[2014] Looking for Leon

by Shirley Benton

  LOOKING

  FOR

  LEON

  SHIRLEY BENTON

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names,characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons,living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Published 2011

  by Poolbeg Press Ltd

  123 Grange Hill, Baldoyle

  Dublin 13, Ireland

  E-mail: poolbeg@poolbeg.com

  www.poolbeg.com

  © Shirley Benton 2011

  Copyright for typesetting, layout, design

  © Poolbeg Press Ltd

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  1

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-84223-485-3

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  www.poolbeg.com

  About the author

  Shirley Benton is originally from Tipperary but now lives in Dublin with her husband and daughter. Educated at Mary Immaculate College of Education, Limerick and NUI Galway, she worked full-time in IT for ten years before leaving the industry in 2009 to pursue her dream of becoming a writer whilst working part-time as a freelance editor. When she is not writing or working, she reads, spends too much time on property websites and watches more Deal or No Deal than any thirty-something woman should. Looking for Leon is her first novel.

  To my lovely husband Michael for accepting

  my extra-marital relationship with my laptop

  so gracefully

  Acknowledgements

  Writing my first set of acknowledgements reminds me of doing out a list of invitees to my child’s christening – I’m slightly scared that I’ll leave someone out. In truth, there are so, so many people that I could thank that Poolbeg would go bankrupt from the cost of printing this book if I made the list as long as I could potentially make it, so in the interests of me not being responsible for that, I’ll make it brief. (If anyone is highly insulted at their omission, I should point out that I’m writing this with only five weeks of pregnancy left – so it’s all down to pregnancy brain!)

  The other half, Michael, is doing well and getting the book dedicated to him, but he has to be thanked hugely for being completely fine with having an absentee wife during the many hours per day when I’m holed up in our home office. (Maybe I should be concerned about just how fine he is about getting rid of me, but that’s a worry for another day.) As for the firstborn – well, she can’t read very well yet, but when she can, I want her to know that she made it extremely easy for a new mother to write a book. I don’t know what I did to deserve a child who sleeps all night every night, but I would swear she was rooting for me to succeed with this book in her own little way. (And, Aoibheann, whatever the trick is to your unbroken-sleep thing, please teach it to your brother as well when he comes along – cheers.)

  Our house in Tipperary when I was growing up was like a refuge for unwanted books – books that the neighbours had read and were about to set fire to were salvaged, books left over at the end of the village jumble sales were bought for 5p each just to give them a home – in short, no book was ever turned away from our door. My mother and my sister deserve a big thanks for putting up with having their home turned into a library because of my book obsession. The foundations of the house might be crumbling year on year under the collective weight of my collection, but not one has ever been chucked out to this day (of course, they are in storage there because my own house in Dublin is an even bigger library).

  I am lucky enough to have the best friends in the world. I think you’re lucky if you make a few true friends in life, but I have been blessed with more than my fair share and I am so, so grateful for that. Your constant support, enthusiasm and interest in my writing never ceases to make me feel like the luckiest friend in the world. You all know me well enough by now to know I’m not great on the old gushing front, but suffice it to say that I’m thrilled to have you all in my life. Which leads me on nicely to the WriteOn site, a place where I found many new friends years ago. The support I’ve had from the girls on that site over the years as I’ve endeavoured to become a published author is nothing short of incredible. Thanks particularly to Oonagh Considine for the brainstorming lunches, Megan Wynne for her constant online positivity and encouragement, Fionnuala McGoldrick for being so generous with her advice, and Claire Prins and Susan Flood for being generally brilliant throughout the years. And about five years ago, I remember making contact with Sarah Webb for advice about writing, whereupon she rang me and told me absolutely everything and anything I wanted to know. I remember being blown away by her generosity to someone she’d never met. Sarah, I’ve never forgotten that conversation and want to thank you for being so kind to a newbie.

  I don’t know if Poolbeg have any idea just how ecstatic I am to have this opportunity to work with them – so, guys, just so you know, I’m ecstatic and cannot wait for what’s to come! Thanks for taking a chance on me at a time when I know it’s never been more difficult to break into the industry. And to Gaye Shortland, you have made this book a much shinier, happier version of what it was – your eye for detail is amazing, and I’m not only appreciative but slightly jealous of your talent! My agents, Prizeman Kinsella, have been a joy to work with from day one. The second I met Patricia and Yvonne, I felt like we were already friends. Girls, I trust you 100% and it’s a great feeling – I’m so looking forward to everything we’ll do together.

  Was that brief? I don’t know. But there is just one more thank-you – I wanted to keep my biggest thanks for you, the reader. All any writer can hope for is that readers will enjoy their work. I’m thrilled that you’ve taken the time to read this book and I really, really hope you enjoy it.

  Chapter One

  The shame.

  There I was on the front page, flashing my knickers.

  It all made sense now. Why my normally laid-back mother had suddenly developed chest pains and had to hang up when I rang home from Las Vegas and innocently asked, “Any news?”. Why my brother had laughed hysterically when I rang back, worried sick, to ask if Mum was still alive. As for Dad, he’d just hung up immediately when it was his turn to pick up the phone, but he was known to do that kind of thing so I hadn’t been worried.

  I should have been.

  A drunken flashback that I’d been trying to evict from my brain suddenly came flooding back. Oh God, oh God. I tore open the red-top newspaper that my brother had kept for me while I was in Las Vegas and seen fit to slip under my door that morning, so I would see it just before my return to work – his idea of a joke. Please don’t let them have pictures of . . .

  I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled my jumper over my head. Then I fumbled for the beanie hat that I’d abandoned on the table only seconds before, and yanked that over my bejumpered skull too – but it only reminded me of exactly what I was hiding from, so I flung it across the room instead.

  I wanted to launch into a self-indulgent rant about soulless photographers and ruthless journalists, but being one myself – a journo, that is, not ruthless or a photographer, soulless or otherwise – I knew how
the game worked. Besides, there was nobody in the room to listen to the rant, and God knows I was enough of a freak now without talking to myself as well.

  The knickers-flashing front-pager had been taken in the wee hours of the night before I went on holidays, when I’d stumbled – okay, crashed – onto the pavement as I’d attempted to hail a taxi. Where the camera had come from, I have no idea – although, with the state I was in, I’d probably thought the flashbulbs were people flashing their car-lights at me to say hello as they drove past. Sorry if that sounds vain – it’s just that it happens a lot to me. But how the pictures inside the club had been taken, I just don’t know. When I’d spotted the ladder in my tights while out dancing with the gang, it had seemed like the most sensible thing in the world to rip them off right there and then. As we just happened to be dancing beside a pole, it would have been rude not to do a little dance around it while I was ripping the aforementioned tights off. And everyone knows that a pair of tights make the world’s funniest balaclava, so it had made perfect sense to pull the tights over my head and demand free drink at the bar . . .

  I was absolutely ruined in this town.

  I pulled my jumper back down so that I could breathe again and ran to my laptop for salvation. My online bank account was the only thing that could save me. The only logical thing to do was to fly back to Vegas as soon as possible, a place where people had a sense of humour about those kinds of things – you did something like that in Vegas, and you ended up with your own show. Over here, you just made a show of yourself. I swallowed hard. My credit-card transactions had stacked up . . . how could a bit of shopping possibly have come to that amount?

  I slammed the laptop shut. The only way I’d be flying was by the seat of my pants when it came to talking my way out of this.

  But God, the Devil, or whoever else was pulling the cosmic strings, wasn’t finished with me yet. As I ripped the incriminating pages out of the paper to tear them to shreds, I spotted a picture on the next page. Well, I didn’t so much spot it as it jumped out at me, really. My heart thumped. Johnny, the guy I’d broken up with shortly before I went on holidays, was staring down the top of some sequined scrap of a woman, with the obligatory perma-tan and tattooed lips – her, not him – although I wouldn’t be surprised if he had them too. The caption under the picture flashed across my eyes, but I had to read it a second time to take it in. What the hell . . . ?

  Johnny Meagher, Éire TV news anchor, enjoying the company of a luscious lady after breaking up with Andie Appleton recently.

  After breaking up with me? I broke it off with him! Our relationship had been a disaster from day one, and I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of it. How could anyone think that he’d done the breaking up? The man had followed me around like a chewing-gum stuck to the sole of my shoe for months!

  I was so busy stamping on the paper while shouting obscenities that I didn’t hear Mum come into the room.

  “You’d want to stop jumping on the paper, or you’ll be late for work,” she said, as if I was just drinking a cup of coffee or something. “Oh, and I’ll be driving you in today.”

  I stood still, all the fight gone out of me. “Look, Mum, it’s nice of you to try to cheer me up, but it’s going to take more than a lift to work for me to get over this!”

  “Oh, that’s not why I’m doing it. You just can’t drive yourself to work.”

  “What, you think I was out last night and I’m still drunk? Just because I got caught once acting a little tipsy doesn’t mean I’m an alcoholic!”

  “Oh, don’t be daft. Now, come on before the traffic gets too bad.”

  I looked at my shaking hands, and realised that driving in my state of shock might not be such a good idea.

  I allowed myself to be shooed into Mum’s car, thinking that when I got home from work that night I’d definitely take my own one out of the garage for a spin. I did love cars, and my Merc was my pride and joy. I’d spent an absolute fortune on it and I hadn’t even driven it to the airport when I went to Vegas in case someone reversed into it in the airport car park. It was much safer in Mum and Dad’s cosy garage.

  I settled down into the passenger seat, and tried not to cringe anytime we drove past a woman wearing tights. This too would pass; I, of all people, should know that. As the gossip columnist for a newspaper, I knew how fast big news was replaced by the next drama on the so-called celebrity circuit.

  Mum hadn’t reprimanded me for my nightclub antics, and I was grateful for that. Still, that was Mum. Some would call her accepting. Some would call her just plain away with the fairies. No matter what happened, she would glide serenely through it all, leaving you to wonder if she was really taking it all in. Her other-worldliness had its moments, and this was one of them.

  “Now, dear,” she said as she pulled up in front of the offices of my newspaper, “here we are.”

  “Thanks, Mum. It was nice to get a lift today. I’ll drive myself in tomorrow though, so don’t worry – it’ll be back to normal for you.”

  “No, Andrea, dear, that won’t be possible.” She never normally called me by my full name. My full name meant big trouble. “You see, your car . . . met another car, shall we say, and now it’s more of an accordion than a car.” She smiled, looking rather pleased with her pretty description of what sounded suspiciously like a written-off car.

  “But, Mum,” I said in a low voice, “how could my car meet another car when it was in the garage all the time I was away?”

  “Well, it wouldn’t have if it was in the garage, of course. But when your brother took it out . . . well, there was every chance it would encounter other cars on the road, as cars do. And you know Adam – he was never even any good at that Operation game years ago, so a steady hand on the steering wheel is slightly beyond his capabilities.” She looked out the window thoughtfully. “Or maybe it was the speeding. One or the other.”

  “What? How did Adam get the keys of my car?” I yelled when I finally recovered the power of speech.

  “Good Lord, there’s no need to shout! He took them from the key-box, of course. What do you expect when you left them in such an obvious place? What if we’d had a burglar? You might as well leave the keys in the ignition as in the key-box. You’ll have to take this up with your brother. He’ll be back from his holiday in Spain in about two weeks, he said. Got some last-minute deal for a song and flew out this morning.” She looked at her watch. “Speaking of flying, I must fly myself. Go on, get out!”

  Mum shoved me out of the car, and then drove back to whatever planet she was on today (I was now firmly in the ‘away with the fairies’ camp).

  I physically shook myself. If only I’d stayed asleep that morning . . . a few hours ago I was dreaming about being reunited with that impossibly charismatic man that I’d met in Vegas. A few hours ago, I was happy and had some hope. And now look at the mess that constituted my life . . . everyone in the office had better have the sense to leave me alone today.

  I somehow managed to drag myself to the front door of my office’s building, where I met Jason, my least favourite colleague.

  “Hey, Andie, was that you I saw on Crimecall last night with the balaclava? Ahahahahaha!”

  And so it began.

  If only things had worked out in Vegas, it could all have been so different . . .

  Chapter Two

  Las Vegas, Last Week

  “So, you wanna lay?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “A bet.” Leon pointed to the endless rows of roulette, blackjack and craps tables before us. He looked bewildered at my enquiring expression.

  “Oh.” I didn’t know if I was embarrassed or disappointed.

  It had all been going so well. I was on the last night of my two-week holiday to Vegas, and I still hadn’t gambled. You see, I had a hundred-euro bet on with my friend, Roseanne – and, yes, I can see the irony – that I’d last the fortnight without coming in contact with a croupier, unless he was handing me a free drink. What was th
e point, when I hadn’t a clue how to gamble and would only end up losing a fortune? But now, the cost of my lost bet with Roseanne seemed like a bargain. Besides, she’d gone out with a guy she’d met and left me on my own for the night, so what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

  I made a beeline for a roulette table, where my lack of gambling skills wouldn’t be so evident. As soon as we had ourselves settled at the table, a cocktail waitress came straight over to take our drinks order. I watched Leon out of the corner of my eye as he asked the waitress about the cocktail menu. God, he was really something. I could feel his presence from several feet away. He was the kind of person that made a solid wall of people part as he approached. Would you think I was rude if I said I couldn’t help thinking that it probably wasn’t the only thing he would part easily? Believe me, you’d have thought that too if you’d seen him.

  I’d spotted him from miles back as he’d walked towards me in the MGM Grand Hotel. All I could think was that there was no way I could only glance at that face once and never see it again. I had to do something – but I couldn’t think of anything. Thankfully, as he walked past me, something made him look up from the garish carpet and right into my eyes. His gaze travelled all over my body as it journeyed upwards. Not in a leery way – in fact, it was so subtle that I wouldn’t even have noticed except I was looking out for it. Good God, I was praying for it. I searched his face for a sign that he was in some way impressed. A ghost of a tentative smile appeared on his face as we made eye contact. I returned it with a full-blown Cheshire grin. He looked relieved, and smiled back properly.