Page 62 of The Moment I Met You
I think part of it is as simple as this: Harry is a born showman. He has a flair for the dramatic, he has perfect comic timing, he could in another life have been an entertainer. He knew that producing a ring that had – according to the legend he created – somehow survived in his shorts pocket was a far more enticing version of events than ‘the ring I meant to buy and didn’t and asked someone else to get for me’.
Part of it is more complicated, I suspect. I think deep down he knew that I was edging away from him. Doing it the way he did made everything feel bigger, more committed – more escape-proof.
I have such a mix of different feelings flowing through me that I can’t quite identify which one is dominant. I am angry and resentful that he lied, and I feel like a fool for believing that pretty fiction. I am frustrated that I spent such a long time feeling guilty about an item of jewellery, and what it represented – my ill-formed belief that if he had been at a different place at a different time, then maybe he wouldn’t have ended up paralysed.
Every time I have looked at that damn ring since, there has been a sliver of guilt: if it wasn’t for this ring, he might have survived unscathed. If it wasn’t for this ring, he could have been safe.
Of course, over the years, as life has settled and both shrunk and expanded, the guilt has also been mixed in with other ‘ifs’. If it wasn’t for this ring, Harry might not have been injured, and I might not have felt obliged to marry him. If not for this ring, both our lives might look entirely different.
All of these thoughts are swirling through my mind, and I don’t feel quite capable of expressing any of them. I asked for honesty, and I don’t want to react by lashing out, by being cruel. I need to let it sit a while, let the layers and the implications unfold. I need to not cry.
‘Do you believe me?’ he asks, drawing me back into reality. To a pub, where I sit across a table from my husband – a man I love, in my own way.
‘About what?’ I say, quietly. ‘Do I believe you when you tell me you lied? Because, yes.’
‘No … do you believe me when I say I was going to ask you anyway. I don’t ever want you to think that I only proposed because I was injured. That I proposed for publicity, or for sympathy, or to trap you. I proposed because I wanted to marry you.’
Harry is, as I have said, a great showman – but he is not faking this. I nod my head and murmur, ‘I do believe that, Harry, yes. But the ring … part of me always blamed myself, you see. Stupid, I know, but I had this mad idea that if you hadn’t gone off to buy that ring, you might have been somewhere else. You might have been safe. You might not be in that chair.’
His mouth opens silently, and I see how taken aback he is. This is a new train of thought for him, I can tell.
‘Why would you ever think that? Nothing that anybody ever did that night caused anything that happened to them. And certainly not that … God, I can’t believe you’ve been carrying that around all this time …’
We are holding hands across the table, and it feels intimate, warm. Like we are in a little bubble of our own creation. It is the closest I have felt to Harry for a very long time.
‘It probably isn’t just that,’ I say, after taking in a deep breath. He has shared, he has been honest, he has taken a risk – and now I must take some baby steps in that direction as well.
‘What do you mean?’ he asks gently. ‘And it’s okay. I’ll take it on the chin. I’m a big boy now.’
He does a biceps pop as he speaks, in an obvious and not especially effective attempt to lighten the mood.
‘I think I felt guilty because I wasn’t as sure as you.’
‘About what?’
‘About us. In fact, Harry, I was sure that I needed a break … you must have noticed. You must have realised, even if we never discussed it. We weren’t good at this honesty business even back then, were we?’
‘Maybe not,’ he replies, ‘but we’re doing our best now. And yes, of course I’d noticed. I didn’t want to accept it, or take it too seriously, but I had noticed. I suppose, being the arrogant young buck I was back then, I thought that as soon as I popped the question, you’d be happy.’
I let out a small laugh at that. ‘Happy’ is about as far removed from the way I felt when he proposed that it is absurd. I don’t say that, though – this is about honesty, not being nasty. This is about discovering what happens next with us.
‘I’d actually applied for a job,’ I continue. ‘Overseas. Teaching in Guatemala. Had this image of myself saving the world, one English lesson at a time …’
‘And you’d have been great at it. You were always great at it. You’ve always been such a good person … I think that’s why I needed you. Not afterwards, when I was hurt – I needed you for different reasons then. But before, you … I don’t know, gave me light when I knew I was dark? You balanced me out. Why did you want to leave, to take a break?’
‘Lots of small things, I suppose. I’d been with you since I was so young. You were my first love, my first lover, my first everything. I didn’t feel ready for you to be my last. I didn’t feel ready for the rest of my life as you saw it. I wasn’t sure we fitted together any more, and I needed to find out. I felt stifled, Harry – and I hated your job, and the people you worked with, and the way it made you. You talk about light and dark, and that’s not right … neither of us is completely one or the other. But your work was … well, I just didn’t feel like it was good for you, or something I could live with long term.’
He raises his eyebrows, and smiles.
‘Well, you were right, weren’t you? About the job. You were right to hate it, and now it’s not an issue. It’s one of the blessings of the whole mess – that it made me drag myself away from the dark side. Or pushed me away, I don’t know.’
‘I think a bit of both and, honestly, I’m so glad. I’m so proud of what you’ve done since. You certainly don’t need my light any more, Harry.’
‘I’m not so sure about that,’ he replies, ‘but thank you. So. We have shared some secrets. We are both still here, both alive and well and maybe a little bit shaken up. I feel hurt that you were considering actually leaving me. I’m sure you’re upset about the ring. It’s a lot for both of us, and we need time to let it all soak in.’
We look into each other’s eyes, and I know, with inexplicable but complete certainty, that there is more to come. That this is the beginning; these were the first steps along a road to nowhere or a road to everywhere. We have started the journey, and neither of us knows where it might lead.
I know that I need to talk to him about the baby, maybe about Alex. I know that if we are going to move on in our life together in the future that we need to be open about the past.
