Chapter Twenty-Nine A Postcard
A postcard from Cordoba described how Luis was travelling across Spain, to some of the lesser-known towns he’d never visited.
Danny read the card a thousand times. The style was plain and factual.
Love, Luis. That day Danny tried to occupy his mind with professional problems, patients suffering far more serious concerns than his own domestic troubles.
Minimizing the upheaval in his life worked well until he wondered if he had always depended on helping patients to make himself feel better.
Walking home, he took out his phone and called Sophie, the friend who had known about the engagement before anyone else.
As soon as she answered he said, ‘The wedding’s off. ’
On the Saturday before Christmas Danny caught the morning train from Euston Station to Manchester and sat in the corner of a quiet carriage slumped against the window like a sack of post that had lost its postman.
He was struck by how curious heartache was – a distress that wasn’t anger or agitation, there were no tears, but a numbness in his chest. Colours dimmed.
Music softened. Laughter was for other people.
When the train arrived at the station, he was the last to stand, the last to collect his belongings and the last to disembark.
They caught a bus to Eccles Sixth Form College where Sophie’s two daughters, Penelope and Maggie, aged ten and eight, were training with Manchester United’s Regional Talent Club.
Standing on the touchline with his arms crossed was Sophie’s husband, Harry, watching the practice game with as much intensity as any professional manager.
A handsome man in his forties in shape from competing in an amateur football league, he shook Danny’s hand and told them the score.
There were other parents on the touchline, sharing Thermoses of tea along with commentary about the game, relationships as foreign to Danny as he was to them.
After the final whistle the five of them squeezed into the family’s red Vauxhall Astra.
The two girls peered at Danny as he sat in the front passenger seat while Sophie sat in the back between them.
The girls could tell Danny was heartbroken without understanding what heartbreak was.
On the drive home Harry explained that the family had tickets to see the Christmas lights at Dunham Massey, a National Trust mansion.
Since it was sold out, he couldn’t buy another ticket at this late stage but he had seen the lights many times and so offered Danny his ticket while he would stay at home to make dinner.
Embarrassed by the generosity, Danny declined.
Trying to follow the implications of her parents’ hospitality and their consoling tone, their eldest daughter Penelope ventured, ‘Are you sick?’
Danny turned around.
‘No. In fact, I’m a nurse so it’s my job to make sure other people don’t get sick.’
Confident in her powers of perception, Penelope didn’t budge from her observation.
‘Then why are you so sad?’
Danny felt guilty at being so downcast at a time of joy for this family.
‘You’re right. I am a little sad. I’m sorry.’
Penelope said, ‘It’s okay. You can be sad. I get sad too.’
They arrived at a semi-detached red-brick Victorian house on Fog Lane in the suburb of Didsbury. While the girls changed into their favourite festive sweaters Sophie spoke to Danny.
‘Please take the ticket. I wasn’t a good friend after university. Let me be a friend now.’
Danny replied, ‘I don’t want to be that guy again.
Coming to you in times of need, seeking a shoulder to cry on.
This wedding was about creating a celebration.
I wanted to stand on stage with Luis and for people to look at us and go wow, after twenty years they’re still madly in love.
I’m the first of my gay friends to marry.
I made such a fuss about it. And I fucked it up. ’
Danny wondered if Sophie would be inventive and suggest Luis’s reaction might be an obscure Spanish tradition, unearthing some ancient Andalusian machismo ritual whereby it was customary for the man to spend months roaming the wilderness to prove himself worthy before returning to the village ready to be a husband.
‘Danny, this relationship hasn’t ended yet, has it?’
He scratched his greying stubble and didn’t reply.
In the end Danny accepted the ticket to see the Christmas lights.
During the drive to Dunham Massey it snowed and Sophie’s younger daughter started to cry.
When Sophie asked what was wrong, Maggie said she was crying because it was perfect.
The mansion looked like a Christmas card.
Across the historic estate lay an untouched dusting of snow.
They walked the trail, the four of them holding hands, through landscaped grounds decorated with lanterns and lights.
A silvery stag stood proud, briefly posing for photographs before disappearing into the forests.
To warm up they sheltered in the tearoom with Danny treating them to extravagant hot chocolate piled with whipped cream and tiny pink marshmallows.
Penelope asked, with a spot of cream on the tip of her nose, ‘Are you marrying a man?’
Danny nodded, trying to be funny by also dipping his nose into the cream.
‘That was the plan.’
Neither of the girls laughed, more fascinated by the idea of two men getting married.
‘I’ve never been to a wedding with two men before.’
Wiping the cream from his nose, Danny said, ‘Neither have I.’
As the girls puzzled over this conundrum, that he was doing something he had never seen other people do, Danny felt an instinctive unease that he had somehow spoken inappropriately, that even this conversation, not of his making, was pushing an agenda onto other people’s children.
He abruptly changed the subject and asked how the hot chocolate ranked among their favourites.
It came in at fourth, behind a ski chalet in Switzerland, a café in Edinburgh and a bakery in Vienna. Tough crowd, Danny thought.
When they arrived back Harry welcomed them with the family’s Christmas tree elegantly decorated with ribbons and pinecones, and topped with a chipped porcelain angel that had crowned Sophie’s mother’s tree and her grandmother’s before that.
Three generations of families watched over by a damaged angel.
The house smelt of cooking. The table had been laid in their dining room.
There were candles and embroidered napkins.
The room was so appealing that Sophie kissed Harry on the cheek.
He had cooked an oxtail stew served with oven-roasted sweet potatoes.
As they ate, the girls relayed the entire trip for their father so that he didn’t feel that he’d missed out.
Danny hardly spoke, enjoying the respite from his own thoughts.
For dessert there were deep-filled mince pies bought from the school Christmas fair, served with brandy butter.
After dinner they played three rounds of Jenga before the girls were ushered to bed.
While Sophie read to her daughters Danny and Harry washed up, opening a second bottle of Spanish red wine Danny had brought as a gift, the only wine he knew anything about. A little tipsy Harry found the courage to ask about the wedding and the separation.
‘Here’s an opinion. And I could be off the mark.
What if you guys are overthinking this whole marriage thing?
Because it’s new. You’re taking it too seriously.
Look at me. I didn’t think about marriage deeply.
What’s to think about? I love Sophie. She’s brilliant.
Beautiful. She turned up when I asked her on a date.
When I suggested we live together, she said yes.
After a year I asked her to marry me. Marriage is just something you do when you find the right person. ’
Danny listened to this description of marriage. He envied it.
‘We missed our time. We’re doing it out of time. I don’t know why it’s so different. I wish it wasn’t. But it is.’
Sophie came into the kitchen and helped herself to a glass of wine. Detecting that the conversation was at a sensitive juncture she joked, ‘Whatever Harry said, I apologize.’
Remaining proud of his advice, he repeated it.
‘I said it was possible Danny and Luis were overthinking marriage. That marriage doesn’t need so much deliberation. It’s just something you do when you find the right person.’
Sophie paused.
‘You didn’t think much about our marriage?’
Realizing his mistake, Harry shook his head.
‘Did you?’
Sophie sipped her wine.
‘I thought about it a lot.’
Turning to Danny, she added, ‘Have you ever wondered if the problem is that deep down you might be conventional?’
Danny nodded.
‘The thought crossed my mind.’
Harry asked, ‘Why would conventional be bad?’
Danny answered, ‘Because it was never on offer.’
Later that night Sophie and Danny huddled together at the back of the garden, seated on the girls’ climbing frame, smoking a joint as a nod to old times. After passing it, Sophie wrapped her arms around him.
‘Danny, don’t fall apart.’