She looked like she wanted to say something more, but instead she got up off the bed and went to the door. He was relieved she wasn’t going to push him. They were starting to revert to their old roles. She was back in full-on mom mode, and he was behaving like a stroppy teenager, and he didn’t like it. He needed to reclaim his adult life. If he couldn’t get back to New York for the moment, he at least needed to get out of this house before he forgot how to be a grown-up.
His mother paused in the doorway, her eyes drifting to the photo on the chest of drawers by the wall. It was a framed collage of photos of him and Romy. Romy had made it and given it to him the Christmas before he went to America. His lips automatically curled in a smile as he looked at the overlapping photos caught beneath the glass of the cheap clip-frame – Romy lying on the grass at Slane Castle the day of the Oasis concert; the pair of them wrapped up against the cold and holding hands on a windswept beach during a trip to Galway; messing around in the sea at Brittas Bay … In the centre was a close-up of the two of them laughing into the camera. He looked thin and rowdy, his hair spiked and sculpted this way and that, too short and too long all at once – and he had forgotten about that ridiculous piercing. He touched his brow where it had been.
‘You should look up Romy,’ his mother said.
‘We haven’t kept in touch,’ he said, shrugging.
‘I could get you her number. Elaine from down the road is still in touch with her mother, I believe. She has a baby now, apparently – Romy, I mean.’
‘A baby? Really?’ Kit looked over at the photomontage. It was hard to imagine the laughing, carefree girl in those pictures with a baby.
‘Yes, but she’s single,’ his mother told him hastily.
Oh God, was she going to start trying to fix him up now? That was all he needed. His mother had always had a soft spot for Romy. She was probably still nursing her disappointment that they hadn’t ended up together. But she had no idea how much his tastes had changed.
‘I don’t know what the story is,’ his mother continued, ‘but she’s definitely not with the father.’
‘Huh!’ That didn’t seem like Romy. Kit couldn’t see the girl he had known doing something so haphazard, so disorganised as becoming a single mother. She’d always been so sensible and pragmatic. She liked things done the right way and in the correct order. But then it was a long time since he had known her. No doubt she had changed, just as he had.
‘Her father passed away last year,’ his mother was saying now. ‘I’m sure she’d love to hear from you. Why don’t you look her up on Facebook?’
‘I don’t know. It’s been a very long time …’
‘Come to think of it,’ his mother said, brightening as a thought occurred to her, ‘I have her address. I got it when her father passed so I could send her a sympathy card. Wait here,’ she said, holding up a finger – as if he had any intention of going anywhere. She bustled off and came back a few minutes later with a piece of paper, which she pressed into his hand.
‘Thanks,’ Kit said, glancing down at the address.
‘She’s in property developing, you know. Apparently she’s done very well for herself.’
‘Really? Good for her.’
‘Well, she always had a good head on her shoulders, didn’t she?’
‘Yeah,’ he smiled, glancing back at the photo frame. ‘She did.’
‘And you never know – she might be able to help you find a good deal on an apartment.’
When his mother had left, Kit sat staring down at the piece of paper in his hand. Romy. He hadn’t thought about her for a long time, but he was suddenly overcome with nostalgia. He stood and grabbed the photo frame from the dresser, sitting back on the bed and gazing down at it. God, he looked like a prat. He’d been so convinced of his own cool, so full of himself with no good reason. He saw now what a bedraggled idiot he had been – a waster, as the teachers used to call him. Then he looked at Romy’s lovely, open face and wondered what on earth she had seen in him.
In his defence, at least he had known a good thing when he’d seen it. He may have been thick, but at least he had been able to see what a fantastic girl Romy was, which was more than could be said for some of his supposedly brighter peers. He felt quite proud of himself for that. She hadn’t enjoyed the kind of status at school that he had. Romy was funny and loyal, but she wasn’t cool and she had never tried to be. She was kind and clever, but those qualities weren’t strong currencies in the schoolyard, and she was overlooked in favour of the more obvious charms of bubbly girls like Tanya Lynch, with their long legs, short skirts and low standards. They all thought he was out of Romy’s league, but he had always known it was the other way around.
Romy was more herself than anyone he had ever met – more her own person. Even back then, when everyone was contorting themselves into all kinds of shapes in a desperate effort to fit in, she didn’t hide how smart she was or fake a cool she didn’t possess. Kit had been used to girls moulding themselves to him, aping his habits and mirroring his taste. Romy was different, and he loved her for it. He’d had enough of himself, and it was refreshing to be with someone else, someone other. He liked that it had taken time to get to know her, that she wasn’t all there on the surface. It made her all the more worthwhile to him, like those obscure, unappreciated bands he had been so fond of ferreting out.
He loved that she had the courage of her enthusiasms – her unabashed love of The Backstreet Boys; the way she would make him take off Depeche Mode and dance around the room with her to Madonna. He didn’t much care for television, yet he was never happier than when he was curled up on this very bed with her watching her beloved Friends. It had become one of the highlights of his week. If she loved something, she wasn’t afraid to let it show. She had loved him like that.
She was way smarter than him (not that that was saying much), but she had worn it lightly. She would help him with his school work under the guise of ‘studying together’, and she never made him feel stupid. On the contrary, she had let him dazzle her with his knowledge of alternative bands and independent film. God, he’d been a pretentious wanker! He wondered how she had put up with him. In defence of the asshole he had been then, he had at least appreciated how amazing she was. And he had adored her.
He put the montage back on the dresser and eyed the boxes with a sigh. His mother was right. He was probably going to be here for a while, so he may as well get used to the idea. As he bent resignedly to tear the packing tape off the first box, he thought about what his mother had said. Had he been lonely in New York? He had been so busy, maybe he hadn’t stopped going long enough to realise that his life was quite empty. He worked hard and played hard with people who did the same. He was popular. He always had friends to go out with at night, and colleagues to drink with after a hard day in the dealing room. He had gorgeous women to take to dinners and openings, and he was never short of company for holidays. But where were they now? It wasn’t that he felt they had ditched him when his circumstances changed. It was more that the lifestyle they had all shared was all they had in common and now that it was gone, so was their connection. He still missed the life he had in New York, and he doubted he would ever feel comfortable living as he wanted here. But now that he thought about it, there was no one from New York he really missed – and no one who had missed him, judging by the fact that none of his crowd had been in touch since he had got home. Maybe he was lonely, he thought.
His eyes once more drifted to the photos of Romy and he suddenly had an overwhelming urge to see her. But he wanted to see her as she was then, the laughing girl in those photographs. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to meet the woman she had turned into. She had a baby now … and she was a property developer. He smiled, thinking how developing would satisfy her need to fix things up and put them right. He wasn’t surprised she had made a success of it.
Suddenly, the thought of property reminded him of something. Galvanised into action by the spark of an idea, he abandoned
the box he had just opened and looked instead for the one marked ‘files’. He pulled it out from beneath a couple of others, tore off the sealing tape and began rummaging through its contents. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for would be in there. He had filed it away ages ago and forgotten about it, and when he moved he had simply dumped the contents of his filing cabinet into boxes without looking through them. He pulled file after file from the box, rifling through them quickly. He was almost down to the last one when he found what he was looking for, thrown in among miscellaneous legal documents and out-of-date share certificates – the copy of his aunt’s will. It was in a plastic wallet together with an accompanying letter from his mother and the information about the dilapidated monstrosity of a house in the middle of nowhere that his aunt had seen fit to leave him. When he had received the news of the bequest, he had barely glanced over the details before shoving the lot into a drawer. He’d known he would make a killing by renovating it for sale, as his mother had suggested, but it had been too much hassle to arrange from New York and he hadn’t had the time or energy to put into it. So he had put it on the back burner and eventually forgotten about it.
He paid more attention to it now, a glimmer of hope flickering to life in his chest. He read his mother’s characteristically sweet accompanying letter, obviously anticipating his ingratitude and pleading for understanding on his aunt’s behalf.
She set great store by land and property, she’d written, and she was very fond of this house. It shows how much she thought of you that she would leave it to you … I know it looks like a wreck, but in her day it was quite something, and I’m sure in her mind she still saw it in its former glory.
He felt ashamed now that she had been correct in surmising what an ingrate he was. At the time, he had just been annoyed that his aunt hadn’t left him a straightforward cash bequest, like she had Ethan and Hannah, instead of this albatross.
He read over the will again, taking in every word this time, and actually finding comfort in the formal solidity and clarity of the legal language. Finally, he took out the details of the house – the title deeds and photograph. The glimmer of hope he had been feeling sprouted wings and took flight when he looked at the photo. It was even worse than he remembered – except that it wasn’t ugly. It wasn’t pretty – it was practically a ruin – but it had grandeur and elegance, and it was actually rather beautiful, in the way that an old overgrown graveyard could be beautiful. He had no idea if he would be able to restore it to its former splendour without bankrupting himself – or whether or not it would even be worth doing. He couldn’t afford to sink his paltry savings into renovating the house if he wasn’t going to be able to sell it when it was finished. But if there was any chance that this could be his ticket back to New York …
There was a light tap on the door and his mother pushed it open, balancing a laundry basket on her hip. ‘I’m doing a white wash if you have anything to throw in,’ she said.
‘Oh, that’s okay, thanks,’ Kit said, sitting back on his haunches. ‘I’ll do my washing myself.’
‘It’s no bother,’ she assured him with a cheery smile, glancing towards his overflowing linen basket.
Reluctantly, he got up and pulled out a couple of his best designer shirts, dumping them into her basket with a mumbled ‘Thanks.’
‘Sure. And the X-Factor is starting in a few minutes, if you’re interested,’ she said as she turned to leave.
Kit sighed and flopped down on the bed. He was a very long way from Riverside Drive.
Chapter Three
When she had packed up all the stuff Luke needed for an overnight stay and her mother had come to collect him, Romy went to shower and change for the party. Danny and Lesley were coming early for a debriefing and they would be arriving soon – because there was more to tonight’s party than met the eye. As well as all the usual suspects, she had invited everyone she could think of who might have been at David Kinsella’s party the previous year, and told them to bring anyone they wanted, in the hope that Luke’s father might turn up – or ‘return to the scene of the crime’ as Lesley put it.
It had been Lesley’s idea and, realistically, Romy didn’t hold out much hope. It had been a year, and while she could round up the old crowd from school, she didn’t know half the people who would have been at David’s house that night. Nevertheless, she saw it as a new beginning because she had decided to use her party to draw a line under the whole thing. After this, she was going to forget about trying to find Luke’s father and just get on with her life as a single mother.
True to her word, after the night at David’s party, she hadn’t made any attempt to discover the true identity of Darth Vader. Then, by the time she discovered she was pregnant, the trail had gone cold. David and Katie had moved to Canada, and the details of the party were hazy for those she spoke to, their memories dulled by the passage of time as well as the vast quantities of alcohol they had consumed on the night. She felt entitled to make oblique enquiries about him once she knew she was having his baby, but she had come to a dead end – no one seemed to know who Darth Vader was.
She hadn’t made it any easier by not letting anyone else in on the secret of how Luke was conceived. She had kept her pregnancy to herself while she decided what she wanted to do, and then she had presented it to everyone as a fait accompli, making it clear that the father wasn’t going to be involved and she didn’t want to answer any questions about him. She had been touched by the way her friends and family had respected her wishes and backed off, even though she knew they were all dying to ask questions. She had let them draw their own conclusions, knowing that they assumed he was married or just didn’t want to know. And she had been happy to let them assume that – until a couple of weeks earlier, when she had spilled the beans to her little brother and her best friend.
Lesley and Danny were hanging out at her flat. They were all a little drunk, lying around on the sofa, stuffed full of nachos and in that giggly, semi-drowsy over-sharing mode brought on by too many margaritas. Danny had told them about the drunken night in Majorca when he and his boyfriend Paul had ended up in bed with all five members of a well-known boy band. Then Lesley had started to regale them with the horrors of her latest adventures in internet dating.
‘He seemed quite nice,’ she was saying about the accountant she had dated the previous week. ‘So I went back to his place after dinner. But then he asked me if I wanted some wine, and when I said yes, he – get this – he poured himself a glass, took a mouthful, and then he told me to open my mouth, and he sort of dribbled it into my mouth.’ She shuddered.
‘Jesus!’ Danny swore.
‘Eew!’ Romy grimaced. ‘That’s gross.’
‘I know. I think he thought it was romantic.’
‘A sort of wine spritzer with drool instead of soda – very romantic!’
‘I’d say he saw it in a film or something. Films are terrible for giving fellas ideas.’ Lesley took a slug of her drink. ‘So that was the end of him. Then on Wednesday I went out with Michael.’
‘Oh, was he the one who was just out of a long relationship?’ Romy asked, remembering the men she had helped Lesley to vet online. ‘Graphic designer, thirty-five? He was nice looking.’
‘Thirty-five my arse!’ Lesley scoffed. ‘He was more like a hundred. Turned out, the picture he’d posted was his son. I mean, did he think I wasn’t going to notice?’ she asked, while Danny and Romy shrieked with laughter.
‘So what did you do?’ Danny asked. ‘Did you blow him off straight away?’
‘There was no blowing of any kind, let me tell you. But I was brought up to respect the elderly, so I had a very nice early bird dinner with him, and I helped him across the street before I kicked him to touch.’ Lesley knocked back the rest of her drink and poured herself another from the jug on the coffee table. ‘Oh, and I’m going out with the son next week,’ she added.
‘What?’ Romy spluttered.
‘Turns out he actually i
s just out of a long-term relationship. I made Michael promise to introduce us – said I’d have him up for grooming me on the internet if he didn’t.’
‘Oh, you have to marry the son,’ Danny said. ‘Just think what a cool story you’d have about how you met.’
As they all laughed, Romy racked her brain for something she could contribute to the conversation, but she came up a blank. Was she really that dull? Where were her funny stories, her tales of indiscretion? She could only think of one, and she suddenly found herself wanting to tell them because it felt daring, and it was funny and would make them laugh, and what the hell did it matter now anyway.
‘So, do you want to know who Luke’s father is?’ she asked teasingly, while they were still laughing.
Danny and Lesley seemed to sober up instantly. Their laughter ceased abruptly and they both suddenly sat up poker straight and literally on the edge of their seats. ‘Yes!’ they gasped in unison.
Romy smiled to herself, prolonging their agony for a moment. ‘Me too!’ she said finally, and burst into giggles. Lesley and Danny looked at her uncomprehendingly, and then frowned at each other in bewilderment.
‘What – you mean you don’t know?’ Danny asked.
‘Nope. Absolutely no idea.’
‘But how – when—’ Lesley spluttered.
‘Well, remember David Kinsella’s Hallowe’en party last year …’ And so she had confessed all. She told them about Darth Vader, the cupboard, everything.
‘So,’ Danny said, ‘what you’re saying is Luke’s father is … Darth Vader?’
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