23

THERE WAS no one around at home. Robbie let himself in and headed up to his room, needing sleep.

When he woke it was late morning, and still there was no one around, so he fixed himself some cereal. The house was deserted and a little bit messy, which was not Sheila’s style at all. As he ate, he heard a scraping sound from the garden, and went out. His dad was working the soil over with a hoe. He didn’t look in the mood for company.

‘Dad?’

His dad sighed and, without looking round, stopped what he was doing and leaned his chin on the hoe, gazing listlessly into the distance.

‘Where is everybody?’ Robbie asked.

‘They’ve gone,’ his dad replied.

‘What d’you mean, gone?’

‘They’ve gone to London.’ His dad turned back to his flowerbed. Scrape, scrape went the hoe. ‘I don’t think they’ll be returning.’

‘Why not?’

‘Sheila and I had a bit of an argument last night.’

‘That bad?’

‘That bad.’

‘What was it about?’

‘I don’t particularly want to rehearse it now. It might have helped if you had come back with some spaghetti.’

The spaghetti. It must be lying in the road somewhere.

‘You argued over spaghetti?’

‘More about the fact that you didn’t bring it back. Sheila made some rather pointed remarks.’

‘She slagged me off?’

His dad pursed his lips. ‘She was pretty scathing. And though a large part of me agrees with her … where did you go, anyway? And did you come back at all? I didn’t hear you come in.’

‘I had a bit of a run-in with the Stricklands. But, yeah, I came back all right. I kept quiet, though.’ And you can blame me however much you like, Dad, he thought, but I’m not taking it.

‘I’m not surprised if you heard us arguing.’

‘Well, I didn’t know what it was about, and I was tired, so I went to bed.’

‘Very sensible. What happened with the Strickland boys?’ He came out of his reverie and, looking at his son for the first time, recoiled in alarm. Instinctively, he put his hand on Robbie’s arm. Robbie flinched in irritation. ‘Jesus Christ, what happened to you? Did they do this? You look as if you’ve been in a war zone. Listen, let’s get some ice on that eye and get you to a doctor.’ He stroked his son’s cheek, and Robbie flinched again, this time from pain. ‘Come on, we’re getting the police in too. I’m not having this. Bloody hell.’ He was becoming agitated.

‘Dad, it was nothing I couldn’t handle. Bad fall, that’s all. Leave the police out of it. I mean it. Really. I lost the spaghetti, though. So were you defending me?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t want you to think the whole thing was about you.’

‘That’s a relief.’

‘It hasn’t been an entirely successful enterprise for some time.’

‘You’re talking about Sheila, right?’

‘Yes, of course. What else would I be talking about?’

‘Well, call it a relationship, then. Unless you don’t want to get back together. You don’t want to, do you?’

‘What?’

‘Get back together.’

His dad pushed out his lower lip, squidged up his nose and pulled his mouth down at the corners. Looks like it’s going to be just me and him for a while, thought Robbie.

‘We’ll have to see how it all pans out. Come on, let’s see what we can do for that face of yours.’

‘I’ll miss her cooking.’

‘You were never really that sold on her, Robbie, I know.’

‘I did like Jess, though.’

A little later, he texted her: ‘???

She texted back: ‘!!!

He replied, ‘Any chance of a rematch?

She came back with, ‘Negative c u when we grown up.

Which did seem a bit final.