My Mushroom Valentine Part 2: A Weird Proposal

After our first meeting, Mark and I met from time to time in the company of our respective partners.  Then in the autumn of that year I went to live in Spain.  I didn’t think about Mark much; I was too excited about living and working in Madrid, but I did correspond with my German friend.  At some point she told me she and Mark had split up, though amicably: then that summer when I came home she’d gone to Germany, so in her absence Mark and I met for a drink.  We got on well and from then on met every time I came back.  We were becoming friends, though I didn’t think about it much; I was too focussed on life in Spain.  Above all I didn’t consider him as a Prospect as he wasn’t at all the usual kind of guy I went out with.  I normally went for more extravert, more dynamic blokes, and Mark was shyer then than he is now.And then a lot of things happened at once: my granddad died and left me enough money to travel round India; my work in Madrid dried up, my work permit expired; and all of a sudden I was on the crux of a different life.  I was thirty-five but had no desire to get married or have children, and I could see a future where I just kept on travelling; maybe stopping from time to time to teach English somewhere and make enough money to keep on travelling.  I honestly thought that was what I wanted.

But sometimes things conspire against you.  I was in London that New Year getting my visa for India: Mark was in London on a demo.  What could be more natural than to meet up?  I found him at the tail-end of a small and rather obscure demo and dragged him off to the Tate where according to his diary I impressed him with my knowledge of art.  Blimey!  Then it was lunch-time: we went to a pub nearby and settled down with a beer and a sandwich.  And that’s when it happened: all of a sudden it came upon me that what I wanted was not to travel forever but to marry Mark and have his babies.  And without a moment’s pause I blurted this out right then and there, causing not only Mark but the people at the next table to jump several feet in the air.  There was a horrid pause.  Oh God, what have I said? I thought.  Mark considered the proposal (such as it was).

‘I don’t know what I think about marriage,’ he said.

My heart sank. Oh, **** I’ve blown it now, I thought.

‘But I do know I want to be with you forever,’ he said.

I sank back in my seat in relief.  Thank god for that! I thought.

And, reader, I kissed him.

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