‘It was like the very worst kind of business transaction,’ said Naomi, when they were seated at the table Ellis had booked for them. ‘It was horrible hearing it all distilled down into such matter-of-fact terms. There was no mention of love. Of our simply wanting to be together.’
‘I suppose we should focus on why we’re doing it,’ he said.
She looked at him with an anxious frown. ‘Remind me, why are we?’
He reached across the table and stroked her hand. ‘To satisfy our offspring that we’re marrying for all the right reasons.That we know what we’re doing.’
‘Back there in that office I kept asking myself exactly that, what on earth am I doing?’
‘Second thoughts about marrying me?’
‘No. Well … sort of.’
‘Oh,’ he said flatly. But he could add nothing else as their waiter appeared just then to take their order. He was an awkward young lad of about seventeen and stumbled over his words as he tried hard to remember the specials of the day. When his torment was over – they made it easy for him and each opted for the salmon en croute – he returned with two glasses of rosé. Alone now, Ellis risked the question he had to ask.
‘Are those second thoughts serious? Do you want to call things off?’
Naomi looked away from him, across the busy wine bar and out of the window at the passers-by. ‘Yes,’ she said at length. ‘I do.’ Only then did her gaze return to meet his.
‘Oh,’ he said again, his heart grinding to what felt like a shuddering stop. ‘Is it solely because of all that dry-as-bones legalese we’ve just sat through? Or something else?’
Lucas had warned Ellis that the process of organising a pren-up could have unforeseen consequences. He’d told him this while Ellis was seeing him off at Heathrow earlier that week. Apparently, a woman Lucas worked with in LA who came from a well-off family had taken her parents’ advice to have a pre-nup arranged, but by the time the document was drawn up and ready to be signed, her fiancé had decided he didn’t much care for its terms. It emasculated him, so he claimed.
‘It ruined everything,’ said Naomi in answer to Ellis’s question.‘That hideous process stripped every ounce of joy out of my love for you. I felt sick to my stomach sitting there while our future was systematically taken apart by comparing the size of our so-called assets.’
‘In that case, where does that leave us? Does it mean, and I hate to resort to clichés, that love isn’t enough?’ He hesitated before saying, ‘You do still love me, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do! How could you think I don’t?’
‘For the rather obvious reason that you just said you wanted to call things off.’
‘Oh Ellis, it’s the fuss and bother of our marrying that fills me with dread. Don’t you feel the same way, that it’s not about us anymore, but how we please everyone else? I feel so harried by it all.’
After taking fortitude in several mouthfuls of wine, Ellis said, ‘What are you saying you want to do, then?’
‘Why don’t we forget about getting married and just go ahead with our plan for you to move in with me?’
‘Is that what you really want?’ he asked. Out of consideration to Martha and Willow they had put off his moving in until after the weekend of the fête, and then Lucas’s visit had further delayed things. Now he really wasn’t at all sure where he stood.
‘It most definitely is,’ said Naomi. ‘Then I’ll wake in the morning without this depressingly dark cloud hanging over me.’
‘My darling, I had no idea you felt so badly about it.’
‘Each aspect of our relationship taken individually is fine, but put it all together and suddenly it feels like a tremendous ordeal to get through.’
‘It’s my fault, isn’t it? I rushed you by proposing on my birthday.I should never have done that. But it just felt so right. I hate the thought that I’ve made you unhappy.’
‘You haven’t. It’s the situation that’s done that, together with the weight of expectation that’s been thrust upon us. I’m tired of tiptoeing around everyone’s feelings, of pleasing everyone but myself. In a way I’ve done it all my married life. And,’ she quickly added, ‘that’s nobody’s fault but my own.’
‘So it’s time to assert yourself?’ he suggested with a tentative smile.
‘I’m afraid that makes me sound disagreeably self-absorbed.’
‘Not at all. It makes perfect sense from what you’ve told me of your life with Colin.’
‘But, Ellis, he’s not entirely to blame. I can’t ignore the fact that I allowed myself to be that person with Colin, the one who always tried to keep the ship on an even keel, no matter the price. For the most part, that’s what mothers do, we perform an endless dance on the tips of our toes for fear of making a situation worse.’
‘That sounds like you’re blaming yourself for being abused by your husband.’
