One Hundred Proposals

by Holly Martin

  I watched her turn and run barefooted across the grass and straight into Harry’s arms. With a last look from Harry they disappeared into the house.

  Samantha was right. Harry wasn’t shy. If he had any feelings for me he would have told me by now. And, after the quick dismissal of the idea of me in his bed, I wanted to get down on my knees and thank the powers that be that I had never declared my undying love to him that night. He wouldn’t have told me quite so bluntly but the conversation would have been mortifying.

  I turned away and didn’t look back. Yes it hurt, but to finally have it confirmed was like a weight off my shoulders. I was free, there was to be no more wondering if his kind actions or words had some ulterior motive, no more thinking that one day we would fall into each other’s arms and live happily ever after. That was never going to happen now. For the first time in two years, I could finally move on.

  *

  I knocked on Jules’s door early next morning. She’d be up, Bella always woke up ridiculously early.

  I had lain awake most of the night thinking about Harry and I needed some kind of distraction from him today.

  Jules opened the door looking very dishevelled and her eyes widened when she saw me.

  ‘Did I wake you, aw sorry mate, I thought you’d be up by now, with Bella.’

  I kissed her on the cheek and pushed past her into the house.

  ‘Bella’s still asleep.’

  ‘I thought we could go out today, maybe London Zoo. Bella loves the animals.’

  ‘Great idea. I’d love that. But I have some things I need to take care of this morning. Why don’t I meet you there about twelve?’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘And I’m running late so… well not meaning to be rude or anything but…’ she grinned at me good naturedly.

  ‘Well why don’t I get Bella up and dressed for you. I can give her breakfast whilst you have a shower and get dressed yourself.’

  I moved to the stairs.

  ‘NO! I mean, Bella’s a bit grouchy in the morning. She doesn’t like being woken up by anyone other than me.’

  ‘She knows me, I’m sure she’ll be fine.’

  I walked up the stairs.

  ‘Suzie please. I…’

  A very loud male yawn interrupted whatever she was going to say next. I stared at her, willing my ears to have picked up a neighbour’s yawn or perhaps a TV. I felt sick.

  ‘Jules, where are you? I have something for you, something big.’ A male voice floated down the stairs.

  It was a friend, a brother, her father. It had to be. He had a big present, that was it. It was all perfectly innocent. I ignored the voice in the back of my head that told me I knew that voice.

  I raced up the stairs, ignoring Jules’s desperate pleas behind me.

  I pushed open the door to her bedroom and stared at Badger, lying stark naked in Jules’s bed with his huge erection in his hand.

  His eyes widened when he saw me.

  ‘Shit, Suzie, wait I can explain.’ Badger scrabbled out of bed towards me and I lurched back away from him. This was a horrible nightmare, one that I wanted to wake up from at any minute.

  I looked at Jules, waiting for any kind of explanation that would make this all right. She was leaning against the wall with her head in her hands, looking like The Scream by Edvard Munch. I probably had the same expression.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I never wanted you to find out like this.’

  ‘It’s true? You’ve been sleeping with Badger behind my brother’s back?’ The inaccuracy of the words punched me in the stomach. ‘It’s been eight months.’ I quickly rectified. ‘My brother has barely gone cold and you’re screwing around with his cousin already. I suppose I should be grateful that you’re keeping it in the family.’

  ‘Suzie, it’s not like that.’ Badger was quickly doing up his jeans.

  ‘And you, how could you betray me like this. We’re supposed to be friends. You were supposed to be Jack’s friend.’

  Bella started crying and as Badger stepped towards her bedroom to soothe her, a new horror hit me. Badger raising my niece, Badger being the only dad that Bella would ever know.

  Tears welled in my eyes and I ran down the stairs and out onto the street.

  I could hear Jules chasing after me.

  I managed to get two houses away before she caught my arm and pulled me back.

  She was crying too. ‘I’m sorry, I never meant for it to happen, but it did and I’m so sorry. I know this probably won’t help, but I’m not just sleeping with him, it’s not sex. I love him.’

  My stomach lurched.

  ‘You loved Jack,’ I spat. ‘How can you love someone else so soon after his death?’

  ‘Do you think I have any control over it? I felt so guilty, I still feel guilty, but I can’t go on punishing myself any longer. I can’t deny what I feel for Steve, I’m sorry.’

  Steve? Who the bloody hell was Steve? Someone else she was sleeping with? Then I remembered that that was Badger’s real name.

  Badger came running out the house, carrying Bella on his hip as if she belonged there. Bella had stopped crying and was clinging to Badger’s hair as he unconsciously stroked her back. Bella saw me and broke into a huge smile, her hands reaching out to hug me.

  ‘How long has it being going on?’

  ‘Steve has been coming round ever since Jack died.’

  ‘Thought you could jump into the marital bed whilst it was still warm did you? I hope you at least changed the sheets before you got in.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that. How could it have been? I was a mess after Jack had died. Steve helped me, he did the cleaning, the washing, he cooked meals for me. It was just nice to have someone to cry on. You know what that was like, you had Harry. I had no one.’

  ‘You had me.’

  ‘You had your own grief to attend to. Steve and I were friends, it was never anything more than that.’ She sighed heavily. ‘The first time we slept together was four months after Jack’s death.’

  ‘Four months!’ I wanted to slap her. I had to physically stop myself from doing just that.

  ‘We were both drunk, we never meant for it to happen,’ Badger tried to explain.

  ‘Oh so you just tripped and your dick fell into her repeatedly.’

  ‘Dick.’ Bella gurgled, happily. Any other time it would have been funny.

  ‘I cried for days after, I didn’t want anything else to do with him. I refused to see him again. But I missed him so much. We didn’t do anything again for weeks, months, though we started seeing each other. I suppose we’ve been a couple for two or three weeks now.’

  ‘I love her, Suzie, I hate that we’ve hurt you like this, but this is more than just fooling around.’

  The words of togetherness sliced through me. Bella leaned into Badger’s shoulder affectionately.

  ‘And how do you think Jack would feel about this?’ I gestured to the little family unit.

  Fresh tears filled Jules’s eyes. ‘I would hope that he would see I was happy and would be pleased for me. I hope, in time, you’ll be happy for me too.’

  ‘Don’t hold your breath.’

  I walked away and managed to turn the corner before I burst into tears.

  *

  I sat staring at the small stone fountain as water gushed from the top like a bubble. St Dunstan-in-the-East was an oasis in the middle of all the noise of the city. Amongst the high rise buildings and busy roads sat this tranquil hidden garden. The twelfth century church had been bombed in the Second World War and was never repaired, it had then been made into a public garden. Trees grew from the walls, vines crawled through the empty windows as if they were tentacles trying to suck the church back into the ground. Wild flowers grew from little borders round the edge of the church. Weak, winter sunlight streamed through the open roof, glinting off the water of the fountain. I was alone, which I was thankful for.

  Though as a huge shadow loomed over me, blocking out the sunlight
, I knew straight away who it was.

  Harry sat down next to me and put his arm round me.

  ‘Badger called.’

  ‘Did you know?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I glared at him. ‘And you didn’t tell me?’

  ‘It wasn’t my place to tell.’

  ‘You’re supposed to be my friend.’

  ‘I am, you know that I am. But this was their thing. They had to figure it out for themselves. I didn’t want to get in the way. Telling you would have interfered. Jules feels guilty enough about this as it is without factoring you into the equation.’

  ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘So you could have stopped it?’

  ‘Yes. She doesn’t love him. This is grief, pure and simple.’

  ‘Then you should be happy that she has found some comfort, that someone was there to help her pick up the pieces.’

  ‘She slept with Badger four months after my brother died. Four months. Do you know how that makes me feel? Jack would be heartbroken. He loved Jules so much. Jack and Jules, Jules and Jack. Then Bella. They were the perfect little family, the perfect happy, ever after. And four months after he died she was sleeping with someone else. So maybe she never really loved Jack at all.’

  ‘That’s rubbish and you know it.’

  I stared at him, stung at the betrayal. ‘You’re supposed to be on my side.’

  ‘The side of stupidity, I don’t think so.’

  I stood up. ‘You think I’m being stupid.’

  He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I get that you’re hurt. It must hurt to see Jules move on, to see Badger watching Bella grow up when Jack will never see that. But surely you don’t want Jules to be on her own for the rest of her life.’

  ‘I expect her to grieve over Jack a darn sight longer than four months.’

  ‘Four months was an accident. Two people who loved Jack, still grieving over him and seeking comfort with each other. We never slept together, I mean actually had sex, but there was many a night after Jack had died that we slept in the same bed, that you clung to me as you slept. You sought comfort with me. Them sleeping together isn’t that far removed from what we did. People grieve in different ways.’

  ‘And now grief has turned to love. I don’t think so.’

  ‘You should be happy for her.’

  ‘Happy?’

  ‘Say if Jules was one of your friends, not your sister in-law, and she started seeing someone else after her husband had died. Wouldn’t you be happy for her, that something was finally making her smile again?’

  ‘It’s too soon.’

  ‘I imagine a lot of people would think that. But do you think you have any say who you fall in love with and when? Do you think she has any control over it?’

  ‘What about Bella?’

  ‘What about her? She needs a dad.’

  My fists clenched. ‘Badger is not her dad.’

  ‘He loves her, Suzie, loves her like she’s his own.’

  ‘He has no right to love her.’

  ‘That’s a bit selfish, isn’t it?’

  ‘So I’m selfish and stupid now.’

  ‘Jack wanted Jules to be happy again, to find love again, he said so in his letter to her. Yes, it’s happened a lot sooner than any of us expected, but you have to take happiness now, while you have the chance. I think Jack would be delighted that Jules has found happiness with someone who loves her and Bella so much. That’s all he could ever hope for, someone that treats them right, who would go to the ends of the world for them. You know Badger as well as I do. I can’t think of a better bloke for Jules to end up with. He deserves happiness too.’

  I was hurting so much inside right now. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. Jack should still be here to raise his own daughter, to spend the rest of his life with the woman he loved, who loved him. And Harry should have been mine. There were no happy ever afters.

  I wanted to run away from all this. From seeing Harry every day, from Badger and Jules. Suddenly the answer was obvious.

  ‘I’m thinking of emigrating.’

  ‘That’s a bit of an extreme reaction to all of this.’

  ‘I have nothing for me here anymore.’

  ‘Thanks very much.’

  ‘I’m in your way. The third wheel. I don’t want to come between you and Samantha. If I move to Australia, you can get that well paid job, you can stop dropping everything for me and running every time I hurt – and I won’t have to watch my niece being raised by another man.’

  The idea was suddenly growing on me. Those beaches, waterfalls and rainforests. A new life.

  Harry stood, looming over me. ‘You listen to me. You have never and will never be in my way. Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me. Not only do I now have the best job in the world, helping other couples get together, but I also have the best friend. You’re kind, generous, sweet, funny and I would rather spend every single hour of every single day with you than someone like Samantha. Yes, you’ve been going through a rough patch lately. But we’ll get through it, together, by letting your friends help you – not by pushing them away. Jules and Badger love you too. Badger was beside himself when you left earlier.’

  I didn’t want to hear it. I grabbed my bag and walked out the church.

  ‘Damn it Suzie, running away is not the answer.’

  But I kept on walking, and when he shouted again the traffic noises outside swallowed it up.

  Proposer’s Blog

  Day 5: The Love Actually Proposal. Location: Outside Suzie’s house

  Suzie’s not actually talking to me. I’m an insensitive arse. She is going through the worst time in her life at the moment and I should have been there for her. I should have been more diplomatic. I should have let her cry on my shoulder instead of forcing my ideas and opinions on her.

  As she won’t open the door or answer the phone, there was no choice but to do today’s proposal through the medium of cue cards, as in that famous scene from Love Actually with beautiful Keira Knightley and super sexy (or so Suzie tells me) Andrew Lincoln.

  So with a bit of help from Ronan Keating, (a CD of ‘You Say it Best When You Say Nothing at All’ obviously, not the man himself, though that would have been awesome. Ronan Keating, if you’re reading this and would like to help out a fellow romantic, give me a call) and three large white placards, I stood outside her house and proposed.

  Placard 1. I’m sorry.

  Placard 2. You’re my best friend and I will stand by your side forever.

  Placard 3. Marry me.

  I’d like to say that she came out and ran straight into my arms, but of course that didn’t happen. She watched from her window and then she walked away.

  *

  Damn. Shit. Fuck. Bugger. Arse.

  I couldn’t sleep. I was a selfish brat and to top it all my sulkiness had ruined another damned fine proposal.

  Of course I wanted Jules to be happy. It was only the other day that I’d told her how good she looked, and how happy it made me to see her smiling again. Badger was responsible for that and how could I want to stop it? It might not last – it might be grief, pure and simple – but Harry was right, if she had found some comfort in the months after Jack’s death then that had to be a good thing.

  I just wished it wasn’t sexual comfort.

  I thought about the times that Harry had held me in bed, held me tight as I cried myself to sleep. There had been many a time, even in my grief, that I’d wanted the hugging to be something more. It wasn’t even entirely down to my inappropriate feelings for him that I’d wanted him to make love to me. I’d just wanted to feel my blood rushing through me, to feel his heat, his skin against mine, to feel alive, when my whole body seemed numb with grief. Could I really blame Jules for taking that extra step, the one I’d been too scared to take myself?

  Because I needed Harry. After Jack’s death, Harry had been the air I needed to breathe and I’d been too scared to do anything t
hat might cause me to lose him. I’d seen many women come and go before Jack died, I’d watch Harry get bored and cast them aside before moving onto the next. I couldn’t be that woman, who he slept with and wanted nothing more to do with after. I had only got through the last eight months because of Harry being doggedly by my side. The thought now of him not being there, of waking up in a different country and not seeing him every day, was unbearable.

  And Jules had found the same comfort with Badger.

  It might turn out to be something serious. Jules could end up with Badger for the rest of her life, get married to Badger, have more children with him. I shuddered at the thought. I loved Badger, he was a good bloke, but it didn’t sit right that she was moving on so soon after Jack’s death.

  But then what was the alternative. I’d seen Jules in the months after Jack’s death. She’d lost so much weight, her skin was grey, the bags under her eyes indicating a complete lack of any sleep – and the grief and pain in her eyes was something I couldn’t bear to look at. It sliced through me every time she looked at me. I never wanted her to go back to that place.

  Harry’s words rang in my ears. ‘You should grab happiness while you have the chance.’ And he was right. Some of us were lucky to find love once in our lives. Who was I to deny Jules the chance to find it twice?

  I hated that Harry was right. And the annoying thing was, I’d known he was right even in the church.

  There was only one way this was going to be resolved.

  I threw back the duvet, shoved my feet into my trainers and ran down the stairs and across the green. It was deserted again. It always surprised me that, despite how centrally we lived, our little green reflected a country village at this time of night.

  I banged on Harry’s door and rang the bell. His house was in complete darkness and I prayed that he was alone.

  Eventually I saw movement in the glass door beyond.

  As he came closer I realised he was naked apart from his shorts. Did the man walk round his house in a permanent state of nakedness?

  He opened the door, his face screwed up against the street lights. I had clearly just woke him up.