by Holly Martin
‘So we’re still on?’
‘Alexander did call to say a fair few of the guests have cancelled.’
‘No!’
‘It’s ok, really it is. We need two people to make this proposal successful and as long as Alexander and Cassandra turn up that’s all that matters.’
‘He must be gutted though that his friends have let him down.’
‘The friends and family they are closest to will be there, I don’t think the couple will care about anyone else.’
‘No you’re right, the people that are the most important to them will be there rain or shine.’
He nodded. ‘And it solves the problem about the chairs.’
‘Ok, so shall we get to the church and then we can help set everything up?’
‘I’m going over there now but I have a job for you here. The jam jars can’t be delivered either but one of the supermarkets I spoke to says they sell their own brand of mint sauce for seventeen pence a jar. So Leon is going to buy a hundred of them and you’re going to wash them all out and put candles in them.’
‘Ok, I can do that. But the lids will need air holes in them.’
‘Yes Leon is going to drop round a tool to do that with.’ I watched Harry get wrapped up for the cold. ‘Don’t worry about anything. I’ll be on my phone if you need me.’ He placed a kiss on my head and left.
Not long after that, Leon turned up with a big box, presumably filled with hundreds of mint sauce jars. He carried it through to the kitchen as I bombarded him with a ton of questions.
‘What’re the roads out there like?’
‘Not good, but the underground is still running smoothly so there’s hope there.’
‘Did you get the lights?’
‘Yes loads of them. I’m dropping them off at the church now and then I’m going to get the flowers.’
He headed back out the door.
‘Wait, I need that tool for punching holes into the lids.’
‘Yes, it’s here,’ he gestured down the path and a giant of a man came stomping up it. ‘This is Lurch, he’ll be able to do that no problem.’
I stared at the monster before me, all seven foot of him, his eyes as dark as night, fists as big as melons. He moved past me into the house.
‘Did Harry know Lurch was the tool?’
‘Yes it was his idea.’
I relaxed, knowing Harry would never put me in danger.
‘He doesn’t say a lot, hence the name, but he’s as gentle as a lamb. Give me a call when you’re done and I’ll come and pick them up.’
With that Leon was gone and I was left alone with Lurch.
I went down to the kitchen where Lurch was already taking the lids off the jars and creating a small pile of them.
‘Do you want a cup of tea?’
Lurch shook his head. He started opening cupboards, obviously looking for something.
‘What do you need?’
He didn’t say anything but a moment later he sat down with a metal baking tray and a sponge. He placed the lid on the sponge and the sponge on the tray and then took a sharp pointy looking screwdriver out of his pocket and slammed it into the lid as easily as slicing through butter. He put the holed lid to one side and picked up another one. I watched him slice through that easily enough and then turned my attention to washing the jars out. I scooped all the mixture out, wiped round the residue with some damp kitchen towel, peeled the label off the side and then placed the empty jar in the dishwasher. It was quite an easy task but after I’d only done five, I could see what a laborious job it was going to be. At some points Lurch helped me, but only because I wasn’t working quickly enough for him. After we’d done half the jars the dishwasher was full, so I put it on for a quick wash whilst we worked our way through the rest. The lids also needed a wash so when the first load was done, I put all the lids in and a few more jars whilst Lurch started melting the ends of the candles and sticking them to the bottom of the jars. Sooner than I expected, the jam jars were finished and I called Leon to come and collect them and me and take us to the church.
While we waited, Lurch showed me pictures on his phone of his kitten, a tiny white fluff ball of a thing that had blue eyes. Lurch was like the proud dad showing me photo after photo of this ball of cuteness. And it seemed at odds that this giant of a man would be so gooey eyed over a tiny kitten.
Leon eventually turned up and we took the jars out to the car and he drove us to the church.
When I walked in, I could see Harry’s entire rugby team were hard at work, some of them shovelling snow to create a path up to the area where the proposal was to take place, and to clear an area for the band, some of them were setting up the outdoor heaters in strategic places around the church garden. Even Badger and Jules were there.
I walked over to them and greeted them both.
‘What are you two doing here?’
‘Harry called, said he needed our help, so…’ Badger shrugged. ‘I’m glad you’re here, you can get up these ladders and help hang the lights, I’m far too heavy to be climbing up ladders.’
‘You are not, but I don’t mind going up them.’
Harry suddenly appeared at my side, he kissed me. ‘You smell minty.’
‘Ha! I think I’ll smell minty for a good few days yet, but there are worst things to smell of. All the jars are done so I can help out here.’
‘Why don’t you help with the flowers?’
‘Oh, Badger wants help with the lights.’
‘You’re not climbing up ladders.’ Harry stared at me meaningfully while Badger and Jules stared at me in confusion.
‘What are you not telling us?’ Jules demanded, her radar picking up signs of a secret.
‘I’m pregnant,’ I said, quietly.
Jules and Badger shrieked with joy and enfolded me and Harry into a big group hug.
‘Sshhh we’re not telling people yet,’ I said from the middle of the hug. ‘We want to make sure everything is ok first.’
Jules and Badger separated themselves from us and pretended that everything was normal but we had already piqued the interest of the rugby boys.
‘I can’t believe they’re all here, this proposal has nothing to do with them.’
‘I told them it was important to me and they came.’ Harry shrugged.
‘Right, I’ll do flowers then as that’s safe, you’ll have to send Jules up the ladder I’m afraid.’
Badger nodded.
The red flowers were woven loosely into curvy wire panels. It would stop them flying away. Each panel, when filled with flowers, looked like a sea wave – and when all the panels were slotted together either side of the path they looked like a sea of flowers at the edges of a river bed. But putting it together in the right place was like finding the correct piece of a jigsaw puzzle.
We worked diligently for hours until we started to lose light but by that time most of the preparations had been done.
Harry came over as I was admiring all our handiwork.
‘We should go home and get ourselves ready, we can come back here a bit early later on to make sure everything is in place, light the candles and turn the heaters on before the proposal.’
I nodded and after saying thanks to everyone, we made our way home. Snow was still falling but not as thick and fast as it was before and as Leon said, the tube was still running smoothly.
When we got home Harry ran himself a bath in an attempt to thaw out and I undressed and climbed in on top of him, resting my head on his chest as he swept warm water over my back.
‘Your friends are the best,’ I said, sleepily, closing my eyes.
‘They are. No sleeping in the bath.’
‘Just a little doze, the baby’s tired. Besides, you’re not going to let anything happen to me are you?’
He smiled. ‘Oh well, if the baby’s tired, you go ahead.’
I snuggled against him and as he gently lapped water over my back and shoulders, I felt myself drifting off.
; *
‘Why did you let me fall asleep in the bath,’ I wailed as I stared at my hair in the mirror. There was no other word to describe it, it was a bush. Tina Turner and Diana Ross would be very proud. I had imagined that I would wear my hair down tonight in some sleek, straight style that would cascade over my shoulders in an effortless Hollywood starlet kind of way to go with my gorgeous dress and my cloak. That clearly wasn’t going to happen now.
Harry appeared in the room, dressed only in his trousers and I nearly forgot the problem with my hair altogether. There was never going to come a point when I would tire of looking at his body.
‘You look beautiful, you always do.’
‘I look like an eighties porn star.’
‘My favourite kind, sit down.’
I sat on the bed and he picked up the brush and started brushing my hair. He pulled it into a tight ponytail at the side of my head and then proceeded to plait it.
‘Are you frigging kidding me? You can do hair?’
‘You do know I had probably a hundred different jobs whilst I was touring America? I waited on tables, tended bars, I cleaned hotel rooms, I cleaned cars, I even did a stint as an underwear model.’
‘Ha! Seriously?’ Why was I doubting that when he was so beautiful?
‘Yes, for some swimming costumes in a clothing catalogue.’
He adapted his best catalogue poses, staring off into the distance thoughtfully, looking at his watch and then laughing at something off camera. I giggled as I watched him.
‘I have so much to learn about you.’
‘We have the rest of our lives baby.’ Harry resumed what he was doing with my hair. ‘Anyway, one of the many, many jobs was working in a hair salon washing hair. While I was there I also helped Ricardo with up dos, plaits and twists and wedding styles. Ricardo was very talented in all those kinds of things, I was basically there to pass him the hair grips, but he took a bit of a shine to me and thought I might want to follow in his footsteps. He taught me a few things before I ultimately moved on and broke his heart.’
‘You cruel man.’
‘I know, but hairdressing was never really my calling.’ He finished off the plait. ‘I bought you this.’ He opened the top drawer and pulled out a silvery pearl fascinator in the shape of a snowflake, which he clipped just behind my ear above the plait. He stepped back to admire his work. ‘There, you’ll do. Now get dressed. We’re leaving in half an hour whether I have to carry you out of here just dressed in your underwear.’
‘You wouldn’t.’
Harry laughed as he left the room. ‘Oh baby, you know that I would.’
I stood up to look at my hair. He had achieved in seconds what I couldn’t achieve in hours. It looked great and was perfectly glamorous enough for tonight’s affair.
My makeup for once also seemed to be behaving itself, no panda eyes from jabbing myself in the eye with the mascara, my lipstick hadn’t smudged and my foundation hadn’t collected in chunks where my skin was dry.
I slipped on the dress, the boots, the necklace and the earrings, and swept my cloak round my shoulders feeling very regal.
‘Suzie McKenzie you better be ready or…’ He stopped in the doorway and stared at me.
‘Is the cloak too much?’
‘You look incredible, like a princess.’
I laughed and hoicked up my dress to show him my space age boots. He burst out laughing.
‘Tonight wouldn’t be complete without a bit of kookiness from my fiancée. I would expect no less my dear.’
I let the dress slither back to the floor, covering everything but the toes.
He pulled his jacket on, making him look so sexy and dashing. I loved that his tie matched the colour of my dress perfectly.
We caught the tube and with all the other New Year’s Eve revellers dressed in jeans and sparkly mini dresses I must have looked very odd, but with the way Harry was looking at me with complete love in his eyes I didn’t care.
I cuddled up next to him on the seat.
‘You know why I didn’t want to get married straight away when we got back from our round the world tour?’ Harry said.
I shook my head.
‘Because you said you wanted to do it in a registry office and I couldn’t let that happen. I wanted it to be perfect.’
‘Oh Harry. I told you before I don’t need all the bells and whistles or the fireworks or the flowers. I just want you and any way that you eventually slide that ring onto my finger will be perfect because it will be you standing next to me and that’s all I’ve ever wanted. If you want the big fairy tale wedding with the meringue dress and fourteen bridesmaids we’ll do it. Although I might need to steal some of your rugby friends as bridesmaids as I’m a bit lacking in that department. If you want the horse and carriage, a thousand guests, the canapés, the speeches and the five course meal, we’ll do it. But know that as long as you are my husband I’d be happy getting married in my jeans and sharing a bag of fish and chips as celebration afterwards.’
‘Or turkey sandwiches and chips?’
I laughed at the thought of tonight’s menu.
‘Well maybe we can meet somewhere in the middle, something special but minus the thousand guests and the horse and carriage,’ he said.
‘That would work for me.’
‘You could wear a pretty dress, carry some flowers and walk up an aisle of candles but minus the fourteen burly bridesmaids.’
I giggled. ‘That does sound pretty perfect.’
‘We’ll have a few friends there, but the ones that matter.’
‘People like Badger and Jules and Leon and Lurch.’
He smiled. ‘Yes we’ll definitely have them.’
‘No speeches.’
‘Ok.’
‘And can I wear these?’ I hoicked my dress up and lifted my leg so I could show off my fabulous boots again.
He laughed. ‘You absolutely must wear them. They can be your something borrowed.’
‘Well Jules is never going to give them to me. And will you do my hair?’
‘Baby I’ll do your hair every day if you want.’
‘And we’ll get married at night, in a garden under the stars.’
He smiled. ‘And can we have fireworks after?’
‘Yes I’d like that. A great big celebration of our love in the night sky.’
‘Sounds perfect.’
I smiled up at him as the train shuddered to a stop.
‘Come on.’ Harry stood up and offered me his arm as we walked the short distance from the station to St Dunstan’s.
We walked into the church and I looked around in a mild panic. I so wanted this to go right – after the amount of time I’d poured into it, I wanted it to be perfect.
Snow covered the floors, windows, trees and plants, it glistened and sparkled in the glow of the fairy lights that twisted round each window. The shock of colour from the red flowers looked stunning against the backdrop of snow. The heaters were on. The candles in the jars had been lit and they glowed gold against the darkness of the night. The jars created a short pathway that led up to a small circle where the proposal was to take place. The jazz band were playing a sweet melody in the corner, everything was perfect.
The hodge podge of bar stools, armchairs, wicker chairs and garden furniture around the walls of the church looked comical and out of place, but I hoped it added character to the proposal. I just hoped Cassandra had a good sense of humour and found it as sweet and endearing as I did.
Harry bent down and picked up a few flowers from the floor. Arranging them into a bouquet and tying them with a piece of string, he handed them to me.
‘We can’t steal their flowers,’ I said, even as I was burying my nose into the blooms and smiling at the sweet gesture from my fiancé.
‘It’s only a few, they won’t miss them.’
I looked round the church smiling happily, after all the snow and the cancellations, we still had managed to pull off something beautiful for Alex
ander. I couldn’t wait to meet them.
On the back wall, I saw that the photos were being projected and it worked beautifully on the stony backdrop. But then my heart stopped. The photos were of Harry and me, they had used the wrong ones.
‘Harry, they’ve used our photos instead of Alexander’s.’
‘Oh crap, give me a second, I’ll see if I can sort it out. Worst case scenario we’ll just pull the photos completely, the beauty of the place will do all the rest of the work for us. Let me see if the projectionist is here.’
He walked off, leaving me alone in the church surrounded by this picture perfect winter wonderland. Up above the sky was clear, stars twinkling and ready to smile down on the happy couple. I returned my attention to the photos of me and Harry. I couldn’t help but smile as photo after photo told the story of our life, back when we were friends, right through the hundred proposals and the last six months of being together. Every photo showed how completely and utterly in love we were.
Guests had started to filter in and take their seats but to my surprise, I knew them all. Leon and Lurch and their girlfriends. The other rugby boys. A few of our other friends.
The music suddenly changed to, ‘A Thousand Years’ by Christina Perri, the music I once said I wanted to walk down the aisle to. I turned round in confusion to see Harry standing in the circle at the other end of the pathway.
Badger stepped up so he was standing near the circle with Harry. Jules and Bella took seats near to the circle and to my utmost surprise my mum was there too, alongside Harry’s sister and his nephew.