We ate in silence for a while. The food was delicious. The setting perfect. Nothing even remotely like this had ever happened to me before. That he could go to such trouble, just for me … I looked around at the candles, the roses, the man sitting opposite me …
He caught me looking. Nothing was said. In fact, nothing was said for quite a long time. I broke his gaze and fumbled for my glass. I must be ill. My appetite had completely disappeared. My breathing was all over the place and I was suddenly hot. Very hot indeed.
Looking at his plate, he said softly, ‘We’ve had a rough year and I wanted this night to be special.’
I took his hand and, looking him firmly in the eye, stepped out over a yawning chasm and said, ‘It will be.’
He caught his breath, pushed back his chair and reached for me …
Joe Nelson stuck his head around the door. ‘Ready for dessert?’
I said, ‘Yes,’ and Leon sighed. Again.
We settled down, but the moment was gone. He was wise enough not to push it.
‘Perhaps, instead of thinking so much about the past, we could take some time to talk about our future.’
I made myself smile politely and clutched my glass in a death-grip.
‘I’m just going to say this straight out. All I ask is that you don’t say no without giving it some thought.’
‘What’s this all about?’
‘Well,’ he said slowly. ‘Have you given any thought at all to what you’re going to do after Troy?’
‘I’m an historian. We don’t do planning ahead.’
I was avoiding the issue because, actually, I had. The downside to achieving your life’s ambition is – where do you go from there? What do you do afterwards? Where’s the challenge? I must admit, the thought had been troubling me. ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’
‘I have a proposal for you.’
He saw my panic.
‘No, no, calm down. Poor choice of words. I should have said proposition. I have an idea.’
I breathed a little easier.
‘Go on.’
He eyed me. ‘It might not be easy. In fact, I know it won’t be. It might be the most difficult assignment you’ve ever had. You may not survive. I almost certainly won’t. And even if you do, things will certainly never be the same again.’
Now he had my attention.
‘I know you’ve made no plans for a future you never expect to have. I know you love your job and you’re good at it. I know you don’t pay a lot of attention to what goes on outside St Mary’s, but I’d like to make a suggestion.
‘No,’ he said, as I opened my mouth to panic again. ‘Please hear me out. Sometime in the future – when we both want to – I’d like us to leave St Mary’s and start another life. No – please, let me finish. One day this job will kill you. It might be years in the future, it might be tomorrow, but one day you won’t come back. Or one day I’ll open the pod door and you’ll be dead and I won’t want to go on living in a world that doesn’t have you in it somewhere. So what I’m saying is – before that happens – we both leave and start a new life. Together. I’m an engineer. We get a place with a work area and I can take time to work on some ideas I’ve had. And you, Max, you could paint to your heart’s content. You can have half the workshop – or your own space if you want – and spend some time doing the other thing you’re really good at. You can take the time to produce a body of work, build a reputation … We could walk together, hold hands, feed the ducks, go to the cinema, learn to cook, make new friends, watch TV; there are so many things we could do together. I’m sorry if it sounds corny and dull, but I don’t think it would be unexciting. And we’ll certainly never be bored because I’ve seen you cook. I just want to spend my life with you. Now, more than ever. Please don’t say no straight away. Promise me you’ll think about it.’
I didn’t have to think about it. I had a sudden blinding flash of clarity and from way back I heard Kal say “One day this won’t be enough”. At the time, I never thought it would apply to me, but now I realised exactly what she’d been talking about. On the other hand, this was scary stuff. This was about relationships, sharing, domesticity, and all the things I really regarded as the inventions of the devil. I took a very deep breath.
‘No.’
I hope never to see that look again.
‘Can’t you take some time to think about it?’
‘No.’
‘It doesn’t have to be now. It could be years away.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to wait for years. After Troy – however long that takes – you and I give in our notice, move away, and make a new life. Doing those things you said. And God help you, because if we don’t live in perfect peace and happiness, I’ll make your life a living hell.’
He took both my hands, glass and all. ‘I can wait.’
‘It might be some time. Troy could be a two-year assignment, at least.’
‘I can wait.’
I took a huge breath for a huge step. ‘OK then, is that a deal?’
He couldn’t look at me. He swallowed and nodded.
‘It’s a deal.’
I relayed some of this to Eddie who nodded thoughtfully and, surprisingly, changed the subject.