He says this as if it’s a sentence in Strangeways, with shower bumming, six a.m. exercise drills in the yard and smuggling coded messages to people on the outside. Won’t. Let. Me. Come. To. Pub …
I take a deep breath, and feel a hard, heavy weight beneath my ribcage, a pain that I could try to dissolve with wine. It has worked in the past.
‘I’m not sure this wedding is a good idea.’
It’s out. The nagging thought has bubbled up right through from subconscious to conscious and has continued onwards, leaving my mouth. I’m surprised I don’t want to take it back.
Rhys shrugs.
‘I said to do a flit abroad. You wanted to do it here.’
‘No, I mean I don’t think getting married at the moment is a good idea.’
‘Well, it’s going to look pretty fucking weird if we call it off.’
‘That’s not a good enough reason to go through with it.’
Give me a reason. Maybe I’m the one sending desperate messages in code. I realise that I’ve come to an understanding, woken up, and Rhys isn’t hearing the urgency. I’ve said the sort of thing we don’t say. Refusal to listen isn’t enough of a response.
He gives an extravagant sigh, one full of unarticulated exhaustion at the terrible trials of living with me.
‘Whatever. You’ve been spoiling for a fight ever since you got home.’
‘No I haven’t!’
‘And now you’re going to sulk to try to force me into agreeing to some DJ who’ll play rubbish for you and your divvy friends when you’re pissed. Fine. Book it, do it all your way, I can’t be bothered to argue.’
‘Divvy?’
Rhys takes a slug of wine, stands up.
‘I’m going to get on with dinner, then.’
‘Don’t you think the fact we can’t agree on this might be telling us something?’
He sits again, heavily.
‘Oh, Jesus, Rachel, don’t try to turn this into a drama, it’s been a long week. I haven’t got the energy for a tantrum.’
I’m tired, too, but not from five days of work. I’m tired of the effort of pretending. We’re about to spend thousands of pounds on the pretence, in front of all of the people who know us best, and the prospect’s making me horribly queasy.
The thing is, Rhys’s incomprehension is reasonable. His behaviour is business as usual. This is business as usual. It’s something in me that’s snapped. A piece of my machinery has finally worn out, the way a reliable appliance can keep running and running and then, one day, it doesn’t.
‘It’s not a good idea for us to get married, full stop,’ I say. ‘Because I’m not sure it’s even a good idea for us to be together. We’re not happy.’
Rhys looks slightly stunned. Then his face closes, a mask of defiance again.
‘You’re not happy?’
‘No, I’m not happy. Are you?’
Rhys squeezes his eyes shut, sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.
‘Not at this exact moment, funnily enough.’
‘In general?’ I persist.
‘What is happy, for the purposes of this argument? Prancing through meadows in a stoned haze and see-through blouse, picking daisies? Then no, I’m not. I love you and I thought you loved me enough to make an effort. But obviously not.’
‘There is a middle ground between stoner daisies and constant bickering.’
‘Grow up, Rachel.’
Rhys’s stock reaction to any of my doubts has always been this: a gruff ‘grow up’, ‘get over it’. Everyone else knows this is simply what relationships are and you have unrealistic expectations. I used to like his certainty. Now I’m not so sure.
‘It’s not enough,’ I say.
‘What are you saying? You want to move out?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
Neither do I, after all this time. It’s been quite an acceleration, from nought to splitting up in a few minutes. I’ve practically got hamster cheeks from the g-force. This could be why it’s taken us so long to get round to tying the knot. We knew it’d bring certain fuzzy things into sharper focus.
‘I’ll start looking for places to rent tomorrow.’
‘Is this all it’s worth, after thirteen years?’ he asks. ‘You won’t do what I want for the wedding – see ya, bye?’
‘It’s not really the wedding.’
‘Funny how these problems hit you now, when you’re not getting your own way. Don’t recall this … introspection when I was buying the ring.’
He has a point. Have I manufactured this row to give me a reason? Are my reasons good enough? I weaken. Perhaps I’m going to wake up tomorrow and think this was all a mistake. Perhaps this dark, apocalyptic mood of terrible clarity will clear up like the rain that’s still pelting down outside. Maybe we could go out for lunch tomorrow, scribble down the shared song choices on a napkin, start getting enthused again …
‘OK … if this is going to work, we have to change things. Stop getting at each other all the time. See a counsellor, or something.’
He can offer me next to nothing here, and I will stay. That’s how pathetic my resolve is.
Rhys frowns.
‘I’m not sitting there while you tell some speccy wonk at Relate about what a bastard I am to you. I’m not putting the wedding off. Either we do it, or forget it.’
‘I’m talking about our future, whether we have one, and all you care about is what people will think if we cancel the wedding?’
‘You’re not the only one who can give ultimatums.’
‘Is this a game?’
‘If you’re not sure after this long, you never will be. There’s nothing to talk about.’
‘Your choice,’ I say, shakily.
‘No, your choice,’ he spits. ‘As always. After all I’ve sacrificed for you …’
This sends me up into the air, the kind of anger where you levitate two feet off the ground as if you have rocket launchers on your heels.
‘You have not given anything up for me! You chose to move to Manchester! You act like I have this debt to you I can never repay and it’s bullshit! That band was going to split up anyway! Don’t blame me because you DIDN’T MAKE IT.’
‘You are such a selfish, spoilt brat,’ he bellows back, getting to his feet as well, because shouting from a seated position is never as effective. ‘You want what you want, and you never think about what other people have to give up to make it happen. You’re doing the same with this wedding. You’re the worst kind of selfish because you think you’re not. And as for the band, how fucking dare you say you know how things would’ve turned out. If I could go back and do things differently—’
‘Tell me about it!’ I scream.
We both stand there, breathing heavily, a two-person Mexican standoff with words as weapons.
‘Fine. Right,’ Rhys says, eventually. ‘I’m going back home for the weekend – I don’t want to stay here and take this shit. Start looking for somewhere else to live.’
I