The Hallmarked Man Real-time Re-read, Chapter 87- In which Murphy and Strike both do the right thing.

The plan for today's installment was Chapters 87 and 88.  But, there is so much to love about Spaghetti in Sark that I'm going to devote the entire post to that. I'll try to cover Chapter 88 on Sunday

The evening in the Old Forge B & B (authentic pictures, by the way!) is my favorite chapter in the book, perhaps the first time since Christmas Eve (Chapter 41, the end of Part 3!) that Strike and Robin seem genuinely well-suited to be more than platonic friends. Ironically, the fact that he chooses not to try to take them to the next level here is exactly what makes it so clear that he is the right life, as well as professional partner for her, Just as so many Strike fans were tempted to go out and buy a bottle of Narcisco after the Ritz, this chapter inspired me to try to prepare spaghetti carbonara for the first time.  I don't think it's as popular a dish here as it is in Europe; our restaurants tend to be very cautious about the potential for undercooked eggs. 

"An Aga set into a brick wall"

The Old Forge’s kitchen contained an Aga set into a brick wall, and had enough seating for eight people. Wooden model lighthouses stood on the window sills, but the depth of the darkness outside obscured any view of coast or sea.

This leads to my one quibble in the chapter:  there seem to be some mistakes in Robin's food preparation. First this: 

Robin had been cooking and drinking wine for ten minutes when her mobile buzzed and she guessed it was going to be Murphy. Taking her carbonara sauce off the heat, she reached for it and read.

She reads the text from RFM (more on this later) and then, immediately. 

Robin stood staring at this message, so shocked she was only recalled to her surroundings when she realised the cheese sauce was starting to spit in the pan, and turned hastily back to attend to it. 

Problem 1:  How can the sauce be "spitting" in the pan if she just took it off the heat?

Problem 2:  I learned when preparing the dish, at no point in a recipe for spaghetti carbonara is there ever any sort of sauce cooking on the stove.  I checked several, from both the UK and US, to make sure we were talking about the same dish. To make spaghetti carbonara, you put the pasta on to boil while frying the meat (bacon or pancetta) in another pan.  You also whisk a couple of eggs with hard cheese, salt and pepper in a separate bowl and leave it to sit at room temperature. When the pasta and the bacon are done, you pour off most of the fat and drain the pasta, reserving a cup or two of water. Add the pasta to the meat, then take it off the stove. You then immediately mix the egg and cheese mixture into the pasta and stir vigorously, adding water as needed to make a smooth sauce. It is the residual heat from the pasta and the hot water that cooks the sauce, not the stove---  hence the risk of raw eggs if you are not careful. Serve immediately while everything is still hot. 

While I can't claimed to have read every recipe for spaghetti carbonara on the internet, I did not see any that suggested cooking the egg and cheese separately on the stove and indeed, several warned that trying to do so would result in spaghetti topped with scrambled eggs and bacon. 

OK, I'll drop the Julia Child act and go on with the aspects of this chapter that I think make it so strong. It starts with Ryan's text. 

Maybe this is insecurity, but it’s the truth. You say you love me, but I feel like you withhold part of yourself from me. Sometimes I even feel like you’re humouring me. I’ve felt all along like I’m dragging you into living together, but I can’t remember you ever showing real enthusiasm for it and when I told you we’d been gazumped, I couldn’t hear any disappointment.

What you said about the baby earlier: you’re wrong. It isn’t that I want you to act like I think women should act, it’s that you’ve never once acknowledged that it was our kid you lost. I’ve felt like I can’t show any sadness about the baby because it’ll make you feel pressured.

There’s a distance between us sometimes and I don’t know if that’s just who you are, and this is how you love, or whether you’re fooling both of us about what you really feel. And if it’s the second one, I’d rather know now.

There's a lot of RFM-bashing on Strike media, but this is one occasion where I can have some compassion for him. He's texting now instead of calling, so at least considering the possibility that Robin might not find it convenient to speak to him while she's working. More importantly, he seems to be absolutely correct in his assessment of the relationship. 

• Robin is withholding part of herself from him. 
• She was relieved, not disappointed, when they were outbid on the house. 
• She has never acknowledged that Ryan lost a baby, too and likely would react badly if he expressed sorrow over the loss. 
• There is distance between them and Robin is fooling herself and Ryan by trying to make herself believe that she loves Murphy and not Strike. 

I have to think that here, at least, Murphy must have been cold stone sober when he composed this text. I don't think he could have been this discerning if he had been drunk. 

In the end, what made Robin break down entirely is not Ryan nagging or pressuring her, or taking jealous jabs at Strike. but his clear statement of what she knows, deep down, is the truth.  And, even better, he has given her an out, if she would only take it. But, of course, she won't...

Cold waves of panic and fear were breaking over her. So Murphy knew… what? She loved him, didn’t she? Yes, she thought – knew – she did. But he’d sensed…

"He set about laying the smaller
of the two tables"

When Strike emerges from his room, freshly showered, she quickly hands the meal off to him and goes upstairs to try to reassure her boyfriend, and herself. 

You know I love you.

Did she, though? Really? Trying to tamp down yet another upsurge of anxiety and guilt Robin continued,

I don’t know what you mean about distance.

Didn’t she? Perhaps she did – 

Once Robin heads downstairs again to rejoin Strike, we can we the extent of her trauma, as Strike's casual questions about her nephews' births trigger flashbacks to the ectopic pregnancy. 

“It was a difficult birth," said Robin. A lump seemed to have lodged in her throat again. You’ve been left with quite a lot of damage… She took another swig of wine. "His nerves were torn, and he was premature, as well.’" The embryo couldn’t get past the scarring, you see…

"Smaller than the eleven-pounder, then?"

"Much," said Robin with difficulty, remembering the bumpy ride on the gurney, and the icy feeling of the ultrasound wand. 

Meanwhile, Strike is drinking wine, enjoying the pasta* and gearing up for the big declaration. But, in a scene that reminded me of Lethal White's breakdown on the verge (one of my favorites from the entire series),  Robin loses control, not to panic, this time, but to sorrow and pain. 

“I… lost a baby."

"What?" said Strike, horror-struck.

Unable to keep it in any longer, unable to pretend, unable to cope alone with the burden of her own confusion and guilt, Robin blundered back to the table, sat down, and told the short and brutal story of her accidental pregnancy, through sobs.

"Shit," said Strike. "I’m… sorry."

He had no idea what else to say.

Strike obviously came close to "making his declaration" here.  What jumped out on the re-read is that Robin did, too. 

Her loyalty to Murphy mingled with her conflicted feelings about the text he’d just sent her, and she was battling a powerful urge to let out the things she hadn’t dared say to any other human being.

Strike could think of nothing to do except reach across the table and lay a large hand on her shoulder while she cried. He’d rarely been at such a loss, or so afraid of saying the wrong thing.

But, as he did on the verge, he does say the right thing. He listens, keeps his questions gentle, and when she calls her situation nothing, compared to his amputation, says, wisely, "That's different, not worse."  He chooses to be what she needs at the moment, her imperfect best friend, despite the fact that he gives up the opportunity he was most hoping for. 

But he’d never been in such a quandary as the one he now faced. Could he really tell her now, when she was reeling from a recent pregnancy loss, "Here’s something you might want to factor in when thinking about the future: I love you"?

"A beamed ceiling and a brick fireplace 
with a wood burner"

When she asks to focus on the case, he honors her request. They finish their dinner, and retire to the sitting room for a cozy fire that would, under better circumstances, have been the romantic setting that Strike wanted. 

They were alone together at last, in the most remote place they were ever likely to visit, where nobody else could reach them or interrupt. Wasn’t it madness to let this chance go? Yet he was afraid that by speaking now, when Robin was clearly already in a state of crisis, he’d transform himself, perhaps for ever, from friend and confidant into another source of pain and confusion.

Robin, unfortunately, goes off on the wrong track and  regresses to her Silkworm state, when she was continuously comparing herself unfavorable to the hypothetical ex-policewomen partner she was convinced Strike was about to hire. Here, she compares herself to Kim F. Cochran. 

Robin noticed Strike’s slight scowl, and wondered whether he was thinking her as chaotic and careless as she felt herself to be, for getting into such a mess, for slumping into her spaghetti and sobbing, and she had a sudden mental image of Kim Cochran, always neat and professional and cheerful, her personal life in perfect order. We’ve all made mistakes. Admittedly, I never married one of mine…

The next chapter will show us how incredibly wrong Robin is about the Kimphomaniac's personal life and the idea that Strike would ever think Kim had herself more together than Robin.  But I digress. This is also a nice foreshadowing of the book's ending, where Strike will indeed try to stop Robin from marrying her second mistake. 

Around the fire, the talk turns moves onto the case, which is hard to attend to after all the personal angst we've covered. Some key points:

• Strike lists "chance, convenience, opportunity and necessity" as reasons for the murder happening in the vault, and the duo are able to eliminate the first three. But, they can't make much sense of "necessity" either. 
• Robin notes some oddities in Wright's behavior (getting friendly with Mandy and Daz, ordering weights) that suggest he was planning a longer stay, 
• Strike points out that Rupert Fleetwood would not have needed Todd's help in writing a CV or learning about silver. 
• Robin suggests that the email to the real Osgood was Wright's effort to let him know he had an imposter. She also ponders the inconsistencies in Fleetwood's behavior versus the way others describe him, and vows to speak to Cosima Longcaster to find out more. 

Both are tired, so they turn in early. Strike offers to do the dishes**, since she cooked. 

When Robin had gone upstairs, Strike limped back to the kitchen, feeling thoroughly miserable. It wasn’t much comfort to think he’d done the right and decent thing in not forcing his own emotional crisis on Robin when she was clearly in the middle of a serious one of her own, but his last glimmer of hope had now fizzled into darkness, leaving him full of self-recrimination.

Strike may not feel much satisfaction in the fact that he acted in Robin's best interest, but I think it is safe to say that the readers did. We are back to seeing the "Superior Man" of The Running Grave. Strike showed the kind of love a man should feel for his wife (and vice versa)---  which requires he put her needs above his own. But, he doesn't feel good about it, and is not cheered by the affirmation he reads on a plaque in the kitchen. 

Strike cast this a dark look as he dried his hands, then hobbled off across the hall towards his bedroom.

Coming up tomorrow: a lot of wind, a lot of whiskey and a Kimphomaniac. 

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*A reminder that Robin also ordered, but could not eat, spaghetti carbonara at Arte e Pasta, with Vile Longacaster. Thus she sat down to eat the dish with two men who once thought Charlotte Campbell to be their favorite person in the world. The difference is, Vile shared Charlotte's snobbishness and materialism and was too caught up in his blue-blooded world to even order food at a restaurant without Michelin stars, lest he catch some sort of Middle-class Cooties.  Strike though Robin's home-cooked dish was fantastic and chowed down. More proof, as if we needed it, that he belongs in Robin's world, not Milady Berzerko's. 

** and he's going to have more than the pot and two plates he mentioned, if Robin made genuine carbonara, which requires a pot to boil the pasta, a mixing bowl for the eggs and cheese, a second pot to fry the meet and mix everything up, and a serving dish.