Frisky Business (19 page)

‘It’s such a shame,’ Romy said wistfully, looking out to the garden below. The glass in the large sash window was cracked and grubby. ‘I don’t know why people let houses fall into such disrepair.’

‘So,’ Kit said, sitting down beside her. ‘Do you think there’s any hope for it?’

Romy sighed. ‘Well, normally I’d say your best bet would be to tear it down and start again – build something new from scratch. But it’s such a beautiful house …’

‘If you say so,’ Kit smiled.

‘It does need an awful lot of work – maybe more than you can afford. It will need a new roof for starters,’ she said, consulting her notebook, ‘new plumbing, rewiring, replastering, there’s dry
rot that will have to be dealt with …’ She trailed off. ‘Look, leave it with me. I’ll work up some figures when I get home and give you an estimate.’

‘Can you give me an estimate for building from scratch too?’

‘Yes, I can. The only problem with that is, I’m not sure you’d be able to build something special enough to get the price you’d need – not with the market the way it is at the moment.’

‘But you think I could maybe make the money back if we did up
this
house?’

‘Possibly. I’ll have to go into the figures, but if we did the right thing with it … It would make a fantastic country house hotel.’

‘Oh, I never thought of that.’

‘It could be great. I can put out some feelers, see if anyone’s looking for a property like this.’

‘Thanks, Romy,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

‘Don’t thank me yet,’ she grinned. ‘You might run screaming when you see the figures.’

The rain eased up on the drive back to Dublin. Romy drove Kit back to his house first. Kit’s parents still lived on the road where she and Kit had grown up, and she was overcome with nostalgia as she turned into the tree-lined cul de sac. She had lived just four doors down on the opposite side from Kit. As she backed into the driveway, she glanced towards her childhood home. There were two children, a boy and a girl, playing ball in the front garden. It felt weird to think of someone else sleeping in her bedroom. Cutting the engine,

she
looked at Kit’s house in her rear-view mirror. It harboured almost as many memories as her own. She had spent so much time here when she was with Kit, it had been like a second home to her. It was strange to be back. Everything looked the same, yet different.

‘You okay?’ Kit asked her.

‘Yeah. I just haven’t been around here in so long. It’s kind of weird. It all looks so much
smaller.’

‘I know, doesn’t it? I’m glad you said that. If
I
say it, I get accused of being all up myself and Americanised.’

‘Well, your mum can hardly hold that against you.’

‘Don’t be so sure.’ Kit removed his seat belt and made to open his door. ‘Are you going to come in? Mom would love to see you.’

Romy glanced at her watch. ‘I’d better not. I need to pick Luke up from my mum’s. But I’ll see her when I come to help you move. Do you think you’ll be able to get your stuff packed up by Wednesday?’

‘Um … yeah,’ Kit said with a little smile. ‘That’s not a problem.’

‘Don’t tell me – you haven’t unpacked yet, have you?’

‘Er … no, not really,’ he mumbled guiltily.

Romy laughed. ‘Okay, well, I’ll see if I can get Danny to babysit and I’ll give you a ring later to sort it out.’

Kit found his mother in the kitchen, standing over what appeared to be a large chocolate puddle that was oozing and spreading across the table before his eyes.

‘Kit, thank goodness!’ Laura said, looking up at him. She appeared to be using a palette knife as a dam to contain the tide of chocolate before it reached the edge of the table.

Kit
was about to ask what it was when his father came in from the garden.

‘Colm, great! I need you two to give me a hand with this.’

Kit and his father approached the table cautiously from opposite directions.

‘Hold this,’ she said to Kit, nodding to the palette knife. When Kit had taken hold of it, she let go. ‘Don’t let it get away,’ she said, nodding to the encroaching chocolate before turning to rummage in the drawers.

Kit and his father exchanged puzzled looks.

‘Here,’ she said, turning back and handing a spatula to her husband. ‘I need to find a tin to put it in. I think there’s one in the cupboard under the stairs. If you could just
…contain
it until I get back.’ She bustled off and Kit and his father looked at each other in bewilderment.

‘What is it?’ Kit’s father hissed as soon as she was out of earshot.

‘Haven’t a clue.’

‘You don’t know?’ His father looked panicked.

Kit shook his head. ‘I was going to ask you.’

‘How would
I
know?’

‘You’re the one who lives here.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Well, I thought maybe you’d … had it before.’

‘I’ve never seen it before in my life.’

‘Hey, you’re letting it escape.’ Kit nodded to where the mixture was oozing around the sides of his knife towards the edge of the table. Colm started batting it back with his spatula.

‘Could it be some class of trifle gone wrong? Or a mousse?’

Colm hissed frantically.

‘No, it’s warm,’ Kit said, indicating the steam gently rising from the chocolate. It looked like an evil swamp from a children’s story.

‘So
it’s something you cook,’ Colm said thoughtfully, as if trying to solve a crossword clue. ‘Chocolate …
soup?
We had chocolate soup in that fancy restaurant you took us to in New York, remember?’

‘But you wouldn’t put chocolate soup on the table, would you?’

‘Well, I don’t think this is deliberate, in fairness. Something’s gone horribly wrong.’

‘It looks like a gigantic cowpat,’ Kit sniggered.

‘It’s not funny,’ his father reprimanded. ‘Anyway, you don’t cook a cowpat. Come on, think. We have to figure it out before she gets back,’ he said, looking anxiously towards the door.

Kit looked around for clues. ‘There’s a cookbook open on the counter,’ he said, twisting his neck to see it.

‘Great. You hold the fort here and I’ll go and have a look.’ After pushing the chocolate mixture well back on both sides, he abandoned his spatula and hopped over to the counter.

‘Well?’ Kit turned to look at his father. He was holding the book in his arms, frowning down at it.

‘It’s a cake,’ he announced.

‘A
cake?
Are you sure?’

‘It’s a cake, I’m telling you. Look.’ Colm brought the book over to Kit and pointed to a picture of a tall, two-tiered chocolate cake, covered in thick luscious icing, sitting on a cake stand. The page was covered in flour and grease stains.

‘Is that it?’ Kit asked, looking between the photograph and the mess on the table.

His father just nodded, apparently dumbstruck.

Kit prodded the lake with a finger. ‘I think there
is
something solid under there.’

When they heard Laura coming back towards the kitchen, Colm ducked back to the counter and replaced the book, and resumed his position with the spatula.

‘Phew!
I need to clear out that cupboard,’ Laura said, coming back into the room bearing a tin.

‘Smashing-looking cake,’ Colm said, smiling at her.

‘Oh dear,’ Laura said, ‘it was supposed to be a welcome

home cake for Ethan, but it hasn’t turned out quite right.’ ‘Not at all, it looks great,’ Colm said. ‘Lovely and moist.

Isn’t that right, Kit?’

‘Oh, um, yeah. It looks really …
wow.’

‘Nothing worse than a dry cake,’ his father continued, gamely batting the mixture back.

‘Well, I thought maybe if I could get it all into a tin, it might set in the fridge.’

‘Good idea. Right,’ Colm said, ‘all hands on deck.’

When they had wrestled the two flat discs of sponge into the tin with an assortment of spatulas and fish slices, they scooped the icing up and poured it in on top.

‘I wanted it to look so pretty,’ Laura said sadly, surveying the slurry of chocolate in the tin. ‘It doesn’t look anything like the picture in the book. I don’t know what went wrong.’

‘Maybe you should have let it cool before you put the icing on,’ Kit said.

‘Ah, you can’t trust those cookbooks,’ Colm said. ‘They use trick photography and all sorts of things. I bet there’s a mistake in the recipe. You should throw that book out.’

Kit mentally rolled his eyes, but said nothing. ‘So, when’s Ethan coming home?’ he asked as his mother put the tin in the fridge.

‘He called from the airport,’ Laura said. ‘He’ll be home tonight – or in the early hours of tomorrow, actually.’

‘Right, well, I have to get on with clearing out the back bedroom for him,’ Colm said, wiping his hands on his jeans. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

When
he had left, Kit started helping his mother to clear up.

‘You look very chipper, sweetheart,’ she said, smiling at him curiously.

‘Yeah, well, you know I told you I met up with Romy the other night? Well, we’ve been hanging out together a bit and … I’m moving out.’

‘Oh!’ His mother looked pleased and concerned in equal measure. ‘That’s fast work, isn’t it? I mean you’ve only just met her again—’

‘Oh no! I’m not moving in with her. She has a flat she’s going to rent cheap to me. It’s in her house, but we’re not going to be living together as such.’

‘Oh, well that’s great, honey,’ she said, smiling. She seemed reassured, but Kit could see she was a little deflated at the same time.

‘It’s so great to be with Romy again, though,’ he said. ‘I’m really glad you suggested I look her up.’

‘Well, I’m happy you’re friends again. You know I was always very fond of Romy. You two made a great pair,’ Laura said.

Kit couldn’t stop smiling as he loaded the dishwasher. Being with Romy again was so comfortable and easy, and he realised he hadn’t felt that relaxed in a long time. Romy had always been able to make him feel that everything would be all right, and he felt more secure already knowing he had her in his corner again. He was even beginning to think that he might be able to have a life here after all. Perhaps he could even have the sort of life his parents wanted for him – the sort of life he wanted for himself. He was so tired of hiding and living in fear of exposure. He might be deluding himself, but he had loved Romy once. Maybe he could again …