by Holly Martin
‘I love it, but is it not a bit over the top?’
‘You’re going to freeze your little arse off in that church so you’re going to need something to keep you warm. Besides, Harry said everyone was going to be dressed up in their ball gowns and jewels, so I’m sure you’ll fit right in.’
‘You do realise we’re going to the pub beforehand – Harry’s friend Marv owns the pub round the corner from the church and we said we’d go there for a few hours and a few drinks before as the proposal isn’t due to happen till midnight. I’m going to be the best dressed person in that pub. Normally Marv’s clientele are strict jeans and T-shirt wearers.’
‘Harry said a lot of the guests were meeting in that pub before the proposal so there’ll be a load of them. Besides, when have you ever worried what people think about your clothes? If you worried about that, you certainly wouldn’t be wearing those purple leggings with that orange jumper dress.’
I laughed as I looked down at my clothes. ‘That’s true.’
‘What are you wearing on your feet?’
‘I don’t know, I was going to wear some silvery heels but in this weather I think it might be a bit of a bad idea. If I don’t slip over and break something, my feet will likely snap off from the cold.’
Jules bit her lip as she thought. ‘Oh wait, I have some boots, they sort of look like wellies but fur lined ones, they’ll be perfect with the dress and cloak.’
Jules rummaged around in the wardrobe.
‘You want me to wear wellies with my beautiful dress?’
She proudly held the boots aloft. They looked like something from the space age or the seventies. They were completely silver, covered in thousands of flakes of glitter, and white fur peeped out the top.
‘Oh I want them, they’re amazing.’
She snatched them back out of my reach. ‘You can borrow them, you can’t have them. I can’t be parted from them, they’re my favourite boots ever.’
‘I’ve never seen you wear them.’
‘I never have. I always promise myself I will, but I never have the guts to wear them with anything. Whereas you have the confidence to wear things like this and they’ll suit you perfectly.’
I slipped them on, the fur was cosy soft, instantly making my feet feel toasty.
‘No one will see them under your dress apart from the toes so you can totally get away with it.’
‘They’re perfect, thank you.’
‘You’re borrowing them, ok? I want to make that very clear. Just because I never wear them, doesn’t mean I don’t want to look longingly at them every day.’
‘I promise you’ll have them straight back.’
Jules stroked them lovingly as she put them in a bag for me, carefully folding the cloak into a bag too.
We went downstairs and Harry pulled me onto his lap as he and Badger carried on talking about football as if they had been talking about it the whole time. They were both terrible liars. Eventually their conversation came to a quick end.
‘Jules gave me a cloak and some boots to wear for New Year’s Eve,’ I said.
‘Lent not gave,’ Jules corrected
‘Let me see the boots,’ Harry said, absently stroking my belly as he reached for the bag with the other hand.
‘No, you can have your secrets, I can have mine. You’ll see them New Year’s Eve.’
I felt Harry smile into the side of my neck, then he stood up, sliding me gently to my feet.
‘We better go, we have a ton of emails to reply to.’
Harry picked up my bags and after saying our goodbyes, Badger led us to the door. Unfortunately, as we opened it, standing on the other side was my dad.
Chapter Six
‘Ah good, I’m glad you two are here as well, can I come in.’
I stared past him as Badger stood in shock next to me but he clearly was alone.
Badger stood to one side and Dad stepped in, kissing me warmly on the cheek as he made his way down the kitchen.
‘Jules dear, can you cut me a slice of one of your cakes, all I had for breakfast was brown toast. Brown toast! I’m ravenous.’
We shut the door and followed him back down towards the kitchen.
We sat down and Jules in true panic mode cut herself another huge slice as she sat down with us.
Dad tucked into the cake with great relish, moaning with satisfaction. ‘You really know how to make great cake.’ He took another big bite. ‘Where’s my granddaughter?’
‘Sleeping,’ Jules muttered, waiting for the death knell.
Dad nodded. ‘So you and Badger, how long has that been going on?’
And there it was.
Badger took Jules’s shaking hand in his large paw. ‘Uncle George, we didn’t want to hurt you.’
‘How long?’
‘Probably about a year.’
Dad took another bite of cake. ‘And it’s serious?’
Jules nodded and Badger squeezed her hand. ‘We’re in love.’
‘And Bella, how does she fit into this relationship?’
‘I love her,’ Badger said, simply. ‘I never thought it was possible to love someone so much, so fiercely, but I do. Bella’s my entire world.’
‘She adores him,’ I said. ‘You should see them together. Their connection is just beautiful.’
Jules smiled at me gratefully, still unable to speak.
Dad nodded as he finished off the cake and cut himself another slice. ‘Jack would have wanted you to be happy again. He wouldn’t want you to be alone for the rest of your life.’ His voice cracked with emotion and tears filled my own eyes at how hard this must be for him. I had been through this myself.
Jules brushed tears from her eyes at the unexpected blessing.
‘And I can’t think of a better man to take care of my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter than you,’ Dad said to Badger.
I was sobbing now and Harry scooped me up onto his lap, holding me tight. Badger leaned forward to kiss Jules as Dad turned to me with concern. Harry mouthed the words ‘baby hormones’ to him and Dad smiled.
‘I wanted to apologise to you too Harry, on behalf of my wife. What she said yesterday was nasty and completely untrue. I wanted you to know that she doesn’t speak for us both. I couldn’t be more pleased to have you as my son-in-law. You love her, she loves you. You two don’t need anything more than that.’
The tears were relentless as Dad wrapped his slice of cake up in a piece of kitchen towel and stood up.
‘I better go. I’ll try to keep her out of your hair for the next few days,’ he said to all of us. ‘And don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.’
He kissed me and Jules on the cheek, clapped Badger and Harry on the back like a proud father and left me soaking Harry’s jumper with my tears.
*
‘One hundred,’ I shouted triumphantly to Harry as I put the phone down. Harry came rushing into the office with a mug of tea and a bowl of ice cream.
‘Seriously? We’ve done it?’
With a little over twenty-four hours until the end of December and the end of the year, I didn’t think we would actually meet our target of One Hundred Christmas Proposals, but we had. We’d had three last minute ones today.
‘I’ve just booked a proposal on the London Eye for tomorrow night. We’ve hired a capsule for several hours and I’ve arranged for it to be decorated like a snow globe – there’ll be falling fake snow, and even a mini village with lights and moving parts inside. But yes, that’s our hundredth booking, although in terms of the blog Alexander’s at St Dunstan’s will be our big finale.’
‘This calls for a celebration.’
‘Ice cream is celebration enough,’ I said, digging into my bowl and taking a big mouthful.
‘Let’s go out for lunch. We can take a trip down the Thames on one of those lunch cruises.’
‘Ooh sounds lovely. Wait, is this a proposal we’re going to watch?’
‘No, just us, and Sausage, of course.’
>
We bundled ourselves into our coats, hats and scarves as it was still snowing outside and made our way down to one of the piers on the Thames.
Lunch was lovely as we drifted aimlessly down the river, passing all the local sights. I loved London and no matter how long I spent here, I never grew tired of the skyscrapers, parks and hustle and bustle.
We went outside onto the deck after and Harry pulled me onto his lap and wrapped me in a thick blanket. As we passed by Tower Bridge, I craned my neck to see the church tower of St Dunstan-in-the-East, the setting for Alexander’s New Year’s Eve proposal.
‘It’s still going to be there, the place has been there since the war, it’s not likely to disappear now,’ Harry said, knowing instinctively that was what I was looking for. He pulled the blanket tighter round me.
‘You brought a blanket with you?’
‘Well I knew you’d want to sit outside afterwards, regardless that it’s probably minus a hundred, you always like to sit out here.’
‘Aww Harry that’s so sweet,’ I kissed him briefly and he returned the kiss on my head.
‘Not really, with you hidden under a blanket, I can have my wicked way with you and no one would be any the wiser.’ His hands snaked under my top and I giggled as I tried to escape the coldness of his fingers.
I kissed him and his roaming hands stilled on my skin, going from tickling me mercilessly, to a sweet, tender caress of my stomach.
A cough from nearby distracted us and we both looked up to see my mum standing over us. Harry quickly removed his hand from under my top but he held me on his lap.
I saw my dad standing behind her, obviously nervous about what she was going to say next. I had a few things I wanted to say to her myself and if she dared say one more thing about Harry I was going to launch world war three on her. Right then I didn’t care whether we never spoke again. Harry was my only priority and I wouldn’t allow him to be hurt by her spitefulness again.
My mum cleared her throat. ‘It seems I owe you both an apology.’
I stared at her. This completely threw me. The attack I had been carefully preparing stilled in my throat.
‘Well probably I owe it to you Harry more than Suzie. You see, you only ever want the best for your children. You’ll know this if you ever have your own.’
Harry discreetly stroked my belly from underneath the blanket.
‘And I didn’t think you were good enough for her Harry – but to be honest I don’t think any man would be good enough for her. But I’ve been watching you for the last half hour and not only do I see how completely and utterly in love you are with her, but how happy you make her as well. She hasn’t stopped smiling since you got on the boat. I have never seen her so happy as she is when she’s with you and I can’t really want anything more for her than that. I erm… apologise for what I said the other night. I still don’t think it’s the greatest idea you’ve had, but you only want the best for her too, I see that now. So…’ She cleared her throat again, and looked around us awkwardly as we docked on the pier. ‘So although you two don’t need it, I’d like to give you my blessing.’
People started disembarking around us while me and Harry stared at her in shock.
‘Well, we have arrangements to meet a friend, so we’ll probably see you tomorrow before all the New Year’s Eve celebrations kick off,’ Mum was saying.
I nodded faintly and with a smile from Dad, he escorted her off the boat.
I looked at Harry. ‘What just happened?’
‘Your mum just had some kind of personality transplant.’
‘How long do you think that will last?’
‘I’ll give it a day.’
*
The phone ringing woke us up the next day. Harry slipped from the bed, making sure I was properly covered, and then went to answer it. The sky was dark and grey outside and fat snowflakes were falling thick and fast past the window. I heard Harry talking but couldn’t really make out the words as I snuggled deeper into the duvet.
I heard him come back in and I peeped over the top of the duvet.
‘That was the people who are providing the snow machine for Alexander’s proposal tonight, they can’t get through the snow so they’ve had to cancel.’
I thought about this for a moment. ‘I don’t think the lack of snow is going to be a problem, there’s a ton of it out there.’
Harry went to the window and his eyes widened. I scrambled out of bed and Harry immediately wrapped me in a thick bathrobe. I went to the window to see it was at least a foot deep outside, nearly covering the wheels of the cars parked on the green.
‘Nooo, nothing is going to get through. The flowers, the lights, the projector, the band, the chairs, the food, the outdoor heaters. They’re all being delivered today.’
Harry stared at the snow too. ‘Look, a lot of those companies are local – even if they’re not willing to come out, we can go to them to collect some of this stuff.’
‘But we have three other proposals to watch today.’
‘We’re not doing anything with these other proposals, we were just going to watch so we could blog about them. Everything is organised for those and at least none of those are weather dependent. They can just send in pictures and videos if they want the champagne and to be included on the blog. I know how important this St Dunstan proposal is to you, we’ll make sure it’s perfect.’
The phone rang again and with a huge sense of foreboding, Harry went to answer it. I followed him into the office and I saw him with his head in his hands, as he listened to the person on the other end.
‘Yes I understand, thank you for letting me know.’ He put the phone down and looked up at me. ‘That was the people providing the hog roast, they can’t get through either.’
‘So we have no food?’
Harry bit his lip. ‘I’ll talk to Marv, he might be able to help us.’
He grabbed up his phone and dialled, whilst I powered up the computer to see if any other cancellations had come through via email. Tears stung my eyes as I read one of the emails.
‘Can you see if he can provide us with chairs too?’
Harry nodded as he spoke to Marv and I scrolled down the other emails to see if anything else needed urgent attention. Nothing leapt out at me.
I started emailing all the remaining suppliers asking if they were still ok to get to the church.
Gerard, the lead singer of the jazz band, emailed straight back to say they were all staying nearby and even if they had to walk there with their kit, they would be there. At least there would be music, though I expected that the number of guests that would be there to appreciate it would be limited too.
It turned out the outdoor heaters had been delivered yesterday either by accident or by design, they were already waiting for us at the church.
The company providing the thousands of fairy lights emailed to say they couldn’t get through and sent their profuse apologies.
Harry put the phone down. ‘Marv can provide around twenty chairs but they won’t match – some are stools, garden furniture, arm chairs… but that’s the best he can do. He’s also got a leftover turkey he was going to make into turkey soup today for his customers, he said he could cook that and provide hot turkey sandwiches and chips for everyone instead. I know everyone will be sick of turkey by now but at least it’s better than nothing. Once the proposal is out the way, everyone can decamp to his pub, it’s only a two minute walk round the corner and he says we can have the banquet room out the back so it’s private. It’s decorated for Christmas, he says there’s a tree and lights and a log fire he can light. He said he’d do us all some warm mulled wine too.’
‘Ok that sounds great, how much is that going to cost us?’
‘Baby, it’s Marv, he’s happy to help.’
I smiled. Harry’s rugby friends were the best. I still remembered the whole cow ballet proposal in Trafalgar Square that had launched the One Hundred Proposals into international waters. They were willi
ng to do anything to help each other out, including it seemed wearing cow print onesies and pink tutus.
‘We have no lights,’ I said, ‘but we do have heaters and a band.’
‘Email the band back and ask if they would be willing to decamp to the pub after the proposal.’
I turned back to the computer.
‘Lights shouldn’t be a problem, I bet we could go to any supermarket or garden centre and buy a ton of Christmas lights probably for half the price too as Christmas is now over,’ Harry said.
‘What about the chairs, is twenty going to be enough? Should we try to get some more somewhere else?’ I tried to picture what it would look like with an assortment of chairs and stools instead of the forty silver matching chairs we had ordered. I finished typing the email to Gerard but even as I sent it, my computer pinged with another email.
‘What now? Is anything going to go right today?’
Harry rolled my chair away from the computer and pulled me up. ‘Go and have a bath, whatever it is, I’ll sort it out and the chairs and everything else. By the time you come out I’ll have a plan, I promise.’
‘No it’s ok, there’s a ton to organise, I can help.’ I could already feel the pain of the supressed tears at the back of my throat.
Harry kissed each eye as the tears welled over. Damn these baby hormones. ‘Let me do this for you, ok? There’ll be lots we’ll need to help with later, but let me get a plan sorted first.’
I nodded and left the room, just as the phone rang again. I ignored what Harry was saying as I shut myself in the bathroom and ran myself a bath. Alexander seemed very laidback, I just hoped that he would be as laidback about the last minute plans we were putting together for him. It wouldn’t be perfect but as long as Cassandra said yes, I was sure Alexander wouldn’t care about the rest.
I couldn’t soak too long, I was too anxious, but when I emerged Harry had already cooked me a sausage sandwich and he insisted I sit down to eat it. I took a bite and he started talking.
‘The florist has rung to say the flowers are ready but she can’t get out to deliver them, but I’ve sent one of the rugby boys round to pick them up. Leon has a big 4x4 so it shouldn’t be a problem. We will have to set up all the flowers on our own though. Gerard emailed back to say they’d be happy to decamp to the pub after, it’ll be a lot warmer for them anyway, a lot better for their instruments and their voices. The projectionist is also local and he said he’s coming on the tube anyway, so that shouldn’t be affected. I’ve phoned round a few supermarkets and garden centres and they’re going to put aside all their Christmas lights for me. Leon is going to go round and buy as many of the Christmas lights he can get his hands on and drop them off at the church before he collects the flowers.’