‘Are you going to call him back?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘What if something’s happened to your mum?’
Rob grimaced. ‘I don’t want to, I guess,’ he said. ‘That’s generally why people don’t do things.’
‘Rob, why don’t you ever see them? Why won’t you ever talk about them?’ The question was dangerous and I knew it. You don’t live with someone for that long without learning which subjects to avoid.
Rob shook his head as if he could shake my question from the air around him, and reached for the TV remote. ‘Wha’d’you wanna watch?’ he asked. ‘Any idea what’s on?’
He’d responded exactly like this over the years, every time the subject of his parents had come up. But that day, for some reason, I didn’t want to let it go. Perhaps I just fancied an argument.
‘Rob!’ I said. ‘Don’t do this. Talk to me.’
‘He’s a…’ Rob said, with a sigh. ‘The man’s a…’ He shook his head quickly.
‘He’s still your father.’
‘He’s… not a good person,’ Rob said. ‘Neither of them are. You don’t know what they’re like, so just…’
‘Which might be because you’ve nevertoldme what they’re like,’ I said.
‘Yep,’ Rob said. ‘I know.’
‘But what if she’s dying?’ I asked. ‘What if your mum’s on her deathbed? Or what if he is?’
‘I dunno,’ Rob said.
‘Youdunno?’ I repeated.
‘Good riddance, maybe?’ he said, quietly.
‘Rob!’ I exclaimed, shocked. ‘You can’t say that. No matter what they got wrong in the past, they’re still your parents.’
‘Sometimes bad people have kids,’ Rob said. ‘What can I say?’
‘But what if this is the last chance?’
‘The last chance forwhat?’ he asked, dismissively.
‘For anything,’ I said. ‘I mean… when was the last time you spoke?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Yes, you do.’
‘OK… When I was seventeen, I think,’ Rob said.
‘Christ! I mean, I knew it was… butseventeen? So why now? Something must have happened.’
‘OK!’ Rob said angrily. ‘OK! OK! OK! Jesus! I’ll call him, all right?’ And with that he stood up, threw the remote more at me than to me, and left the room.
Because getting anything out of Rob about his parents was like extracting a pearl from an oyster, I never did find out the exact nature of that conversation. But he did eventually reveal that the call had been about a box.
His parents were moving into a care home, he said, and his father had come across a box with Rob’s name on it.
‘What’s in it?’ I asked. We were side by side in bed, about a week after the phone call in the car.
