The kids fight over him. Sienna is particularly possessive.
‘I asked him first.’
‘Uncle Robbie said he’d help me.’
‘Go away, Charlie. Leave us alone.’
She is forever grabbing Robbie’s hand, dragging him places. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’
Sienna will not take no for an answer. She will not be deterred by a grumpy face or a harsh tone of voice. It’s obvious that she regards him as someone special, someone worthy of her possessiveness. She is so very wrong.
Robbie’s last seizure was two months ago. It was a bad one, the full shebang. Some people have warning signs, an aura that gives them the chance to get to a safe place. All Robbie feels is his body going rigid, and nothing after that.
He came around on the floor of the local Centrelink office.
‘There’s an ambulance on its way,’ someone said. ‘You’ve had some kind of fit.’
Apparently, it’s very confronting. Onlookers are terrified they’re about to witness a death. Some of them mistake the seizure for a heart attack or a drug-related reaction. Pissing or shitting himself, which happened that day in Centrelink, takes it to a whole new level. He was there to fill in some forms for his disability pension. If they needed any proof, here it was in all its humiliating glory.
Even though he was fuzzy and weak, he got to his feet and stumbled out of there as quickly as he could. His trousers were wet and sticky. The stench was reaching his nostrils. The embarrassment sat heavily in his gut.
‘Wait,’ someone called. ‘The ambulance will be here any minute.’
He was waiting for no fucking ambulance. Outside on the road, he paused for a moment and regarded the traffic. Three lanes, dense with cars and trucks. A bus came into view. That would do the job. He wasn’t brave enough, though. Didn’t have the balls to step out and put an end to his shame. Instead he went home, cleaned himself up, packed his bag, and caught the next Greyhound bus out of there. Next city, please.
Sienna has her hands on her hips. ‘Okay, Uncle Robbie. You’re the teacher, I’m the kid. I’m being naughty today.’
Robbie finds it amusing that Sienna wants to play school after spending all day in the classroom. But he goes along with it. Gives a good impression of being stern – the teachers in Sienna’s imaginary school are the old-fashioned cranky kind. He gives her detention. Makes her write lines: I am very naughty and annoying.
His niece has got under his skin. Forged a fondness, a tenderness he didn’t know he was capable of. Robbie can’t bear her to see one of his seizures. Can’t bear her to see the truth of him: as far from special as one can get. It could happen any day now. He can go for long stretches of time – his record is three months – and then have two in quick succession. The frequency means he’s categorised as having ‘uncontrolled seizures’, the result being he can’t drive, or effectively work, or even play contact sports. The medication has come a long way since he was first diagnosed as an adolescent, having a couple of seizures a month. Some were minor: strange lapses in time, speaking weirdly, blinking a lot. It was the serious ones that petrified him, and that fear – of losing control and dignity in public – led to his anxiety problems and depression. To make matters worse, anti-epileptic medications are known to affect mood. Robbie’s struggle with depression has often been as intense as his struggle with epilepsy.
Robbie’s watching television when there’s a knock on the door. Sienna flies to answer it. Charlie is upstairs on his Xbox, and Celia is getting dinner ready.
Robbie hears the door open, then his niece’s voice, ‘Hello?’
He can tell by her tone that she doesn’t know who it is. He stands up, comes out to the hallway and stops dead. Fucking hell, it’s her. She’s with a man. Longish light brown hair, shirt and tie. A new boyfriend?
‘Robbie?’ She sees him and smiles. ‘It’s Katy Buckley and Zach Latham ... from school.’
She offers him her hand. He takes it. Then Zach holds his out. Fuck, that’s a hand he doesn’t particularly want to shake, but he does it anyway. Are they a couple? No. Katy’s not wearing a wedding band and Zach is. Besides, they seem quite separate from each other.
‘Can we come in?’ she asks.
Robbie pauses. He doesn’t want them inside, doesn’t want to hear whatever they’re here to say. Because it can’t be good. Katy must have seen him following her and she’s here to ask him to stop. Fair enough. She has every right. But why Zach? Is he some sort of reinforcement?
Celia appears and issues the invitation he doesn’t want to impart. ‘Come in, come in.’ She opens the door to the sitting room, flicks on the lights. ‘You can sit in here. Can I get you a drink? Tea, coffee, something stronger?’
Katy is smiling again. It’s a genuine smile, reaching all the way to her eyes. A smile that warms you on the inside. ‘Tea would be lovely, thank you.’
‘Come on, Sienna,’ Celia says, steering her daughter out of the room.
‘Why can’t I stay?’ Sienna objects.
‘Because you can’t.’
They sit down. Katy and Zach on the sofa, and Robbie in one of the armchairs. The room has a bare, disused feel to it: it doesn’t have a television and so doesn’t attract the children. Katy is looking at him closely and Robbie feels exposed and terribly ashamed of himself. Has she recognised him from the bus? Or the times he pretended to be working in the school gardens? Why did he do that? He’s never done anything like it before.
‘Why are you here?’ he asks, resting his hands on his knees.
Katy and Zach exchange a glance and seem to agree that Katy will be the spokesperson.
‘Because of the school reunion,’ she says, ‘and some ... upsetting ... emails and notes that were sent.’
Robbie is taken aback. The answer is nothing remotely like what he was expecting.
‘What do you mean? What emails?’
Katy opens her bag and takes out a sheaf of papers. ‘These.’
Robbie begins to read. Annabel, Luke, Grace ... he knows these names. Daniel, Lauren, Carson ... those are foreign to him. When he gets to the last note – the one that talks about knives and guns and choking – he finally understands.
‘You think I sent these?’
Zach clears his throat. ‘Well, you came to mind ... because we – me in particular – were such shits to you back then.’
Robbie stares at him. Zach has the same clean-cut good looks he had at school. The kind of looks that attracted people. Didn’t matter what damage he was causing, who he was hurting or belittling or sneering at. He was the kid who got warned a thousand times but never got expelled. He was the kid who never tried hard, yet had opportunities handed to him on a plate.
‘I’m an epileptic who suffers from depression, not a psychopath.’ Robbie enunciates his words clearly. ‘You need to find someone else who you treated like shit. There would be a long list to choose from, wouldn’t there?’
Zach’s face darkens. Is he blushing? ‘I’m sorry ... I’m deeply sorry for the distress I caused you.’
Celia chooses this moment to arrive with tea and biscuits. Can she feel the tension? The vestiges of twenty-year-old hatred? Sienna tries to sidle in unnoticed but fails. Her mother grabs her hand, hauls her away.
‘Fuck off,’ Robbie says, as soon as the door closes. ‘You can take your apology and fuck yourself.’
Zach shrugs. ‘I deserve that. I deserve for you to be angry with me ... But what I can’t understand is Jarrod, why you’d be angry with him.’
‘Jarrod?’ Robbie is blindsided. ‘Jarrod Harris? Where does he come into all this?’
Zach’s eyes are locked with his. ‘Someone attacked him. Was that you, Robbie?’
‘What the fuck are you taking about?’
Zach raises his hands. ‘I know what I did to you. I just want to know what Jarrod did ... Whether he needs to say sorry too.’
Robbie gasps. How can Zach be so wrong and so right at the same time?
‘Shut up, Zach,’ Katy says, standing up. ‘It’s obvious Robbie has no idea what we’re talking about.’ She crouches in front of him. Now she has one of his hands held in her own. ‘Sorry, Robbie. Sorry for coming here and upsetting you. Of course it isn’t you sending these messages.’
Robbie remembers her kindness, her compassion. He remembers it as vividly as he remembers Zach’s cruelty and Jarrod’s thoughtless sabotage. Katy will never know how much her kindness meant to him. Her smiles when they passed each other in the corridor. A few words here and there, sometimes the only conversation he’d had all day. He’d been more than a little in love with her. Maybe that’s what he was trying to recreate by stalking her: an emotional connection.
But look at her now. Glossy hair. Trendy clothes. Still kind and caring, but normal, something he’s not and never will be. Katy can drive; Robbie has seen her behind the wheel, her car disappearing down the ramp into the car park of her apartment block. Katy has a career, work colleagues and future prospects. She enjoys a glass of wine and a varied social life.
Robbie can do none of these things. His illness and depression have rendered any kind of long-term employment or social life too difficult to pursue.
He is defective. Not good enough. Never has been.
He pulls his hand away from her grasp. ‘You should go ... I’ll see you out.’