by Mosby, Steve
‘Things are really that serious. And before you say it, I would have talked to you about it, but there’s nothing much to tell.’
‘What’s the problem?’
‘We’ve just grown apart, I suppose.’ There was more to it than that, of course, but not that I wanted to talk about. ‘Honestly, either we’ll work it out or we won’t. Right now, I don’t know if we can.’
She looked a bit awkward. ‘Well … you sort of have to, don’t you?’
‘Because of the baby?’ I gave a hollow laugh. ‘Try telling Rachel that. You know how much of an asshole I can be, and you don’t have to live with me.’
Laura grimaced at the thought. ‘Yuck.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Pearson arrived with the printout of the report from Buxton. Laura held out a hand for it.
‘I’ll take that. Thanks, Alison.’
‘No problem.’
As Pearson retreated, I reached out for the sheet, but Laura slapped my hand.
‘Get out of here.’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’ I was about to protest again, but she didn’t give me a chance. ‘I’ll handle this for now. Like we both said, it’s probably nothing at all—not connected, at least. So I’m just going to make contact, get more info. Maybe arrange to attend the PM tomorrow. The sight of a corpse will help cleanse my mind of the thought of living with you.’
I said nothing. Eventually, she looked up.
‘Seriously, Hicks. Get the fuck out of here.’
She stared at me, not blinking, until I stood up.
‘Thanks, Laura.’
‘I was best man at your wedding. You do remember that, don’t you?’
I nodded. It hadn’t been because I had no male friends who could have performed the role, but simply because I’d asked Laura. Aside from Rachel, she was the person I was closest to in the world. I’d stood at the front of the hall with the two people I exasperated more than anyone else.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘So I won’t forgive you if you fuck this up. Go. Go save your marriage.’
I nodded and left.
Go save your marriage.
I wished it could be anything like as easy as that.
Twenty-One
‘HOW HAS THE LAST week been?’ Barbara said.
Barbara was our marriage counsellor, a softly spoken, gently overweight woman in her fifties. Every Wednesday we attended an hour-long session in her office in The Croft therapy centre. It was a flat, sprawling building housing a number of practitioners. In addition to basic counselling, the centre offered services like homeopathy, acupuncture and fucking Reiki, all of which had underwhelmed me from the start.
I wanted to show willing, and I wanted to save my marriage, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that we’d now spent close to a hundred pounds in order to tell a stranger all the things we should have been able to say to each other, and none of the things we needed to.
Which was my fault, I knew.
Rachel and I sat either side of a coffee table, facing Barbara. Out of the corner of my eye, I could tell Rachel was slumped in her seat, arms folded, reluctant. Something about the atmosphere in the office made it difficult to look at her directly, as though there was a curtain hanging in the air between us.
‘Andy?’ Barbara said. ‘Do you want to start?’
No, I didn’t want to start. How has the last week been? Obviously she meant in our relationship, but a few other answers suggested themselves far more readily.
Another part of the problem.
I said, ‘Not so much.’
‘Rachel then?’
Rachel shrugged. ‘I suppose.’
Despite my own response, my heart bit slightly at that, because, as with the shrug in the kitchen, it was as though she’d already given up. I didn’t want that to be true. But there was nothing I could do to change it. That’s the main problem with trying to solve your problems by talking: you have to want to, and you have to be able to.
‘It’s not been a great week,’ Rachel said. ‘I suppose it’s not been helped by Andy’s work, which has been very busy.’ She half turned to me. ‘Hasn’t it?’
‘I’ve been out more than I’d like. I’ve not had much choice.’
Rachel turned back to Barbara. ‘Yes, and I do know it’s not his fault. What he’s doing is important. I suppose that’s what I have to accept. That it’s more important to him than our marriage.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘It feels like it is. And you’ve been busy in the past without it feeling like that. Perhaps things are just different now. Perhaps I just feel it differently.’
Barbara said, ‘Because of the baby?’
‘Yes.’ Rachel’s hand moved over her stomach. ‘And it hurts because I know it’s selfish, but I can’t help it. Does that make sense?’
Barbara looked at me. ‘Andy?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Would you like me to leave my job?’
Rachel sighed. ‘Oh, don’t be—’
‘No, in theory. Would that help?’
The sigh expanded through her, as though my question was a new exchange in some exhausting battle, designed to wear her down. But it didn’t seem like the most ridiculous suggestion to me. A part of me knew it wouldn’t solve anything, but—a sudden, bright realisation—it would be something. A gesture I could make that, no matter how problematic, was actually far easier than untangling the threads of what was really bothering me. Far easier than sharing them.
‘It wouldn’t do any good if you weren’t happy,’ Rachel said. ‘I don’t want you resenting me more than it feels like you already do.’
‘I don’t resent you.’
‘What you do is a part of who you are, a part of the man I fell in love with. I don’t want to change that. I want that man back again. I want things to be like they used to be, when we were happy. It doesn’t seem like so long ago in some ways. But then, in others …’
She started to cry. Barbara skilfully slipped a tissue from a box on the table beside her and passed it across, but Rachel shook her head and composed herself.
‘I want that too,’ I said. ‘We used to be so happy. I want that back.’
‘But maybe things are different now. Maybe we’re not two people who should be together any more. Despite how good things used to be. Because they’re not like that now, are they?’
I blinked. None of this was new to me, of course, but still—it stung. Rachel was normally so reserved and controlled that it was unsettling to hear her so emotional, so fierce about everything. Worse, actually, than the indifference, because she sounded so … resolved.
Already resolved to being on her own.
‘I don’t want us to not be together,’ I said. ‘I still love you.’
‘And I love you. But that’s not the point, is it? I love my friends. And lately, it feels like that’s all we are. We’re not a couple. You don’t talk. You just don’t talk any more. And if it’s over, if it’s not going to work, then I think we both need to accept that sooner rather than later.’
I shook my head. Didn’t say anything.
After a moment, Barbara leaned forwards.
‘Well, that’s what we’re here to find out, isn’t it? Did you bring your lists with you?’
Rachel nodded. ‘I did.’
She plucked it out of her purse: a folded sheet of A4. The list of the things we’d loved about the other person in the initial flush of romance, when we’d first got together. The list of what we loved about each other now.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my own piece of notepaper.
Rachel blinked. ‘You did it?’
‘Yes. Of course.’
She looked at me a little longer, then down at her sheet of paper, and then to Barbara.
‘Shall I start?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Strong,’ she said. ‘Dependable. Funny. Quiet but not shy. Good-looking. Sexy. Relax
ed. At ease with himself.’
As she went on, I forced myself not to say anything. Rachel wasn’t speaking to me anyway; she was speaking to Barbara. That was the idea: for us to use her like some kind of totem pole, allowing the other to overhear.
‘Determined. Rational. Logical. Athletic.’
In her tone of voice, I heard all the things that were lost. Over the last few months, such a counterweight had been added to our relationship that the good things no longer rested down heavily enough to maintain balance, never mind tip the scales in their favour.
‘Humble. Self-deprecating. Loving. Caring.’ Rachel looked up. ‘That’s the end.’
‘Well.’ Barbara seemed pleased by that. ‘And what about your “now” list?’
‘Strong. Still athletic, good-looking. Still sexy.’ She didn’t blush; Rachel never blushed. ‘But then … well, he’s still quiet, but it’s not the same. Before it was like he didn’t speak unless he had something to say, and now it’s like there’s something he wants to say and won’t. He doesn’t talk to me any more. He doesn’t seem relaxed or at ease with himself either. And I don’t know why.’
This time, when Barbara offered her the tissue, she took it.
I sat motionless.
It’s like there’s something he wants to say and won’t.
‘Andy,’ Barbara said. ‘I’d like you to read your lists. Is that okay?’
I nodded.
‘Okay.’
I met Rachel ten years ago, when I was a twenty-five-year-old grunt-pool officer. She was two years younger and doing a PhD in microbiology.
I met her online, out of necessity. Grunt-pool work mostly involves door-to-door work, research and dogsbodying, and the kind of people you meet are not the sort you generally either want or are allowed to date. Police work, in general, is very insular; cops quite often end up dating cops. But that wasn’t something I wanted.
So: what made me fall for Rachel?
Beautiful.
She only had one photo on her profile: a head-and-shoulders shot. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, and she had a bit of a smirk on her lips. She was attractive without being conventionally stunning, but didn’t seem like she gave much of a shit about the matter one way or the other, and I liked that a lot.
Intelligent.
Obviously we exchanged a few emails in advance of meeting up, and she did her best to explain the subject of her PhD to me. I’m not as stupid as I look, but I understood about one word out of every ten. I couldn’t even pronounce some of them. She kept apologising for it sounding so dry. But she didn’t need to, because, as incomprehensible as most of it was, her passion for the subject still came across clearly, and I liked that a lot too.
Confident.
The other thing I liked before we met in person was that she didn’t get hung up on the cop thing. She was politely interested, but certainly didn’t go gaga over it. Some cops lap up that kind of attention, but not me. And I found it appealing that Rachel wasn’t immediately asking for war stories or telling me how interesting the job must be. In fact, I got the impression it would take a lot more than a uniform to impress her. That’s a good thing.
Our first date was … interesting.
It was a bit of a haphazard arrangement: a rushed meeting. She was organising a postgrad meet-up night in the basement of the university union and said she could get me in past security. She was already out there when I arrived, smoking and chatting with the guards as though she was friends with them. I smoked back then too, so lit one up and introduced myself.
She was smaller than I’d expected, wearing a top low-cut at the back that revealed a stretch of fairly ripped muscles, the kind a climber has. She also wore glasses in real life, but beyond that she looked and came across exactly as she had in her profile and emails.
As we went inside, she said, ‘You’re taller than I expected.’
‘Six two, as advertised.’
‘Yeah, but that site has a few trade-descriptions issues.’ She signed her name on the guest sheet against mine. The guy manning the table peeled off a sticker and she slapped it hard on my chest. ‘A lot of those profiles don’t exactly match reality.’
‘Mine is all true.’
‘Good start, then, Andy.’
I followed her downstairs. ‘Have you met a lot of people online then?’
‘Enough that I was about to give up.’
‘I guess it must be difficult for women on there.’
She shrugged without turning around.
‘Difficult anywhere. What about you?’
‘A few. None that have ever really gone anywhere.’
‘Must be just as difficult for you to meet people in your line of work.’ She threw a smile over her shoulder. ‘The right sort of people, I mean.’
‘Yeah. You can say that again.’
Downstairs, we entered an L-shaped bar full of shadowy people. It wasn’t an ideal scenario. What wasn’t pitch black was illuminated with green neon, and the sound system was pumping so loud it was strictly mouth-to-ear in conversation terms. Even harder, it turned out Rachel was responsible for the gathering, so she kept having to flit off and talk to groups of people, making sure they were okay, circulating. So for most of the next two hours, I was basically propping up the bar: just another person there she knew who she’d talk to every so often—apologising every time she did.
Caring.
Considerate.
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’
‘It’s okay.’ I sipped from my bottle of Corona. ‘We sorted this on the fly. I knew I wouldn’t have your full and undivided attention.’
‘At least you know what you’re letting yourself in for.’
In truth, I didn’t mind watching her circulate. I was quietly noting the groups of people, and there wasn’t a single one she left out or didn’t touch on at some point. It was like a military operation. She was very organised, very in control. Rachel has always been ultra-efficient, and this was the first time I saw it in action. Despite not being the centre of her attention, I liked it a lot. I’ve never really minded being on the periphery, especially when I’m on the periphery of someone very interesting.
Organised.
Efficient.
About ten o’clock, the bar began to empty: groups of people disappearing, leaving the coloured strobe lights increasingly tracking bare patches of stone floor, as though searching for something. In between saying goodbye to people, she dashed over and touched my arm.
‘You got to run off?’
I checked my watch. I was on early shift in the morning, but I hadn’t drunk so much that getting up was going to be a big deal.
I shrugged. ‘Not really.’
‘I’ve got to head to the lab; I’ve got an experiment running. Fancy prolonging this hideous torture a little longer?’
‘It’s not torture,’ I said. ‘But yeah, sure.’
It was cold outside by that time, and we walked side by side, slightly hunched in our coats, misty-breathed and chatting about some of the other people who’d been there—a lot of foreign students, she explained, which was why she’d felt compelled to make sure everyone was feeling comfortable.
‘And I figured you were comfortable enough,’ she said.
‘You figured right.’
Intuition.
Kindness.
Her department was a ten-minute walk across campus: a faceless building lined with implacable walkways and wide, heavy red doors. Rachel had a large collection of keys; and she worked through them as we went through various security doors, each one closing with a heavy thud and a click behind us. At this hour, the place was deserted; the run-down corridors were all but interchangeable, and the doors leading off were distinguished from each other only by tiny steel plaques.
The lab itself reminded me of school science classes: rows of benches divided into stations. A lot of them were covered with equipment—microscopes and tissue boxes full of dishes and pipettes—but Rachel’s was
predictably pristine and polished. She collected a sheaf of papers from the neat pile at the back, then opened one of the cupboards above, revealing further carefully arranged rows of material.
‘Follow me,’ she said.
She led me through to a back room, where one wall was taken up by an enormous bulk of metal and glass. Inside, a circular rack of sealed beakers was spinning around astonishingly quickly.
Rachel checked the display and frowned.
‘Not done.’
‘Problem?’ I said.
‘I wanted to get it done, but never mind. It’s just mixing my samples for me, and somebody else will probably want it first thing.’
She put the papers down and pulled the top off a biro with her teeth, then started making a few notes, glancing occasionally at the display on the machine.
Then she topped the pen again.
‘Okay. That’s that, then. Sorry again, by the way. This is what it means to date a geek.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’m just concentrating on not knocking over a Petri dish or anything.’
She looked at me, suddenly all science-serious.
‘You know what will happen if you do?’
‘No. Tell me.’
‘The apocalypse.’
Serious but funny.
‘Shit,’ I said. ‘Well, you know, I was hoping more for “you’ll develop superpowers, Andy”.’
‘Useful in your line of work. But no. A deadly strain would be released. We’d probably have to quarantine ourselves in here for a while.’
‘Really?’
I knew she was kidding, but suddenly I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I was aware of her body and how close it was, and the way she was looking at me. The slight, playful smile on her lips.
‘We’d be locked in,’ she said.
Sexy.
Forward.
Rachel glanced down to where an empty pipette was resting on a desk. She reached down and knocked it on to the floor.
‘Whoops.’
‘And now?’
I turned the piece of paper over, although there was no point; I hadn’t written anything on the other side, because I didn’t need to.
‘All the same,’ I said.
It made me feel sad. Nothing had changed. It wasn’t about her, the things I couldn’t say. I loved her more than ever, even as I was losing her, and there was nothing I could do about it.
