Making Love

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

After that magical Christmas day, my doubts began to set in.

Was it too soon? Should I have said no? Tom was pretty busy this year, so when was the wedding even going to be? Was he planning on one of those endless engagements and in 5 years time, nothing will have changed?

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the guts to broach the subject with him. And we were pretty busy. On the 27th of December we left Suffolk and headed to Manchester, for a flying visit to mum (one night, one meal) then we headed onto Edinburgh and to my sister, who insisted we stay with her.

They had a pretty nice house, actually, and Tom and I took the spare room.

On the 29th Hannah and I went out to lunch and I told her about my engagement. I hadn’t told anyone else yet (I’d taken the ring off when we visited mum and only put it back on once I’d told Hannah).

She was thrilled and when I told her about by doubts, she told me I was worrying over nothing. Tom had worked his charm on her too, and now she was his biggest fan.

So I kept my worries to myself.

The wedding announcement went into the paper on the 2nd of January and I stayed off the internet, save for my personal accounts, for the next week. That didn’t stop me seeing magazine covers and to make matters worse, my picture was on the front cover of a few. I took to wearing hats and glasses when I went out during the day.

I could tell that Tom noticed but he didn’t say anything.

In December, Tom was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild awards. He received a nod for Best Mini Series with The Night Manager, and his co-star, Hugh Laurie, got a supporting actor nomination. Tom also received a nomination for best film actor for I Saw the Light and Crimson Peak netted Jessica Chastain a best supporting actress nod.

In early January, Tom was nominated for the BAFTA awards with a nomination for Best Actor in I Saw the Light, which was also nominated for Best Film, while High Rise was nominated for Best British Film and Crimson Peak received nods for best screen play and Best Film Music.   

Then on January 15th, he received his first Oscar nominations. For I Saw the Light, Tom got a best actor nomination, and the film also received best editing and supporting actress. Crimson Peak received nominations for best costume design, visual effects and best editing.

Put simply, if he won, Tom’s fame was about to go from ‘Tumblr’s darling’ to ‘stratospheric’.

Which was wonderful in terms of his career and I was thrilled about that, but what about me? If he was canny, and I knew he was, he could use this as a stepping stone and become the next Ton Cruise or Brad Pitt, and those poor guys couldn’t sneeze without it being headline news.

I couldn’t live my life like that, constantly under a microscope.

The Screen Actor’s Guild awards were first, on the 25th of January, and we headed to LA for them. No matter how worried I was about the fame, I couldn’t not support him. Besides, I was ridiculously proud of him, the films he had been nominated for were beyond excellent (and before you say anything, no, of course I’m not biased).

Tom also had a few meetings while there, with the Marvel executives, and of course, a lot of press. Apparently winning an Oscar isn’t just about good acting, you have to mount a publicity campaign.So we arrived there on the 20th to give some interviews and attend some events.

The parties were fine, I was getting used to them. I might even go so far as to say that I enjoyed some of them. I attended the interviews but wouldn’t agree to take part, even although Luke tried to convince me to, he said our engagement was good press.