010 A-slip-of-the-hand

The front door frowns as I approach, its post box mouth turned down in disappointment. Shame burns in my cheeks as I remember my hasty departure last night, tail between my legs.

I don't have a key. My knuckles graze the wood and I think can hear her footsteps in the hall. I bend down and prise open the letterbox, I push my hand through the inside flap and peer inside. Stale alcohol and burnt toast reaches my nostrils. My jacket hangs on the hat stand, the key in the right hand pocket, tantalising out of reach.

"It's me," I say softly. "Can I come in?" I think I see her, but the hall is dark. I straighten and my right knee clicks. Damp rain like sweat seeps into the back of my T-shirt. It remains shut. I knock again, my mouth pressed to the door.

"We need to talk, let me in so I can straighten this thing out¦ I love you." The words sound desperate; I don't want to sound desperate. I want to sound like I am in control, one of us needs to be.

I step back as she opens it, shading her eyes and pulling her dressing gown tight around her; tracks of eye make-up like tribal marks across her cheeks. She turns away from me and walks into the lounge. I follow, shutting the front door as our neighbour jogs past and waves, I lift my hand in a half salute.

The lounge is dim, the curtains dragged across the bay window, the air stale, unloved. The low table is awash with coffee, thick and sticky along the bevelled edge. My toe makes contact with a hard object, it rolls wobbling under the settee. She stands to the right of the table, the edge of her dressing gown soaking up the spill and stares at the TV.

"One small slip of the hand and thousands of years are gone, just like that," she says, in a gravely whisper of late nights and tears.

I follow her painful gaze. The screen is frozen, the picture difficult to make out around the flickers.

She continues, her eyes fixed on the jumping image. "Just think¦ If you meant to, if you really meant to, and gave it a good punch or a kick, millions of years could be destroyed in a moment."

She turns to look at me, her pupils seem to shiver. I nod, not sure where this is going. Her eyes are dry, her mouth a pencil line of repression. She returns her gaze to the television, her fingers worrying a little piece of stray cotton, a towelling loop unravelled. I stare at her knuckles.

"If you meant to kick what?" I ask. I leave out the word punch.

She points to the TV. "In Lechuguilla."

I stare hard at the frozen image. "Oh, you're talking about the Planet Earth series," I say, making out the white crystal chandeliers in the Lechuguilla cave.

"I am?" she says, running her hand through her long dark hair, revealing a high cheekbone.

I nod, eager to keep the lines of communication open. Just keep talking, then everything will be all right, like it always is afterwards, until¦ there won't be a next time, I will make sure of it.

"Someone at work was talking about it yesterday," I say, though I don't think she is listening. "How fragile the crystals are and how the Planet Earth film crew will be the last ones allowed into the caves for the next fifty years."

She has picked up the remote control and the image restarts. She steps backwards and perches on the settee her long limbs drape over the edges. I remain standing as cavers climb in and out of scary spaces. She rewinds it and the cavers are sucked backwards into the ballroom of white crystal.

"Look," she says, pressing pause again. "Look how close his hand is to that long thin crystal, one small lapse of concentration, one tiny shred of irritation and history could be erased, just like that." She stares at the hand on the screen; the fingers flicker as if drumming the air.

"Only he doesn't¦ slip I mean¦ every time I press play it is the same, he just doesn't."

She sighs and turns to look at me for the first time, her green eyes dark and troubled.

"I wish he would."
"What? Slip?" I say, trying to see beyond her desperate gaze.
"Yes." Her response loaded.
"Why?" I ask, wishing I wasn't.
"You know why," she says, getting up, revealing her over sized proportions. My Amazonian princess.
"A slip of the hand," she says, to no one in particular.
"Yes," I say, to the same no one.
"Will it slip again?" she asks, touching her cheek with long fingers that can span an octave and a half, the nails painstakingly chewed.

I wait for the tears, she does not oblige.

"No," I say. "No it won't, I promise."

She shrugs¦ and I am not sure what that means, this is not how it usually goes. She is distant, closed. I'm used to the tears, the regrets, the apologies, the sweet sensuality of making up.

"I wish we could press rewind," she says.
"Or fast forward," I say, warming to the theme, needing to keep talking.
"Why fast forward?" She just has to ask, like I knew she would.
"So all this happened a long time ago," I answer.
"Just a bit of history," she adds.
"Yes, yes exactly," I say, sensing a chink, a way back in ' a place to start.

"Except nothing is just a bit of history, is it?" she says, then sighs.

I shake my head in disagreement. "Of course it is, time creates distance and then it becomes forgotten. We just need time¦ to forget."

She pulls her dressing gown cord tighter around her waist, accentuating her broad shoulders. "What's done is done though, isn't it? Each action building upon the one before, creating an ugly pile of regret."

"Or a beautiful stalagmite," I say, tiring of this analogy - this skirting around the issue.

"Well you could just press stop," I spit.

She nods, picks up the remote, her fingers dancing over play.

"I need a pause," she says, smiling at the pun not at me, she can barely look at me, at my face.

"For how long?" I ask, my voice too loud inside my skull.

"I don't know," she replies, her shoulders drooping.

"I'm sorry, I am truly sorry." My throat constricts. "What do you want me to do?" My voice grinding against vocal cords, tight with tears.

This isn't how it goes, I don't want this. I want us, we are good together. I need her, I am nothing without my Amazonian princess. She makes me significant, she makes me matter.

"There is nothing you can do," she says, walking towards me her hands bunched at her sides.

"Please." I hear my voice rise. "Please can't we put this behind us; it was a slip of the hand, like you say. It was nothing, honestly, I won't let it happen again, I can change."

She smiles in that Princess Diana sort of way, her head tilted slightly down. And it reminds me of our wedding day, the innocence behind eyes that knew so much more. But we thought we could fix it, we thought our love would be strong enough to fix it, to make all the bad stuff go away. She reaches out; I try really hard not to flinch as she brushes the back of her hand across my cheek.

"You can't stop it though," she says. "It's not under your control, not really."

I reach up and grasp her hand as large as mine.

"I can, I can stop it, I'll just try harder."

I place her hand across my chest; my heart flutters in her palm.

"Oh baby," she whimpers, sliding her hand from mine.

"We need help," I say, talking fast. "That's all, some help, I'll find a counsellor, an anger management course¦ anything¦."

She is shaking her head. Please stop shaking your head, please¦. "I'll sort it out, let me¦" Keep talking¦ don't stop.

She interrupts. "What happens if it slips again, what happens if it does more than slip, what happens¦ if¦ it is meant?"

"I told you it won't happen again, that was the last time, I know it."

I wait, run out of words. But I mean it, I just need to love her more, like it was at the beginning, when this had happened to someone else, not us. It was never going to happen to us. She remains silent, standing still, a tower of fragile pieces - crystals in a cave. I want to embrace her, hold her close, kiss all the pain from her fingers, wrists, arms, shoulders¦ I have never been loved so much, so passionately, so viscerally, so jealously.

"No," she says, her words hard. "No, we can't keep doing this, one of us has to go¦ for a while at least." Our gaze locks and I glimpse us in the corner of her left eye ... she blinks, and we are gone - the tear sliding down her cheek.

"I'll go," I say. Please tell me to stay, please tell me it's ok, I need you.

"Where?" she says.

"Mum's. Where else?" I don't won't to go, I can't go¦

She nods. "It's for the best," she says, going back out into the hall. "I'm sorry," she adds, turning to face me as she reaches the front door.

"You don't have to be sorry," I say. "I know you didn't mean to."

"A slip of the hand," she says, leaning over and placing the lightest of kisses on my grazed and bruised cheek. "Except it wasn't, was it?"

I shake my head. "But I don't care, I deserved it, I always deserve it, I always disappoint you. I promise I'll try harder, I'll phone you every hour, you will always know where I am and who I am with ¦" She is shaking her head. "I'll stop seeing my mates, I'll only ever go out with you¦ I love you."

"I know," she says. "I thought I loved you. I thought I loved you so much that that was the reason. But I can't do, can I¦? I can't love you, otherwise..."

She looks down at her right hand, tracing her fingers across her red scuffed knuckles.

"I'm frightened I will slip again," she says, tears dripping off of her nose. "I am frightened I will do more than slip. Punch by punch, kick by kick I am destroying us, our history." She swipes the tears from her cheeks.

I imagine shards of crystals scattered around our feet, my chest aches, she comes up close, I back into the wall. She gathers me up squeezing me tight, my face pressed into her shoulder.

"You are frightened of me," she says, stepping back.

I shake my head, it turns into a nod.

"You know where I am," I manage, as she opens the front door. Her body is pressed against mine, triggering a pulsating headache of fearful exits, swollen lips, bruised ribs, broken dreams...

"I'll get help," she says, and picks up my jacket pushing it into my arms. Then she turns and walks steadily up the stairs, and I watch as her larger than life frame grows smaller, diminishing¦
until¦ she disappears.

Who am I without you? My Amazonian princess.

I walk out of the front door, into the grey tumbling world that feels too big and too cold. My cheek throbs as the rain splashes across the graze. I thought I could save her, I thought my love would be enough, but she consumed it and demanded more. I shake my head, raindrops dampening my shoulders, relief and guilt slip down my cheeks.

I'm sorry, I whisper. "I'm sorry I wasn't enough.