Melanie has dressed in a getting-dumped outfit. She has rather cleverly turned up in something that is both sophisticated and yet suggestive, that is presentable and yet casual. She has arrived with the intention to show me that she's going to be fine whatever happens, that she doesn't need me in her life to be together, to be attractive and strong and attractive. There's also the tiny seed of hope that a decent bit of cleavage and those tight jeans that she knows I like might bring a stay of execution. (I know how this is making me sound; arrogant and self satisfied. Sure, that's the risk I'm running. But I know Mel better than you, so take my word for it, this is classic Mel).
The main thing that the outfit says is that she pretty much knows what I'm going to say because delivering the words 'We need to talk' in that dead, leaden tone as I have done twice now, once over the phone earlier and once at the start of this conversation, cannot really be interpreted any other way. If it was bad news - My Mum is dead, I have three terminal illnesses all at once, There is a chance our children will be ginger - that kind of bad news is usually preceded with an 'I have something to tell you,' or 'Listen love, there's some bad news,' but the 'We need to talk,' line in that unmistakable tone gets you pretty much half way through the conversation as it is. After that it’s just about not kicking the other person too solidly in the teeth.
But here's the thing: the other person makes you kick them solidly in the teeth all the same. A simple one liner along the theme of 'I don't think we want the same things' or 'I'm fucking sick of being a vegetarian love, I just want some raw red meat!' or 'The police have told me everything' might seem in your head like a snappy little exit line to be accepted with good grace, a peck on the cheek and perhaps 'I'll really miss the sex you beast' whispered in your ear before she ups and leaves forever without aggravating your guilt too much, but being dumped pushes the self-esteem self-destruct button in most people.
'Why?' she says after I've delivered the news. This strikes me as both a little predictable but at the same time, it is genius in its simplicity. Get out of that!
'Well, like I said...' I say back. To be fair, I had already said why. I had said this: 'I don't think we should go out any more. I don't think it’s working, and I don't think it’s been working for a while. Let's be honest love, things have changed a lot in the last few months. It’s not the same.' Not the line I'd cooked up on the tube since that ran out of my head and disappeared forever the moment it saw the look in her eyes. Or her cleavage. That might have had my resolve wobbling for a second. Either or.
'But what does that mean? Why isn't it working? What's changed?' she asks, employing the scatter gun approach. Which to answer first? Do I even bother trying? My God, why am I doing it to you now? Not nice is it?
'You still don't trust me.' It isn't delivered with the inflection of a question but there's no doubt that my options here are supposed to be purely binary. It's a Yes I Do or a No I Don't she is pitching for and whilst the former is the easy option the latter is a direct challenge. It's a stickier wicket than that though. See, if I say No I Don't, then I'm twisting the knife. And then somehow, it will begin to be my fault, because no matter what the reason for the lack of trust in the first place, it will be my shortcomings that have proved the undoing of us since I have been unable to overcome it and trust her again. See? I'm too frightened, too weak to trust.
I'm not about to walk into that trap now am I?
'Yes I do. It's not that.'
'Then surely we have something... the most important thing darling.' Shit. No I Don't was a decoy. I've walked right bang into Yes I Do precisely the way she wanted me to. I'm tripped up for a second here, not just because I'm stalled by the trap she caught me with, but by the fact that the chilling intensity that she invests the word 'something' and the word 'important' with has made the hairs on my neck stand up. Let me just clarify that I don't mean that in a good way. Try to picture your favourite terrible soap actor doing a sincere, meaningful and oh-so-sad break up scene and delivering that line and feel your skin creep too. With me?
Fuck. I wish I did more regular exercise, then I could run away faster.
'It's not enough Mel.' There we are. It takes a man to appreciate the value of a good forward defensive stroke. I can see from your delivery that you want me to play that one because you're looking to catch me out. But no, I'm going to kill it dead, drive it into the ground.
She still has the determined set to her jaw and hardened eyes that I mentioned earlier because this is Mel's Phase One approach to me dumping her and I can tell that before I can take my remorse and self loathing away with me and find one of the lads to sink a pint with, there are going to be several of these. Phase one is earnest and confused.
Over the next ninety minutes we move through all of them, drifting next into Phase Two: Are you sure about this? Maybe the problem is with you and your commitment issues. Phases Two and Three are interjected with another brief attempt to play the Trust card again which I deal with in precisely the same manner but this time throw in a sad head shake just to show her that she doesn't really get it at all does she? Phase Three, when it comes, is a remarkably sudden and vicious attack on me personally featuring various barbed remarks about several character flaws, some real, many imagined (honestly, there aren't that many) and a number of thinly veiled half accusations of my repeated and widespread infidelity (totally imagined). That I manage not to scream 'That's pretty fucking rich coming from YOU' is testament to my self control, my reluctance to take the bait and argue in a public place and the main point, which is that I really am over it.
We'll come to that, just hold on a second.
Phase Four is perhaps the toughest. We've had three tall latte's (naturally Mel ordered the extra hot soy latte and added sweetener; ugh) already so far and I rather pointedly ordered my third as a decaf and swatted away the Are-you-hungry question dismissively. I know a stalling tactic when I see one. The signs that we are winding up and the fact that my answers are becoming shorter both in length and tone cannot have been lost on her. Phase Four consists largely of pleading. For this she does not rely solely on beseeching words and a desperate, pleading tone of voice. Eyes and hands are deployed to bat, moisten, gaze, stroke, touch and clasp through an agonising twenty minutes. It would have been ten but my coffee was fucking scorching.
Goodbye is a compromise. I'm looking to Roadrunner it out of there and down the road in a meep-meep and cloud of dust. She is looking for a teary ten-minute farewell with speeches, handkerchiefs and much hugging. She knows by now that there is no chance that I'll waver but she's emotional and unlikely to let reason get in the way of her reasoning.
'So then,' she says as we step outside and turn to each other. We would probably be getting the same tube now but there's no chance on God's earth I'm putting myself through that so I have a pressing need to buy something obscure somewhere in the other direction all ready to roll out when she then says, 'what now?'
Tired and short of patience, a number of responses run through my head but I opt for the rather more diplomatic (and optimistic) 'I don't know babe. Time. Space. Give each other room, you know.' I've seen the suggestion of 'friendship' waiting to come off the bench next and I know that it would be a little bit of false hope that would be unfair on her and a huge excuse to convince herself that this can be salvaged if she just calls me in a week and tries to act matey which is unfair on me.
And then she does something that I don't think either of us expects and she kisses me softly on my unshaven cheek and walks silently away from me and doesn't look back.
This might be the first occasion, certainly in the last six months or so and possibly for the whole two years we were an item that she has demonstrated a capacity for quiet dignity and suddenly I am acutely aware that she's gone.
Chapter 4