Robbo

There are three types of men in the world. One is angry but driven, the next is angry and self-destructive and the other has found contentment. This is a story about the three of them together.

Robbo's a nightmare on legs.
Approaching the roundabout that leads to the Royal Surrey Hospital, he looks to cross the road with an angry but tired lilt to his upper lip. He turns to face the traffic.
Having walked some three miles, he's almost forgotten about the bus that never arrived when, whoosh! It races past him, only missing his head with the wing-mirror by a matter of inches.
Stunned for only a second, Robbo's face turns from red to white.
''You idiot!'' he shouts, with one fist in the air, hoping that the driver might have the temerity to look in his mirror.
His face turns back to red with new anger. This is not the best way for Robbo to approach a hospital whose staff can help him. If only he would let them, his ailment might be detected.
Climbing the last bit of hill, he rummages through his mind for a better train of thought, but the imminence of a confrontation with the bus driver cannot escape him.
Crossing the final junction that leads to the hospital, Robbo shakes his head vigorously to try and purge his spirit, when along comes Robert in his silver open-top Mercedes 230 SLK on a 52 plate.
Robert is fully aware of Robbo's presence on the road, and makes sure that he misses him by as narrow a margin of error as possible. This isn’t Robbo’s day. It’s never Robbo’s day.
Robbo jumps about three foot in the air as Robert administers a cruel double-beep on his horn at the same time as he pumps on the accelerator and bangs his own hand on the driver's side-panel, just to frighten Robbo that little bit more. Robert hates losers.
''Watch where you're going, you stupid fool,'' shouts Robert, biting back the laughter as he cruises by into the car park. Robbo is left with his heart in his mouth trembling on the pavement.
''I'll key yer car, bastard!'' shouts Robbo, but all Robert can offer is a lazy hand in the air, a finger pointing in the general direction of NHS CCTV cameras perched on grey masts.
Last night, Robbo keyed twenty-three new and almost new prestige-cars in Cranleigh. It took him thirty minutes to impose upon the insurance world a bill of £50,000.
He takes no kickback from car-sprayers in the area and holds no personal grudge with his victims. He’s just got a thing about the wealthy and their beloved insurance policies.
A cheap blade costs 30p. He tapes the blade onto his right thumb, pierces the blade through his right glove and scratches with effortless ease as he passes each classy motor of an evening. Even if you tried, you couldn't see the blade or hear it scratch the car. Robbo enjoys going on solo key-outings. His most cherished was an all-night slash of Chelsea where he keyed over two hundred new and almost new prestige-cars, slamming a gigantic £1/2 million bill at the door of the insurance companies he so detests.
In thirty seconds, the colour of Robbo's face has gone from red to white to red again. He wants to kill the Merc driver as well as the bus driver. That, he feels, would change everything.
Stamping along the thin bourbon cream of tarmac provided for those sad enough to have to walk to the hospital, Robbo sees the bus outside the entrance. He takes it up a gear and starts a confrontation-rehearsal in his head.
''Why didn't you just kill me, jobsworth!'' No, too self-piteous.
''Come out here!'' Surely not, he might be huge.
''You're supposed to pick me up, not knock me down, bird-brain!'' That's OK, but Robbo feels it’s too light-hearted to hurt him enough. He might relay that down the caff where all the bus drivers eat their horrific slop. No!
Robbo’s still searching his brain for the right slant when he comes alongside the bus and walks meaningfully towards the door, arching his shoulders back and pursing his cracked, bloodless lips. As he turns to place an authoratitive foot on the first step up into the bus, the doors bolt closed without mercy. Robbo's foot jams for a second but he manages to wriggle it out before the final crunch. Standing back to make sure he's free, the bus races off.
Robbo goes from white to red again in a thick fog of carbon emissions. No words come from his lips. There are only visions of death and blood, his fists in the air holding the scalps of every bus driver and Merc driver in the world.
Meanwhile, Robert cruises the densely populated car park with eyes like ‘Terminator’ scouring the streets for Sarah Jane. He sees the Safeway car park down the hill.
''Should've parked down there,'' he says to himself. ''At least it's free.''
Then he notices a car reversing from a prime space just next to the ticket machine and adjacent to the steps leading to the hospital entrance. He goes up the arse of the car in front to try and push him out of the way, but the driver slows and pulls in to let Robert pass, which he does, with a snide side-glance at the offending motorist.
Another space presents itself when an old lady reverses out. She's having terrible trouble manoeuvring the pre-reg Morris Minor. She keeps on letting go of the handbrake at the wrong time and doesn't seem to have the strength to turn the wheel.
Robert shakes his head and looks at his watch.
''You should be in hospital!'' he shouts at her.
The old lady turns and gestures apologetically, but Robert dismisses her with a nonchalant, hateful hand-flick. After a few moments, in which Robert tries to guess how much the car park will be per hour and how much her number plate might fetch, the old lady takes to the open road.
Before finally parting, she winds down her window and waves a ticket to Robert.
''There's still two hours left on it if you'd like it,'' she says, but Robert can’t stand the thought of listening to the woman.
''Yes, yes, thank you, goodbye,'' he says, Robin Day-style, without taking the ticket.
She drives off with her newly re-broken right forearm wrapped in temporary bandaging. She has to return tomorrow due to a 'systems-error in the radiology room', (a cover-up for the fact that the relief nurse from the privately run agency in Guildford hadn't managed to arrive to work that day. Behind in her mortgage-repayments, the relief had taken on a 5-night a week bar-job hoping to catch up and, today, she appears in court to stop the repossession of her one-bedroom ex-council flat).
Robert, now in parking-mode, a time he relishes, pounces on the old lady’s space and presses the button that shuts down the roof. Then he trudges off to the ticket-machine across the way and finds out the price of a space, cursing himself for not snatching up the ticket from her hand.
Without knowing or caring that a middle-aged woman is stood behind him, he reels off some prime resentment.
''One pound for each hour or part thereof? Call this the NHS? This is daylight robbery! It’s an absolute liberty.'' He taps in the displayed number of the company responsible on his Nokia, takes his ticket from the machine and strides past the astounded woman back to his car whilst giving a secretary enough grief to satisfy his own torment.
Peeling off the back of the ticket, he thumps it onto his newly polished inner-window and discards the other side onto the tarmac.
On his way to the hospital, seething with lashings of confused, inglorious rage, Robert kicks a Coke can that's fallen from an overflowing bin, just as the parking ticket in his car falls onto the floor.
At the foot of the steps, Robbo is sitting alone on a bench so Robert arches his back for the primate effect as he crosses the slip-road.
He notices the fleet of gleaming XK8's, 320i's, Boxsters and even a SLK 250 parked neatly on double-yellows, and makes another sweeping statement to himself.
''Bloody doctors making quick exits to the private clinics.''
''Hey, mind yourself, mate. You might get run over,'' says Robbo, but Robert just smoothes by. Waiting for the automatic slide-doors to open for him, he takes one side-glance at Robbo and sneers, shaking his head.
''Want some, do we?'' asks Robbo, but Robert's gone, swept into the land of disaffected illness and death, of cruelty and needless pain, a place teeming with staff who would like to help but don’t have the resources, and people who, generally, expect as little as they get. Oh, the British.
Robbo carries on smoking his roll-up but the visions are getting stronger.
He's been on drugs for depression (Zimovane; one every two hours from waking and four Temazepan to help him sleep) for three weeks and he's still drinking as heavily as ever.
Since a week ago, when the drugs kicked into effect, he’s started to see repetitive images in his sleep from a screen in his mind that flickers like a TV when viewed through a video-cam. His liver is beginning to pack up from the stewed bile of prescription drugs and alcohol, which he pukes up for twenty minutes every morning, once the Zimovane takes hold.
Robbo's an alcoholic whose pain is derived from a terrible upbringing, the kind we see on BBC3 nightly.
He has little reason to live; he gets on with no one, he thinks no one understands him, and he will never let anyone in for fear that they'll do what his school friends and parents did.
Following his one and only romantic interlude with a four-foot stub of a girl, he's been in and out of detox programs, tried to commit suicide six times and was finally sectioned for twenty eight days when his GP diagnosed him as a manic depressive with psychotic tendencies.
That was when he was whacked on the drugs: a desperate measure for a desperate man of 25. In this warless world, Robbo is on the front line.
The images in his mind had now transcended his sleep and entered into his everyday life. He couldn't tell anyone. They'd think he’d gone mad and section him again. He didn't want that because he knew he'd have to kill himself. How could he bounce back from that?
Sat on the bench, he rolls his last from a pouch of saw-dust tobacco. As he tips it up to get the final dregs onto the Rizla paper, a wind sweeps across. His crossed leg cradles the paper but he hasn't a spare hand to grab it with. But the roll-up blows off his leg just as he had filled it. He curses loudly.
Robbo gets up and looks towards the hospital doors. They remind him that the man in the Mercedes went in a minute ago.
‘I don't want to be sectioned again. I don't want to be sectioned again.’
The doors open for him in a gush of electrical energy so he just stands there, looking in at what must be his final chance of survival.
‘I've got to keep my cool. Keep cool.’
The reception desk, manned by the bespectacled Mrs.Yates, can be seen through flickering frames of TV madness. It looks a long way away. He sees Robert tapping his foot behind an older man who is talking to the receptionist. Robert turns to see Robbo shaking over by the doors, which are now opening and closing spasmodically.
''Christ alive,'' murmurs Robert. ''Look what the cat brought in.''
The old boy in front hears him but carries on talking to the receptionist about his life with cancer, how he copes, what he does to keep his body active against it and how nice it is to speak to someone who really cares. He's a good, grateful man, a man of God, forgiving and forgiven after many years of alcohol abuse, a man reborn through the doors of sobriety and love, a man who Robbo would do well to meet.
It’s the feeling that he’s being watched that makes Robbo finally move slowly towards the reception desk. He can see himself through the TV screen in his mind as he makes his way over.
He imagines everyone laughing and sneering at him as he shuffles across the floor.
‘Why am I here?’ he asks himself, knowing the answer but wanting a reason to leave quickly. He thinks of ripping Robert’s face to shreds with the jagged Stanley in his pocket, leaving his blood-tarred face on the NHS reception-area carpet with his arms and legs quivering.
He stands behind Robert and waits quietly. His pinned eyes concentrate on the shop's display over to the left. After a while, he realises that he's looking at a newspaper headline. It's The Daily Mail and it reads, 'SHAKE-UP IN MENTAL HEALTH' with a picture of wary mothers passing by a lone youth.
When his drugged-up brain untangles the message as best it can, he decides to take a seat and stares downwards, but the swirly brown and blue carpet is too sick-making to focus his mind, so he angles his neck in the direction of the doors and watches the screen in his head.
Robert again looks over and down at Robbo, just to make sure he's not about to lunge.
Robbo is sure that Robert thinks he's mentally ill, which is true, but only in so far as he has a self-destructive nature that uses alcohol to kill the pain. He's also quite sure that Robert turned towards the newspaper just after he looked at him.
‘I'm not mental!’ he says to himself, holding his head tight to stop it from exploding. Then he suddenly looks around to see if he actually said the words.
''Thanks again,'' says Bob, the old boy at the head of the queue. ''Can't be too careful these days.''
''You're not wrong there, Bob,'' replies Mrs.Yates. ''The Mail's got a whole spread on it. See you soon.''
''Bye Paula, luv. And thanks again for doing that.''
His gratitude and all-round wellbeing had done it again. It's right to remember that he never asked for his holiday to be paid by the NHS. With his spirit, these things come naturally. The NHS helps those who help themselves. It’s a British thing.
A truly blessed soul, Bob had graduated from being a drunken crook to spiritual leader of hundreds in Guildford.
Until he got sobre at the mellow age of 41, he’d stolen from family, friends, firms and foes in a vicious haze of drink and drugs. In terms of wrongdoing, it was too close to call between Bob and Robbo.
Perhaps the only difference between them is how the world perceives the emotionally bankrupt.
In Bob's day, Oliver Reed was Britain's highest paid actor, George Best was football's biggest earner, while Moon, Hendrix and Morrison were dying for rock’s rights. Look now and there’s Tom Cruise, David Beckham and Kylie.
John Lennon, England's first and finest hooligan, was shot dead the day Bob got clean.
He went straight to his GP and promised that if he didn't get well, he could shoot him.
Bob was sent to Weston-Super-Mare, where he learnt how to converse with folk without wanting to headbutt them. He found people who too needed to headbutt to feel alive.
He was ready, at 41, to deal with sobriety.
Meanwhile, Robbo's left lung has a cist and his right lung suffered a blow the other night when he fell onto a railing at his mother’s house. His heart runs at twice the average speed and palpitates with every second roll-up. He reached a mild form of psychosis some seven weeks ago and is now fully-loaded for total insanity, unless bodily meltdown takes him first. His arms and hands bear the signs of deep, systematic, self-harm. His GP’s budget is so tight that he can only provide funding for treatment to two patients this year. With Robbo’s history, the GP discounted Robbo as a non-runner in the race for help so time ago.
Robbo sees men in white coats floating inside his TV screen.
‘‘I see men, I see men,’’ he says, rocking back and forth in his seat, watching for signs of movement from the men in white coats, who are there but not for him. They have scans for clients to collect and deliver, samples to decipher and people to convince.
They have families to clothe. Their lives are maps of drained ambition.
Robert hears Robbo and turns around to see what the fuss is all about.
''What's up with him?'' asks Mrs.Yates.
''Something about semen, I think. I hope he's not a sperm-donor. I mean, look at him'', replies Robert, now knowing full well that Robbo will never hit him.
''Must be drugs,'' she says dolefully.
Robert shrugs his shoulders. ''That or, you know,'' and he scratches his head to suggest he could be a real nutter.
This brings alarm bells to Mrs.Yates. She takes one long, hard look at Robbo and picks up the phone for emergency assistance.
Robbo's in no fit state to stand up for himself. The drugs he’s on are frazzling his brain; a sparkler in the dark.
Two men in white coats arrive. One speaks to Mrs.Yates, who loves the attention surrounding her now, and the other sits down next to Robbo.
''What's your name, son?'' he asks.
No response.
''Whereabouts are you from?'' Again, nothing comes from Robbo’s lips. They care, but only in so far as they care for the normal and that he may be a danger to the hospital in general.
''S'pose you want my national insurance number, too,'' growls Robbo. He'd come out from the void.
The two men look at each other and think the same thing; 'We've got another zombie here. Best be careful’.
Without further ado, they go straight into their addict-response mode.
''How about we go and sit away from all this hustle and bustle. What d'you reckon, hey?''
But Robbo knows the score. How many times has he been picked up at the gates of hell, only to be thrown back into a box of ignorant life? How many times does he have to loop the loop to make them see that he needs true help?
''Have you been in an accident?'' He has no visible bruises or cuts. ''Is there anyone we can contact?''
His mother's a reclusive and his dad's a prolific wife-beating alcoholic living a lie in Bradford.
''Do your parents know you're here?''
That did it.
''No! They don't!''
He tries to run but finds himself wrestling with the two men. He crunches his eyes up and hopes to die, the visions growing more intense with the element of fear and movement.
He sees flickering images of his useless father shouting at his mother as she holds Robbo’s hand tightly, stood by the door for when the alcohol drives him into a state of confused, pathological violence.
''It's OK. No one's gonna hurt you. We're on your side. All we want to do is help, that's all.''
But it’s too late for that.
Robbo smells rats.
''Come on, son,'' they say in front of the small but centred pack of onlookers; watching, feeding, learning, remembering, contemplating, hating. ''Over here now. That's it. Nice and easy.''
Robbo knows that struggling won't help.
Robert shakes his head and returns his inimitable gaze to Mrs.Yates, now high from the incident.
''You did the right thing,'' he says.
''Poor chap, though. I hope he'll be alright,'' she replies, knowing he won't.
''Well, he's in the right place now. That's for sure,'' he says, knowing he’s not.
''Oh well,'' she says, quite smitten by Robert. ''Now what can we do for you?''
''Oh, I've come for a stomach-pump!''
They both laugh; she shyly, bashfully, and he reservedly, smugly.
''No, honestly, sir.''
''Honestly? Right.'' He clears his throat. Back to normal, only now with a Mrs.Yates Fast-track Service in full flow. ''I took a blow to my back playing rugby last Saturday and don't seem to be getting any better.'' (He'd actually slipped a disc while building a self-assembly conservatory in his garden, but he knows what sounds right in certain situations. Robert lies brilliantly. He suffers little guilt for what he calls white lies. He lies for a living and he knows what he thinks he wants from life.) ''Dr.Bramblehurst, my GP, gave me this to present to you.'' He passes a white note requesting X-Rays for his back.
''I see, sir. Just bear with me for a moment,'' she says, picking up the phone.
A short conversation later, she puts the phone down and looks up at him. ''You can be seen right away. There's been a bus-strike today and half the people on for X-Ray couldn't get in.''
''That's a shame,'' he says with a sniff. ''Still, best seize the moment. Umm, where should I go?''
''Down the corridor, right at the end and it's on your right,'' she replies.
''Thank you very much. You've been very kind.''
He'd finished with her. She didn't exist any more.
He is seen forthwith at X-Rays, and exits with a completely different expression on his face.
On arrival, he appeared compliant once safely in the queue. Having been properly dealt with, and pity any one who makes his life unnecessarily harder than it need be, he changes. From compliance comes self-assured arrogance. Once the job's done, he changes again, from arrogance to downright condescension. He loves to leave because he loves his car. He loves his car because he loves himself. He loves himself because he knows where he's going. He knows where he's going because he loves his dad. He loves his dad because he's a successful man. His dad's successful because he loves his only son more than life itself. He loves his son more than life itself because he secretly hates what he's turned into. Like father, like son.
As he waits impatiently for the automatic sliding-doors to open, Mrs.Yates waits hopefully at reception for his backward glance to justify her good treatment, but Robert exits without acknowledging her.
He sees Robbo, who’s been told to come back another time about his lungs, sat on the bench next to Bob.
Robbo notices him.
''S'pose you got seen to, then,'' says Robbo, angling his lightly bruised neck to make full eye-contact.
''Yes, I did. Jolly helpful in there, aren't they?'' and off he trots, throwing his keys in the air and catching them.
A few moments pass, in which Bob recognises himself in Robbo and so passes him a cigarette.
''Here,'' he says. ''Have the pack.''
''Are you sure?''
''Yeah, I don't smoke any more. Gave it up when I got cancer.''
''How comes you got them, then?''
''I used to work for a tobacco company and they give me four hundred Embassies a month as part of my pension.''
''Can't you get the cash instead?''
''No. The pension can't be changed.''
''They just wanna kill you before your time so they don't need to pay your pension for too long.''
''You're not wrong, sonny boy,'' says Bob with a chuckle.
''How did you manage to stop, then?'' Robbo lights up and breathes the welcome agent of death into his lungs.
‘’Told you. I got cancer,'' he says.
He reckons Bob must be about fifty-five. His face glows with life and it’s true to say that, for seventy, he looks amazingly well.
‘’Do you drink?’’ asks Bob.
This throws Robbo, but he replies quickly. ‘’Yeah, I drink.’’
''I used to drink a lot of alcohol. The cigarettes didn't help matters, but it was the booze that took me down.''
Robbo looks into space, somewhere over by the bushes, and settles his gaze on a plastic bag caught in its branches.
Bob sees his apathy. ''You remind me of myself, you know,'' he says. ''I used to think the world was the most corrupt, disgusting place. I hated what I saw and I got out of it with booze.''
''So the cancer stopped you from drinking.''
''No, I gave up the booze thirty-odd years back. Got the cancer three years ago. But giving up the booze made me see myself for the first time. I saw a hateful man, the sort of man I'd always resented, and I wanted to change.''
A silence touches Robbo in a way he'd almost forgotten. His grandma died of breast cancer six years ago.
Bob started talking again. ''They say cancer's a disease of the mind and alcohol's a disease of the soul, but it was a lot harder giving up the booze than it is now, fighting the cancer.''
''You must have enjoyed drinking, though,'' says Robbo.
''For a while I did, but for most the time it enjoyed me much more.''
''I know what you mean.''
''I know you know. Things might seem hopeless but you're not the only one who feels cheated. I was a real bastard when I was drinking. Never did anything for anyone except me because I thought that was how everyone else lived.''
''I know that one,'' says Robbo, changing his posture and taking a huge gulp of Embassy down to kill the pain. ''I do cars, you know.''
''What do you mean, you do cars?''
''I scratch them. You must have heard of me in the Surrey Ad, not that they know it’s me.’’ Robbo's face turns mean and nasty.
Time for identification, thinks Bob. ''I used to do odd-jobs for old ladies, nick their pension-books and cash them in every week with a mate who worked at the Post Office. Did that for two years while I was working at Embassy’s.''
''Cool, man,'' says Robbo.
Bob chuckled. ''Not really. See, every penny I nicked I spent on booze and women. Then I started nicking off the women to get my booze and then there were no women left because I was a wreck and. I quit the booze when I was forty-one and joined a big group of people just like me who needed to learn how to live all over again. I was like a scared little boy but I've been clean ever since.''
''Did fifty grands' worth of damage last night. Cranleigh. No CCTV there, see.''
Bob says nothing. He understands him only too well.
''Only do prestige-cars, mind. Never do ordinary ones.''
But again, Bob looks down without answering.
Finally, just before Robbo feels too uneasy in the silence to remain quiet, Bob interjects.
''What's the buzz, though? Why do you do it?''
''S'obvious, innit. Rich bastards lose their no-claims as soon as I scratch two or three panels of their pride and joy. Job done.''
''Yes, but why do you do it?''
''I just told you.''
''No, you didn't. I mean, what’s in it for you?''
''You don't get it. See, I'm doing poor people a service. Imagine the amount of sprayers and panel-beaters I give work to. You didn't think about that, did you?'' There's a cruel slant of lip on Robbo's face now but it doesn't impress Bob. He's seen it all before.
‘’What’s your name, son?’’ asks Bob.
‘’Robbo,’’ he replies.
‘’Hi, Robbo. I’m Bob.’’ They look at each other for a second and then Bob carries on. ‘’What I’m trying to get at is looking at the bigger picture.''
''What bigger picture's that, then?''
Bob clears his throat. ''You won’t know this but my car insurance went up by thirty percent this year. It's only a Panda but it gets me there. And you know what they said when I asked why it had gone up so much?'' Robbo shrugged his shoulders. ''They said it was down to malicious damage and bogus claims.'' Robbo's face falls. The dream's over. ''Rich people can afford a thirty percent hike, Robbo. People like you and me don't find that sort of cash so easy to find.''
Robbo scrabbles about for an answer, settling for an urgent, fake cough to tide him over.
''I only do prestige-cars,'' he says finally. ''It's gotta hurt them more than you.''
''Who do you think it hurts more than the insurance companies and the rich bastards put together?''
Robbo makes a gesture of incredulous disbelief. ''No one, obviously. That's the point, innit.''
''You tell me. Imagine that seven percent of the population is classified rich and the rest are classified not rich. Remember that the insurance companies have increased their prices across the board and that means everyone pays more to cover their own backs. Then calculate how much of the increase comes from the pockets of the not rich. In every ten people, nine not rich to one rich ends up footing the bill.'' He stops for a second or two. ''So who ends up suffering more than the insurance companies and the rich folk?''
He has a way with words, always did, but now on a path of steady sobriety for thirty-odd years, Bob speaks openly, honestly and carefully about issues that had always dazed him into needless violence. He has no need for useless banter with slippery fools in order to boost his regressive ego.
''You did suffer as a result and, honest, I'm sorry for that,'' says Robbo. ''But, like, I thought I was doing good for the poorer lot, like the sprayers and the panel-beaters.''
''There's still one person who suffered more than all of us put together, Robbo. Who's that?''
Again, an untidy silence. This time, Robbo rakes some phlegm up as a preventative measure.
''I don't know what you're talking about, mate,'' he says.
''Well then, I think you ought to,'' says Bob. ''Would you like to know who I think suffers most from your car antics?'' Robbo gave the nod, so Bob took a deep breath to speak evenly with. ''It's you, Robbo. You've hurt yourself so much.''
''I knew you'd say that. You're just like all the rest of 'em. You think you know it all, don't you?''
''Just think about it, Robbo. If you answer some questions, you might get what I'm on about.''
''Go on then. Fire away.''
''Right. Do you sleep easily at night?''
''No, I don't.''
''Is that because you're scared the police are going to come and get you?''
''The police don't scare me.''
''How about when you're walking around town? Do you ever feel like someone's going to beat you up, someone whose car you've scratched, someone who wants revenge on you?''
''I'm not scared of anyone. I told you that already.''
Bob looks down at Robbo’s nails. They are torn to shreds and the cuticles are surrounded by dried blood.
‘'Why do you bite your nails? That's the most telling sign of insecurity on the body.''
''I bite my nails because I like to.''
''Just as you like scratching cars up.''
''Something like that, mate.''
Bob can feel the anger rising in Robbo, who now imagines that Bob is against him.
''You think I'm against you, right?''
''Probably.''
''Well, I'm not. All I'm trying to do is show you to yourself so that you can get on with life as it really is. I want to help, that's all.''
Robbo feels love welling up inside, but he can't accept its presence and quickly resumes the old guard of denial. ''Help?'' he says finally. ''I don't need your help or anyone else's.''
''Then why are you here?''
''You really want to know?''
Bob nods.
''I'm here because I've got a massive pain in my chest and it won’t go away.''
''So what happened?''
''You saw what happened. They kicked me out because they thought I was a mental case.''
''And are you?''
''No, 'course I'm not.''
''Were you afraid of what they might do if they dealt with your chest?''
''No! Look, I told you I'm not afraid of anyone, alright!''
At that moment, Robert can be seen walking down the stairs towards them. His face is red with anger. Bob notices Robbo's face go white in a flash.
Robert comes close. ''Was that you did that?''
''No,'' replies Robbo, a tortoise recoiled into its shell.
''How do you know what I'm talking about then, hey?''
''I don't, so why don't you piss off and leave us alone.''
''What's the problem?'' asks Bob.
''Someone,'' says Robert, looking at Robbo. ''Someone scratched my car in the car park, and I think I know who did it. It's cameraed up and I’ve already called the police, the hospital, my insurance company, and I’ve taken photographs of the damage, so I'm going to find out either way. Look, hold on to him while I get some help, alright? I'll be one minute.’’ Looking towards Robbo, he issues a warning. ‘’If you go anywhere, you're dead. Understand?!''
Robbo picks out another Embassy and with jittery fingers lights it up.
''Was it you?'' asks Bob the moment Robert leaves for help.
''Yeah, he nearly ran me down when I was crossing the road. Can't do anything about it. The cameras never record up here. It's just a fear tactic. Doesn't fool me.''
''So why are you shaking like a leaf?''
''That's the buzz, innit? You really don't get it, do you? That kind of bloke never feels pain. Well, now he does.''
''And that helps you, does it?''
''Yeah,'' replies Robbo. ''It does. It really does.''
''Why? Because you gave him that pain? Does that make you feel powerful over him?''
''Yes, it does. And it works for me. Alright?''
''You're staying here then?''
''Definitely. He can't touch me.''
''Well, I'll be off now.'' Bob grabs his hand and presses it hard while looking deep into his eyes. ''It’s not your fault, OK?. There's nothing to fear but fear itself. Try to remember that, Robbo. I'll pray for you.'' He walks off to the car park. Robbo watches to see if he might turn around but he doesn't.
As Bob leaves his view, Robert returns with the same two men dressed in white coats.
Their postures are ready for violence. They fear the worst from Robbo, who stays put on the bench, smoking unemotionally.
He stares up at them. ''Hello again.''

In the end, Robert had his no-claims wiped when the car was repaired but then evened it up by making a bogus claim on his wife's Volvo. The cameras weren't recording, just as Robbo had said. Robert was treated for two days at the hospital after the X-Rays found he needed a small operation. He received £600 cashback for using the NHS instead of going private on his Norwich Union Fair+Square Healthcare Policy and purchased a luxury weekend break on the proceeds, although he had to cancel (and it was too late for a refund) after falling ill. He’d contracted a strain of MRSA and was forced to spend another three months in hospital to get over it.
Bob remarried his first wife after they met by chance two days after meeting Robbo, who he prayed for every day for one year.
Robbo's lungs never did get seen to. He died in bed a week later, muttering the words ‘It’s not your fault’ over and over again until his lungs crashed.