Page 27 of Reckless

Like working yourself to the bone in Emergency at the Alfred, so you didn’t have to stop and deal with Neal’s death, or the slow disintegration of your marriage beforehand? Like how you didn’t once touch base with the in-house psychologist, or even download the stupid mental health app because you were too busy?

Like that, yes. But it had always been much easier to see problems in other people, and to come up with solutions, than it was to take a long, hard look in the mirror. Who the hell was I to think I could fix Robbie Finch when I couldn’t even fix myself?

Dinner was oven-baked fish, cooked on a bed of sliced potato, zucchini, and snow peas. The twins picked around the zucchini, and I almost wished I was young enough to do the same, but the garlic and lemon sauce disguised the taste.

Archie was as untalkative as always, but Anna’s gentle prodding got a few words out of him. Harriet was chatty; Jemmy wasn’t. Anna asked me questions too, and every time her laugh brightened the room, I thought of what was coming, and of how dark this little house would seem when she was no longer in it. I caught Archie’s gaze once, and I was certain he was thinking the same thing.

After dinner, I did the washing up while Archie helped Anna up the stairs to bed. I heard them stop twice so Anna could catch her breath. I scrubbed the baking tray with more force than was required, just so that the sound of the bristles would stop me from overhearing their murmured conversation.

Archie came back downstairs as I was stacking the dishes in the drainer.

“She needs more morphine,” he said, his gaze sliding off mine.

“I’ll bring some tomorrow,” I said. I’d order more, too.

Her jerked his head in a nod, then said, “Harriet, Jemmy. Bedtime.”

The twins clambered up the stairs, and I said goodnight to Archie and headed home.

The moon lit the way. I thought of Anna and Archie, and of Robbie. I thought of Neal too, and was suddenly so very glad—so selfishly fucking glad—that he’d been killed instantly in the car accident, and that neither of us had seen it coming. Because if the universe had decided to test me the way it was testing Anna and Archie, I wasn’t sure I’d pass.

That night I slept with the windows open so that I could listen to the sea. I’d thought it would soothe me, but instead it gave me strange, unsettling dreams all night.

Chapter 9

ROBBIE

With summer coming to an end, nights were starting to get cooler. Nothing like winter, where some mornings the frost would crack underneath my boots on the walk to the shed, but there was enough of a bite in the air that I wore a jacket over my long-sleeved flannel shirt. We got up early on the farm. Usually by the time the sun was up and the fishing boats were leaving the harbour, Kat and I had already been working for an hour or so. Goats and cows and chickens didn’t wait for the tide; they were hungry as soon as the stars started to fade into the coming dawn.

Kat and I didn’t have breakfast before work. We had hot, strong tea, and then I went and did the morning milking, and she went and collected and packed the eggs. Whichever one of us finished first started frying up breakfast. Then we ate together before Kat set off around the island to deliver the eggs, and I headed down to Mavis’s shop with Gerty and the milk churns.

Breakfast was probably my favourite part of the day, because Kat was still waking up and we were both usually quiet, Kat because she was tired, and me because that was just the way I was. Only this morning, she had things on her mind.

She shovelled a forkful of scrambled eggs into her mouth, swallowed, and then said, “When you’re on the mainland next week, don’t forget you have to settle up with the feed store.”

I jolted. Had it already been almost a month since I was in Newcastle? Usually I was getting antsy by now, the itch under my skin growing worse and worse every day, but this time I’d hardly felt it. And Alastair hadn’t even fucked me. Just bypassed that whole part of the equation and gone straight to the finale where my body was exhausted and my brain was quiet. But what the fuck was I supposed to do in Newcastle now that Alastair and I were⁠—

Were what?

I didn’t have an answer for that.

Kat mistook my reaction. “You did put the order in, didn’t you, Robbie?” she asked. “For the feed store?”

“Four bags of layer mash and five point-of-lay hens,” I said. Plus some silage and bags of pellets for my cows and goats, now the weather was getting cooler and there’d be less good grazing, and a salt lick for Sam because he went mad for them.

Kat nodded, and then her mouth turned down. Her expression might have been sour except for the worry in her gaze. “Try not to bring anything else back this time.”

I grunted and pushed my chair back, my face burning. “I should get going. I’ll see you later.”

The chill of the dawn was burned off by the morning sunlight as I drove the cart down into the village. I had to lean on the brake a little as the track sloped downwards. On the southeastern tip of the island, the lighthouse shone brilliant white, the glittering sea behind it. In the harbour, the boats were leaving for the day, men in orange and yellow fishing gear moving down the long jetty towards their boats’ moorings.

I got to Mavis’s shop just before seven, and peered through the window to see if there was any sign of her yet. There wasn’t, so I returned to Gerty and gave her nose a scratch and let her chew my hair. A few minutes later I heard the rattle of the bolt on the shop door, and Mavis appeared, squinting into the light.

“Morning, Robbie,” she said.

“Morning,” I said.

Mavis held the door for me while I unloaded the first milk churn and lugged it into the cold room at the back of the shop. “Council meeting tonight,” she said.