The Nature of Cruelty (11 page)

“Hey, you didn’t take the Tube to work today?” I ask casually, walking toward the front door.

“I did this morning,” he replies, “but I had to go and collect my car from the apartment.”

“Oh, right. Was Kara around?”

He shakes his head. “She was at work.”

“What does she do?”

“Window dresser at Selfridges.”

“Mm-hmm,” I mumble, opening the door and stepping inside in front of him. His mood is strangely subdued this evening. He’s carrying a large gym bag, which probably contains the last of his things from his apartment. Well, it’s Kara’s apartment now.

He dumps the bag at the bottom of the stairs and uses his keys to scratch at his neck. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” he asks.

“Sure, what about?”

He leads me into the kitchen, and I sit down on a stool as he leans back against the counter, arms folded.

“So I’ve got a new place all lined up to move into,” he begins.

His statement takes me by surprise. “Oh, yeah? That’s good.”

“It’s gorgeous. Perfect for me. Practically brand new, right by the Thames and everything.”

“Sounds fancy,” I say, nodding, not really knowing why he’s telling me this.

“The only catch is that the current tenants aren’t going to be moving out until early September.”

“That’s a good way off.”

“It is.”

“So…” All of a sudden, I get where he’s going with this.

“So I was thinking I’d stay here with you and Sasha for the rest of the summer. But I wanted to run the idea by you first.” He shoves his hands in his pockets.

“Is this you being considerate, Robert?” I ask, shocked. Under normal circumstances he’d just announce he was staying and that would be that.

“Look, I know you’re not exactly comfortable living under the same roof as me, and I know you think I’m evil incarnate, which isn’t true, but we won’t get into that now. I promise you I’m not doing this to be cruel. Even though we fight all the time, I like living with my sister, and I want to stay here until I can move into my own place. But obviously you’d have agree to it, because we both know Sasha will do whatever you say anyway.”

I bite on my lip, considering his proposal. He’s right, though. If I told Sasha I didn’t want Robert here, she’d tell him he couldn’t stay without a second thought.

There’s some kind of sadness in his eyes. He doesn’t want to live alone, at least not at this moment in time. Perhaps it would be too lonely for him, since he and Kara just broke up. I’ve never really seen him act like this before. Not very often, anyway.

“What you said to me last night made me very uncomfortable,” I tell him, straightforward, my voice quiet.

He scratches at his neck again. “I know…I just…well –” He pauses with a slight grin. “In my experience, women generally enjoy it when I say things like that to them. I didn’t expect you to react so…negatively.”

I scrunch up my nose, my tone disbelieving when I ask, “They do?”

He laughs. “Uh, yeah. Some women have even filthier minds than men.”

I flick a strand of hair back from my face. Robert clearly thought I’d be on a par with those women. He really has no clue about my extreme lack of experience, and I take a certain level of comfort from that. I know what he means, too. I imagine that once you’ve been having sex for years and years, being spoken to so explicitly wouldn’t be that shocking anymore; you’d become desensitised to it.

Glancing up at him, I say, “Why don’t we make a truce, then, a proper one? We can be friends, but you’ll have to stop doing the whole ‘freak Lana out by pretending to come onto her’ thing. If you agree to that and to be generally decent, then I’ll agree to you staying here. What do you think?”

“I didn’t realise I was doing a ‘thing,’” he replies, chuckling.

“Yeah, well, you were.”

“Okay, I’ll behave.” He pauses and smiles, walking over and holding out his hand to me. Oh, God, what am I getting myself into? A couple of days is one thing, but a whole summer with Robert is going to be the biggest test I’ve ever faced. If he really does behave, then maybe, just maybe, we can become friends. Proper friends.

Here’s hoping he’s got more of a mild antisocial personality disorder rather than being a full-on sociopath.

“Let’s shake on it,” he says.

I take his hand as firmly as I can and shake it once. If this goes badly wrong, then at least I’ll have a crazy story to tell the grandkids someday.

If Robert and I don’t end up murdering one another before the summer is out, that is.

Six

W
e manage to maintain our truce for the rest of the week. He comes into Baccino’s on Wednesday for lunch, and although I get stuck serving him again, he doesn’t try to embarrass me or do anything weird.

Sasha is surprised that I don’t mind him staying with us. She asks me lots of questions like “have you gotten a brain transplant?” and “is Robert blackmailing you?” before she finally accepts that I’m telling the truth and that nothing untoward is going on.

I don’t blame her for being confused by our sudden decision to get along. But I continue to remind myself that we’re grown-ups now. This living together thing doesn’t have to end in tears like it would have when we were teenagers.

The day out to Brighton comes quickly, and Sasha lets slip on Friday evening that Kara and Gary are going. Robert tightens his jaw at this piece of news, but he doesn’t comment on it.

He ends up driving Sasha and me on the day, with everyone else being driven by Alistair. The journey takes about two hours, so I make sure to pack some snacks.

On Saturday morning I put my swimsuit on under a cream cotton dress, to save myself getting changed on the beach in front of everyone. My suit is a plain black one, with a flattering ’50s vintage cut and a built-in bra. Packing a towel and a few other necessities in my bag, I head downstairs, where Sasha’s filling up a cooler box with drinks.

I go outside and throw my bag in the boot before hopping in the back. Robert’s already in the front seat with all the windows open, blasting “Uprising” by Muse through some pretty impressive speakers. His eyes fix on me as he taps the beat out on the dashboard; this, combined with the song, causes goose pimples to rise on my skin.

“Looking fine, little red,” he says to me, turning the music down for a second before switching it right back up.

Enjoying the remark but not wanting him to be aware that I am, I roll my eyes and stare out the open window. This is the first compliment he’s paid me since Tuesday, and I’d be lying if I said I haven’t missed them.

When Sasha finally emerges, putting the last few items in the boot and sliding into the passenger seat beside Robert, we set off. With the back all to myself, I slip off my sandals and put my feet up. I catch Robert watching me in the overhead mirror, but he doesn’t make any comments. As expected, he doesn’t look away until the moment reaches a sufficient level of tension.

It takes a while before we get onto the motorway. A few minutes later there’s a horn honking noisily behind us. I turn around to see Alistair and Sandra sitting in the two front seats of a black people carrier. They speed up so they’re on the other side of Robert’s car, and I can now see that Victor, Jacob, Kara, Gary, and a blonde girl I don’t know are in the back seats.

A minute later Sasha’s phone starts ringing. It’s clearly Alistair, since I can see he has his own phone held up to his ear, his other hand resting on the steering wheel. My mum would go crazy if she were here to witness him driving while on the phone. She’s always catching people doing it when she’s on duty back home.

“Hey, Al, you stalker,” Sasha answers on loudspeaker, laughing.

He laughs back and quips, “Have you not heard of group stalking? It’s the new big thing.” His voice streams clearly through Sasha’s top-of-the-range iPhone.

I notice Kara is in one of the window seats, staring daggers at Robert. He seems to be ignoring her as he taps a few buttons on the iPod dock that’s set into the dashboard. Sasha’s still chatting with Alistair when the familiar intro to “She Fucking Hates Me” by Puddle of Mudd starts playing. Looking at Kara, I see her eyes widen when she realises what song it is. When it gets to the chorus, Robert turns the volume right up and begins singing at the top of his lungs. He actually doesn’t have too bad of a voice. He sticks his hand out the window, giving her the finger, and increases his speed, zooming past Alistair’s car and a scowling Kara.

He’s laughing when Sasha hangs up the phone and shoves him in the shoulder.

“That was rude,” she says, reprimanding him.

Robert continues singing, now turning from the road for a second to croon into Sasha’s face. My lips turn up at the ends as I try not to laugh.

“Ugh, stop fucking singing, Rob, it’s terrible.”

It’s not terrible at all, but I’m not about to go disagreeing with her.

He keeps on singing into her face until she finally gives in and laughs. “You’re an idiot.”

He’s on the second chorus now, and he slams his head back against his seat, shouting the lyrics out alongside the Eddie Vedder–wannabe lead singer.

“Sing with me, sis. Come on, you know you want to,” he encourages her, mid-lyric.

Sasha shrugs then and starts singing, a grudging smile on her face.

Robert meets my gaze through the mirror. “And you, Lana. I need all the support I can get if I’m going to be spending the day with that bitch and her lapdog.”

My heart stops at his request. I never sing in front of people. It’s just not something I do. In an effort to change the subject, I say, “I can’t believe you have this song in your collection. That’s shameful, Rob.” I ignore his comment about Kara being a bitch and Gary being a lapdog.

“What? It’s a classic.” He winks at me.

I give him a tiny smile and hum along instead of singing properly. He nods approvingly, and we sail down the road, arms sticking out the windows, feeling the wind rush through our fingers, beach-bound.

Funnily enough, Alistair and the rest of them end up arriving in Brighton a couple of minutes earlier than us. He calls Sasha to let her know that they’ve already parked and made their way down to the beach. Seeing the black people carrier, Robert parks in a nearby spot, and we go to get our things from the boot.

As I’m pulling out my bag, Robert takes it from me and swings it onto his own back.

“I’ll carry this for you,” he tells me with a wink, all chivalrous.

“Um, okay.”

“Oh! How thoughtful of you, Rob. In that case, you can carry my stuff as well,” says Sasha, cheekily shoving the cooler box into his hand alongside her backpack. She links her arm through mine and steers me toward the beach, clicking her fingers at Robert and calling, “Chop chop, bro. We don’t want to miss out on all the good spots.”

Slamming shut the boot, he sets the alarm and follows us. He looks vaguely disgruntled, but he doesn’t appear to be having any difficulty carrying all the bags.

Even though it’s only half past ten, the beach is already packed with people, I guess because the weather is good. I pull out my phone to snap a few shots of the colourfully painted changing sheds all lined up around the outskirts of the beach, while Sasha spots the others and goes to join them.

A few seconds later somebody’s breath is on the back of my neck. “What are you up to?” Robert asks, placing one hand gently on my hip.

“Just taking a few pictures of the sheds,” I answer, stating the obvious. Shakily, I click a couple more shots and then slip my phone back into the pocket at the front of my dress. “Do you want some help with those bags?”

“No, I’m good,” he replies, and starts walking again.

“
Freunde
!
Wilkommen
!” Alistair calls to us, waving from where he’s standing on the sand wearing a brightly coloured pair of Bermuda shorts. He’s got a really hairy chest, but I try not to stare at it.

“That has got to be the shittiest German accent I’ve ever heard,” Robert calls back, holding his hands up to his mouth.

The minute we get to the group, Kara, wearing a tiny peach bikini, jumps up from her towel on the sand and marches toward Robert.

“You took the DVD player from the living room. I want it back,” she yells, pointing a finger at him. At the sound of her shrill demand, a couple of the sun worshippers nearby crane their necks to see what’s going on.

Robert takes his time setting down the bags he’s carrying and lets out a long sigh. “Fuck off with this shit, Kara. I’m not in the mood. I bought it, so it’s mine.”

“Don’t speak to her like that, mate,” Gary warns him from where he’s sitting in one of those foldable deck chairs. He’s only wearing a pair of tight blue swimming trunks, and his muscles look
huge
, not to mention something, uh, else down below. I’m surprised the folding chair will actually hold him.

“Keep a leash on her and I’d be only too happy to comply,” Robert bites back sharply, eyeing Gary as he walks by Kara. “Oh, yeah, and pull that rolled-up pair of socks out of your pants, would you, Gazza mate? You’re fooling nobody.”

Everybody tries to hide their chuckling at Robert’s joke.

Gary goes red in the face, but more with anger than embarrassment. Robert picks up our stuff again before setting it down in an empty patch of sand.

“Ugh, you’re not even worth it,” says Kara, rushing to give Gary a passionate snog, perching herself on his lap for a moment and rubbing a hand down his rippled chest. Once she’s finished reassuring her boyfriend of his manhood, she sashays back to lie down beside Sandra and the blonde girl I don’t know, who are both sunbathing in bikinis equally as tiny as Kara’s.

Sasha gives Robert a subtle roll of her eyes, shaking her head at Kara, as if to say
ignore her, she’s just looking for attention
, and it settles the rigidity in his shoulders somewhat.

They might argue a lot, but when it comes down to it, Sasha and Robert will always have each other’s back. It’s a twin thing.

I slip off my sandals and kneel down in the sand to unzip my bag, retrieving a large, striped towel and laying it out flat. Sasha does the same before pulling off the T-shirt she’s wearing to reveal a tank top underneath. She keeps this and her cut-off denim shorts on, rubbing sun lotion into her arms. Realising that she isn’t planning on wearing a swimsuit, I become a little self-conscious as I hesitantly pull my dress off over my head.