“Hang on—what? It was Robin who threatened you?”
“He had a thug in the prison who relayed messages. But yes, it came from Robin.” Johan frowns. “Well, to be precise, it came from his boss.But it was Robin who chose to pass that message on. I was to take the fall and reveal nothing about anyone.”
I stare at my own baguette, trying to turn this into something I can believe in. My jaw is clenched and throbbing. Images jag in from all directions: Robin changing our babies’ nappies, staying up late to make their birthday cake. Robin patiently playing hide-and-seek and card games with them, administering cough medicine, rubbing sore legs, blowing raspberries on wriggly bellies. Robin, their dad. Who carried out the instructions of dangerous criminals.
I start to cry.
—
On the plane Johan falls asleep and, in spite of my best efforts, I can’t stop watching him. I am sick with shock, with the terror of what Robin might be capable of. I can hardly bear to think about what he might do now he knows his cover is blown. And on top of all of this, there is another impossible fact: my father is no longer alive. I will never see him again.
And yet, being next to Johan, absorbing the safety and stillness of his long, peaceful body, I have this strange sense that I may still survive. That Johan’s instincts about Robin—myinstincts about Robin—are correct. That my children are safe and that I will soon get them back and have some space to process the loss of my father.
At some point I fall asleep, too. I dream that Dad is on a train seat next to me, reading a paper. In my dream I try to talk to him, to express how deeply I want him to be alive, to come back, but I’m unable to say a word.
Dad knows how I feel, though. He’s got a packet of salted nuts in his hand. It’s dark outside the train; I sense it’s winter.
Dad has a nut, then smiles at me and says, “Nothing is insurmountable, Carrie. It all just takes time and, sometimes, a great deal of pain.”
He said this when I got back from Thailand all those years ago, and then again when I had the twins. He was right both times.
Thirty-six.
There’s no message from Robin when we land. Maya has been dealing with undertakers and other officials all day and therefore knows only in a general way that I’m trying to track Robin down. She has, finally, left a voicemail, but it contains no information about my husband. After sharing the logistics of death she talks about Nicola’s mental state, and then says—almost as an afterthought—that Robin’s probably just busy and she hopes the kids take the news about their granddad OK.
We head straight for the car hire desks. Robin drove me all the way to Heathrow when I left for my placement. He held me for a long time before I walked into Departures and he told me how much he would miss me; how much he loved me. He’s due to pick me up at the end of my placement next week.
Mum, who I called a few times from Sweden, still hasn’t returned my call, nor has she read my messages.
—
Johan buys snacks at Fleet Services while I try Robin again.
“I know,” I say to his answerphone. “I know what you did. We can talk about it later. For now, I just need to know where the children are.”
We drive on. Johan, wordlessly, arranges snacks in the center console of the hire car. He always knew how to handle my undereating without confrontation. He trusted me to get back on track, which I always did; he knew I’d do something about it if things ever got out of hand. Whereas Robin would stand over me and my unfinished meals as if I were Maeve back in her toddlerhood, when all she’d eat was chips or strawberry yogurt.You must eat, Carrie, he’d say.Go on. Just this bowl, please.
I find myself taking the food gratefully. Dried mango. Squares of chocolate, cherry tomatoes.
We don’t talk much as we drive west. It’s a clear night and the sky is a brightly studded cavern, stretching in all directions over the A303 and the sprawling Wiltshire hills.
Maya calls at around nine thirty, worried about our stepmother. It seems Nicola had somehow expected Dad to make a full recovery and became so frenzied in her grief that her GP had to prescribe a sedative this afternoon. She’s still fast asleep, and Maya doesn’t know if she should wake her to give her some food or not. She sounds shattered and close to breaking herself.
I ask again if she’s heard from Robin or the kids, but she says no. There is no point burdening her further. She is in our dead father’s house, on the front line.
Our dead father.I cannot internalize this.
As I drive I think of Dad, drinking tea underneath his apple tree, an empty jam tart tray folded neatly on a plate. I think of the horsegame Maya and I used to play with him, the swing he took five weeks to erect in the garden because he was so bad at DIY.
I remember the feeling of his arms around me when he arrived at that police station in London after Mum lost us in the protest, the feeling of having been rescued almost from death. Dad stopped the car repeatedly on the way back to Devon—on this very road, in fact—so he could get out and cuddle me and Maya. Again, and again, and again. He was distraught.
I cry for a while. Johan lets me, passing me a clean T-shirt from his bag in the absence of any tissues.
My rock has gone, and now—hours later—it seems that my other rock has been shattered too. I am untethered, floating in this vast ocean of stars. I have nowhere to anchor and no one I can trust. Three months ago, I thought I’d found my direction. I thought the drifting was over, that it was my destiny to return to surgery, to myself. I would stand next to Robin as a working parent and move back into the only life that had ever made sense to me.
I was ready. But what did I know?
I call him again and leave another message, warning that I will call the police if I don’t hear from him soon. He doesn’t respond. I think he’s probably gambling on the likelihood that I’d do almost anything other than involve the police after nearly being taken away from my own parents when I was young.
