About Time

by Niamh Shaw

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

Plug yourself in to this hilarious, high-voltage romance from Niamh Shaw Unlucky-in-love Lara sure knows how to pick 'em - losers, that is. But who can blame her when she's never gotten over having her heart (and self-esteem) smashed to pieces by her one and only true love, the super-intelligent, super-geeky, and super-emotionally-inept Conn? Six years later, working alongside her ex on an energy-generating project in Dubai is the last thing Lara expected. It's not long before sparks are flying, but can Lara trust Conn with her heart again?

Release date: November 17, 2016

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 356

Sample

Thanks a million to:

Roísin for inspiring the stealing boyfriend plot by stealing my boyfriend twenty-five years ago. Also, I forgive you.

Chantal for relocating my books to the bestseller shelf in major bookstores.

Helen/Antipodeese for introducing me to the glorious expression ‘baby cheeses’. How poor my life would be without that and ‘crotchfruit’.

My friends, both online and in the real world, most of whom are better writers than I will ever be. They inspire me daily: Mark J for his honesty, remarkable resilience to verbal abuse and entertainingly appalling taste in movies; Di Mackey for the beautiful way she interprets life; Mike/Vet for his intelligence and perspective; and Cian for stalking me with such time, effort and consideration.

Many thanks to the following cafés around New Zealand and Ireland which did not evict me as I huddled over a laptop for hours with my headphones on, occasionally shouting random swear words and – even worse – singing aloud: The Roost, the most cracking café in Oamuru; Flax Café on Henderson Valley Road, Auckland; Prego in Kenmare, Ireland.

The Outlaws, who continually inspire me with their décor, and host me even when Husband does not accompany me.

I would like to retrospectively thank myself for keeping a diary when I was a teenager. While I’m at it, I would like to tell my sixteen-year-old self to lighten up and not worry so much, that teenage years are not the best years of your life; and that ‘be yourself’ is actually a sound piece of advice.

My wonderful agent, Peter Buckman, for the advice, encouragement and fashion tips.

The team at Little Black Dress, in particular my inhumanly patient editor, Leah Woodburn. I hope one day our relationship will embrace a wide range of psychedelic swear words.

My parents, whose bulk purchase of Smart Casual ensured I was Little Black Dress’ bestselling author in 2009. Oh, that wasn’t me? Darn. Never mind, you tried hard.

My beloved Andrew, who was ever encouraging, supportive and relentlessly sexy on a motorbike. He could only be improved if he was chocolate-flavoured. Also if he brought me breakfast in bed, did gerbil impressions, and put DVDs back in their cases; but even if he did any of these things, I would still love him thoroughly. Thank you.

It is only after Mother leaves that I remember the shoebox still balanced atop ‘kitchen wares #2’.

I pour myself another yoghurt carton of wine and set it down next to the box. I run my fingers lightly over the lid. Dust and glitter sticks to the pads of my fingers. A scuffed label says: ‘Lara’s stuff. Do not open. Trespassers will be persecuted. KEEP OUT!’.

Pictures are glued on to the surface. They are from a time when I thought thirty-five was ancient and I would never go out with someone called Leonard. (Apart from rare exceptions, that is still a sound rule by which to live your life.)

My God, was I ever that young?

Memories prick my subconscious. These roses here were carefully cut from a valentine card my father gave me. I must have been thirteen? Fourteen? This quote is W.B. Yeats, from the English Intercert syllabus – I can’t remember the poem, but I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever read; it used to make me cry. Oh, what do you know? It still does.

There is a Live Aid logo pasted to the box, along with several pictures of George Michael. (The lipgloss slipped my attention at the age of fifteen).

I carefully unpick the knot securing a turquoise ribbon and remove the lid.

I excavate a small bundle of letters from one corner. They are still in their envelopes, all addressed to me in a script that has so many squiggles it is difficult to read the letters. Anne Wilson? Of course, Anne. She was my pen pal.

Beneath the letters is – oh my God! My Jellyfish Swatch! I lift it out and shake it gently. I wonder would it work if I replace the battery?

Putting it aside, I riffle through some papers and find a ticket stub from a U2 concert in 1987 at Croke Park. It should have been one of the defining moments of my young life: getting drunk for the first time and losing my virginity to ‘Pride (In The Name of Love)’. Instead, I spent three hours stalking Noel O’Sullivan around the muddy field. Although I still cite the event as one of my all-time great concert experiences, truth is I had never heard of U2 and thought they were largely crap. Noel O’Sullivan snogged Clodagh Wartey behind a bush.

There are three Bruce Springsteen singles and a compilation tape. An admission ticket to ‘Champers Nite Club’. A Rubik’s cube, the edges of the stickers scabby where I peeled them off. Lipsticks – the colours of which defy nature – worn down to stubs and covered in bits of cornflake and fluff.

I touch the yellowing lid of an ancient pot of Ponds Cold Cream, trying to recall when I had last done so with hard, young fingers.

The diary is exactly where I knew it would be. On the battered purple cover, Smurfette poses coyly with a flower. The diary is secured with a heart-shaped lock. If memory serves me . . . I unscrew the Ponds Cold Cream and find the key sellotaped to the underside of the lid.

I unlock the diary and thumb gently through the pages. Names leap out at me, people I have not thought of in years, others I had forgotten existed. Scents rise from the paper like ghosts: Anais Anais and cheap deodorant – ‘Impulse’, as I recall. Fabergé’s adverts made a big impression on me. In real life, nobody was ever so inspired by my smell that they hurdled a park bench to give me flowers, no matter how much Always Alluring I sprayed on.

I turn to the cover page.

1988.

I was fourteen years old, and had more on my mind than in it. As I recall, being a teenager was tremendously traumatic: struggling with the weighty responsibilities of what to do after leaving school, determining whom I had a crush on and having to clean my room once a week.

I was just starting to grasp how little I knew about anything – although there was one thing I knew for certain. One thing I was absolutely sure about.

His name was Conn.

You might call him ‘The One That Got Away’. Personally, I refer to him variously as ‘The One I Never Really Had’, ‘The Love Of My Life’ and ‘That Prick’.

Even if I hadn’t remembered the date, the diary fell open at the page.

Friday 1 April 1988

Spots: 5

Arguments with Mum: 24½

Dear Diary,

How come other girls have boyfriends, but I haven’t even been kissed except for that time Slack-Jawed Spa licked my cheek and that was only for a dare which doesn’t even COUNT? Is there something wrong with me? I am nearly 16 (14½) and already collecting dust on the SHELF. At this rate, I will end up some 90-year-old supervirgin. I wish Prince Charming would get a move on. I would even settle for a handsome frog.

Love,

Lara

Saturday 2 April 1988

Dear Diary,

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD!!!!! It is OFFICIAL: I am IN LOVE!!!!! I have finally been KISSED!!!!! And before my sixteenth birthday – deadly!!!!!

(ROSEMARY, IF YOU ARE READING THIS, FUCK OFF.)

Before yesterday, I knew NOTHING about love. I know I’ve said that before, but this time it’s REAL!!! Last week when Richard Elliott didn’t sit beside me in double geography I thought I would DIE, but I’m still here so I suppose that tells you something (i.e. I didn’t).

This is SO EXCITING – I don’t know where to start!!! OK, it was at Champers last night. I wasn’t sure whether I’d go because Maeve and I still weren’t talking after our fight, except when she asked if she could borrow a pencil in English on Thursday. Then she talked to me – obviously to ask if she could borrow a pencil – but I didn’t answer her, even though I loaned her one.

So yesterday Sinéad rang and I was kind of cold because she had sort of sided with Maeve even though Maeve was mega wrong. Sinéad asked if I was going to the disco and at first I said no. Well, I said maybe, but then I said yes, because I really wanted to but not on my own.

After trying on everything in Rosemary’s wardrobe as well as mine, I finally wore my stonewashed jeans and my new legwarmers with Rosemary’s off-the-shoulder top (I LEFT IT BACK, FATFACE). My hair looked all right after half an hour of backcombing. I can’t wait to get a permanent wave – it would save a lot of time (and hairspray) and would look TOTALLY DEADLY. Dad said I could, but Mum said I had to wait until I was eighteen, probably because she wanted to get at Dad. They had a big argument, which started out being about my hair and ended up being about Theresa Mannion, who plays tennis at their club. (I’m not sure how Theresa Mannion came into it. I don’t think she has a permanent wave.)

Sinéad’s dad arrived and as I came downstairs I heard Mum tell him I had to be home by ten o’clock and I was so EMBARRASSED I nearly BARFED. I very reasonably pointed out that Rosemary is allowed to stay out until midnight, so why can’t I? Mum recycled the same lame argument about Rosemary being four years older than me and when I’m that age I can stay out late too, blah blah blah YAWN. She wouldn’t have bothered if Mr Conway hadn’t been there and she’s got to make like she cares. Typical.

Sometimes Mum is such a gargamel. She asked if I was wearing ‘that top’. See? GARGAMEL. And I said, No, I’m wearing something else, then she said Less of the sarcasm, so I said if she liked I could be rude instead. Dad came out of his study and he laughed because it was quite funny, really.

Then Mum asked whether I had done my homework, and Dad said to let me go and have some fun, but Mum repeated herself which she does, like, ALL THE TIME. I calmly and maturely pointed out that Mr Conway was waiting, but Mum said, Well?, so I said, Tomorrow. Mum was blocking the door so I squirmed under her arm.

Be back by 11! she shouted at, you know, the WHOLE NEIGHBOURHOOD. If I’m lucky there might have been a couple of deaf geriatrics in Dublin who didn’t hear her.

I was nice to Sinéad because her dad had collected me and she said Maeve was mega crummy sitting beside Growler Fitzgerald at Assembly when she totally knows how much I like him.

When we went into the disco, Growler was standing near the bogs and he looked way cool in a lovely shiny jacket with the sleeves rolled up. I walked past him twice and the second time I flirted with him by saying ‘Hi’ and kind of smiling.

Sinéad ditched me to hang out with Maeve but the music was wicked so I went on the dance floor with a group from my class. I had to keep pulling up my top because it didn’t fall off just the one shoulder. After a while the DJ started the slow set so all the girls stampeded for the bogs.

Hanging around would have meant I was desperate which I mega wasn’t but when I got off the dance floor, by a total flukey coincidence, Growler just happened to be standing NEARLY RIGHT NEXT TO ME!!!!! I stuck around because I seriously hoped he’d ask me to dance. I didn’t want to ask him because Sarah asked Jughead O’Carroll to dance at the Old Crescent Disco and everyone called her a slag for days afterwards.

I once asked Rosemary how you let a guy know you’re interested and she said, ‘Be yourself’, which has to be the stupidest piece of advice EVER. I mean, how can I be somebody else? And who? But I had no better ideas, so I tried mega hard to REALLY be myself.

Then Growler pushed off the wall and I nearly had a COW, but right at that very moment the worst thing EVER happened: my crummy headband fell into my eyes. I scrabbled around for HOURS like a major DORK and finally I got it back in place and I looked up with a big smile expecting Growler to be in front of me, but it was just Stuart Roche licking out the inside of a beer glass.

It was hard to make out anything because the DJ was doing some mad flashing thing with the lights and smoke stung my eyes. I finally saw Growler with Maeve at the side of the dance floor and he leaned down and said something in her ear. Growler took Maeve’s hand and pulled her on to the dance floor. I wanted to look away but I couldn’t, like when Miss Duggan pulls her knickers out of her arse at the top of class which is SERIOUSLY gross but you can’t help but watch.

Maeve had her arms round Growler’s neck and they swayed around and he felt her shoulder a bit. He bent over and I couldn’t tell if he was maybe just resting his head because he was tired but then I realised he was getting off with her.

My heart shattered into a trillion thousand pieces and my chest was all tight. I felt mega sad, like Meryl Streep in Out of Africa when she gets upset about having to talk in a lame accent for a whole film. I couldn’t bear to stay there another SECOND, so I ran towards the exit, kind of in slow motion. The shortest way was across the dance floor and I accidentally pulled Maeve’s hair really hard as I passed.

(Hang on a sec.)

(Sorry, Rosemary just came into my room. She said she wanted to tell me dinner’s ready, but I know she wants to snoop around. I asked if she’d recorded MacGyver and she said she forgot but I know it was just to spite me.)

Outside in the car park, there was a low wall a few yards away from the door. I sat on it and looked tragic and gorgeous. The bitter acid of my pain gnawed my ravaged, broken soul like a starving rat with mega sharp teeth and scratchy claws that totally doesn’t care how much damage it’s doing.

I bitterly mourned my young, wasted life. I couldn’t understand why Growler asked Maeve to dance instead of me. Even though I’m a bit spotty and have braces, I’m definitely better-looking than her. Maeve has teeth like a chipmunk and the same stupid hair she’s had since, like, for ever. She is so uncool, too. She wore baggy jeans to Champers last week, DUH.

Maybe Maeve is more herself than me - although I don’t see how that helps since she’s obviously a two-faced cow, pretending to be my friend when all the time she was secretly plotting to steal my boyfriend. I suppose technically Growler wasn’t my boyfriend, but he would have been, if Maeve hadn’t got her claws into him.

I heard George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper’ start up, which is a song about this guy who doesn’t want to pretend he’s dancing with a fool even though deep down he knows he is, which was mega appropriate when you think about it. You can tell George Michael really knows about this sort of stuff and he’s mega dishy.

The bitter acid of my pain stopped gnawing and swept over the barren, shrivelled wasteland of my soul instead, like a major wave, possibly a tsunami (I just looked that up in Dad’s thesaurus).

(Hang on another sec.)

(Mum’s screeching up the stairs at me about my dinner getting cold, as if I could actually, like, CARE about eating when I am fatally afflicted with love.)

So anyway, I met this guy from school and we talked for a while and then we kissed and now I’m mad about him.

Love,

Lara

I don’t even have to close my eyes to recall every detail of that night. The empty car park outside Champers, the abandoned beer can beside my foot, the hum from the streetlight over the nightclub door, sitting on the wall with the cold seeping through my stonewashed jeans.

Suddenly, the dark beside me moved. Obviously I screamed, since I thought it might be a hostile alien life form.

A low voice said, ‘Hey, what’s wrong?’

Then I relaxed, because I knew an alien life form would be suckered on to my face, implanting an embryo, instead of just asking what was wrong.

‘I didn’t know anyone else was here,’ I said, gasping.

I thought the stranger was probably tall, dark and handsome, although it was hard to tell because he was hunched over; and I couldn’t see him very well because it was dark; but I liked his voice which was sort of slow and quiet, not like the rest of the boys in school who shouted all the time.

‘Are you crying?’ he asked.

‘No!’ I said.

‘It sounds like you are.’

‘Well, I’m not.’

‘Oh,’ he said. Then, after a while, ‘Are you sure you’re not crying?’

‘What’s wrong with your voice?’ I asked, because I wanted to change the subject, but also because there was something wrong with his voice.

‘I have a stutter,’ he said.

‘Don’t worry about it. You hardly even notice,’ I said to reassure him. He didn’t answer. ‘What’s your name, anyway?’ I said.

‘Conn,’ he said.

‘Short for Connor?’

‘No.’

‘Conroy?’

‘No.’

‘Constantine?’

‘No.’

‘What, then?’

‘Connell.’

‘Stupid name.’

‘It’s OK. At least people know what to call me.’

I remember thinking that was mega profound. Also, I liked how he didn’t talk right away but really thought about what he was going to say.

‘I’m Lara,’ I said, tucking my hands under my bottom to warm them.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘You’re in my maths class.’

‘Really?’ I couldn’t remember him. ‘Where do you sit?’

‘Wherever there’s a free seat.’

I thought that was mega profound, too.

‘Oh hey, hang on!’ I said. ‘Are you Brainman?’

‘Yeah. That’s me.’

‘It’s a really cool nickname,’ I said. ‘Well, better than Slack-Jawed Spa, anyway.’

‘I suppose so.’ His voice was smiling, which was unusual. Conn didn’t smile much in school. He didn’t talk much either, except when Brundleslug asked him questions. He always got them right. Conn was the only one in class who understood differential calculus.

‘I hate maths,’ I said.

‘It’s my favourite subject.’

‘You’re joking. We are talking about MATHS here?’

‘Yes,’ said Conn. ‘There are no grey areas in mathematics. The answer is either right or wrong. You don’t have to write a ten-page essay on the motive of revenge in calculating an answer.’

‘Nah,’ I said. ‘Maths seriously sucks. I mean, what’s the point?’

‘The point? Maths is a universal language. Almost everything in the universe can be modelled and described by mathematics. It is the only way to understand the world.’

‘Did you read that in some stupid book?’

‘No. It was on Tomorrow’s World. But it’s true. Suppose you want to build a bridge. The only way to know how much material to use and make a bridge strong enough is with mathematics. Otherwise, you are just taking chances.’

‘Well, I suppose that might be useful, but I don’t want to build bridges.’

‘It’s not only construction. If you ever study law or economics—’

‘Oh puh-LEASE!’ I said.

‘—or psychology, or science, or technology, or engineering, or computing—’

‘I’m going to be an actress,’ I explained, picking at the ends of my sleeves. ‘I suppose if that doesn’t work out, I will be a pop star. I would have been a figure skater except there are no ice rinks in Limerick. So I don’t need maths, which is just as well, because I suck, especially at trigonometry.’

‘No, you don’t,’ said Conn. ‘You just have never been interested enough to bother understanding it.’

‘Suppose. So is that what you want to be? A builder?’

‘Not a builder—’

‘How about being an astronaut? That’d be WAY cool. Or even a doctor. You could go to Africa or Dublin and save all the sick babies.’

‘I’m going to study mathematics in UCCD.’

‘What if you don’t get in?’

‘I will.’

‘Don’t you need lots of points?’

‘For a scholarship?’ he asked. ‘Yes. But I’ll get them.’

I remember thinking it must be nice to be so sure about something – or even anything at all. ‘Why UCCD?’ I asked.

‘It’s the best university in the country.’

‘Oh. Right.’

Then Conn talked more about maths. I didn’t listen much because it wasn’t that interesting. But when he finished, I wished he would talk more because I was afraid he would go inside and I really wanted him to stay.

‘Don’t you think it’s way gross the way Brundleslug picks his nose with the stem of his glasses?’ I asked.

‘Does he?’ asked Conn.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Haven’t you seen him? He flicks the goobers at the blackboard.’

‘Is that why you sit at the back of class?’ he asked.

‘No, that’s because I’m trying to be cool,’ I explained.

‘Why do you want to be cool?’

‘Because people look up to you and don’t think you’re a dork.’

‘Oh. I like you the way you are.’

That made me feel – sorry, there’s no other way of putting this – totally smurfy. Of course, I didn’t say so, because that would have been way uncool. Instead, I asked, ‘Did you see Moonlighting on telly the other night?’

‘No.’

‘It was DEADLY!’

‘We don’t have a television,’ said Conn.

‘What? No telly?’ I said in disbelief. ‘Have you seen The A-Team or MacGyver? How about The Fall Guy? Alf? Dallas?’

‘I saw Dallas once.’

‘That’s seriously warped! It’s, like, one of the most tragic things I’ve ever heard! I suppose you don’t have a VCR either, since there’s nothing to record.’ Conn shrugged. ‘What do you do?’

‘Sometimes I go to Mark’s house—’

‘Who?’

‘My friend, Mark Kinsella—’

‘That plonker,’ I sniffed.

‘No, he’s not,’ said Conn.

‘Really?’ I said doubtfully. Even though I didn’t know Mark Kinsella, everyone in school knew he was a plonker.

‘No. He’s OK. He lives down the road. Sometimes I go to his house to watch Tomorrow’s World and Star Trek: Next Generation. His mam makes us Bovril and banana splits.’

‘Cool,’ I said.

For a while we said nothing. I was worried Conn might get bored and leave, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. Eventually, I asked him whether he had been at Champers before.

‘No,’ he said.

‘How come?’ I asked.

He ignored the question and I wasn’t sure whether he hadn’t heard or he just didn’t want to answer. I didn’t want to pressurise him into saying something he might regret, so I said, ‘I come most weeks with Sinéad and Maeve, although I nearly didn’t this time because Maeve and me are having this mega argument.’

‘OK,’ he said. I was disappointed he didn’t ask what the argument was about.

‘Are you cold?’ I asked.

‘No. Are you?’

‘No,’ I said, rubbing goosebumps off my arms. Then I felt bad about lying to him. ‘Well, yeah. A bit. I suppose.’

‘You can share my jacket, if you want to.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Yeah. OK. Thanks.’

Conn sat next to me. He was much better-looking than I had remembered in school. ‘You have bizarro eyes,’ I said, gazing into them. They were light blue, like a Fox’s Glacier Mint. ‘They make you look kind of warped – in a good way. They’re the same colour as one of David Bowie’s – the light-blue one – he was stabbed in that eye with a compass and his other eye is brown. Were you stabbed in both eyes with a compass?’

‘Er, no.’

The light shone on him and his dark hair was lit up. Inspired, I said, ‘You’re like Sir Lancelot with his head on fire. Except you’re sitting on a wall instead of a horse. And of course your head’s not on fire or you would be running around screaming, I suppose.’

Conn’s proximity made me feel excited and nervous, although at the time I thought of it as ‘sort of squirmy’. I wasn’t sure how we would share his jacket, but I was seriously smurfed because it seemed like the type of thing one of the heroes in a Mills and Boon romance would do before brutally crushing me to his chest.

Conn was wearing a snorkel anorak. He unzipped it and wriggled his arm out of the left sleeve, then draped part of the jacket around me.

‘Put your arm in the sleeve. No, your left arm.’

‘Oh, OK.’ The sleeve was still warm and Conn was too. I thought it was al. . .