Chapter Five
Talking about Matt had had the opposite effect to the one Robyn desired. Instead of clarifying her feelings and reassuring her that they were still platonic, every mention of the man in question had her wriggling uncomfortably in her seat and almost itching to get back to him. It was like he was suddenly under her skin and no amount of rational conversation could persuade him out.
Sorcha had been slightly infuriating too, implying that Robyn was herself only now seeing what the other three Oakettes had observed for the past few months. Her friend had been part amused, part relieved that Robyn was finally catching on and may be about to put the poor man out of his not insignificant misery – apparent to all but her it would seem.
So, she huffed back down the hill, cursing the weather which had now turned from rain to sleet and was arching sideways down onto her, plastering the hair on one side of her head to her face.
“I’m sure I look delightful,” Robyn muttered to herself, aware by the chattering of her teeth and her freezing fingers that she should have taken Sorcha up on her offer to borrow a hat and some gloves. She’d not really thawed out and warmed up in the castle, so Robyn was painfully cold by the time she reached the pub.
About to rush into the warmth the inn afforded, Robyn stopped in her tracks when a flash of blue caught her eye over by the old oak. Knowing Matty had avoided the spot since they’d scattered Noelle’s ashes there, she knew it must be Dennis paying his respects at the landmark which was beloved by all locals but sacred to this family in particular.
Noelle had been like a second mother to Robyn, and she still felt her loss keenly. Initially bonding over the fact that their names both had a festive theme, Robyn had grown up enjoying the same nurturing maternal care that Noelle gave to her son. With her own parents always busy on business trips or working late nights at their import company, it had been her own Grandad and Matt’s family who had raised the shy girl to become the confident woman she was today.
“Dennis? You’ll catch your death out here.”
At first the older man appeared not to hear her, his shoulders hunched and his head bowed as he stood at the foot of the mighty trunk, the tree now bare of all its leaves. As Robyn slipped and slid over the muddy field, coming to a halt beside him, Dennis did turn slightly, acknowledging her arrival and trying to raise a surreptitious hand to scrub at his eyes. The hand itself shook, and not just from the cold Robyn thought.
“Dennis,” she repeated, “you’ll catch your death of cold if you stay out here much longer. Come inside and I’ll make us a cuppa.”
“He’s a good lad, my Matty,” the man began, “will make anyone a fine husband, you know?”
That wasn’t what Robyn expected, the conversation veering immediately into previously unchartered waters, and she was caught off guard.
“Of course, he’s the best,” it came out without her having to think about it, because it was true.
“Aye, and he’s going to need someone. Someone who’ll be there for him.”
“I’ll always be there for him,” Robyn whispered, her words almost eaten up by the wind before they reached the man’s ears.
“I know lass, it’s just, now more than ever, do you hear me?”
It was cryptic and unsettling. Robyn never did like ambiguity, preferring to say things how they were.
Until recently, that is, when she and Matt had danced a silent waltz around each other.
“Umhm,” she replied, wondering if those were tears on her cheeks or just the icy drops the sky was hurling at them.
“Let’s have dinner together tonight, keep the pub closed, it won’t do any harm,” Dennis said, beginning a slow shuffle back across the field to the building.
And in that moment Robyn knew there was something seriously wrong. Since in all the years she had known him, the quintessential landlord had never once not opened the doors bang on opening time save the day they had buried his wife.
Matt wasn’t sure if it was the residual heat from the range oven, the smell of the beef stew that Robyn had made them, or the tension that you could cut with a knife – perhaps all three – but something was making him feel sick to his stomach. He could barely look at the food, let alone taste it. The only other time Robyn had happily made hot meals was during his mam’s short illness, when Noelle had insisted on being at home for her final days and not in the hospice in Upper Oakley. Robyn hated cooking, would moan when it was forced upon her, unless her caring side kicked in, and then she was the most selfless person Matt had ever met.
But what had triggered it this time?
He looked across the table, where his dad too seemed unable to stomach the hearty fare, really looked at him for the first time since his impromptu arrival earlier that day, and his stomach lurched even more strongly. The man who had once had the widest shoulders of anyone Matt knew, now seemed frailer, his pallor greyer, his eyes duller.
Matt scraped his chair back, needing some fresh air right then and there.
“Matty?” Robyn looked up at him and he saw it in her eyes too. The worry. The fear.
Did she know something he didn’t?
“Sit down lad, I need to talk with you. You too, Robyn love.”
Matt could barely hear past the ringing in his ears nor swallow past the bile in his throat as his dad told them of the late stage pancreatic cancer that had been recently diagnosed.
“I went to Portugal to escape my grief, but it just upped and came along with me,” Dennis said through tears he could no longer hold back, “when I should have been here with my family. The outlook’s not good, so we have to make the most…”
Matt watched as Robyn stood and put her arms around his dad’s shoulders, weeping heavily herself. It was as if it was all in slow motion, and his head, his head felt thick with questions. That, and the strong desire to run out the door. Could he go through it all again? The heartbreak? The staggering loss that almost broke them all? Not that it was about him at all, but Matt couldn’t help the feelings of inadequacy and desperation that flooded him in that moment.
His legs worked of their own accord as Matt stood and joined the others, the embrace now becoming a three-way hug. No tears fell from his own eyes, the same numbness and shock taking over as it had when he’d heard of his mum’s diagnosis, no doubt, but Matt held onto the two most important people in his life as if his own life depended on it.
Now he understood why Dennis wanted a family Christmas, and it was surely the worst reason of all.