The Engagement of Jerry and Claire

Question? What has the Empire State Building in New York City and our own Shandon got in common? Well, for starters they are both towers and they are both tall, relative to their respective cities.
Their own citizens revere both and both are climbed by tourists looking for a better view of the city – one case New York and in the other, The People’s Republic of Cork.
But they have another, well, kinda secret that they now share. You see, Jerry McCarthy, Romanticist, singled them both out as places where he would like to propose to his girl friend, Claire and thankfully Shandon won, on pure logic, in the end.

Jerry came to me many months ago and enquired about proposing to Claire at the top of the tower before Christmas but our building was due to be shut down for renovation work at the same time, so Jerry lost out. He did mention that he was taking Claire to NYC for her birthday and would, more than likely, pop the question atop the Empire State building. But he promised to keep me posted as to developments.

Can you imagine the surprise I received when a guy walked into Shandon and asked if he could pop the question on top of the tower. I said, “Weren’t you going to get engaged on top of the Empire State?” and he told me that he had everything set up but then decided not to as they would probably never see that building again whereas they could always look up at Shandon and say, “We got engaged up there” and so could their kids.

We, Jerry and Myself, set the date for Saturday March 16th. I promised Jerry that on the day in question I would make sure that nobody went up the tower for twenty minutes, so they had that time to themselves.

To make sure that all things were in situ, Jerry called to Shandon on Friday March 15th and we set the meeting and greeting in place. This was how it was to happen. Jerry would bring Claire and I would greet them and ask where they came from and he would say “Mayfield” and then offer me the entrance fee. At this stage I would say that he was extremely lucky because on Saturdays between the hours of 2 and 3 all Mayfield residents were free. I would also say to them that they were the only ones in the tower and this subtle message told Jerry that he now had twenty minutes to do what he needed to do.

Saturday morning arrived and I received my first phone call from Jerry saying that he asked Claire’s parents for their daughter’s hand and both had agreed, enthusiastically. The engagement was on. Second call told me that they were running late and would be there just after 2-00pm. I was all set to go. We had a green light.

In case it is not obvious so far, Claire had no idea at all about the whole affair. She did have an idea that they would get engaged as Jerry had her try on rings that she fancied while they were in New York and then while she slept he slipped back to the jewellers and bought the one that she liked. He then had to hide it from her and when they came back to Cork he hid it in the attic of his house.

I'm working until 2-00am but I plan to get up around noon and ring Claire and somehow convince her to come to Linehan’s sweet shop with me to buy some clove rock, while there I'll look up at Shandon and mention going up for a look at the view. Claire being Claire will be petrified at the thought but hopefully I can get around her and once she has nowhere to run at the top of the tower I'll start begging, she can hardly say no.
There will be no family or friends at the church just us two and your good self so I hope you can keep a secret.
Can I what?

And so it came to pass........