GRACE

Saturday, 14 April 2018 Day Zero

THE WIND CATCHES AT MY HAIR, FLICKING A STRAND across my face where it sticks to my lips. I pull it away and twist it behind my ear. Nick, Lottie and Toffee are running towards me. Toffee is well ahead, but he keeps turning to check they are behind him.

Nick bends double with a stitch and Lottie imitates him.

‘Old man,’ she says. ‘Sort yourself out.’

‘I’ve been thinking,’ I say. ‘I might ask Anna Foreman to dinner.’ I watch his reaction carefully.

He’s about to throw a stick, but he stops, arm mid-arc. ‘Anna Foreman?’

‘Yes, you know. Kai’s mum. Perhaps you haven’t met her. She’s new and I feel guilty because I haven’t made much effort. I owe her for that time she picked Lottie up when I had to work late. I’m thinking of maybe asking Cassie and Evan. And Susanna and Peter? I’ll have to dredge up an extra man from somewhere. Unless you think that doesn’t matter.’

He walks ahead of me, flings the stick and shades his eyes with his hand, watching the dog sprint gleefully into the bracken. ‘To be honest, I’m not in the mood for a dinner party.’

‘It wouldn’t need to be anything formal. Just a casual kitchen supper. I don’t much like dinner parties either.’

He waits for me. ‘Let’s not. I can’t face it.’

‘OK. We can do it any time. Perhaps it was a bad idea. She can come to a barbecue in the summer, when there’re lots of people round. It’ll be easier.’

When I get nervous I tend to placate. I understand that I’m safe with Nick, that this is leftover insecurity from a chaotic childhood but sometimes it’s hard to control. It used to irritate Douglas, but he gave me good reason to feel jealous and insecure. Nick has never done that.

‘Don’t plan me into anything, Grace.’

‘Well, of course I won’t if you don’t want me to. Is there something wrong?’

He doesn’t answer for a moment, but he walks faster, striding through the long grass. I keep up, tucking my arm through his. He wraps his hand around mine.

‘Sorry. It’s office politics. Things aren’t great at the moment.’

‘I thought you loved it there.’

‘I did, but I’m not sure that I like the way the company is heading. It’s only money, Grace, stress and money and greed. It’s beginning to feel meaningless, a way of pedalling through life. There’s got to be more.’

‘You can do what you like,’ I tell him. ‘Don’t stay if you hate it.’

He pulls me round and hugs me. ‘Even if it means I take a pay cut?’

‘I don’t care how much you earn. I just want you to be happy.’

Toffee barks, exhorting us to come on; there are sticks to be thrown, birds to be chased, smells to investigate. Lottie runs up and joins our hug and Nick breaks into a smile of pleasure. It’s family that makes him happy. It’s the three of us.

Toffee scampers up and I pat his flank. ‘Yes, you can join in too, you old softy.’

He spins round and drops his chin into my hand, looking up at me with those forlorn eyes; the eyes Lottie and I couldn’t resist when we found him at the dogs’ home. His character is needy and touching on obsequious, but Lottie and I think that’s because he worries that as we took him from the home, we have the power to take him back.

‘Nick said we can go to the cafe,’ Lottie says.

I glance at him, and he shrugs. ‘I said you’d have to ask your mother.’

She smirks. ‘Which means he agrees.’

Nick laughs. ‘I wouldn’t mind.’

He slips his arm around my waist and we turn back along the footpath, Toffee taking the lead while Lottie roots in the undergrowth for sticks to throw for him.

It’s a glorious spring afternoon and Wimbledon Common is busy. The shrieks of children bounce across the open spaces; there’s birdsong and laughter and the occasional whistle for an errant dog. My mind is miles away when Nick suddenly speaks.

‘Will you marry me?’

I’m so surprised I hit him, not hard, just my palm against his chest. He grabs my hand and holds it there. I look up into his face. His smile is so wide, it makes my mouth stretch too.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I am. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.’

He is shot through with adrenaline; I can see it in his eyes. I ignore the tiny voice warning me that such a huge swing of the pendulum, from withdrawn to an almost manic excitement, is odd, especially in the light of his behaviour over the last couple of days. I ignore the voice because this is what I desperately want.

He smiles and strokes my hair away from my face. ‘Do I get an answer?’ He looks so hopeful it brings a lump to my throat.

I lean over and kiss him. ‘Yes. Yes I will. Shall we tell Lottie?’

He blinks and looks away, shielding his eyes so that he can see her. ‘Can we wait until tomorrow? I want to buy you a ring first. I want that to be how we tell her. Can’t you picture her face?’

He turns and smiles winningly, and I melt. I can absolutely picture it. I’ll hold out my hand, let the gems twinkle in the sunlight, and she will spot it and squeal, and throw herself at both of us.

I put my arms around his big shoulders and kiss him. He looks down and something in his expression makes my heart ache. He looks haunted.

‘Grace, I want—’

But he doesn’t have a chance to tell me what he wants, because Lottie shouts from the gate to the cafe where she’s tying Toffee up. We yell back that we’re coming, and sprint, holding hands. Toffee lifts his paws in the air and scrabbles at my jeans, caught up in our excitement.

I watch Nick, my big, handsome bloke, being mercilessly teased by Lottie and I think how lucky I am. I love his integrity, his everyday courage, his way of looking at the world. He doesn’t anticipate problems like I do, he deals with them as they arrive. Faced with turbulence he becomes preternaturally calm; he prioritizes, fixes, solves. He makes me feel safe.

Then a cloud floats across the sun and I shiver. My childhood taught me that the ground can collapse beneath me without warning. It happened to me twice. I gaze at Nick’s face, and he smiles back, his eyebrows raised in query. I shrug with a grin and turn away.

Everything is fine. We are getting married. I’m happy.

Even if I don’t deserve to be.

It’s only the next morning, after everything’s fallen apart, that I remember this moment, and the odd intonation in his voice. He wanted to tell me something.