Chapter Eleven The Proposal
Danny arranged a hiking holiday in Scotland for the last weekend of August, following the West Highland Way.
He and Luis would trek from the village of Milngavie, walking around twenty miles each day, and on the fifth – after the climb out of the village of Kinlochleven, with views across Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Scotland – Danny planned to propose.
In preparation he browsed the Piccadilly bookshops flicking through titles such as Marrying on a Budget and Marriage Step by Step.
Without exception these books were written with the bride in mind.
Marriages between two men or two women weren’t discussed except in one recently added afterword which declared that the same advice applied whether you were straight or gay.
A nice idea which didn’t ring true to him.
Purchasing one of the guides, he read it cover to cover in a café, over iced coffees and a slice of poppy-seed cake.
In the section dedicated to engagement the author cautioned against proposing in places that were faddish or famous, recommending ‘locations with permanence’, their phrase, to symbolize longevity.
Danny mused that since he and Luis had already achieved longevity this symbolism was superfluous.
One of Luis’s favourite pastimes was trekking.
Arriving at the summit of a mountain he would sit on an outcrop of rock, reluctant to descend.
Luis preferred the world above the clouds; Danny preferred the world under the water.
As a couple they had hiked the Cantabrian Mountains of northern Spain, the Paramillo del Quindío ascent in Colombia and the Cerro Castillo circuit in Chile, adventures that Danny would never have dared to embark upon alone.
Apart from a school trip to the World War One battlefields in France he hadn’t left the country until he was nineteen years old.
He joked that he owed Luis the world, or he owed his world to Luis.
Both were true. Since they often went on short breaks at the end of August there was nothing unusual about making these holiday plans, so Luis remained in the dark as to the real reason behind the trip; the surprise would be total.
To help with the logistics Danny employed a travel agency specializing in Scottish Highland walks.
Though the trek was self-guided the agency would arrange transportation of their heavier bags between guest lodges and book their accommodation, which often sold out in the summer.
Danny had explained that they were two gay men sleeping in one room – not friends, colleagues or hiking buddies.
He’d have enough on his mind hiding the engagement ring; he didn’t want check-in drama, twin beds, sniggers or side-eye.
The agency was supportive; the manager could vouch for the guest lodge owners personally, claiming they welcomed visitors from all over the world.
It was a strange comment, Danny thought, since being gay wasn’t a nationality, but he let it slide, listening as she reassured him that he and his ‘boyfriend’ would have the hike of a lifetime.
Luis was almost fifty years old. Danny was looking forward to calling him ‘my fiancé’.
On Thursday 23 August, with a one-day head start on the Bank Holiday crowds, Danny and Luis caught the nine-thirty train from London Euston due to arrive in Glasgow Central Station by the early afternoon.
After reading his Spanish newspapers, Luis slept for a time, resting his head against the window as the countryside rolled by.
This was their first holiday of the year.
A pattern had developed over their life together, the pair often arranging their breaks during the low season when prices were lower and popular locations were less busy with families, an arrangement that had always seemed advantageous.
More recently it had begun to bother Danny as though it implied unmarried gay couples were expected to keep a separate calendar.
Perhaps that was part of the reason he wanted to propose on a summer Bank Holiday.
When Luis woke up Danny handed him a water bottle, dented from their expeditions around the world.
He took a sip while Danny explained that they were north of Preston, closing in on Carlisle and the border.
Luis asked about Danny’s disturbed sleep last night – he’d woken up in the middle of the night and cried out.
Danny didn’t want to talk about his anxieties in case they hinted at the proposal.
However, the nightmare, on the surface, didn’t reveal anything.
‘I’ve had it before.’
Luis pressed for the details.
‘I’m in my school swimming pool. It’s a normal class except I see a door in the wall that wasn’t there in real life, like a prison cell door.
I climb out of the pool, walk over, turn the handle and pass through.
On the other side is a mirror copy of the school swimming pool except this pool is empty, no students, no teacher, no noise.
The air is cold. The water is still. I notice somebody submerged in the deep end, so I dive in to rescue them only to come face to face with myself.
The dead-me is fixed in a silent scream.
That’s when I wake up, screaming for real. ’
Luis put his hand on Danny’s leg.
‘Maybe you’ll never have that dream again.’
The observation surprised Danny. The nightmare dated back to his schooldays and recurred at times of stress. He presumed it would be with him until the day that he died. He asked why Luis thought it might stop.
‘Mine stopped. In my nightmare I was on the beach in Cádiz, on lifeguard duty, and someone out at sea was struggling so I ran into the water to save them but when I reached them, they pushed me away. They wouldn’t let me touch them.
And they drowned. I returned to the beach and everyone from my town was standing there asking why I had let that man drown.
And I told them – he didn’t want to be saved by me. ’
Danny asked, ‘When did it stop?’
Luis replied, ‘After I met you.’
Danny had booked comfortable accommodation for their first night in Glasgow, at the Blythswood Square Hotel, an elegant row of converted Georgian townhouses.
After five hours on a train Luis was keen to stretch his legs and spend the afternoon exploring the city.
As a traveller, Luis’s view was that adventures were infrequent and though people often believe that one day they might return to see the sights they missed they almost never do.
His go-to case study, quoted like legal precedent, described how, on his twentieth birthday, he went trekking in Nepal with his best friend from school.
The pair of them reached the end of the Langtang trek where they attempted a day hike without ropes or a guide, scrambling up mountain scree to peer across the snow-capped ridge towards the Tibetan border.
Halfway up, his friend felt sick, possibly from the altitude and, unable to ascend any higher, Luis escorted him back down to the trekking lodge, forgoing his chance to see over the mountain into Tibet.
Safely in the lodge his friend promised that one day they would return together to complete this climb.
But after Luis came out, his friend cut contact with him.
All Luis could think was that he had given up a glimpse of Tibet for that guy.
As a result, whenever he travelled, he drew up lists of the most important places to visit to avoid feelings of regret.
‘Imagine you’ll never come back, and there are no second chances,’ he would say.
Danny was more than happy to follow Luis’s lists.
Over the years they had taken them to temples, ruins and summits.
On this trip he hoped Luis would realize that marriage belonged on their must-do list, that it too was one of life’s great adventures not to be missed.
First on Luis’s Glasgow itinerary was the Gothic cathedral, the oldest building in the city.
Luis and Danny avoided talking about faith – like they avoided talking about their families.
Afterwards they enjoyed a lecture on Scottish whisky at a local distillery.
While Luis asked smart questions Danny became tipsy drinking the free samples.
That night at a restaurant recommended by the hotel for its locally sourced ingredients, including Highland deer and loch lobster, Luis spotted an omission in their itinerary.
‘On the final day of trekking it looks like we’re not climbing to the top of Ben Nevis? Is that right?’
Danny had been so fixated on the proposal he had forgotten the summit. Luis took out the map, unfolding it.
‘It seems crazy to miss the views. Don’t you think?’
Danny nodded. Luis’s finger moved across the map, illustrating a possible new route.
‘If we start early from Kinlochleven we can reach Fort William by midday. We then head to Achintee. From the Visitor Centre we follow the path to the top. An easy fix.’
Picking at his food Danny began amending his plans.
He couldn’t propose at the summit of Ben Nevis, there would be hundreds of tourists.
They would cheer, clap, film it on their phones, post it online under the header ‘Gay Wedding Proposal at the top of Ben Nevis!’ No, he would find a secluded spot before the climb, on the route from Kinlochleven to Fort William.
In his mind the proposal had been the summit, metaphorically speaking.
Now it would be overshadowed by an actual summit.
Having lost his appetite, he put down his fork.
That night Danny and Luis had sex and it was perhaps a little perfunctory but it had been a long day and Danny wouldn’t have read anything into it except for the fact that he was about to propose.
What did it mean to ask someone to marry you if the best years of your sex life were in the past?
Perhaps he needed to accept that this was a reality of marrying so late into a relationship and he shouldn’t make a big deal out of it.
After the passion and athleticism of the first few months, the sex had become more vulnerable and emotionally intense as they began to trust each other more.
Luis grew up believing fleeting anonymous encounters were the only possibility for gay men.
In contrast, Danny always preferred waking up with his dates since they were often better company in the morning, the conversation was truer over cornflakes than it was over cocktails, revealing glimpses of their hopes and fears before they raised their defences and braved the world.
His challenge had been that the more he wanted them to stay, the more they wanted to leave.
Until he met Luis, he truly believed that he was a one-night stand and nothing more. A single-use body.
Looking back, the years after Luis and Danny moved in together were the high-water mark sexually.
More than beautiful bodies and dirty talk, sex had been an expression that they were a team.
They discussed everything and tried most things.
The most vivid sexual memories were at the weekends in between redecorating the apartment in their partial shell of a bathroom or kitchen with torn-down walls and exposed wires.
It felt the same way between them – torn-down barriers, simultaneously building a home and a partnership.
Abiding by a conventional chronology it was the point at which they should have married.
Danny wondered if marriage would create a new high-water mark or merely make them nostalgic for the one they’d missed.
While Luis slept Danny lay awake, restless in the unfamiliar hotel warmth, bothered by too many blankets, pillows and the fact that he had neglected the summit from their plans.
He was about to get out of bed to open the window when Luis woke, sensing that Danny was ill at ease.
Without a word, understanding what was required, he stood up, opening the window and allowing in a breeze, standing naked by the window as the temperature dropped.
Once the room was cool, he returned to bed.
‘Better?’
Danny agreed.
‘Better.’
Luis lay an arm across Danny’s chest and fell back to sleep. And out of nowhere the thought occurred to Danny that the real reason he was asking Luis to marry him was to find out why he would say no.