Through the Wall. Caroline Corcoran

under his breath at the man who walked past and said with a grin, ‘I’d do it quickly mate, it’s freezing.’

      ‘Will you marry me?’ he asked, the familiar phrase sounding faintly amusing to me although I knew I couldn’t laugh: that wouldn’t be right for this scene. Luke was still snarling slightly at the guy who had ruined our moment.

      His hand was ice as I held it and my eyes squinted into bright January sunshine. I felt my whole body shiver despite it because it was still winter and I hate the cold.

      A boy was crying for ice cream nearby and I knew Luke’s teeth would hurt at the idea. Gulls squawked and waves crashed and everything smelled of sea air.

      ‘Yes,’ I said quickly before he said a word. I felt victorious. I felt validated that I had taken a gamble on him and moved away from my family and done all of this work to be better. And I felt, finally, like Luke must love me. That the charming, engaging man I had seen at the beginning was the real Luke. That he had just been under pressure lately, taking it out on me because I was closest. But he was still smart, still funny, still beautiful. The knowledge was as physical as the bracing wind.

      Luke was on his phone twenty minutes after he proposed, looking at sports results, trying to buy some gig tickets from a friend, but mine stayed in my pocket: I didn’t need any distraction. I just stood there in the biting wind, smelling the vinegar from the chip shop, feeling it all.

      ‘What if we invite David over?’ I had blurted out, my confidence peaking. ‘Tell him in person?’

      I missed David to the point that I felt it in my stomach, in my bones. He still hadn’t visited. This would be the perfect excuse.

      Luke looked up from his phone.

      ‘Are you serious?’

      I regretted my words already. This perfect tableau, ruined by my idiocy. I felt my body temperature shoot up like I’d just stepped off an air-conditioned plane into summer in the Mediterranean.

      ‘After the way your brother’s been to me the whole time we’ve been together. You don’t think that would be hard for me? To have him stay in our home? Turning you against me?’

      I wished desperately that I could go back in time, take the words back.

      But still, I had no idea what he was on about. My mom and dad might have been wary of Luke, sure, but David? David saw the charm that a lot of people saw in Luke; David had idolised him.

      ‘You’d probably break up with me by the time he went home.’

      I gave in easily, desperately. I was horrified that I had started this conversation and wanted only for it to be over. I didn’t mention David again and after that, I stopped contacting my brother so often, too. What if he was trying to split Luke and I up? Things were getting confusing. I couldn’t really be trusted to know.

      On the train journey home, Luke didn’t speak one word to me, despite my stroking his arm the whole way and making unending, desperate small talk.

      Later, I messaged my parents to tell them our news but ignored their calls in response. I knew that hearing what they had to say about us being engaged would bring me down.

      But the voicemail did it anyway.

      ‘Just checking though, Harriet – you are sure, aren’t you? You are really sure?’ said my mom after the obligatory congratulations and a pause. I ignored and deleted her message and after that, the distance that had manifested itself since I emigrated stretched even wider.

      I didn’t tell Luke what my mom had said. He would blame me for painting the wrong picture of him, for somehow making them feel that way, and he was being frosty enough with me anyway after our row about David. Until, suddenly, there was a surprise trip to Copenhagen booked and the dial pinged to the other side: I was forgiven.

      ‘Let’s celebrate our engagement!’ said Luke, euphoric, high.

      See, I thought, see – there’s the charming version. There’s the man who sparkles.

      I nodded, grinned, kept quiet about the inconvenience to my work schedule and to everybody I was going to have to let down, since I hadn’t been consulted on dates. I just felt relieved that he had thawed.

      In Denmark, we left the hotel to the shocked faces of reception staff, who believed we should stay indoors. It was minus thirteen, while the hotel had fluffy cushions and a sauna.

      ‘It’s so cold, though,’ said a concerned manager, shaking his bald head and shivering at the thought. ‘It’s so cold. Even for Copenhagen.’

      ‘We’ll survive,’ said Luke sharply.

      I winced. But I kept quiet: the one time I had brought up his rudeness to strangers, we had had a huge row.

      ‘Because I stand up to people when they don’t do their jobs, Harriet?’ he had said. ‘That’s not rudeness. That’s just not being pathetic.’

      At the Little Mermaid, a bronze statue coated in white snow, we paused for twenty seconds, ticked it off, walked on.

      ‘It’s so cold,’ said a passing tourist to us amiably. ‘Even for Copenhagen.’

      The man held his partner’s hand. I reached for Luke’s but he shook me off, told me it was too awkward to hold hands in gloves.

      We waded back through wedges of snow to the café that served hot chocolate as real chocolate on a stick, melting into your milk, making the powder we stirred into water at home look like an abomination.

      I took off my scarf, ordered my drink.

      ‘It’s so cold, though,’ I said, faux-serious as we sat down. ‘Even for Copenhagen.’

      But Luke wasn’t laughing. My stomach lurched.

      ‘Can I ask you a question?’ he said, playing with the packets of sugar.

      Our order arrived.

      I looked deep into the sludge of my drink as the milk darkened. I picked up my spoon to stir and saw my hands shaking. Had I done something? I tracked back desperately. It had been going so well, but evidently I had messed up. Idiot. I steeled myself.

      ‘Do you want children?’

      First, the relief that it wasn’t something bad. But then, the question itself. I was young and I was in love with Luke and with my job. Did children sleep through pianos playing at midnight? If I had a child, would I have the energy to compose in the evenings, which was when I worked best? Working was what had made London feel doable. I was turning down job offers, gaining a strong reputation. I was working on more lucrative projects; being approached for big-name musicals.

      Luke had complained about it, how ‘obsessed’ I was with my job these days, and I wondered sometimes if that was making him snappier. Maybe it was my fault and I was neglecting him. So I had agreed on this holiday to put an out of office on and ignore work calls, despite the short notice. But it was hard. It was a part of me and I was happy. I wasn’t sure about placing limitations on that.

      I knew, too, that I was prone to depression. I knew that in life I wobbled and wasn’t sure I had the stability to hold up others.

      But at that moment, holding onto Luke’s arm with one hand and drinking pure liquidised chocolate with the other, I felt like I was being shored up by love and sugar and as stable as I had ever been.

      Perhaps, I would feel surer too, in us. I panicked, always, that Luke would leave me. I looked around in restaurants and saw that woman, that woman, all the other women who would be better suited to him. I glanced and saw him looking, too.

      If Luke wanted children with someone like me then someone like me should be grateful. I should have all of the bloody children he wanted, grow them in my womb immediately. I should shut up, as he often told me, and stop thinking and agree.

      ‘Yes,’ I said tentatively, but he didn’t hear the hesitation.

      Instead,