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It’s four days after the final showdown with John that Robert comes to a very important conclusion — Friday nights are for getting wine drunk and dancing like nobody’s watching.
The best part about it is that nobody is watching; it’s the first time since everything went down that Robert isn’t being interrogated by police officers or smothered by Victoria’s constant hovering over him, like having a black eye and and a sprained wrist means he’s some sort of invalid all of a sudden.
She wouldn’t have survived visiting him in prison, that’s for sure.
Robert is blissfully alone — Victoria is working a late shift at the Hide, and Harry is spending the night up at the farm with Matty, something about a Spider-Man movie marathon with Isaac — and he intends to take full advantage of the solitude.
Robert’s actually looking for the posh biscuits he knows Vic hides from them as he scours the back of the kitchen cupboards, but he’s pleasantly surprised to stumble upon an unopened bottle of Sauvignon Blanc during his quest instead.
And yeah, he’s forgiven his little sister for the whole ‘not believing him’ thing, but swiping her bottle of wine would officially make them quits, Robert decides.
He’s halfway through the bottle before he’s connecting his phone to Vic’s Bluetooth speaker. Music is something Robert actively avoids when possible these days; the songs on the radio are different and he’s never heard of half the artists, and it’s a loud, overly cheery reminder of everything he’s missed since he let himself be handcuffed and led away in that car park. When he’d given up his life to give Aaron his best shot of living his own.
For once, Robert doesn’t want to think about Aaron at all.
He knows he’s out of the hospital, being held under lock and key in his old bedroom at the pub, no doubt, but they haven’t seen each other since Robert had a gun pressed to his temple by their mutual friend and —
Nope, not going there.
Robert clicks on a playlist which boasts the best tunes of 2018, feels safe in the knowledge that most of them will be familiar to him. He alternates between large swigs of his subpar wine — if living with the Whites had left any lasting impression on Robert, it was his wine snobbery, so sue him — and belting out the lyrics to songs by Ariana Grande and Dua Lipa.
The volume is loud enough that he knows he’s being inconsiderate to the neighbours, but then he remembers how everyone in the village had turned on him not so long ago, branding him a liar and an obsessive and a murderer, and thinks fuck them and cranks it up some more.
Maybe they’ll make a noise complaint — send some low-ranking officer ‘round in his copper uniform to give Robert a dressing down, and he might actually see some action that isn’t with his right hand or that one mindblowing, earth-shattering afternoon with Aaron back in August.
Back when Robert was still convinced that Aaron could love him, this beaten down shell of the confident Robert Sugden he’d fallen for all those years ago.
He doesn’t realise the bottle is empty until he goes for another sip. He’s worked his way through the lot, soaked it up with a packet of prawn cocktail crisps because everyone knows Sauvignon pairs nicely with seafood and that’s the closest Robert could get without potentially setting himself, and Vic’s kitchen, ablaze.
Holding the bottle up like a microphone, Robert begins to sing along to the music filtering through the house. The speaker is in the kitchen but he wanders through to the living room, stands on the coffee table on unsteady legs, and lets loose.
“If it feels like paradise running through your bloody veins, you know it’s love heading your way…”
Can Robert carry a tune? It’s debatable, but his windmilling arms and gyrating hips distract from that, he figures, because he’s actually a really good dancer, thank you very much. Aaron has said many a thing about Robert in the past, but insulting his sweet moves was just a bold-faced lie and they both know it.
He’s got both arms raised for the final beat, almost destroying the lampshade with the bottle he’s still gripping tightly in one hand. He’s panting, breathless, but grinning wide enough for his cheeks to ache.
And that’s how Vic finds him.
She’s still in her work apron, bleary-eyed and looking dead on her feet, and there’s a weariness in the way that she carries herself, the way she checks the deadbolt thrice, that makes Robert feel inexplicably guilty.
“You’re drunk,” she observes, toeing off her shoes.
She looks amused, a little judgemental at his position, but endeared nonetheless. She’s smiling and Robert made that happen, and the warmth of it fills his chest, settles inside him with the wine and the crisps and fills the spaces where emptiness usually prevails.
“I’m drunk,” he repeats merrily, lets Vic pry the bottle from his grasp and set it on the table.
“That was supposed to be for a special occasion.”
Robert clambers down from the table, steadies himself with a hand on her shoulder. “I toasted to freedom,” he tells her, as close to honesty as he ever gets these days. “And to Johnny Boy going away for a long, long time.”
“Right. Are you okay?”
A simple enough question. Vic’s asked him no less than eight times a day for ages now and Robert usually runs through the same iterations of fine, good, peachy with a smile that he knows looks as forced as it feels.
He opens his mouth to spew out much of the same, but the song changes and Robert realises that he doesn’t recognise the tune. It startles something in him and it’s stupid, he knows it’s stupid because it’s a song from 2018 so even if it’s unfamiliar it’s still probably from before but —
But Robert doesn’t recognise the tune. He’s standing in Victoria’s home and Lee is dead and he’s survived prison but lost himself along the way, and this isn’t The Mill because he’s lost Aaron too, and, and, and.
“Robert?”
He blinks. “What?”
Vic looks concerned, all wide eyes and pouted lips. He’s making her look like that and he hates himself for it. A lot of what he feels depends on how he makes Vic feel, he’s come to realise, and it’s odd because he’s never defined his self-worth by the opinions of others before.
(Except Aaron. He’s always the exception to all of Robert’s rules.)
“You spaced out,” she says softly. “Are you okay?”
He’s sick of being asked, sick of not being okay at all.
“Dance with me?” he deflects.
Robert doesn’t give her the opportunity to probe any further or to ask what the hell he’s goin’ on about. Instead he wraps his arms around his little sister, feels her cold cheek pressed against the thin material of his t-shirt, and sways them in time to the rhythm of the song.
“You should’ve called me if you were struggling,” she chides, upset rather than angry, maybe a little disappointment underneath.
Robert is used to disappointing people, but he hates disappointing Victoria. She’s all he’s got, her and Harry.
“Maybe I just wanted to dance.” To forget the world, he thinks.
“You don’t have to dance alone, Robert.”
He hums, feels the vibration of his words against his chest, in his heart — maybe even believes them, just a little. “Same time next week?”
“You’re buyin’ the wine.”
Robert laughs. “Fair enough.”
The issue with Emmerdale is that there’s a criminal lack of culture.
Well, there’s twenty other terrible things about the village that Robert can rattle off the top of his head, but right now, standing in the middle of David’s — which really should be renamed since the bloke’s been AWOL for years now apparently — staring at their abysmal wine selection, he thinks there’s never been such a sorry state of affairs.
Travelling into Hotten to go to one of the posher shops would’ve been a better bet, but it’s late enough now that he can’t really be arsed, and Victoria’ll probably be just as pleased with a cheap bottle of white zinfandel with a picture of a foot on the label as she would be with the decades-old reds Lawrence used to keep stashed away in wine racks and cabinets.
Jack Sugden’s terrible parenting strikes again. Never instilled an ounce of highbrow taste into his children. Just pig farming and lambing season and an iron-fist that Robert still feels imprinted against his cheekbone sometimes.
“Lookin’ for summat decent for wine night, are ya?”
Robert flinches, whirls ‘round ready to put up or shut up as the kids at school used to call it, but the fight drains out of him when he realises that it’s just Matty, who has the decency to look contrite.
“Sorry, mate. Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s fine,” Robert dismisses. “I’m fine.”
Matty squints at him. “Right. If you say so.”
Robert does say so. He’s fine because he’s out in public and people can see him, and he’s not about to be not fine in a shop where Kerry works, gossip that she is. Every time he dissociates staring at the milk or his hands shake enough that he knocks over part of the bog roll tower, Aaron always seems to find out.
They’re not anything to each other anymore yet he’s the first person she tells. It’s telling, but Robert’s not sure what exactly it’s saying.
To think she used to be his mate. She’s a damn snitch now.
(Part of Robert knows she’s doing it out of concern, out of love. Most of him thinks she’s a busybody with too much time on her hands considering she works two jobs and fucks Jai Sharma on the side.)
“What do you know about wine night anyway?”
Matty frowns. “Did Vic not tell ya that she invited me?”
“Er, no?”
“Oh.” There’s a beat of awkward silence. “I can tell her I’m busy if —”
“It’s fine,” Robert cuts in. “‘Course it’s fine. She was probably just dreadin’ spending time alone with me. I’m a bit miserable these days, just to give you the heads up.”
A series of emotions flicker across Matty’s face in rapid succession. None of them look particularly inviting. Eventually, though, he simply says, “She loves you, Robert. And besides, misery loves company.”
And Robert thinks about everything Matty’s been through, everything he’s lost, and figures maybe he gets it. Sort of. At the very least he seems like a decent lad and it’s obvious him and Vic are sniffin’ around each other, so it’s a good opportunity for Robert to determine whether or not he should be objecting to that notion.
“Bring snacks, yeah? For a chef, Vic’s got shit taste in ‘em.”
Matty laughs. “No worries, mate. Reckon I can stretch to some shortbreads.”
Honestly, if he carries on being so wonderful, Victoria might have to be worried that Robert’ll steal her man for himself. It’s something of a tradition: stealing the partners of his siblings. This would just complete the set.
— — —
“Maybe we should burn an effigy of him.”
Victoria swats his arm, trying to admonish him despite the smile she’s clearly fighting. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re not gonna go out and get a creepy doll made of our brother just to burn it.”
“I was thinkin’ we could just wrap a syringe in a bit of beige cloth. About sums him up,” Robert retorts.
He thinks about asking Aaron if they can cut one of the sleeves off his wedding suit, then remembers that he'll be the next Sugden hunted for sport by the Dingles if Chas catches him anywhere near her son after recent events.
Not an unfamiliar turn of events by any means, but it'd clash with his plans to not get grievously injured, so it'd be a shame to miss that in favour of getting stuffed in a car boot and knocked about by a middle-aged — but no less enthusiastic about violence — Cain Dingle.
“Maybe you should go to one of them rooms where you just pay to smash shit up,” suggests Matty.
“Please do not encourage my brother to do anything violent.” Victoria glances furtively between the two of them. “I think we’ve had enough violence to last us a lifetime, haven’t we?”
Robert casts his mind back to childhood — of cuffs ‘round the head, of punches to the nose, of belt buckles sharp enough to leave indents — and thinks he’d probably had enough violence before he turned eighteen. Before he was hit by someone that wasn’t his dad or Andy.
Instead of saying any of that, he swirls his wine and takes a deep gulp. It’s nothing to write home about, but it’s decent enough, and he’s got every intention of getting something better next week. Gotta build themselves up to the good stuff; that way they’ll appreciate it more, or whatever.
One glass turns into three into almost a bottle each.
Victoria’s small and slight enough that she’s passed tipsy before she’s finished her second, and Matty almost immediately establishes himself as an overly-emotional drunk, and a tactile one at that. He claps his hands on Robert’s shoulders and ruffles his hair and twirls Victoria around the room like they’re auditioning for Strictly Come Dancing with middling success.
“Y’know,” hiccups Matty when it’s just the two of them, Victoria having broken the seal early doors like an amateur until she’s pissing every ten minutes, “I just wanna say thanks.”
It’s just about the last thing anyone ever says to Robert, so he’s caught off guard. “For what?”
“Comin’ back.” Matty drops his voice to a conspiratory whisper. “I mean, if it weren’t for you… Well, Vic’d still be taken in by John, wouldn’t she? We all would. God knows who else he might’ve hurt in the process.”
Instinctively, Robert reaches up to touch his eye. It’s virtually healed now, the skin still tender to touch but no darker than the usual crescents beneath his eyes from lack of sleep. He thinks of John punching him hard enough that he thought he’d go blind — “If I can’t see Aaron, neither can you.” sort of thing — and about how Robert wanted to actually, properly kill him in that moment.
He’s ended lives before, directly or indirectly, murder or manslaughter, but he’s never wrapped his fingers around someone’s throat and squeezed before. He wanted to. God, he’d never wanted anything more. Maybe not even Aaron, and Robert wants him down to the marrow in his bones.
“She’s my sister,” he murmurs after a pause long enough that he’s sure Matty reads the silence cover to cover, finds all the hidden meanings in words left unspoken. “I was always coming back for her.”
“Just her?”
Robert opens and closes his mouth several times, looks and feels like a fish out of water. He’s spared from answering when Victoria comes stumbling down the stairs, pretty chiffon blouse ruined with a small vomit stain on the front.
“Another drink anyone?” she asks.
“Nice try.” Robert stands on shaky legs to loop his arm around her waist. Between the two of them, they just about balance each other out, remaining upright. There’s probably a metaphor in there somewhere but Robert’s got no time for symbolism when there’s imminent danger of being thrown up over.
“Oi. What’re ya doin’?”
“Bedtime,” Robert trills. “C’mon.”
“Yeah, I was just tellin’ Rob I was thinkin’ of headin’ off anyways,” Matty says.
Robert scoffs. “And I was just tellin’ him that he’ll be sleeping on the sofa and we won’t take no for an answer. You’re three sheets to the wind mate — could you even find your way back to the farm?”
So Matty kips on the couch and Victoria spends more of the night on the bathroom floor than her bed, and Robert makes them all bacon butties in the morning despite the pounding in his head and the way his stomach revolts at the smell of the grease.
“Same time next week?” jokes Matty.
“Yeah,” Robert replies, serious. “You’re always welcome, mate.”
Robert wakes early after a nightmare he can’t quite recall, and vows to head into Hotten to finally browse an assortment of wines that don’t get imported from some backwater hovel in Manchester. He wants something French and classy that glides down his throat like liquid gold, and he’s not going to find it within a five mile radius of Emmerdale.
Or that’s what he thinks.
Sometimes, after a particularly fitful sleep, Robert starts his day with a walk. It’s the sort of thing that he thinks a therapist might recommend if he ever went to one, and it always makes Victoria smile, small and proud and so much like Mum that it makes tears well in his eyes.
The walk usually involves the same combination of places: the pub, the bridge, the Mill. He’d walked as far as Home Farm once before realising he was wearing odd shoes, and he’d stayed hidden in the thicket of trees on the outskirts of the property until nightfall when he could slink back to Keepers without anyone seeing.
Today, he sees Ruby standing outside her front door, angrily yelling at a delivery truck as it tears it down the street, no doubt desperate to escape her wrath.
She’s surrounded by boxes and she kicks one of them as she curses. It occurs to Robert that the woman’s practically a Dingle — the most sophisticated adjacent to that family since Robert, if he does say so himself — and he should steer well clear, but she spots him like a beacon for trouble and beckons him over with a cry of, “Oi, you!”
Less damsel in distress than fire-breathing dragon.
As he approaches, Robert realises the boxes are filled with boxes of wine. Good wine.
“Havin’ a party?”
Ruby levels him with an unamused stare. “And who around here would I want to invite to a party?”
“No bashes for the in-laws?”
“God, no!” she exclaims with an honest-to-God shudder. “If I could, I’d hire a security detail to make sure none of them ever stepped foot inside my house.”
Robert snorts. “Should’ve built the place with Dingle traps, really. Missed a trick with that one.”
“Ah, of course. I forgot this place was yours,” Ruby says, and he might’ve been more offended if she’d been around when he lived here. Probably would’ve been more amused ‘n’all. “Must feel weird being back.”
“Better than prison,” he answers, though sometimes he’s not so sure. “Anyway, what’s with all the wine then? Caleb driven you to drink this much?”
“I’d kill him before I let him ruin wine for me.”
Robert grins, sharp. “If you ever need any tips, people ‘round here would probably say I’m the expert.”
“Because you killed a rapist?”
There’s something in the way she says it, so blunt and unbothered, like she’s not judging him at all. Maybe even commending him, somewhere beneath that careful, lipsticked smile.
“Er, yeah.” He doesn’t know if she knows about Katie, doesn’t much want to pull at that particular thread anymore. It’s like unravelling a jumper he’s knitted for himself as he wears it, until eventually it falls apart at the seams and he’s left standing there fully exposed, stripped of his makeshift armour.
“Well, you did what you had to do for your sister,” Ruby says, matter of fact. “Caleb agrees. He still feels awful about having to let you go at the depot, but —”
“But John.”
Ruby nods. “He’d give you the job back now, if you asked.”
“Maybe.”
The farm’s alright, really; large open spaces with the sun beaming down on him, conversations with Matty and Mack that border on friendly, Moira offering him cups of tea and telling him to take it easy.
It feels more like him these days. Like childhood and adulthood have fused together, a convalescence of the jagged parts of himself glued slowly back together one cut finger at a time.
“Actually, if you’re at a bit of a loose end, I could really use another pair of hands.”
“I was actually just going into Hotten.”
“What for?”
Robert chuckles. “Wine, funnily enough.”
“Perfect!” Ruby claps her hands together. “You help me shift this lot and you can have a box. It’s premium quality stuff, you know.”
“I do know.”
Before the Whites, Robert would get drunk off cheap cans of lager in his shitty apartment. Maybe a bottle of off-brand vodka on special occasions, like the anniversaries of all the terrible things that’ve ever happened to him, including, but not limited to, his own birthday.
Lawrence would take him to dinner parties — soirees, he’d call them — and point out the good and bad wines on the menu, and which bottles to buy when you wanted to both impress and pinch the pursestrings. They’d swill wine together and Robert would laugh at his jokes and touch his arm, and Lawrence would fall for it hook, line and sinker every single time.
“A connoisseur, are you?”
“Something like that.”
Ruby looks him up and down, measuring him up. “And what do you need the wine for, exactly?”
“I’m assuming you’re looking for an answer more profound than to drink?”
“You know, Chas thinks you’re a right piece of work.”
“Time doesn’t heal all wounds, I s’pose.”
“Luckily for you, I think she’s a terrible judge of character.” They share a laugh and it’s nice. Might be the first time he’s had a nice conversation with someone Victoria hadn’t set him up on a sad adult playdate with since coming back.
“It’s wine night on Friday,” he divulges. “Me, Vic and Matty with a couple of bottles of the good stuff. Pretending to be normal, or drinking enough that we forget we aren’t.”
“Sounds lovely.” Ruby doesn’t sound like she’s patronising him, and he’s gathered enough about her to know that she wouldn’t bother hiding if she was. “Manpreet and I were actually discussing the idea of starting a wine club. As a starting point for my new business venture.”
Privately, Robert thinks that’s probably a bit sophisticated for ‘round here, but maybe the posh revolution starts at dawn. Wouldn’t that be something?
“If you ever need any help with it, I used to dabble in that sort of thing,” he offers.
“Really? Well, how about you have your wine club at ours tonight? I’ll kick Caleb out and invite Manpreet over and we can discuss things.”
Going back inside flat one of the Mill sounds sort of terrifying, but Robert’s a masochist at heart so he smiles and says, “Eight o’clock alright?”
“Wonderful. Now, get a move on. These boxes won’t shift themselves.”
— — —
The decor is tasteful enough — the sort of catalogue-worthy feng shui that Chrissie was really into when they lived in a townhouse in one of the nicer parts of Manchester. It’s more showroom-esque than when Robert had kitted the place out, but the stark contrasts don’t bother him as much as he feared they might.
The place doesn’t feel like home anymore, and there’s something almost comforting about that.
“Come in, come in! Help yourself to any nibbles and, of course, the wine!” greets Ruby, effortlessly slipping into the role of hostess.
It’s an odd bunch of people: Robert, Victoria, Matty, Manpreet and Ruby all gathered on the sofas, crystal glasses filled then emptied, rinse and repeat. It reminds Robert a bit of the old days, when his list of friends was just as scarce but sometimes the girls would assemble together like a ragtag group of heroines and invite him along as their token sidekick.
Bernice is long gone now, sunning it up in Portugal with Diane. Priya is somewhere in London, no doubt girlbossing it as she juggles her career and motherhood, and probably dating a string of increasingly questionable men, because they’ve always been her downfall.
Vanessa and Kerry are still in the village, but Robert doesn’t feel as though he’s got much to say to them these days. Looking at them feels a bit like flipping the pages of a photo album — fond memories best left in the past, where they can’t be tainted with present issues.
Here and now, though, Robert finds that he likes this eclectic mix of old and new, familiar and shiny new. Victoria’s presence is an unwavering comfort, his safety blanket, and allows him to relax enough to chat to Manpreet about the endless scandals down at Brook Cottage Surgery.
He doesn’t even flinch when John’s mentioned, inhibitions lowered with the steady flow of alcohol and conversation. Sure, he bites his tongue hard enough that his next swig tastes faintly coppery, but nobody else can see that, and Robert decides that’s progress considering the amount of embarrassing public reactions he’s had in the wake of it all.
“Do you think the place is just cursed?” he asks.
Manpreet snorts. “Oh, almost definitely! Although is the real curse all those evil medical professionals, or the fact that I’ll be there until I retire with Liam and Claudette?”
“You reckon Claudette’s gonna outlive you?”
“I think she’ll outlive the lot of us,” Manpreet says quite seriously.
Robert laughs. “Seems the type. Being God’s special helper has to come with some benefits, right?”
“Mm, indeed.”
“Although I don’t fancy Liam’s chances,” he muses. “Chas’ll eat him alive soon enough.”
Ears pricked with the sound of Dingle slander, Ruby angles her body to face them. “Oh, Liam’s a right oddball, isn’t he? Nice enough, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I wonder how he’s got the brain cells to be a doctor. Seems like it’s all air and pop culture references up there some days.”
“Oh, he’s a looker though, isn’t he?” Manpreet slaps a hand over her own mouth, a startled giggle slipping through her fingers as though she hadn’t planned to say that aloud.
Robert thinks about it, conjures an image up of Liam in his mind’s eye, and decides, “Yeah, he’s alright.”
“Ooh, has Robert Sugden got himself a crush?” teases Ruby. “Ex husband’s future stepdad? Very messy.”
“Oh, give over,” retorts Robert, hyperaware of the heat in his cheeks. “I’m just sayin’ I’ve been treated by worse doctors.”
“You’ve been treated by some proper fit ones as well, though,” interjects Victoria, oblivious to the flash of jealousy that twists Matty’s soft features into something sharper, more alert. “I don’t even swing that way, but some of the nurses who took care of you after you got shot? Well, I might’ve considered it if they’d asked.”
Maybe if that’d happened then Victoria would’ve lived a life of domestic bliss far removed from the horrors she’s endured in her sad little heterosexual life. And Jack had been dead for years before Robert took a bullet to the chest, so she’d never have been forced to bear her soul to the dad she adored. Would’ve never had to face that cold, painful rejection Robert’s shaped most of his life around.
“Can’t say I really got to appreciate that,” he jokes, “on account of the coma, y’know?”
“That was the real travesty,” Victoria claims. “You would’ve loved ‘em, Rob. ‘Course, you probably would’ve milked it for all it was worth and made out you were sick for weeks longer than you were just so they’d keep waitin’ on ya hand and foot.”
“Nah. Had places to be, trials to interrupt, didn’t I?”
Ruby holds up a well-manicured hand, almost sloshes wine over the edge of her glass. “Can we just rewind a few years here? I’m definitely missing a juicy story.”
Victoria’s eyes light up like a little kid on Christmas morning. “Well, it all started with the affair reveal, really…”
Robert knocks back the rest of his drink, cracks open the next bottle and has no intentions of sharing.
It’s gonna be a long night.
Ruby
Change of venue. See you in the pub at eight.
There’s no option to decline. No indication that she’s open to negotiations. No reasons offered for her detonating this bomb on his favourite day of the week and blowing his nerves to smithereens.
He calls Victoria then Manpreet but neither of them seem to know why either. Apparently it’s a need to know basis and they don’t need to know.
If anyone asks, Robert’ll deny spending the whole day panicking about going to the pub. It’s stupid; he’s been there dozens of times since being back and hundreds more before that. Hell, he’d lived above the place for a while, before he and Aaron and Liv moved into what would become their home, for better or worse.
Robert doesn’t have Aaron, not anymore, but Aaron’s family still have the pub, and Robert’s heard that he stays there more often than not, affected enough by the scars John left in his wake to willingly subject himself to living under Chas’ roof again.
So Aaron’ll probably be there, alongside a gaggle of assorted Dingles, who somehow all have jobs yet spend every waking moment proppin’ up the bar at the Woolpack, sinkin’ pints like there’s an Olympic gold medal in it for them.
When seven-thirty rolls around, Victoria comes traipsing down the stairs in a slinky green dress, looking positively radiant but decidedly overdressed for an evening at their local. Especially considering she worked there for eons, so she knows it’s nothing fancy.
“Why are ya gawping?”
Robert shakes his head. “I’m not. You look nice.”
“Oh, is that it, is it? Nice?”
“You're my kid sister, Vic. Nice is the best you’re gettin’. If I had it my way you’d always be wearin’ at least six layers, one of which burns the skin of any bloke who puts his hands on you.”
Victoria rolls her eyes. “I’m also a grown woman, in case you’d forgotten. And I’ll dress how I want and touch who I want, and you won’t say a word about it unless I ask you to intervene. Got it?”
“Got it, boss.”
She loops her arm through his when they step outside, sniffing loudly. “You smell nice. Is that your poncey aftershave?”
“Can’t put a price on good personal hygiene. What was it Finn said you smelled like? Chanel no. chip fat?”
Victoria smiles, sad yet fond, recalling the moment. They don’t talk much about the people they’ve lost — the list too long, the pain too raw — but sometimes it’s good to think of them, and Finn’s loss is a scab that’s long since healed over for Robert, so he doesn’t feel too pained to pick at it.
Maybe Victoria likes the dull ache of reminiscence. Maybe Robert should make more of an effort to acknowledge the ghosts lurking in the corners of Keepers cottage.
Matty’s already standing outside the pub when they get there, deep in conversation with Mack.
Aaron’s best mate is decent enough. A bit like his predecessor — and his nephew, funnily enough — except Mack’s chilled where Adam would practically vibrate with excess energy, amusing where Adam was grating.
He’s also married to Charity, so it’s easy to explain away his occasional grouches. Adam had nothing to be mithered about when he was married to Victoria Sugden: the girl’s a damn saint.
“Hey, you two,” Matty greets with a wave, the other hand stuffed in the front pocket of his jeans.
“Alright?” Victoria greets him, all casual like. She’s maybe the only Sugden to have ever had a crush and been normal about it.
“Yeah, not bad, ta.” He inclines his head towards Mack, who’s leaning against the brick wall without a care in the world, like he’s as comfortable here as he is anywhere else. Always fittin’ it. Never concerned with being the odd one out. “Soz, but since this week’s club is in a public place, I couldn’t stop him from taggin’ along.”
Mack grins, easy and flirtatious, and Robert’s skin tingles where his gaze lingers. He’s come to accept that a life without Aaron has left him easily susceptible to the advances of others, shy and flattered like a schoolgirl in the playground when a boy pulls on her pigtails.
It’s not like he’d ever go there with Mack: the other bloke’s married and Aaron’s most trusted confidante, and Robert’s fairly sure Mack’s only into women, in that queer way that some straight blokes are.
The flirting’s fun though, he concedes.
“Nobody puts Baby in the corner,” Mack says, accent and all. “You don’t mind, do ya?”
“No,” Robert replies. “As long as you’re fine with drinking wine. It’s tradition, and we’re not about to change that for just anyone.”
“I’ll even stick my pinkie out like a proper refined gentleman just for you, Robert Sugden.”
They make their way inside, discover that Ruby’s already there. She’s standing behind the bar, shouting something at whoever’s in the back room. Chas, most likely. Those two are like chalk and cheese. Robert doesn’t envy Caleb having to referee between wife and sister.
On one of the shelves is a neat row of Ruby’s wines. Presumably, Chas isn’t thrilled by the change of inventory.
“Oh, good, you’re all here!” Ruby comes ‘round the bar to join them. “I needed people to see the wine being enjoyed, and I thought who better to do it than the wine club?”
Robert isn’t sure when they started being referred to as a club. It’s juvenile and stupid and it sends a warm, fluttery feeling through his core because these are his friends.
“Are we just free advertising to you then?” Matty questions, amused.
Ruby reaches up to pinch one of his cheeks. “Oh, sweet Matty,” she coos, “of course you are. You don’t mind, do you?” She holds up a couple of twenties, fanning herself with them.
I’m paying, she says with her smirk.
“Not in the slightest.”
They occupy one of the booths in the corner. Robert sits on the end, Victoria squished between him and Matty. Mack’s across from him, and Robert’s almost certain that the game of footsie they’re playing is accidental. Ruby is beside him, with Manpreet across from Matty.
“If we gain any more members we’re gonna have to start renting the room out,” Victoria jokes.
“Or charging membership,” Matty suggests. “We’d make a killin’.”
Ruby snaps her fingers. “I think you’re onto something there. What do you think, Robert?”
It’s strange, using his business acumen again. His skills are a little rusty, but it’s like riding a bike, and once he’s dusted off the cobwebs in that corner of his brain it’s all systems go again.
“I think if you have enough of a variety of whites and reds then membership could work,” he agrees. “You could make a website and people could input their preferences, and when you’ve got a decent enough supplier you could send out bottles tailored to their information. In fact, I think I’ve still got a few numbers from blokes in that industry, so I’ll send them over.”
“Oh, I could kiss you,” Ruby says giddily. “You’re the gift that keeps on giving.”
“Said nobody ever,” Victoria refutes, but she’s smiling and nudging Robert’s ribs with her bony elbow, so he knows she’s just winding him up.
“Every genius is underappreciated in their own time, Vic. When I’m gone you’ll all be sorry.”
From somewhere just beyond his periphery, Chas appears. The queen of unfortunate timing. “I’ll be too busy throwing a party to shed any tears,” she declares.
“Come on, Chas. Don’t be mean to our Robble,” chides Ruby.
Robert almost gets whiplash with how quickly his head snaps ‘round to glower at his sister. “Really? Did you have to?”
“Don’t be so sensitive, Robble.”
It’s Aaron’s nickname for him. Was, anyway. Robert supposes it must be up for grabs now, since Aaron doesn’t so much as whisper in his direction these days, much less give him silly nicknames.
Forlorn glances are their current language of choice.
“You lot don’t know what he’s like,” Chas hisses like a venomous snake poised to strike.
“I know enough,” says Ruby, simple as that. “I mean, I wish our Nicky wasn’t all loved up in the middle of nowhere, or I’d be setting them up right now.” She turns her attention to Robert, adds, “You’d love him, Robert. He’s lovely and respectful and you’d gain the mother in law of your dreams.”
Ruby doesn’t seem especially maternal, though Robert’s never really seen her interact with anyone younger. She’s wise though, has clearly been through a tough time and come out the other side fierce and brave and kind in ways the world probably wasn’t to her.
She’s a bit like Aaron, he realises. It makes sense, all of a sudden, why he’s been so inexplicably drawn to her friendship.
“I don’t think that’s a great idea. Shouldn’t mix business with pleasure, as they say.”
“Says the bloke who invested ten grand in the scrapyard just to meet Aaron on the sly,” Victoria points out.
“What are you, a fountain of knowledge on my life?”
“Sometimes I think I know too much,” she says sagely. “I know more about you than I know about myself. You’ve always had a habit of airin’ out your dirty laundry in public.”
It’s not something Robert can really argue with. Most of his transgressions are common knowledge, the village the backdrop for The Robert Sugden Show — which has yet to be cancelled despite best efforts from many, many people.
And the things that aren’t widely known… Well, Robert’s not inclined to start mentioning them.
“The more I learn about you, the more I’m sure we were destined to be friends,” Manpreet claims. “Tell me, what are your thoughts on Only Fans?”
Chas skulks away as their debate begins. It’s probably for the best. She doesn’t need to know that Robert and Aaron once made a sex tape, debated putting it online but Aaron got self-conscious about his scars and Robert’s skin was red from sunburn, and he didn’t fancy being known as some sort of sex lobster online.
Victoria shouldn’t know either, but he blurts it out and is hounded by twenty follow up questions before he can take it back, and she smacks him on the shoulder when he tries to cover her ears.
“Aaron was never like that with John,” Mack says, and it brings the mood down from raucous enthusiasm to a sort of somber contemplation. “Fun-loving or adventurous — unless you count the time John forced him to go bloody campin’ in December.”
It’s just another way Aaron’s changed, is the thing. He would’ve told Robert to piss off and threatened divorce if he’d been the one to suggest it. Maybe part of him loved John more. Maybe he thought it was easier to go along with it than to lose another boyfriend. Another Sugden.
Robert’s had two more glasses before the bloke in question makes an appearance.
Aaron comes strolling in with Belle and Kammy, eyes immediately flicking over to Robert as though they’re two magnetic poles attracted to one another whenever they’re in the same room — which has been the case ever since they first shared a space together.
He wonders if that attraction will ever fade. It’s less exciting than it is painful these days, a sharp twist between his ribs, but Robert thinks he’d still prefer that to an empty chasm in his chest where his heart should be. Can’t imagine a world where he walks around and Aaron’s presence inside of him isn’t this all-encompassing phantom, his ghost touching all the parts of Robert he’d long since cordoned off with caution tape and a Do Not Enter sign.
“I mean, he’s a good boy at heart, I know,” Ruby rambles, “but honestly? Our Aaron’s a bit of a moody sod. Don’t you think?”
“He’s brilliant,” Robert says, doesn’t mean to sound as breathless as he does, but Aaron’s always had that effect on him. Always made him feel and think and do things he’d never thought possible. Good, bad and undecided.
“Your lovesick puppy routine is equally endearing and nauseating, just so you know.”
Robert smiles. It might be the first time anyone’s called it endearing, or anything close to it.
“Y’know, he’s pinin’ after you, ‘n’all,” Mack says.
And Robert believes him, is the thing.
He can read Aaron like a book. He wears his heart on his sleeve and his eyes really are like the windows to his soul. So Robert sees the way Aaron looks at him, feels the heavy weight of his gaze when they’re in the street at the same time. He sees and he hopes and he doesn’t dare to make the first move.
Aaron needs time to heal. Robert doesn’t want to be the next in a package of sticking plasters that Aaron’ll peel off and discard when he decides he can brave the world with that wound on display again. He wants to be the stitches threading open flesh back together, a permanent fixture in whatever future Aaron fashions for himself out of the ashes of his latest decimation.
And if he has to wait for that then so be it. Weeks, months, years: Robert’s not planning on going anywhere anytime soon.
Not when he’s got a solid group of mates to keep him occupied until then.