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 was 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?”