The Cutting Crew (7 page)

I was thinking about how to break up with Rachel. A couple of weeks in and I was unhappy with the way things were going - or weren't going - and splitting up with her seemed like the best solution out of a bad bunch.

The main problem, as I saw it, was that we seemed to have nothing to say to each other. In my limited experience, the beginning of a new relationship should be full of passion and talk.

There's too much to discover about the other person - in bed and in conversation - but you're compelled to try anyway and it feels great. You want to know what they think about everything, and then you're amazed by what they say. You want to take them to places that mean a lot to you, both to share them and also so that you can see those places in new ways.

With Rachel, there was none of that. Obviously, we had conversations, but there was an awkwardness to them, as though at any moment one of us might give a one-word answer and mess everything up and neither of us was willing to take the risk. And we did have sex, but most of the time it was this perfunctory, passionless fucking. The one-word-answer nerves haunted that too; we just weren't relaxed. Even kissing felt difficult: every kiss felt like the first, like we still weren't sure that the other one actually wanted to.

Next to me, Rachel stirred slightly. I looked at her and she gave me a sleepy smile, then closed her eyes again and shuffled slightly.

But she still didn't lean against me.

'The next station is Saltaire. Saltaire is the next station.'

Only two more stops to go but the journey felt interminable. The train shushed slowly to a halt against the platform, and the doors juddered open. A few people moved on and off, but Saltaire was a dead village and hardly anyone travelled to or from here. Soon, the doors closed, and then the train jerked once and whispered off towards the city. The whisper built up to a rush; the loud clatter of the tracks returned.

So: why hadn't I broken up with her already? I really wasn't sure. Perhaps the niggling doubt I was entertaining was born out of fear. I'd never broken up with anyone in my life; it had always been the other way around. There were all kinds of things to consider.

What would she say if I told her? What would her family think? I'd met them the previous night and they seemed nice; I didn't want her or them to hate me. What could I even say? There was nothing I could pin down exactly, beyond 'we don't get on', and that wasn't true because a lot of the time we did. It would be a mystery to Rachel. Give it time, she would say; we do get on; we do have things in common.

And a lot of me wasn't sure it would be right: why would I want to give up on this - someone who was prepared to take that chance on me? Perhaps it wasn't perfect, but what did I want from a relationship? Nothing was ever perfect, and it was stupid to expect that or even look for it. I should just be grateful I had someone who wanted me. That was a huge bonus. The rest, I could work on.

'The next station is Shipley. Shipley is the next station.'

Deep down I knew that I would stay with her, and my thoughts were circling that uncomfortable truth like an animal caught in a trap. Was it sensible? Was I selling myself short? I wanted to get up and run.

It's not right. It's not--

But what wasn't it, exactly? What I'd been promised in fairytales?

The train rattled out of Shipley and bore down on the edge of the city and I knew, as we approached the final station, that I was going to continue to see Rachel even though I didn't want to. And then, as we slowed, I decided the opposite. We were going to break up. And that was how it went: a circling of decision, with my mind changing and shifting with each clack of the tracks. As we came to a halt it ticked back and forth increasingly slowly. Split up. Stay together.

Split up.

Stay together.

'The train terminates at this stop.'

Everybody started to get up, to get their things together. The carriage was full of the sound of bags scraping off the luggage racks; the aisle, with bodies stretching and shifting. The politely tense commotion of a journey coming to its end. It was almost a competition, and I always avoided it.

Split up.

I stayed sitting down while everyone around me rummaged and shuffled, side-stepped and squeezed out in between people who would quite clearly love to kill everyone in their way.

But not Rachel. She was just sitting there. She'd woken up, but she still looked sleepy as she gave me a bleary-eyed smile. I got the impression that right now the borderline between the train and her bed was a little blurry, and suddenly there was something quite sweet about that. I smiled back.

'Hey,' she said.

'Hey.'

And then - without warning - she did what I'd wanted her to do all along: she rested her head on my shoulder and her loosely curled hand on my thigh. All around us, people were fighting to get off, and it was at this point that she'd finally decided to touch me, lean on me. She wasn't getting up and pressing me to move into the throng, but doing the exact opposite and keeping me seated.

Maybe another day she would have got up. But that day it hadn't even entered her head; she'd just leaned against me because she wanted to.

Stay together.

So we sat like that for a bit. I put my hand on hers and gave it a squeeze. When the aisle was half-empty, Rachel turned her hand round and squeezed mine in return, and then she started to gather herself upright.

'Come on, then.'

'Yeah,' I said.

That was how it all started with Rachel. Not when I met her (that had been in a bar, where she'd been both startlingly and refreshingly indifferent to everyone, including me when I started speaking to her) but when I made the decision that the relationship was worth sticking with. Not because she lit up my life or because I was inspired by her, and not because it was perfect. But simply because ... she wanted me. And she clearly had something about her that was worth a lot. It felt like it should be enough to work with.

And as the months passed, I realised with some relief that it had been the right choice. Everything relaxed. We both let down those everyday guards that we hadn't been aware we'd had, and we accepted our mutual baggage: kicked it around a bit, got an idea of the shape and heft. Within a year, I couldn't imagine a life without her, and I know that she felt the same because even now, four months after we'd split up, she was finding it difficult.

The problem was the different feelings inside me at the time that led me to make that choice. I was telling myself that I needed to accept what I had, when I should have been appreciating the plain truth that there was nothing better. There are always problems.

Nothing is perfect; every relationship requires effort and compromise.

By not understanding that, I was setting myself up for a fall when someone came along who seemed to fulfil an ideal that only existed in my own head.

It's the same as a wound. Unless you get the bullet out, the skin might heal over the metal but the bullet's always there. You get these people sometimes: they live with shrapnel close to their spine or in their head, and there's always the danger that something might shift slightly and then suddenly everything's in jeopardy. My self-doubt was a little like that. I should have got rid of it somehow, and then perhaps everything would have been fine. I would have known that what I had with Rachel was as good as it gets, rather than having the dumb idea that it was just as good as it gets for me. But I didn't. And so when Lucy came along she shifted me, moved me, and everything that was sealed away inside began to rip.

About twenty minutes later, I was considering ordering another drink - weighing the caffeine jolt against the time and irritation necessary to obtain it - when Rachel walked in through the door and made the decision for me.

I gave her an awkward smile, looked away quickly, and then stood up and made my way over to the counter simply to give my body something to do.

'Another cappuccino.'

She joined me.

'Make it two,' she said. 'Hi.'

'Hi.'

In preparation for the meeting, she was wearing war clothes: things I hadn't seen before, very obviously bought in the time since I'd left. A smart black coat, down to her thighs. A dark blue crop top. Short black skirt. Boots. I'd never seen her wearing anything like it. Change and experimentation are good, of course - but there are subtle gestures that reveal quiet confidence, and then there are gestures so dripping with overt meaning that they flip over and become the opposite. This seemed in danger of being one of those.

'You look nice,' I said.

'Thanks.'

I didn't know exactly what she meant by her response, but that was nothing new: everything we'd said to each other since the split had been subject to intense coding, both real and imagined.

Conversations could suddenly veer off on dangerous tangents that neither of us had seen coming. Thanks, I know. Thanks for noticing. Thanks a lot.

I took my seat and she sat down opposite me.

'I didn't know you liked cappuccino,' I said, when the waiter finally brought our coffees.

She shook a packet of sugar, tore it and poured a hiss of it into her drink. It rested on the surface, and then began to sink into the foam.

'There's a lot about me you don't know.'

'Probably.'

She stirred the coffee and then took a sip.

'Thanks for taking time out from your busy schedule,' she said. 'I appreciate it.'

'No problem.'

'I want to talk about things.'

'What things?'

'The house, I suppose. Us.'

And then her resolve went - just like that. That one word kicked the legs out from under her, and her face crumpled like tissue.

Without thinking, I reached out to touch her arm.

'Don't.' She almost flinched away. 'Don't fucking touch me, please.'

'Okay.' I drew back. 'I'm sorry.'

'You should be.'

She took a handkerchief from her bag and blew her nose. Then she swallowed back all the questions and accusations that were swarming to come out and returned to the script.

'I want the rest of your things out.'

'Okay.'

'I need you to get rid of them. Everywhere I look I see you. It's driving me insane.'

'Okay. I understand.'

'No you don't. You have no idea.'

The rest of the coffee shop receded from my consciousness faded out to white as I concentrated on her. My skin was crawling at being the focus of so much awful emotion.

I'd been back to the house once since I'd left, when I was sure that she wouldn't be there. I'd needed a couple of disks that I'd forgotten the first time. Walking into the kitchen, I'd been shocked - I literally stopped in my tracks. Nothing was clean. There were empty packets everywhere. Empty bottles. The front room was a real mess: papers all over the floor, plates and old cups resting in piles and short towers, more bottles and glasses. The air had been grey and the house had seemed unwell, as though it was dying of some wasting disease. I'd wanted to do something to clean it up, but knew that there was nowhere to start and no point anyway. I got the disks and left, and I went home and cried for hours.

The hatred in her voice disappeared slightly.

'I love you so much.'

I just sat there and looked at the table. That was the way it had to be: just put my head down and get through it. One word in front of another.

'I just want you to love me,' she said quietly, 'and I don't understand why you don't.'

I touched the lip of my mug.

'That's all.' Her voice had reduced itself to a pained, embarrassed whisper. 'I'm sorry. I didn't want to be like this. I just love you.'

I closed my eyes.

'Rachel - '

'I know. I know.'

'I wish there was something I could say.'

'There is. You're just not going to.'

So I let her compose herself instead. After a moment, she said, 'I just don't understand.'

'I know.'

'But anyway. That's life, isn't it.' She shook herself a little, suddenly under control again. She'd always been good at that. 'I've said that I want your stuff out.'

'Yes.'