MindReader and I are at an engagement party in Cardiff (Wales to the Americans amongst us). Incidentally if you and I are ever at a party together please do not ask us when he is going to propose, prompting a hearty ‘never!’ from the sarcastic boyfriend himself and a defensive but well-meaning ‘if it’s forever what is the rush?’ from me.
Anyway.
“What did you do today?” MindReader’s friend asks.
“Well we came up yesterday,” MindReader says, sipping a beer, his other hand slung casually around my shoulders. “you know – a mini break.”
I meet his eye and smile as he glosses over the packing of gluten free bread and the ringing of restaurants and the tears as our ‘neighbours’ in our hotel woke us up shouting at 7am.
“Oh excellent,” he says. “See much of Cardiff today?”
“Yep,” I say, “left hotel at about one, walked to town and I dragged MindReader round the shops til 6, then we got some dinner.”
“And now a house party?” he says, looking at me evenly as MindReader excuses himself.
I nod.
“Better then?” he says, with no hint of irony or accusation.
I look back at MindReader’s retreating form and wonder briefly if it is possible to love as much as I do right now. I think of how he got up at 8 and spent hours in the lobby so not to disturb my slumber til one. I think of my hand on his arm as I needed to stop walking halfway through the afternoon. It is true that if I hadn’t got back to sleep after our neighbours woke us then today would have been a no walking day. It is also true that dinner on both nigts was a complete faff; that if we were abroad And i couldnt demand they wash their woks would have gone hungry.
But – and this is, I grasp, the crucial part – I did manage a full day out; we did go away for the first time since 08, and I am okay. Sometimes, how things seem might just be how they are.
“I suppose I am, rather,” I say, sipping my wine, my only complaint being that my feet hurt in these ridiculous shoes.
Ah, it’s strange what a pair of ridiculous shoes can do for a woman. Despite the pain. Glad you had a good time.
It’s so true.