My Secret Lover

three options,’
I tell Andy, after thoroughly studying the relevant magazines. ‘They are:
     
    1. Have a nice lunch in a nice
restaurant with our families and closest friends.
    2. Invite everyone we know, including
distant cousins and schoolfriends we didn’t really like but want to show off
to, in which case we’ll have to hire the cricket pavilion, cheap caterers and a
disco.
    3. Put a limit on it, like forty, and
have a wedding buffet package at a hotel, with free honeymoon suite for the
night. Apparently, some people find that whittling down the lists gives you a
surprising insight into who’s really important in their life.’
     
    ‘Do we know forty people?’ asks Andy.
    ‘Or we could elope and not tell
anyone.’
    ‘So, in fact there are four options,’
he says.
    ‘Correct.’
    ‘But we’ve already told some people,’
he argues.
    ‘Look, we’re meant to have decided
all this about a year ago, at least.’
    ‘Says who?’
    One of the things I do like about
Andy is his logic.
    What we do for our wedding is up to us,
and that’s easy to forget when my mother and every single publication says that
we’re leaving it till the last minute, even though there are almost three
months to go which is longer than I’ve ever had to organize a party.
    If I had to choose between pure logic
or pure spontaneity for the rest of my life, I’d definitely go for logic.
    Unless, on a whim, I suddenly decided
to go for spontaneity.
     
    The publican is tapping his
microphone preparing to start the quiz.
    ‘How did Cosi go, by the way?’
I ask Andy.
    I have to look as if I’m interested,
but don’t want to risk a blow-by-blow account. I know that it was awful because
I saw the review in the Gazette which I forgot to cancel when I was on
holiday. The word they used was brave. They couldn’t be too unkind because of
Fiordiligi singing from a wheelchair.
    ‘Are we ready?’ says the publican
very loudly with a little scream of feedback.
    ‘We learned a lot from the
experience,’ Andy says.
    ‘The first round is called Islands.’
    I couldn’t have timed it better.
    ‘Question one: Is Auckland on the
North or South Island of New Zealand?’
    Andy just smiles and writes down the
answer.
    ‘I’ve always fancied New Zealand,’ he says, in the general murmur between questions. ‘How about it for the
honeymoon?’
    ‘You wouldn’t go on a shopping day in
Boulogne when they had that offer on the ferries, and now you want to go to New Zealand?’
    ‘Question number two. On which island
did Rupert Brooke die?’
    ‘Skyros,’ I say.
    ‘Are you sure?’ says Andy.
     
    Differences between men and women:
    5. Not knowing how you know things.
    I often find answers pop into my head
without me knowing where they come from. In fact, if asked whether I knew the
answers before we started the quiz,
    I would probably say no. But then
they just appear. I call it intuition. Andy calls it luck.
    Andy could always tell you why he
knows something and where he learned it.
    It may of course be that he just has
a better memory in some respects.
     
    ‘It couldn’t be the Isle of Wight?’
says Andy.
    ‘There’s some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England.’
    Don’t know where that came from
either.
     
    ‘Question number three. What is the
capital of Sri Lanka?’
    Andy writes down Colombo.
    ‘You never confer,’ I say.
    ‘Did you know it?’
    ‘That’s not the point.’
    ‘The Lake District, then,’ Andy
suggests.
    ‘What?’
    ‘For our honeymoon.’
    ‘I’m not going to the Lake District again.’
    I’m still in disbelief about New Zealand. After three consecutive summer breaks in the rainiest bits of England, being
told that he fancies New Zealand is like being told that he likes to wear
dresses. I don’t just mean for Hogmanay and the Mikado.
    ‘Well, where do you want to go?’ Andy
asks.
    ‘Not the Lake District or New Zealand.’
    ‘You decide then. As long as it’s
nowhere hot.’
    ‘It’s meant to be you who decides,
organizes, pays and makes it a surprise.’
    ‘But you just said you didn’t want New Zealand,’ he says, as if it’s me who’s being unreasonable.
     
    ‘Question number four. Bikini Atoll
is part of which island group?’
    Andy sucks the top of his Bic.
    ‘The Bahamas?’ I venture. ‘Isn’t
Bermuda in the Bahamas?’
    ‘It’s not Bermuda, it’s Bikini
Atoll.’
    ‘They’ve both got summer clothing
named after them.’
    ‘They’re hardly likely