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‘What?’ said Nina, snapping from ‘tearful’ into ‘outraged’ like she’d just screwed on a different head. ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’
Rob turned his palms upwards in surrender. ‘Nina, this was always the plan. We’ve had a great time, but you and I were never a big thing. You said the same.’
‘I’ve just told you I love you,’ she shrieked.
‘I know,’ said Rob, determined to stay reasonable and not give her further ammunition. ‘But I don’t feel the same way. I’m really sorry.’
‘I can’t believe you would do this to me,’ she gasped, her hand clutching imaginary pearls.
‘Why have you waited until now to tell me this?’ he asked, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. ‘What did you expect me to do? Give up a job I’ve been lining up for the past year?’
Nina flicked her hair dramatically and shrugged on her silver padded jacket, then turned in the doorway to deliver her final line. ‘This isn’t what I wanted, but maybe it’s for the best.’ She looked him up and down like he’d just trodden on a kitten. ‘I know exactly who you are now and I hope you find someone who makes you happy.’ Her voice cracked on the final word, suggesting she hoped nothing of the sort. Rob didn’t move as he listened to her stomp down the stairs from his flat, then slam the heavy front door behind her.
What the fuck just happened?He’d imagined a final hug, then wishing each other all the best and promising to stay in touch but not really intending to. How did that suddenly turn into an episode ofHollyoaks?
He took deep breaths and tried to unscramble his brain, until a car beeped in the road outside; his mum and dad, who’d offered to take him to the airport. Rob dragged up the sash window and held up his fingers to indicate two minutes, then did a final check in each room to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. His parents owned the flat, and they’d found a tenant for the next six months. A van was coming to shift all his boxes to his parents’ garage later, then cleaners would be arriving tomorrow to de-fumigate the place. A flutter of excitement bloomed in the pit of his stomach as he hauled the suitcase off the bed and grabbed his rucksack and tennis bag.
‘Got everything, son?’ Guy Baxter was very much a man’s man, prone to hale-and-hearty arm slapping from years of forging important connections on the golf course. Even though Rob was now twenty-eight, Guy still talked to his son like he was ten years old and had just led his prep school team to cricket glory for the first time.
‘He doesn’t need much, do you, darling?’ said Rob’s mum, in the indulgent style of a mother dealing with her youngest child and only son. Kate Baxter had lost none of the beauty that had led to some uncomfortable conversations at school between Rob and his classmates, who occasionally forgot that the English teacher they deployed as fantasy wank-fodder was Rob’s mum. He suspected she’d had some subtle work done – about five years ago she’d disappeared to a ‘literary retreat’ for the whole of the school summer holidays and come back looking like a poem by John Keats. She was now retired and from the neck upwards could pass for about forty on a bad day.
‘Just the one suitcase.’ Rob lifted it into the boot of his dad’s Lexus, throwing his tennis bag in with it. ‘The club provides all my coaching gear.’
‘You get in the front, darling,’ said Kate, opening the door to take the back seat behind Guy, as she had for forty years. They had met at university and married straight after graduation, after which Kate had taught English at an independent school in Bath and raised their three children with the help of an au pair while Guy built and grew a very successful haulage business. They were one of those families that everyone’s heard about but nobody’s ever met – big house, happy marriage, healthy retirement fund, not even a whiff of a child with a meth habit or a grandchild who shoplifts for attention.
‘It’s fine, I’ll sit in the back,’ said Rob, marvelling that marriages like his parents’ still existed. He couldn’t think of a single one of his friends whose parents were still together; most of them were either miserable divorcees or on third marriages to partners younger than their kids.
‘So, we won’t see you for six months,’ said Guy, shaking his head. None of the Baxters had strayed too far – one of Rob’s sisters lived in Cheltenham, and the other in Chew Magna, only a few miles from Bristol Airport. His parents were stopping there for lunch after dropping him off.
‘Not unless you fancy a trip to Spain,’ said Rob mildly. ‘It’s a nice resort, not far from Marbella. Mum can lie by the pool while I teach you how to play tennis.’
Guy laughed heartily but didn’t argue. It had been many years since he’d been able to give his son a run for his money on the tennis court. ‘And you’ve got a job lined up for when you get back?’
‘Yeah,’ said Rob, trying not to roll his eyes. ‘Head Coach for the under eighteens at the Uni tennis academy, starting in October. An actual proper job, with salary and benefits and everything.’
‘We’re very proud of you,’ said Kate, glancing at her husband. ‘Aren’t we, Guy?’
‘Of course,’ said Guy, although he didn’t look it. The Baxters had a rich history of high achievement in proper, professional jobs – Rob’s eldest sister was a GP, and the younger was the VP of European Sales for a US software firm. As far as Guy was concerned, tennis coaches were in the same bracket as ski instructors and yoga teachers. Layabout jobs for itinerant wasters.
‘Maybe we’ll pop over for a few days,’ said Kate. ‘After we get back from Bermuda.’
Rob smiled, conscious that only a mother’s love would get his parents on a budget flight to Malaga after ten days in a private villa in Bermuda.
‘Did you say your farewells to the girl?’ Guy asked. ‘What was her name?’
‘Nina,’ said Rob. ‘She told me she loved me, then slammed the door on her way out when I didn’t return the favour.’
‘Oh, poor thing.’ Kate pressed her hand to her chest.
‘Still breaking hearts, then,’ chuckled Guy.
‘I actually considered it as a career.’ Rob gave a wry smile. ‘But I’ve decided tennis is more my thing.’
‘We just want you to be happy,’ said Kate. ‘Settled down, you know.’
‘Bollocks,’ said Guy, swerving to avoid a driver in the wrong lane on the roundabout. ‘He’s too young to settle down, he’s only twenty-eight.’
‘We had a mortgage and two daughters by the time we were twenty-eight,’ Kate retorted, mildly affronted.
