O is for Octopus

This is, in fact, a follow-up to 'I is for Infidelity' and nothing whatsoever to do with an octopus.

Sorry about that.

1999. April.

My name is Rachel and this is where my story starts. It starts in a pub toilet with the realization that the man waiting for me outside - my date, Sam - is the man I’m going to marry. It comes as something of a shock. I’m only 18 and this is our first date. I’m minding my own business, washing my hands and thinking about where we could go for food, when it hits me like a smack in the face. You’re going to marry him. Poor sod. I doubt he knows yet.

Technically he is already married to someone else (they’re separated, but still). And he’s ten years older than me. And we work together. Even without all of that, this just isn’t the right time.

This is my life plan: after I finish my gap year I go away to university and study journalism. I become a foreign correspondent reporting from the world’s most dangerous places. I wear a lot of Kevlar and camouflage. I look really good in green. I probably settle down in my forties, when I’ve had enough of the travel and flying bullets, and from then on I’ll work as a press secretary somewhere terribly interesting. I live by the sea with a man who, like me, doesn’t want children. He’s called Duncan, or Dougal, or Hugo or something. He paints, I write. I expect I convert to dogs at some point, after a lifetime as a cat lover.

I don’t know if I believe in soulmates, but I’m pretty sure you don’t meet them when you’re 18. I’ve only slept with two men. And one of those was called Ian, so that doesn’t count.

A pub toilet is hardly the place to be thinking about such things. I’ve been staring at the mirror for so long now he probably thinks I’ve been doing a shit. I need an excuse for being in here so long, one that doesn’t make me sound like a complete psycho. Well, I was considering how marrying you would fit in with my life plan and whether you’ll wait for me while I pursue my dreams. You like cats, right?

I don’t think so.

When I get back to the table he’s too polite to mention that I’ve been gone forever. I love that he thinks I’ve done a shit during our first date and still looks so pleased to see me.

We’re going to get married.

We go out for food and wind up at another pub and I just can’t get enough of talking to him. How do couples ever run out of things to say to one another? I can’t imagine. My previous boyfriends made me feel out of step, like I was waiting for them to catch up. They drifted, never very fussed about getting their lives started.  I’ve always been propelled forward, impatient to begin. Sam couldn’t be more different to those boys. He’s so grown up. He’s been to Hawaii. That’s so, like, far away. I’ve only been abroad twice, both times to France with school. Hawaii. Wow. He loves to travel. He enjoys his job. He’s got a car. Well, I’ve got a car. But his has got four doors! He’s charming and funny and confident. He’s grown-up enough to adore his parents, while people my age still vaguely resent theirs. For once it’s me running to catch up. He’s ahead. He’s done it.  

Even the fact that he’s been (still is) married doesn’t put me off. It’s like a badge of honour, a sign of how far he’s travelled in life when I’ve barely begun. It’s intoxicating. 

And he’s sweet too, frequently touching my hand or putting his arm around me. I like it. He’s very, very tall so when he puts his arm around me it’s like being tucked away under a ledge. It feels nice. Secure. Strangely sexy.  

It was definitely not love at first sight. I can’t even remember the first time I met him. It was months ago, I guess, when I first started at the company as a temp. I suppose we were introduced and said hello politely but I can’t recall a thing. There was no lightning, no thunder, no impact at all. It never occurred to me that he was handsome. I never really gave him much thought at all. He was just…there. Then we started working more closely together, and we socialised a bit in the same work gang - drinks after work, lunchtimes in the pub. He always made me laugh. When he asked me out I said yes thinking it would be nice, harmless fun.  I had no clue, that’s what’s weird. No idea he’d render me shaking in a toilet. Is it meant to go like that?

We’re the last to leave the pub and the date ends innocently at my parents’ front door. After that comes another date, and another, and we’re soon inseparable. We exchange “I love yous” after just a week, whispered in the dark of the cinema. I meet his parents and they’re delightful. He meets mine and they behave terribly. They’re wary, openly suspicious of this very tall, stubbly man-beast. My friends love him. His friends seem…well, old, but funny. And they’re very welcoming to this teenage girl who’s abducted their friend. That’s what it must seem like to them because he’s as swept up in me as I am in him. Work friends say they’ve never seen him like this, ever, not even when he was first married. That makes me feel weird. I’ve stopped thinking of him as ever being married. Why did he get married if he didn’t feel like this? He doesn’t like to talk about his marriage, only that it’s been over for a long time and that he knew on his wedding day he was making a huge mistake. I wonder if she knew. I still don’t really get it, why he went through with it, but I don’t push him. It doesn’t matter anyway, whatever happened. It’s different with me. Everyone says so. 

In our third week we go for dinner and he surprises me with a huge bunch of flowers. The card says how much he loves me. I accidentally leave the card where my mum can see and she’s horrified. She says I’m too young for a heavy relationship and if I “shack up with him” at 18, I’ll never achieve anything with my life. In a way she’s right, I already know I won’t be taking up my deferred university place in September. Instead I’ve started looking at universities closer to home. It means I won’t be able to do my journalism course, but I’m okay with that. The old life plan is dead, or rather, transformed into something more exciting. They have a good English programme at the local uni and I can easily follow that up somewhere else with a post-grad in journalism. After three years together I’m sure I can convince Sam to follow me.

If we’re still together. I know I’m supposed to say if we’re still together but it’s pointless. I know in my bones we’ll still be together. The toilet walls have spoken. We’re going to be married.