Delayed

February 2003

‘Babe, we can talk about it later ok. Please don’t talk to anyone else before then’
‘Ok honey, call me anytime’

This gave me a few hours to think. I was rather enjoying all the talk of marriage, but I didn’t want her talking to her mother or, even worse, her sister. I didn’t want to create that expectation.

I called her minutes before our agreed 11pm curfew. ‘Babe, I don’t think you should talk to your mother yet. Not until we are have definite plans’
‘I think I need to tell them something’
‘Yes, but just wait until I can find out a bit more information. I might need a visa to go to US, I don’t really know, and do we need to book anything? I am not sure. So better find out first’
Reluctantly ‘Ok honey’
‘And as I said, I am not happy to marry until I am certain of my transfer to Hong Kong’
‘Any news, honey?’
‘Well, I checked, and it seems as if the contract has been delayed, its not a certainty yet, but that’s the way it is looking. And without that contract the business in Hong Kong is really struggling. They don’t have much work. Certainly not enough to cover my expat salary’
‘So what shall we do?’
‘Well let me double check first babe’

Then I asked, ‘weren’t you planning to come to the UK for Easter anyway?
‘But you know honey, I think UK can wait’
‘I was just thinking it would be better if you met my mother before we got married’
‘But honey, I don’t think you are that close with your mother’
‘Oh, why not?’
‘Because, the western families are not so close, not like us, as soon as the children growed up they leave home. Look at me honey, still living with my mother, I don’t think you will do that’