And they did, they did, for a long time they managed it. Mark mooned over her at work and at home. He had never been so smitten with anyone. They cooked together, they danced together, they smoked pot and went to parties and made love together. With Celia everything had so much more color and music than he’d ever known. They fought sometimes, because Celia had a bright temper to go with the upswings of her wit and spontaneity, but before long she would hunt out daisies from a corner shop and woo him back to bed with them strategically tucked into her body’s crevices. And after six months, Mark realized that what he felt for her was love.

Another two months and he had saved up enough money to buy her a little sapphire ring (because she liked how the blue went with her eyes; she said a diamond was just glass with extra sparkles). Every time he opened the box and looked at it (it was a month of opening the box to look at it), it looked so small, so inadequate. Surely McKinnon money could buy her treasure chests of jewels, sapphires the size of eggs. Why would she want a half a carat?

Because it’s from you, stupid. Yes. That was the answer that always made him snap the box shut and re-resolve to ask her that night. And at last, just after Christmas, his nerve did not fail.