Troubled Blood
That stinks.
It does, she texted back.
Then she looked up at her mother, Stephen and Jenny, forcing herself to smile.
“D’you want to tell me about it?” Robin asked Stephen. “Or do I have to ask?”
“No,” he said hurriedly, “it wasn’t much—we were just pushing Annabel up to the Square and back, and we saw them coming toward us. Him and that—”
“Sarah,” supplied Robin. She could just imagine them hand in hand, enjoying the wintry morning, the picturesque town, sleepy in the frost and early sunshine.
“Yeah,” said Stephen. “He looked like he wanted to double back when he saw us, but he didn’t. Said, ‘Congratulations in order, I see.’”
Robin could hear Matthew saying it.
“And that was it, really,” said Stephen.
“I’d’ve liked to have kicked him in the balls,” said Jenny suddenly. “Smug bastard.”
But Linda’s eyes were on Robin’s phone.
“Who are you texting back and forth on Boxing Day?” she asked.
“I’ve just told you,” said Robin. “Morris. He works for the agency.”
She knew exactly what impression she was giving Linda, but she had her pride. Perhaps there was no shame in being single, but the pity of her family, the thought of Matthew and Sarah walking through Masham, everyone’s suspicion of her and Strike, and the fact that there was nothing whatsoever to tell about her and Strike, except that he thought he’d better start taking over some of her leads because she’d got no results: all made her want to clutch some kind of fig leaf to her threadbare dignity. Smarmy and overfamiliar as he might be, Morris was today, perhaps, more to be pitied than censured, and was offering himself up to save Robin’s face.
She saw her mother and brother exchange looks and had the empty satisfaction of knowing that they were already haring after her false scent. Miserable, she opened the fridge and took out half a bottle of carefully re-corked champagne left over from Christmas Day.
“What are you doing?” asked Linda.
“Making myself a mimosa,” said Robin. “Still Christmas, isn’t it?”
One more night and she’d be back on the train to London. Almost as though she had heard Robin’s antisocial thought, a cry of anguish issued through the baby monitor just behind her, making Robin jump, and what she was starting to think of as the baby circus relocated from the kitchen to the sitting room, Linda bringing a glass of water for Jenny to drink while breastfeeding and turning on the TV for her, while Stephen ran upstairs to fetch Annabel.
Drink, Robin decided, was the answer. If you splashed in enough orange juice, nobody had to know you were finishing off a bottle of champagne single-handedly, and those feelings of misery, anger and inadequacy that were writhing in the pit of your stomach could be satisfactorily numbed. Mimosas carried her through to lunchtime, when everyone had a glass of red, although Jenny drank “just a mouthful” because of Annabel, and ignored Robin’s suggestion that alcoholic breast milk might help her sleep. Morris was still texting, mostly stupid Christmas knock-knock jokes and updates on his day, and Robin was replying in the same mindless manner that she sometimes continued eating crisps, with a trace of self-loathing.
My mother’s just arrived. Send sherry and excuses not to talk to her WI group about policework.
What’s your mother’s name? Robin texted back. She was definitely a little bit drunk.
Fanny, said Morris.
Robin was unsure whether to laugh or not, or, indeed, whether it was funny.
“Robs, d’you want to play Pictionary?” asked Jonathan.
“What?” she said.
She was sitting on an uncomfortable hard-backed chair in the corner of the sitting room. The baby circus occupied at least half the room. The Wizard of Oz was on the television but nobody was really watching.
“Pictionary,” repeated Jonathan, holding up the box. “Oh, yeah, and Robs, could I come and stay with you for a weekend in February?”
I’m only kidding, texted Morris. Frances.
“What?” Robin said again, under the impression somebody had asked her something.
“Morris is obviously a very interesting man,” said Linda archly, and everyone looked around at Robin, who merely said,
“Pictionary, yes, fine.”
Got to play Pictionary, she texted Morris.
Draw a dick, came back the instant answer.
Robin set down her phone again. The drink was wearing off now, leaving in its wake a headache that throbbed behind her right temple. Luckily, Martin arrived at that moment with a tray full of coffees and a bottle of Baileys.
Jonathan won Pictionary. Baby Annabel screamed some more. A cold supper was laid out on the kitchen table, to which neighbors had been invited to admire Annabel. By eight o’clock in the evening, Robin had taken paracetamol and started to drink black coffee to clear her head. She needed to pack. She also needed, somehow, to shut down her day-long conversation with Morris, who, she could tell, was now very drunk indeed.
Mohter gone home, complaining not seeing grandchioldren enough. What shall we talk about now? What are you wearing?
She ignored the text. Up in her bedroom, she packed her case, because she was catching an early train. Please, God, let Matthew and Sarah not be on it. She resprayed herself with her mother’s Christmas gift. Smelling it again, she decided that the only message it conveyed to bystanders was “I have washed.” Perhaps her mother had bought her this boring floral antiseptic out of a subconscious desire to wipe her daughter clean of the suggestion of adultery. There was certainly nothing of the seductress about it, and it would forever remind her of this lousy Christmas. Nevertheless, Robin packed it carefully among her socks, having no wish to hurt her mother’s feelings by leaving it behind.
By the time she returned downstairs, Morris had texted another five times.
I was joking.
Tell me u know I was joking.
Fukc have I offended u
Have I?
Answer me either way fuck’s sake
Slightly riled, and embarrassed now by her stupid, adolescent pretense to her family that she, like Matthew, had found another partner, she paused in the hall to text back,
I’m not offended. Got to go. Need an early night.
She entered the sitting room, where her family were all sitting, sleepy and overfed, watching the news. Robin moved a muslin cloth, half a pack of nappies and one of the Pictionary boards from the sofa, so she could sit down.
“Sorry, Robin,” said Jenny, yawning as she reached out for the baby things and put them by her feet.
Robin’s phone beeped yet again. Linda looked over at her. Robin ignored both her mother and the phone, because she was looking down at the Pictionary board where Martin had tried to draw “Icarus.” Nobody had guessed it. They’d thought Icarus was a bug hovering over a flower.
But something about the picture held Robin fixated. Again, her phone beeped. She looked at it.
Are you in bed?
Yes and so should you be, she texted back, her mind still on the Pictionary board. The flower that looked like a sun. The sun that looked like a flower.
Her phone beeped yet again. Exasperated, she looked at it.
Morris had sent her a picture of his erect dick. For a moment, and even while she felt appalled and repulsed, Robin continued to stare at it. Then, with a suddenness that made her father start awake in his chair, she got up and almost ran out of the room.
The kitchen wasn’t far enough. Nowhere would be far enough. Shaking with rage and shock, she wrenched open the back door and strode out into the icy garden, with the water in the birdbath she’d unfrozen with boiling water already milky hard in the moonlight. Without stopping to pause for thought, she called Morris’s number.
“Hey—”
“How fucking dare you —how fucking dare you send me that?”
“Fuck,” he said thickly, “I di’n—I thought—‘wish you were here’ or—”
“I said I was going to bloody bed!” Robin shouted. “I did not ask to see your fucking dick!”
She could see the neighbors’ heads bobbing behind their kitchen blinds. The Ellacotts were providing rich entertainment this Christmas, all right: first a new baby, then a shouting match about a penis.
“Oh shit,” gasped Morris. “Oh fuck… no… listen, I di’n’ mean—”
“Who the fuck does that?” shouted Robin. “What’s wrong with you?”
“No… shit… fuck… I’m s’rry… I thought… I’m so f’king sorry… Robin, don’t… oh Jesus…”
“I don’t want to see your dick!”