Perfect scrambled eggs

I've said I'll make scrambled eggs for our breakfast, I've no idea why.

I didn't know you could cook, says Clare and to be honest, nor did I until this moment.

I've been having problems with my memory, lately. The sense that I'm living other lives at the same time.

Have you done this before asks Clare and she looks dubiously at me as I whisk the eggs. Of course I have I say feeling sure that I have,` I must have done, otherwise how else am I doing this now? Clare is too beautiful for words, so I never tell her how beautiful she is, this is a position that makes sense to me but has never made sense to her.

I don’t want to find out what would happen if I said it, is what.

I have read many books and seen many films where a beautiful woman has a loose strand of hair which her lover, or the person who will become her lover, tenderly brushes back from her face. Clare has a loose strand of hair and I step over to her and brush it back, and she looks at me with faint puzzlement saying it’s not like me. I return to my whisking. I enjoy watching the eggs become homogenous, watching the strands of white and yellow whirl together. I’m aware that Clare’s watching me and it feels like this is some sort of achievement, like I have somehow won something. She is too beautiful for words.

Toast pops from the toaster, it is the perfect golden shade. I slide butter into the pan, gently melting it so that it doesn't burn, I tip the eggs into the pan, slowly and gently, like I’ve done it before. I haven’t done it before. But clearly I have, many times, as the eggs are perfect. I keep the heat low, I draw them in from the sides of the pan, nothing sticks, nothing burns, they have a gentle wobble as I tip them onto the plate. I twist pepper onto them like it’s something I always do. The toast is perfect, Clare is perfect. Something’s not right.

The next morning she asks me to make them again and and I lie there looking at the ceiling and know, for certain, that I have never made scrambled eggs before in my life, and that I have no idea how to, I genuinely wouldn’t know where to start. I look at the ceiling and mourn the man that she thinks I am, and I mourn us, as I know now that whatever this was is over. There was a fragile bubble, a moment in time where I was someone who could do this sort of thing, but that moment is past.

It is a curious sensation. I pity Clare. I pity the woman I adore. I don’t have pity left over to spare for myself, obviously, this is all my fault. Well, part of me, anyway. I think back to yesterday, how it felt to cook for her, the sense of accomplishment, and I know for a fact that I’m incapable of doing it again. I can't remember what I did. There is then, a choice of about three strategies. I can try, fail, and attempt to be charming about it, but she’ll see my failure, and see through it at once and know me for what I am, a hopeless fraud, this much is certain. I don't think I could stand her contempt. I can explain that I can’t do it any more, make an excuse, a hurt wrist, maybe, no chance of whisking. But then maybe she’ll offer to whisk.

Or I could just wait until she goes to the bathroom, leave, and never come back or think about her ever again. I have managed to forget so much down the years, so many times, that this seems by far to be the simplest option.

I wonder how many relationships end this way, more than you’d imagine, I bet.