CHAPTER 3
ROBBIE
Four years on...
The bitter smell of coffee hung heavy in the air.
As I waited to make my order, I couldn’t say I cared much for the blend they served in the building’s on-site café.
It tasted earthy — like I was drinking mud.
But it was as good an excuse as any to get away from Hew, my boss, and the endless stream of emails I had to reply to.
If I’d known a few years back that this was how my life would turn out, I’d never have accepted that promotion.
Only I did. Not that I thought I had much choice at the time.
Looking back, I can see how someone played and manipulated me into it. True, my job was being eroded away. Now I was caught in a cycle of arranging and rearranging the same frigging meeting — and running out of plausible excuses because my cockwomble of a boss was suddenly unavailable.
Especially when said cockwomble was the one who asked for the meeting.
Basically, today was a typical Thursday. And I always got reflective and melancholy on a Thursday. Becoming what Dave called a mopey, whiny, grumpy git.
Yeah, the words stung a little. But they fit.
I was mopey on Thursdays for good reason — because I was working in the office and not from home.
So much had happened so quickly — a whirlwind of highs and lows — that it sometimes took my brain a while to catch up.
COVID had changed life forever. And I don’t just mean how the UK was blindsided by it, or how many lives were lost, or how bad the government was in dealing with it. But because I ended up joining a new team right in the middle of it.
Did I like working in HR?
Ugh, no.
Did I like the work?
Again, another no.
And to make it three out of three...I didn’t like my latest boss either. If he’d been the one who interviewed me, I wouldn’t have taken the job. Even if I didn’t have much of a choice when my old role fell apart.
How could I have known that, a year after I accepted the promotion, the Group Procurement Director would be essentially fired, leaving me to fend for myself?
I faced a stark choice: find a job within the company or face unemployment.
I went from working for a guy I respected and admired to working in a role I didn’t care for.
The only silver lining had been my new boss, Claudia.
She was an amazing woman — caring and conscientious, yet also formidable.
She believed in doing what was right for the employees, not just what senior management wanted.
When they fired Claudia too, for having ethics, my idealised view of the company crumbled to dust.
Which is how I ended up working for her replacement — the knob cheese, “Call me Hew, not Matthew.”
That’s why I hated being in the office so much. It was a reminder of how my perfect life had turned to piss.
After collecting my latte, I headed outside the building and sat on a nearby bench to watch the world go by. Soaked up the weak sunlight and tried to breathe.
Funny how fast things could change.
I went from feeling like I was working for a company I never wanted to leave...to one where staying another five years would be a nightmare.
Work wasn’t the only thing fast going to hell.
Just yesterday, Mum called me seven times to check that I’d be coming over on Sunday, because she kept forgetting she’d already called.
Her memory slips were happening more often.
At first, it was just small things: where she left her keys, missing appointments. Now she was mixing up names and forgetting to turn the oven off.
However much I wanted to, I couldn’t put off talking with her for much longer. She needed to see a doctor. And we needed to face facts: that before long, she wouldn’t be able to decide for herself.
I’d buried my head in the sand, trying to convince myself things weren’t that bad.
But I couldn’t do it anymore.
Even if I wanted to.
The day had started out so nicely. The sun was shining. I’d had fun zooming around the country lanes and then — I ended up at Mum’s.
And that’s where my Sunday skidded off the rails.
I walked into the house to find her pulling all the cushions off the sofa and moving furniture around.
“Rob, have you seen my phone?”
No hello, no how are you, no nice to see you. I suppose I should be glad she remembered my name.
Instead, I replied with a question of my own. “No. Where’s Dave? Maybe he’s seen it.”
“Oh, okay. Maybe I’ll ask him. He’s upstairs, I think.”
Asking never meant asking quietly. It meant yelling his name at the top of her lungs until he answered.
Except Dave didn’t answer.
I headed to the window and looked outside, noticing his black Ford Focus was gone from its usual parking spot.
“He’s not here,” I said, turning back to Mum, who was staring off into space.
“Hmm, did you say something?” She looked confused for a moment. Her normally bright eyes looked dim. “Umm?”
“Dave. He’s not here.”
“Oh. I think he got a call and then drove off a while ago.”
I looked at the clock on the fireplace mantel. It was just after lunch.
Where was he going when he knew I’d be coming over to help him go through some of Dad’s things?
As had become the norm, if anything personal of Dad’s needed to be sorted, it was always me who had to do it.
Dave said he couldn’t bear to touch Dad’s things — that it brought back all the trauma of that night.
And because I wasn’t here when it happened, I didn’t have any mental hang-ups about seeing him die.
Really?
Dave thought I’d be immune to feeling like shit boxing up our father’s things?
Seriously?
Just how fucking oblivious and self-absorbed was he?
Just because I wasn’t lashing out at the world didn’t mean I felt nothing. Every time I had to do it, I felt like crap — like I was violating Dad’s memory. Did either of them think about how much of a toll erasing Dad took on me?
Nope.
It felt like picking at a scab that had never completely healed. And here I was, having to do it yet again — while Dave was off playing hero to some flaky, manipulative damsel in distress.
Digging my mobile out of my jeans pocket, I brought up my contacts list, selected Mum’s number, and hit connect.
Only...there was no sound. I couldn’t hear it ringing.
Resigned to the fact that I was now going to be searching every room in the house, I headed upstairs. I’d start in Mum’s bedroom and work my way down.
She hadn’t opened the curtains. She hadn’t made the bed. Piles of clean clothes sat on top of the dresser, while dirty ones littered the floor. The room looked more like it belonged to a teenager than a middle-aged woman.
It was yet another sign of how the disease was affecting her.
Seeing a room that used to be neat and orderly descend into chaos — every surface covered in clutter and used tissues — I couldn’t stand to see her live like this.
The oppressive darkness made me feel suddenly claustrophobic.
I ripped open the curtains and pushed the window wide.
Then opened the nearest drawer and started putting clothes away.
Once I finished that, I turned my attention to the dirty washing — gathering it up and putting it in the bathroom hamper.
Then I set about filling a bag full of rubbish.
Each time I passed Dad’s side of the room — still with his clothes where he’d left them — I forced my mind to go blank. Slowly, I edged closer, picking up his fallen clothes and folding them. One day soon, I’d have to sort through them properly. Decide what to donate to charity and what to keep.
But for now, I’d set things back in order.
Pausing in front of Dad’s bedside table, I noticed his wristwatch on the floor.
Stooping, I picked it up and looked it over.
Its cool metal felt smooth against my fingertips.
Dust motes danced in the weak sunlight slanting through the window, highlighting the scratches on its face.
The faint, musty smell of old leather clung to the band.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat and sucked in a shuddering breath. Held it. Counted to five. Let it out.
Then I pulled open the nightstand’s top drawer, intending to slip the watch inside.
Only my hand froze in mid-air while my brain struggled to make sense of what my eyes were showing me.
WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCKING. FUCK.
Unlike my bedside drawer, which was full of junk, Dad’s drawer only had five objects in it. Which made those items stand out all the more.
The longer I stared, the more my brain tried to reason that I was hallucinating. Because there was no way I was looking at a ten-inch, space-rocket-looking white dildo.
My brain immediately jumped into action, trying to rationalise why such a thing would be there. My first thought was that it was Mum’s — which was disturbing in and of itself. But why would her...ugh, sex toy be in Dad’s drawer?
No one wants to think about their parents’ sex life. And this new twist was pretty high on the ick scale.
Only the other items in the drawer soon shut down that chain of thought.
And opened another.
You’d think the dildo was the most eye-catching thing in that drawer.
Oh no.
There was something so much more...mind-blowing.
Putting the watch aside, I tentatively reached in and plucked up what looked like two postcards. Only there was no fucking way these things had been delivered by the postman.
The professional quality of the prints alone was almost enough to make me choke on my tea — if I’d been drinking any.
One had an up-close image of male thighs wearing lacy panties, pulled down to show... his balls and a gaping butt hole.
Yep. That was...cough
Eh. Moving swiftly on to the next card.
Which was almost worse. Although I’m not quite sure if that’s the right word.
No, it was way more graphic.
The second card had another close-up photo of two men this time. Not that you saw any faces. No — it was a zoomed-in shot of panty guy with the other guy’s dick in his hole.
Oooo-kay. Well, this was... fuck knows what this was.
And how the hell had they managed to get the camera at that angle?