by Clare Naylor
“Jake, don’t,” she pleaded as she realized that she just might be in real trouble here.
“Kate, I know what I was like and I couldn’t help it. But I am sorry and things will be different from now on.” He tried to take her hand but she kept it determinedly in her lap.
“No, things won’t be different. It’s over,” she said as gently but firmly as possible.
“I love you. More than I’ve ever loved anyone. And if you just give me a chance I’ll try so hard to be what you want me to be.” She’d never seen him so sincere and so vulnerable and she found it painful and disconcerting.
“I wanted you to be you. But nice to me. That was all I ever wanted, Jake. But I don’t think you’re capable of ever changing. And even if you were, I’m not the girl for you. If I had been you’d have known from the start that I was and you’d have known that you loved me. You’re just panicking now because you’re about to lose me.”
“I can’t lose you, Kate.” He looked as if he might cry. Kate took a deep breath and let him hold her hand. They looked as far into one another’s eyes as it was possible to see for a long moment and then he reached into his inside pocket. He lifted out the envelope and glanced at it closely before handing it to Kate. “This is for you.”
“Can I open it later?” Kate asked as she felt his fingers squeeze hers hard enough to bruise them.
“Kate, you’re the sweetest, mellowest girl I’ve ever met. You’ve been an angel to me and I know I’m not easy.” Jake paused and gave a hint of a smile. “In fact, I know I’m the meanest, most difficult guy you’ve ever come across. But I do love you. And I want to be with you. Forever.”
“Jake . . .” Tears sprang to her eyes. She brushed them aside with her knuckles and tried not to be in love with him. She tried to concentrate on how happy and at ease she felt with Louis, how sexy she’d felt with Felix, and how she’d never felt either of these things with Jake. But then she finally had to admit to herself that there had been good times—the best times even—it’s just that she’d had to block them out in the name of self-preservation. And the instant she realized what she’d done the deluge of amazing memories and good times and love for Jake washed over her with the force of a tidal wave. She was sucked in and swirled under and pummelled by the remembrance of every kiss and every time he’d cracked her up laughing and the times he’d held her so tightly in bed in the morning that she got dead arms and could hardly breathe. He really did love her and he really did want her. But he’d fucked up so many times that she hadn’t allowed herself to see this anymore.
Jake must have known precisely what was going through Kate’s mind because just as she was being lashed by waves of memory he took her drink from her hand, put it on the blanket beside her, and kissed her as if both their lives and the future of the planet depended on it. She didn’t know whether he was sucking life from her or breathing it into her but she felt faint with the intensity of it.
“Open the envelope, angel,” he said to her when they’d both drawn away in light-headed amazement.
“Okay.” Kate picked it up and ran her finger along the seal, all the while not taking her eyes off him. She finally got it open with her trembling fingers and reached inside with her hand. She felt for the CD to slide out but there wasn’t one. She searched the small, bubble-lined envelope harder but nothing. Until she came across a small, hard nugget in the bottom corner.
“Jake, there’s no CD, it’s . . .” she began as she numbly lifted the thing from the wrapping.
It was a ring—a white gold ring with a round emerald and three diamonds on either side. Kate dropped it on the ground.
“No,” she said, more in shock than refusal.
“Here.” Jake put his hand out and picked up the ring. He held it out in front of Kate, who just stared at it. “It’s for you,” Jake said calmly, not taking his eyes off her. “I want you to marry me. Please.” They were words that Kate had waited so, so long to hear. She’d imagined this moment on just about every hill they’d climbed together; she’d pictured it happening as they sat on a log in the woods one Sunday afternoon; she’d thought that it could have taken place in Paris or on the motorway on the way home from a long and blissful day out in summer. Then she’d given up hope altogether. And now here they were on a lilting green houseboat on the Thames and it had just happened and she suddenly hadn’t the faintest idea whether she wanted to marry Jake or not.
“It’s a very pretty ring,” she said in a practical, Daisy-Pulls-It-Off way.
“It’s a 1930s sugarloaf, cabochon emerald,” Jake told her, as if he’d been rehearsing for days. “Kate, will you marry me?” He had the ring in between his fingers now, ready to slide it onto her ring finger if she said yes. But she was mute. She couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“I love you.”
“I . . . I just have no idea.” Kate was flummoxed. It was as if someone had asked her to answer an incredibly complex mathematical equation and she knew that she could work it out given time. Just not right this second.
“Say yes and I promise I’ll make everything okay. Whatever we have to go through again in our lives we’ll never be alone. We’ll always be together. From the moment I put this ring on your finger.” Jake was biting his lip and looking imploringly at her. She closed her eyes in her desperate search for a clue as to what to do.
“Really?” she asked. She’d meant to ask a more profound and taxing question. Like What makes you think this will make any difference to our dysfunctional relationship? or Will this stop you from wanting what you haven’t got in the future? But she wasn’t capable of forming the words. Instead she was tugged under by the riptide again and all she could feel were old feelings—of love, of longing and remembering how she would have given anything to be the girl she was now: the girl sitting on the deck of a boat in her jeans and old cashmere, being offered a stunning emerald ring by Jake, who wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
“We need to be together, Kate, you’re the only thing that gives meaning to my life.” Well, that was Jake’s needs taken care of. But what, Kate struggled to ask herself, was in it for her? Well, Jake of course. The one and only thing she’d ever truly wanted. Until a month ago anyway.
Then, just as she was about to do the sensible thing and tell him that she needed some time to mull over her decision, a terrible thought struck Kate. What if she was as bad as Jake? What if she had wanted Jake only because she never really had him? What if now he was here, asking her to love him, she had decided to flake on the whole thing? Certainly it wasn’t as though anything had happened to really change her mind about Jake—apart from the fact that recently the balance of desire had shifted in her favor. There was Louis, of course, and as recently as two hours ago she’d thought she might want to be with him. But then again she might not like Louis next week—she might go through her entire life never meeting anyone again whom she loved as much as Jake. Her feelings for Louis hadn’t stood the test of a week, let alone three years. If she were going to be sensible she wouldn’t even factor him in the equation. All she had to think about was how she would feel about spending the rest of her life with Jake. Day in, day out. Waking up with him each morning. Having him be the father to her children. Watching him sprout hairs from his nose and gradually grow deaf. She’d told herself a long time ago that she could and would love Jake into old age. Until the day she died. So what had changed, she wondered. She thought hard and looked at the ring. Nothing. Absolutely nothing had changed. Had it? She loved Jake as much as she always had. Of course she did. Nothing else made sense.
“Yes, I will,” she said before she could think again. It was like jumping off the high board into a swimming pool. Once you’d stepped off the edge you were free-falling into a future you had no control over.
“You won’t?” Jake looked at her with disbelief. Obviously she’d done a very good job of looking dubious and reluctant.
“I will.” She said it with more conviction this time.
“You’ll marry me?” Jake had hold of her arms now, as if he was about to shake her. He was staring at her.
“Yes, I’ll marry you.” She laughed, almost hysterical with the realization of what she was saying. She was also completely carried away in the moment—in the idea that after twenty-nine years of living on this earth, she, Kate Disney, was going to get married. Quite apart from anything else it was a complete trip.
“Bloody hell.” Jake said as he took the ring in his hand and slipped it onto Kate’s shaking finger. “We’re getting married.” And then they hugged one another so tightly that there was barely room for air between them, and they cried. Until eventually Kate pulled her soaked face away from the damp wool lapel of his jacket.
“Your jacket smells like sheep.” She sniffed back her tears.
“Does it?” Jake lifted his collar to his nose. “Yeah, you’re right. It does.”
“That’s what happens when wool gets wet,” Kate informed him. Then they both looked at one another in utter shock. They weren’t sure whether to be embarrassed or happy or terrified by what had just happened to them.
“You’ve got snot on your nose,” Jake said, and pulled a tissue out of his jeans pocket.
“How attractive.” Kate took the tissue and wiped her nose. “Anyway it’s not snot, it’s emotion.” She giggled.
“Yeah, right,” Jake teased and then kissed her on the end of her nose. “It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful. I love you,” he said hurriedly.
“I love you, too,” Kate said. Then realized that it was the first time she’d ever told Jake that she loved him.
Chapter Twenty-one
How was she going to tell everyone? This was the second thought Kate had in the morning when she woke up in the stiff cotton sheets of the boat’s berth. It was just getting light outside, which for English summertime probably meant that it wasn’t much later than five A.M. Kate burrowed deeper into Jake, who was folded around her body. The first thought she’d had was that there was something uncomfortable digging into her cheek. She pulled her hand where it had been sandwiched between her face and the pillow and saw that her engagement ring was the culprit.
Her engagement ring. For a second her heart stopped. Then she held her hand out in front of her, careful not to disturb Jake, who was wrapped around her like a python, and examined it. It was, above and beyond its prodigious emotional significance, which she couldn’t comprehend right now, a very lovely thing. It was smooth and the color of a forest in sunlight. Kate tapped her tooth against it to see how it felt. Then she ran her tongue along it. She looked at it one more time and then finally buried it back beneath her cheek. Jake had proposed to her last night and she’d said yes. Then they’d sat on the blanket on the deck and looked for stars but it was cloudy and the lights from the city meant that they couldn’t see a thing. Still, the moon was bright and the evening was balmy and they’d sat up for hours in a state of shock and discussed everything from what they were going to call their children to where they’d go on holiday when they were sixty years old. It was the first time Kate had ever been free to indulge her dreams of a future with Jake, even though she knew all the answers already because she’d thought about these things a million times before. So they’d talked until the air became damp and cool and they’d retreated to the berth. They hadn’t even had sex afterward, they’d simply fallen asleep midsentence as they talked about the idea of an engagement party.
If Kate remembered correctly they’d decided that they were going to have an intimate celebration in Leonard’s garden this Sunday. They’d invite all the people they had time to invite and not make a big fuss over it. They’d save the fuss for the wedding. Which was going to have a musical theme and to which Kate would wear Janis Joplin’s boots beneath her dress. She hadn’t been entirely convinced of this last detail but couldn’t remember whether she’d won the argument or not because she’d been so wiped out at that point that her brain was no longer functioning.
“Good morning, angel.” Jake kissed the back of her neck and Kate felt a wave of happiness settle over her.
“Hi, handsome.” She half turned her head so that she could kiss his hair, at least.
“You haven’t changed your mind have you?” he whispered.
“Surprisingly not.”
“Good. Because I meant every word I said last night. I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“Jake?” Kate asked as she shuffled over until she was facing him.
“Yes?”
“What made you decide you wanted to marry me?”
“Apart from the fact that you’re beautiful and charming and you love me like nobody else could?” He stroked her hair back from her face.
“Apart from those things.”
“Fate,” he said simply. Because saying that he’d gambled and she’d won didn’t seem like the right answer just now.
“Were you drunk?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because I love him.”
“No you don’t.”
“I never stopped loving him. I realize that now.”
“You can’t go through with it.”
“I can. I will. I want to.”
“Then you’re mad.”
Kate had gone straight to Mirri’s room after Jake had dropped her off.
“Don’t you want me to come in with you so we can tell everyone our news?” he’d asked her before she’d hopped out of the car.
“Break the news to them, more like,” Kate said ruefully. “You’ve hardly been the most popular person around here lately.”
“Yeah, but when they see how much I love you, when I tell them, they’ll be thrilled for us,” he said optimistically.
“Let’s save the thrills for tomorrow night,” Kate said as she leaned over and kissed her fiancé.
“Whatever you say, angel.” He took her left hand between his hands and gazed at the ring. “I’ve got the rest of my life with you. I can wait until tomorrow to show you off.”
“I’ll call you later. After I’ve seen the flat,” Kate told Jake as she opened the car door. Much as she didn’t want to leave his side right now, her stomach was churning like a washing machine with nerves. First she’d tell Mirri. Then Leonard. Then she’d call her mother. She wasn’t doing it in order of importance—simply getting the worst bits out of the way first. Her mother was likely to be most tolerant and happy, as she knew Jake the least. Oh, hell, and what about Robbie and Tanya? Kate looked at Jake and was about to suggest they elope when she noticed the curtain twitch in Mirri’s bedroom. Too late.
“See you soon.” Jake kissed her passionately on the lips.
“What about Louis?” Mirri was in her dressing gown on the landing and Jonah was asleep in her bed. She had closed the door when Kate knocked so as not to wake him.
“I’ll talk to Louis. He’ll understand. I mean, it’s not as though we were really together or anything,” Kate said with more confidence than she felt. The thought of telling Louis had been haunting her since she first woke up. She had even contemplated not telling him until their project was over, because the idea of seeing him every day and knowing how he’d be filled her with dread. She’d prefer it if he were angry because then she’d feel less guilty. If he were noble and understanding she’d want to die. She had tried to cast the whole thing from her mind but it kept creeping back in, like knowing you have a trip to the dentist to have a tooth out that niggles away in your head.
“I wouldn’t understand if I were him.”
“Well, thankfully you’re not,” Kate said irritably. Then she looked at Mirri’s disappointed face and nearly burst into tears. “Please, can’t you be happy for me? Your approval means so much. Maybe you could spend some time with Jake getting to know him and like him. He’s pretty winning. And now he’s changed his ways, well, of course we’ll be happy.”
“You look so pathetic that I might just try to be happy for you.” Mirri
shook her head and gave Kate a reassuring hug. “Now let me see the ring. See how much he really thinks of you.”
“It’s pretty.” Kate held out her hand to Mirri.
“Oh, yes. I rather like it. Sugarloaf, cabochon emerald. Antique?”
“I think 1930s,” Kate said. Proud that Jake had done something right in her friend’s eyes.
“Well then. I think we have to have champagne,” she said.
“We’re celebrating?” Kate asked as the weight of the world lifted momentarily from her shoulders. With Mirri’s approval and advice she felt she could tackle all the other detractors easily. But she badly needed her support.
“Champagne is for funerals, too, you know,” Mirri said gravely. Then, when she saw Kate turn an unearthly shade of gray, she laughed and took her hand. “But today we’ll celebrate, okay?”
“Thanks,” Kate said. It wasn’t exactly putting out the flags but it’d do for now.
Leonard, because he was too well mannered not to be, was delighted for Kate. He even shed a tear, as a surrogate father ought to.
“I think he should have asked Leonard’s permission,” Mirri said as she handed out glasses of champagne.
“Actually I’d prefer tea if that’s okay,” Kate said. “I’ve overdosed on champagne lately.”
