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Emmerdale doesn’t look all that different, six years on. The Woolpack is different but it’s still Chas pulling pints and Marlon making the food. Main Street has the same shop and café, though the people behind the till have changed. Time has been good to the village; it has been less kind to Robert.
Being back feels different this time. Ten years earlier he returned triumphant, having set out to do what he wanted. He came back with a life he could throw in everyone’s face, a life that felt better than what anyone had. Now, he returns a man bent and broken beyond comparison, a man whose life has been upended enough that he doesn’t know which way is up. He’s different and it casts the village in a new light.
Most days, he wakes up and the differences are small enough that he can exist without the contrast being blinding. He gets up and puts on his overalls and he can put the last six years in a box and stuff it under the proverbial bed and he can be without it bothering him.
Some days, it’s impossible to ignore the years that have twisted his vision of who he is into someone he can barely recognise.
His own inadequacies, his own failures, they linger in a way they never did before. Years of sleeping light, of trying to survive and getting used to scrapes and bruises have left him haunted but now that he’s out, he’s finding it hard to re-adjust.
Robert doesn’t know what sets it off. Moira, talking about Andy or Eric talking about Jack. He feels them burrow under his skin, and lodging in his mind. Robert’s restless and he can’t shake the thought; what would his father say, now? What would Andy say? Would they stare at him like he does in the morning, looking for the shreds of his former self in the new lines and shadows under his eyes?
He’s ready with a quick riposte and a swift exit and yet, the notion finds purchase in his mind, digging deep.
There’s an easy way out. Vic’s got a bottle of bourbon on a shelf so high she needs a chair to get it down, but Robert can reach it just fine. Moira’s been praising his work ethic, calling him capable… He takes down a glass and pours himself a generous amount, and gets to work.
It’s afternoon before the front door opens and Vic walks through. It closes with a soft click behind her and Robert hears her shrug off her jacket. When she walks through the door to the kitchen, she jumps.
‘Robert! I didn’t see you.’
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Where’s Harry?’
‘He’s got a sleepover with a friend,’ Vic says, sitting down. The bottle of bourbon in front of him is half-empty, now. What little hunger he felt has been replaced by a slight burn and a warmth spreading through his fingertips. He moves the glass in his hand, watching as the golden liquid shines in the afternoon sunlight.
‘Rob?’ Vic asks delicately. She does that a lot nowadays, dances around him. The worst of it is, Robert knows it’s with good reason. He can tell that his sharpened edges catch on the easy life she had before he showed up. ‘Did something happen?’
‘What d’you mean?’
Vic puts one hand on his shoulder, gently. ‘I don’t usually come home to find you half a bottle deep.’
She’s right; Robert doesn’t do this. Robert puts on a face and lies to make the world change around him until the problem goes away. He does what he needs to do to get by. Except today, getting by made his chest hurt and his breathing shallow. Today, it weighed too heavily for him to be able to do much at all.
‘Did something happen up at Moira’s?’
Robert shakes his head and the room spins a little around him. ‘Farm’s fine,’ he mutters.
‘Right,’ Vic says. ‘So… what is it?’
He takes a deep breath and sets the glass aside, pushing it away. He needs his hand, you see, to keep his head up. Holding it up on his own has become difficult.
‘I’ve really been trying since I got back. Find a routine, keep my hands busy, but I’m so tired…’
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Vic nod in sympathy, her eyes wide. They’re already tearing up and he hates that, too. Hates that he brings her nothing but grief.
‘I know you’re trying Rob… Dad would be so proud of you, you know that?’
That does it – the notion of pride. Robert doesn’t know what pride feels like anymore. He clenches his fist around the glass and runs a hand over his mouth.
‘You know, I’m so sick of hearing that,’ Robert says. The words come out slurred, his tongue heavy and slow. ‘“Jack’d be proud of you, Dad would be so proud…”’ he mimics. ‘You have no idea, none of you has any idea –’
‘Then tell me,’ Vic says. She puts a hand on his arm, squeezes.
Robert lets out a slow breath. It’s an old wound and for so long, it was festering. He made so many mistakes to appease a man who never loved him, until… He built a life he was proud of. Then, he ruined it all. Now, with everything that has happened he can see that the wound is still there. Years of being told he was a waste has crept back in. Some days, he doesn’t know if the voice is his own, or his father’s.
‘You remember that Dad used to hire farmhands to help out when we were busy?’
Vic tilts her head and the nods. ‘Vaguely, yeah.’
‘I was fifteen,’ he says, and it all tumbles out of him. James, all broad shoulders and strong arms, laughing at Robert’s bad jokes. Robert didn’t remember much about him but he remembers the way he wore his hair, curls hanging over his forehead so that they covered his eyes. Robert remembers how James looked at him, how he gave him a one-sided smile and asked about comic books. Any excuse to get him to Robert’s room…
‘He smelled of hay and hard work and I couldn’t believe he wanted to talk to me, you know? He sat on the bed and leaned forward. He kissed me and I wanted him to. Next thing, the door burst down and Dad came in.’ Robert pauses, remembering the shame that coursed through him. It shouldn’t hurt after all these years but it does.
‘What?’ Vic’s voice is small.
‘He fired James on the spot and me… well, he leathered me. Next morning I walked downstairs and he couldn’t look at me, or speak to me. I felt that beating for a full week but the shame lasted years.’
He looks over at her and there are tears down her face.
‘He knew, Vic. He knew who I was and he wasn’t proud… He wouldn’t have been proud when I married Aaron, and he wouldn’t be proud now, I know it.’
‘Robert, I’m so sorry.’
There’s a scratch on the table and Robert thumbs at it, feels the grooves in the wood and feels it catch on his skin.
‘It wasn’t until Aaron that I started sorting it out, you know? I found a life I could be proud of, and then it didn’t matter as much, knowing what he’d think. Then I went and ruined it, like I ruin everything I touch.’ He lets out a slow breath. ‘So he was right, after all.’
‘No, Robert. He wasn’t,’ she says, her voice thick with emotion. ‘I’m so proud of you, and I wouldn’t want you anywhere else.’
He doesn’t believe her, but when she puts an arm around him and hugs him, he can’t help but lean into it.
-
‘Vic?’ A palm against the table brings her out of her reverie. She’s at the Hide, holding a cup in one hand and she’s been drying it off for so long, she doesn’t know when she started. ‘You there?’
She looks up and sees Aaron, brow knit and eyes full of concern.
‘Sorry, bit distracted.’ Vic puts on a smile and puts down the clean coffee cup. ‘Can I get you anything?’
‘You alright?’ he asks.
‘Fine,’ she says but the tone is too high pitched, too loud.
Aaron raises an eyebrow. ‘Come on, tell me.’
Vic twines her hands and sighs; it’s too close to the surface, tugging at her memories and warping them. Everything reminds her of the past but now, there’s a filter to it. Polarised lenses keeping the sun out. She can’t recognise the father he described with the one that she remembers.
Her loving dad, and a father who could do that .
‘Vic?’ Aaron asks again.
‘Sorry,’ she says but now the smile falters. She can’t keep it up any longer. ‘I talked to Robert last night and… Did he ever tell you?’ she asks in a quiet voice, leaning over the counter. ‘About Jack?’
Aaron’s eyes go wide and she knows the answer immediately.
‘About the farmhand? Yeah,’ Aaron says. ‘He told me, before we got engaged.’
Vic’s still holding the tea towel and she starts twisting it in her hands, pacing back and forth behind the counter.
‘I thought I knew my dad. I remember someone kind and caring, who loved me. I can’t believe he would do that, that he would beat him just for… kissing a boy.’
Aaron watches her carefully, lets her think.
‘All those years, Robert couldn’t be honest about who he was, because of him? Our dad made him hate himself for being who he was?’ Tears are prickling at her eyes now. ‘How could he do that?’
Aaron shrugs and his lower lip hangs in a frown. ‘I don’t know.’ Emotions dance across his face, emotions Vic can’t quite piece together. She knows it’s over between them and she knows she shouldn’t be asking these things, but this new angle on her life has taken hold.
‘Everything with Chrissie, with Andy… I never understood why he was so angry, but now. I wish Dad were alive so I could get angry on his behalf, tell him how brilliant his son is.’
Aaron looks down at the table, bites his lower lip.
She dries her eyes and shakes it off; another time, she can sort through her feelings another time. ‘Right, black coffee?’
-
Aaron walks past the graveyard on his way home. It’s a beautiful day, after all, grey clouds parting in the afternoon sun to reveal golden sunlight. He looks over the hedge as he walks by and spots a man in front of a headstone.
He knows before he even registers his face that it’s Robert. For once, he’s not wearing overalls. The long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans are a new look, more casual than Aaron ever remembered Robert being outside of a day spent in front of the telly. He’s staring at the headstone, hair moving in the breeze and Aaron can’t help himself.
It’s not a conscious decision, really. He simply makes the short walk, slowing down a few paces behind him to get him time to register that someone’s there. He remembers being jumpy after prison; it’s got to be even worse after six years away.
At the foot of the headstone there’s a small bundle of daisies. As Aaron looks across to where Liv’s headstone sits, there’s a larger bouquet of sunflowers. Aaron breathes around the weight on his chest and then steps up next to Robert.
Robert glances over and does a double take.
‘Hi,’ Aaron says.
‘What’re you doing here, Aaron?’
He shuffles his feet on the grass, hands buried deep in his pockets. ‘I spoke to Vic.’
Robert nods and looks down at the headstone again. The engraving tells of a man well loved, a farmer returning to that which he loved the most. It glosses over the imperfections of a man who couldn’t find it in his heart to love his child, unconditionally. He might have been good, but he had also left behind a lot of scars.
‘You told her,’ Aaron says after a long silence.
‘I don’t recommend honesty after half a bottle of bourbon,’ Robert says with a sigh. ‘She won’t stop looking at me like I’m a wounded puppy.’
‘She’s just grieving.’
‘I know,’ Robert replies. He looks over and Aaron is struck by the shadows under his eyes. He looks exhausted. ‘It’s why I never told her before. I didn’t want her to lose that image of him.’
‘He doesn’t deserve to be kept as this perfect dad,’ Aaron says and he can’t keep some vitriol from creeping in. ‘She deserves to know who he was.’
‘Yeah, well… she knows him a little better now.’
‘And you,’ Aaron says. ‘She knows you a little better.’
Robert smiles just a little, and Aaron has to look away. ‘I suppose so.’
‘Look, I was going to head to the pub, grab a pint.’ Aaron knows he shouldn’t, but a part of him looks at Robert and feels more at home than he can remember feeling in years. They know each other inside and out, know all the ugly parts and still, there was so much joy. He really should stop talking but it’s impossible, standing here next to him, feeling those years melt away. ‘You could join me, if you want?’
Their eyes meet and for an instant, they’re back on the bridge, Aaron in his wedding suit and Robert being more honest than Aaron could handle. It crackles between them, this surge of lightning.
‘We both know that’s a bad idea,’ Robert says.
Aaron nods, glances down at the ground again. He’s right – that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
‘I’m still proud of you, you know. Coming back here, trying to build a life for yourself…’ Aaron nods towards the headstone and then back up at Robert. ‘He might not be proud of you, but I am.’
Robert’s lower lip quivers and it’s all Aaron can do to stay away. He pushes his fists further into his pockets and, though gravity itself seems to have reverted to pull him towards Robert, he manages the first step back, and then the second.
‘Thought you wanted me gone?’ Robert says as Aaron turns away. The sadness lingers on his face but there’s something else there, too. It looks suspiciously like hunger.
Aaron doesn’t reply – another bad idea – and instead he leaves Robert standing in the afternoon sun.
He walks back to the Mill and with every step he takes, he feels parts of himself long-lost come back. The parts that remember how easy it is to love Robert Sugden. He tries to shake it off as he goes home and falls into the routines of his new life. It lingers, as he cooks and greets his husband, while they watch telly.
If he's being truly honest, his love of Robert never went away.
John looks over at him and smiles, and Aaron fakes a smile back.
'Alright?' he asks.
'Fine,' Aaron says and takes a deep breath. Now that he has realised it, something has settled within him, a puzzle piece falling into place. Now, he just needs to figure out what to do about it.