When, exactly, would be the right moment to discuss that, Robin didn’t know. She had a horrible feeling that if she told Murphy what the odds of a successful birth were via IVF he’d suggest they start trying for a child immediately, that his previous ‘you’re only thirty-two’ would turn rapidly into ‘you’re already thirty-two’. Robin thought again of all the women in the world who’d be delighted that their boyfriend wanted to have children with them, and she asked herself what was wrong with her, that she felt panicked and stifled at the thought of what she’d once thought she wanted, before she’d been sent to a rundown office in Denmark Street as a temporary secretary, and everything had changed: the part of her she’d thought the rapist had taken away for ever had proven to be not dead, but dormant, just waiting for its chance, while something she’d taken for granted – that she could have children as and when she wished – was gone for ever, although she hadn’t then known it.
‘She’s a spice addict,’ he told Robin.
‘A what addict?’
‘Spice. Synthetic cannabis. It’s bloody everywhere. She was sweating like she was in a sauna. Spoke about three words a minute. Nearly five hours it took, to break her.’
Murphy took a swig of water, as though the memory of it made him hoarse.
‘Christ, I’m looking forward to this. I need a break.’
‘Me too,’ said Robin untruthfully. In fact, she’d have given almost anything to be driving in the opposite direction, back to her solitary flat and work, even if that was where the man who’d seized the back of her neck was.
They arrived at last, by darkness, at the old stone house in Masham where Robin had grown up. Her father had strung white lights in the old lilac tree in the front garden. When Robin pressed the doorbell there was a rush of welcome during which Betty the new puppy dashed outside and had to be rescued from the middle of the road by Murphy. Here was Stephen, Robin’s eldest brother, and Jenny, his tall wife, in such an advanced state of pregnancy it took her three goes to get up out of her armchair to greet the newcomers, and Jonathan, Robin’s youngest brother, who’d now graduated from university and was working for a brand management consultancy in Manchester; Robin’s dark-haired father, in his horn-rimmed spectacles, and her mother, Linda, whose affection for Murphy meant he received just as warm a hug as Robin did. The family had delayed dinner so Robin and her boyfriend could join them. They all settled around the scrubbed kitchen table, on a floor covered in sheets of newspaper due to the presence of the so far un-housetrained Betty, whose tail caused her entire body to undulate as she wagged it non-stop. With a slight raising of her spirits, Robin drank wine and ate the chicken and mushroom casserole her mother had cooked, and the news that her ex-husband, Matthew, was also in town for Christmas, with his second wife and son, caused her barely a tremor of emotion.
‘She’s pregnant again,’ Linda informed the family, ‘that Sarah. I saw her in the Co-op.’
‘Well, good luck to her,’ said Robin, determinedly offhand.
‘When are you due?’ Murphy asked Jenny.
‘Third of January,’ said Jenny, ‘but honestly, he can come tonight if he wants. I’m sick of the bloody heartburn.’
‘It’s a boy?’ said Robin, who hadn’t known this.
‘Yeah, and they reckon he’s going to be well over nine pounds,’ said Stephen.
‘I’m glad one of us is happy about that,’ said Jenny.
‘We’ve been worried,’ said Linda, mock-reproving, as she looked down the table at her daughter-in-law. ‘She was still working until a month ago,’ Linda told Robin.
‘Only the small stuff, Linda,’ said Jenny, who was a vet. ‘No horses or cattle.’
‘I thought Martin would be here,’ said Robin.
Martin was the third of the Ellacotts’ four children, who, until very recently, had lived with his parents, although he’d now moved in with his pregnant girlfriend in nearby Ripon.
‘No, they’re coming tomorrow,’ said Linda, with just that shade of reserve that told Robin there was a story that her mother didn’t want to share in front of company.