One Hundred Proposals (13 page)

Suddenly she remembered her underwear. Finally, my big moment.

I presented her with a box of little shorts with my face and the words ‘Marry Me’ printed on them. She didn’t stop laughing for ten minutes.

Then she said that, as nice as they were, she would probably take her own underwear. When I asked her why, she laughed and said if she was with another man and if it ever came down to sex, seeing my face whilst undressing her would probably put the other man off. I told her that was all the more reason for taking them.

Then we had a big row.

She accused me of having double standards and asked why it was ok for me to screw around with a different woman every night but not for her. I did point out that she wasn’t gay so she probably wouldn’t be screwing around with a different woman every night anyway.

She said I’d probably have a woman in every port and she’d be left sitting in the hotel like a Billy No Mates.

I’m sure the topic of other men and women don’t come up with other would-be proposers.

An excellent start to our holiday.

*

I stared across the aisle of the plane at Harry, sitting two rows in front of me, as he flirted with the air hostess. The cabin was busy with people getting ready for departure but she seemed to only have time for him.

I had been so excited about this trip, but my excitement had quickly dwindled over the week. In between all our planning and preparations, Harry had been out with Kate, the redhead, three times. The sex, apparently, was amazing. Of course I was jealous, but I think the worry of what he would be like on our holiday was also starting to set in. I think the final straw had been when Harry had written into our round-the-world plan, arrangements to meet with an old girlfriend, Chloe, who he had remained friends with and now lived in New York.

I suppose I couldn’t expect Harry to remain celibate over the three months around the world, he’d already done that for almost a year after Jack had died, but I didn’t want to be sitting in a foreign country alone. Hooking up with my own man was almost out of the question. I was hopeless when it came to flirting or approaching men. And on the rare occasions men approached me, I became a bumbling mess that quickly put them off.

Maybe I would try a little practice flirting now. If Harry could do it, I could do it too. I turned to the bloke next to me and I was disappointed to see a short, bald man in his late fifties, sweating profusely from every orifice and mopping his brow with a pink satin handkerchief. I glanced down to see he was holding hands with the man next to him, a man dressed entirely in black with a dragon earring.

I looked around for someone else who I could flirt with, but happy couples were everywhere. Honeymoon couples, middle-aged couples, even elderly couples who had probably spent their entire lives together.

I was alone.

The plane started to move and I gripped the arms of the chair so hard my knuckles turned white.

That was another thing I was upset about. This was my first time on a plane and amongst the manic preparations over the last few days I had discovered I was a nervous flyer. Nervous was an understatement. My stomach was rolling, my heart racing. In my nightmares I had seen our plane explode, crash into the sea, crash into another plane, and even get abducted by aliens. I wanted Harry to hold my hand and distract me but instead he was over there staring at the air hostess like she was the only woman in the world.

I hadn’t told Harry about my fear of flights. I didn’t want him to know that I was petrified. This flight was thirteen hours to Miami, then another two hours or so to Guayaquil airport in Ecuador, followed by a another two hour trip on a tiny little plane to Baltra Island. It was going to be a long day.

I looked over at Harry again. The air hostess was showing him how to use the seatbelt, as if he didn’t know.

The plane rocked a bit as it bumped over the runway, but it was enough to make all those nightmares come flooding back.

Jules had recommended that I take sleeping tablets. Apparently I’d wake up the other side of the world, completely refreshed and none the wiser about the thirteen elapsed hours.

I swallowed two tablets and closed my eyes as I waited for the effects. There were announcements, people chatting, the noise of the engines. It all became white noise.

I heard the roar of the engines, the pitch of the plane as it took off, my ears popped and we levelled out. We were now approximately thirty thousand feet in the air. I’d researched it over the last few days. That was a long way to go when plummeting to the ground.

But I was thankful that the sleeping tablets already seemed to be taking effect. My last thought as I drifted into oblivion was of burning fire balls of molten metal crashing into the sea like meteorites.

*

I woke as the plane jolted underneath me. My eyes shot open with panic but buildings whizzed past the small airplane windows outside and I realised we had landed. My head felt so heavy and my eyes were already drooping, taking me back into the dark abyss again. My next realisation was that I was lying on the chest of the bald man next to me, a small patch of dribble soaking his shirt. My hand was resting on his crotch.

I quickly struggled to get up but the bald man stopped me with his arm round my shoulders.

‘Take it easy,’ said the bald man in a voice that sounded just like Harry. ‘Give yourself a chance to wake up.’

I peered up at the bald man and to my surprise found Harry staring down at me.

‘You’re not the bald man.’

I felt like I was drunk.

‘Not the last time I checked, no.’

‘But…’ I looked around me in confusion. The man with the dragon earring had also gone, replaced by another younger man in a suit.

‘We swapped seats,’ Harry explained.

‘Oh.’

I relaxed into him before I remembered I was still angry at him, but with his hand in my hair, stroking me, it hardly seemed important any more.

‘Are we in Miami?’

‘Yes.’

I tried to surreptitiously wipe away some of the dribble from Harry’s shirt when I noticed a huge skull and crossbones ring on my wedding finger. I looked up at him in confusion.

‘What?’ he asked.

I waggled my finger, as much as I could with the heavy weight of the ring on it.

‘Oh yes, that. We got engaged.’

‘Whilst I was asleep?’

‘Yes. It was quite a big proposal, very elaborate. I’m sorry you missed it.’

‘And I said yes?’

‘Well no, obviously. But the bald man next to you nodded your head for you which everyone in the plane took to be a yes.’

‘Everyone on the plane?’

‘Yes, it was quite the show. I did record it on my phone. I’ll show you later.’

I looked down at the ring and smiled. I liked the idea of being engaged to Harry a lot, even though it was a fake engagement.

‘I know the ring isn’t exactly to your taste, it was donated to us.’ Harry indicated the seat where the man with the dragon earring had sat.

‘I love it.’ I said, honestly. Any symbol of our engagement, no matter how hideous, was fine by me.

I returned my attention to the dribble and Harry watched me try to wipe it off. I blushed. ‘I dribbled on your shirt.’

‘I noticed. It’s ok.’

I closed my eyes and leaned into him, sleepily.

‘I love you, Harry.’

I felt him tense under me straight away. Crap, crap, crap.

I looked up at him, his eyes were wide with horror or shock.

‘Not like that. Never like that,’ I said.

He continued to stare at me.

Thankfully then the seatbelt light went off and everyone around us scrabbled to their feet, reaching into overhead lockers and fighting their way down the aisle so they could be first off the plane. I lumbered to my feet as well, my legs not performing as I wanted them to.

I managed to get a few people between me and Harry as I walked up the aisle, trying to calm down my blushing cheeks. I felt so sleepy. What happened to waking feeling refreshed? I felt like I could sleep for a hundred years. I got to the end of the airplane tunnel and as everyone veered left to collect their baggage and go through passport control, I found a little bench to the right, out of view of the other debarking passengers.

I sat down and rubbed my face, willing myself to wake up so I didn’t stagger through passport control looking like I was on drugs.

‘I told you not to take those sleeping tablets,’ Harry said, appearing from nowhere and passing me a bottle of water. ‘How many did you take?’

‘Just two.’

‘Jesus.’ He knelt in front of me. ‘You’re only supposed to take one. No wonder you were out for so long.’ He peered into my eyes with concern.

‘I’m fine.’ I batted away his hand as he felt my forehead.

‘Can you walk?’

‘Of course I can.’ I stood up and my legs wobbled treacherously.

‘That doesn’t look at all suspicious, does it, for the American authorities?’ Harry sighed, swinging his rucksack on his back, followed by my own. ‘Here.’ He scooped me up as if I weighed nothing and walked purposefully down towards passport control.

‘And this doesn’t?’

‘We’re married, honeymooners, play along, look at me as if you really do love me.’

I could do that.

I wrapped my arms round his neck and nuzzled into his neck. He smelt so good.

‘Here we go Mrs Forbes,’ Harry whispered in my ear, his hot breath on my skin making my gut clench with desire.

‘Good evening sir, would you mind putting your girlfriend down for a moment.’

‘My wife,’ Harry said, without batting an eye. ‘We’re on honeymoon, and I promised to carry her over the threshold of every country we enter.’

I glanced at the passport officer. He didn’t seem amused.

Harry slid me down, but held me pressed tight against him.

The man looked at us, looked at our passports and back at us again.

‘Married you say?’

I nodded, happily. Oh God. What if he asked us questions about our wedding? Would he be suspicious about the lack of wedding rings? Wouldn’t we have a marriage certificate with us? Did we need one? What if he discovered we were lying? Would we be thrown in jail for fraud?

The man smiled at us and passed us back our passports. ‘Welcome to America.’

I let out a huge sigh of relief which drew the man’s attention to me again. Harry ushered me on, his hand clamped firmly round my shoulders.

‘Oh, sir,’ the man called after us and my heart started thumping loudly again. We turned back, both smiling rigidly. ‘Congratulations.’

‘Thank you.’ Harry turned me away before I sagged to my knees and confessed the lie and then we were in the safety of the main airport moments later.

Proposer’s Blog

Day 10: The mile high proposal. Location: Thirty thousand feet over the Atlantic

So we’ve just landed in Miami, we have a half hour wait before we fly south to Ecuador and then in a much smaller plane west to The Galapagos Islands. So a quick update of my latest proposal.

I’d arranged with one of the air hostesses to use the intercom to propose to Suzie. I started off by playing ‘Marry You’ by Bruno Mars and singing along to the lyrics. Nothing could have prepared me for the reaction I got.

First the air crew joined in as backing singers, helping me out with the chorus and clapping their hands in the air in time with the music.

When the chorus came round a second time the whole cabin joined in. It was one of the most uplifting experiences of my life, I literally had goose bumps as I walked up the aisle to propose to Suzie.

Unfortunately she slept through the whole thing.

Buoyed up by the support of the crowd, I proposed anyway and with a little help from the man next to her, nodding her head for her, she said yes.

I won’t get too excited though. A forced yes is hardly the yes I was looking for.

Though when she eventually did wake up and saw, from the donated skull and crossbones ring on her finger, that she was engaged, she did take it all in her stride.

Watch the video clip of my proposal here.

The next few hours passed in a blur of airports, two more plane rides, more passport control, baggage carousels and a taxi ride. I was so tired it was ridiculous. I wasn’t sure if it was still the effects of the sleeping tablets or the general fatigue of travelling.

It was dark and I guessed from the quietness of our surroundings that it was late at night or early hours in the morning.

Through my sleep hazed eyes I was aware of the harbour, filled with lots of white boats bobbing gently on the water. I registered that our boat was called The Star before Harry ushered me inside. A man dressed all in white showed us to our cabin. It was small but brightly lit, with cream walls and the comfiest looking bed. A large window filled one wall and outside stars peppered the night sky. I crashed out on the bed and sank into the pillows, watching the water ripple in the moonlight.

‘I can’t believe we’re here, in The Galapagos Islands. It seems so unreal,’ I said, my eyelids drooping.

‘I can’t believe that we have arrived in one of the most beautiful places in the world and all you want to do is sleep.’

I yawned, hearing the fondness in his voice. ‘It’s been a long day. I got engaged, I got married.’

‘And now for our honeymoon.’

I opened one eye and saw Harry pull off his shirt. Bloody hell. The man should never wear clothes. I loved his arms, so strong and safe. When he took his jeans off I couldn’t resist lifting my head off the bed to watch. Mmm… the tight little shorts, his great, muscular thighs.

I looked up and realised he was watching me.

He stalked towards me like a panther and knelt on the bed by my feet. I giggled at the predatory look in his eyes as if he wanted to do dark and evil things to me. ‘Are you ready?’

I closed my eyes, sleepily. ‘Sure, I’m insatiable, I could go all night.’

I felt his hands either side of my head and I looked up into his face as he leaned over me.