by Holly Seddon
“Do you know what you’re having?”
“It’s too soon, but I think it’s a boy.”
She’s been silent now for a few minutes.
“How long have you lived here?” I ask.
“A few years.”
I want to ask why. Why Manchester? Why Chorlton? Why this family home that is so at odds with Robin? But I just say, “It’s really nice.”
“Where are you staying?” she asks.
“A B&B in Sale. It’s about…Oh.” I smile at my stupidity. “I was about to tell you how far away Sale was, like you didn’t know.”
Robin smiles without looking up from her mug. Her chin is getting closer to the table—she looks like she’s about to fall asleep and it’s not even lunchtime.
“So,” I say, in as cheering and encouraging a way as I can manage a few hours after being reunited with my sister and being dragged headfirst into a suicide rescue. “How about you show me around your city? I’ve not really seen much of it and you can give me the local’s tour.”
Robin looks up. “Yeah, sure. Not today though, I’m so tired. Is that okay?”
“Of course.” I don’t have any interest in seeing Manchester. I just wanted to gel myself into her life, try to make plans to buy myself time to say what I need to say, do what I need to do.
“How long have you been here?” she asks.
“Oh, not long, a few days,” I say, trying to play down how hard I’d looked for her.
She frowns. “A few days?”
“Well, a bit longer than that.” She’s still looking at me, reading my face for specifics. “I mean, I got here a couple of weeks ago.”
“Just a couple?”
“Yeah, why?” She looks skeptical.
“Oh, no real reason. It’s just that someone’s been trying to get hold of me. Like, really trying. And for a moment I hoped it might have been you. It doesn’t matter.”
Knock knock. A quick rap from the front of the house makes her jump. It’s such a normal thing that I wait for Robin to say something, or to move, but she just stares wild-eyed at me.
She whispers: “I need to go upstairs.”
“But there’s someone at the door.”
“I need to get something under the table. Just stay sitting right there, okay?” She lowers herself down off the chair, crouches and shuffles under her kitchen table. I don’t know whether to laugh or what.
Knock knock.
“Just stay still,” she whispers.
“Who is it?” I ask, trying to understand if this is a clever joke I’m too tired to understand. “Is this who’s been trying to get hold of you?”
Knock knock knock. The sounds are getting louder.
“I don’t know,” she whispers hard. “Just hang on, just be quiet, can you?” She doesn’t seem annoyed or amused, more anxious than anything.
“Are you hiding from someone?” I ask. “Do you owe money?”
“No, it’s fine. Just, shh.”
This is ridiculous. This whole thing is ridiculous. I can’t help myself—I stand up sharply and go out to the hall.
Robin scrambles after me. “It’s not safe,” she says urgently, “not in your condition.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about but it’s her house, her rules. I tuck behind her and prod her gently as she moves toward the door.
“Come on,” I say, still trying to be rallying. “This is ludicrous. There are two of us and it’s broad daylight!”
She grinds to a halt as the bangs on the door step up tempo. Who is it?
I hold Robin’s hand from behind, guide it up to the lock. She’s shaking but takes over. She unbolts it and twists the Yale lock as I reach to swipe the chain open.
ROBIN|PRESENT DAY
“Oh my God,” Sarah gasps, and she climbs backward up the stairs, sits halfway up, breathing hard and holding her stomach.
Robin breathes in, draws herself up to her full five foot and shouts, “What the fuck are you doing at my house, Rez?”
He’s staring at her. His thin, graying hair in a snaky little ponytail, his dark eyes tracing every line of her face.
The front door shakes in Robin’s hand as she holds it to steady herself, breathing hard.
Rez is breathing hard too, as he continues to study her, holding his silence like a weapon. He’s taller than Robin remembered. She’d crunched him down to rodent-sized in her memory. He’d looked smaller than this the last time she’d seen him. Almost childlike. Not that she’d allowed herself anything approaching sympathy.
He doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t say anything. Seconds pass. Someone has to make a move.
“Shall I get Sam from the flats?” Sarah says from behind Robin’s head.
A bit more of the old Robin crackles to life. “Fuck that, Sarah, I don’t need a hero. Come on, then, Rez,” Robin says, pushing her breath into her words to force them out. “You’ve been trying to get this door open for weeks, and now you’re just staring at me.”
He looks down at his feet, sniffs hard and then—quick as a fox—he’s stepped forward and is looking Robin dead in the eye from point-blank range.
“I’ve waited so fucking long for this, Robin,” he says. Even in anger, his voice is softer than she remembered, more like Callum’s, but she stops that thought.
“Oh, yeah?” Robin says, her knuckles white and trembling.
“Yeah. A long time. I’ve had so much to say to you. I’ve gone over and over it in my head, but now that I’m here, looking at you, I can’t remember any of it.”
“Well, how about you fuck off, then, Rez. There’s nothing we can say to each other to make anything better. You know what you did. I know what I did. I hold my head up fucking high.”
A quick laugh shoots from Rez’s mouth. His breath is sour. Roll-up cigarettes and cheap fortified wine.
“You really think you’re holding your head up high? I’ve watched you. Watched your sad little life, Robin Marshall. The pint-sized warrior. The great rock star. The loyal sister. You’re a joke. Maybe that’s why I can’t find the words. It’s hard to be that angry with someone so pathetic.”
“Me, pathetic? You’re the one sending tons of poison-pen letters!”
“Tons of letters? Hardly. And that was years ago. I didn’t even know you’d got that letter, or the card. I just wanted you to remember what you did.”
Robin ignores this, carries on shouting. “You tried to break into my house! And before that you were scared off by an old man. And you couldn’t even push your way in an open door. So, yeah, the pint-sized warrior and all that shit, but this pint-sized warrior kept you out.
“And now you’re standing at my door after hunting me down—but for what, Rez? What are you even here for? You want to deliver some speech to me? Go ahead.” She fans her arm behind her. Not really meaning for him to come in. It’s a figure of speech, a common gesture, but he comes in anyway. Pushes past her, grabbing and nearly tossing the door closed as he goes.
Sarah stays sitting on the stairs, hand on her belly, tucking her knees up and making herself small. Rez pokes his head around the living room door, hesitates, then goes in and sits down on the smaller of the two sofas. Robin follows and sits on the larger sofa, in her dip. She hasn’t taken her eyes off Rez. Eyeing him like an unpredictable snake. Sarah eventually moves into the doorway of the lounge and watches Rez carefully.
“You cost me everything,” he says finally, looking at his hands in front of him.
Robin laughs. “You? You think you lost everything?”
He waits for her to finish, says it again. “You cost me everything. You lied about me. You lied about me, knowing that there was no chance of anyone believing my story. You lot thought you were the bloody royal family compared to me, but you didn’t know anything about me.”
“You think you were innocent? You really don’t think you deserved to pay?” Robin asks, eyebrows risen so high they disappear into a tangle of curls.
“I never said I w
as innocent. I did a lot of things wrong. There’s a hell of a lot I’d take back, before and since. But I didn’t do half the stuff you said I did, and you were dead wrong on one thing. I loved that boy.” He pauses and takes a breath.
“I loved him. And I’d not loved anyone like that before and I sure as hell haven’t since. And you made him into an angel. And what did that make me? The fucking devil, mate.”
Robin’s eyes fill with tears, but she wipes them angrily. “Don’t talk about him. You’ve not got that right.”
“Why? ’Cos you own the rights to Callum? I loved him too and he loved me. Everyone else looked at me the way you’re looking at me now, but not him. I wasn’t anything to write home about before, but I got by. I was young and desperate, so I nicked a few things, made some dodgy decisions. But I could have been okay. I could be all right now. I could be sitting there, like you two, nice house, bit of money. No chance of that with a record.”
Robin goes to speak, to argue, but he shakes his head and carries on.
“Did you know my mum died when I was sixteen and I had to drop out of school to look after my brothers? Did you know that? ’Course you fucking didn’t. I was always going to work with animals. That was my dream since I was a little kid. And instead I had to beg, borrow and steal to put food on the table. My cousins helped, got involved. We got through it. We lived, we ate. My brothers might not have flourished like you lot, but they were happy enough. And then Callum came into my world, my dirty little world, and he didn’t see it like that. He got it. He understood me. And I understood him. ’Cos I’d been alone too. And he was still alone.”
“He wasn’t alone. He had me,” Robin says fiercely, wiping away angry tears.
“He loved you so much, you stupid cow, but he couldn’t open up to you like he could with me, couldn’t rely on you. You were a little girl. You liked him when he liked what you liked. You liked him when he was fun. Do you remember telling him to tell his dad that he was gay? Do you? If you really understood what that man had put him through, you wouldn’t have sent him within a hundred miles.”
“And what about my sister? Just ’cos Callum loved you, did that give you the right to rob her of her baby? To kill something tiny and vulnerable?”
Sarah lowers her head, tears falling onto her top and catching on the bump.
“You’ve told that story so many times you actually believe it, don’t you?” Rez searches Robin’s face but she keeps her lips pursed, eyes on fire.
“She fell down the stairs, and you know she did. I didn’t push her. He didn’t push her. He thought he did, because he was off his head and believed everything you told him. You put his neck in that rope the second you told him that. And you know it. That’s why you’re holed up in here like this, licking your wounds and hissing at everyone like a cornered animal. What is it? Guilt finally got to you?”
“That’s not true,” Robin says quietly.
“She fell,” Rez says, keeping his eyes on Robin. “I told him over and over, all night, that it wasn’t his fault, but your word was gospel. He couldn’t cope. I went out to get some drinks, I didn’t know what else to do. By the time I came back it was too late.”
Robin is shaking her head. “No, no.”
“Yes, Robin, yes. He believed the best in you and the worst in himself. It was too much for him; he was too sensitive, too good. And yeah, if we hadn’t been there that night on the landing, none of it would have happened. I’ll take that guilt with me to my grave. But you stitched me up. You laid everything at my feet. When I was already on the floor from losing Cal. I couldn’t fight. No one would listen to me anyway—why would they?”
“No,” says Robin, softer this time, “that’s not what happened.”
“Then you all just went about your business. He was gone, and I was banged up. I hadn’t done half the stuff you said. And I don’t say this easily, but, like it or not, it was Callum’s idea to take that stuff. He wasn’t taking it to get at you lot or his mum. It was stuff his dad had bought her. It was to get back at him. But you lot were fine. You got fame and fortune, yeah? And you,”—he turns to point at Sarah, who shrinks away—“well, I know you had your problems, but looks like you’re all right now.”
Sarah just shakes her head, stays curled against the wall.
Robin’s breathing hard, staring intently but not saying a word. Rez’s story is not how she remembers it, not at all. To accept it would be to unravel spools of rope she can’t risk getting caught in. So she shakes her head dismissively, gets up as if she’s going to tell him to go. Rez stays where he is and she sits back down.
“But do you know who I used to hate most of all?”
Robin stays quiet.
“Your dad.”
“My dad didn’t do anything!” Robin blazes.
“Oh yes, he fucking did. You weren’t there in court every day. You did your bit and ran away. You didn’t hear what he said. About Callum, about me. And Callum’s mum stood by and watched. Just like she’d sat by and watched Drew tear lumps out of him when he was a little boy. Mute. Mute the whole time. In court. Before, after. And you all put me in that prison.”
He pauses, wipes his eyes and clears his throat. “Can I have a glass of water?”
“No,” says Robin.
“I’d never done time before. You can’t even imagine what it’s like in there. You think Drew Granger had a problem with homos? You try being a faggot at Her Majesty’s pleasure. I ended up in the infirmary more times than you’ve had hot dinners.”
“For someone scared of going to prison, trying to break in here so many times seems pretty fucking stupid,” Robin snaps.
He says nothing, shrugs his shoulders. “I wasn’t going to do anything.”
Robin laughs, but her eyes aren’t smiling. “Bullshit.”
“I really wasn’t. I just wanted to check I’d got the right house, the right person. Thought I could see if it was really you, that’s all. I would never have hurt you. I just wanted to have a chance to ask you why the hell you did the things you did.”
“Yeah, right,” Robin says.
“The more I knocked and you didn’t answer, the more I thought I might be wasting my time, that maybe she’d given me the wrong address.”
“She?” Robin looked at Sarah and back at Rez. “Who do you mean by ‘she’?”
“Callum’s mum.”
“Why did she give you the address?” Sarah says, her voice louder. “She only told me Manchester,” Sarah adds, “said she didn’t remember the rest. Why wouldn’t she tell me?”
Rez shrugs. “I dunno. I knew you were up here, Robin. I’d seen your band practicing. I said I wanted to write to you and clear the air. She gave it up straightaway—”
“Look,” Robin interrupts, “what do you want, Rez? Money? I don’t have as much as you think.”
“I don’t want your money. What good would money do me? I don’t give a shit about that. I work up here now, in the Apollo—happy coincidence, eh?
“I earn enough to keep me in puff and the odd curry; I don’t want much. When I needed money was when the boys were younger, but they’re all men now. They learned to stand on their own feet when I was inside. So, no, I don’t want your fucking money.”
“What do you want?” Sarah asks, her voice quiet again.
“I want to hear Robin admit what really happened. I want her to acknowledge that Callum wasn’t just a saint and I wasn’t just a sinner. I wasn’t expecting to see you, Sarah.” His voice softens. “But I really didn’t push you down the stairs. I’d never do that. My old man used to push my mum around. I’d never do that to a woman. I’d never do that to anyone.”
“I didn’t lie,” Robin says. “I mean, not really, it wasn’t…” She grinds to a halt and swallows hard. “Maybe I did unfairly load the dice, but wouldn’t you have done the same in my place?”
Rez sighs, opens his mouth to speak.
“But,” Robin interrupts, “you would have gone down for something event
ually, even without me. Your flat was full of shit. It’s not like I planted anything.”
“Yeah, maybe. But we’ll never know what might have happened. All I know is what did happen. Everyone who relied on me lost me. And I’d lost the one person I could rely on. Do you know what that’s like?”
“Yeah,” Robin says quietly. “I know what that’s like. But Sarah, the baby, I had to do it for them. They deserved some justice—”
“Robin, I never wanted you to go to the police,” Sarah interrupts. “And I love you for wanting to protect me and to get revenge—or whatever you want to call it—for me, but I didn’t want any of this.”
“You were too broken up by what had happened to know what you wanted,” Robin says, turning to look at her sister.
“You’ve got to stop making decisions like that for people, Robin. Callum didn’t want you to intervene between him and his dad, but you stirred things up in Atlanta. I didn’t want you to do any of this, not in my name. I’m sorry, I know you did what you thought was right, but Callum loved Rez, clearly, even I saw that, and I barely saw them together. He loved him so much, and I know he mentioned him in his note.”
“Sarah,” Robin says, eyes pleading with her sister.
“What do you mean, Sarah?” Rez says. “Robin, what’s she saying?”
“Nothing. You’ve made your point, I get it. I’m sorry, okay?” Robin says.
“What do you mean, Sarah?” Rez asks again.
“The note,” Sarah says. “Callum’s note. Didn’t you see it?”
“He left a note? That night?” Rez’s eyes are wide, and he looks between the two sisters in disbelief. “What did it say?”
Robin’s shoulders drop and she whispers, “Okay, wait there.”
Outside the dining room, she pauses. It’s been months since she opened this door, years since she touched the things in here. She turns the handle and forces herself inside. The brightness of the room surprises her, and she goes straight to the specific box she needs. It’s the one that says “filing cabinet” in someone else’s writing, the house packers loading and dumping things into boxes with no idea the damage they were dealing with.