Page 82 of The Last Train Home
‘I do,’ he says. He moves in to kiss my neck. It’s too gentle, too seductive for an open space such as this. ‘I’ll tell you what I think. I think we should get married.’
‘Wearegetting married,’ I say, flashing him the huge diamond ring that never leaves my finger. ‘That’s what engaged means.’
‘Now. Here,’ he says.
‘Now hear what?’ I ask in confusion.
He laughs. ‘Not hear as in listen. Here as in here. We should get married now. We should get married here.’
‘Now?’ I squeak.
‘This week. Here. Just us.’
I pull back and look at him seriously. ‘For real?’
He looks at the bride and groom kissing in wedded bliss on the beach, the photographer snapping away. ‘Yeah,’ he says slowly. ‘For real.’
‘By ourselves? Our parents will kill us.’
‘Mine won’t,’ he says.
‘Mine will.’
‘It’s only an idea. We don’t have to. I thought it would be romantic, suggesting that I whisk you down the aisle – down the beach, I mean – and make you my wife. Because we want to. Because we’re here. Because it’s never going to get more perfect than this.’ He gestures around the bay: the gentle breeze, the lapping waters.
‘I suppose it would be romantic,’ I agree.
‘It saves a lot of fuss,’ he continues. ‘This way, you don’t have to keep worrying about venues in England that you can’t view because you’re stuck in Singapore. And we don’t have to worry about guests not being able to afford a trip to Singapore, if we do it there. We can do it here,’ he ploughs on. ‘Now. And then … what if next time we go home to London, we have a huge party to celebrate getting married? All the pressure’s off then, isn’t it, and we still get to see all our friends and family.’
‘But what about our parents?’ I ask. ‘My mum will miss the chance to wear a hat, and have people congratulating her about her being mother of the bride. I’m her only child. She won’t get the chance to do it again.’
Sean has no answer to that. ‘It’s up to you,’ he says. ‘We don’t have to. No pressure.’
He spins me round so that my back is against him, and kisses the top of my sea-salty hair. We look at the view of the beach, the hotel laid out in varying wooden lodges up and down the verdant hillside. If I don’t marry him now, then he’s right. I will struggle to plan a wedding taking place in England, from the depths of Singapore; and asking people to travel to Asia to watch us wed is a huge, expensive demand. Ideally, I’d like to have flown home to see venues, but it’s costly and time consuming going home todo that. And what if Sean didn’t like the one I picked? It’s his wedding too.
This way it’s low pressure – just Sean and me.
He hears my thoughts. ‘It’s special here, like this,’ he says. ‘It’s just us. Romantic. Picture-perfect. Impromptu.’
I turn back to Sean and scan his eyes. ‘You really want to do this here?’
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I really do. With you. Because of you. I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ I say. And I think, hard, one last time before I kiss him on the lips and then, when we’re finished being slightly inappropriate in open water, I whisper, ‘Let’s get married.’
We’re on the plane home, in business class as usual. I never normally understand why Sean forks out so much to go in the business-class cabin when he sleeps the entire flight away, rather than making good use of the never-ending free champagne and nibbles that come past, and the delicious aeroplane meals that arenotlike any aeroplane food I’d ever tasted until I met him. But this time he’s not asleep. He’s gazing into my eyes, stroking my face, resisting the urge to kiss me over and over again.
I hold up my hand and gaze again at my wedding ring, chosen from a little jeweller on Mahé. I’d picked a sleek little platinum band and he’d chosen his to match, but slightly thicker. He holds his tanned hand up to me, and I run my fingers over it. ‘I can’t believe I’m Mrs O’Hara. I’m yourwife.’
He looks around to check we’re not being watched and kisses me so deeply that if I wasn’t already sitting down, I’d have had to seek out a chair.
‘Mr O’Hara, please – my dignity,’ I say.
‘Damn your dignity, Mrs O’Hara,’ he teases and then laughs with embarrassment as the cabin crew hand us two fresh glasses of champagne, pretending not to notice our behaviour.
I look through pictures of our special day on my phone, while Sean puts his headset on and scans the films. I never envisaged choosing my wedding dress from a bridal outfitter on an island off the coast of Africa. I also thought when I did choose my dress it wouldn’t be with the help of a friendly sales assistant, but with my mum and Natasha.
I’ve got some explaining to do when I speak to them. I didn’t want a row with my mum or my best friend; although I know they’d have been happy for me, there would have been some ‘What the hell?’ conversations. So I thought I’d put those phone calls off until we’re back home in Singapore.
