Woman I’m Going to Marry’ story that I would regale over drinks in the student union bar. My mates used to get sick of hearing about the girl in the blue dress and, even though I’d never tell Jen this, I didn’t believe for one minute that I would ever actually marry her. I didn’t think I would be lucky enough.
I came out of uni with a broken nose (a result of falling over a kerb while running down one of Nottingham’s high streets in a pair of gold Speedos), a mediocre degree in marketing and a questionable penchant for army jackets. I moved into a small flat above a bookie’s in town, let my dark blond hair grow into a tangle of curls and spent the next year trying and failing to find a job that I was good at. And then, on an unremarkable day, three remarkable things happened.
Remarkable thing number one: I went into a florist’s.
I had never been in a florist’s before, but it was Mum’s fiftieth birthday and I felt that the usual box of Dairy Milk wouldn’t cut it. I remember hovering by the door and thinking how pleased she would be to have an actual bunch of proper flowers for a change.
Remarkable thing number two: I hit a woman with a door.
You see, such was my excitement about finally settling on a present for Mum, I had opened the door into the shop – complete with tinkling bell – with more gumption than a trip to the florist’s really warranted, so as the bell tinkled, it was immediately followed with a thud as the door connected with Jen’s forehead. She was wearing a pair of dark blue denim dungarees and had been trying to do up one of the buckles. I remember her dungarees had tiny stars on them. That was my opening line: ‘Well at least we can both see stars.’ This brings me nicely to:
Remarkable thing number three: even after that line, the girl let me take her home.
The florist had guided Jen to a chair while I, flustered, ran into the Co-op across the road, garbling something about concussion, grabbed a bag of frozen peas and, inexplicably, a Toblerone. Even after that debacle, by some miracle, the girl from my story let me walk her home.
The reason I’m explaining all of this is because I never thought I’d have that gap in my life again, a life without Jen in it, but the past three months have felt like that. Like I have been waiting to see the love of my life again. And now, I think she’s coming back to me. I mean, don’t get me wrong, anyone can see that she has been here the whole time, still smiling at the kids when they did something funny, still functioning and keeping the house in this perfect state that has always seemed so important to her, but it’s felt like she’s been missing, all the same.
It was a shock to me when we first moved in together – just eighteen months after I hit her with the door – how a woman who grew up in a house filled with mismatched furniture and cupboards overflowing with board games seemed to want to create a home that looked like it was from a magazine spread. I tried to help at first, but my suggestions were always met with a look of alarm, a pull at the corner of her mouth. In the beginning, we tried to decorate as a team. She put up a shelf, I hung a mirror, both of us smiling as we created the beginnings of our home. That was until the bookshelf I had assembled collapsed, the picture I had hung remained slanted, no matter how many times I tried to straighten it, and the lamp blew the electrics out after I had replaced a fuse. The final nail in my decorating coffin was when the curtain pole bracket came away from the wall, and the curtain slid into a pool of material on the floor.
But whereas Jen is happiest with a duster in one hand and a hammer in the other, I am happiest outside. Gardening is something she hates with a passion. She would try to convince me that she liked it as much as I did, but after the first few months of living together, I swear she developed a permanent crease between her eyebrows from the look of scorn she would throw