Читать книгу A Thousand Roads Home: ‘A weepy but important book’ Cecelia Ahern - Carmel Harrington - Страница 19

Now

Bette Davis growled at the two kids who stopped to snigger at the sleeping Tom, who lay on his park bench, in his sleeping bag.

‘Bum!’ they jeered, until Bette growled a little louder and they ran away laughing. The dog moved closer to her best friend, keeping guard while Tom dreamed some more …

When one of Tom’s patients died, a young mother who had been battling breast cancer for years, Cathy was the only person he wanted to see. He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to analyse why it had happened. He just wanted to be with her. And Cathy instinctively got that. She simply fed him, held him and asked no questions. The following day, one of her day-care patients lost his temper and threw a chair through the patio window to the garden. Tom drove over to help her clear up the mess. While he understood that there were times that things happened that were beyond your control, he was terrified that she might ever be in danger. This terror clarified everything for him.

There were no longer any questions in his mind. He loved this woman and he wanted the world to know it. He plotted and planned the perfect proposal. He wanted to make it memorable, worthy of the woman he loved. But in the end, all his plans fell in disarray back in the deli aisle of Tesco where they’d first met.

‘This is where it all started!’ Tom said, looking at their single trolly this time.

‘One clash of our trollies and that was it,’ Cathy remembered with a smile.

‘You could never resist me. Me being such a charming fecker,’ Tom joked.

‘That is true,’ she answered, kissing him lightly. ‘Now, goat’s cheese-and-spinach pizza, or the triple meat feast?’ She held them both up, waving the goat’s cheese one in front of his face, which he duly pointed to.

‘Marry me,’ he blurted out. He couldn’t for the life of him see the sense in hanging around one more moment.

‘What?’

‘Will you marry me?’ He moved in closer. ‘I have been planning the most beautiful and perfect proposal, but I can’t wait a moment longer.’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘Yes?’ he asked in disbelief.

‘Yes!’

He spun her around, lifting her off her feet. When he put her back down he realised they had gathered quite a crowd around them. ‘She said yes!’ he shouted loudly and they all cheered and whooped for him.

They had a small wedding a few months later on 18 October, the date they had met.

‘I only want people who love us in the church,’ Cathy stated. With just immediate family and friends, they exchanged vows in Cathy’s hometown of Donegal. She walked down the aisle on the arm of her proud father, to the sound of ‘Nella Fantasia’. There was a lot of love in that small church that day.

Cathy had invoked a speech ban for her father’s sake, a shy man, who hated any public speaking and was more at home on the farm. Tom should have been taken aback when she appeared on the stage, holding a microphone. But he wasn’t. His wife was unpredictable.

‘We said no speeches. Well, I said no speeches!’ she conceded when Tom raised one eyebrow. He walked close to the front of the stage, their guests moving in behind him.

‘There’s not enough love in this world, is there?’ Cathy asked the small group. And they all nodded in agreement. ‘I sometimes wake up at night and think, what if Tom hadn’t been in Tesco that Friday night, where would we be now? I am astonished that we found each other that night. I am astonished that we fell in love as quickly as we did. I am astonished that despite the whirlwind nature of those first few days, we never stopped in regret, realising we had been swept away. And I am astonished that despite my compulsive cleaning habits, my need to be right, my snoring – yes, my snoring – that Tom still loves me. I cannot wait for a lifetime of astonishments with you, Tom, my love, my friend, my confidant.’

In his sleep, on the cold, lonely park bench, a tear rolled down Tom’s cheek. Bette Davis’s ears pricked up, her sixth sense telling her that her master needed her. She moved in closer, licking his hand. She would never leave his side.