Chapter Fifty-Three

Monday 29th July

On One Condition

His doorbell went at 5:30, he had a sinking feeling it would be a sales call, or Jehovah's Witnesses it was too early to be Nikki, but there she was stood on his doorstep with a plant pot sporting a gangly sunflower plant tied to a plastic ruler.

"My house is full of shit!" she exclaimed and barged past him into Leo's almost empty house.

"Nikki?"

She didn't answer just stomped to the kitchen, placed her sunflower on the window ledge and picked up Harry's ipad that was on the table.

"How do you know my password?" he began.

But instead of answering she shoved the headlines from News 24 at him. He looked at the stories trying to make sense of the different headlines, wondering which one had put her in such a temper. She jabbed her finger at one, opening the next page. It was a water main leak in central London.

"I'm not following," Harry admitted, scanning the article. It didn't seem that close to her house. The traffic in the area was a nightmare, streets closed but none of that would be enough to cause her such a violent reaction.

"The water main, it burst a couple of streets away."

"But what's that got to do with you?"

"Because everything backed up in the pipes in my street and a secondary leak burst the sewage line and and…" her voice reached a crescendo at this point, but Harry had enough pieces of the puzzle now.

"You're house is genuinely full of shit, isn't it!"

"I think so," she sniffed. "I wasn't even allowed in. The whole street has been evacuated. A fireman in a HAZMAT suit asked if there was anything I needed urgently and it had to be something he could carry out in one trip. I couldn't think Harry, I asked for the plant."

"Nikki," he soothed rubbing his hand over her back and happy to notice she let it rest there. Touched that of all her belongings the thing that came to her mind first was the plant he had given her.

"That's why I've been having so much trouble with the water at the house. There's been a blockage in the pipes for a while and today was the day the system collapsed."

"So you've not seen how bad it is inside?" Harry asked thinking through all the problems, glad he'd called the council for her the previous week.

"It's not going to be good is it? If the sewage system has overflowed, I'll need new carpets, new furniture…" her eyes started to tear up.

"Have the council known about the problems?" Harry asked.

"According to the news, complaints about the water pressure had been made by a number of residents."

"So, you'll be covered by insurance. You can get new stuff. It'll be ok."

"I can't go back to living there, I can't. I can't." she cried.

"I'm sure it'll be fine Nikki."

"But it will smell. And I'll always know."

"You won't know how bad it is until you go back and see."

"But why have they evacuated the whole street then?"

"Maybe they're worried that the problems with the pipes or the water could damage the foundations or something. Maybe they're just doing structural checks. Did anyone actually tell you that your house was swimming in sewage?"

He saw her blink rapidly and look up at him. "No…but… The firemen were all dressed up in their hazard suits."

"That could just be procedure."

"But even if it's not sewage and it's structural damage, I'll not be able to go back there for a while, will I? I'll be homeless like you were when your house blew up."

"Then if you don't want to go back, or if they say it is structurally unsafe, you'll have to get a new house won't you?" Harry said pointedly.

They stood facing each other across the kitchen table, there wasn't much furniture left but the table was still there and the overloud clock.

Neither knew what to say next. The clock thundered in the silence.

Her face was still creased by frustration and anger but as he stood and watched her he could see the lines begin to soften. He hoped she was remembering the previous night. He certainly was; he couldn't just look at her now as he always had, just the surface that she allowed him to see. He'd seen it all now. And when she'd had to run, she'd run to him with her sunflower in tow. He might have it bad, but perhaps she did too.

"I'm really sorry Nikki," Harry said out loud, but inside a part of him was whooping with delight. She could move in with him, they could be happy, they could have the future he'd always wanted, she could be the family he craved. What was he supposed to say? She was stood in front of him looking slightly lost, particularly pissed off and nervous in equal measure. The clock continued its noisy interruption of the silence

"We won't know for sure until they've found out what the problem actually is." Harry explained calmly. But this only seemed to make Nikki look more ferocious. It wasn't what he wanted to say either. It was about as useful as kicking the table had been this morning, and looking at her face probably just as painful.

He looked over to where her spindly little plant sat on the windowsill, dwarfing the plastic ruler. It had grown a lot in the last three weeks. The seed might have been dormant for years, but the right conditions and now was the time for it to grow and eventually blossom.

He remembered his terror that morning when he thought she'd left. He thought of the letter he'd sent her, telling her he was fed up of being frightened. Fed up of all the wasted time. She'd told him the previous night that she liked his new found determination. That hadn't been exactly what she'd said, or what she'd touched but that was what she had meant. If that's what she liked it was time to step up and be the man.

He counted seven more tocks of the clock before his mouth opened again.

"Marry me?" he asked simply.

She looked shocked at first, then surprised, then stunned, then happy and then she started to cry.

"What? What is it?" he asked; walking around the table and pulling her towards him; wiping away the tears as fast as he could. "What you don't want to? I know I told you I didn't want you as my business partner, I wanted you as my everything partner, my life partner, but we don't have to get married if you think it's restricting or out dated. I don't need a piece of paper to tell me that you have to love me; it's not like that I… I… But you need a new house and I need a new house and Nikki more than anything I want you to live there with me…" He drew breath for a moment and then said finally what he needed to say. What in all that had happened yesterday; had not been said.

"I love you Nikki." He paused to see if he could gauge her reaction. "I can do it properly if you like?" he said dropping down on one knee and holding her hand.

"Nikki Alexander, would you be my wife? Would you be my family? Would you say yes and turn the impossible into the possible?"

"Harry," she said and smiled for the first time since stomping through the front door. "Yes, I would love to marry you."

"Really?" he asked suddenly losing his nerve.

"Really!" she agreed and pulled him to his feet and kissed him. "But on one condition," she clarified.

"Yes?" he asked warily.

"That first thing in the morning we put an offer in on the house," she didn't need to clarify which one. There was only one house.

"Oh," said Harry his face a picture of disappointment. "Then it's all off then," he let her go and stepped backwards. A frown on his face.

"Harry?" Nikki asked, panic rising. She thought she'd got this one right, finally thought she'd played the game properly, surely they could afford it, she'd sell her house, she'd have the insurance money… "but…but…" she stuttered, her tears falling again.

"I can't put an offer in, on that house in the morning," Harry explained. "Because I already had an offer accepted this afternoon."

Nikki gasped, hiccupped, cried and coughed all at the same time and then slapped her hand into his shoulder. "What…how…when…"

He picked her up and twirled her around, much like Jorge had when she'd come to visit him in New York.

"Nikki, you were right. It's the right house, it's the only house and it turns out that Leo's secret stash of vinyl is worth something after all. Clarissa did some research for me; you're right some of them will sell for thousands. We can afford it. We have 48 hours to prove that we will be able to raise a mortgage on the house, but at the moment it's ours."

"So when I thought Clarissa was working away on the test results I wanted, she was really checking the price of Leo's old records?" Nikki asked.

"Maybe. I'm sure she did it in her lunch hour," Harry suggested not wanting to get Clarissa into trouble. "Is there anything that woman can't do?" he asked.

"Walk…" Nikki said.

"Hunh?" But now Harry realised why Nikki had never truly befriended Clarissa. It all made sense, the nasal tone on the phone, the way she hadn't been included on the Middle East field trip. Nikki needed all the heads in any room to turn to her first, it was just how she was, that was never likely to happen when she was out with Clarissa.

"Come on, I think it might be time for that champagne," Nikki said.

"What to celebrate your house swimming in sewage?"

"Don't remind me Harry."

"We're going to be ok aren't we?" Harry asked.

"Well you've had a flat that's blown up, and mine's been flooded the stats look good for us from here on in…"

Harry gave her an ironic smile.

"Do you love me?" she asked him.

"I do," he replied.

"That's good," she said kissing his cheek. "Because, I love you too."

"Come here." Harry said, wrapping his arms around her back and dipping his head to hers.

"What time is it?" Harry asked when they paused for breath.

They both looked at the clock, "Why?"

"Because I have to ring Jorge and Beto and tell them," Harry insisted.

"You don't think you should call your mother first?"

Harry crinkled his nose, "Jorge first, then my mother."

"Can I tell him?" Nikki asked.

"What you think they won't believe me?" Harry asked. Realising as he did so that she had no one to phone, no one to tell. No family of her own. "Of course you can," Harry added. She would have a family now; she would have him and his mother and Jorge and Beto. It might be unconventional but then families were these days. He punched the numbers into his phone and held it out to her.