KATE
‘Penny for your thoughts?’
David lies in bed beside me as the light snow falls outside. My arms are draped around his waist but he may as well be a million miles away. His face is in a deep trance, but he snaps out of it as soon as I call him out.
‘Just money stuff, but all good,’ he says, turning to face me now. ‘I’m calculating in my head.’
‘Oh?’
We’ve been saving hard and talking a lot recently about finally setting a date for our wedding. We plan to have it somewhere in Europe, like Positano in Italy, or a beachside ceremony in Mykonos, Greece, so I’m guessing he’s thinking about something along those lines, especially as lately we’ve upped our game and gone through brochures and spoken with wedding planners. We just need to pin a decision down and take the plunge.
‘I’m wondering if we should look for a new place to buylocally instead of renting here, you know, somewhere more affordable where we have more space,’ he suggests. ‘What do you think?’
His suggestion really surprises me.
‘To buy? Gosh, I like it here in this apartment, but yeah, I know what you’re saying,’ I reply, with so many thoughts going through my head. ‘Do you think we can afford to make a move like that along with paying for a wedding, though?’
‘I do,’ he says, then laughs at his own joke. ‘Yes, I do.’
The winter wind batters the windowpane outside our suburban apartment where we’ve lived for almost two years now, a little hideaway from the lives we left behind in Ireland, yet near enough for family to come and visit, and thankfully they do as often as they can.
Maureen and I spent an amazing weekend with Shannon and Mum sightseeing along the Thames, taking in a West End show and screaming in horror at the Tower of London dungeon tours back in the autumn, and Shannon has pledged to come back again as soon as she can for a long weekend to see more musicals and see more of a city she has fallen in love with.
‘I think it’s actually David she’s in love with,’ Mum joked with me when Shannon’s back was turned as we rode into the sky on the London Eye. ‘She’s quite besotted and sees him as her all-time hero, so you need to watch your back, Kate. You’ve got competition.’
Shannon’s admiration for David has fast become a bit of a private joke between me, Mum and Mo, but I could see exactly what they meant when Shannon was here. She, like a lot of David’s students in his school, looks up to him with adoring, idolizing eyes. As much as I find it funny I can understand why they are all taken by him. David is firm but gentle in his ways with young people, wise but willing to learn, open but decisive, strong but vulnerable, and outside of his work his love for me is like a never-ending fuel that gives me hope and faith for the long future we are planning together.
Even my father, who will arrive into London today to spend Christmas with us, has overcome his own barriers and accepted David for the wonderful person he is, now that he has realized that as a couple we mean business.
‘How about we start house-hunting in the New Year, then?’ David suggests after breakfast, shortly before I leave to collect my dad from the airport. ‘On your salary and mine we can afford something bigger, even if it means a bit of a commute, and we’ll still have enough to set aside for our wedding. What do you think, babe?’
I kiss him on the cheek on my way past, with a piece of toast in one hand and a coffee in the other.
‘Let me work it all out with you after we get Christmas behind us,’ I say, checking the time. I need to leave in half an hour. ‘We’ve a lot to look forward to, David. I’m excited.’
He pulls me close to his bare chest where he sits at thetable, rests his hand on my belly and gives me a cheeky look.
‘And as for a junior Kate and David, do you think we have time for a very quick practice run before you leave for the airport? You look very, very cute in that nightshirt.’
I roll my eyes at his reference to my faded, thigh-skimming nightshirt that has definitely seen better days.
‘You’re so naughty sometimes but I love it,’ I tell him and, after some passionate lovemaking in the kitchen and a very quick shower, I’m off to pick up my dad and feeling quite on top of the world with my lot.
‘You like it here, love?’ Dad says to me as I confidently cruise along the roads back from Gatwick Airport towards Bromley. ‘I wish I’d travelled more in life, I really do. It opens both the heart and mind in ways that nothing else can.’
‘I’m enjoying it here for sure. It’s rural and quiet but close enough to the bright lights of London too.’
‘I also wish I’d gone to school a bit more often and got myself an education, instead of slogging away as a gopher, labouring on building sites for a pittance, but you live and learn, eh?’ he continues.
It’s more a statement than a question, so I don’t have to agree or disagree.
‘Life takes us in all sorts of directions, Dad,’ I tell him softly. ‘David and I have to work very hard to make it workbut I love my job at the hospital here and we’ve a great circle of friends.’
‘That’s good to hear … you’re really going to marry him, so?’ he asks, and I glance at him with a smile.
‘Yes, I am going to marry him and I’m a very, very lucky lady to have him.’
Dad lets out a sigh which makes me laugh and then he giggles too. Our opposing backgrounds are a bitter pill for him to swallow, but David and I have made it very clear that nothing like that will ever be an issue, having firmly closed down that discussion on our now infamous visit home to announce our engagement.
