Work Text:
It’s the bottle that makes him panic this time.
Robert has no idea how long he’s been stood in the kitchen, when two condiment containers crash out of his hands and he staggers backwards, raising his arms for shield.
He assumes the position in a millisecond.
His teeth are stuck together and twitching for a reveal, gut forming steel.
A nauseating rage.
When he sobers up from the reflex against a non-existing threat, a cynical cackle drops out of his mouth halfway before it turns into a lump, a bastard of a boulder impossible to shift.
He stares at the bottle of vintage wine with faint stripes of dust on its sides.
Robert had hidden it into a random cupboard, as if he couldn’t stop himself from plopping off its cork and guzzling the contents, soon as the next inevitable crisis would hit his internal doorway.
Snivelling into a glass with stained joggers draped over his hips, back lodged into a tilt from a self-pity hunch, curled up on a couch that’s had so much life grow around it during the time gap he can’t thread closed.
That wasn’t the reason he shoved the bottle between a paint-stained rolled up extension cord, wallpaper samples, and a pair of wellies too small for two inhabitants and too big for the third.
He was just tucking a treat away, putting off showing he can still indulge in something no-one else might be tickled by.
The good kind of selfish as the less aware would say.
Robert waits for another strangled cackle but it doesn’t come.
His head falls sideways and he clocks the lines of cayenne and cinnamon spillage on the countertop, the shades reminding him about pictures he saw of sand dunes in the Kalahari.
Then he takes in the rest of his surroundings.
There’s no blood on the floor or fingerprints around his neck.
Was he about to cook or drink?
Robert takes a few aimless steps, thinks about the wellies in that cupboard and wonders how they can be too small for Vic.
Her feet are tiny.
His eyes go to the foyer and land on orange pump heels he’s never seen her wear, gathering dust like the wellies do.
The size of those shoes break a dry sob out of him.
He failed to protect tiny feet.
Hers, and the ones growing into their own wellies somewhere in Bristol.
Or was it Brighton?
Things skate and slide over the bumps of his grey matter and can’t seem to root.
Robert stops the shaky fingers pushing at his temples.
It doesn’t matter.
He knows he failed to protect the feet thrown over a desk in a portacabin too.
Soon as his mind sets around the last image, he forces himself to move away from the shoe rack and fetch the phone.
When one number goes unanswered, he dials another.
Someone he doesn’t know picks up.
It's nothing new; he’s forgotten the right digits and called a stranger.
The voice telling him that sounds coarse and deep, the kind that undoubtedly belongs to a hard-lived face, years that can’t be stashed behind extension cords.
Robert prefers it that way, he’s sick of cutting people open to count the rings.
He hears himself shuffle through the apologies for disturbing in a cruder voice than his own really is, polite but fed up, short and prickly.
It’s the voice of post-prison gentlemen, guys who hold a door for ladies and never use the f word.
A code of honour and a pathway to approval, a tool to tell themselves there’s a bloke inside the shell.
Hanging up, he swims through silence and launches into another failure by unsuccessfully shutting out a face he’s divorcing.
Conversations that lost all meaning, only leaving the sick and manipulative bends of will on display.
The threats are gone, but the face still floats around.
His own falsely built concern over a fabricated tragedy.
I’ve made my peace with dying.
Robert hated that sentence.
I’m grateful for the time we’ve got left.
Robert hated that sentence too.
He wanted to tell the bloke to go need someone else for a change.
He’d grown so sick of hearing about self-acceptance, the clarity, the jokes about who gets to unseal lager barrels at a wake.
The dying man philosophy is so self-indulgent.
Though it makes sense because dying is selfish, but it’s intrusively selfish when it’s their own fault.
Dropping words like love in the midst of a disaster sprouting from lies used to be Robert’s game, too.
It makes his skin crawl.
He despises the old Robert more than he does Kev because he can’t divorce himself, and despising someone who no longer exists is easier.
Like he did with Lawrence, Chrissie, Jack, Rebecca.
Katie.
He’ll learn to despise Kev.
Maybe Kev will end up somewhere with the old Robert when life slips away from the grip of stubborn teeth.
Another flinch brings the now back into his head.
Apparently he’s dialled the first number again without noticing; Aaron’s voice suddenly takes over the line. “Hiya. Soz, was out on a job. What’s up?”
Robert focuses on staring at the bottle because it’s not stronger than him. “Do you need a pair of wellies?”
Aaron groans. “Is this a complicated joke I won’t get?”
“I’m just calling to ask if you need wellies.”
“No you’re not, Robert, don’t be weird.”
“So you don’t want me to be myself, cheers for that.”
Aaron’s chuckle is genuine. “How’s your weird self doing? Hopefully you’re not calling to cancel our plans, I won’t be subjecting meself to a trendy B&B alone.”
A nice way of saying you’re not getting out of this, moron.
It makes Robert feel irritated, comforted.
Stronger.
Three things no-one else has ever made him feel at the same time.
Nor is likely to ever accomplish. “I was just” -
He pauses. “Are you eating in my ear right now?”
Aaron’s chewing fades. “Were just having a cheeky kebab, m done now.”
Robert watches the film in his head, sees hands wiping hastily on a coat hem and feet stretching over a desk.
Gravel and dirt in the folds of boot soles.
A chipped porcelain cup and a vest thrown to the side.
Robert feels uneasy about being in there and the lighting in that block of industrial eyesore is brutal, but Aaron’s presence makes it bearable.
It’s like he doesn’t bother with the interiors because he knows it’s ultimately all about him being decent and himself.
Robert rarely asks if he’s lying about being okay.
Aaron has a habit of telling him if he’s not.
And he makes it impossible for Robert to lie about himself.
It’s the good kind of terrifying change.
Paper rustles and something clonks, probably a bin.
“So, how would you rank the spouses?” Aaron asks.
Robert feels the phone twitch in his hand. “What?”
“How would you rank us? Just don’t bang on about wardrobe, we all know Chrissie will win. In your opinion, mind.”
A door closes. “Was she wearing something snazzy when the car crashed? All them birds always say you need to put on nice knickers in case you crash.”
Now Robert has to laugh. “You’re so flippin’ morbid.”
“Please, you love it.”
The beep of a reversing vehicle overrides Aaron’s smug chuckle.
A different tone follows. “Seriously though, d’ya ever think about her?”
Robert is still stumbling into the topic. “I try not to,” he says, “but I did while I was banged up.”
It’s odd how it only feels real when he says it to Aaron or Vic.
That his time inside doesn’t exist if he’s not talking to someone whose heart he broke by going through those gates.
And then he thought he broke one by walking out, but that particular heart wasn’t worthy. Physically, already on its way out.
Robert wants to joke about it but his deep-frozen sarcasm has yet to thaw.
“Why did you ask?” he says instead.
He can hear Aaron shrug. “Would prefer it if you can call a truce with all the crap that went on. Don’t think we can ever make peace with it but a truce is a possibility.”
He scoffs. “Does my head in when people say they’ve made their peace with something. It’s a big flamin’ lie.”
For a brief, core-twisting second, Robert feels like throwing things.
He doesn’t understand why Aaron gets to say things he can’t, put into words what Robert doesn’t have the guts for.
To point out he’s better equipped for survival.
A part of him wants to say something hurtful and hang up.
The rest of him won’t live if he does.
Stepping outside, Robert sighs into the night.
His breath is thick as smoke as it climbs up the bricks.
“Are you okay to be on your own?” Aaron asks, “I can finish up early here.”
Robert fights off the chill from the lack of a coat and shakes his head at the pinhole stars.
“’No need. Just been thinking about…that time a lot tonight.”
A rustle indicates Aaron switched to his other ear. “Kinda reckon you shouldn’t think about it but kinda don’t, you know?”
“Yeah. I know.”
His words stop there and thoughts turn slippery.
Maybe it wasn’t intentional from either of them.
But that would make it instinctual.
Worse and better.
For a better instead of the worse he got.
The face floats around him again, flashes like a sign with a cheesy affirmation slogan written in toxic neon.
Live, laugh, gaslight.
Robert thinks about the times he watched Kev’s sleeping frame, the anxious thrashing and the slack face, checking he’s breathing and not making those hollow, laborious sounds.
The breath that told lies about what’s going on underneath.
Aaron makes a gust on the line and Robert knows he’s blowing into his cup of tea.
Probably with two sugars because he seems tired. “It’s like my new counsellor said the other day, long as the truth pisses us off enough to make us want for change, we’re not totally beyond repair.”
Robert perks up. “You got that new counsellor? How did I not know about it?”
“I’m a Dingle, we’re not allowed to brag about bettering ourselves,” Aaron deadpans, “but I’ll tell you all about it later because apparently it’s what you and I do now.”
The new counsellor has obviously been discussed already.
Aaron’s just being nice by not guilt-tripping him about the forgetfulness.
Robert has a warmth sneaking around him as the proverbial overcoat he forgot too.
“Are you sure about me coming with you?” he checks, “you know people will gossip about that too.”
Aaron pfft’s. “They’ll be wagging their chins anyway, now’s not the time to get invested in other people’s opinions. Besides, it’s not like we’re going to a lodge with one of us packing a gun.”
Robert’s hand twitches again.“Why are you bringing that up?”
“To remind you this isn’t the first time you’ve been pushed to your limits,” Aaron says with strange clarity and stern, “but this time you know what you don’t want to do with that. What you’re not going to do.”
His voice softens. “And that I’m still here. No matter what.”
“Back at ya.”
Aaron huffs. “You better. I paid a flippin’ fortune for your Christmas pressie.”
“You bought pressies already?” Robert exclaims, “I’m sorry, who is this?”
“The bloke who’s enough of a mug to buy you pressies knowing you’ll take the mick instead of just saying thanks.”
Robert chuckles weakly. “Thanks wouldn’t begin to cover it.”
“No need to cover owt,” Aaron says and lets out a tiny burp, “besides, you haven’t seen the pressie yet.”
Robert joins in on the laughter.
Even though he knows Aaron laughs at him, not with him.
But he likes it. “I think I’ll go for a walk before we take off, if that’s okay,” he says then, “you could come with me.”
“Sounds good.”
The line falls silent.
Robert looks at the spilled spices and for a moment, considers leaving them there.
Maybe because he wants to leave a trace of life for Vic, but it’s just as clumsy as his attempts to initiate dialogue with her as they’ve always been.
It’s tricky to reach for her without worrying her.
Robert doesn’t check his rucksack before he goes out.
He doesn’t know what he needs, but it isn’t in the contents of a bag he borrowed years ago from someone he doesn’t remember.
Nippy air sets around him, comforting and vivid.
The anxiety fizzles out.
No-one he sees is a person he'd hold doors or spare expletives for.
They're not worthy of the post-prison gentleman.
Robert feels courageous enough to allow his thoughts proceed.
The word thug spins in his head, his own history along with it.
The newly created and destroyed tail end in particular.
Villager voices and their tsks like sprinklers of judgement flapping in his ears.
He’s got a type.
No offence, but you know the similarities.
He’s heard all the insinuations.
But Kev was nothing like Aaron.
Not while being outside nor when he was inside.
If Robert learned anything in prison, it’s that no two inmates are alike, yet they try to be the same.
The trick is to clock how they model their behaviour, and eventually accept that no-one is anyone inside; everyone models their behaviour after an idea, a person who was never there.
The only thing left is to obtain the gift of disappearing into a crowd, just as it is anywhere else.
Now he wants to get away from crowds to sort out the one in his head.
It’s positively a revolution he’s got going on.
He finds Aaron behind the village hall, the place where they frequently meet up these days.
Aaron gives him a quick, gentle hug, because he knows Robert doesn’t have the capacity for lingering.
Then he puts on his beanie and digs out a pair of gloves.
The static wool tickles when he squeezes Robert’s bare hand. “Put your mittens on, mate.”
It throws Robert into a memory of an oversized pair of mittens he got from Vic as a gag gift once, how he slipped Aaron’s hand against his own inside the massive clump of fluffy white material.
It was a night a lot like this one, clear and exhausting, cautiously hopeful in its bleeding pessimism.
They hadn’t been together back then either.
He’d only joined their hands to keep Aaron warm, because it was during a time he sat indoors in puffer jackets but roamed outside without one, hands always cold and arms hidden.
It was just protection and a way to make Aaron laugh. At him, not with him, of course.
Yet it was accidentally the most romantic thing they’d done so far.
Maybe it still is.
Following the yellow sift of a streetlamp’s stream of light putting Aaron’s face in focus, he sees eyes glance up and back down at his own hand cupped between Aaron’s palms.
Aaron must be thinking about the same thing.
Something better shielding from the worse.
Robert pulls his hand away slowly with one last squeeze, slips on the gloves from his pocket and registers he’s not forgotten his coat this time.
Aaron’s eyes are watching him calmly, promising nothing and giving everything.
Robert walks a bit behind him, knowing their feet are taking them towards a bridge.
The direction is another one, but that’s where all roads lead.
Peace is a four-letter word, but truce is a possibility.