They turn the radio up and work diligently. Every time Robin finds some torn-out music from a guitar magazine or some chords she’d jotted down on a scrap of paper, Callum slaps her hand away as she instinctively reaches for the worn neck of her guitar. “Later,” he laughs, and she groans but knows he’s right.
She barely sleeps that night, running through all the things to show her sister when she finally gets here. Robin’s been struggling a lot lately to sleep, thoughts of all the tomorrows and all the yesterdays clumping together and needing to be unpicked and sorted. Robin’s not a planner, she’s a doer, someone who lives in the moment and leaps off in tangents. But at night, her brain is so busy that she has to try to get some order in place. And there are so many questions too. Questions for Sarah, but also questions that maybe Robin should have asked a while ago. Questions for her dad, like, “How could you let Sarah go?” Questions for Callum, like, “Why aren’t you angry that your dad deserted you?” But in the morning, they get stuffed back into envelopes for other days.
Robin finally falls asleep in the early hours and wakes up to a cup of tea and an urgent shake of the shoulder from her dad.
“Wake up, sleepyhead, we need to go in a minute.”
She reaches to her floor to grope around for her Metallica T-shirt but comes up with nothing but a few strands of fluff. Ugh, why did she have to tidy her room so perfectly? She doesn’t know where anything is now.
They buckle up in the Rover: Callum and Robin in the back, Jack in the front, Radio 2 on the radio despite the groans from the cheap seats. Hilary stays at home to get the roast dinner cooking. They’d decided that was the most English meal they could make for the prodigal daughter.
When Sarah half-runs into the Arrivals hall, she’s pulling an expensive wheeled suitcase. Her hair is lighter and longer than when she left, her skin tanned. She’s grown taller, and there’s something about the way she moves that reminds Robin of a woman. Of their mother. Robin stays next to her dad until she can stand it no longer and then sprints at her sister, bowling into her and spinning her round.
Eventually embarrassment takes over and they grind to a halt.
“Hey,” Robin says.
“Hi.” Sarah smiles. Robin’s relieved that her sister doesn’t sound American. The girls walk back to Jack and Callum, and Sarah hugs her dad while he strokes her hair and rubs her arms. “Hello, girl,” he says, and his eyes are rimmed red, wet.
Sarah seems surprised to see Callum. This is a surprise in itself to Robin, who is so used to being a twosome with her stepbrother now that it didn’t occur to her not to bring him.
“Good to see you,” Callum says.
“And you,” Sarah says, and the formality suddenly makes them laugh.
“Come on, then,” Jack says quickly, “it costs a bloody packet to park here.”
On the drive home, they all talk over one another. It flows freer than by phone, and despite the tiredness from the flight, Sarah is as excited as Robin.
“How’s your mum?” Jack asks when they pull into Birch End, though both Robin and Sarah guess that he’s wanted to ask all along.
“She’s started referring to herself as a businesswoman,” Sarah mutters. They all pause for a moment and then burst out laughing.
“What?” Robin splutters. “Does she even have a job?”
“She’s selling Mary Kay cosmetics and she’s bought herself a trouser suit.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Robin says, ignoring the tut from her dad.
“Yep.” Sarah laughs. “Jesus Christ indeed.” Sarah never swears.
At least some things haven’t changed, thinks Robin, smiling to herself.
—
The night before Sarah is due to leave, suitcase stuffed with sweets to take to her new school friends (and there are so many, she hasn’t stopped bragging about them), Robin can’t find her sister. She isn’t in the bedroom or the bath. No one is in the kitchen, and only Hilary and Jack are watching TV.
“Where’s Sarah?” Robin asks impatiently.
“Oh”—they look at each other—“she’s gone to the pavilion with Callum. Didn’t they tell you?”
Robin marches out of the house, across the small lawn and out of their cul-de-sac. As she walks, hands in tight fists, she runs through all the reasons that it’s wholly unacceptable for them to do this to her. Sneaking around behind her back, leaving her out. Sarah’s here for only a week and she’s already her old bossy self. Thank goodness she’s leaving, if she’s going to be like this.
Robin turns in to the cricket field, the sound of the sprinkler bringing her out of her thoughts and into the present. As she approaches the white wood of the pavilion building, she squints to see if she can make out the duplicitous pair. Nothing—it’s abandoned. Maybe they lied to Hilary and Jack too and went somewhere else.
As Robin reaches the front of the pavilion, she can hear the sounds of urgent conversation. She rounds the building quietly, nursing her irritation, hoping to catch them talking. Maybe about her. As she pokes her head around the back—the place where she and Callum like to hang out, no less—she sees Sarah leaning against the wall and Callum standing in front of her with his hand on her arm.
“Are you sure?” he says. Sarah looks irritated; she purses her lips and tries to push his hand off her arm.
“Yes. I keep telling you yes. Just leave it, will you?”
“I just want to make sure you’re okay, that’s all.” Callum sounds upset; he keeps his hand where it is.
“Right,” Sarah says. “Well, I’m okay. And if he’s that awful, then you should be glad you don’t have to put up with him anymore and get to spend time with my dad instead.” Callum lets his hand fall from Sarah’s arm and turns around. He spots Robin just as she tries to jump out of view.
“What was that all about?” Robin asks them both as she rolls a cigarette in as nonchalant a way as she can manage. “And why did you go off without me?” Her fire has cooled to mild curiosity.
“Don’t worry about it,” Callum says.
Sarah stands awkwardly and eventually says, “I’m going back to finish packing.”
They let her go.
“What was that really about?” Robin asks, taking a bitter drag and coughing at the sharpness.
Callum sighs, shuffles his feet in the grass and grit.
“I just wanted to check she was okay. Living with my dad, I mean. I know what he’s like.”
“And?”
“And she thinks the sun shines out of him. She thinks he’s a great bloke, great dad, great husband, bloody god among men.”
“Really?” Robin pecks at her wet little roll-up.
“Yep. And you know what? Maybe he is. Maybe he actually is a great dad and a lovely bloke and whatever. And maybe the problem’s with me. Maybe I was so unbearable to live with that—”
“Pack it up, Cal,” Robin chides. “You know what you know. The guy’s a prick.”
“Maybe I just imagined the whole fucking thing,” he snorts, ignoring her. “Maybe everything bad just began and ended with me. Maybe I’m the problem.”
“Ah, enough, Callum,” Robin says, but he doesn’t look back as he starts the walk home.
TWENTY-THREE
SARAH|PRESENT DAY