Measure for Measure, for the 21st century

I studied the lesser known Shakespeare 'problem play' Measure for Measure at A level, and about 8 years later I got the idea of trying to frame the complex character set-up and situations in a modern day story... This is what I wrote, back in the early 2000s

1

Arriving to work inside the black-mirrored building every morning gave Carlo a glow of pride. He relished his glide across the gleaming lobby, before he was swept silently up to the tenth floor.

But today was different. On this miserable October Wednesday he was uneasy, even a little intimidated by the surroundings he had chosen for the business. He raced across the office floor, bypassed the gathering production team and hurried along the top corridor past the Middle Manager’s office (who looked up briefly as he went by) right to the end: the Big Boss’ office.

As his hand reached out towards the door handle, secretary Miriam appeared suddenly beside him as though out of thin air.

“Euurgh,” Carlo said, his hand leaping from the door handle as though he’d been burned.

“He’s not there,” Miriam said. She shifted the large pile of papers in her arms to rest against her right hip.

“He isn’t?” Carlo said. “Where is he? When will he be back? I have to speak to him…”

Miriam cleared her throat, and dropped her eyes to her papers before announcing: “He’s gone on sabbatical – for a month!” She flicked her eyes up to gauge his reaction.

“He’s run off after my sister, I suppose! Isn’t it a bit bloody late for that?”

Watching Miriam huff off back along the corridor, Carlo felt the panic set in. He lingered where he stood for a few moments, before caving into the next and highly undesirable move: the Middle Manager.

If Darius truly had upped sticks and gone – and oh what a day for him to choose! – then that would mean the awful Andrew was in charge. Wiping the grimace from his face, Carlo slowly retreated slowly along the corridor, back to the open door framing Andrew at his desk.

He stepped over the threshold without a sound. Andrew’s hand continued its rounded progress across his page, his head bent low. After a long silent moment, Andrew finally lay his pen down, flexed his fingers as though they’d been over-exerted, and lifted his head.

“Carlo,” he said. “Please. Close the door, take a seat.”

As he softly shut the door, Carlo fancied he glimpsed his last hope slipping away from him down the corridor. He sat down opposite Andrew, noticing again how dingy this office really was, with barely any natural light creeping in the small window over Andrew’s left shoulder. A large laminate desk half-filled the room, and three grey filing cabinets narrowed the remaining space. Andrew had found himself an old high-backed black leather chair, and squeezed in one hard wooden chair for any visitors.

“Andrew, we might have a potential problem,” Carlo said.

Andrew leaned back into the high back of his chair, loosely linked his fingers, rested his elbows on the armrests and waited for him to go on.

“I’m not a hundred percent sure if you know that my girlfriend Julianne is pregnant?” he asked. “It’s been something we’ve been trying to keep pretty quiet.”

Andrew’s expression betrayed nothing.

“Until now,” Carlo went on. “I wanted to ensure you knew about this because – well… Uh, there are some photographs in one of the newspapers today…” He turned his eyes from Andrew’s stare.

“I know.”

The words hit Carlo like a hatchet: he physically flinched. He forced his gaze up to Andrew’s grey eyes, grey jowls, grey hair.

“And as for this being a ‘potential problem’,” Andrew went on, “Carlo, we run a young adult TV show. In amongst the latest music, we talk openly about issues and realities, and don’t preach avoidance, abstinence or turning a blind eye. We counsel consideration, caution, control, and ultimately, choice. This crucial balance means young people listen to us, and take us seriously. It also has very real social results, which are noted by the numberous awards we’ve won.”

“Andrew stop,” Carlo said. “Stop lecturing me. Stop preaching at me! And stop saying our company. You weren’t there at the start, you aren’t a real part of what Darius and I have built!”

“You’re right, I’m not a Media Studies drop-out,” said Andrew.

“This was all my idea, mine and Darius’. We built this whole thing from nothing, and then when it got big, we employed you to do all the boring bits. I got on with the ideas, and presenting, and Darius got on with running the show, being in charge. And you – your job is to do all the shit we hate doing.”

“Like the hiring and firing for example,” Andrew said. “And where is your best friend today, where is the man in charge, the guy in control? He is precisely where he’s been every time I’ve had to sack someone: nowhere to be found.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Carlo, you are the public face of the show, and you were photographed at a media party with your

heavily-pregnant girlfriend waving a bottle of champagne around, both of you looking as high as a kite. What part of that is not a problem for this company? It’s over. You’re out.”

“What? You can’t sack me, not altogether. I’m a co-founder of this company! I realise that I’ll have to stand down as the public face for a time, but there will always be a role for me!”

Andrew shook his head. “For us to have any chance of surviving this, we have to distance ourselves from you completely.”

Carlo stood up. “You can’t do this,” he said. “What am I going to do without this job? How can I support Julianne and the baby? You will destroy me, this will kill me! Andrew, think of your own family, of your children. Help me here! I just want to provide for my family.”

“You should have thought of that before being photographed partying night after night, jetting off to the Caribbean at the drop of a hat, racing around in that toy-like car, and buying that over-inflated rooftop apartment. I do think of my family,” Andrew said, “they are provided for. You brought this on yourself. You have no one else to blame.”

Carlo opened his mouth to continue arguing, but only a gasp came out. He wrenched the door open and strode off down the corridor as the door slammed back against the wall. He walked right out of the building, as it glinted darkly in the cold autumn sunlight.

2

Carlo’s transatlantic call to his sister had been full of melodrama, but light on detail: Julianne’s pregnancy and his own imminent fatherhood, Andrew’s vengeful unreasonableness, and lastly Darius’ devastation and subsequent disappearance.

“Did you tell him where I am?” Imogen asked.

“I can’t even pronounce the name of the place, let alone tell him where it is,” Carlo admitted. “What am I going to do now, Immy?”

She left a long pause.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “But I don’t have as much faith in my ability to talk Andrew round as you do.”

It took her two full days to travel back to the UK, but on a dark damp Friday Imogen finally let herself into Carlo’s penthouse apartment. The floor to ceiling windows provided the corner living room expansive, expensive views of grey buildings, swirling rain, and a glimpse of brown churning river.

“Now that you’re here,” Carlo said, giving his sister a welcome home hug, “it’s all going to be OK. I know it!”

He held her in the embrace for long moments, feeling the exhausted nervous tension start to drain from her limbs.

“You look fantastic,” he said. She had sun-streaks in her brown hair, a heavy turquoise and silver pendant at her throat, and bangles jangled on her tanned arm as she ran a tired hand across her eyes. “So how’s the Spanish coming along? Are you fluent yet?”

She shook her head, smiling wryly. They were both well aware that the charms of central America were low on the list of reasons for her sudden departure.

“So brother dear,” she said curling up on one of his pair of angled cream sofas, “tell me everything. Start from when I left and don’t leave a thing out. But first, open that bottle of red.”

And Carlo did – both. Imogen listened, as she consumed three quarters of the bottle of wine.

“I’m just so glad you’re here,” he said. “I know we can work this out. You’re the only person I can turn to. I always thought Darius would be there for me. I still can’t quite understand why he… Oh, what am I saying? If I feel let down and betrayed, God knows how you must have felt.”

Imogen shrugged, and stood up. She walked over to the open-plan kitchen and poured herself a tall glass of water.

“Answer me this,” she said, taking a long sip of water. “Why didn’t you marry Julianne when the two of you discovered you were expecting a child?”

Carlo was surprised at his sister’s bluntness. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“You love her, she adores you,” she said. “It makes perfect sense, and no-one in this day and age – whatever your job – bats an eyelid at a teetotal, slightly bulging bride. You would have got approving pats on the back from everyone at work who has now turned against you.”

Carlo shook his head. “If only it was that simple Imogen,” he said.

“What’s so complicated? Did she turn you down?”

“No! No, it’s not that at all…”

Imogen waited, her eyes not wavering from the top of her brother’s head, as he rested his face in his hands. Finally, he lifted his eyes up to her gaze.

“Will you go and see Andrew for me?”

“What can I say to him that will change anything? Come on Carlo, despite our generally low opinion of Andrew, he is right. This could break the show, and then you’ll still be in the same position, but you’ll have taken a lot of other people down with you.”

“I just want to be there,” he said. “I can do everything I always have, except fronting the show. We started the whole thing from scratch, Darius and I. It’s my life’s work, my one achievement.”

“Careful,” Imogen said. “That kind of proud talk destroyed my relationship. You have a girlfriend you love, and a baby on the way. These things are far more important than any TV show or job.”

He sighed. “I know that. But I have no way of supporting them, let alone myself without this job. No one else is going to hire me!”

“You’re right there,” she said. “Look, it’s Friday night, I’ve drunk a lot of wine, and I’m jet lagged. It won’t be until Monday now that I can catch Andrew in the office anyway–“

“He’ll be there tomorrow,” Carlo said.

“He will? Oh, well,” she said, “then I could perhaps go and see him tomorrow.”

“You will?”

“On one condition,” she said. “Tell me why you didn’t propose to Julianne a month ago. No bullshit. Just tell me.”

How could he explain this to her? He would have to try, he realised, as the long seconds of silence stretched on.

“You see,” he said, “Julianne has a trust fund that is due to mature on her next birthday – which is a few weeks before the baby’s due. Her parents are less than happy about the pregnancy, and they plain just don’t like me. They have threatened to slap the fund straight back into trust for the baby if we get married without their blessing. So we tried to simply keep the pregnancy from everyone else for as long as possible, and then deal with whatever fall-out there might be from the show if and when it came. After the baby’s born, we thought we could start afresh, no debts, as a family. But it hasn’t worked out like that…”

“Money,” Imogen said. “It’s all about money…”

“No! It’s about our future–”

“I’m going to bed,” she said, and walked out of the room.

3

The doors swished, lifts hummed, a radio chattered at the end of a hallway. Imogen hadn’t been to these offices for some time, but nothing had changed. She walked between the empty desks, and along the still corridor she was used to seeing seething with activity. Miriam, Darius’ secretary, almost bumped into her on the way to the photocopier.

“Hello,” she called over her shoulder to Imogen as she disappeared round another corner.

Imogen approached the open door to Andrew’s office slowly, with more than a little trepidation.

“I’ve been expecting you,” he said, looking up from the papers on his desk in front of him. “Not specifically you, Imogen. I thought perhaps the pitiable pregnant girlfriend, or maybe the man himself again. I even wondered if Darius might waltz back in. But you are a most welcome surprise.”

“So glad it’s a pleasure for you,” Imogen said, sitting down opposite Andrew in his weekend outfit of an open-necked shirt and chinos. “Believe me, I’m not so happy to be here. What a slave-driver you are – dragging Miriam in on a Saturday.”

He looked surprised. “She must have as much to catch up on as I do. I didn’t ask her to come in,” he said. “So you’ve come to plead for your brother’s livelihood, have you?”

“Something like that,” she said. “Or maybe you could think of me as the voice of reason.”

Andrew smirked. “Don’t tell me – you’re here to help me,” he said.

“Andrew,” Imogen said, “I know your personal opinion of my brother and his business partner – your boss – is not very high. However, as you are temporarily in charge here, and thus will be blamed or congratulated for the results of this situation, you need to set aside those feelings.”

“Thank you for your analysis,” he said.

“Give this decision a bit more thought,” she said. “Right now you’re dealing with a lot of bad publicity due to my brother’s stupid, thoughtless actions. Think how good you’re going to look in a few months’ time when it’s all blown over and everything is ship-shape again, almost as though it never even happened. No-one will quite remember why there was a change of presenter, and by then they won’t care – because the show will have gone from strength to strength. You will be carrying on handling the business side you do so well, and Carlo finally able to give all his attention to content without constantly worrying how he will look on-screen demonstrating condoms and diaphragms, or worse – attempting to be taken seriously on the subject of drugs!”

Andrew couldn’t help but smile at that.

“You can’t deny losing him will be a near-fatal blow to the production team,” she went on.

“Well…”

“And you will be the man who Saved The Day. The show will be even better, Carlo will finally be reined in – what could be more perfect?”

He looked thoughtful. “What about Darius?”

“What about Darius?”

“We both know that when he comes back, I’ll no longer have any power or responsibility. I’ll be back to hiring and firing – or just get pushed out altogether. All my hard work will have been for nothing.”

“If you’ve turned his best mate out on his ear, then Darius will have to think long and hard about keeping you on when he gets back,” Imogen said. “But if you’ve handled this with tact, diplomacy and expertise, he’ll realised he won’t be able to cope without you.”

“Maybe…”

There was a knock at the door. Miriam walked in without an invitation and put a sheaf of papers in front of Andrew.

“These letters came in yesterday, but I’ve only just got to them. There’s one from the Department for Education on the top there – oh, and I printed that email from Darius.”

Imogen worked hard to keep any kind of reaction from her expression, but her heart started hammering in her ears.

He’d been in touch? This was a surprise.

Miriam walked out, leaving the door open.

“You see what I’m dealing with,” Andrew said, waving a hand over the papers.

Imogen had nothing more to say, so she just waited.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Come back to me on Monday. First thing. Eight o’clock, before the hordes arrive.” He picked up a pen and began to read one of the letters on the pile.

Dismissed, Imogen stood up and murmured a quiet goodbye.

Stepping out of the main front door into the street, she took a great deep breath of fresh air, and let it out in a sigh of relief. Checking her mobile she saw a voicemail had been left while she had been in there.

“Immy it’s me,” said Carlo. “Julianne has been rushed into hospital. She’s bleeding heavily, and has some stabbing pains in her abdomen! I’m on my way there now. Meet me there. I’ll see you later…”

Imogen hurried up the road, looking in each direction for a cab.

4

On Monday morning, Andrew pushed through the revolving lobby door at 7am, a little earlier than usual for him. As the lift ascended, he was already listing in his head the tasks ahead of him today. The office space was deserted, he had only the perpetual lighting and the gentle buzz of the air-circulation system for company.

“Good morning Andrew,” Imogen said.

It was precisely eight o’clock.

Andrew started.

“Oh Imogen,” he said. “I’d forgotten you were coming.”

She looked tired and rumpled, more so, he thought, than her first visit to his office, which couldn’t have been more than twenty four hours after getting off a plane. He idly wondered what had been keeping her up all weekend.

Despite her obvious fatigue, Andrew couldn’t help noticing she looked incredibly sexy.

“So,” she began, “you’ve all weekend now. Have you had a chance to give this some clear and rational thought?”

Andrew reflected for a moment on his last two days, since Imogen had last been here in his office: the phone call from his wife telling him their younger son was behaving badly and that he must come home to at the very least back her up; the subsequent row that evening when he eventually got home after both children had been sent to bed; the cold shoulder from his wife all day Sunday, combined with the children throwing tantrums and screaming, topped off with being told last night to sleep on the couch. He felt irritable, exhausted, and didn’t care a jot about Carlo’s problems.

But now Imogen was here.

“I’ll be honest with you Imogen, I haven’t given it any thought.” He watched for her exasperation.

“Andrew! Really, you promised me…”

He shook his head. “You have no idea how busy I’ve been,” he said. “And today is no exception. Look,” he said suddenly. “Why don’t we talk about this over dinner, when you can have all of my attention. How about the Greyhound, tonight?”

“The Greyhound Hotel..?”

“I stay there during the week a couple of nights, when I’m working late or very early in the morning. It saves me disrupting the family.”

Imogen was silent for a moment. “Julianne’s been in hospital over the weekend, she had a nasty scare with the baby. I think I should be looking after her and Carlo at the moment, they need me around,” she said.

Andrew shrugged. “Suit yourself. It’s the last time I am willing to talk about this though. As far as I’m concerned then, case closed.”

Imogen sighed. “What time were you thinking for dinner?”

“Whenever you want. I won’t be here late tonight. Just ask for my room number at reception, come up and fetch me and we can go from there,” he suggested.

Imogen stood up and walked from the room without saying a word.

Andrew turned back to his work with renewed vigour – and a huge smile on his face.

5

“There is no way, no way!” Imogen paced the polished laminate in front of Carlo’s tall windows.

“Shhh, keep it down a bit.” Carlo had perched on the edge of his window-facing sofa, his elbows anxiously resting on his knees. He glanced over at the closed door to the bedroom, where Julianne was resting.

“Do you know the most disgusting thing about his proposition?” she went on, not bothering to lower her voice at all as she stopped, hands on hips, and stared at a spot just above her brother’s head. “This isn’t even about me. It’s still about you and Darius!”

“What do you mean, it’s about me and Darius?”

“Well, it’s one over on Darius isn’t it?” she theorised. “Shagging his ex-girlfriend. Not to mention it’s also something to needle you about whenever he’s pissed off with you.” She threw back her head, pivoted on her heel and started pacing again.

“Imogen, Imogen, Imogen,” he said trying to keep the laughter from his voice. “You are reading far too much into this. He’s a bloke! You’re an attractive young woman. That’s all there is to it. You wouldn’t normally look twice at him – he’s a married, middle-aged man.”

“Precisely! What a fucking hypocrite he is to even suggest this, this is all supposedly about your lack of family values!”

“You’re asking him for a favour, and in time-honoured, sleazy tradition, he is asking you for something singular in return, something that… well anyway. We both know what he’s asking for.” Carlo looked slightly ashamed.

“Don’t you think I’ve already done enough for you over this ridiculous situation?” she said.

Carlo hung his head between his shoulders. “Yes, I do. I can’t quite believe I’m asking you again, but will you at least think about this. You’re my only chance, you know.”

“I do know. What are we going to do?” she said, finally sitting down.

“Would you just consider what I was suggesting - ?”

“No.”

“I know it compromises you horribly–”

“It’s not that – I just don’t think it would work!”

“Oh. I see.”

She sat forward and fixed her brother with a lowered stare. “Schemes and plots never were your strong point, were they?”

“No,” he sighed. “That was always Darius’ department.”

A thoughtful silence settled over them for a few minutes.

The bedroom door swung open with a soft click. Julianne – long blonde hair rumpled, one hand absent-mindedly, protectively rubbing her swollen belly – padded barefoot to the kitchen to pour a glass of water.

“Are you two OK?” she asked on her return.

Carlo laughed, reaching a hand out over the sofa back to her, which she squeezed for a moment. “Of course we’re all right. How are you feeling though, babe? I would have fetched you some water. Just call out if you want something.”

“It’s fine,” she said, heading for the bedroom once more. “I wanted to get up, just for a moment.” The door closed on them with a roll and a click.

Imogen gave a noisy, long sigh.

“OK, I might be able to pull this off,” she said.

Hope flickered in Carlo’s heart.

“Right, let’s go through this step by step,” he said, “and to try and make it as easy for you as possible…”

6

Thunder woke Imogen.

At least, that’s what the rumbling and crashing that was dragging her into consciousness sounded like at first. She squinted, blinked as blurred red numerals formed 4am just as she heard Carlo’s bellow.

“Alright! Alright! What the hell’s going on?” He stumbled past her bedroom to the front door.

Imogen swung her legs across and over the edge of the bed, the locks cracking back as her soles touched the cold floor. Pushing herself up from the inviting, yielding mattress, she froze mid-straighten at the sound of the voice at the door.

“Where is she? What have you done Carlo?”

It was Darius.

Imogen slumped back onto the bed.

“You sent Imogen to Andrew? What were you thinking? Your own sister – and you sold her down the river! Jesus, Carlo!”

“Darius, calm down!” Carlo said. Their voices were getting clearer, closer. They must be in the living room just outside the bedroom door, Imogen realised.

“What’s going on?” Julianne’s voice was gravely with tiredness. “What are you doing here, Darius? It’s the middle of the bloody night…”

“Coming – too late – to knock some sense into your boyfriend! Oh Imogen, what did I do, what did I do?”

Is that my cue? Imogen found herself wondering, as if they were all in some kind of sitcom, or play or something.

Did he really mean it? Could she allow herself to hope, once more?

She drew herself up slowly, and walked into the living room. Carlo and Julianne were slumped a sleepy tangle on one sofa, Darius was sitting on the edge of the other, his back to her.

She hadn’t laid eyes on him for a couple of months now, the longest they had been apart in all the time they had known each other. Carlo had introduced them during his first term at university, and although it had taken two years for them to get together, there had always been some party, visit, occasion every few weeks throughout that time.

Their last, bitter words had been exchanged – fittingly, Imogen now thought – in Darius’ office. It had been ten o’clock at night, and she’d gone looking for him when he failed to meet her and a group of friends for drinks at seven, or any time after. She had seen the tightness in the smile when she arrived, a sign of Darius bracing himself for a row. But Imogen was calm. Resignedly, she had told him that she had booked a trip through central and South America, something she and Darius had planned together more than a year ago. But their departure date was always moving further off into the future.

She had lost her illusions, she told him, about the plan for him to take a sabbatical from work and go with her. She had simply booked her own ticket, and arranged this evening as a farewell party. And he hadn’t even made it to that…

“Goodbye Darius.”

She walked away from him, and ducked into the fire escape stairwell, unable to face the long walk back to the lifts: waiting, dreading, hoping for him to run after her.

And if he had, what would he have said? Begged her to stay? To wait for him? She knew by then that he wouldn’t just drop everything, and go with her.

When Carlo called her in Queltzaltenango, he told her that Darius had done just that: walked out, with no notice or planning.

Did he come after me? she wondered again, taking in the soft black jacket, loose across his shoulders, his black hair beginning to curl into the nape of his neck, the red-brown tinge to his skin that hinted at recent sunny climes. Did he meet someone else, and take off abruptly so he didn’t have to face Carlo, her brother? It was almost worse if he had just taken off on his own, to do his own thing, that he simply hadn’t wanted to go away with her… He hadn’t wanted her.

Darius leapt up and turned around to face her.

Imogen watched with detachment, wondering what changes in him she might see. But when he stood before her, gazing back at her, she was overwhelmed with a sense of familiarity and comfort – of connection.

He hesitated, she took a step to go around the sofa, and then they flung their arms around each other in a desperate embrace. Awkwardly, still unsure, they disentangled from each other, and sat down, a stretch of cream sofa-cushion chastely between them.

“What happened with Andrew?” Darius asked.

Imogen searched for judgement, or disgust in his face. But she found only confusion, and maybe – was that hope?

“Don’t you think the question rather should be ‘where the fuck have you been’?” Carlo said.

Darius shrugged. “You dug your own hole Carlo, don’t blame me. But taking Imogen down with you…”

“Will you two just tell him and put him out of his misery,” Julianne said.

Imogen sighed, rubbed her left eye. “Andrew asked me to meet him for dinner,” she said. “He asked me to go up to his hotel room to meet him. Well – I got the front desk to call up and tell him I was waiting in the bar. We had dinner. I think he was trying to chat me up, or impress me – it was pretty hard to tell. At the end of the evening it was down to me – can you believe this – to suggest a drink in his room. Then I gave him instructions: to leave the door ajar, only one bathroom light left on, and I would follow him up in five minutes.”

“And?”

“And we sent Miriam up, in Imogen’s place,” Carlo said.

“What?”

“It turns out that Miriam has been drooling over Andrew for months now, and she jumped at the chance to help out despairing little Imogen when she realised what she would get out of it.”

“He didn’t notice the difference between lithe young Imogen, and squishy old Miriam?”

“Of course he did,” Imogen said. “But not until he was too far in to want to stop. But he told her there was no way in hell he was going to have Carlo back – and even with me he’d never had any intention of it. Later on, we knocked at his door, told him that we had the whole post-dinner exchange taped, and that his wife would receive a copy if he didn’t swiftly re-think Carlo’s position. So finally, it is sorted out.”

“Yeah, all back to normal,” Julianne said. “Andrew hates Carlo, Carlo hates Andrew, but they tolerate each other. Now, where the fuck have you been, Darius?”

“I couldn’t believe you just walked out,” he said to Imogen. “Carlo said he didn’t know where you were, just that you were safe, on the move, doing what you wanted to do. I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been, letting you go. I missed you like hell, I missed knowing you were there. And I was jealous: our trip, planned together, and you went without me.”

“You missed ‘knowing I was there’,” Imogen echoed. “That’s right Darius, I was always there. But you rarely were – there for me, or even with me.”

“I can see that now. I let you down, and I’m so sorry.”

“And what do you mean – our trip? You mean your trip. I wanted to go to Patagonia and Antarctica, and you convinced me that central America, Guatemala was where we had to start. I went without you because you refused to come. I don’t really understand,” she said, “what you’re doing here now though. Where did you go? Why could you go without me, but not with me?”

“I didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t know what to with myself. I entertained grand ideas of going off after you, but I had no idea where you’d gone. Mexico, Belize, Argentina, anywhere in between. I went to my Dad’s for a few days, walked in the fields behind his house, and wondered why I had never taken you along those footpaths before. And now you’re back and I don’t ever want to let you go again.” “What do you mean?” Imogen asked.

“I know how you feel,” Carlo said, gazing at Julianne’s sleeping face. “We’re getting married, this week if we can. We decided, on Sunday, at the hospital, when we got the all-clear.”

“Say the word, Imogen, and I’ll do whatever you ask,” he said, reaching out for her hand.

She let him take it, and waited.

“If you let me, I’ll fly to central America with you tomorrow. I’ll leave work for good, give it all up. Anything. All I want is to marry you.”

“What?”

“Marry me. Will you? I love you Imogen, I can’t lose you again.”

She gently took her hand back.

“There is no need for you to give up your job, your company for me,” she said. “And I’m not going back to Guatemala – that wasn’t my dream. I’m not going to carry on with it just to spite you, and prove something to myself.”

“Imogen, I swear, if you give me another– ”

“I loved all of you, work and all, but you lost your sense of proportion, of priority.”

“And I have had a very sharp wake-up call, putting all of that right. You only have to give me a chance to show you, to prove to you–”

“There is one thing you can do, prove all of this to me,” she said.

“Yes?”

“Take me to Patagonia for our honeymoon…”

“Do you mean it? That’s a yes? I’d run to the end of the earth for you if that’s what you asked!” He pulled her into his arms, and held her tight to him.

Imogen felt finally as though she was home.