Robbie Dexter and Polly Drayton

The relationship between Robbie Dexter and Polly Drayton is a six-year attachment that ends without ending emotionally: Robbie leaves, but Polly continues to love him and to imagine a life together. Their separation exposes the imbalance between Robbie’s guilt and Polly’s dependence, while her desperate attempts to reach him unfold alongside his renewed connection with Rachel Elliot.

The Six-Year Relationship and Its End

Robbie describes his relationship with Polly as a “misshapen zigzag” alliance lasting six years. In October, he tells her he cannot see a future for them and believes it is time to part for good. He regards the decision as another instance of failing someone who has trusted him: he feels he took the best years of her life and gave her nothing in return. His guilt is not merely a reaction to the breakup; it shadows his anticipation of seeing Rachel again, making his past with Polly part of the emotional baggage he carries into that reunion.

Robbie’s reflections suggest that he sees their domestic life as a partnership unable to become the ordered home he had once hoped for. Looking at his neglected cottage, with missing pieces in its roof and crumbling chimney corners, he recognizes that its disorder reflects his own sense of having failed to shape his life as he wished. He thinks Polly shared that difficulty: she could manage practical tasks such as making a fire or guiding sheep through a foot bath, but, in his view, relied on him to provide inspiration for domestic and other decisions. He characterizes her as a follower who struggled to express herself except in anger. His assessment is colored by hindsight, but it makes clear that he understood the relationship as lacking the shared initiative he wanted.

Polly’s Attachment and Circumstances

Polly’s feelings do not match Robbie’s decision to leave. She believes she would have died for him and loves his crumbling cottage and messy life, in part because his disorder makes her feel less like a burden herself. Robbie had been grateful for her help, unlike her parents, who expected her to work in their pub. At twenty-eight, with three CSEs and twelve years of work at the deep-fat fryer behind her, she has become increasingly timid about asserting herself; she regards her parents as the only dependable people in her life, particularly after losing Robbie.

Her mother interprets the breakup as a consequence of Polly having hoped for too much and given herself too freely. She says the family warned Polly, and argues that Robbie, though not a bad man, has his head in the clouds while tending animals instead of building his business. Polly knows there is truth in the criticism of his priorities, but that does not change what she feels. Her mother’s advice to expect nothing so as not to be disappointed sharpens the contrast between family pragmatism and Polly’s continuing hope: after six years, she had expected something from Robbie.

Waiting at the Pub

On New Year’s Eve, Polly works at her parents’ crowded pub, serving tables as well as helping in the kitchen. She slips upstairs for a breather after being bought two double gins by Mr Bernard, a retired polo player who flirts with her after drinking. Polly tells herself Robbie will come later. With Rachel’s black car gone, she assumes nothing prevents him from arriving, and she imagines that nobody would want to spend the evening alone.

The evening instead makes her absence of hope and persistence of hope visible at once. Her mother’s maxim that expecting nothing prevents disappointment weighs against Polly’s conviction that Robbie might still come. Her father, usually silent in the face of his wife’s outspoken opinions, approaches her with unexpected tenderness and asks her to return downstairs after one more minute. His gentleness nearly makes her cry, but it does not resolve the loss she is waiting through.

After the pub finally closes, Robbie still has not arrived. Polly goes out into the frost because she needs to see for herself that his black car is gone. The cold leaves her face and fingers numb, though her feet stay warm inside the fur-lined boots he had given her the previous Christmas. The detail makes his absence tangible: even the warmth she carries with her comes from a gift associated with him, while she remembers that she received no present from him that Christmas.

The Message and the Unfinished Separation

Finding no sign of the black car does not end Polly’s errand. She walks to Robbie’s van, whose windows are masked by frost, and writes across the rear glass with her bare index finger: “I AM DYING”. The words express the desperation of her heartbreak, not a report that Robbie has returned or that the relationship has been restored. She writes them without regard for appearing melodramatic, responding to the intensity of her distress. The message is at once a plea for recognition and a physical trace of the emotional crisis Robbie’s departure has left behind.

Polly later learns that Robbie has invited her to London for a long weekend to see whether they can sort things out. At the station, however, she watches him greet Rachel first. He waves with boyish delight, and Rachel lifts her face for a kiss; they embrace and leave together without noticing Polly nearby. Polly has told her parents a different story, claiming that Robbie’s “new woman” is his sister, that they will stay with his sister on the first night, and that a five-star hotel with an indoor pool and breakfast in bed awaits them. The lies let her present the trip as a hopeful reconciliation, though the reunion she witnesses is between Robbie and Rachel.

Polly’s journey to London is not a spontaneous response to seeing Rachel. She already knows where Rachel lives and works, having searched Robbie’s kitchen while he was away estimating work for new owners down Sandy Lane. Amid the clutter, Rachel’s name, telephone numbers, and addresses are neatly written and fixed to the refrigerator with a sheep-shaped magnet Polly herself had given Robbie, its neck tied with a red ribbon. The contrast between the carefully preserved contact details and the disorder around them makes Rachel’s presence in Robbie’s life unmistakable to Polly. As Robbie and Rachel begin their reunion, Polly hurries across the road toward the buses, her half-empty rucksack bouncing on her back. Her departure leaves the relationship with Robbie unresolved for her: his invitation has revived her hope, but the scene she sees offers no assurance that he will choose her again.

Significance

The relationship is defined by a painful difference in what separation means. Robbie treats the six years as a past he regrets having wasted, while Polly continues to regard him as the person with whom she might escape a life narrowed by work, low self-esteem, and dependence on her parents. His guilt does not amount to a renewed commitment, and her devotion does not restore the partnership. The boots, the frosted van window, and the sheep magnet turn ordinary possessions into evidence of that asymmetry: gifts and shared domestic history remain, but the future Polly hopes to recover is not secured by them. Her pursuit of Robbie intersects with his return to Rachel, leaving the old relationship emotionally alive for Polly even as Robbie’s attention moves elsewhere.