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Robin Ellacott slid her empty wine glass to one side on the pub table as another was set in front of her, alongside a fresh pint of real ale. Her large companion returned to the bar for two further pints, which he then delivered to the young men engaged in a raucous game of darts on the other side of the room, a game that was accompanied by much ribbing and attempting to distract one another and arguing over scores.
Robin watched them fondly as her drinking buddy for the evening returned to her and sank into the chair opposite with a sigh and a grunt. “Don’t know where they get the energy.”
Robin chuckled. “They don’t work for a living.”
Stephen Ellacott snorted. “True that.” He picked up his second pint and took a long draught of it. “Wouldn’t hurt either of them to get a proper job.”
Robin grinned. “Now you sound like my ex-husband.”
Stephen gave a shout of laughter. “Is that what he said?”
“Constantly.”
“What a knob.”
Robin joined in his gleeful laughter. “I won’t argue with that.”
“Still, though.” Stephen swung round in his seat to regard their younger brothers. “Martin is still doing largely nothing, if you don’t count working here at the weekends, which I don’t. And is Jonathan ever going to stop being a student? What’s he actually doing now?”
Robin nodded, sipping her wine. “I know,” she said. “A postgraduate something-or-other. I think he’s doing a bit of lecturing.”
“But not an actual PhD, Dad said?”
“Er, no. Didn’t get the funding, or something.”
“Hm.”
Stephen turned back to face the table, just missing seeing Martin attempt to trip Jon up at the oche. Robin rolled her eyes.
Silence settled between the two older Ellacott siblings for a moment. Stephen looked down at his pint and then back up. “How do you think Dad is?”
Robin regarded him curiously. “I was going to ask you the same.”
Stephen curled his huge hands around his pint glass. “I see them more than you. Wondered if you’d noticed a change.”
“Yes, I have,” she said carefully. “He’s…slower. Greyer. Almost kind of smaller. Does that make sense?”
Stephen nodded. “Yeah. I think he’s changed a lot in the last year, but I’d wondered if I was imagining it. He’s, what, seventy next year? Or is it the year after?”
Robin counted in her head. “Next year. Wow.” She paused. “But yeah. This visit, it’s the first time I’ve thought he looked…old.”
Stephen sighed and picked up his pint again. “Yeah.”
Robin shrugged. “It’s the way of the world,” she said. “You'll have to take over. You’re well into your thirties now—”
“Oi!” Stephen spluttered into his beer and set it back down again, wiping foam off his chin with the back of his hand. “I am not well into my thirties…”
“You round up to thirty-five now, not down to thirty,” Robin replied cheekily.
“Says who?”
“Says maths,” Robin said, grinning, enjoying poking a nerve. Her big brother pulled a face at her.
“Well, anyway,” he said. “You’re right. I’ve always assumed they’ll just be there, but—”
“Oh, Mum will go on for ever,” Robin said. “She runs on Duracell batteries.”
Stephen chuckled at the reference to the old joke. The local secondary school that all of the Ellacott siblings had attended had a black school uniform. Both Robin and, years later, Jonathan had been nicknamed Duracell for their black clothes and red-gold hair. Linda, too, had been a redhead in her day, before her thick hair had faded to auburn and then grey. Stephen and Martin, dark like their father, had escaped the moniker.
“Seriously, though,” Robin replied. “She won’t let go of her grip on this earth till we’re all married and have provided grandchildren, and you’re the only one who’s playing along so far.”
Stephen chuckled. “You did the marriage bit.”
“And I’m not doing it again,” Robin replied hotly.
“Hm,” was her brother’s only reply.
“How’s Annabel?” Robin deflected hurriedly. Not a conversational path she wanted to go down. “And Jenny?”
Stephen’s face softened, as she knew it would. “Annabel is gorgeous,” he replied. “Toddling now.”
“Wow!” Robin’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s…early? Is that early?” Her knowledge of such things was a little hazy.
“Yeah, it’s not unheard of, but eleven months is quite early.” He couldn’t quite hide the pride in his voice. Robin smiled. Her annoying big brother, a dad himself now.
“And Jenny?”
“Jenny is…” Stephen hesitated, seeming to weigh up his words before speaking, then he shrugged. “Jenny’s pregnant.”
Robin stopped with her wine halfway to her mouth and stared at her brother, who flushed and dropped his gaze to his pint.
“Fucking hell, Ste,” she said with a shocked laugh, putting her glass down again. “Was that planned?” She caught herself. “Shit, sorry - none of my business. Forget I asked.”
Stephen chuckled ruefully. “It’s okay, sis,” he replied. “The answer is, kind of yes and no.” He paused. “Let’s just say it took a long time for us to have Annabel, and we assumed it would again.” He laughed a little. “We were wrong.”
“But it’s…good news?”
His grin softened further, and Robin’s heart twisted a little, happy for her brother but wondering if she would ever feel that pull, that—
“Yeah, it’s all good,” he replied. “Sleep is overrated, right?” He gave a rueful chuckle.
Robin grinned. “Well, congratulations,” she said warmly, reaching to clink her glass against his, but Stephen slid his pint aside, casting an anxious glance across to their brothers who were now arguing at the scoreboard, Jonathan trying to snatch the chalk from Martin’s hand.
“They don’t know,” he murmured. “And nor do Mum and Dad. We’re not telling people yet.”
Touched to be in the trusted inner circle, Robin smiled softly and took a sip of wine instead. “I won’t let on.”
“Thanks. Jenny hasn’t even told her mum yet.”
Robin nodded. The confessional air added to her odd feeling that she and Stephen were now, somehow, the adults of the family.
“Speaking of babies—” Stephen’s voice was studiously casual. “Saw your ex and his bird the other day.”
“Wife now, I believe,” Robin replied, sanguine.
Stephen nodded. “She’s huge. Must be any day now, surely?”
Robin remembered Sarah’s slim figure and forced down a surge of very unfeminist amusement. “I guess. Not really kept up with what Matthew’s up to.”
Stephen snorted. “Good for you.” He grinned. “He’s got no idea what’s coming his way. It’s all very well to strut about the place with your pregnant wife, being proud of your masculinity, as he does. It’s quite another to hold down a job and support your wife though the breastfeeding and the sleepless nights, the mastitis and the baby blues—”
He stopped abruptly, clearly sensing he’d said too much, and then chuckled. “Sorry. TMI. In vino veritas and all that.”
His quoting Latin reminded Robin suddenly of Strike, and she smiled to think of her big partner. He was holding down the fort at the office for a few days, having gruffly insisted that she take at least a week of the copious amounts of annual leave owing to her. Unable to think of anything else to do, Robin had reluctantly agreed to come to Masham. She was glad now that she had. Martin lived with their parents still, and Stephen only in the next town, but it had been a lovely surprise to have Jonathan home too. The four Ellacott siblings rarely all got together at once these days.
She laughed too, then paused. “But you’re…okay, right? You and Jenny?”
Stephen waved a dismissive arm. “Yeah, we’re good,” he replied. “It’s not easy, no one pretends it is. And it would be impossible if we weren’t on the same page. But we are, so…” He trailed off, and Robin smiled into her wine. It was the closest her big, taciturn Yorkshireman brother had come since his wedding day to admitting how much he loved his wife.
“Besides,” Stephen attempted to sidestep into humour. “We can’t have two divorces between the four of us.” He grinned and raised his pint to her in a cheeky salute. “It’s been fun, you being the black sheep of the family.”
Robin snorted. “Fuck off,” she replied mildly. “What did you want me to do, pretend?”
He leaned forwards, serious suddenly. “Christ, no. It was good to see you stop pretending at last.”
Blinking back sudden tears, Robin attempted to lighten the mood. “Well, any further and I’d have been a high-flying PA and totally miserable.”
She paused. “I shouldn’t have married Matt. It was what it was.”
Stephen ran a big finger around the rim of his pint glass. “You didn’t exactly look like lovebirds at your wedding,” he said slowly.
Robin sighed. “I know. I felt like I had to go through with it, because Mum and Dad had spent so much on the day already.”
Her brother nodded. “I wish you hadn’t. I wish you’d said, Rob. I’d have whisked you away.”
Robin’s throat tightened again. “I know.” She swallowed hard. “I just—” She paused. “I was in a weird place. I’d lost my job, I didn’t have anything else, and I just—” She trailed off.
Stephen drained the last of his pint and set his glass back down.
“But Strike was there.”
Willing her cheeks not to flush, Robin finished her wine too. “Yeah.”
Her brother looked at her sharply, and heat flooded her. This was still a conversational avenue that she didn’t wish to explore.
“Another?” Robin scrambled to her feet.
Temporarily distracted, Stephen glanced at his watch. “Yeah, why not? Bless Dad, offering to taxi.”
Robin picked up his glass and looked across at Jonathan and Martin, who had launched into another game, now arguing over which set of darts flew truer. “What are they having?”
Stephen gave a slightly contemptuous snort. “Let them get their own.”
Robin smiled. “Lager, then.”
He shrugged. “That’s what I got them.” He stood too. “I’m going to head to the gents while you do that.”
Queueing at the bar, Robin watched her younger brothers fondly. They weren’t so little now. She was tall for a woman, but all of her brothers overshadowed her these days. Stephen was easily as big as Strike.
Her thoughts drifted back to her partner while the pints were pulled. No doubt he’d be at Nick and Ilsa’s tonight, having curry night without her. It felt odd, to be forced to take time off work. She shared his love of the job, his dedication to the business.
“That’s thirteen-forty, love,” the barmaid said, and Robin handed over her debit card. She distributed the drinks, showed a brief, obviously fake interest in the darts and returned to her seat opposite Stephen.
“So, how is Strike?” Stephen asked as though there had been no break in their conversation.
“Fine,” Robin replied guardedly. “Work’s busy. We’ve got a new hire who’s settling in well. The bank account mostly stays in the black.”
Stephen picked up his pint and sat back in his chair, regarding her over his glass. “That’s not what I asked.”
Robin shrugged, nonchalant. “Yeah, he’s fine. We’re both less stressed now the business is more healthy.”
Stephen grinned and winked at her. “Still not what I asked.”
Robin glared at him. “Then what are you asking?”
The direct approach deterred him, as she knew it would. He waved a blustering arm, slightly unsteady now they were on third drinks. “Well, you know.”
Combative suddenly, Robin had the urge to needle her big brother. She sat up straighter. “Spell it out for me.”
He waved the arm again. “Forget I said anything. I was just—”
Robin hesitated, remembered his confession earlier, and guilt softened her antagonism. She leaned forward over the table, her arms folded in front of her, and looked down at her glass.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “I just… I don’t know.”
Stephen watched her carefully. Silence stretched between them.
“But is he—” He hesitated, also remembering their earlier conversation. “Same page, right?”
Robin flushed, remembering a donkey balloon, a bottle of perfume, the taste of champagne, the smell of cigarette smoke. “I dunno. But…” She stopped, then started again. “I think so.”
The smile he gave her contained a warmth and an understanding she’d rarely felt from her normally dour big brother. “He’s a good bloke.”
“Yeah, he is,” Robin agreed quietly.
“Well, then,” Stephen replied, and clinked his glass to hers. Robin met him halfway, then buried her face in the dregs of her wine to hide her blush.
“What’s the occasion?” Ebullient, several pints to the good, Martin was at her elbow, Jonathan hovering behind him. Robin smiled up at them.
“We’re celebrating having a comfy seat in a nice pub with no distractions,” she told him.
“You two are ancient,” Jon retorted. “We’re bored of darts. Fancy being thrashed at pool?”
Robin glanced across at Stephen, who grinned at her.
“We’ve been coming here years longer than you,” she told the younger Ellacotts, standing. “Prepare to lose. Badly. And you owe us at least one round.”
“Fuck off,” Martin replied amiably. “You two have careers. We are but an impoverished student and a minimum wage worker.”
Stephen snorted. “Grow up, then,” he said acerbically.
“Ooooh!” Jonathan chortled. “Thinks he’s the big daddy now.”
Bickering jovially, the four Ellacott siblings headed for the pool table.