The Stone House (31 page)

‘What's going on between you and Derry?' asked her mother as they sat out on the loungers on the patio, the night warm, the children finally gone to bed.

‘I don't know.' She sipped her red wine.

‘He loves Molly.'

‘He adores her! He's a wonderful father, and is always there when she needs him.'

‘But what about the two of you?'

‘I don't know!' Kate shrugged. ‘He has girlfriends, but he asked me to marry him.'

‘He did?'

‘Yeah, but only because of Molly.'

‘Kate, promise me, if he asks you again, if he says he loves you, promise me you'll marry him!'

‘Mum,' she laughed, ‘that's never going to happen.'

FROM THE RENTED
house overlooking the South Pacific ocean, Romy was fascinated by the constant swell and pound of the rolling waves. She'd always loved the sea, the tide rushing in on the beach below their house in Rossmore. But here the ocean was different, the surfers using its power to control and ride it.

The day her father was laid to rest in the damp, cold Irish earth she had pulled the curtains and closed the windows of their duplex in Byron Bay, blocking out the searing Australian sunlight and the sound of the foreign surf as she thought of her father and in her own fashion grieved for the man who had held her hand and bought her ice-cream more than two decades ago.

At night Rob concentrated on his business, excited by a new gaming concept that he was developing.

‘I think this will really work,' he said, trying to demonstrate on the computer screen how the magic board could be stimulated and moved, against various elements and the distractions faced by the average surf dude.

‘It looks fun!'

‘Yeah but could you imagine it with top-quality graphics and digital format? The sea would look so real and wet you could almost feel it, taste it!'

Romy also worked, sketching new designs inspired by the lush pink, red and fuchsia flowers and foliage that grew everywhere and the ripples from the breeze in the shifting sand, trying to work out a way to twist metal and glass to their shapes as she sat on the bleached sand.

Rob was getting some feedback on his game ideas from two interested gaming companies, one in Melbourne and one in San Diego.

‘Wow Rob, that's wonderful!' she said, kissing him all over. ‘What are you going to do?'

‘There's no question. It's got to be America. It's the centre of the universe in terms of media and game development. I should pack up my board and gear and just go see what happens.'

Romy swallowed hard. He made no mention of her.

‘Mind if I tag along?'

‘No problem, baby.'

She packed up and said goodbye to Mitch and Ronnie and the rest of the gang in Shanhans. Tilda and herself had gone for coffee, Tilda upset when she told her she was leaving.

‘You sure you're doing the right thing, Romy? If you stayed here, settled here, Rob might still come back.'

‘Nah, it's time to move on,' she admitted. ‘I'm not much of a one for staying in one place.'

‘You can't keep running for ever. Some time, some place you're going to have to stop. I know what I'm
talking about. Some day you will want to put down roots, make a home for yourself and have kids.'

‘Well I'm not planning on having any kids!' she retorted.

‘Don't say that, Romy. We'll keep in touch, you let me know if you come up with any more of those fancy designs that would suit the shop, we'll work out a good price, OK?'

By the end of the month they were
en route
to California, Rob's precious game secure in his hand luggage.

They checked into a Ramada Inn just off the beach in San Diego.

Romy swanned around the shops and took in a few craft stores and art galleries while Rob had round after round of meetings with the initial games company designers and its R&D department. If they were interested, the designers would do projections on play possibility and the company would talk to investors about the property. At night anxious and agitated, Rob hardly slept thinking of the next day's meeting, Romy doing her utmost to relax him by giving him the kind of loving he liked most.

‘Shit, I don't believe it!' he'd shouted when he got back the next day. ‘Their fucking head of development told me they are looking at a similar game that is more cost effective to develop and geared towards a broader audience!'

‘They are only looking,' she reminded him. ‘Maybe they're just bluffing you.'

‘I'll kill that bastard if they're just stringing me along!'

For the next few weeks they were in virtual limbo, in gaming hell as the corporation considered their development options. Eventually Rob was forced to settle for a percentage of what he had planned, as only small elements of his design were to be used in the game.

‘Come on, at least you've sold part of one of your game ideas to one of the biggest game companies in the world,' she consoled. ‘You should be thrilled.'

‘Romy, I'm only getting a fraction of what I should be getting. I should have stayed in Australia and developed it from there.'

‘Listen, Rob, this is just one of your games. I've seen some of your stuff, it's really good. There must be people out there interested in good ideas!'

Rob listened and thought long and hard about it and instead of heading back home, decided to stay on for the development project, and to put out feelers about which company was open to innovative designers.

Romy loved the Californian landscape but was less sure about the lifestyle. Still, with her height and long rangy figure and red-gold hair she at least fitted in.

She missed the bar and working with Tilda but decided after a few weeks to accept a job offer in a toy store on Columbus Street. The staff were nice and the clientele for the most part ten and under with very definite ideas about what they liked and didn't like.

‘They'd sure tell you in the morning what games work and don't work,' she joked to Rob, trying to encourage him to come visit the store. ‘It would be great market research.'

Watching young mothers and small toddlers in the babies' area, she tried to ignore the way her heart lurched, as she was reminded of what might have been.

As the weeks went by the realization came that Rob and herself were leading separate lives and that neither of them really cared. She worked all day while he sat in the motel and tried to get meetings with people. It was disheartening, she knew, for him. Two months later it wasn't a huge surprise when he told her that he'd met someone new.

‘Where?' she asked.

‘Down on the beach,' he shrugged.

Those words creating a strange sense of
déjà vu
, she packed up her things and moved out, discovering afterwards that his new girlfriend worked in the design section of the company he'd signed to.

Kicking the sand from her shoes and out of her hair, Romy decided to fly to New York and thanked God that she was unencumbered and could simply start over.

NEW YORK – SHE
loved it. She loved its anonymity. Its hotch-potch ethnic mix that spilled out everywhere. Chinatown, Harlem. The districts that went on for miles, the air thick with smells of chilli and spices and neighbourhoods where people prided themselves on being true blue Americans. Romy wasn't sure where she fitted in but she knew at this stage of her life that the city with its big heart was where she had wanted to be.

They loved her red hair and tall catwalk figure and called her an original when she showed them her designs, which she carried in a small velvet wrap in her purse; buyers were impressed when she guided them to the website Rob had created for her. After only two weeks she discovered she was definitely in business and had signed contracts with two exclusive small jewellers. An agency helped in her search for an apartment that would be spacious enough also to act as a studio.

Setting up her tools and workbench in the dining area of the one-bedroomed high-ceilinged fifth floor of
the Russell building just between Third and Lexington Avenue, Romy felt a huge sense of adventure.

She enjoyed sleeping on her own and walking the streets of the city, getting to know it and the pace of life that less frantic New Yorkers enjoyed.

Sundays she went to Central Park, buying a newspaper but scarcely bothering to read it as she watched the passers-by. Absorbing the sights and the smells of the city she searched for inspiration for a new collection of work. Donna Taylor, one of the store owners, was very impressed. Donna was the first friendly face and she insisted on bringing her to lunch and to dinners and introducing her around. Most nights Romy was content to stay in and work, soon realizing that she was no Carrie Bradshaw.

She built up a coterie of friends, some from Ireland, others flotsam and jetsam that like herself had ended up in New York. On the day in September when the heart was ripped out of New York she had sat on the pavement crying, not believing that man could inflict such pain on his fellow man. She'd watched the Twin Towers fall over and over again on the TV news and was tempted to pack up her bags and flee. Instead she had stayed as the city mourned. Months later she found herself changed, no longer believing that each man was an island. She had her design work and a job teaching English twice a week but volunteered to help out in the art department of the local high school, showing the kids how to design pieces from recycled trash.

She went on dates, which seemed kind of crazy as she wasn't looking for Mr Right any more. She'd met Greg Anderson in Fitzpatrick's Hotel, the two of them chatting
about the coming election primaries at a small fundraiser. He was old-fashioned and conservative and had just split from his wife and was certainly not the kind of guy she needed in her life. He'd asked her out on a date and, encouraged by Donna, she had gone along.

There had been roses and champagne and a candlelit dinner overlooking the Hudson. He told her that he had never been to Europe, never surfed or even owned a surfboard and was more a city boy. They had absolutely nothing in common and she loved him for it! Five days after they first met she'd slept with him. Uncomplicated good sex and wrapped in his arms she felt special.

‘You crazy Irish woman,' joked Donna. ‘He's never going to marry you.'

‘Donna, I can promise you that is the last thing on my mind!'

Greg's life was complicated enough with divorcing his wife, so Romy kept her distance and gave him space and listened when he wanted to talk. Their relationship was different and based on the mutual understanding of sex and companionship, for New York could be a very lonely city. She liked Greg, perhaps even loved him a little, but knew that when the time was right they would both move on. Tilda had been right about putting down roots and belonging: Romy didn't know where she'd end up but suspected this city was not the place. Kate's angry phone call demanding she return home immediately to see her mother was perhaps the catalyst she needed.

THE THREE DILLON
sisters kept up a twenty-four-hour vigil around their mother's bedside. Romy was content just to hold the hand or touch the bare skin of the person she loved the most in the world. No communication! No way to break the wall of silence! To let her mother know she was there! Why had she left it too fecking late per usual? Her sisters had had a good relationship with her, had stayed close. She listened as they told her about the years missed while she travelled the world, gallivanting, self-centred, wrapped up in useless anger and blaming others for what she'd become. The daughter who'd broken her mother's heart.

The nursing staff slipped in silently around the bed, checking, but there was absolutely no change in their mother's condition.

Romy hated hospitals, the smell and the feel of them. She needed to get some fresh air and asked Moya to take her place as she went downstairs and out to the hospital grounds. She sympathized with all the smokers standing in their dressing gowns in the open air, as she
walked past them to sit on a railing and just be calm and breathe. She rummaged in her pocket for a tissue, for although she was home in Ireland she had never felt so alone. Kate was right about her!

Her aunt was sitting beside her mother when she got back up to the unit.

‘Have you talked to her, Romy?'

‘A bit.'

‘Well you just talk to her as much as you can,' insisted Vonnie Quinn. ‘I don't care what those doctors say, I believe Maeve senses we are here with her. That she can hear us.'

‘I hope so.'

‘Talk to her, Romy! You haven't spoken to her for so long, now is the time for you to say all the things you wanted. Tomorrow or the day after might be too late.'

Romy hesitated, unsure.

‘Listen, I'll go down and have a bite of lunch in the canteen with the others and leave you in peace.'

Romy didn't know what to say. She hadn't the words for it. She could say sorry a hundred times over and it wouldn't be enough. Sorry for washing the dog! Sorry for being mean to her father! Sorry for getting rid of the tissues and cells that were her baby! She rested her head against the side of the bed and instead began to tell her mother about the great journeys she had made, talking for an hour or two, exhausted, not wanting to stop.

‘Go and have a sleep in the day room,' suggested Kate, shaking her. ‘We'll wake you if there's any change.'

Jet-lagged, she'd curled up in her clothes on the
hospital's narrow couch and fallen asleep immediately. Hours later she was woken by a nurse tapping her on the shoulder.

‘Your mother's showing signs of regaining consciousness.'

Twenty hours later Maeve Dillon was off the ventilator and had been moved from the intensive care unit to a normal ward.

‘Does this mean she's going to get better?' asked Moya.