By the time Danny and his friend Matt cleared the stadium it was one in the morning. Neither of them had eaten anything before the show and since Danny had been abstaining from alcohol in the weeks leading up to the performance the cans of Marks & Spencer premixed gin and slimline tonic that they had stashed to celebrate made them tipsy, high-fiving strangers as they walked to the nearby Underground station which was operating late to transport the crowd home. Danny phoned Luis, arranging to meet him at Matt’s afterparty where celebrations were already underway. Over the bar’s din Luis declared that it was one of the best nights of his life. The truth was that Luis had been part of every great day in Danny’s life, and he wanted him to be part of every great day going forward, which was another way of saying they should get married. Looking back, Danny had been circling the idea for months. The mystery of his sadness was solved. Marriage was missing, a public celebration of their relationship. And yes, it was true, Danny was aware that they weren’t technically allowed to marry, this wasn’t Denmark or Spain or the Netherlands. The law in England still prohibited it. But that was the verb – to marry – and okay, so it would be a civil ceremony, he and Luis would be civil partners, but no one got down on one knee and asked someone to civil ceremony with them. Thequestion everyone asked, whether they were allowed to or not, was – will you marry me?
On the crowded tube carriage into central London people were singing and drinking and Danny did something he normally never did with drunk strangers on a tube – he joined in.
Matt lived in a Victorian mansion block near the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, a popular after-hours house. He was single, handsome, thirty-seven years old, in great shape from a routine of early-morning workouts and late-night dancing. But if you knew where to look, and Danny did know, there were lines of loneliness around his eyes. Before they went into the flat Matt suggested they smoke a joint and Danny nodded, aware that after tonight they would drift apart, no matter how hard they tried to stay close. Their shifts were too long and, without the rehearsals to bind them together, they would see each other maybe once or twice a year. He could sense that Matt wanted to make a move, but he admired Danny’s relationship with Luis and was yearning for one of his own. A kiss would feel less like affection and more like jealousy and a kiss should create something special rather than damage it. Matt peered up through the pollution at the muted stars and said without a trace of hyperbole, ‘That was the best day of my life.’
Having heard this phrase from Luis and now from Matt,it occurred to Danny that most people described their wedding day in those terms. A day none of them had ever been allowed to enjoy. He shared a few half-hearted drags on the joint, not caring much for weed which made him woozy rather than witty. At the end of the smoke they hugged, holding on to their connection for as long as possible.
Upstairs the party was messy and young. Danny weaved his way through the guests, many of whom were high, none of whom he knew, eventually finding Luis seated in the living room on a shamrock green sofa, nursing a bottle of Modelo beer. Commotion swirled around him while he waited patiently like a lifeguard on a raucous gay beach. The music of Robyn and Rihanna was straining the speakers of the sound system.
Surveying the scene Danny understood that this party was not the place to propose – proposing needed planning, preparation and an attention to detail. He had made the decision tonight but that didn’t mean he was required to blurt it out at the first opportunity. Luis might think that Danny was drunk or trying to stretch out the night’s happiness, ricocheting from one ceremony to another. He needed Luis to be sure that their rendition of the world’s most romantic question had been twenty years in the making.
Approaching the sofa, Danny offered his hand to Luis.
‘Let’s go home.’
To his surprise Luis rejected the idea. This night was special, one of a kind, and he wanted to make the most of it. Instead of standing up he indicated for Danny to sit beside him, wrapping an arm around him and declaring, ‘Watching you tonight made me realize how wrong I was not to go back to Spain to celebrate the Barcelona Olympics.’
Staged in 1992, the Barcelona Olympics were twenty years ago, the year they had met. Danny placed a hand on Luis’s leg.
‘I asked you at the time. You said you didn’t want to go?’
Luis admitted, ‘Yes, that is what I said. And I was a fool. Those Olympics were special for Spain. It was my country announcing itself on the world stage. And I missed the party. But that’s what is so great about tonight, because you seized the opportunity. I was with you tonight, living through you, and an old wound inside of me healed.’
Danny said, ‘When I was walking to the station I thought – this experience doesn’t become real for me until I share it with you. That’s how I’ll understand it, by listening to you, by watching your reaction. I had a sense that it was a special thing and now I know why.’
Inspired, Danny jumped up and approached the baby-faced guy in charge of the music, making a request for a song to be played. He asked, ‘Is that a song or a city?’
Won over by Danny’s persistence, he found the track and with a sceptical shrug, queued it. After a pop song finished,the sound of bells filled the room causing many to pause their conversation. They turned towards the speakers, their confusion growing as the sound was followed by a string orchestra and then, after a brief pause, the voice of Freddie Mercury, singing baritone, in duet with Spanish opera singer Montserrat Caballé, one of the finest sopranos of the twentieth century. The only person in the room to react enthusiastically was Luis, who stood up, taking Danny’s hands while mouthing the words which he knew by heart, indifferent to whether he seemed middle-aged and cringey. It was the unofficial anthem of the Barcelona Olympics, recorded by Freddie Mercury in the final months before his death. At the end of the first chorus, in front of everyone, Danny and Luis kissed, and it felt to Danny like a dress rehearsal for a marriage proposal.
Chapter EightThe Engagement Ring
It quickly dawned on Danny how little he knew about weddings. He had reached middle age without giving marriage much thought either as a prospect or as a process. The truth was that as soon as he came to terms with being gay, marriage was an idea he put to one side, not merely improbable but impossible, a foreign language he never needed to learn because he was never going to travel to that destination. He would attend other people’s receptions, shed a tear at other people’s vows, but he never expected anyone to shed a tear at his. The first stage of anything becoming real is dreaming about it except Danny had never dreamed about his wedding, never pictured the outfits or imagined the venue, never wondered what words he might say about love.
Unable to turn to the person he always reliedon – Luis – he chose to confide in Sophie, a friend from university. She had married at the age of twenty-five and now lived in Manchester, with a house, a garden and two young daughters. She had been a geology student at Essex University and every holiday she could be found climbing the sides of volcanoes or studying desert canyons. During term-time she and Danny had been inseparable. They met in fresher’s week and lived in a house together in their second and third years. Looking back, they were in a relationship of sorts, sleeping with other people, she with guys, he with guys, but always reverting to each other, unintentionally blocking each other from forming meaningful connections with anyone else. After graduation there was a recognition from Sophie that their friendship had been too intense and, diagnosing her intimacy with Danny as a problem, she had dropped out of contact. When she reappeared, several years later, she was engaged. Danny hadn’t met her fiancé and during the run-up to the marriage, Sophie hadn’t asked for his advice or involved him in any meaningful way. Though he was hurt, looking back, he shouldn’t have taken it personally. After all, why would anyone want his advice about marriage? Over the years their friendship recovered, never to the same intensity, but they still loved each other and they would always share the helter-skelter memories of their university years.
Hearing Danny’s news Sophie cleared a Saturday andtravelled down from Manchester by train, leaving the kids in her husband’s care. Arriving at Euston Station she looked ready for adventure, wearing frayed Maharishi cargo pants with embroidered samurai warriors on the back, matched with a simple white shirt. Her trainers were scuffed, her hair artfully dishevelled, she never wore perfume yet always smelt great and when she hugged Danny he was transported back in time.
‘So, you’re finally getting hitched?’
Danny asked, ‘It is crazy, isn’t it?’
Sophie shook her head.
‘What’s the difference? Between being married and the way you guys are living right now?’
Danny was struck by the question. ‘That’s what I want to find out.’
Since it was a sunny day and Londoners were always so happy when it was sunny, they decided to walk rather than catch the tube, ambling through the quaint side streets of Fitzrovia, passing small shops which sold nothing more than music scores and rare violin rosin. Sophie thought it was smart to ask for help since the jewellers might exploit Danny’s ignorance as an outsider, a man trying to wangle his way into a marriage club he didn’t feel part of, and she was worried that he would pay over the odds to compensate. For a start, he didn’t even know whether both halves of thecouple received engagement rings. Researching the subject online Danny discovered that in over ninety-five per cent of proposals only the woman received a ring. The man wore nothing to mark his engagement. Of course, it was down to Danny to figure out how these traditions translated when there were two guys.
‘It feels odd that Luis will be wearing an engagement ring and I won’t.’
Sophie’s solution was to buy one for himself as well but Danny scrunched his face up at the idea.
‘I can’t buy my own engagement ring. It would be like buying my own Valentine’s card. And Luis can’t buy me one because I’m asking him to marry me. You wore the ring because Harry asked you. Harry didn’t wear an engagement ring.’
On that point Sophie agreed.
‘Yeah. But it always bothered me. And when you look at the history of engagement rings they’re symbols of ownership.’
