Epilogue
EPILOGUE
EMMA
Eighteen months later
‘I have a birthday surprise for you,’ I tell Callum when he opens his front door to me at the beginning of the May bank holiday weekend.
‘I want to say that a surprise sounds lovely but I’m remembering last time, plus you’re acting very shiftily,’ he says.
He’s referring to when I helped Thea sign him up for her carers-and-daughters school play, Macbeth , as a surprise. He landed the role of Third Tree and his green face paint didn’t come off properly for a good fortnight.
‘Not shifty ,’ I reply, ‘just…’ Yeah, shifty. Callum isn’t the biggest fan of Miranda. One too many inconvenient breakdowns in the last year. ‘Are you ready?’
Callum locks up and follows me along the road and round the corner to where I parked Miranda out of sight.
‘Noooo,’ he moans when he sees her.
‘Callum!’ I exclaim, mock-outraged. ‘Are you saying you don’t enjoy spending time in her with me?’
‘Not at all. I love you and I love Miranda. It’s just the breakdowns.’
‘There won’t be any,’ I say confidently. ‘But I’ve come prepared just in case.’
‘You have a car mechanic tucked away in the boot?’
‘No, even better, I’ve borrowed a tent from Samira. So on the very slim off-chance that we do break down, we can just set up home wherever we are.’
‘That sounds wonderful,’ Callum tells me, rolling his eyes. ‘I’ve always wanted to sleep next to a motorway lay-by.’
‘Also,’ I say, deciding to ignore his annoying Miranda-related negativity (which he terms pragmatism), ‘I have a very good playlist for you and I know some of the actual words. And I’m wearing shoes, not flip-flops.’
‘ Now you’re talking.’ Callum opens the passenger door and hops straight in.
A few months ago he offered to put me on his car insurance and I said no thank you because the power of his Audi terrifies me. And then I politely offered to put him on my van insurance and he very impolitely said that he was very grateful for the gesture and no offence but he’d rather get a bus, train or any other mode of transport including walking barefoot over glass.
Two hours later, we’ve sung a lot of Abba (to which I genuinely do know quite a lot of the words) and we’ve moved on to a lot of songs to which I do not know the words and to which I’m forced to sing la while Callum tries to drown me out with the actual words, and we are still in London .
‘In hindsight,’ Callum says, ‘I wonder whether we should perhaps have left at a different time.’ There’s a train strike and it’s full rush hour and apparently the whole of London is heading west like us for the weekend.
‘I always enjoy journeys with you,’ I say truthfully.
‘Me too, actually,’ Callum says. ‘Even the really bad ones, and that’s a compliment.’ It is. He still hates traffic jams. ‘And if I’m honest, I’m still grateful to Miranda for getting us back together.’
‘Me too.’ I’m beaming.
We eventually crawl out of the traffic jam and onto some more open roads and soon we’re flying along at a heady forty-eight miles an hour.
‘Referring back to our earlier conversation,’ Callum says, ‘what’s great about loving journeys in Miranda is that they go on for so incredibly long when we go at this speed. You do know the limit here is seventy?’
‘Every time,’ I say.
He can’t help himself. He knows I won’t actually speed up. I actually think he’d be terrified if I did because one thing about Miranda is that she really is quite rickety and if there’s even the tiniest of breezes you do feel as though you’re going to topple over.
We reach the pub I’ve booked for tonight quite a lot later than expected so it’s dark and we’ve missed dinner. (We had service station sushi instead – one day past its use-by date – genuinely quite nice, and Callum’s obviously in a very good mood because he didn’t mention possible food poisoning once.)
The dark doesn’t totally disguise the rubbish piled up around the pub’s front door, though, and all the peeling paint on the exterior.
‘Is this definitely the right pub?’ I ask doubtfully.
‘You booked it?’ Callum reminds me.
‘It looked a lot more well-kept than this in the pictures. And it won Pub of the Year.’
‘In 1998.’ Callum points to a partially torn poster next to the door. ‘I’m sure it’s lovely inside, though.’ He reaches above my head to push the door open and we go in together.
Five minutes later, we’ve been shown the chipped avocado bathroom (very smelly and shared with the landlord) and are standing just inside our bedroom door, both jaw-dropped.
‘What are you thinking?’ asks Callum eventually.
‘Erm. I’m not sure whether the stains, the flies or the moth traps are the biggest highlight. I’m thinking it’s lucky I brought that tent.’
‘I think you’re right.’
Two minutes later, we’re back in the car park, having left the room key on the bar.
‘I’m genuinely pleased to see Miranda,’ Callum tells me.
‘ Finally you recognise her worth.’ I beam at him and we share a quick hug and a kiss, which is as nice as always.
As I turn the key in the driver’s door, so that we can drive somewhere a little more scenic to pitch the tent, something makes me look down. And oh.
‘We have a really flat tyre,’ I tell him.
‘Fortunately,’ he says immediately, ‘I would very, very happily treat us to a taxi and a night in a luxury hotel as a birthday present to myself.’
‘That does sound good,’ I concede. ‘The only thing is…’
Callum looks hard at me in the glare of the streetlight above our heads. ‘Are you about to tell me that Miranda’s going to feel lonely?’
‘No?’ I lie.
‘I love you,’ he says. ‘I’m sure we can get her towed to join us at the hotel.’
I love that he now calls her her .
Forty-five minutes later, we’re in a truly lovely en-suite bedroom in a truly lovely hotel and the RAC have assured us that Miranda’s on her way to the hotel car park.
‘I kind of feel guilty about the first hotel,’ I say, sinking onto the extremely comfortable bed, ‘but also I don’t because this one is gorgeous and I don’t think I’d have booked it.’
‘Exactly. Everything happens for a reason.’
‘Funny you should mention that,’ I segue very badly. ‘Because I have a present for you. Well, two.’ First, I pull out the nice jumper I’ve bought for him.
‘Oh, wow, thank you. I love it,’ he tells me between kisses after he’s opened it.
‘Now the second one,’ I say, wriggling away.
‘It’s a box,’ he says once he has the wrapping paper off.
‘Yes. Happy birthday. Open the box.’
He opens it and looks at the key inside.
After the first few months where we took things very slowly, we (I) allowed ourselves to get much more involved in each other’s lives – first we introduced each other properly to each other’s friends and then I began to get to know Thea, who is just adorable – and now we spend a lot of evenings, nights and breakfasts together, but until now I’ve resisted the key exchange thing.
I’m not really sure why, actually, because Callum’s the most wonderful father, and there’s no way he’d have been so keen to introduce me to Thea if he hadn’t viewed us – me and him – as a long-term couple, and I do trust that he isn’t going to scarper again. In fact, if he asked me now, I’d definitely say yes to a key swap. I think he just asked me a tiny bit too soon and then hasn’t wanted to again, maybe for fear of rejection.
‘It’s a key to my flat.’ I’m suddenly a bit nervous. ‘If you’d like it.’
‘Oh my God, Emma, wow, yes I would. Thank you. That’s a fantastic present.’ He reaches for me and I move into his arms. I’m expecting a very long kiss but to my disappointment, Callum draws back quite quickly.
And then he says, ‘Great minds,’ and pulls a key from his back pocket.
‘Oh my goodness,’ I say. ‘Your house? Oh wow. Thank you. We are both great minds.’
Obviously, we kiss, and, obviously, one thing leads to another and it turns out that post-key-swapping sex is very good.
Afterwards, as we lie in a very lovely tangle of limbs, Callum says, ‘If I had more willpower, I’d have mentioned this before now, or I’d wait because there’s probably a better time, but I actually can’t wait.’
He reaches to the floor where our clothes are strewn and fishes around for a moment, before pulling something out of his jeans pocket.
Then he says, ‘It doesn’t feel right doing this naked,’ and performs an impressive manoeuvre with the bed clothes, extracting a sheet that he then wraps around his waist, while I prop myself up on my elbows.
And then he goes down on one knee and, while my mind goes OMG-OMG-OMG-OMG-OMG , he clears his throat and says, ‘Emma Milligan, will you marry me?’
I’m immediately overwhelmed by the flood of happiness that washes over my entire body and I can’t speak, all I can do is literally tremble.
And then Callum stands up and says, ‘No, of course not, sorry I didn’t want to rush you and I totally understand given everything else that happened in the past that it might be too soon or you might never want to and don’t worry and I can return the ring and this isn’t an actual engagement ring anyway because I thought if we did get engaged you’d probably want to choose one together, so I just bought one that I liked that you could wear on another finger if you liked it but don’t worry, and it’s fine, please don’t feel bad.’
I reach up and pull him towards me so hard that he falls on top of me and then I’m hugging him as hard as I can.
‘You don’t need to pity-hug me,’ he says.
‘I’m not pity-hugging you, you muppet ,’ I say. ‘I’m love-hugging you. I would love to marry you. I would adore to marry you. Thank you so much for asking me. I love you more than words can say and I was just so happy I couldn’t speak.’
‘That is possibly the biggest relief of my life,’ he says.
And then he slides the ring onto the middle finger of my right hand and we just lie next to each other, gazing at each other, both of us just beaming .
‘I think this is the most perfect moment of my life,’ I whisper eventually. ‘The journey to get here was more than worth it.’
‘Me too.’ And then Callum kisses me again, extremely thoroughly, and I feel like the luckiest woman in the world.