One Hundred Proposals

‘Spending money on you is never a waste. And we’re running late now so we’re going to have to run.’

He grabbed my hand and started jogging through the streets, winding his way expertly through the other people.

‘We could catch the tube,’ I whined, as I tried to keep up with his long-legged pace.

‘Running’s much more fun,’ Harry said, without breaking his stride.

*

The Glade at Sketch was like nothing I’d ever seen before. With its white bricked front, Sketch looked like a simple townhouse – and we’d actually walked past the place before we’d realised it was there. But down the darkened staircase and to the left, a tranquil wooded glade had been transported from some fairy tale forest to this seemingly unassuming restaurant in central London. Trees covered every wall and surface, the leaves of which were painted in every shade of green and gold imaginable. A huge chandelier dominated the ceiling, casting delicate lights over every surface from its tangle of branches. Tiny gold fireflies danced around the walls and floor. Mirrored panels near the roof moved slowly, catching the light from the huge sun roof above us and sending its rays across the room as if the sun was moving through the trees. Wicker chairs, tables and sofas with huge green embroidered cushions were placed casually throughout the room as if they were garden furniture and we were all just simply sitting out in the garden somewhere, enjoying the sun.

‘Harry Forbes, we have a reservation for afternoon tea.’ Harry said to the beautiful waitress who looked like a woodland nymph with the plaits and twists in her hair, and her floaty dress.

The waitress showed us to our table and we quickly placed an order for tea. Breakfast tea for me, something that sounded like a rare tropical disease for Harry.

‘Harry, this place is beautiful.’ I couldn’t stop looking around, until my eyes met with his and I realised he’d been watching me. ‘Thank you for today.’

‘My pleasure. I just wanted you to have some fun. You’ve been so down lately.’ He paused, awkwardly, while he rearranged the cups on the table. ‘The food here is amazing.’

I reached across and squeezed his hand. ‘Thank you.’

The afternoon tea arrived just as Harry was poised to say something else. I reluctantly let him go so there was room for our cake stand on the table.

Harry was right, the food looked and tasted amazing. The sandwiches were all topped with extras like quail eggs and caviar, bringing a simple egg mayonnaise sandwich alive with an assault of different flavours.

There was an array of cakes, all tiny, mouth-watering bites of pure pleasure, some kind of trifle and of course delicious fresh fruit scones.

‘So tell me,’ Harry said around a mouthful of something chocolaty, ‘Tiny Tim, did you and he…?’

Oh God, Tiny Tim was going to come back and haunt me forever.

I picked up some kind of pink meringue that literally dissolved as soon as it touched my tongue. I licked my lips as I played for time.

‘Did we what?’ I smirked as Harry shifted uncomfortably, waving his hands around in what I presumed was some kind of representation of the act. The man had no problem discussing his sordid sex life but he was still awkward when discussing mine. I wanted to play him at his own game.

‘He liked to dress up,’ I said as I popped some kind of fruit tart in my mouth. The fruit was crystalized and was like an explosion on my tongue.

Harry’s eyes widened. ‘Like air hostess, police woman, cheerleader, that kind of thing?’

I shook my head. ‘Lots of different things really. One of my favourites was dressing up as a unicorn and he was a lion. He liked to take me from behind and he would roar when he came.’

Harry stared at me, his face unblinking. I picked up a tiny coffee éclair and caught the eye of a tiny little old lady sitting at the next table, her fruit tart poised halfway to her mouth. I blushed, realising she had heard every word.

Still, there was no going back now.

‘He liked to dress up as one of the flower pot men, Bill normally, I’m not sure why. I was always the flower, Weed. Then Bill would come at me with his big hose.’

The old lady leaned over to me. ‘Dear, do you have the name of the shop where you bought these costumes?’

‘I don’t I’m afraid, Tim always brought them with him. I will miss his big hose.’

Harry was still staring at me. ‘I didn’t realise you were into all that weird stuff.’

I licked the icing off the top of the éclair and popped it in my mouth, trying desperately to suppress my laughter but it was to no avail. I snorted so hard that a bubble of snot burst from my nose and I quickly had to wipe it away on my beautiful cotton serviette.

‘You’re joking?’ Harry looked almost relieved.

‘Of course I am.’

‘So you guys… didn’t…’

‘It’s none of your business. Just because you like to talk about all your sexploits, doesn’t mean the rest of us do.’

‘That’s a ‘no’ if ever I heard one.’ He smiled smugly. I wasn’t going to let him get away with that.

‘It’s a ‘yes’ actually, but it was just regular sex.’ I wanted to expand on that, regular sex sounded so boring. ‘Well as regular as three hour sex marathons can be. He had the stamina of a horse. We’d do it all over the flat. On the dining table, up against a wall, in the shower, in the kitchen, on top of the washing machine, backwards, forwards, sideways, doggy style.’

The old lady choked on her fruit scone.

‘Sideways?’ asked Harry.

‘Yes. You should try it, it’s great fun. Can you pass the sugar?’

I stared down at my tea. Sideways, how exactly would that work?

‘Tell me about your plans for the summer. You said you were thinking about going to New Zealand.’

Harry recovered himself well. ‘The land of the hobbits. I would love to. Maybe hire a camper van and drive from North to South. There’s so many things I want to do, but it’s more fun doing them with someone else.’

‘Sexy Samantha not keen?’

‘She’s definitely not the camper van sort. She’s more of the ‘five star hotel with daily spa treatments’ kind of girl. We should go.’

‘I would love that, I want to see the world, every tiny little pocket of it, but no girlfriend of yours is going to be happy about you taking another woman off on holiday. Sleeping together in the back of the camper van.’ I blushed as Harry’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I meant actually sleeping – not having sex.’

The old lady leaned in closer again, ready to catch the next instalment in my sex life.

‘I should hope not,’ Harry said, his tongue licking seductively up the side of his éclair. ‘I don’t have a lion costume.’

*

I sat back and watched the gold fireflies chase each other up the walls. I was so uncomfortably full, but everything was so hard to resist, that I’d had to eat it all.

We’d had a lovely time, chatting all afternoon, but one of the main topics of conversation from the other guests was the toilets and how funny they were. I had to check them out myself.

I excused myself from the table and, following the directions of the woodland nymph waitress, I walked through another restaurant to a very white room on the other side.

The stairs leading up to the toilets were a brilliant opulent white – looking like they led to somewhere much grander than just some toilets. I walked upstairs to a brightly lit room, the ceiling decorated with beautiful rainbow tiles, but as I reached the top I stopped in my tracks. Several pods sat in a white chamber at the top of the stairs, looking like white cocoons from an alien spaceship. They were about seven foot tall and tapered off like eggs at the top.

I looked around for the toilets but there was nothing else up here. On the other side of the room were several more pods. These pods were clearly the toilets and were obviously the reason for such amusement from the other guests.

I opened the door on one of them, expecting to hear some kind of space age whoosh and was slightly disappointed when I didn’t.

Inside was the weirdest toilet I had ever seen. There was no seat at all. I walked in and closed the door behind me. It was obviously some foreign kind of toilet where you stand. A long ceramic oval hung from the wall jutting out at the bottom to catch the waste. I stared at it – how on earth was I supposed to pee in that? Backwards seemed the only safe option. With a bit of negotiating I pointed my bum in the right direction and leaned forward into a sort of half squat. I quickly finished and after redressing I left the pod, dying to tell Harry about the very weird toilets. He was standing right outside and looked shocked to see me coming out of one of the pods.

‘What?’ I said

‘These are the boys’ toilets.’

I laughed. ‘No they’re not, the waitress pointed me up these stairs.’

‘Yes, the girls’ pods are over there.’ He pointed to the other side of the stairs where several pods were bathed in pink lights in comparison to the pods where I was that were bathed in blue.

Harry peered over my shoulder and burst out laughing. ‘Did the urinals not give you a clue?’

I looked back and gasped in horror. I had just peed in a urinal. Now he had pointed it out to me it was obvious. It wasn’t some weird foreign type toilet at all, just a bog standard urinal. I felt my cheeks glow crimson.

‘I’m intrigued. How exactly did you manage to pee in there?’

I quickly hurried to the sinks and washed my hands. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

I heard Harry go into one of the pods, his laughter so loud I could hear him from the outside.

Chapter Three

I was shaken gently awake the next day. It was pitch black but the hand continued to shake me.

‘Harry?’ I croaked, though I knew it was him, I could smell his glorious scent.

‘Yeah, it’s me.’

I leaned over and snapped on the lamp on the bedside table, shielding my eyes from the sudden glare.

‘Here, I made you a coffee. The café isn’t open yet. It won’t be as good as theirs, you don’t have any hazelnut syrup for a start, but it might help to wake you up.’

I took the coffee numbly and stared at him in confusion.

‘You look good by the way, nice pyjamas.’

I peered over at the alarm clock, blearily. It was four a.m. I put the coffee down and picked up the clock to look at it more closely.

‘It’s four o’clock!’ I said, incredulous. I wasn’t even aware that there was two four o’clocks in one day.

‘Yes it is.’

‘In the morning!’

‘How very perceptive of you.’

‘Did we discuss this last night?’ I racked my brains for any conversation that would have alerted me to the fact that Harry would be disturbing me at this ungodly hour.

After leaving The Glade the day before, we had walked along the Thames as the sun set and the moon danced over the water. It had been incredibly romantic, apart from at the end of our wonderful date, when Harry had rushed off to meet another woman. But I did get a goodnight kiss. On the cheek, but still, a kiss was a kiss.

But as we had chatted, there had been no mention of this ridiculously early intrusion. I would have protested if I’d known.

‘No, that’s part of the surprise,’ he said, pulling the duvet off me. I pulled it back, not ready to face the chill of the morning yet.

‘A proposal?’ My heart leapt a little. Despite my reticence about being proposed to, I was actually looking forward to seeing what Harry would do next.

‘Of course. This one’s a good one.’

‘Let me tell you, any proposal that starts at four o’clock in the morning is not going to be a good one.’

‘You’ll love it.’

I threw myself back down on the bed, covering myself with the duvet.

‘No, you can’t make me get up.’

‘Suzie, you have two choices, you can either get dressed now and come with me or...’

‘I’ll take the ‘or’ whatever it is, definitely the ‘or’.’

‘Ok, if you insist.’

‘I do.’

There was silence beyond the duvet, and a shifting of weight indicated that Harry had got off the bed. Had I hurt his feelings? Had he gone?

Suddenly the duvet was ripped off me and Harry grabbed my arms, pulled me up into a sitting position and then threw me over his shoulder. He turned and ran for the door.

‘What are you doing?’ I squealed.

‘The ‘or’ was going in your pyjamas.’

Harry ran down the stairs, opened the flat door and ran outside with me still over his shoulder. The street outside was deserted.

‘No, no, please, I’ll be good, I’ll get dressed I promise, just don’t kidnap me in my pyjamas.’

Harry lowered me to the ground carefully. ‘You promise, you’ll go straight back in there and get dressed right away?’

I put my hand up in a Girl Guide salute. ‘I promise.’

‘Very well, you have five minutes.’

I nodded at him and went back up the stairs, but if I thought I could sneak back into bed that thought was quickly quelled as Harry followed close behind.

*

Harry pulled his car into an empty car park and I looked around blearily. I had dozed in the car, unable to keep my eyes open as Harry’s old Beetle, Betty, bumped along the roads. The heating had two settings, scorching hot or off. In the cold winter morning, scorching hot was the only answer but it had made me even sleepier. Harry had tried to placate my frown with a full English breakfast at some greasy spoon road café. It had woken me up a bit.

Harry leaned over to me and zipped up my fleece I was wearing. I was told to bring warm clothes, but that was the only clue as to what I was doing today.

‘Now listen, I had to pull in a big favour for this, and had to tell a whopping lie to get it at the last minute. You need to humour me in this, otherwise Frank will be disappointed.’

‘Frank?’ I racked my brain for a Frank but came up with nothing.

‘I told him we were a couple, that was the only way I could arrange it so quickly. It takes months to wait for this kind of thing, and Frank was so delighted, after all the business we’ve put his way, he was happy to help.’

I was stumped, my brain still not firing on all cylinders. Harry got out and held the door open for me, not because he was chivalrous, although he had wonderful manners, but because Betty’s door could only be opened from the outside. With Harry’s wealth, I often wondered why he didn’t buy something better, but he loved Betty with a loyalty that I adored.

He grabbed a cool box from the boot and then took my hand as we walked round some bushes into a field. I had to marvel at how my hand fitted perfectly in his.

The field was lit with barely muted greys. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but it was that time of the morning when the light came with a promise of what was to come. The grass was wet with dew and our breath formed misty shapes in front of us as we walked.

‘So we’re together, a loving couple?’ I nodded, my brain finally waking up as the seed of this idea started to grow.

He grinned as he nodded.

‘So as far as Frank is concerned, this is a real proposal?’

‘Yes.’

I bit my lip as a delicious thrill ran through me. ‘So he’ll be expecting a real reaction.’

‘Yes. You can tell me what you think about this later, give me a true reaction. It’s probably too clichéd for you, but in front of Frank you need to be delighted.’

I could do delighted. I’d seen a few proposals in my time as chief proposal planner, they all ended with kisses. I smiled, I could do that. My heart jolted with sudden fear and excitement. I was going to kiss Harry. It had taken two years but now, finally, I was going to get to kiss him. All thought and reason went out of my head and I had to physically restrain myself from doing one of those little sideways kicks where you click your heels together.

There was a noise up ahead, a roaring, rushing sound, and an orangey glow painted the trees like autumn had come early.

We rounded a corner and I saw it. I couldn’t help the grin from splitting my face. In front of me, slowly filling with air, were two hot air balloons.

I shrieked and threw myself at Harry, who managed to catch my flailing arms and legs as I completely took him by surprise.

‘I love you, I love you, I love you,’ I squealed.

‘Wow, that’s quite the reaction,’ he said, as he tried to gently extricate himself from my embrace. ‘I haven’t even popped the question yet.’

‘It’s a yes, it’s absolutely a yes. Oh God Harry, how did you know? I’ve always wanted to do this.’

‘You always get so excited about hot air balloon proposals, more so than anything else. I figured it was something that you would want to do yourself.’ He pushed me away diplomatically, clearly embarrassed by my reaction. ‘Come on, let’s go and meet Frank. You must have spoken to the man a hundred times over the years.’ He gestured over to the support cars, emblazoned on the side with the name, ‘Carlton Balloons.’ Frank. Frank Carlton, of course. He was always the first person we contacted for hot air balloon proposals and he almost always fitted us in.

Frank was one of the oldest men I had ever met, his skin looked like the bark of tree. He had three teeth, one on the top and two on the bottom, and the biggest smile I’d ever seen. He was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, despite the chill of the morning.

‘I’m so glad to help you.’ Frank said, hugging Harry and then me, greeting us like we were long lost friends, which I suppose in a way we were. ‘I was delighted when Harry called. You’ve made so many people happy over the years, and now you two are together. Finding love amongst everyone else’s happiness. I can’t tell you how pleased I am. I want you to meet my boys, the ground crew.’

The boys, as it turned out, were three strapping sons in their forties and two other men who worked for him. Frank ran round getting everything ready for our departure, clearly as fit as the men half his age judging by the way he dealt with the preparations with speed, strength and agility. And slowly the hot air balloons started to fill and rise, tugging on their restraints, desperate to be free.

‘What bloody time of the day is this?’ muttered a voice from behind us.

I turned round to see Badger, Harry’s best friend and my cousin, scowling at us. His ginger beard was hidden inside the top of his coat, his eyes peeping out from underneath his blue and white Chelsea pom-pom hat. ‘It’s bloody freezing.’

I adored Badger. He was one of those solid dependable types that would do anything for anybody. Jack, Badger and I had been quite close growing up, but in recent years we had become even closer after Badger had moved to London too. Jack and Badger went everywhere together, before Jack died. And he was the reason Harry had come into my life, something else to be grateful to Badger for.

I hugged him and he immediately took his hands out of his pockets and hugged me back. Harry hugged him too. Despite the manly size of them both, they always greeted each other with a big hug.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Cashing in all of Harry’s favours in one day.’ He returned to scowling again. ‘I was in a wonderful sleep this morning when the alarm went off at some ungodly hour.’

‘I needed some help for this one,’ Harry admitted. ‘And there was only one man for the job.’

There was only one man who would get up this early and drive fifty miles to the countryside to help his friend out. Despite Badger’s scowl, I could tell he was pleased about the compliment. Although him being here did put a slight dampener on our nice romantic proposal.

Frank came over to tell us the balloons were ready.

We put the cool box into the basket and Harry helped me in, then held me close like a true boyfriend would do. Though it seemed Badger was to go in the other balloon.

As the cables and ropes were released, our balloons slowly drifted upwards, floating almost aimlessly up into the clouds. It was an incredible experience and I couldn’t take my eyes off the receding landscape below us. We were far out of London now, Harry had driven for over an hour, and as far as the eye could see there were just hills and fields in every direction, all growing smaller by the second. Badger’s balloon bobbed gently after us, the wind blowing us in the same direction.

We levelled out, obviously reaching the optimum height, and Frank turned the burners off. We hovered there in silence, as if we were hanging from the clouds. We didn’t speak, we didn’t need to. The world at our feet said it all.

Suddenly a slice of pure gold shot straight from the horizon, lighting up the landscape below us, banishing the remains of the fading night sky and filling the world with a rosy haze. I watched with sheer joy as the sun appeared and for a few moments it wasn’t the burning ball of heat in the sky that you can never look directly at, but an orb of muted oranges and pinks, like a light bulb that had just been switched on and was yet to reach its full power.

‘It’s beautiful,’ I gasped, realising that Harry’s arm had been around me the whole time and I leaned back into him. I could see Frank watching us out the corner of my eye, a huge grin on his face.

Harry released me and rooted around in the cool box as I returned my attention back to the landscape below, bathed in great swathes of scarlet and gold.

Harry offered Frank a champagne glass but he declined.

‘Frank do you ever get tired of this view, you must see it on an almost daily basis,’ I asked, as Harry filled two glasses with champagne.

‘Nah, I could watch that view every day, ten times a day and I would never get bored of it. Being up here is the most incredible feeling in the world. If I died now, I would die a very happy man.’

I frowned as he unconsciously rubbed his chest. The inappropriate mention of death coupled with this gesture suddenly had me very alert. ‘Are you ok?’

Frank realised what I had been referring to and laughed. ‘I’m fine love, just a bit of indigestion. There’s plenty of life left in this old dog yet, I want to see my great grandchildren before I die, and none of my grandchildren are even married off yet. No, there’s nothing wrong with me apart from my gut complaining about the extra sausage I had for breakfast this morning.’

I smiled, though I was still concerned. Jack’s death had given me a bit of paranoia about it all.

Frank switched on the burners and the roar breaking the silence put an end to any further questions.

Harry passed me my glass of champagne and clinked his glass against mine.

‘To us,’ he said, his dark eyes glinting with mischief.

‘To the best kind of friendship.’

As we both took a sip, he didn’t take his eyes off me and I wished, not for the first time, I could read what was going on in his head.

I remembered again about the forthcoming proposal and the importance of my real reaction.

My heart slammed against my chest. Just to get one kiss in, albeit briefly, would be an amazing end to this wonderful proposal.

We drifted through the sky, the dampness of the clouds clinging to our faces and clothes like cobwebs. Little beads of water clung to Harry’s long eyelashes and I wanted to reach up and wipe them away. But I had to save myself, any inappropriate gestures now could forestall the big kiss I had planned. Would he kiss me back? Oh God I hoped so. What if he didn’t? What if he was repulsed by it? If it was to be a genuine reaction, he had to kiss me back. I wondered how long I could drag it on, how long would be appropriate. What if I was a rubbish kisser? Tongue or no tongue? Maybe I shouldn’t do it at all. No I had to do it, this was my only chance. My heart was hammering so fast against my chest, I felt sure he could feel it, as he wrapped his arms around me, holding me from behind.

Frank was pulling levers and cords behind us and we started to drop gracefully towards the fields. As we drew closer, I could see the bright colourful cars of the chase crew as they attempted to follow our progress. They were still so tiny at this stage, like toy cars in a miniature village.