Don't Close Your Eyes

by Holly Seddon

  It’s two in the morning now and the old man has no business being out and about. And yet…just because he’s a bit muddled doesn’t mean the old man hadn’t heard and seen something. Could Robin’s determined visitor have tried a different, more troubling route?

  Robin put the light on and slid back under her bed.

  —

  She woke up later than usual this morning, the top of her head tender from the bang when she sat up in the night.

  Robin felt foggy and slow. She shuffled her way to the window, fingered the fabric to one side. There was nothing to suggest there’d been anyone trying to break in—nothing broken, no big incriminating footprints painted in neon on any of the walls. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she didn’t see anything anyway. Maybe Mr. Peacock was just one mad old man, seeing things in the witching hour. She tried to believe that.

  Over the way, she can see the young woman raining little kisses on the sleeping lump of baby splayed on her chest. She can see the new tenant standing in his patio doorway, open just wide enough for his body. He’s wearing a hoodie and joggers—it must be Saturday—and thick socks. In one hand, he has a big mug of something steaming; in the other, a cigarette. Robin still misses smoking. Smoking and playing music: they went hand in hand.

  She watches for a moment and then, just as the cravings for a cigarette get too deep, she flicks her eyes up to the Magpie flat.

  “Good morning, Mr. Magpie.”

  The little boy is there. He’s sitting at the table eating a boiled egg and toast. His father sits next to him, no food, just a cup of something. He cradles his drink and watches the little boy as he eats.

  Mr. Magpie takes the kid’s plate away when he’s finished, then picks the boy up from his chair and carries him out of the room, even though he’s quite big now. One hand cups the back of his head, and the combined Magpie shape dips out of view and returns in the little bedroom. The boy sits at the table and starts to make something out of LEGOs. Again, his father just watches. After a few minutes, Mr. Magpie sits heavily on the bed, watching still and wiping his eyes on his dressing gown.

  They both look up suddenly. Mr. Magpie takes his phone out of his pocket and looks at it, puts it away again. He ruffles the kid’s hair as he leaves the room, and moments later he and Mrs. Magpie are in the kitchen again.

  Robin had been about to go and make a cup of tea, check the locks and start the day’s belated steps. Now she goes nowhere, dares not close her eyes.

  The Magpies stand at awkward angles, the woman leaning away, the man pointing at her and gesticulating. He steps toward her quickly, looks like he’s shouting. Mrs. Magpie slaps him across the face and runs from the room. He runs after her. Robin strains to see, but they’re not in view; instead, she realizes that the little boy has climbed onto his bed and is curled up with his hands over his ears. What the hell is he hearing?

  Enough is enough.

  Before she can talk herself out of it, Robin searches online for the local police-station number and dials.

  “I hope you can help,” she says as a voice answers. “I’m worried about a woman and child who live near me.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  SARAH|1994

  “Fancy making me some breakfast?” Drew said when he trudged into the kitchen this morning. “Angela’s on strike.”

  “Passionate” is the word Mum always uses to describe their relationship. I’d say “volatile.”

  When I handed over the toast and eggs, Drew snatched the plate and ate so fast the yolk burst. I’d only ever seen him eat with restaurant manners, but as he leaned in to kiss me on the cheek—“Thank you, angel”—a strong sour smell hit the back of my throat and I realized he must have been drinking the night before. That maybe he was still drunk.

  Mum waited for him to leave, blazed into the kitchen a smear of bright Lycra and makeup. “He gone?” she asked, knowing the answer.

  “Yes,” I said, loading the breakfast things into the dishwasher.

  “Did you make him breakfast?” she asked, and I knew that “yes” was the wrong answer.

  “No,” I said, concentrating on the plates I was stacking in and the cutlery I was rinsing in bunches.

  “Don’t lie for him, Sarah.”

  I do lie for him. It’s just easier. It nips things in the bud. And the thing is, Mum wouldn’t actually want me to tell the truth.

  “What time did you come in last night?” she’ll ask him over breakfast. Choosing to make the question communal when she could have asked him in their shared bed first thing.

  “Just before eleven,” he’ll say, sipping his coffee and holding her eye like a poker player. “I slept in the spare room so I wouldn’t wake you.”

  “Liar,” she’ll say, standing up without eating her breakfast, yet again.

  “He did,” I’ll say breezily. “I heard him.”

  Afterward, when she’s gone to the gym with the answer she wanted, not the answer she suspected, he’ll squeeze my knee. “My angel, you got me out of a fix. I went for a few drinks with the guys from my department, but you know what your mum’s like. I owe you one.”

  I’ve been saving up the I-owe-yous over the months, tending to them, counting them, until I decide it’s been long enough.

  He’s home from work now, sitting in the den watching a recorded game of American football. His tie is off and there’s a heavy tumbler of whiskey in his hand.

  “Drew?” I say, as gently as I can. He pats the couch next to him and I slide onto it, tucking my knees under me and—at his suggestion—leaning onto him awkwardly.

  “I have something to ask.” As I say it, I study my hands, my long fingers and neatly clipped nails. I’d put Mum’s varnish on them once, but Drew hated it.

  “Anything, angel,” he murmurs, his eyes and mind on the game.

  “It’s just…” I deliberately falter, to get his attention. “I miss my sister,” I say, “and I want to show her my new life here.” He doesn’t look around but sits up a little straighter, listening. “You’ve given us such a brilliant life,” I add, trying to get some warmth going before I take things further. “I want to show it off.”

  “Hmn,” he says, taking a thick sip of his liquor. “I suppose it’s been a while since you saw her. But do you think she’d want to come here?”

  “Who wouldn’t?”

  I’m not used to him asking questions he wants answers to—normally he just talks into my silence—but he seems to like this.

  “And I’m sure she’d come if Callum came.” He likes this less. It’s something I’ve never understood and never dared ask. If I ever have kids when I’m older—and I hope I do—I’ll never let anything or anyone keep them away from me. But for some reason, Drew and Callum don’t see eye to eye. Callum says Drew was cruel to him when he was little, but I never saw it, and Callum is incredibly sensitive. I’ve heard Drew refer to him as a “Nancy” before.

  “Let me talk to your mum, see what she says, okay?”

  “Thank you, Drew,” I say, knowing my time is up. I kiss his cheek and leave him to it.

  ROBIN|1994

  Robin had swiped a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 from the shop in the next village a few hours earlier. She’d wedged it between her belly and her waistband and walked carefully out. She and Callum sat on the swings in the playground and took furtive swigs as the light faded. They talked about a boy at school that Robin liked. “Well, I like him when he’s by himself, but he’s a dick when he’s with his friends.”

  “Most people are,” Callum said, in such a sage voice that they’d both folded into hysterical laughter.

  “Who do you like?” Robin asked, still chuckling a bit.

  “No one,” Callum said cautiously.

  They swung side by side in silence, until Callum said, “You know I like boys too, right?”

  She’d pumped her legs to go higher and lied. “Yeah, of course.”

  Robin bit her lip as she swung. She could not let Callum see her disappo
intment. Not that he fancied boys—she didn’t like him like that—but disappointment that she hadn’t realized. She’d even thought about fixing him up with a few girls in her class. She hadn’t gone through with it, because she didn’t want to be left out if he got a girlfriend, and because there was simply no one good enough.

  But, okay, he was gay. Her brother was gay. This was unexpected. Gay people on the telly were flamboyant and camp, but Callum was neither. Gay people liked disco music and Europop, didn’t they? But Callum liked Manic Street Preachers, Alice in Chains and Nine Inch Nails. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of rock and its various subgenres. He could play guitar like the devil.

  All Robin understood in that moment, as she pumped her legs as hard as she could, was that she’d have to pretend to understand a lot more than she really did. The questions she was desperate to ask were stuck in her throat. Robin decided that it was enough that he’d told her.

  They’d swung until they got sick, then lay on the musky evening grass drinking the dregs from the bottle and talking in tones that suggested important discussions were taking place, when, in reality, they were talking nonsense.

  When they got home, lurching from side to side and giggling, they were asked to come into the living room.

  “Shit,” they whispered to each other.

  Hilary and Jack chose to ignore the obvious inebriation of their underage children and asked them to sit down.

  “Your mum rang,” Jack said.

  “So?” snorted Robin, a little too indignantly.

  “She wants you to fly out to visit.”

  Robin said nothing, glanced at Callum out of the side of her eye. He looked nervous.

  “And your dad would like to see you too, Cal,” Hilary added, avoiding his eyes. He said nothing. “You’d be with Robin,” Hilary added.

  “And Sarah would be there,” Jack said.

  Robin sat back heavily on the sofa, let her eyelids slide slowly down and tried to swallow away the queasiness and the taste of sour orange.

  “My dad wants to see me?” Callum said, as Hilary stood up to go back out into the kitchen for no real reason. “Why?”

  “What do you mean?” Hilary looked nervous.

  “You know what I mean.”

  The alcohol in his system seemed to be stirring him up; even Robin felt rattled by it. He stared at his mum until she looked away.

  “You don’t have to go, Cal,” she said.

  “Good! Why the hell would I? I put up with him for eleven years, and now you want to send me over there, just like you did with Sarah?”

  Hilary shook her head. “No, that’s not it at all. I didn’t want you to feel left out, so that’s why I suggested—”

  “So he didn’t even want to see me.” The sides of Callum’s mouth twitched and his eyebrows furrowed the way they do when he’s working on homework.

  “Well, he—”

  “Forget it.” The whole house shook with the force of Callum’s long legs thundering up the stairs and slamming his door.

  The next day at breakfast, he apologized to his mum, avoiding Robin’s eye.

  “I’ll go to Atlanta,” he said grimly. “But only to keep an eye on Robin and check that Sarah’s okay.”

  “I don’t need you to babysit me,” Robin said, trying to sound outraged despite being relieved.

  “Are you sure?” Hilary searched his face, but he drained the last of his tea and left for the bus without waiting for Robin.

  —

  A few weeks later, they were strapped into plane seats, buckled tight and nervous. Robin had never flown before, and Callum hadn’t flown since his last family holiday with his dad, years earlier. No happy memories.

  She reached for his hand as the wings creaked and widened in preparation for takeoff, and the chassis wobbled up and down as the big beast gained speed. Once the nose tipped up and there was no going back, they sank into their seats and stared through the window in awe as the ground fell away.

  They’d filled a bag with magazines at Heathrow, another with boiled sweets and toffees.

  “When does the film start?” Robin asked, looking all around to see the nearest TV screen.

  “Not yet. They’ll tell you when it’s coming on,” Callum said patiently.

  “When do they bring food?” Robin asked.

  “Soon! God!”

  The film eventually started, a heavily edited version of a romantic comedy that neither of them would normally have watched.

  “My headphones don’t work,” Robin said, banging them on the seat in front so that the man sitting in it looked through the crack.

  “Sorry,” Callum said to him. Robin rolled her eyes but said sorry too.

  As it approached Atlanta, the plane descended fast. A terrifying, clattering fall that Robin hadn’t been expecting. When the wheels touched down with a bump that turned from fear to reassurance, some of the smokers at the back clapped and Robin looked at Callum to see if she should too. He shook his head. “Don’t do that,” he said.

  They’d flown for over nine hours, were full of sugar and caffeine from the miniature cola tins and wild-eyed in the strip lighting of the airport.

  After heaving their suitcases off the baggage carousel, they carried them out into Arrivals and stood, looking for a familiar face.

  Suddenly Sarah ran at them.

  “Robin!” she yelled, but hugged both of them. It was an unexpected display and caught Robin off guard.

  “Hey,” Robin said.

  Sarah had stepped back, red-faced. “How did you like flying?” she asked.

  “My headphones were broken,” Robin said. “But it was fun,” she added, because Sarah looked crestfallen.

  “Where are they?” Callum asked.

  “Your dad’s at home but Mum’s over there.” Sarah pointed to a woman nervously holding a railing. She had short golden hair, rather than the long platinum perm she’d left with, and she wore an expensive-looking blazer over white jeans. She was pencil thin.

  “Why’s she dressed like Princess Diana?” Robin asked.

  “What are you all laughing about?” Angela said as she came closer.

  “Nothing,” Sarah said.

  They’d started to walk in the direction of the exit when their mother grabbed Robin and hugged her so quickly and tightly that Robin swung like a rag doll before slackening and eventually hugging her mother back. They stayed like that for a long moment, Angela stroking her daughter’s hair and Callum and Sarah shuffling their feet.

  For the last hug they’d ever give each other, it was a good one.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  SARAH|PRESENT DAY

  In my bedroom at Cornell Lodge, I have a map of Chorlton with the roads marked off as I’ve visited them. Every pointless pen line had chipped at my faith in the plan. I need a new approach—this is taking too long.

  Early this morning I decided I had nothing to lose by trying the Spice Lounge that Robin—perhaps—gave such a scathing review. Maybe she gave them another chance?

  At the library, I’d printed off a picture of Robin from her record-company website.

  In the picture, her hair’s the way she’s worn it for as long as I can remember. Cropped short, black bouncy curls sticking every which way. Even in a still shot, her eyes burn with that same foot-stamping rage that she’s always had, her eyebrows knitted as she looks at the camera, daring it to capture her refusal to flirt with the lens, which I know the record company always wanted her to do. “I’m the fucking guitarist, not a go-go dancer,” she’d said at Dad’s funeral, when she’d had a couple of drinks and had been asked eager questions by second cousins.

  I was fuming at her. Angry at her for turning up late, angrier still for turning up and being her. Being the black diamond that everyone stares at, listens to, talks about. How dare she? I’d thought. How dare she be thriving when I’m barely surviving? How dare she have got away? How dare she have everything she’s ever wanted, just by ricocheting her way out of our lives? We
spoke without really saying anything. She asked me questions about my life that only served as contrasts to hers. “Oh you’ve been working with Hilary and Dad?”

  “We can’t all be rock stars,” I’d said, my jokey tone a lie.

  “What will you do now though, now the business will close?” she’d asked.

  “I’d like to have a family,” I’d said, the truth in lieu of a ready lie. She’d nodded, blushing. No doubt embarrassed for me and my pedestrian desires. Then she’d turned to another second cousin to tell him more stories about life on the road.

  In my blocky photo printout, her lips curl in a practiced sneer. If the Spice Lounge has messed up another order, they’ve probably been treated to this look.

  The Spice Lounge is a few minutes’ walk from the pretty triangle green, where I try not to look at the mothers pushing Bugaboos while they stare intently into their iPhone screens. I never looked away from Violet when I was with her. I want to call across to them, beg them to cherish these moments.

  It’s half past eleven in the morning. I hadn’t thought it through, but it’s too early and the door sign says CLOSED. I can see a young guy inside, folding napkins into swans at an empty table, and the door to the kitchen swings open and closed as people come and go. The swan boy looks at me, tilts his head in confusion. My first instinct is to shuffle off in embarrassment, but I hold my nerve and try a smile. He folds one more swan slowly, squirms under my continued eye contact and begrudgingly walks toward the door. When he unlocks it and pulls it open, the hip-hop playing over the speakers inside rushes out and takes me by surprise, so the words get stuck in my throat.

  “We’re not open yet,” he says gently as I stand there, mute. “We open at noon,” he adds. “If you’re that hungry.”

  “I, um…” I stare at his eyes, worrying about how much time is passing without me explaining myself. “I’m looking for someone.”