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You’re Better Than This
Getting used to a sudden change in temperature was difficult and was only mildly helped by looking at the photos on the phone. The trip had been good and while his liver would need significant R and R it had been what he had needed. Jack, probably the one on the group he was closest to, still could not understand why he had not taken one of the five lads that had offered a little more than a furtive snog up on it but he knew. His Mum was back as well and the café offered respite from the questions.
‘Robert?’
Bob’s tone was somewhere between incredulity and horror.
‘And Laurence?’
Aaron glanced up to where Bernice and Bob were standing at the counter. God, what is he at now? he thought to himself.
‘Blimey, he’s old enough to be his father’
‘Exactly, but apparently it’s genuine’
‘What is?’, Aaron couldn’t help himself. The look on Bernice’s face showed that she had not planned on him hearing this.
‘Nothing’
‘Bernice, come on, what has he done now?’
‘Him and Laurence are a kind of a thing apparently, looks like we have something in common’, of all the responses she thought likely belly aching laughter was not one of them.
‘Mate, have to say I didn’t think you’d take it this well, I mean I’m liberal minded but this is the third member of that family he’s involved with, I mean blimey…’
‘Bob’, Aaron was still trying to stifle laughter, ‘I’ve never heard anything more ridiculous in my life’
‘Aaron, it’s true, Lydia heard Laurence announce it up at Home Farm’
‘Well’, Aaron smiled, ‘Maybe you and I will have special seats at the big day, with us being former spouses and all’.
The idea was as daft as it was obscene. Aaron knew it could not be true but he was determined to find out what exactly was going on. That was why the following day when he saw his car outside David’s he went in. Robert and Vanessa were deep in conversation.
‘Look Vanessa, all I can say is when you know you know. It’s the person more than the gender, you need to give your self a chance’
‘Are you an agony uncle now or summat?’
‘Aaron, you’re back’
‘Yes Robert I am back, Vanessa, no offence but taking relationship advice from Robert might not be the best idea in the whole world’
‘I’ll head’, Robert did not want to have a row.
‘Aaron, he understands where I’m at, he’s been very good the last while’.
‘Yeah, look I need to catch him up’
‘You off up to Home Farm, tell me how is that kid going to cope with its Dad sleeping with its Grandad?’
Robert swung round, colour swiftly draining towards his toes.
‘How…How did….?’
‘It’s a small village Robert and hey you are the one dishing out advice so I’m guessing you are in a right comfort zone at the minute.’
‘Look’
‘I’m not talking about it here Rob, Mill now’
Robert followed. The image was humorous, Aaron confidently striding towards the Mill and Robert skulking after like a young lad following the head teacher to the office.
‘So, when did you realise you had feelings for Laurence?’
‘What?’
‘Apparently ye are an item, when did you fall for him?’, the tone was even, almost genuinely interested.
‘I umm I…’
‘Do you sleep together up there?’
Robert suddenly finds the grain in the wooden floor of exceptional interest.
‘Which of you t…’
‘Stop, for God’s sake stop, I’m going to get sick’
Aaron bursts out laughing.
‘It’s not funny Aaron’
‘No’, Aaron has one hand on his hips and the other at his eyebrow, the trademark look when he is veering from bemusement to anger.
‘It is pathetic though, I mean what the hell are you playing at?’
‘What do you mean’
‘I mean Robert why does Laurence think ye are love’s dream, why were there sleeping pills in his brandy and why are you up to your eyeballs in God knows what?’
Aaron looks at him. He knows him, inside and out. He can tell from a glance if he is telling the truth or if he is aiming for the Booker Prize. He knows when Robert is trying to decide what to do also and this is one of those moments. It’s almost a perverse relief when it’s the truth that comes. All of it, every sordid, illicit detail spills out. For Robert it is almost a relief, a freedom from the web of deceit that was trapping him.
‘You’re angry’
‘No, Robert I’m not’, it was almost a sigh.
‘No, low expectations’
‘I’m disappointed’
‘What?’
‘I’m disappointed Robert. I don’t give a damn about the Whites or Home Farm. Well I mean Laurence is an old man, and yeah he might be a prat but pretending to have Ronnie sending him a letter gloating about some new man and then, Good God, then making him think he took advantage of you and now pretending that you have feelings for him’
Robert looks at him. Having it said out loud by someone else was shocking. He was getting the unmistakable feel of bile in his throat and tears were rapidly forming in his eyes.
‘You’re better than this, much better than this’
‘Am I?’, he was sobbing now.
Aaron sat beside him on the sofa and pulled Robert’s face so that they were looking at each other.
‘Yes, I did not fall in love with someone like that, someone who would do that kind of thing when they were normal’
‘I’m a mess’
‘Yes, you are’
‘I wanted to get back at them for everything when deep down I know it’s all me’
‘Not all of it’
‘I’m not a bad person’
‘The last time you said that to me ,I was tied to a radiator’, he smiled.
‘Jesus, there’s something wrong with me’.
‘You think?’, he reached for his phone, ‘I’m sending you the number of the counselling practice again, use it this time’
‘Why are you being nice to me……You should hate me’
‘I was never able to do that’
‘I ruined everything, I could have been the cause of Liv dying’
‘You would never have done anything to hurt Liv on purpose, I know that but this has to stop. You have to end it, Home Farm will not make you happy and you could end up inside’
‘I know’
‘You were nice earlier’
Robert looks at him quizzically.
‘With Vanessa, that’s the Robert Sugden I fell in love with and the one people round here actually got to like’
‘I’d give anything to get it all back Aaron, you, Liv, us, anything at all’
Aaron looks at him and nods, reaches out and gently wipes one of his tears from beside his nose.
‘I better go’
‘Yeah but remember what I said, you’re a better man than all this’.
As the evening passes both men were sitting in their respective living rooms. Robert picked up the phone and sent a simple text ‘Rang that number, have an appointment. If I am a better man it’s down to you, I’ll always be sorry for ruining us xxR’Aaron looked at the message, thinking of a reply. ‘The counselling will help and you helped me through my darkest times, I’ll never forget that’. The conversation ended there and he went to bed.
He retrieved one of the photos from the bottom drawer, them from Wishing Well last Christmas. He wanted Robert back, he knew that. Saying no to five good-looking lads on the continent confirmed it for him. It was obvious Robert both wanted, and for the sake of the village, needed him back. His counsellor kept saying there was a distinction between wants and needs. He had agreed but seeing Robert today made him think, maybe the line can be blurred sometimes. Robert is a better man than what is going on, he thought but then they are both better versions of themselves together. He was almost there, it was almost time.