‘I saw the envelope on the side and it popped into my head. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you’d be so sensitive.’
Her teeth clenched. She hated it when her mother masked an insult by beginning it with an apology. Robyn would not be made to feel guilty. ‘I’m not sensitive. I’m on holiday. I wanted to enjoy a few days with my friends. Couldn’t you have let me have that?’
‘Of course we want you to enjoy yourself.’
Then why are you making me feel so guilty? Or maybe it wasn’t them at all. Maybe Robyn was just an expert in guilt. She felt guilty for getting a divorce. Guilty for moving back in with her parents. Guilty for going to work. Guilty for taking a holiday. Guilty for—
She silenced the next thought.
Her mother’s voice was an octave higher. ‘It might have been nice if you’d asked us how we are. It’s tiring, you know, at our age, looking after Jack.’
‘You said you wanted to look after him. We talked about it! He could’ve stayed at Bill’s, but you said—’
‘All I’m saying,’ her mother interrupted, in her I’m-being-incredibly-calm voice, ‘is a “thank you” wouldn’t go amiss.’
Robyn could feel the tendons in her neck seething with tension. She should just say thank you, end the call. It would be forgotten by the time she was home. They were always so polite. So awfully, awfully polite. No one in her household swore or shouted or raged. They just gently, carefully, put their message across.
‘Thank you,’ Robyn managed.
‘You’re welcome,’ she said. ‘You know we love him. We love you.’
She swallowed down whatever was simmering inside her. ‘I know.’ And she did know. Her mother and father were always telling her how proud they were, that they loved her. What was Robyn’s problem? ‘Sorry,’ she said, with feeling this time. ‘I didn’t mean to be so waspish.’
‘Don’t you worry,’ her mother said, a smile returning to her voice. ‘Reminds me of teenage Robyn. You always get a bit like this when you’re with Lexi and Bella.’
‘Like what?’
‘Feisty.’
‘Do I?’
Her mother probably meant it as a criticism, but Robyn saw it as another glimpse of glitter in the sand. ‘I like how I am when I’m with my friends. It reminds me of who I really am. Maybe I’ve not been feisty enough for a long time.’
‘You’re a mother now, Robyn.’
‘I am, and I love being Jack’s mother. But that’s not all I am.’
‘Of course it isn’t. You have a career and friends. And that’s right.’
‘But this,’ she said, standing, ‘being away – I need this, Mum. I’m hiking again. Laughing. Diving into water holes.’
‘Good for you. It’s a holiday. But life isn’t like that when you’re home.’
‘Why?’ she asked, moving towards the edge of the cliff, gazing down at the water below.
‘You’ve got responsibilities. We’d all like to be cavorting about in the sunshine—’
‘Then why aren’t you? You’re retired. You’ve got money. What’s stopping you? You could rent a villa and come to places like this. You can do what you want, Mum.’
‘Your father wouldn’t—’
‘What you want.’
‘We want the same things.’
There was a long, weighted pause.
Then her mother’s voice was a low whisper, close to the phone. ‘Have you had a bump to your head?’
Robyn froze.
Those words. She knew exactly what they meant, what her mother was referring to. Her thoughts pinwheeled back years and years, to when she was eighteen years old, waking in her bedroom, her body curled into the groove of another. She’d seen her bedroom door was open a crack, when she was sure she’d closed it. She knew.
She had slipped from the bed, gone downstairs. Her mother was standing at the sink, her stony-faced expression reflected in the kitchen window. Robyn began telling her about the accident the night before, the hours spent in A&E. She pulled her hair apart and showed her the glued section of her scalp.
‘A bump like that can make you do … strange things.’ Her mother had looked her in the eye. ‘I’m glad you’re feeling yourself again this morning.’
Now Robyn felt her voice grow very cool. ‘There’s no fucking bump. I’m thinking clearly. More clearly than I have in a long time.’