‘Oh,’ was all I could muster, looking away, trying to hide the tremor in my voice and the tears that sprang to my eyes.

---

‘You’re upset.’

‘Yes, of course I am. This has come out of the blue – but this isn’t about me, and you’re doing the right thing. You have to do the right thing.’

‘I know. And I’ve been ready for this in my head, he’s been getting worse for a while now. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to talk about it, or face it, but now it’s happened, there’s no other choice. I just feel… lost.’

‘I wish I’d known,’ I said, a frisson of irrational anger prickling my chest. But this was typical of Dan – he had this attitude that if he didn’t talk about a problem, it would go away. It never did. If only he’d mentioned it to me sooner we might have been able to come up with a plan. Mind you, I wasn’t sure what plan; it wasn’t like I could just pack my suitcase and head off to Sydney for a few weeks.

‘I’m sorry, I just couldn’t face it… I just don’t want to leave you.’

‘I hate it too, but you don’t have any choice,’ I sighed, looking away from him, trying to hide the tears in my eyes, ‘it’s your brother’s life.’

‘I know. Don’t you think I realise that?’

He was on edge, and he didn’t need me to remind him of what he had to do. He was upset but I was also upset. He could have told me sooner that John’s condition was deteriorating, instead of smiling and pretending everything was fine. This inability to face reality had made things so much worse because I wasn’t prepared – this had hit me from nowhere and I couldn’t be the kind, considerate girlfriend I should have been because I had been taken by surprise.

‘So that’s it, you go tomorrow?’ I said.

‘Yeah… but it doesn’t have to be the end of us,’ he replied, still ignoring the huge obstacle and climbing back into his bubble. Our bubble.

‘Dan, you’re going home – we’ll be halfway across the world from each other. How can it not be the end of us?’

He put down his drink and leaned into me, putting his arm around me, our foreheads were touching. ‘I love you, Faye…’ he almost whispered. ‘You’re everything to me.’

I lifted my head to look at his face and it stung to see how much he was hurting for his brother, and for us.

‘I love you too, and I’m trying to be strong. I’m trying not to make this about us… or me, because it’s about John and Kimmie, and the kids – they need you. You need to concentrate on them for now, and then when you come back, we can get back to where we were. I’ll be keeping busy, don’t worry about me.’

‘Faye, I’m buying a one-way ticket…’

‘I know, but that’s because you’ll be a while… You don’t know how long your brother will… need you,’ I said, trying to be sensitive. His brother was dying, of course he couldn’t commit to a return date.

‘Faye… I’ve thought about it and when I go, I’m not coming back. Not even after he’s gone… I don’t have a decent job here, and there’s no future… I’m ready to go home.’

I felt like the floor was moving under me.

‘And us?’ I heard myself croak.

He suddenly sat up, and put both hands on the table, staring ahead. ‘Well… I’ve been thinking… Emma and Rosie are settled, you’ve got a year left of your degree…’

‘Yes?’

‘You could come with me and do your final year over there.’

‘In Australia?’ What the hell was he talking about? I couldn’t just up and leave. ‘I don’t see how that could work, Dan…’ I said, trying not to throw his suggestion back at him, to let him down gently. I’d dreamed of going to Sydney with him, but it was a dream for the future, not now.

‘Of course it could work. You could carry on with your degree, and I could—’

‘You’re being unrealistic; you always do this, come up with a ridiculous scenario and expect me to just drop everything and join you,’ I said, feeling suddenly irritated that he should put this on me.

‘You mean like Santorini? At first you were horrified of running away with me, but you took the leap then and look how much you loved it… so why won’t you now?’

‘That was three years ago, Dan. Emma was at uni, there was no Rosie, and Craig and I were finished – I had no one else to worry about but myself. But things are different now. I’ve got my degree course and Emma’s just started her new job and I promised I’d be there for Rosie. I can’t let her down now – and you know that.’

‘But Emma would understand.’ He seemed downbeat, like the wind had been taken out of his sails.

‘Yes, she’d be lovely about it and say, “You go, Mum,” but inside she’d be screaming, “Oh God, what will I do without any childcare?” What kind of mother or grandmother would I be, leaving Emma and Rosie and taking off for the other side of the world with my boyfriend?’

‘I have an idea that’ll solve everything,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to build up to it, but you won’t let me get a bloody word in…’

‘Oh no, wait! I know… don’t tell me. Are you thinking about those magic beans we can plant in the garden? No, that would be daft. A flying carpet…?’ I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes. There was no answer to this, no compromise; it was an impossible situation, but he couldn’t see this.

‘No magic beans, no flying carpet… What about a wedding?’

‘Whose?’

‘Ours… Will you marry me, Faye?’

What? Had he really just dropped that bombshell? I would have been less shocked if it had been magic beans or a flying carpet. But as I looked at him staring back at me questioningly, I realised he meant it. Okay, so he wasn’t down on one knee (I didn’t blame him, God knows what was on that floor) and he was holding a beer mat instead of a ring, but his face told me everything I needed to know: he wanted us to get married.

A life with Dan was what I’d always wanted; a proposal had been a dream, a secret place I retreated to when life got a bit tough. But this was supposed to happen years down the line, when Emma was safely in her high-powered job and Rosie was an independent teenager. I suppose I’d been naive to think life would pan out exactly as I’d planned it in my head and where Dan was concerned, perhaps I’d been presumptuous and selfish. Who said his life had to be in synch with mine? Just because the time was wrong for me didn’t mean he had to wait to live his life, perhaps this was his time? I’d done what I always accused him of doing – I’d put my head in the sand, conveniently forgetting about his dreams and his family. I knew he had ambitions, that he wanted to go back to Australia, but he’d never given me any warning that he planned to go back for good sooner rather than later – or that he hoped to go back with me as his wife.

He’d just proposed, he’d just garnered all his courage and asked me to marry him. I couldn’t ruin the moment, but after a long silence I knew he was agitated, now piling up the beer mats with one hand, shuffling them like a deck of cards. And all I could think as I watched them land was stick or twist?

‘Faye, give a guy a break, I’m dying here,’ he said, almost under his breath, studying the ‘deck’ of beer mats like they were Tarot cards holding his destiny.

I sat awkwardly, not looking at him, unsure what to say, not even sure how I felt at that precise moment. This had all come from nowhere. We’d never actually spoken about getting married, we were just happy being together and it felt like for ever – we didn’t need a ring. I’d been put off marriage by Craig and as much as I loved Dan, I wasn’t going to throw myself into another marriage unless I felt ready, which one day I might – but I’d never seen Dan as the marrying kind. Until a few minutes ago, I’d been happy with my lot: no blot on the horizon, no shadows over me, just Dan and Emma and Rosie and my studies. I was achieving all my dreams in one go, then suddenly, I was being asked to make a choice between a life I was happy in, the family I adored – and the man I loved.

‘I… I want to be with you, of course I do, but I can’t believe you’re making me choose…’ was all I could say.

He made a slight groaning noise, like he’d been hit by something sharp. ‘Faye, think about it…’

‘I am, it’s you that’s not thinking.’

‘But this is the only way we can be together and I can be there for John and the kids. You can speak to Emma and Rosie every day, you know how she loves to Skype – and you can carry on studying and… I’ve got this mate who’s opening up a café and he’s looking for a partner… I won’t be able to get involved straight away, I’ll have to see how things are with John, but my mate says there’s loads of building work to do first so there’s no rush. It means I can go back home and I could even have that café I’ve always dreamed of….’

‘But your time will be taken up with John… and you can’t afford to buy half a café…’ I started, feeling like a bitch, but thinking perhaps it was time for one of us to live in the real world. This was the first I’d heard of his friend opening a café – what else was he keeping to himself?

‘John’s my priority,’ he said firmly, ‘but if everything’s okay I can start working there, get involved. My mate’s going to lay down the initial deposit, pay the rent on the building and stuff, and when we start making money I’ll buy my share off him.’

I was shaking my head, not just because I knew how difficult this would be in reality but because he’d obviously thought it through so carefully without telling me.

‘Faye, it’s that café in Sydney we’ve always talked about….’

I was annoyed at his optimism about a new business in the light of his brother’s illness. I was also upset that he was chasing a dream that would convince him to stay in Australia whatever happened with John.

‘It wasn’t real, Dan, the café… it was just us talking, dreaming,’ I said.

‘It was real for me,’ he said, sounding hurt. ‘I thought it was what you wanted too?’

‘Yes, of course… Oh, I don’t know! I’m sorry, Dan. I just feel like there is so much else to consider first before you start to even think about life beyond John’s condition. You don’t know how long he’s going to be… with you.’

‘Exactly, but I have to believe there’s something after John. If I didn’t, I don’t know what I’d do… and I can’t stay here. I’ve been feeling like I need something else for a long time now – I want a new challenge, a different way of living.’

He really did believe that everything just fell into place, that all he had to do was click his fingers and everything would be fine.

‘After wandering the earth barefoot for twenty years and settling here, you suddenly decide to run away again?’ I sighed. I was hurt; he could have gone back to Australia and been with John for as long as he needed to be, but then he could have returned to the UK – to me. I knew I sounded completely unreasonable and selfish, but I just didn’t want to lose him.

‘I’m not running away, I want you to come with me. I’ve spent my life just trying to find something good to cling onto…’ he said, quietly, and couldn’t finish. He didn’t need to.

I sighed and reached for his hand. I was merely adding to the pressure, not supporting him in his hour of need as he had so often done for me.

Dan once told me he’d never loved anyone enough to get married, and I knew his proposal must have taken thought and courage at a time when his world was falling apart. As naive and blindly, infuriatingly optimistic as he could be, he had just handed me his heart – something I wanted very much.

‘I’d say yes in a heartbeat, Dan. You know I’ve always wanted to see Australia and… be with you,’ I said gently. ‘Honestly, if I was free, things would be very different, but I’m not, I can’t just walk out on Emma and Rosie any more than you can opt out of going to be with John. And besides, I have my course… I’m happy for the first time in forever and…’

‘You’re happy with me, we are happy. Please don’t say no. Emma will be fine, she’ll do what other mothers do and find childcare. She and Rosie can come and stay all summer, every summer… but she has her own life.’

‘That’s why I need to be here, so she can be free to pursue a career, make something of her life. She won’t make the same mistakes I did and have to rely on a man then give everything up for him only to live to regret it.’

‘Is that how you feel – about marriage?’ He seemed surprised, hurt even.

‘No… Oh I don’t know, Dan.’ Did I feel this way? I certainly felt like I’d given up everything, including myself while married to Craig. I’d spent much of my adult life hating being married, and my mixed feelings about it might also be influencing my reluctance to say yes to Dan now. ‘I love the idea of living in another country,’ I sighed. ‘It’s on my living list… but… leaving here now… marriage?’

‘Don’t… Don’t…’ He was shaking his head. ‘I don’t want to hear you say no.’

‘What else can I say?’

‘I don’t know, but please don’t say no yet,’ he asked softly, leaning forward in his seat and placing his hand gently on mine. ‘Think about it.’

I felt the warmth of his touch, the love in his eyes – this was agony and my head was all over the place. I couldn’t bear to say goodbye to him, nor could I bear to say goodbye to Emma and Rosie; it was unbearable.

‘Okay,’ I sighed, thinking how, under different circumstances, a few years from now this situation would probably have made me very happy. ‘I’ll think about it…’

He suddenly looked hopeful and squeezed my hand. ‘Faye, this could be the start of an amazing new life for us in Sydney.’

‘Don’t… Don’t… I can’t promise anything, just let me have some time.’

I hated that Dan was so hopeful and hated myself for even giving him a chink of light. And when he offered to wait to buy his ticket until the following day, after I’d made up my mind, I wanted to cry. But he wouldn’t let me say no, and there was a part of me that didn’t want to say no – that could mean the end for us. How could we come back from that?

Later, when he walked me home, I didn’t invite him in or ask if he wanted to stay, even though I knew this would probably be our last night together. The next day was Sunday and we were both free all day. ‘Come over to my place as soon as you’ve decided,’ he said urgently. He kissed me on the forehead and put his arms around me protectively, like he wanted to keep me forever.

We stood on the doorstep for a long time, holding onto each other, both wondering what would happen next.