There’s something about me that Richard struggles to understand. I’m not even sure I understand it myself.

He’s kind, you see. And fundamentally, he’s happy. And I’m not sure that I ever can be.

I’m in love with him. That’s not an issue. Before I met him, I didn’t think this battered old heart of mine was capable of it, but it’s proved me wrong. But it’s precisely because I love him so much that I’m afraid of being with him. That’s the part he can’t grasp. I’m afraid of corrupting him, you see. Like a virus.

My mother used to say that some people were born to be happy and some weren’t and if you were one of the unlucky ones, there wasn’t a whole lot you could do about it. It went through me like a knife when she said that.

I was eight years old and we had just walked past our local crazy man in the street. I don’t know what his name was, but everyone knew him by sight. He stamped along the pavements and waved his arms about and muttered expletives to himself and shouted in shops for no reason. We all knew to steer clear. And here was my mother saying that a life of happiness or unhappiness was determined at birth. That frightened me to death. I knew which she was and I didn’t want to be the same.

My mother didn’t have a bad life, but something deep inside her was broken and whatever I did, however hard I tried, I couldn’t fix her.

One of my clearest memories of childhood, perhaps my first, is of my mother sitting at the bottom of the stairs and crying, her face buried in her hands, her shoulders shaking. Silent, like an old film. I must have been three or four. I was terrified and the worst of all was that there was absolutely nothing I could do.

I sat beside her and wrapped my arms round her leg and tried to give her a cuddle but she didn’t seem to notice me. After a while, she pulled away and disappeared into the kitchen and I sat there a few moments longer, miserable, listening to her blow her nose, then light the gas and fill a pan with water, carrying on like the martyr she always was.

The hall was poky and there was no fitted carpet, just a shabby rug. Cold air came up from the cellar between the floorboards and made me shiver. But I stuck it out for a while. It was an instinctive offering, a bargain with God. I made a lot of deals with God as a child. I’ll suffer this cold if you sort out my mum. He couldn’t. She was born to be unhappy. What if I’m the same?

It took a while for me to feel strong again, after the car accident. The physical aches, of course, but also the shock. I love little Gracie, how could anyone not? If she hadn’t come through… well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. I don’t know how I’d have lived with myself. I’m tough, but I am human, whatever her crazy mother thinks.

Then, one Saturday morning, I was leaving my yoga class when Richard called me on my new phone. It was a relief to have a new number, believe me. Well worth the hassle. Suddenly, for the first time in a long time, the only calls I was getting were from Richard or close friends. Calls I actually wanted.

‘Where are you?’ Richard sounded stressed. ‘Fancy a drink in the park?’

A bit odd, but why not?

We sat huddled together on a bench and he produced sangria in a screw-top bottle. He’d mixed it himself at home and brought proper glasses and everything. I should have realised something was up. One of my favourite love songs is about a couple drinking sangria in the park, just hanging out, happy together. Richard is so thoughtful, it’s overwhelming.

So we drank the sangria and watched the ducks on the pond. And the kids. A small girl with wild eyes wobbled as she struggled to ride her bike. Her father ran along behind, steadying the frame, cheering when she finally pedalled off on her own. A toddler, still unsteady on her feet, tried to throw bread to the ducks but dropped most of it. I looked away.

Richard’s cheeks were flushed. The sangria had gone to his head. He got to his feet, packed away the bottle and wrapped the glasses carefully in kitchen towel. That care, that attention to detail, made me smile.

‘Right,’ he said, straightening up. ‘Lunch. Shall we try the Chinese over there?’

I smiled. ‘You hate Chinese food. You always say it’s greasy.’

‘You like it.’ He shrugged. ‘They do dim sum. Come on. I’ll be fine.’

He’d planned the whole thing. I only found that out afterwards when, halfway through the meal, the waiter brought a single spring roll on a plate and Richard started fussing, pushed it towards me.

‘That’s yours.’

‘I didn’t order spring rolls.’ I stared at it. One spring roll? What kind of order was that? I picked up the plate and handed it back to the waiter. ‘Sorry. Wrong table.’

The guy shrugged, looked across at Richard.

‘Leave it. Thanks.’

I pulled a face. ‘Richard, it’s not mine. I didn’t—’

‘Please. Ella. I ordered it. For you.’

I stared at him as he reached forward, picked up the spring roll with his chopsticks and held the end to my mouth.

‘Try it.’

I steadied his hand – he was never very good with chopsticks – and bit into the end, humouring him. My teeth touched metal and I sprang back.

‘What the – Richard, there’s something in it.’

I was thinking: a bolt or a screw or who knew what. Then I saw his face. Excited, anxious, beseeching. I felt sudden panic as light dawned.

‘It isn’t…?’

He gave a sheepish smile, pulled open the doughy wrapper and lifted out a ring. A damn great solitaire, sticky with sauce. Before I could stop him, he’d scraped back his chair and was down on one knee, right there in the middle of the restaurant.

‘Ella. I love you so much. Please. Will you do me the honour of marrying me?’

The whole restaurant was looking. I couldn’t speak. His eyes were so full of love, of hope, I couldn’t bear it.

‘Get up.’

‘Ella?’ He looked uncertain. ‘You haven’t given me an answer.’

‘Of course I will!’ My heart thudded, blood surged in my ears. I don’t know what I felt. Overwhelmed, for sure. Embarrassed. And panicked. ‘Now get up.’

He beamed, shuffled forward and pressed the warm, wet ring onto my finger, then kissed me lightly on the lips, a discreet, public kiss. When he sat back on his chair, the waiters, watching in a huddle from the service area, gave a ragged round of applause.

I shook my head. ‘I can’t believe you just did that.’

Richard reached for my shaking hand. The ring slid, unfamiliar, down my finger.

‘It’s an auspicious date today.’ The tension which had hung about him all morning was gone. He looked happy. ‘They helped me choose it. The eighth, super-lucky, apparently.’

‘Really?’ I didn’t know what more to say. I thought of Richard in a jeweller’s shop, picking out the ring. Coming to the restaurant and planning the spring roll surprise. I thought I knew everything about him but I didn’t. I couldn’t look him in the eye.

Later, as we lay together in bed, the ring, washed now, sparkled on my bedside table.

‘Richard, are you sure about this?’ I asked him. ‘I mean, really?’

‘Totally, absolutely, one hundred per cent.’ He tightened his arms round me. ‘I love you, Ella. I want to make you happy,’

That’s what chilled me. It brought back that memory of my mother, crying at the bottom of the stairs, and my three- or four-year-old self, chilled to the bone, striking a bargain with God that He never kept and the terror, which had never left me since, that maybe I was the same as her and the same as the crazy man who yelled in shops, and that maybe there were people like Richard who were born to be happy in this world and I was simply not one of them.