First Dates

There is no photographic evidence of 7/6/99. It was pre- mobile phones never mind ones that came with cameras. 7/6/99 was a Monday and I asked him why we had our first date on a Monday. Were we both so in demand socially that we could only fit it in on the first working day of the week and not a normal going out night like a Friday or a Saturday or even a Thursday so if it didn’t progress to a second date, it hadn’t impacted our weekend. And I asked him did he remember what I wore, and he didn’t. And I asked him did he remember what we ate, and he didn’t. And I asked him why we went to the Chelsea Wine Bar on the Lisburn Road, and he said it was more upmarket in those days because it had wine in its name, and I wondered why I came across to his side of town and he hadn’t made the effort to come to mine. I couldn’t remember anything about walking the short distance from his student house to dinner and what we talked about and whether we had our arms swinging by our sides, but we must have done because holding hands came later. And I couldn’t remember when we first held hands because that’s quite sacrosanct to us, holding on tightly to each other everywhere we go, but then every relationship has its idiosyncrasies and that’s what makes it a relationship. And I couldn’t remember how I got home but I remembered my dad dropped me off and I thought how strange it must be for a father to leave their daughter outside the house of a stranger for the purposes of their potential marital future and how I’d chosen well because now my parents have a son-in-law they can be proud of even though I may have caused them a bit of confusion at times.

And last Friday to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of our first date, we returned to the Chelsea Belfast as it’s now called to renew our vows. Well sort of. We shared a starter and chose our own main course, and I was almost overwhelmed because I had three condiments to accompany my battered fish – chip shop gravy, mushy peas and tartare sauce and I couldn’t decide what to dip when. We weren’t even meant to be in the country. Returning to the scene of our first proper conversation was Plan B. We had booked a short break in Menorca, where there would be sun and sangria and silence, and we could forget about exam timetables and the ‘who’s in the study?’ schedule and the staring wistfully into the fridge and the cries of “there’s nothing to eat”. But then we suddenly realised we had become parents in the last twenty-five years, and it was quite remiss of us to put ourselves first and it wasn’t a good idea to abandon our children during their GCSEs and A Levels because tensions were high and there was a strong possibility of violence in our absence and so we cancelled it.

Sometimes I check he still knows enough about me. I do my Mr and Mrs questions like “What was my budgie called?” and “Who’s my favourite author?” and “What songs do I hate?” and he lists them - Last Christmas, Careless Whisper, anything by Lisa Stansfield, Lady in Red, I Just Called to Say I Love You, that one by Phyllis Nelson because someone played it all night once in the room next to you. “Where did we go on our second date?” I say and we laugh because suddenly we happened to be free on the following Saturday evening and we went to Ruby Tuesdays, and he asked was it ok if his friend Justin came along with us to Hunters afterwards and I was half-concerned that my company wasn’t good enough and half-pleased that he was ready to introduce me to his friends.

And after we had a bit more chat about whether the Chelsea was smaller than it used to be and if the toilets were in a different place and how modern gastropub was taking it a bit far, we did a nostalgic wander through the streets of our city to the Grand Central Hotel. And while we were sipping Bollinger in The Observatory and watching the lights go on over Belfast, three different couples came and went at the table behind us and I did my “I’m glad I’m not married to him” thing because the first man was masticating his charcuterie platter like there was no tomorrow, and then the second couple who were in their sixties were reminiscing about every holiday they’d ever been on and how this time last week they were in the air and she asked him, “What are my worst traits?” and I held my breath as I waited for his answer and he said, “being too loving to your husband” and I reckoned it was a test and he’d had to answer that question before and got it wrong last time. And then the third man was going to make money, lots of it via some very complicated scheme and she just had to nod and listen to him. And there were a couple of young women, who still had their hopes and dreams unshattered by motherhood, who squeezed between the tables and stood at the window and pointed out the sights to each other like the Titanic and Stormont and the cranes and the SSE Arena and the row of buses at Belsonic, and they said, “there is everything here”. And I agreed. And a few days later when my husband told someone about our night out, he said, “It was like who you were then and who you are now”.

And at the start of the week when we entered our 26^th year of togetherness, I had to renew my car insurance and I had to confess that my named driver had acquired three points for speeding and the lady keying it all in did a bit of a sigh and I wasn’t sure if it was a judgement on me for allowing him to drive too fast. And then she told me that would cost me an extra £200, and I was momentarily aggrieved, and I said maybe I should take him off and she ran the details through the system again and she said “no, discount for a spouse still makes it cheaper” and I thought discount for a spouse, who knew¹. And I wasn’t really serious about taking him off because he does my MOT and puts diesel in my car and uses it to take stuff to the dump and I couldn’t risk having to do any of that myself.

And I finished reading Hello Beautiful² which is one of the best books I’ve ever read and it basically tells the story of a couple who are soulmates, not in a fluffy romantic way but in a deeply grounded, wanting the best for, never stop talking to each other way, and I thought that’s what you want in a marriage, just one big long conversation and I don’t want to spoil the plot because it broke my heart when I understood what happened next, but there was a line that just summed up everything about marital love to me:

“William had walked through this door eleven hours earlier with a box of donuts in his hand and he’d smiled to himself because even though he’d been gone less than half an hour, he was looking forward to seeing Sylvie”.

Some cheese for dessert…

1. It’s a fact

2. By Ann Napolitano