‘Yes.’ She glanced at Danny warily, bracing herself for his reaction. To her amazement, a wide grin spread across his face.
‘Cool,’ he breathed.
She laughed in relief. ‘Well that wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.’
‘That’s why you called him Luke,’ Lesley said.
‘Yeah. It seemed the obvious choice.’
‘You could have called him Darth, after his father,’ Danny said.
‘Was Darth his first name, though? Were his parents Mr and Mrs Vader?’
‘Yep. If you married him, you’d be Mrs Vader.’
‘Wouldn’t I be Lady Vader? He’s a lord, isn’t he?’ ‘A Dark Lord.’
‘I could be a Dark Lady, like in Shakespeare’s sonnets.’
‘I’m not sure if that would make you a lady. I don’t know how the peerage works in the Galactic Empire.’
‘I doubt anything can make you a lady after that,’ Lesley said. ‘And you won’t be getting into any sonnets with that kind of behaviour.’
‘Lady Vader,’ Romy mused. ‘It has a nice ring to it.’
‘So that was why you were always asking about him. I wish you’d told me this sooner.’
‘What difference would it have made? We’ve already asked everyone we know who was at the party. No one knew who he was.’
‘Couldn’t you have just asked David?’
‘I did. He’d gone to Canada by the time I found out I was pregnant, but I friended him on Facebook, and asked him. He said he didn’t know.’
What he had actually said was that he must have been a friend of Katie’s. She thought about Katie sometimes. It was weird knowing there was someone out there in the world who could simply give her the name of her baby’s father. But how could she ask? She didn’t know Katie, and even if she didn’t feel it would be breaking her promise to Darth Vader, how could she approach a virtual stranger and ask who she had been cheating on her husband with? She would probably deny the whole thing anyway.
‘Still, you should have told us,’ Lesley said. ‘Maybe we could have helped.’
Danny sighed. ‘Well, maybe we can help now. Let’s go over it again. Tell us everything you know about him.’
Romy thought hard. What did she know about him? Very little. She knew he didn’t believe in God, but he prayed sometimes in his head. And she knew he had been having an affair with David’s wife, but she couldn’t tell them that. ‘He was tall,’ she said eventually with a helpless shrug.
‘Okay, good,’ Danny nodded encouragingly. ‘And he likes Star Wars, we know that.’
‘I suppose.’ Romy bit her lip. ‘But he might not. I mean, what if that was the only costume he could get? He might have just picked it at random.’
‘Okay, tall and possibly likes Star Wars,’ Lesley put in. ‘Any other clues?’
‘Um … I think he could be asthmatic.’
‘Really? What makes you think that?’
‘Well … he was breathing really heavily the whole time. He sounded quite out of breath.’
‘Romy,’ Danny smiled pityingly, ‘you were having it off.’
‘You know I hate that expression.’ She frowned.
‘Okay, you were … making love, whatever.’ Danny sniggered. ‘You were making love in a wardrobe with a guy you couldn’t pick out in a crowd—’
‘Oh, shut up!’ She grabbed a cushion and swatted him with it.
He laughed more, raising his hands to defend himself. ‘Okay, okay. But y’know, everyone breathes deeply when they’re in the throes. Plus you were in a wardrobe – it was probably pretty stuffy in there.’
‘And on top of all that he was wearing a mask,’ Lesley added.
‘Yeah, I know.’ Romy sighed. ‘I’m just clutching at straws.’
‘Besides,’ Danny said, ‘he might have just been getting into character – you know, if he thought the Vader thing was a turn-on for you. Did he say anything?’
‘Ugh! I’m not giving you details.’
‘I don’t want details, thank you very much. I just mean did he say anything to make you think he was trying to fulfil your Darth Vader fantasies?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like, “Can you feel the force, baby?”’ Danny boomed in a Vader-like voice. ‘“Get a load of my light sabre.”’ He collapsed in giggles.
Romy looked at him crossly.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said, trying to rein in his grin.
‘If you’re not going to take this seriously—’
‘I am, honest. Sorry.’ He reached out to her and pulled her against him, and she laid her head on his shoulder.
‘I just think he should know he has a child, whoever he is,’ she said. ‘And Luke should have a chance to know who his father is.’
‘Didn’t you get any glimpse of what he looked like? Did he leave his mask on the whole time you were …’ Lesley trailed off.
‘It was very dark in the wardrobe,’ Romy answered evasively. She closed her eyes, concentrating. ‘He had good arms,’ she said, remembering the feel of muscle and sinew beneath warm skin, how strong his arms had felt wrapped around her. ‘He was slim, but well built – he had a broad chest.’
‘Right. So – someone with arms and a chest,’ Danny said. ‘We’ll have this cracked in no time.’
‘I know,’ Romy said despondently. ‘He could be anybody.’
‘There has to be some way of tracking him down,’ Lesley said briskly. ‘We just have to be more creative.’
‘How?’
Lesley was silent for a while, thinking. ‘We could hold a DNA party!’ she said finally.
‘A what?’
‘A DNA party. We throw a party, right, and then we keep a glass or something that everyone’s touched, so we have their DNA. We’ll get a load of freezer bags and mark who each glass belongs to. Then we send them all to the lab—’
‘What lab?’
‘You know – the lab. The DNA testing lab. You’ve seen Sea of Love, right? They did that. They went on dates with all these women and—’
‘They were cops. They had access to a lab.’
‘Well, there are places that do DNA testing, aren’t there? What about all those skanks who don’t get on the telly? They must have somewhere to go to find out who the father of their baby is if they don’t get picked for The Jeremy Kyle Show.’
‘And what kind of skank would I look like, turning up at the baby-father clinic with a hundred-odd DNA samples? Even those ones on the telly usually have it narrowed down to three or four suspects. Anyway, I’m pretty sure you can’t collect people’s DNA without their permission.’
‘Well, maybe he’ll start to look like his father,’ Danny said.
‘Big shiny helmet?’ Romy said, her lips twitching.
‘Big shiny helmet … mouth breather,’ Danny sniggered. ‘Seriously though, maybe he’ll turn into a dead ringer for someone we know.’
‘You know, sometimes he does almost remind me of someone. But I can’t put my finger on who.’
‘Mr Potato Head,’ Lesley said.
‘Sorry?’
‘Mr Potato Head – that’s who he reminds you of. I’ve often thought that myself.’
‘My son does not look like Mr Potato Head.’
‘Hey, calm down. I’m talking about if you do the button nose and don’t use the moustache.’
‘He still doesn’t look like Mr Potato Head, okay? Anyway, this guy was too tall for Mr Potato Head. Way too tall, and less … potatoey.’
Lesley sighed heavily. ‘I guess we’re back to square one then.’
‘Maybe it’s just as well,’ Romy said. ‘I mean, what if I found him and he turned out to be an asshole?’
They were all silent for a moment, contemplating this.
‘Nah,’ Danny said finally. ‘Luke doesn’t have any asshole in him.’
‘I’ve an idea!’ Lesley gasped. ‘We could stage a re-enactment.’
‘What? Shove me into a cupboard with a masked stranger and
see if it jogs anyone’s memory?’
‘No, silly! Although—’
‘Don’t even think about it.’
‘Okay, okay. What I meant was we should have a Hallowe’en party and invite all the people who were at David’s last year – or as many as we can.’
So, after she had sworn them to secrecy about Darth Vader – threatening Danny with dismemberment if he told their mother – they had planned this party. She didn’t really believe it was going to work, but as she stood in front of the mirror putting on her make-up, she still felt a little shiver of anticipation at the possibility that Luke’s father could turn up. Her excitement was tinged with fear because, much as she wanted Luke to have the chance to know his father, there was a tiny part of her that was happy not knowing. She thought very fondly of her mysterious stranger – not just because he had given her Luke, but because she had turned a corner after that night with him. It had freed her somehow, healed her – as if when she told him her secret he had taken it from her and carried it off, taking all the burden and weight of it. She wasn’t normally a fanciful person, but sometimes she thought of him almost as an angel who had taken away her pain and given her instead her beloved son. There was a part of her that wanted to keep him in the realm of fantasy, afraid of discovering that her beautiful seraph had feet of clay or a heart of stone.
‘Okay, this is it,’ Romy said as she sat in the pre-party lull with Lesley and Danny. ‘Tonight is make or break. If I don’t find out who Luke’s father is at this party, I’m giving up the search.’
Lesley and Danny looked uncertain, but they nodded agreement.
‘Okay, you both know what you have to do?’ Romy asked.
‘If we see anyone who might have been at David’s party last year, we ask them pertinent questions,’ Lesley responded.
‘Such as?’
Lesley pulled a small ring-bound notebook from her jeans pocket.
‘You wrote them down?’
‘I just made a few notes,’ Lesley said, flipping the notebook open. ‘Were you at David Kinsella’s Hallowe’en party last year?’ she read. ‘If yes, what costume did you wear? Where were you between the hours of ten p.m. and two a.m. on the night of October thirty-first?’
‘Right. You don’t have to make it sound quite so … Columbo, though.’
‘God, I love Columbo,’ Lesley said. ‘Always gets his man – or woman. At least in this case we know it’s a man.’
‘Yeah, that narrows it right down,’ Danny said dryly.
‘Just don’t make them feel like they’re being interrogated,’ Romy said to Lesley, who took a small pen from her back pocket.
‘Not … being … interrogated,’ she said as she wrote.
‘Um … you’re not going to take notes, are you? When you talk to people later,’ Romy asked.
‘Well, I thought it’d help – with the investigation, like.’
‘I told you, it’s not an investigation.’
‘God, I wish it was an investigation! That’d be brilliant, wouldn’t it? We could set up one of those incident rooms.’
‘Look, chances are there’ll be hardly anyone from David’s party here anyway. We don’t exactly mix in the same circles.’
‘And if we don’t find him tonight, we can set up an incident room.’
‘No, no incident room.’
‘Please,’ Lesley begged. ‘Just a small one? I’ll set it up in my house. You won’t even have to be involved.’
‘No,’ Romy said firmly. ‘Tonight is my last shot at finding out who he is. After this, I’m just going to put it behind me and get on with my life. I’ve been living in limbo for long enough.’
Lesley’s face fell about half a mile. ‘You’re calling off the investigation? Just like that?’
‘I told you – there is no investigation. I’ve tried everything, but the trail’s gone cold. I need to move on.’
‘It’s like one of those cold cases – they get solved every day,’ Lesley persisted.
‘Lesley—’
‘And you haven’t tried everything. I think an incident room could really help. We just need to focus on the details, follow the trail … And there was the DNA testing,’ she said. ‘You haven’t tried that. And I’ve got lots more ideas. I was thinking if we could get our hands on one of those computer programmes that shows you what someone will look like when they’re older—’
‘Lesley, give her a break,’ Danny chided.
Lesley looked rebuked. ‘Sorry, babe,’ she said to Romy. ‘You’re right. You should move on. He’d probably turn out to be a gobshite anyway. You’re better off without him.’
‘Yeah, I’m just going to settle down to being a single mother, concentrate on Luke.’
‘Feck that!’ Lesley said. ‘You want to find yourself a nice man to love both you and Luke.’
Romy didn’t have time to argue as the doorbell rang, so she went to answer it. It was her tenants, all arriving in a clump. Glancing at the clock in the hall as they filed past, she saw that it was seven thirty on the dot, and she wondered if they had been waiting outside the door, timing their arrival to the second. May and Frank led the way, presenting Romy with a bottle of champagne and a tray of home-made muffins. They were followed by Sarah and Colm, the young couple from one of the basement flats, with Stefan, the gigantic Polish plumber from upstairs, bringing up the rear. He kissed her on both cheeks and pressed a bottle of vodka into her hands before heading straight for the table where she had laid out nibbles. Romy started handing out drinks, and introduced everyone to Lesley and Danny.
‘Hi, May, how are you?’ Lesley already knew May. She had helped her set up her blog, where she was currently writing about her and Frank’s experiences working through a popular sex manual as an elderly couple. They were methodically trying out all the positions, assessing their suitability for those with high blood pressure, arthritis and prosthetic joints, and working out adjustments that could be made to accommodate the less agile. A one-time agony aunt and sex therapist, May was still regarded as a bit of an authority on the subject, and Lesley was now building her a website devoted to all aspects of sexuality. ‘Still working through the dirty book with yer man?’ she asked, nodding to Frank, who was chatting to Stefan.
‘Yes, we had a very good day today,’ May said, beaming. ‘We got through three new positions, so I’ve lots to blog about. And I still had time to make muffins for Romy’s party.’
‘Fair play!’ Lesley made a mental note to give the muffins a wide berth. ‘It’s important to have a hobby when you’re retired, isn’t it? My dad retired recently and he’s driving my ma mental. She keeps trying to get him to take up golf, but no dice.’
‘Well, golf’s not very stimulating, in fairness to the man. No wonder men are terrified of retiring if that’s all they have to look forward to. You should direct him to my blog. It might give him some ideas.’
‘Oh, I don’t think sex is really my dad’s cup of tea. He’d be more of an Airfix person really.’
‘Of course it is! He’s a man, isn’t he?’
‘Well … I suppose – for want of a better word.’
‘We’re all sexual beings, Lesley. It’s part of the human condition. You know, it’s the thing most people say they regret in life – not having had more sex.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. That’s why I’m so keen to set up this website. It’s so important to explore your sexuality to the full. I hope you’re exploring your sexuality, dear?’
‘Oh, you know … whenever I get the opportunity.’
‘By the way, I have lots of new material for you to upload. I’ve written a new piece on Tantric sex, and I have some new photos for the section on bondage.’
Lesley gulped. ‘Photos?’
‘Oh, don’t worry, they’re not photos of me and Frank, and nothing too explicit either. I don’t want it to be pornographic. Not that there’s anything wrong with pornography per se, of course,’ she added hastily. ‘It serves a pu
rpose. But I don’t like the idea of young fellows I don’t know from Adam jacking off to photos of me.’
Not much chance of that, Lesley thought, struggling to keep her eyebrows out of her hairline. ‘Great! Well, you can give it all to me tonight, if you like, and I’ll get working on it.’
‘Lovely. Oh, and I’m starting a new section too devoted to toys and props. Which reminds me, there’s something I want to ask Romy about. If you’ll excuse me.’
As May went off to talk to Romy, Lesley joined Stefan, who was standing by the buffet table, steadily demolishing the food.
‘Hi, Stefan. How are you?’
‘Ah, Lesley. I am tired.’ Stefan spoke like a Hammer Horror Dracula, lending everything he said a rather morose air. He still hadn’t adapted to Irish ways sufficiently to recognise ‘How are you?’ as a greeting like ‘hello’ rather than an actual enquiry after his wellbeing.
‘Yeah? Been working hard?’
‘Yes, but it’s not that. It’s May and Frank – the noise they make!’
‘Right. That’ll be them exploring their sexuality, I suppose.’
‘I ask Romy to talk to them, but nothink change. Beng, beng, beng, all night!’
‘Ah sure, what harm are they doing?’
Stefan looked mournfully at her. ‘They are too old to be havink all this sex. I tell May she should do knittink like other old ladies.’
‘Wait until you’re a hundred. I bet you won’t want to pack it in yourself.’
‘Is May a hundred?’ Stefan asked seriously, looking across at the elderly lady. ‘She looks good,’ he admitted. He still couldn’t tell when people were joking either.
‘No, she’s not really a hundred,’ Lesley said, following his gaze. ‘Though, God, she could be. I don’t know what age she is.’
Lesley had been vaguely aware of the doorbell ringing and people streaming in while she chatted to Stefan, and she suddenly noticed that the room was filling up.
‘Well, can’t stand here chatting to you all night.’ She stuffed a couple of tortilla chips into her mouth and brushed the crumbs from her hands. ‘I’ve got some serious mingling to do,’ she said, pulling a notebook from her back pocket as she walked away.
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