The Getaway

1

Like most people, Kate Nimble was aware that your life was supposed to flash before your eyes in the moments before you died. But she did not know that the opposite was also true. That when you were perhaps more alive than you ever had been before, everything slowed down to a painful crawl.

Every note of the song you had chosen especially.

Every expression on the upturned faces of your friends and family.

And every second that the man you had just asked to marry you did not reply with a ‘yes’.

Kate forced herself to focus on James. His mouth was open, unhinged no doubt by a mixture of shock and embarrassment. Like her, he seemed to have lost the ability to speak. If only this particular affliction had come to her earlier – before she had pulled at that chair, clambered onto it and called the room to attention.

‘I, er . . .’ James gestured around helplessly; his raised arm as flaccid as a sodden flag.

Kate knew that she should move, that she should say something – anything; that she should get down from this pedestal of mortification. But she couldn’t. Her limbs were leaden, her feet stuck fast.

‘I think that . . . What I mean is . . .’ James went on. He sounded helpless.

Kate was beginning to shake. The familiar corners of the pub’s dingy function room felt as if they were closing in. A number of people had their phones raised; the ramifications of this were too awful to contemplate.

‘Excuse me, move aside, coming through.’

Another voice, stern yet soothing. Kate’s best friend Robyn had pushed her way past the semicircle of assembled guests and was approaching at speed.

‘Come on,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘Let’s get you down.’

A sob had wedged itself into Kate’s throat and she forced it free with a laugh.

‘Sorry everyone,’ she called out, catching the heel of her shoes on the hem of her skirt as Robyn half-lifted, half-dragged her off the chair. ‘I was only joking.’

She braved a glance at James, but her boyfriend was staring at the floor.

‘It was just a joke,’ she repeated, her voice cracking as Robyn led her out to the hallway.

‘Don’t cry,’ her friend pleaded.

‘I’m not,’ said Kate, but she could feel the tears building.

‘James must not have heard you properly,’ Robyn went on, in the robust tone of a woman doing their best not only to convince the person they were talking to, but also themselves. ‘You just took him by surprise, that’s all. He obviously wasn’t expecting it. Maybe he had a plan of how he wanted to propose to you, so was overwhelmed with a sudden, speechless regret that he hadn’t got there first?’

Kate shivered.

‘The good news,’ her friend said meaningfully, ‘is that he didn’t actually say no, did he?’ She was twisting a strand of her dark hair around on her finger as she spoke, her pale face pinched with concern. ‘Maybe he wanted the moment to be a private one. I mean, he has never been one to draw attention to himself, has he? That must be it – he is simply embarrassed.’

Kate pursed her lips to dam her tears. Horror, like molten lava, was mounting inside her chest.

James had not said no. But he hadn’t said yes either.

‘Shall I go and get him?’ Robyn asked. Then, when Kate did not respond. ‘You’ll both be laughing about this in a mo, you’ll see.’

A leap of faith. That’s what Kate had called her plan. She’d allowed herself to believe she would get what she wanted from James if she could only pluck up enough courage to ask him for it. But she hadn’t done it right; she should have proposed on the final day of February, during a leap year. Not in the middle of a random April. Those were the rules. She hadn’t even been able to get that simple thing right.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The door into the corridor opened and James emerged, a rather pained expression on his face.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘I’m fine,’ Kate said, folding her arms. ‘You don’t need to look at me like that.’

‘Like what?’ He took a hesitant step closer.

‘Like I’m an unexploded bomb that might go off at any second.’

‘I just thought that yo–– ’ he began, to which Kate scoffed.

‘I told you, I’m fine. OK, so I just stood on a chair in front of practically everyone we know, on my thirtieth birthday, no less, and asked you if you’d like to marry me. To which you said nothing. Not one single coherent word. So, yeah, I’m just peachy, James; I have never been better.’

‘Please don’t get upset,’ he said, as Kate was again forced to fight a treacherous trembling in her upper lip. ‘I just wish you’d told me that you were planning this; then I could have—’

‘The whole point of a surprise proposal is that it’s supposed to come a surprise,’ she countered. ‘I wanted it to be romantic.’

‘I know, I know.’ James seemed unable to look at her; his eyes were darting from the ground, to the radiator on the wall, to his own fingers twisting together in agitation. ‘I didn’t want to do this now,’ he muttered. ‘But maybe I should. I don’t know.’

Kate couldn’t tell if he was addressing her or talking to himself, so she remained silent, studying him as he fought to make sense of whatever internal battle was raging inside him.

‘Maybe it’s a good thing this has happened,’ he said eventually.

‘It is?’

Hope bobbed up like a balloon in the space between them.

‘Yes,’ he replied carefully. ‘Because it’s made me realise that I need to be honest with you about what’s been going on. You know, about how things are with us.’

‘What about us?’ Kate’s stomach churned unpleasantly.

‘Well . . .’ James paused to inhale deeply. ‘Things haven’t been right for a while now. Not since we found out abo–– Well, the thing is, we’ve been growing apart since before then.’ He was looking not at Kate as he spoke, but at his shoes – those whiter-than-white trainers that he cleaned after every wear, more often than not raiding the bathroom cabinet for her face wipes in order to do so.

‘Growing apart?’ Kate pulled a face. ‘No, we haven’t.’

‘Come on, Kate – you know we have.’

‘And so this is, what?’ she countered. ‘Your way of saying we need to work on a few things? Of course we do, James – all couples have issues from time to time, and after everything we’ve been through recently, it’s understandable that you might be feeling, I don’t know, disconnected from me. Is that it? Because we can fix that.’

James did not say anything; he merely winced.

‘Oh my god.’ Kate raised a hand to her mouth. ‘You’re not? This isn’t? You’re not dumping me?’

A grimace.

‘Don’t say it like that. You make it sound as if I’m taking you out with the bins.’

‘You may as well be.’

Kate’s tone was becoming increasingly shrill, but she could no longer control it – no longer wanted to control it. She felt strangely as though she had left her body and was now perched up on the radiator beside them instead, watching but not partaking in this charade. Because that is what it must be. James could not actually be saying these things.

‘I’m concerned that neither of us will get the things we want if we stay together,’ he said, glancing up when she did not immediately reply. ‘You know that as well as I do.’

‘I do not. I know no such thing.’

Her disgruntlement might well be as tough as tarmac, but now the anxiety was bulldozing through. Kate found herself abruptly overcome by an unsteadying wave of nausea.

‘We don’t have to get married,’ she hastened, making a grab for his hand. ‘We’re fine as we are – I just got carried away, what with freaking out about turning thirty and losing another bloody job. I only decided to propose to you about half an hour ago. It didn’t even occur to me before then. And I’m honestly happy as we are,’ she insisted, cutting across him as he began to interrupt. ‘We can work on all the things you think are broken. We can’t just give up, James,’ she said firmly, squeezing his fingers between her own. ‘We’ve come this far, haven’t we? Eight years must count for something.’

‘It’s not giving up,’ he said, removing one of his hands from hers to fuss unconsciously at the rapidly thinning hair on his crown. His ‘Prince William patch’, Kate called it. It was the only part of her boyfriend that hinted at vulnerability and she loved it – loved him.

‘All I’m saying is that I think it’s time we accept the facts,’ he continued. ‘I know you’ve been trying – we both have; we’ve both tried really hard for a really long time now. But that’s the thing: we shouldn’t have to try. It shouldn’t be this hard.’

He was speaking so quietly that Kate had to lean forward in order to hear him. The party had continued apparently, despite all the drama she had caused.

‘It’s not as if either of us has done anything to hurt the other,’ James said, sounding as much as if he was trying to persuade himself as he was Kate. ‘There’s no reason why we can’t stay friends.’

He eased his other hand out from her grasp, leaving Kate’s cold and clammy.

Who was this man standing here in front of her, saying these things, striking these blows? He looked and sounded and even smelled like James, but how could it be the same person?

‘But you are hurting me; you’re hurting me right now,’ she whispered, thinking in miserable desolation of the plans they had made and of the home they shared, with its collection of framed movie posters, harmonious scatter cushions and colourful spread of kitchen tiles. She pictured the photo on their living-room wall; saw the smiling couple inside the frame – him tall, lean and serious; her round-edged, wild haired and smiling. That captured moment was already becoming less substantial than a memory, their shared love relegated to a past tense.

‘But it’s my birthday,’ she said in a small voice. ‘You can’t break up with me on my birthday.’

James was looking sheepish. ‘I didn’t exactly plan this, you know. I was going to wait a few weeks before I said anything.’

Kate watched in silence as he chewed over the next few words.

‘But then you got up in there and . . . you know. I definitely didn’t see that coming. I mean, how could I? I thought if a woman proposes, she’s supposed to do it in a leap year.’

Kate pushed her bottom lip upwards morosely.

‘Whatever, anyway,’ he went on. ‘The point is, I knew as soon as you said the words that I couldn’t lie to you anymore. Things just suddenly became very clear.’

‘Things?’ she prompted faintly, staring with unseeing eyes at a patch of peeling wallpaper.

‘Our friends’ lives are all moving forward and I feel as if we’re being left behind,’ James said. He seemed to be choosing his words now with delicate care and kept pausing to clear his throat.

Kate was struck by an absurd compulsion to shout at him for not covering his mouth, but knew that if she started yelling, she might never stop.

‘I’m not blaming you.’

But he was. Because it was her fault. Of the two of them, it was she who was the failure.

Kate had begun to shake; she could no longer stand still and began to pace up and down the narrow corridor in agitation. There was a window at the far end, the sky beyond the glass as black as ash.

‘I think I should stay with my folks tonight,’ James said, moving slowly away from her.

Kate swallowed another sob. ‘Please don’t. Let’s at least sleep on it. This isn’t the time or place for this conversation – our parents are in the next room, for god’s sake. All our friends are here.’

James paused at the door to the function room. The fact that the party was still ongoing felt to Kate like a betrayal. The wider world should have stopped spinning, just as her own had.

‘I’m sorry,’ he began, but Kate shook her head, dismissing his words. Moistening the tip of her index finger, she began rubbing furiously at a sticky splatter on the windowsill, thinking that if she stayed here in this spot, cleaning this stain, she would not have to watch him leave; would not see him tell their guests what had happened, or know when he headed down the stairs and out into the night without her.

Only when she heard the click of the door closing did Kate stop; only when the muffled sound of voices followed did she crumple, and only when she felt Robyn’s arms wrap around her did she finally give in to the tears.