Janice Horton - The Backpacking Housewife - The Next Adventure

There were breadfruits the size of footballs. Mangos and starfruits ripe and tantalisingly ready to eat. The tropical flowers that I recognised looked like those grown in heated botanical gardens back home. Others looked so vibrantly colourful and oversized and waxy that they looked completely unreal. With every step, I started to realise this island had an awful lot going for it. Ethan kept stopping along the route to take photos on his phone of the flora and fauna.

‘This island might look like a total escape from the outside world but as far as locations go it’s in the middle of the tropical suburbs,’ he told me. ‘It has protected waters. Consistent trade winds. Line of sight neighbours and it’s just a short boat ride from Tortola and its regional airport and the international airports on St. Thomas, Antigua, and San Juan.’

I started to get it. I began to understand.

Excitement fizzed up inside me like the effervescent bubbles in our soon to be popped champagne bottle. I could now see how this island was a middle ground for us between remote and accessible, public and private, and a perfect place for us to call home. It ticked all the boxes. It really was that perfect compromise that I’d been looking for and longing to find.

Suddenly, we reached a place where lush vegetation stopped and beach began, and we stepped out of the shaded surrounding jungle with its cool dampness underfoot into hot sunshine and hot powder fine white sand. I laughed and pointed out a discarded beer bottle in the sand. ‘I’m starting to doubt your claim no one has been on this island for a hundred years!’

‘Maybe there’s a message in it?’ Ethan suggested, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

I checked, just be sure, but only found a small hermit crab. Then an iguana crossed our path – a big one – looking like a fearsome prehistoric creature and I jumped back in surprise. Ethan reassuringly grabbed my hand, and then we both ran with our bare feet burning across the hot sand towards the water’s edge, where he pulled me into the clear and shallow waters of the calm blue lagoon and into his arms once more.

He kissed me long and hard until I was breathless and dizzy with desire for him. His big hands gently held my face then moved down my neck and my body and then holding me closely, he said to me in what was almost a whisper. ‘Lori, my darling, I know I’ve been acting a bit crazy lately. But, to be honest, I’ve been ridiculously nervous about coming out here with you today.’

‘Nervous? No way. The Ethan I know doesn’t do nervous!’ I protested, laughing.

I’ve seen Ethan keep his cool in the scariest of situations. Like the time he’d managed to keep his sensibilities about him when, in the middle of a vast ocean, everyone else was freaking out at the ships generator failing on us while we were engulfed in three hundred and sixty degrees of thick soupy sea fog, and all the noise and vibrations we’d all become used to had become an eerie and deafening silence. He’d proved unshakable.

‘Well, okay. Then I’ve been ridiculously excited,’ he relinquished with a grin.

‘Well, now I understand. This place is beautiful. And, like you said, it’s a rare find.’

He gazed deeply into my eyes, making my heart melt and butterflies flutter in my stomach.

‘It’s not just the island that’s got me excited. It’s because I knew that today it would be just you and me here. I knew it would be the perfect place. The perfect moment.’

And then he did something totally unexpected.

He got down on one knee, reached into a pocket in his shorts, and produced an exquisite solitaire diamond ring. ‘My darling, Lori, will you marry me?’

And, I fell down in front of him onto my own knees, in absolute astonishment.

My legs were shaking. My whole body quivering. I couldn’t breathe. My mouth was dry. I couldn’t swallow. I was dizzy. My heart was suddenly pounding so hard in my chest and so loudly in my ears that I couldn’t think properly. My mind and my thoughts, so clear just a mere moment ago, were now as fractured and streaming as the sunlight being refracted by the beautiful diamond being presented to me. What do I do? What do I say? What do I think?

The man I love is asking me to marry him.

This island, our new home, is an absolute paradise.

It’s perfect and he’s perfect.

So why do the obvious words escape me?

What’s not to love about him and this idyllic proposal?

Why am I hesitating and not immediately saying yes?

A searing silence hung in the air between us.

It was like the whole world and time itself had all stopped still.

There was not a breath of wind nor a ripple of movement in the lagoon.

And, instead of thinking with my heart, and saying yes because I love him, my head is once again filled with confusion. All I can think about is how my family who are back home will react? What will they say if I tell them I’m getting married again?

Then my own reservations surfaced too to present their side of the argument.

I’d been married before. So had Ethan. So why do it over again?

Tears welled up in my eyes. I tried desperately to blink them away.

Ethan’s handsome face was becoming oddly distorted.

I fought my panic and conflicting emotions and prepared to explain myself to him.

Perhaps I needed a little more time? Time to think.

Surely there was no urgency or reason for us to rush into anything?

Wasn’t us just being together and loving each other enough?

But when my vision cleared, I could see that his expression had indeed changed from romantically anxious to something that resembled downright furious. His eyes, just a moment ago were soft and loving and kind, were now wide and blazing and murderous.

Had I offended him so badly, with my hesitation, my reluctance?

And then I realised that he wasn’t looking at me at all.

He was looking right past me and over my left shoulder.

So, I turned to follow his distracted gaze and my mouth dropped open in astonishment.

At the far end of the beach, at the headland, where there where some giant boulders, there was also a giant construction crane. There was also a man-made jetty type structure jutting out into the sea with its concrete piles buried into the coral reef.

What the Hell was happening here!?

What about the pristine virgin eco-system? What about the untouched reef?

And what had happened to Ethan’s lawyers securing the hundred-year lease?

Suddenly, Ethan was no longer down on one knee. He was on his feet and running along the beach. I ran after him. My heart racing. My breath dry and rasping in the salt laden air. Sweat pumped and rolled from every pore on my body in the heat and humidity and under the ferocity of the midday sun. When I caught up with him, for a moment we stood side by side, panting in disbelief, at the offending machinery and chaos of construction that had already destroyed a whole section of coral reef. ‘I just don’t understand. It’s supposed to be ours!’ Ethan hissed.

Then, in a glimmering shimmering mirage, I saw a group of people.

Before I could even say a word, Ethan had spotted them too, and he was already scrambling in their direction. Again, I followed him in hot pursuit and saw that there were in fact four people standing in a huddle, perusing a document that looked like it might be a building plan.

There were three men and a woman. Two of the men, wearing hi-vis vests and construction helmets, were obviously the labour workforce here because they appeared to be listening to instructions from the other man. The one doing the talking was tall and well built, deeply tanned, silver haired, and smartly dressed in tailored shorts and a white linen short-sleeved shirt. This man had the air about him of someone incredibly important and affluent.