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When Robert was with Chrissie, before carbon monoxide poisoning, and bullet holes, and prison, holiday parties like this one were his bread and butter. He could laugh and charm and schmooze with the best of them, making sales and building relationships left, right and center.
He would bet one of his colleagues, Marvin Mosley, to see who could get the most phone numbers in the night. He’d won that bet, three years in a row, before the Whites had moved him to Emmerdale and his life had gotten exponentially more complicated.
With Chrissie, he would put on a suit and tie, or a tuxedo if the occasion called for it, and she would wear a dress and they would be the envy of everyone in attendance. All eyes would be on them, on him, and he would relish in it. The spotlight loved Robert Sugden, and he loved it right back.
Tonight, however, Robert feels like he wants to throw up. He’s trying to remember why he insisted on coming here tonight, on even joining the Hotten Business Association in the first place. (When he’d first brought it up, Aaron had frowned and pointed out that they don’t even live in Hotten, and Robert had explained that it’s actually the Hotten and Surrounding Villages Business Association, the chairwoman just prefers HBA to HSVBA, so Emmerdale still counts.)
Sure, the network of associates he’s built up over the past nine or so months has been invaluable to the success of the farm, and they had needed to put some serious work into their reputation after everything with Celia had come out. Sure, the scrapyard had benefited from the new contacts, and both Robert and Aaron had needed to be in good standing before the social workers would even think about letting Seb anywhere near them. Sure, divorce is expensive, even when each of your psycho husbands are in prison, and becoming members had had near immediate positive impacts on their bank accounts.
All of that is good and important, but Robert is finding it hard to appreciate any of it as he leans against the wall on the side of the room, hidden behind a makeshift wall of Christmas trees and tries to stave off a panic attack. He hasn’t had one in a while and he’d naively thought that maybe he was done with them, but tonight has proven otherwise.
There are just so many people here, and he’s been bombarded with questions and offers and business cards, and he’s lost track of Aaron somewhere in the crowd. He picks a spot on the tree in front of him, trying to control his breathing and lower his heart rate, like his therapist had shown him. Just as he’s thinking that it’s never going to work and he’s going to panic himself to death in this corner, he hears Aaron’s voice and the fog lifts a little bit.
“Hi, excuse me, you haven’t seen Robert Sugden around earlier by any chance? Tall, blonde bloke in a blue suit? I’ve gotten completely turned around here,” Aaron’s on the other side of the trees, and he’s using his polite voice, which means he’s uncomfortable. Robert tries to call over to him, but his throat is dry and the sound comes out as a whisper. He’s about to clear his throat and try again, when the person Aaron is speaking to answers him.
“Robert Sugden? I haven’t seen him this evening, but I know him from back in the day! He’s here tonight, you say?”
Robert’s panic attack is officially stopped in its tracks when he hears that voice, because what in the everloving fuck is this guy doing here?
“Eh, yeah, around here some place anyway,” Aaron says, clearly surprised. “How do you know Robert?”
“Oh, Berto and I used to work together at Whites’,” Robert rolls his eyes when he hears the old nickname. The only person who ever used to call him that was – “Marvin Mosley, by the way.”
“Aaron Dingle,” Aaron introduces himself, and Robert can perfectly picture the look of surprise and barely contained revulsion on his face. “I’m sorry… Berto?”
“Yes, Berto! Oh, that takes me back. I don’t know how well you know him,” Robert hears Aaron draw in a breath to speak, but Marvin barrels on, “he was a real scoundrel back in the day. A fantastic salesman, he could sell a dildo to a nun, I’m telling ya, and a great head on his shoulders when it comes to business, but he had that one weakness. The one that comes for us all, eh?” Robert can perfectly picture Marvin elbowing Aaron and Aaron looking unimpressed. “Women.”
Robert looks around for something to kill himself with, as Aaron, feigning interest, says, “Women? Really?” the cheeky bastard.
“Oh, yeah,” Marvin says, proudly. “He and I would’ve had the run of this party 15 years ago. We used to bet on how our night would go, called it ‘flirtation turnaround’ to use a business term,” Robert had never called it that, Marvin had always insisted on it, “£100 to whoever got the most women’s contact info,” Robert had been careful to always say ‘people’ and not ‘women’ in order to not limit himself in the parameters of the bet, “and I’m not afraid to say when I’m outclassed, Berto had me beat, every time.”
“Did he?” Aaron definitely has that sparkle in his eye that he gets when he’s learning something he’s going to tease Robert about for the rest of time.
Robert’s panic attack has fully subsided now, and with his vision finally clear, he can see a way out of his current hiding spot that won’t alert Aaron or Marvin, but it means he’ll have to loop back around the room to get to them on the other side. The path will bring him by the HBA chairwoman, a pinched looking woman with a shrill voice, who’s been trying to grab him all evening to discuss New Year’s plans, so he stalls for a second, looking for another way.
“Now, he was with Chrissie at the time, though that didn’t stop him, the scamp!” Marvin laughs, then sobers pretty quickly. “But then, of course, the tragedy, with the Whites, I don’t know if you heard…”
“Oh, yeah, I… I heard about that, yeah.”
“I think they were divorced by that stage, we kind of fell out of touch when they moved, to an area around here actually! If it isn’t just a small world, eh?”
“Isn’t it just.” Aaron sounds like he’s fishing for more information to poke fun at Robert about, and Robert's about to just admit defeat and reveal his hiding spot, when he speaks up again. “What do you do yourself, Marvin? Are you a business owner, or?”
“Oh, no, I’m just here for the networking, a lot of farming types up here, and I’m in agricultural equipment sales. Are you a farmer by any chance?”
“No, no, I actually own a scrapyard, in Emmerdale, just outside town.”
“Oh, wonderful,” Marvin says, in a voice that hasn’t changed since Robert had last seen him, and that means he has no interest in what was just said. “And how do you know Berto?”
“He’s my fiancé.” Aaron says, matter-of-factly, causing Marvin to choke on his drink, and Robert’s heart to stop dead in his chest. “Well, sorry, I’m a bit ahead of myself, I haven’t asked him yet, but I’m pretty sure he’s gonna say yes. If you’ll excuse me, Marvin, I see one of my neighbours, I should go and say hi. Tell Robert I’m looking for him, if you see him, yeah?”
Robert hears Marvin continue to splutter as Aaron walks away.
The party sucks. The music is bad, the drinks on offer are severely limited, the food is cold and bland. Some of the worst people Robert has ever known, like Marvin Mosley or the HBA chairwoman, are pretty much unavoidable in the cramped room.
But Aaron Dingle wants to marry him again. Aaron Dingle has plans to ask him to marry him again. Aaron Dingle is going to propose. To him. Again.
It’s the best party Robert’s ever attended.