to a very good impression of a stroppy teenager, shooting me a mixture of daggers and pained expressions.
All whilst taking twenty minutes to pull on her coat and boots.
***
Outside the sky was an elegant ebony shawl decorated with wispy swirls of grey clouds, fine threads of silvery moonlight, and a million sequins glittering beatifically upon the silent world below. It was a crisp night, the frosty air battling for dominance with our warm breaths, and I felt my cheeks reddening from the sting of the cold.
I was prepared for the weather, Skye really wasn’t.
I removed my Man United scarf and tenderly wrapped it twice around her neck and then my gloved hand found her naked one and we walked along the quiet footpaths, an occasional sliver of light escaping through heavy curtains.
“Where are we going?”
I didn’t answer, because this had to be a surprise. I ignored the uneasy feeling that she might construe it as a sign of confrontation. No, it’s romantic, I kept repeating to myself. She’ll adore it. However, once she caught sight of a silhouetted Tommy in his boat waiting for us by the dock, Skye pulled on my arm and shuddered to a halt. I turned and looked her in the eye, the torch light making it look like a scene from the Blair Witch Project; we were only missing the snotty nosed crying. Give it time, I thought to myself drolly. “Skye, please don’t fight me on this. Don’t you trust me?”
“Oh, Nat,” she whispered, “of course I trust you. Never doubt that.” She cupped my cheek in her hand, her bloody glacial hand, but it was the first time she’d voluntarily touched me in days and I felt nothing but warmth sear from my cheek through to the rest of my body.
I kissed her soft lips, again an action that was conspicuous by its absence. A diamond teardrop caught on her eyelash and she smiled. It was an unusual one, regretful, a touch forlorn, but there was no denying the affection present, which is what I clung onto tightly by my fingertips.
Those fingertips might have been gripping onto an icy precipice on Mount Everest, in a blizzard, but her smile was the hope in Pandora’s Box.
“I should’ve guessed you’d have a part to play in this, Tommy Morton,” Skye said with a shake of her head when we reached the boat.
“You know me, Skye, anything to wind you up, hen!”
The wind blew across the water, the running lights on Tommy’s boat illuminating a small patch of the North Sea as we chugged sluggishly through it’s rough undulations. Skye edged closer and lifted my arm which I quickly wrapped around her shoulders. Could this actually work? Ten minutes later, the boat nudged into the ladder of the place we would both forever hold dear; the hut on the causeway.
At least this time there was no submerged car or complaining ex-girlfriend vomiting everywhere to get in our way.
“Nat?” Skye’s forehead wrinkled in a perplexed fashion. It was the cutest thing I’d ever seen.
“I’m going up. I want you to join me.” I cautiously climbed onto the lowest rung, mere inches above the lapping waves.
“What? Wait, I thought we were going night fishing!”
“I never said that.”
“Look, no offence, going for a pleasure cruise in the middle of the night during winter was not my idea of fun, but I came because you asked me to. Climbing up there? Not going to happen,” she said belligerently.
“Skye, I need you to do this for me. For us. I won’t force you, or give you any ultimatums, but this is important. Please?”
Again she appeared primed to argue, but I think she recognised, from the set of my shoulders, I was fixed on this course. Tommy shone the light from the boat onto the steps so I wouldn’t fall and break my neck – or slip and drown for that matter. I waited listening carefully, my heart pounding faster with each passing second until I heard the creak of footsteps edging cautiously higher and finally, “Okay, Nat, I’m here. Will you tell me what on earth you’re playing at?”
“Close your eyes,” I hummed lovingly. This is working. Slowly but surely, I was chiselling away at that bloody wall.
“Nat-”
Where the hell had she been hiding this stubborn streak? It was as wide as the English Channel and twice as choppy. “This will be a lot easier if you do as I say.” She closed her eyes with another harrumph of annoyance and I hurriedly located the light switch and flipped it up, before pulling out my phone and scrolling to ‘Skye’s Romance Mix.’
Who knew creating a soppy song playlist would take twice as long as decorating the hut for the seduction of a lifetime?
Leanne Rhymes started singing about fighting the moonlight, number five on Skye’s all-time favourite mushy list and I whispered, “You can open your eyes.” For the first time that night she did as she was told without arguing, albeit achingly deliberately, and was confronted with my grand romantic gesture. “Ta-da,” I said softly.
It was magical.
A thousand fairy lights strung up
around the walls twinkled like stars, and hurricane lamps in opposite corners warmed the bare boards. A checked tablecloth was spread in the centre of the floor and the picnic basket lid was half open hinting at treasures within. Two crystal wine glasses sat next to a silver bucket containing a bottle of wine.
“Oh… oh my god, Nat. This is…” she shook her head. “This is amazing.” Impulsively she kissed my cheek. “You truly are a soppy sod.”
“You like it?” I asked.
“I love it.” She kissed me again. “When… how?”
“Wine, milady?” I sketched a quick bow. It was blatantly clear from her vacant visage and wide eyes that this was the last thing she’d expected, and a dreamy expression stole over her face. This is going to bloody well work! My confidence surged.
“Please… oh, you remembered.”
“Hmm?” I turned the bottle over and looked at the label. “Of course. It’s your favourite.” I opened the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and poured her a glass, before unpacking the various boxes my Mam had readied for us. Soon the checked backdrop was covered with the perfect lovers’ picnic. I lifted a small cracker smothered with Brussels pâté up to Skye’s mouth. She smiled, the first genuine smile I had seen in weeks, and that upturn of her lips?
That relaxed me.
We didn’t talk much whilst we ate, but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable; it felt like the old days before I’d left Boston for Sunderland. I bit my bottom lip and worried a frayed thread until it snapped.
The timing was impeccable – or as impeccable as it was going to be.
I reached into my jacket pocket and frowned. I patted down my trousers, surreptitiously at first, and then more hurriedly. Skye was too busy tidying away the detritus of our meal to detect my growing anxiety. My eyes searched the floor, not that I could see anything because it was far too dark, and I frantically ran my hand over the blanket, just in case.
Yes, just in case I was going blind rather than had lost the damned thing… Where the fuck is it?
“Nat?” Skye asked, finally noticing my panicky movements as I removed all the boxes from the picnic basket and rooted around in the bottom of it. I sat back on my heels. It wasn’t there either. “Nat, sweetie, what’s wrong?”
“I’ve just got to find something,” I muttered. Yeah the most important element, numpty. The ultimate proposal? This night was sinking faster than the Titanic.
“What?” She tilted her head and smiled trying to calm me. I must have looked like a lunatic scrabbling around in the dark.
“Nothing, nothing important.”
“Really? Because I’m worried you’re about to have a seizure,” she said with some concern, which accurately described how I felt because my heart was spasming.
Was this an enormous stop sign?
I can’t ruin this moment, it has to be perfect. I said this several times in my head, which didn’t exactly help my cause. I was striving for a state of perfection and I wasn’t sure it existed outside of my mind. Get a grip, Jeffries! Skye reached out and touched my arm, wanting to get my attention I think. It grounded me and suddenly it didn’t matter if I’d broken seven mirrors, ran over ten black cats and walked under every ladder in B&Q, no bad luck omen was going to get between me and my future. I cast my eyes around for something…
Perfect.
I was growing to adore that word. I got up off my haunches and onto one knee. I picked up one of Skye’s favourite snacks, a Hula Hoop, and held it reverentially in my hand. “Skye Donaghie,” I started.
“Nat? What on earth are you doing?” she said, aghast. She even held a hand to her chest.
“Skye Donaghie,” I started again. “Will you do me the greatest honour of becoming my wife?” She looked down at the Hula Hoop and then at me like I was insane. “You have a beautiful engagement ring somewhere and I will find it, but this will have to do for the minute. I’m deadly serious, Skye, will you marry me?”
Joy lit up her beautiful brown eyes, followed by a softening of her features, but the unguarded moment didn’t last long and she quickly averted her gaze. “I’m sorry, Natalie, I can’t.”
I slumped against the wall. It was like the time I fell out of the top bunk at Girl Guide camp and was winded and in agony. I cradled the make do engagement ring in the palm of my hand, and it hit me like a ton of bricks; if I walked away now there was no guarantee I’d ever find my way back to her. Tenaciously, I gathered the stuffing Skye had knocked out of me; the pussy footing around stopped here.
Line in the sand? Definitely.
“Can’t or won’t.” I lashed out.
“What difference does it make?”
“A huge one, to me anyway,” I insisted. I knew Skye better than anyone else in the world, and that included myself. There had to be a reason for her rejection and it was time for her to give it up.
Before we ended up giving up on each other.
“Please, baby, talk to me,” I prodded. “Why am I sleeping alone? Why do you use every excuse under the sun to avoid being intimate with me? Damn it, Skye, you won’t even kiss me!” I raked my hands furiously through my hair. I needed a new nervous tick before the comparisons with Bobby Charlton were more about his comb over and less about his football. “You even lock the bathroom door when you go for a shower!”
“Nat, leave it. Please,” she pleaded.
“I can’t leave it. It’s been festering away, steadily destroying us. I want this,” I waved my hand between us. “I want forever, I want for richer and poorer, I want for better or worse. Damn it, Skye I want in sickness and in health!” I ran out of steam though my breath remained fast and shallow.
“What if there’s more worse than better?” she asked sharply. “More sickness than fucking health?”
“Damn it, Skye, don’t you know the answers to those questions by now? It makes no odds.”
“You have no idea what you’re saying,” she said coldly.
“Yes I bloody well do. Do not tell me what I do or don’t know!”
“I found a lump!” she cried. And it was like the bubble had burst; her shoulders, before so tight, slackened and her whole body trembled like jelly. She stood and peered out of the window into the darkness beyond. “I found a lump on my breast,” she repeated so quietly I could barely hear her.
I froze momentarily before instinct took over.
Standing behind her I waited, silently imploring her to make the first move, and when she stuttered a half step back towards me, the last piece in my puzzle was in place.
That half step was a giant leap for Skye, far more pivotal than Neil Armstrong’s would ever be.
I covered her arms with my own and lifting them across her body, I imprisoned her. I felt her heart pounding in her chest and sensed waves of apprehension matching the ones lapping the ladder beneath our feet. “When?” I whispered into her hair.
“I first noticed it a few days before I came home in November, but I was so busy with work, the presentation, packing, that I forgot all about it…” she hung her head. “That’s a lie. I ignored it hoping that it would go away.”
“Skye? Sweetheart, why didn’t-” I stopped myself from asking the burning question. What difference would it make? For a moment I wished for some fake news rather than this unpalatable truth. I swallowed the sudden wash of saliva in my mouth, a precursor to puking everywhere. Holding Skye, I made a solemn vow right there and then to never let her go again, and I tenderly lowered her back onto the blanket and cradled her between my legs. “So what happens next?”
“I’m waiting for an appointment at the breast clinic,” she explained.
My heart stopped beating.
Skye continued speaking, and I’m sure I nodded my understanding once or twice. My body had shut down, and I surreptitiously pinched my leg. Nope, this wasn’t a nightmare.
“Me bringing you here was stupid,” I blurted out. “I could make you worse. Ill. I could make you ill. The cold.” I was going into panic mode and that was the last thing S
kye needed.
She lifted my chin. “If you hadn’t done this I probably wouldn’t have told you,” she admitted.
“Why?” Despite my earlier assertion the burning question was too hot to handle any longer. I had to know why the hell she would keep something this important from me.
“Because once I told you I couldn’t pretend anymore.”
“Did the doctor say anything else? Did he give you any time frame, any scenarios?” The questions fought each other for attention, each one claiming, in my mind, to be more important than the previous.
“Natalie, I promise we will talk about this but right now I need you to hold me. I’m scared, baby, so scared.” She began to cry, gently at first, before swivelling in my arms and great wracking sobs rocked her body. It was a cathartic moment for us; her tears released the burden she’d been carrying alone, and for me it was a testimony that we could survive anything.
We would survive anything.
“Darling, I know you’re scared. But here’s the thing - we’re in this together, me and you.” I saw a flicker in her eyes that gave me hope. “I trust you with my heart, with my hopes and dreams, with my present and my future. Do you trust me with the same?” I held my breath. I wanted Skye to be my wife, now probably more than ever. “So?”
“So what?”
“Will you make an honest woman out of me?” I repeated my earlier question. If she said no this time it would break me. Actually it would end me.
“Natalie, didn’t you hear a word I just said?” she asked exasperatedly.
I shrugged nonchalantly. “Yep, I heard every word. Are you going to make me beg because I would, you know,” I said half in jest.
“No,” she whispered.
“Oh. Oh. I didn’t. Okay. That’s…” I struggled to keep the disappointment raging like an unfettered beast inside my heart from seeping into the hut.
“No, Natalie,” she smiled and raised her hand to my cheek once more. “I mean you don’t have to beg. My answer is yes. Yes I will marry you.”
“You said yes,” I stated, almost accusingly. In the last ten minutes I’d been through more emotions than someone suffering from a multiple personality disorder. Hope. Confusion. Anger. Fear. Now the only emotion racing through me was pure unadulterated joy. “You can’t take that back. Ever.”