“My turn next,” he said, grinning. “But I’ll do a lot better than that with your woman.” Monica’s leering face hovered at his shoulder, a grim ghost riding shotgun.
The car roared away into the night, and Robert dropped his head and threw up on the cracked concrete, thinking about his wife, his children and hoping he could still face them all in the morning.
TUESDAY
7:10 A.M.
He awoke curled up on the ground behind the pub, his mouth plastered to the cracked cement and his back and legs aching. Cautiously, he raised himself into a low crouch. There was vomit on his face and the cuffs of his jacket. He did his best to rub away the dry flakes from his cheeks and lips, and then pulled himself fully upright using his hands against the rough wall. He tried the back door, but it was locked. Turning slowly, he surveyed the car park; it was empty.
Robert trudged across the tarmac and stepped over the low fence, where he followed the footpath round to the front of the building. Daylight stabbed at his eyes. The sky was pale blue and looked incredibly distant, like a painting or a photograph; or, to extend Sarah’s metaphor from yesterday, a matte background from an old film.
Before long he was outside the hotel. There was a police car parked at the curb. Robert’s heart began to stammer, punching against the inside of his chest.
He entered the hotel and saw Sarah standing in the lobby, biting her nails and talking with a uniformed police officer he had not seen before. He wondered where Sergeant McMahon was, and if he knew what was going on here.
“Rob!” Sarah ran to him, reaching out and then pulling back her arms at the last minute. Her momentum carried her forward, and she almost collided with him. It was clumsy and a little embarrassing, but she managed to save face by putting a hand on his chest. “Where have you been?”
He hoped he didn’t smell of sex. “I…slept on a bench somewhere. Had too much to drink after we fought. I’m sorry. What’s happening?” He could not maintain eye contact with her.
Sarah leaned into him, more, he felt, for show than out of any kind of real affection. “It’s Molly. She was out all night.”
Robert staggered backward; the world seemed to hitch, like a roundabout getting stuck on its bearings. “Where is she now?”
“It’s okay. It’s fine. This officer found her about an hour ago, walking the streets and pinching a milk bottle from someone’s doorstep. Molly’s upstairs, asleep. We can talk to her later, when she wakes up.” Robert suddenly realized Sarah’s odd behavior was probably due to the intense relief she felt at having both her daughter and husband back. He felt guilty for missing it all, ashamed for allowing himself to be drawn into that absurd and vaguely nightmarish situation last night. And what about that anyway; was it even real, or had he dreamed it all? Right now, under the harsh hotel lights, it seemed he might have imagined the whole thing.
He certainly wished he had.
“I’ll leave you to talk,” said the officer, putting away his notebook and skulking out of the lobby, toward the door. “Call if you need anything.”
“Where’s McMahon? Has he been here?” Robert rubbed at his head and scratched his scalp.
Sarah looked at him askance; there was something odd about her expression, and it made him feel uncomfortable. “You’re not going to believe this,” she said. “I mentioned McMahon to that young officer, and he looked at me as if I was mad. He said there was no such person as Sergeant McMahon in the Battle constabulary.” Her face was hanging loose from her bones; the skin was slipping like the wallpaper in the hotel stairwell.
“I’ve had enough of this,” Robert said, backing away. He pulled at his hair, trying to connect himself to the pain, to inhabit the moment entirely. Strangely, it did not hurt a bit. “This is insane, all of it. It makes no sense.” Everything was spinning out of his grasp—his wife, his children, his very existence. “Where was Molly? Has she said anything?”
Sarah took a single step toward him and then halted. She raised her hands, an attempt at a placatory gesture that seemed somehow forced, as if she were trying to make it happen rather than let their reconciliation take its natural course. “She said she was with a boy—a local. Nothing happened, she promised me. They just walked around all night, talking.”
“That’s not like her. It’s not Molly. She doesn’t do things like that.” He started for the stairs. Things were slipping out of control. “Where’s Connor?”
“He’s in the bar, finishing his breakfast.”
Robert changed direction and headed for the bar, feeling the rage building inside him. He took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down; he knew shouting at everyone would achieve nothing. By the time he entered the room and saw the boy sitting at the table, he had just about managed to bring down his blood pressure.
He sat down opposite his son. “How are you doing?”
Connor looked up from his toast. There were crumbs on his chin. His eyes were ringed with black; clearly he had not slept much at all. “I don’t know anything, Dad. She left me outside the chip shop and made me promise not to say anything. She put me in an awkward position.”
“I know, son, and I promise you’re not in trouble. We just need to know where she’s been, and what might have happened.” He slipped his hand across the table but stopped it before the fingers touched Connor’s sleeve.
“All I know is she was with some boy. I don’t know his name, or where he lives, but Molly’s smitten with him.” His use of that antiquated word—smitten—was almost comical under the circumstances. It was a word Robert himself used often, and his son had obviously picked it up without realising. Robert felt a strange kind of pride.
“Okay, son. We’ll just leave it at that. You finish your breakfast and I’ll go and talk to your sister. He stood and pushed away from the table, still light-headed and slightly nauseous. He needed a shower, and to brush his teeth. He needed to wash the stink of Monica Corbeau’s mouth off his cock.
“Sorry, Dad.” Connor’s voice was tiny, like that of an infant.
Robert walked away, not sure what else he could say. He felt close to tears.
He climbed the stairs and went to their room, then stood outside and listened at the door. He could hear Molly crying, and was afraid if he went inside he would be unable to stop himself from screaming at her. He thought of that couple in the bar, practically eating each other’s faces, and felt his stomach flip. He imagined some boy’s hands all over his daughter’s body, and feared for her because of her lack of street smarts. He had always done his best to protect his children, and to bring them up in what he thought of as the right way. This inevitably meant they were both a little naive, and some of their friends knew much more about the seamier side of life…but was it so wrong to try and retain a sense of purity within the sanctity of your family, to do your best to keep the tide of filth at bay?
Oh, God, he thought. What if she’s pregnant? What if…what if she gave away her virginity in a back lane and finds out she’s up the duff?
He gritted his teeth and leaned his forehead against the door. The wood was cold and hard, but still it felt as if his head would pass right through it if he tried. The edges of his world had become less rigid, all borders were now blurred. Nothing was the same; everything had changed. Fact and fiction had become part of the same experience, reshaping the world into a strange and frightening place.