Behaving Badly. Isabel Wolff

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СКАЧАТЬ said as she opened a carton of milk. ‘Someone I met the other day at a charity do. Caroline…what was her name? Oh yes, Mulholland. She was complaining about her Weimaraner. Said it was behaving like an “absolute moron”. As I didn’t know your new number I told her to contact you through your website.’

      ‘Thanks. I hope she does. And how are things with you on the work front?’ I asked as I unpacked my plates.

      ‘Oh frantic,’ she said gaily as she got out a small saucepan. ‘I’ve got an Abba Tribute hen night in Hammersmith on Wednesday, a Siberian Soiree birthday bash with Cossack dancers on Saturday, and I’m desperately trying to find a couple of contortionists for a Trail to Timbuktu extravaganza in Thames Ditton next month. Plus all the weddings!’ she wailed. ‘We’ve got six, and three of them have fallen to me. I’ve just had to find some biodegradable confetti for this wedding in Holland Park in September,’ she went on, as she beat the eggs. ‘I managed to track some down on the Net. Dried delphinium petals in five colours, absolutely gorgeous. I’ve got to enclose a sachet with each invitation—two hundred. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?’ she murmured wistfully. ‘Two hundred guests…Holland Park…dried delphinium petals…’

      ‘Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘It does.’

      ‘Sorry, Miranda,’ she said, collecting herself. ‘That was tactless of me.’

      ‘That’s okay.’

      ‘I was actually thinking of myself.’

      ‘I know. Hasn’t he said anything?’ She shook her head. ‘Not even a hint?’

      ‘No,’ she said bitterly. ‘Not so much as a cough.’

      ‘Well, why don’t you propose to him then?’

      She stopped beating, her brown eyes widening in amazement. ‘Because it’s so unromantic.’

      ‘So is not being asked.’

      ‘Yes,’ she said crossly. ‘I know.’ She picked up the pepper grinder and gave it several vicious twists.

      ‘Don’t you ever discuss it with him?’ I asked as I sat at the table.

      She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to destabilize things.’

      ‘I see.’

      ‘And I suppose I’m worried I might not get the answer I’m hoping for, so I’d rather keep things nice and smooth. But he does definitely love me,’ she added optimistically. ‘I say to him, “You do love me, Nigel, don’t you?” and he always replies, “Yes, Daisy, of course I do.”’

      ‘He should bloody well prove it then. It’s been long enough.’

      ‘Mmm. That’s just what my mum says. I mean, Alexander didn’t hang around, did he?’

      I sighed. ‘No. It was quite quick.’

      It was also, as proposals go, rather unusual; but, as I say, Alexander is an impulsive man. We’d been together nine months and we were very happy; I’d just moved in with him, and it was going well. And we were both in the bathroom one Saturday morning, cleaning our teeth together at the basin, smiling at each other in the mirror, when he suddenly paused in mid-brush, and, still looking at me in the glass, said, ‘anda, ill oo arry ‘e?’

      ‘What?’

      He took the toothbrush out of his mouth, sipped some water from the glass, then spat neatly into the sink. ‘I said, “Miranda, will you do me the inestimable honour of becoming my wife?” I’ve just decided, this minute, that I want to marry you.’

      I looked at him in amazement. ‘Why? ‘

      ‘Well, because, just standing here with you now, brushing our teeth together like this, suddenly made me realize how happy I am with you, and so, well, I suppose that’s why. I’d rather not get down on bended knee if you don’t mind, because of my cartilage problem,’ he added matter-of-factly. ‘But, will you say yes, Miranda? Mm?’ A wave of emotion broke over me as I realized he meant it. ‘Will you?’ he repeated. His swimming-pool blue eyes were staring into me.

      ‘Well…are you sure?’ I stuttered. ‘I mean…’

      ‘Never been surer of anything,’ he said quietly.

      ‘Then…yes,’ I said wonderingly. ‘I will.’ And then, because I was so overwhelmed, I just said, ‘Thank you’, and burst into tears.

      He wrapped his arms round me. ‘No. Thank you. Don’t cry, Miranda. There’s no need to cry. I love you. I always will.’ I dried my eyes, we exchanged a minty kiss, and that was that.

      I’m not being disingenuous when I say I was completely taken aback, because I truly didn’t expect to get engaged. Maybe because my parents divorced so long ago—and haven’t been that civilized since—I’ve never had any illusions like that. For me, it was enough just to feel that I was in a happy relationship, to know that I’d been lucky enough to find love. But Daisy’s different—she’s much more conventional—she wants the church, the meringue, the whole works.

      ‘It’s a bit galling having to do all these weddings when Nige won’t pop the question,’ she said regretfully, fork poised in mid-air. ‘I think he will marry me,’ she continued judiciously. She often says that. ‘But I don’t think it’s worth pushing it just now.’

      The fact is, Daisy’s terrified of pushing it. I know this because she’s been with Nigel for five and a half years and we’ve been having the same conversation for three. ‘I mustn’t put him under pressure,’ she said seriously. ‘That’s what the books all say.’

      ‘The books also say that you should be a bit more detached.

      Don’t be there for him so much. Make him miss you. Be mysterious. Move town if need be. Or even country, God knows.’

      ‘Oooh—that’s a very dangerous game.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Because,’ she said, with an air of spurious authority, ‘if I suddenly withdraw, and act all aloof, then he might think I don’t really love him. And that would be disastrous, wouldn’t it?’

      I looked at her. ‘I’m not sure. I think it might do him some good to feel a bit less secure.’

      ‘No, I think it’ll all happen in the fullness of time,’ she added, with a slightly twitchy serenity.

      ‘Hmmm. Well, it’s your life.’

      But I find it odd that Daisy’s so scared of asking Nigel whether or not he intends to marry her, because in other ways she’s incredibly brave. For example, she spends her days off bungee-jumping, hang-gliding, abseiling and rock-climbing—and she did her first solo sky-dive a few weeks ago.

      ‘It would be catastrophic if I forced him to name the day and then he booted me,’ she said sagely. ‘Then what on earth would I do? I’ve invested nearly six years of my life in Nigel and to be quite crude about it I’d like a return. So I don’t want to blow it all at this final—and very delicate—stage by not being quite patient enough.’ СКАЧАТЬ