Jack shook my shoulder a little. ‘Wake up. I want to go out.’
I opened my eyes and blinked. ‘It’s still dark.’
‘I want to go somewhere.’
‘It’s the middle of the night.’
‘It’s dawn in fifty-five minutes and you have fifteen to get up and get some clothes on or I carry you downstairs naked.’
‘You’re not strong enough to carry me.’
‘Do you have to remind me? At least let me imagine I can do it in a threat.’
I laughed at him. But then he pressed a quick kiss on my lips. ‘Get up.’
My hand lifted and grabbed his cotton t-shirt at his side. He was already dressed.
He turned on the light beside the bed.
I covered my eyes with my forearm.
‘Come on. I made coffee. I’ll go down and pour you one, then you can drink it and wake yourself up before you go.’
I didn’t know what he was up to, but we’d waited nearly a year to get back up here, and he’d been looking forward to this like it was all he’d lived for over the last few months while he’d been recovering. This was him, clasping the turf on the top of his cliff and hauling himself over the top, with relief and excitement. So if he wanted to do something crazy at dawn, I wouldn’t complain, I’d get up.
I rolled to my side as he walked out of the room. He had his tight black jeans and a black t-shirt on, and he looked good. Pride lifted my lips into a smile of appreciation. I liked that he was mine. I liked that we had each other. We’d become a team of two, at home and in a business soon.
Milly kept telling me I was overdosing on him. But I liked the overdose and I felt as if he needed me in an overdose. The last few months I’d been holding him together. He needed to get back to who he used to be, and he couldn’t climb yet, he was too stiff, and he couldn’t have sex how he wanted. He was holding on to his patience and bearing it, but he was not a patient man. In London, I’d thought, if he didn’t see some improvement soon, he was going to break, but this had been the thing he’d been holding on to, climbing towards – coming up here. He’d smiled loads since we’d been up here, and I’d smiled too because it was good to see him happy.
I hoped this was the turning point. When we went back to London, at least he’d have work again. This was when we got back on the rails of normal life, or life as Jack liked to live it – wonderfully abnormal.
I pulled my pale-blue jeans on, then a loose t-shirt and stole one of his jumpers out of the cupboard to wear over it. I shoved the sleeves up as I walked downstairs, barefoot on the wooden steps, in the dark, following the light that was on in the kitchen.
He was leaning against the kitchen table. I walked up, tiptoeing over the freezing stone tiles, and clasped his middle, giving him a squeeze from behind. ‘I love you.’
He turned around. ‘Drink your coffee and let’s get going.’
‘Sure boss.’
‘Not your boss, your partner.’ He gave me a grin.
‘Sure partner,’ I corrected.
I found out some walking socks and my boots, because I guessed we were not going to a restaurant at dawn. He was doubled over lacing his boots, because his knees didn’t bend enough to do it any other way.
Rick had affected so many small elements of Jack’s life that put together…
Jack looked up and caught me watching him. I slipped my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. He straightened, then turned and lifted his leather jacket off a hook and put it on, giving me one of his wicked little half-smiles – the pure flirt that he’d always been.
Rick’s meanness had not changed that.
Jack opened the back door and his hand settled on my shoulder when we walked out.
It was still dark mostly, but the sky to the east was a lighter blue and it created a beautiful silhouette of the hills. Autumn was beginning, but it wasn’t too cold. I only had his thick jumper and my t-shirt on. I hadn’t put a coat on.
I walked around to the passenger side of the car and saw Jack touch his jacket, as if he was checking for something in his inside pocket, but then he pulled his keys out of his pocket on the other side.
He pressed the button to free the lock and I got in.
I was half asleep and the world felt fairytale-like as he drove through the valleys between all the hills, while the sky on one side of the car gradually became a lighter and lighter blue.
He turned off the road at the sign to Keswick, then turned again at the sign to Castlerigg.
We were going back to the stone circle.
He parked the car in the roadside layby, then patted my knee. ‘Let’s go and watch the sunrise.’
He had the most beautiful ideas and the best sense of how to live life. Rick hadn’t taken that from Jack either.
I climbed out of the car and ran around to where Jack waited for me by the gate. I was wide awake now, and the air was fresh and chilly here.
He gripped my hand tightly as we walked into the field, but as we climbed the slope, and the sky on the far side blushed with orange, his grip became more out of necessity and less out of an expression of love.
‘I can’t walk on fucking slopes,’ he grumbled.
I turned and walked backwards a pace ahead of him, as he kept his death-grip on my hand.
He’d been on crutches for six weeks and then got it down to one crutch, then a stick. He’d given up the stick about three weeks ago because he’d refused to come up here walking with a stick. But at times he still needed it, really.
‘You’ll be fine.’
‘We won’t be able to get up to the tarn, though, and go for a swim like I promised you in the spring, will we?’ His blue eyes asked me to forgive him for not being the person he used to be.
‘We will next summer. I promise. But I don’t think the physiotherapy you’re doing is working well enough. I want you to do yoga with me. It’ll build up your core strength again so you’ll be ready to climb when you can, and it’ll stretch your muscles out – and the heat of Bikram yoga makes it gentler, so if you ever can—’
‘If I ever can?’
‘So you CAN move your legs more.’
He’d been walking slowly, holding both of my hands, but then he stopped and laughed. ‘What are you trying to make me do?’
‘Be happy.’
‘And sit in an inactive yoga class.’
‘And be able to climb like Spiderman again. You promised me months ago you’d do yoga if I climbed. I’m climbing.’
‘Okay, you’re right. I promised. I’ll go to your yoga class with you when we get back to London. I’ll try anything to get my legs moving more, even lying on floors with you and standing on my head. But don’t tell any of my friends at the climbing club.’
I laughed at him. He really wasn’t a good patient. ‘I promise not to tell anyone.’
We reached the level ground the stones stood on, and I let him go when he could walk alone. He touched his chest again as he looked at the view, then slipped his hands into the back pockets of his jeans.
I turned around and looked – it was amazing. The most beautiful view I’d ever seen.
‘It’s dramatic, isn’t it?’ Jack said as he walked ahead of me towards the circle.
‘Yes.’ It was. It was like some sort of statement about life, about how beautiful and precious it was. It was as if someone had put the stones here so people would come up here and breathe in life.
He walked into the centre of the circle, then turned around and watched me. His hands slid out of his pockets. ‘I wanted to say something to you months ago.’ His voice was low and serious, but there was a sweet note in it, like honey melting in coffee.
‘I was going to say it when we’d planned to come up here in the spring, and since then there’s never been a moment that felt like the right time. Not when you’ve had to do so much to help me out. But then I made up my mind that I was going to wait until we got up here…’
‘Wait for what?’
‘I’d get down on one knee, Ivy, but I can’t… But…’ He pulled something out from the inside pocket of his jacket. Something white… a tatty serviette. He held it in his palm and unfolded it and in the middle of it was a diamond ring.
It was the napkin I’d written on when we’d come up here last Christmas – the one contracting him to be my lover.
I looked up and met his gaze – his blue eyes said a thousand things. ‘Will you marry me, Ivy? I want you to know how much I care about you. I know this is still pretty quick and you may want to wait and be sure you’re not tied to an invalid before—’
I covered his lips with my fingertips to stop him talking. ‘Don’t be stupid, Jack. I don’t care about what you can and can’t do. You’re still you. I want you to get back to normal for your own sake, because I love you. But I love you however you are. I will marry you. Yes.’
‘Ivy…’ He looked up at the sky.
The dawn light reached from one horizon to the other now the sun had risen fully.
He looked back down at me. ‘I can’t even begin to find the words to tell you how good you make me feel.’ He grinned, then looked up again and thrust his good arm in the air. ‘Woohoo!’
I laughed at him and his foolishness as he looked down and held my fingers, then slid the ring on. ‘It looks beautiful on you, and it’s waited a long time to get on that finger.’ His gaze lifted to my face. ‘You look beautiful.’
‘Thank you.’ Before he let my hand go, I took the serviette that was now scrunched up in his palm. ‘You kept it.’
‘A contract is a contract.’
‘Yeah, but you wrote one after this.’
‘I didn’t keep that one. If you ever want to revoke it, you’ll have to try and prove it in a court that you reneged on me with no evidence.’
‘Oh, Jack, you’re crazy.’ I wrapped my arms around his neck and his hands settled at my waist. ‘I need to write you a new one now, anyway. I will be your lover, and your partner and your wife. Do you think John will draw it up for us formally – that I contract myself to you forever?’
‘Yes. He’ll put anything you want in writing if you pay him, but that’s called a marriage contract, Ivy, and when we’re married I’m going to hold you to it.’
‘And I’ll hold you to it.’
‘You’ll have my commitment, you’ll have everything I can possibly give you. You have my heart and my broken bones.’
He picked me up then, the idiot, stumbled around a half circle and nearly fell.
When he dropped me down, I grabbed his arm to steady him. ‘Let’s sit on a stone and look at the view for a while.’
We did that, but afterwards we went down to Keswick and got hot chocolates loaded with cream and marshmallows and then walked beside the lake, and then went for a ride on the ferry. I wouldn’t forget this day. It was going to be one of my best memories.
While we rode on the boat I rang Mum and Dad.
Dad said, ‘Oh, he finally got around to it, then? He asked my permission the day I met him.’
I laughed.
He’d been waiting that long.
Then I rang Milly, who was quietly thrilled – quietly because she didn’t want to overdo the excitement in front of Steve, who still blamed me for Rick going mad.
Then Jack rang Daisy, and when I nodded at him, told Daisy she would definitely be my bridesmaid.
We were going to be happy.