Strike and Robin at Christmas
Strike
‘I’ve got to go to the Christmas Eve party with all the neighbours, too. I’d rather eat my own f*****g feet. What are you up to?’
The Hallmarked Man, Robert Galbraith
Strike’s unusual childhood makes him a perfect candidate for hating Christmas. His free-spirited mother, Leda, never put down roots long enough for a traditional family festive period and his father, rock legend Jonny Rokeby, didn’t send his illegitimate son any acknowledgement of his existence at birthdays or Christmas, something which caused Strike a lot of pain in his childhood. During his time in the army, he’d also had a couple of other untraditional Christmases, where he’s eaten foil trays of tasteless turkey in field canteens, among camouflage-wearing colleagues wearing Santa hats.
But there’s another side to Strike’s experiences of Christmas, thanks to his Cornish aunt and uncle, Joan and Ted, who cared for Strike and his half-sister Lucy when their mother wasn’t able to, and who always welcomed Strike’s visits to their home for a storybook Christmas. Strike even brought his troubled girlfriend Charlotte with him one year, though they ended up in a row, and Charlotte stormed out past the family gathered around the turkey. During the Margot Bamborough investigation (Troubled Blood), Strike is laid low by flu and so unable to join them. Instead, he endures a rather miserable Christmas in his flat on his own, though office manager Pat brings up his presents and, in a gesture that he finds very touching, fetches him soup on Christmas Eve.
While Robin stakes out a billionaire’s house over Christmas the following year, Strike is in Cornwall with his widowed uncle Ted, but he greets 2015 in a festive manner at a New Year’s Eve party at Annabel’s in Mayfair. He’s working alongside one of the agency’s new hires, Midge Greenstreet, but also meets jewellery designer Madeline Courson-Miles, who he dates while investigating the death of artist Edie Ledwell (The Ink Black Heart).
As canned Christmas music drifts out from a shop on Kingsway near Freemasons Hall in the early stages of the investigation into the body in the vault of Ramsay Silver (The Hallmarked Man), Strike and Robin both feel the undertow of sadness from which Christmas in adulthood is rarely free. Strike is suddenly visited by thoughts of Ted, Joan and the empty house in Cornwall, which has just gone up for sale. Robin too admits she is not looking forward to a family Christmas in Yorkshire and would rather do her own thing in London, wishing she felt as straightforwardly happy about her trip home to Masham as she used to.
The Christmas Eve party at Lucy’s house is just as bad as Strike fears, involving Greg, his aggressively jocular brother-in-law; a woman called Marguerite who Strike met during the investigation into missing writer Owen Quine (The Silkworm), and who asks after Nina Lascelles, a publisher Strike dated briefly who is now providing damaging quotes about Strike for her journalist cousin; a vomiting child of around six called Hector, and a NSFW picture on his phone.
Robin
Martin arrived at that moment with a tray full of coffees and a bottle of Baileys. Jonathan won Pictionary.
Troubled Blood, Robert Galbraith
Robin’s more stable family background gives her a traditional place to retreat to at Christmas – she still has two loving parents living in the lovely market town of Masham in North Yorkshire. She likes the season enough to add a miniature Christmas tree to her desk during the investigations into the disappearance of Owen Quine (The Silkworm), and while investigation Margot Bamborough’s disappearance, Robin tells herself Christmas at her family home will be a wonderful break – with lie-ins and home-cooked food and hours in front of the telly. Sadly, her newborn baby niece keeps her awake, and she must deal with her family’s suspicions about Strike and odd texts from another colleague.
The following year she stays in London, sending Strike off to Cornwall to visit his uncle Ted, and so avoids her ex-husband parading round Masham with his now wife and their new baby. She even gets a seasonal break of her own, going skiing in Zermatt over New Year with her favourite cousin, Katie, and a group of friends.
When she does head up north for Christmas in 2016, she brings her boyfriend, Ryan Murphy (known as Richard in the TV series), and her father has strung white lights the old lilac tree in the front garden. Then things go downhill. Robin argues with her mother, saying if Linda stopped chipping away at Strike and the agency all the time, maybe Robin would come home more often. Feeling that her mother wants her to live a safe, half-life, she loses her temper, leaving Linda trying to hide her tears when the rest of the family comes back from a shopping trip. Her brother Martin’s tempestuous relationship with his pregnant girlfriend, Carmen, adds unwelcome drama and her sister-in-law, Jenny, is heavily pregnant too. Robin’s ex-husband’s wife, Sarah, is also pregnant with their second child. Robin worries the multiple pregnant women around them will mean Ryan will try and re-open the conversation about starting a family.
She drinks far too much whisky in the pub with her family on Christmas Eve, and Ryan bites her head off. Her eldest brother, Stephen, who she calls Button, supports her home. Miserable, and knowing Ryan is showing signs of resenting Strike and their closeness, Robin opens her present from Strike in the privacy of the bathroom.
Gifts
‘It’s Christmas,’ said Robin. ‘Pretend to be buying presents. Actually buy some presents.’
‘Not in here,’ said Strike.
‘Why not?’
‘I just… can’t.’The music, the bewildering choice, the crowds, his total ignorance of what the women he had to buy for might want: he’d rather face root-canal surgery.
The Hallmarked Man, Robert Galbraith
Robin is a careful gift giver, remembering Strike’s likes and dislikes and taking pleasure in finding presents he would like, such as rare recordings of Tom Waits. Before she leaves for Christmas in Masham as they investigate the body in the silver vault, (The Hallmarked Man), she gives him a card which tells him he’ll be getting a monthly delivery of Cornish food and beer. He’s touched by her thoughtfulness.
Strike tends to leave his Christmas shopping late, and though he usually manages to buy his nephews and godchildren enjoyable, noise making presents that will annoy their parents, he struggles with what to buy for the women in his life, often panic buying underwhelming flowers and chocolates. His best Christmas present for Robin for a long time was a surveillance course, delivered as they closed the investigations into Owen Quine (The Silkworm). For the Christmas he spends at Lucy’s house during the body in the vault investigation, he is more thoughtful about his family, getting a pastel-coloured scarf for Lucy following Robin’s recommendation, and a survival kit for his favourite nephew, Jack, on the basis it’s exactly what he would have wanted at that age.
Strike’s Christmas present to Robin during the silver vault investigation is a new departure for him and shows the depths of the feelings he’s developed for his partner. When Robin opens it, she finds Strike has given her a silver charm bracelet, including a masonic orb referencing their current investigation. The other charms recall private jokes and shared moments of their friendship, including the arms of the town of Skegness, where they shared fish and chips, the Houses of Parliament, where she went undercover during the Chiswell investigation (Lethal White), and a silver and enamel robin for her name.
Robin’s feelings when she opens it are complex, but she immediately texts him to say how much she loves it, with an unusual number of ‘x’s, and Strike, grumpy after too much larger and possibly the worst party he’s ever attended, types back ‘I’m glad’ with an x to match each of hers.
