MY FUNNY (UNLIKELY) VALENTINE From whirlwind romance to lasting love
He was only 19 when he swept her off her feet, proposing every day until she said yes. Novelist BA Paris shares the romantic love story behind a marriage that has lasted almost four decades
How do you explain love at first sight? For me, there was definitely a jolt of something, a sort of recognition that I was looking at the person I was destined to spend my life with. As Calum looked back at me, I could see he felt the same. But he was a 19-year-old intern – far removed from the sophisticated older Frenchman I had in mind for myself since moving to Paris two years previously.
But Calum was determined. He ignored the fact I was almost four years older and asked me out. We went to the cinema, then to dinner, and afterwards, as we were walking down the Champs-élysées, he stopped, took me in his arms and asked me to marry him. I remember laughing, because it seemed so crazy. I said no, and he told me he would ask me every day until I agreed.
At work, our paths crossed about 10 times a day and each time he would ask me to marry him and I would laugh and tell him that I couldn’t, because I barely knew him. But there was that continual flutter of excitement in the pit of my stomach. In the end, it took me just two weeks to say yes.
Eighteen months later, we were married. As I walked up the aisle on my father’s arm, I remember feeling incredibly excited but also horribly nervous. I was shaking so much I could hardly keep hold of my bouquet. But once I saw Calum, my nerves disappeared.
Whenever I look at our wedding photos, I’m struck by how young Calum looks. If any of our daughters had wanted to get married at 21, I’d have locked them in a room. And if they wanted to give up their studies as well, I’d have thrown away the key! Calum was
We’re proud and thankful that we’ve made it through
only meant to stay a few months in France, but instead of going back to finish his degree in England, he asked for a permanent job with the bank where we both worked. Neither of us could imagine seeing each other only once a month with a couple of phone calls during the week to keep us going.
We bought a flat outside Paris and settled into married life together. Now, nearly four decades and five daughters later, we often look back and wonder where all those years have gone. They were certainly hectic and sometimes a little fraught. But we’ve survived the ups and downs of our relationship and are proud – and thankful! – that we’ve made it through, and that our ‘love at first sight’ moment was the beginning of something enduring.
Calum was 25 when our eldest daughter, Sophie, was born. Chloe was born two years later and Celine two years after that. I became a full-time mum. Financially, it was difficult, but I wanted to bring up my children myself and we were prepared to forego holidays and extras to be able to do this. By now Calum’s job in finance was taking him all over the world and he was often absent. I envied the life he led, never having to deal with the nitty-gritty, being able to sleep through the night in luxurious hotel rooms and eating delicious meals instead of the children’s leftovers. But most of the time, I loved being responsible for our three little girls and treasured the time with them.
I was pregnant again when he was offered a job in the Netherlands. We didn’t want to uproot the children in the middle of the school year, so we agreed I’d stay in France and he would travel home every weekend. Eloise was born a week before he left. She wasn’t the easiest baby in the world and it was a bit of a struggle until we joined Calum six months later.
Our four years there were very happy. We lived in a beautiful house near the sea and spent many happy hours discovering the surrounding countryside on our bikes. In 1998, our fifth daughter, Margaux, was born.
We returned to France in July 2000, to the same little town we’d been living in before but to a different house, large enough to accommodate our family of seven. Calum opted for a job where he would no longer travel, because he wanted to be around to see the girls grow up. But his long working hours meant he was rarely home before 10pm, when the girls were already in bed.
That was probably the hardest time. It was a case of so near – and yet so far. For the little time he spent at home, he may as well have been travelling. I had recently retrained as a teacher by then and was working part time. I seriously began to wonder if I would ever get any me-time.
One day in 2006, Calum phoned me from the office and told me he wanted to take voluntary redundancy. He wanted to take a year off and decide what to do with the rest of his life. With five children, it was a risky thing to do – but it was exactly what we needed. We went out for lunches, took the girls to Australia and South Africa. The following September, with our two oldest daughters at university, I finally had some time to myself and decided to start writing, something I’d always wanted to do. Calum supported me by taking over the school runs and giving me the space I needed.
Once I started writing, I found I couldn’t stop. My first novel didn’t get anywhere but by then I was already on to the next one. Calum and I found that we enjoyed being together on a day-to-day basis so the following year we set up our own company teaching English to businesses in and around Paris. It meant we could work as and when we wanted, which was a huge luxury. It also meant that I could carry on writing, fitting it in around my teaching hours. I spent a couple of years looking for an agent and in 2016, Behind Closed Doors, a psychological thriller about a seemingly perfect couple, was published. Since then, I have written another two thrillers. I feel very lucky to be able to do something that I love, and I know that Calum and the girls are very proud of what I’ve achieved. This year, we’ll have been married for 35 years and are now on to a new stage of our lives. Six months ago, we moved from France back to the UK, to be nearer to our families. We feel very fortunate that we still haven’t experienced empty nest syndrome as one of our daughters lives with us, and the others visit often at weekends. If there’s one thing that has kept us together during the wobbly bits of our marriage, it’s a sense of humour. A few days before my first date with Calum, my father came to see me. I told him I’d met someone, but that he was younger than me. ‘Does he make you laugh?’ My father asked. ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Well,’ my father said, ‘As long as he makes you laugh, you’ll be fine.’ And he was right. ◆ Bring Me Back by BA Paris (HQ) is out in March