“That’s not the point,” he snaps. “Fuck!”
Earlier tonight, Callum and John were caught in the garden of John’s house. John’s parents were out and the boys had been lying in the back garden, shielded by trees and flowers, smoking, talking and kissing. Wedged together on a big sun lounger.
It had grown dark overhead, a deep gray sky yellowing at the corners where the spring sun was clinging on.
They were fully clothed, just kissing gently, when suddenly standing over them and shouting unintelligible things was John’s mother, who’d returned early.
“I ran,” Callum told Robin’s horrified face, “and I could still hear her yelling at the end of the street.”
—
In the days that followed, the quiet gentle thing Callum and John had grown unraveled fast. They’d been banned from seeing each other by John’s parents, backed up by the school deputy headmaster, who had summoned both boys to the office to tell them in no uncertain terms that it would not be tolerated, that Callum’s parents would be told if there were any more indiscretions. Indiscretions. John had stared straight ahead, nodded at the head teacher. After they left, Callum had tried to reach for John’s hand and been shaken off.
After the “intervention,” John had stayed off school for a week and in the vacuum seemed to have shaken his feelings resolutely, or worked on a really good impression of someone who had. Callum, once encouraged into the upper-sixth-form common room by his older friends, was no longer welcome after a teacher-led clampdown on lower-sixth-formers crossing the threshold. John had started to drive into school and take his friends into town in his Ford Fiesta at lunchtime. Callum had started to bunk off to avoid seeing him.
It was an insurmountable, ironclad split.
Robin had called Alistair the day after Callum and John’s breakup. “I think we’re just friends really, aren’t we?” He’d seen it coming, could have made the call himself. “We’ll keep playing though, yeah? Still do the band we talked about?”
They’d agreed and met that evening to hand over each other’s stuff in the cricket field, to cement the plan. Made two scruffy little piles of tapes and borrowed hoodies on the stone steps as the daylight faded.
As they’d talked their goodbyes, their plans for a new chapter as friends, they decided, well, just once more for luck. Behind the pavilion they’d pressed urgently against each other. His totally smooth face smelled of an aftershave he didn’t need, and the effort made Robin feel a tearfulness she’d never expected. They really would keep seeing each other as friends, she told herself; they really could start the band they’d talked about.
As they put their clothes straight, laughing at the uncharacteristic passion, Robin felt an urge to get back home. To get back to Callum, who finally needed her again.
She decided that she and Callum would stuff the latest guitar magazines up their sleeves at the petrol station, rip out the tablature and get playing. Just like they had through her upset years earlier, when Sarah didn’t make it to visit.
And maybe they’d watch Labyrinth ten thousand times in a row, write nonsense poems, talk about writing a film but smoke too much weed to do anything but giggle. Same as they ever did. Sure, he’s upset now, she’d thought, but it will be okay soon. Back to normal.
—
It’s been two months since the split and Robin’s patience is running thin. Next to her on the sofa, Callum mashes at the PlayStation controller. He sighs and flings it away so the wire loops over the arm of the sofa like a noose.
“Do you ever wish you could just press reset?” he says, huffing as he scoops up the tossed controller.
“What, on this? You can. You’re doing all right though.” Robin’s tired of her stepbrother’s tantrums just because he’s bad at Resident Evil.
“No, not on this. Like, whichever way you turn you just make it worse. Like maybe you’re just playing a bad go and there’s a better game you could be playing. One where you get all the coins or all the lights are green or you beat every baddie or—”
“No,” Robin cuts him off.
“Forget it, then.”
Callum leaves the controller dangling, slides out of the living room door and into the kitchen. He sits at the new mahogany-look table with his tin of tobacco and fumbles together a very skinny roll-up, a few scratchy odds and sods of weed dotted through it.
“That’s a bit pitiful,” Robin says as she follows him and starts to make a mug of tea.
Callum’s hers again, but he’s battered and he’s bruised. And he’s very, very angry.
TWENTY-NINE
SARAH|PRESENT DAY
I woke up to a notification on my phone, a type I’ve never had before. A direct message through Twitter from Alistair, Robin’s bandmate and onetime boyfriend.
Message one: “Hi, Sarah, I remember you. Sorry to say I’ve not seen Robin in a couple of years. She did a bunk in Manchester.”
Message two: “Her email address is [email protected]. Kick her arse for me, we need to get back to work. Good luck.”
I try to reply to thank him, but he doesn’t follow me so I can’t. I don’t really care about that though, because I now know that my sister is in Manchester. Hilary was right, even if she was vague on the details. And even better, I have her email address now.
I spend hours crafting an email on my phone. Stopping, starting, deleting. Going for a shower, starting again. There is so much to say, but that doesn’t mean any of it should be said, not yet.
In the end, after throwing up and having to sit with my face out of the window, gulping in the syrupy city air, I go to an Internet café nearby and buy myself thirty minutes of computer time and a thin tea.
I type out a new email:
Hi, Robin, it’s Sarah. I got your email address from Alistair. I hope you don’t mind, but the number I had for you doesn’t work.
I’m in Manchester for a bit and I’d love to meet up. It’s been too long.
I delete the last line; it sounds judgmental. I can’t let her think I’m angry.
I’m in Manchester for a bit and I’d love to meet up. We must have lots to catch up on. Please call me on 07654 227536 or reply to this and we can arrange something.
Take care,
Your sister, Sarah
I take a deep breath, sip the last gritty glug of tea and press send.
Seconds later I have a reply.
“Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently,” it begins. Before I can stop myself I pull the keyboard out of its socket and throw it on the ground, chucking the empty teacup after it.
“Hey!” the bearded guy behind the till shouts, the most engaged he’s been in his surroundings since I’ve been here.
I feel a cold rage in my chest and snarl at him, “It doesn’t work properly.”
I troop back to the B&B. It wasn’t a big hope but it’s gone anyway. For one brief moment I’d felt a tiny thread was connecting me to my sister, wriggling its way down the streets and around the parks, tying us together so that I could tug it and find her. But that string’s been cut.
ROBIN|PRESENT DAY