Chapter Thirteen Will You Marry Me?
After the steep climb out of the village of Kinlochleven the path rose above the low-lying clouds, Luis’s favourite place to be.
Despite their relative seclusion and their early start the route to Fort William was dotted with hikers.
To avoid turning the proposal into a public scene, Danny ventured off the main path under the pretext of searching for a vantage point for photographs.
They climbed towards a rocky outcrop, at times on their hands and knees, reaching a granite ledge.
With wisps of cloud settling on the lower slopes, the mountains appeared to be steaming as if the landscape had been recently forged and plunged into the freezing loch waters.
Opening his rucksack, ostensibly for his water bottle, Danny removed the ring box while Luis stood nearby admiring the view.
The showers softened to a drizzle and Danny stepped forward, joining Luis at the edge.
He had imagined going down on one knee but in the moment the gesture seemed inauthentic and when Luis turned to him, expecting to be handed a water bottle, he saw, instead, the open box and the platinum engagement ring gathering spots of Highland rain.
For a time Danny couldn’t speak, unsure whether he would be able to utter the most important sentence of his life.
He was convinced that if he opened his mouth he would start to cry, which he had promised himself he would not do until he had heard Luis’s answer.
The question should be asked flat, in a steady tone, without emotion, applying no pressure on the other person.
Eventually he found the composure to say, ‘Luis, will you marry me?’
In this moment Luis’s green eyes appeared enormous. With an inscrutable expression he lifted the ring box out of Danny’s hands, no doubt playing back the past couple of months like a reel of celluloid, examining each frame for missed clues.
During the protracted silence, the thought popped into Danny’s head that he should’ve asked the question in Spanish as well as English.
He had never learned Spanish since there was never any chance of him catching up with Luis’s English, but for occasions like this he could’ve at least learned the phrase.
Maybe the reason Luis was taking so long to answer was that he had always imagined being asked in Spanish and hearing the words in English, in the middle of the Scottish Highlands, maybe it was all too foreign – marriage, the mountains, being offered an engagement ring as if he were the bride-to-be.
Desperate for Luis to speak, Danny waited as Luis looked up at the sky and then down again.
‘Okay, Danny. Let’s get married.’
And that was it. Luis was a world-class lawyer, eloquent and persuasive in a language that he had made his own.
Were those really the best words he could manage to the world’s most romantic question?
Danny had expected more. But what? Some new sensation – a jolt of electricity, as if the assorted limbs of a loving union might be lifted into a higher state of being by the lightning strike of a proposal.
He was being silly. The question was plain.
Yes or no. It was best answered plainly. Luis had said yes.
Luis placed the engagement ring on his own finger.
Technically that was Danny’s job, but he had lost control of the ring box.
And what was he supposed to do – snatch it back?
The fit was good; the nights of secret measuring with string had paid off.
The ring looked right. They kissed, their first kiss as fiancés.
Danny waited for the jolt he had hoped for.
But these seconds felt like the previous ones.
Or perhaps, a little worse, anticipation replaced by anticlimax.
The only sound Danny could hear was the wind through the trees and over the rocks as if the mountains were whispering about them.