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1)
It’s like a punch in the gut, the first time he kisses a boy. It’s this strange cocktail of internalised pain but also fantastic relief. Because this, this is perfect. He likes girls: their curves and long hair and soft lips, but this is something otherworldly.
Robert remembers how to breathe, and then he grins. The boy grins as well, but Robert doesn’t let him pull away and instead gets his hand on the bottom of the boy’s shirt, about to wrench it over his head. The boy has Robert’s shirt off as far as his stomach, when the barn door opens and Jack walks in.
****
There is a special kind of pain which comes with Jack being disappointed in him.
‘It wasn’t what it looked like!’ Robert protests, the first chance he gets. He wonders what the odds are of being swallowed by the earth, or struck by lightning on a clear day. The sky is unfairly blue.
‘I’ll tell you what it looked like!’ Jack rages. ‘It looked like my son committing a filthy act! I’m telling you now, lad, I will not allow that kind of deviant behaviour in my house!’ Robert thinks for a moment that his father is going to hit him, but Jack just shakes his head and walks away. He’s disappointed and livid, but it’s the former which cuts the deepest.
He is sent up to his room when they get back home. Robert doesn’t protest. He can hear his Mum in the kitchen, and he doesn’t think he can face her. The smell of the boy is still on his hands, the lust in his teenage veins not fully gone, even with the arrival of his Dad. When Robert shuts his eyes he can see the boy’s face just before he kissed him, and some irrational, terrified part of him thinks that Sarah would be able to see it as well.
So he goes to the bathroom and washes his hands; soap and boiling water until his hands are pink. Then he smells them and can only smell soap. He goes to his room and lies on his bed. He tries to think about all the girls in his class in school. He tries to think about long hair and big eyes and lip gloss. He clenches his fists until they hurt when short hair and rough hands and blunt fingernails run through his mind.
They’re called to dinner in half an hour, and Robert goes. Andy and Vic are already home, and he can smell chicken when he opens his door. He’s really hungry. They’re talking downstairs, but as soon as he walks through the door, Sarah eyes him strangely.
Jack’s told her, he instantly knows. He’s told her and now she’s disgusted as well.
****
It's this moment that Andy brings up with Robert one night, when they’re at each others’ throats. Robert is ready to walk away, back into the pub and into Aaron’s arms when Andy says, ‘Mum was as disappointed as Dad, you know.’
It makes him freeze, every part of him. Because that wasn’t true. He remembers that night, when Jack had caught him and the boy in the barn, and he remembers the way that Sarah stopped talking and looked at him and he remembers so well the pain that came with the thought that she was just as disappointed, that she hated him just as much.
‘No,’ he says, back in the present. He points at Andy, aggressive and unthinking. ‘You’re lying. She told me that Dad told her, but she just wanted me to be safe.’
‘But later,’ Andy says. ‘She told Dad that she couldn’t believe the way you’d turned out. You should have heard her voice.’
But Robert can only hear the blood rushing in his ears; he can only see red in front of his eyes. He doesn’t hear the pub door open, and when he punches Andy, he doesn’t hear Chas’s angry cry.
‘No you bloody don’t!’ she pulls Robert back. ‘Aaron!’ she screams. Aaron comes running immediately. ‘Take him inside now!’ Before Aaron takes him by the arm and leads him back inside, Robert sees Chas fawning over Andy, checking that he isn’t going to bruise and Robert sneers. But when he sees Vic on the other side of the road, all wide, shimmering eyes, his face falls.
‘Vic,’ he says softly and tries to go to her. Aaron holds him back and leads him into the back room of the pub. Vic goes to Andy’s side. Robert’s heart sinks.
He comes back to himself when Aaron sits him down on the sofa in the back room. He hands Robert a glass of water and Robert is taken back to that day years ago when he was nursing a broken heart after being rejected by both Chrissie and Aaron. This time though, he’s not drunk. He can see the disapproval in his boyfriend’s eyes and it hurts. It’s always him that’s in the wrong, always Robert who’s seen to mess up, always Robert that causes the fights and hurts people. He’s sick and tired of it.
‘Aaron,’ he tries, but the younger man will hear none of it.
‘Just drink your water, Robert.’ He sighs and somehow makes it sound gruff. ‘What were you thinkin’? Actually, no you weren’t thinkin’ at all were you?’
‘He was saying stuff about my Mum.’
‘Even so, that doesn’t give you a reason to kick off like that.’ He shakes his head and for a moment he reminds Robert of Jack. He has to shake his head clear of that thought before it has chance to take root. ‘You’re always starting something with him, Robert.’
He bristles and hurts and it’s suddenly all too much. ‘Everyone always thinks it’s my fault!’
‘That’s because--’
‘No! Don’t you dare say that it usually is.’ He wants to cry. He wants to let it all out so badly, but he knows that if he does, he’ll just be called weak and pathetic. That voice, for some reason, belongs to Lawrence. ‘He said stuff, Aaron. About how my Mum was disappointed in me. I couldn’t handle it.’ He can feel Aaron’s glare soften and he dares to look into his eyes. ‘I just... couldn’t help it.’
Aaron trails his fingers down Robert’s forearm. ‘I’m sorry for what he said, Rob, I really am. But you have to know what it looks like from the outside. You’re always winding him up.’
‘I know. But he’s always the one in the right, y’know? He’s the golden boy, but no one else sees when he’s the one who hurts me. Or they see it but they don’t care.’ He feels tears in his eyes and feels pathetic for it. Aaron draws him close so that he can rest his head on his shoulder and that makes him feel just a little better.
That is, until the door slams open and Vic comes charging in.
2)
‘I’m fed up of the two of you!’ she’s yelling and no one wants to admit how scary a usually kind, loving Vic is when she yells. ‘Why can’t you just get on like normal brothers?’
‘Vic,’ Robert starts, but his sister holds her hand up.
‘No! I just--I can’t stand it anymore, Robert! And it’s always you, isn’t it? You’re always just winding him up.’
Robert casts his eyes down in shame. He hates upsetting his little sister. She should be able to rely on him, but he lets her down every single time. Aaron grips his hand tighter and Robert tries to take strength from that, but it’s not working tonight. He feels like folding in on himself. Folding and folding and folding until he disappears with an insignificant ‘pop’.
She looks so tired and he knows that now is not the time to explain. Aaron shifts beside him. ‘Look, I’ll give you some space,’ he says. Robert looks at him beseechingly.
Don’t leave he wants to beg. Please don’t leave. But Aaron spares him a single apologetic grimace and leaves anyway. Robert supposes he can’t blame him: Aaron hates confrontation. It’s why so many of their arguments end with his boyfriend grunting ‘Get lost’.
Aaron closes the door behind him and it sounds like a judge’s hammer. Robert doesn’t dare meet Victoria’s eyes until he hears her sigh. She sounds so much like Sarah.
‘Rob, I hate it so much when you and Andy fight.’ He knows she does. ‘And I’m always caught in the middle. It’s not fair on me.’ Does she think he doesn’t know that? He’s somehow lost the strength to fight her. ‘What is wrong with the two of you?’
He shakes his head. He can’t explain to her the years of unacceptance he feels, or that he feels that he has lived in Andy’s shadow ever since it turned out that he knew how to shear a sheep better than Robert could. The sofa dips ever so slightly as it takes her weight.
‘I love you both, Robert. But all I see is you winding up Andy.’
‘You saw me punching Andy—’
‘Oh yeah, sorry, ‘cause that’s better.’
‘Let me finish! You saw me hit him, but you think that he didn’t deserve it?’ If he knew his legs would support him, if he thought for a moment that he wouldn’t collapse were he to try and stand, Robert would pace. ‘You always take his side,’ he whispers.
Victoria is silent, and he knows she’s thinking. She’s trying to think of a time that she placed Robert above their older brother. ‘That’s not true,’ she says. ‘Remember when he accused you of killing Katie?’
Robert shifts as if 1000 electric bolts has been shoved through his body. Not Katie, he thinks. Not this. She’s going to come to him tonight. Say her name and she’ll come to him: lifeless eyes and broken neck. ’Tell them the truth, she’ll whisper into his ear. ‘Tell them you pushed me’.
‘Robert.’
His eyes dart to Vic’s.
‘Tell me what happened. Why did you hit him?’
And he can’t tell her. She can’t know another reason why Jack was so disappointed in his surviving son. The way that he looked at Robert after that day: with disgust, in disgrace, so much shame. The thought kills him, and Vic idolises their father. What will that do to her?
So he stays quiet. She sighs again.
‘Are you staying here tonight?’
And the conversation is over, but she’s also done with him for tonight as well. She never asks if he’s going to stay at the pub. ‘Are you coming home tonight?’ she usually asks with a grin, knowing his answer from the way that he smiles back at her. What will he do if she turns away from him?
He nods to keep the peace. He wants to plead with her; the way he wanted to plead with Aaron to stay. But he’s far too weak to risk rejection.
3)
He brings home a girl the next night. He makes sure that his Dad sees them. Robert makes a point of playing with her hair, kissing her cheek, pulling out all the stops.
It wasn’t what it looked like, he tries to impart. I know what you are, lad, Jack’s eyes answer. Now he’s queer and he’s using a girl, as far as Jack is concerned. It’s 7.45pm when he stops trying to pretend; after his Mum has given him an unimpressed look when he kisses the girl’s cheek again. At 7.47 he’s sent her home with an apology. When he goes back into the living room, he can see Andy trying to hide a smirk.
‘She was nice,’ Sarah says. She smiles kindly. He loves his Mum so much. ‘Is she coming for tea again?’
He shrugs. ‘Dunno.’ He doesn’t think he’ll ask her again. He kept thinking about short hair and sunburnt cheeks every time he looked at her. He tells everyone goodnight and avoids his Mum’s and Victoria’s questioning stares as he leaves the room.
He’s running his hand across his chest, thinking about the boy from yesterday when his bedroom door opens. Seeing the tall, hulking figure of his father in the doorway, Robert wrenches his arms above the duvet.
Jack smells like hay and the beef casserole that they had for dinner. He sits on Robert’s bed and the mattress sinks under his weight. He looks tired.
‘Did you see that boy again today?’ he asks out of the blue. Robert shakes his head. ‘Don’t lie to me, Robert.’
‘I’m not,’ he says. ‘I didn’t see him.’ He hadn’t. He doesn’t admit to himself that he was disappointed.
Jack leans forward. ‘I only want what’s best for you, son,’ he says. ‘Can you imagine what people will say if they think that you’re… one of those types?’ Robert flinches. ‘I know what I saw, but it’ll go no further. Do you understand?’
And it hits him then that Jack doesn’t care. He couldn’t care less about the happiness of his son, as long as he’s normal and has a wife and kids and owns the farm. As long as he’s Andy. Robert seethes.
‘Answer me, Robert.’
‘Yes.’
Jack nods and leaves. He doesn’t say goodnight, doesn’t kiss him on the forehead the way Robert remembers he used to do. There’s a lot of distance between them now, and Robert has decided that he doesn’t want the things that Jack wants him to want. He doesn’t want farms and cows and muck spreading. He isn’t sure he wants a wife and kids either.
He wants something different; something that the farm life and Emmerdale doesn’t have to offer. He wants to leave one day, but he isn’t sure if Jack will let him.
4)
He’s alone for all of two minutes, contemplating going back to Aaron’s room, when his boyfriend descends the stairs. His wearing an expression of apology, and Robert knows instantly that he can never hold anything against him. This isn’t his fight: this feud between him and Andy (and by extension their father) has been going on for years.
Aaron opens his mouth (Robert hopes it’s to ask if he wants to go to bed, because right now he can’t even think about talking about anything), when the door opens and an irate Chas storms into the back room. She doesn't stop for breath or to gather her bearings (let alone her facts), before she points straight at Robert as if she is going to curse him.
‘If you think for a second I'm going to put up with your violent behaviour, you've got another think coming!’
‘Mum—’ Aaron says timidly.
‘No, love. I know what he did for you during everything this year, but I can’t have someone like him with you.’
‘Chas, it wasn’t what it looked like.’
‘You said that to Victoria as well, did you?’ she sneers. ‘I saw her walk out of here almost in tears.’ Chas shakes her head, and it reminds him of Vic. ‘I don’t know what your problem is, Robert, but I don't want it darkening my doorway.’
Aaron steps forward, in front of Robert. ‘What are you getting at?’
For a fraction of a second, Chas seems to show remorse, but it’s for her son, not his boyfriend. ‘I’m sorry, love, but I can't have him here.’
‘You don’t even know why they were fighting!’ Aaron objects. It’s one of the first times that Aaron has stood up for him against his mother. ‘I want him here!’
‘It's my house.’
Robert sees the look on his boyfriend’s face, and recognises it for what it is: any minute now he’s going to fly off the handle and say something to his mother that he'll regret. ‘Aaron, it's fine.’ He stops it before it gets that far. Can’t be responsible for a feud. ‘I’ll go to the BnB.’
‘So not even Victoria wants you in her house?’ Chas says it like a victory, and gone is the woman who made him tea and toast this morning. So much for being part of the family. He says nothing about Victoria because as much as he knows she would never turn him away if he came knocking, he doesn’t want to put her in that kind of situation, where she would see herself choosing one brother over the next.
‘Mum.’
‘You should see the state of Andy's face, love. It’s a mess.’ Robert knows that’s not true: he landed a single punch on Andy. Probably enough to make him bleed, not enough to rearrange his face. He says nothing.
Aaron still isn’t done. ‘We're Dingles !’ he says. ‘We're as violent as they come, yet you’re throwing Robert out for a single punch? I know I’ve done worst than that!’
‘That’s different, Aaron. You’re my son and I love you.’
‘And Robert?’
‘He's not my son.’ He’s no son of mine ‘I don't hate him, but I don’t want him here.’ I don’t hate you
And Robert can’t stand the thought of being thrown out of yet another family. He leaves, ignoring Aaron’s shouts. He goes to the bridge.
5)
Andy knows. He knows somehow that he kissed a boy.
Robert has never hated Andy’s smile as much as he does when it turns smug and taunting. I know what you did, it jeers. Robert seethes and turns red with anger and embarrassment.
It’s made worse because for today, Andy has a girl with him as well. A petite blonde girl, and he plays with her hair and kisses her cheek, and Jack smiles and nods and Sarah looks approving.
Robert hates Andy and his girl.
Robert wonders sometimes if Jack was just waiting for something to happen to send Robert away. He had disowned him once, taken him back, but then had just waited. He wonders at what point Jack wanted it to be just him, Andy, and Victoria. Was it when he had found him in the barn with the boy? Was it after that? Was it before? Did he blame Robert for Pat’s death? Did he blame him for Jackie? Andy was on a pedestal and Robert wanted him to topple. But Jack would always ensure that that never happened.
His friends tell him to stop being jealous when they see him sneering at Andy and his girl. They think that Robert wants her, that he’s jealous because it’s always Andy who gets the girl. He doesn’t correct them because his Mum’s voice echoes in his head.
‘It does no one any good, Robert, you being jealous of Andy.’
‘I’m not jealous. Dad likes him more than me.’
She’d tutted, a smile on her face. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, of course he doesn’t. You’re both his sons.’
And so Robert doesn’t tell anyone that Jack loves Andy more than him. Doesn’t want to be labelled ridiculous again. But he knows how he feels. And sometimes it’s as if Andy knows as well, because he smiles just a bit wider when Jack tells him how proud he is of Andy, or when their Dad tells Andy that he’s earned a ride in the tractor (Robert’s been begging for months to have a go, but Jack had refused. Andy asks once, and Jack lets him).
And now even in this, Andy is better than Robert. Because Robert wants to kiss boys as well, and Jack can’t stand that.
There are footsteps on the bridge and Robert wishes it was Aaron, but he knows his boyfriend even down to his footsteps, and he knows that they don’t belong to him. He looks around and sees Andy, his lip red from the punch Robert had given him, but otherwise unharmed. That’s Andy for you, comes out of everything on the other side.
‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ Robert says. He looks back at the water, prays that Andy will walk away, but he doesn’t. He’s always been stubborn. Robert’s eyes remain on the flowing water. He’s glad he can’t see their reflections in it.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t have said that about Mum,’ Andy says. Robert laughs mirthlessly and shakes his head.
‘ “Maybe”? You’re unbelievable.’ He wants to turn to face him, but knows that when he does, when he sees Andy’s holier than thou face, he’ll want to punch him again. And he knows that if he does that, he’ll probably lose Victoria for good. ‘Do you even know what happened?’ he asks, mumbles it. Almost too scared to know the answer.
‘What, that you kissed that guy?’ Andy says. ‘Dad told Mum. I overheard them. I didn’t think any less of you, Rob.’
‘Fantastic. Thank you, Saint Andy.’ Robert huffs. ‘Just do one, will you?’ Aaron is definitely rubbing off on him in more ways than one. Andy doesn’t leave, and Robert isn’t finished. ‘She was the only one who was on my side, you know. Mum. She never judged me, never… preferred me over anyone else, she treated us all the same. And now you’ve said that, I keep rethinking everything. Going over every second we spent together, trying to pinpoint if she really was disappointed in me.’
‘God, are we back to this again?’ Andy sounds tired, and fine maybe Robert is dragging the same horse around, but until Andy gets it he’s never going to stop. ‘Dad loved us both the same.’
‘Did he? We have very different versions of our childhoods, Andy.’
‘All I know is that he took me in, when I had no one else. He saw me as his son as much as you were.’
‘At first, maybe.’ He still hasn’t turned to face Andy yet, and now he probably won’t. The words come easier when he isn’t looking at him. ‘But you can’t tell me that you never noticed how he always took you out for days on the farm? How he taught you things that he never taught me.’
‘Because you weren’t interested!’
‘That shouldn’t have mattered!’ And now he is facing him, seeing the way that Andy’s eyes grow wide, but also how he doesn’t back down. Stubborn as a mule. ‘I was his son, and he hated that I didn’t want what he wanted for me! He hated that I was different, that I wasn’t this… red-blooded man, ready to settle down with wife and kids, and live out my days on his farm. That wasn’t for me, but that shouldn’t have mattered!’ To his horror, his lips start to tremble and his eyes fill with tears. Andy just watches him. ‘I tried so hard to be what he wanted. But I just wasn’t good enough. I always thought though, at least Mum understands, at least she gets it. But now you’re telling me that maybe she didn’t, either?’ Tears fall down his cheeks. He’s never usually this quick to cry. ‘I wasn’t enough for Jack, I wasn’t good enough for the Whites, I’m not even good enough for the flippin’ Dingles!’ He swipes a hand across his cheek, wiping away the tears, but more keep coming. He’s tired, and he doesn’t want to do this anymore. Not here, not right now. ‘Just get lost, Andy.’ And mercifully, he does.
And Robert’s alone.
+ 1)
Until he hears another set of footsteps on the bridge. These, he recognises. Aaron’s there, concerned, gentle, loving. Robert sobs and falls into his boyfriend’s waiting arms.
‘Shh, it’s okay. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.’
It’s been so long since he’s been offered comfort like this. With Vic, he always holds back just a little. She’s his baby sister: she doesn’t need to see him break down, as much as he knows she’d be able to handle it; handle him. He remembers briefly being comforted by Chrissie, but that seems like such a long time ago, even though it was just over a year. Aaron makes everything else fade away into nothing, and he has never been more grateful for that.
Eventually, he’s just breathing against his boyfriend’s solid shoulder. The tears have stopped and his breath is even again. He’s not calm or better, but at least he’s not alone. He hates being alone. He grips Aaron a little tighter.
‘Hey.’ A soft kiss on his temple. Robert smiles. ‘C’mon, let’s get back, eh?’
‘What about your Mum?’
Aaron shrugs. ‘You’re my boyfriend. Stuff what she thinks. I’ll talk her round.’
A nod, and Aaron supports Robert all the way to the pub.
Liv is up and waiting for them in the living room. ‘I heard Chas shouting,’ she says. She winces when she sees Robert’s red face and eyes. ‘Everything alright?’
Aaron looks at Robert, but Robert doesn’t want to talk or lie right now. ‘It will be,’ Aaron answers for him. He walks Robert to the sofa and sits him down. ‘Tea?’ he asks. Liv and Robert both nod.
The kettle is just boiling when there is a knock at the door. Aaron goes to get it, and within seconds he’s back, with Victoria in tow. Robert remains wary, but his heart lifts in hope. It’s not like Victoria to come back to kick him when he’s down.
She doesn’t say anything, but she does cross to the sofa and envelopes him in a hug as best she can, her small arms just about making their way around his broad shoulders. Robert freezes, then buries his face in her neck. She smells like home and family and everything that he needed in his youth.
There are so many unanswered questions from his past, and Andy has dug up something that Robert didn’t think he’d ever need to question: was his mother ever disappointed in him? He doesn’t want to know the answer. It’s true what they say: ignorance is bliss. The only thing he does know is that he has Aaron and Liv, and by some miracle, his beloved sister hasn't abandoned him. It’s enough.