Free Soul to Take by Helen Bateman Page A

stopped clearing up the bottles from the window sill and sat down opposite him. Basically, he told me that I’d put him in a really difficult situation last night. Never in a million years had he expected me to ask him to marry him. Apparently that’s a man’s job. Can you believe he said that in this day and age? And anyway, he felt like he ought to say yes in front of everyone so he did but the answer is ‘No’.”
    “What! Why doesn’t he want to marry you? You’ve lived together for two years now. You own a house together; it doesn’t get much more committed than that.”
    “That’s exactly what I said. But he said that marriage is different. He’s quite happy the way things are. He doesn’t understand what a big expensive day with fancy clothes and a pair of rings changes,” I’m trying to remember all of the lame excuses he gave me, “Oh, and he reckons no-one really enjoys their wedding day anyway. His mate John says he’d have had more fun blowing the lot on the dogs than he did on his wedding day!”
    “Well, I for one, loved every minute of my wedding day,” Eliza recalls. “It was the actual marriage afterwards that was our problem! But you two are made for each other.”
    “I sometimes wonder. He just can’t seem to understand that what I want should matter too. He might not want to get married but I do. For me it would let the world know how much we love each other. I get sick of talking about ‘My boyfriend’ at work; it makes me sound like a teenager. When I say ‘My partner’, I worry they’ll think I’m a lesbian.”
    I can see Eliza laughing at me and I smile without meaning to, “I’m serious. I long for the day I can introduce Dan to someone and say, ‘This is Dan, my husband’.”
    “It does sound like he’s being selfish, I have to say, Vicky. I mean where do you go from there? Can you go back to the way things were? How did you leave it with him?”
    “Well, that’s the thing, you see.” Here goes, “He was so adamant that he wasn’t going to get married that I got scared and worried that he would call the whole thing off between us. That would be just too awful to think about. Could you imagine having to tell everyone who was here last night that we weren’t together any more let alone engaged? And that’s when it just came out.”
    “What have you done, Vicky?” I think Eliza is more on my wave length now.
    “It was when he said that we could just pretend I was really drunk last night and it was all just a bit of a joke. I couldn’t bare the humiliation of that Eliza, you know me, don’t you?”
    “Vicky?” she sounds really worried now.
    Here goes, “I told him I’m pregnant.”
    Please say something, Eliza, I’m begging you.
    “Oh, my God! I thought you were going to say something awful, you daft cow. That’s fantastic! Congratulations! But you shouldn’t be drinking that,” I can’t believe she’s grabbing my wine glass off me; she clearly hasn’t quite got it yet.
    The whole truth and nothing but the truth, “But I’m not pregnant, Eliza, I made it up.”
    This silence is so much longer and more torturous than the last one.
    “Oh shit.” Is that all you’ve got Eliza? I need more help than that. “So that’s why he looked like the cat that got the cream on the way to the pub.”
    “Yes,” I am so ashamed to be telling her this, “I didn’t mean to say it. It just kind of, came out. I suppose I was desperate. Dan was absolutely delighted and asked why I didn’t just say that in the first place. I made up some crap excuse about wanting to do things in the right order - ha ha - and he said that in that case, we’d definitely get married. Just a small affair, mind, because that’s all we can afford this year and it would have to be this year because we’d have to be married before the baby is born, blah, blah, blah.”
    That feels better. For now anyway.
    “He’s even rang his mum and dad to tell them the ‘happy’ news.