(Not in a food-chain sense, obviously. In a metaphorical sense.)

So I knew, after a year, he was The One. But I also knew what would happen if I put a foot wrong. In my experience, the word “marriage” is like an enzyme. It causes all kinds of reactions in a relationship, mostly of the breaking-down kind.

Look at what happened with Jamie, my first long-term boyfriend. We’d been happily together for four years and I just happened to mention that my parents got married at the same age we were (twenty-six and twenty-three). That was it. One mention. Whereupon he freaked out and said we had to take “a break.” A break from what? Until that moment we’d been fine. So clearly what he needed a break from was the risk of hearing the word “marriage” again. Clearly this was such a major worry that he couldn’t even face seeing me, for fear that my mouth might start to form the word again.

Before the “break” was over, he was with that red-haired girl. I didn’t mind, because by then I’d met Seamus. Seamus, with his sexy Irish lilting voice. And I don’t even know what went wrong with him. We were besotted for about a year—crazy all-night-sex nothing-else-in-life-matters besotted—until all of a sudden we were arguing every night instead. We went from exhilarating to exhausting in about twenty-four hours. It was toxic. Too many state-of-the-nation summits about “Where are we heading?” and “What do we want from this relationship?” and it wore us both out. We limped on for another year, and when I look back, it’s as though that second year is a big black miserable blot in my life.

Then there was Julian. That lasted two years too, but it never really took. It was like a skeleton of a relationship. I suppose both of us were working far too hard. I’d recently moved to Blay Pharmaceuticals and was traveling all over the country. He was trying to get partnership at his accountancy firm. I’m not sure we ever even broke up properly—we just drifted apart. We meet up occasionally, as friends, and it’s the same for both of us—we’re not quite sure where it all went wrong. He even asked me out on a date a year or so ago, but I had to tell him I was with someone now and really happy. And that was Richard. The guy I really do love. The guy sitting opposite me with a ring in his pocket (maybe).

Richard is definitely better-looking than any of my other boyfriends. (Maybe I’m biased, but I think he’s gorgeous.) He works hard as a media analyst, but he’s not obsessed. He’s not as rich as Julian, but who cares? He’s energetic and funny and has an uproarious laugh that makes my spirits lift, whatever mood I’m in. He calls me “Daisy,” ever since we went on a picnic where I made him a daisy chain. He can lose his temper with people—but that’s OK. No one’s perfect. When I look back over our relationship, I don’t see a black blot, like with Seamus, or a blank space, like with Julian. I see a cheesy music video. A montage, with blue skies and smiles. Happy times. Closeness. Laughter.

And now we’re getting to the climax of the montage. The bit where he kneels down, takes a deep breath …

I’m feeling so nervous for him. I want this to go beautifully. I want to be able to tell our children that I fell in love with their father all over again, the day he proposed.

Our children. Our home. Our life.

As I let my mind roll around the images, I feel a release inside me. I’m ready for this. I’m thirty-three years old and I’m ready. All my grown-up life, I’ve steered away from the subject of marriage. My friends are the same. It’s as though there’s been a crime-scene cordon around the whole area: NO ENTRY. You just don’t go there, because if you do, you’ve jinxed it and your boyfriend chucks you.

But now there’s nothing to jinx. I can feel the love flowing between us, over the table. I want to grab Richard’s hands. I want to envelop him in my arms. He is such a wonderful, wonderful man. I’m so lucky. In forty years when we’re both wrinkled and gray, perhaps we’ll walk up the Strand hand in hand and remember today and thank God we found each other. I mean, what were the chances, in this teeming world of strangers? Love is so random. So random. It’s a miracle, really.…

Oh God, I’m blinking.…

“Lottie?” Richard has noticed my damp eyes. “Hey, Daisy-doo. Are you OK? What’s up?”

Even though I’ve been more honest with Richard than I have with any other boyfriend, it’s probably not a good idea to reveal my entire thought process to him. Fliss, my big sister, says I think in Hollywood Technicolor and I have to remember that other people can’t hear the swooping violins.

“Sorry!” I dab at my eyes. “Nothing. I just wish you didn’t have to go.”

Richard is flying off tonight to an assignment in San Francisco. It’s three months—could be worse—but I’ll miss him terribly. In fact, it’s only the thought that I’ll have a wedding to plan which is distracting me.

“Sweetheart, don’t cry. I can’t bear it.” He reaches out to take my hands. “We’ll Skype every day.”

“I know.” I squeeze his hands back. “I’ll be ready.”

“Although you might want to remember that, if I’m in my office, everyone can hear what you’re saying. Including my boss.”

Only a tiny flicker of his eyes gives away the fact that he’s teasing me. The last time he was away and we Skyped, I started giving him advice on how to manage his nightmare boss, forgetting that Richard was in an open-plan office and the nightmare boss was liable to walk past at any minute. (Luckily, he didn’t.)

“Thanks for that tip.” I shrug, equally deadpan.

“Also, they can see you. So you might not want to be totally naked.”

“Not totally,” I agree. “Maybe just a transparent bra and panties. Keep it simple.”

Richard grins and grasps my hands more tightly. “I love you.” His voice is low and warm and melting. I will never, ever get sick of him saying that.

“Me too.”

“In fact, Lottie …” He clears his throat. “I have something to ask you.…”

My insides feel as if they’re going to explode. My face is a rictus of anticipation while my thoughts are spinning wildly. Oh God … he’s doing it.… My whole life changes here.… Concentrate, Lottie … savor the moment.… Shit! What’s wrong with my leg?

I stare down at it in horror.

Whoever made these “stay-up stockings” is a liar and will go to hell, because one of them hasn’t bloody well stayed up. It’s collapsed around my knee and there’s a really gross plastic “adhesive” strip flapping around my calf. This is hideous.

I can’t be proposed to like this. I can’t spend the rest of my life looking back and thinking, It was such a romantic moment; shame about the stocking.

“Sorry, Richard.” I cut him off. “Just wait a sec.…”

Surreptitiously, I reach down and yank the stocking up—but the flimsy fabric tears in my hand. Great. Now I have both flapping plastic and shreds of nylon decorating my leg. I cannot believe my marriage proposal is being wrecked by hosiery. I should have gone for bare legs.

“Everything OK?” Richard looks a little baffled as I emerge from under the table.

“I have to go to the Ladies’,” I mutter. “I’m sorry. Sorry. Can we put things on pause? Just for a nanosecond?”

“Are you OK?”

“I’m fine.” I’m red with embarrassment. “I’ve had a … a garment mishap. I don’t want you to see. Will you look away?”

Obediently, Richard averts his head. I push my chair back and walk swiftly across the room, ignoring the looks of other lunchtime diners. There’s no point trying to mask it. It’s a flappy stocking.

I bang through the door of the Ladies’, wrench off my shoe and the stupid stocking, then stare at myself in the mirror, my heart pounding. I can’t believe I’ve just put my proposal on pause.

I feel as though time is on hold. As though we’re in a sci-fi movie and Richard is in suspended animation and I’ve got all the time in the world to think about whether I want to marry him.

Which, obviously, I don’t need, because the answer is: I do.

A blond girl with a beaded headband turns to peer at me, lip liner in hand. I guess I do look a bit odd, standing motionless with a shoe and stocking in my hand.

“There’s a bin over there.” She nods. “Do you feel OK?”

“Fine. Thanks.” I suddenly have the urge to share the momentousness of this occasion. “My boyfriend’s in the middle of proposing to me!”

“No way.” All the women at the mirrors turn to stare at me.

“What do you mean, ‘in the middle of’?” demands a thin redheaded girl in pink, her eyebrows narrowed. “What’s he said, ‘Will you …’?”

“He started, but I had a stocking catastrophe.” I wave the holdup. “So he’s on pause.”

“On pause?” says someone incredulously.

“Well, I’d get back out there quick,” says the redhead. “You don’t want to give him a chance to change his mind.”

“How exciting!” says the blond girl. “Can we watch? Can I film you?”

“We could put it on YouTube!” says her friend. “Has he hired a flash mob or anything?”

“I don’t think so—”

“How does this work?” An old woman with metal-gray hair cuts across our discussion imperiously. She’s waving her hands angrily underneath the automatic hand-wash dispenser. “Why do they invent these machines? What’s wrong with a bar of soap?”

“Look, like this, Aunt Dee,” says the redheaded girl soothingly. “Your hands are too high.”

I pull off my other shoe and stocking, and, since I’m here, reach for the hand lotion to slather on my bare legs. I don’t want to look back and think, It was such a romantic moment; shame about the scaly shins. Then I get out my phone. I have to text Fliss. I quickly type: