Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan(33)

Still, Soho is the only link she has. So that’s where she’ll go. She’s taken one of Jack’s baseball caps, and now she pulls her hair into a ponytail and slips the cap over it. She’s brought her sunglasses as well. It’s a bit ridiculous, like she’s playing at being a spy.

But when she gets to Soho, it’s changed. It’s been years since she visited, and it’s not as disreputable as she remembers. There are still a few rock and roll clubs, some dodgy-looking pubs, and at least one shop with a window full of leather chaps, whips, and masks. But the streets are clean—no puddles of urine to dodge, no piles of trash. And the grottier pockets are surrounded by industrial-chic coffee shops selling fair-trade coffee, vintage record stores, and clothing boutiques where the T-shirt prices start at triple the minimum wage. The people she sees don’t have that hungry, covert look, either.

Holly spends two hours walking around, looking for something, anything, that could lead to him. She asks after him at a few of the seamier-looking pubs. “Boyfriend done a runner, eh, love?” one of the bartenders says sympathetically. “Leave you with bills to pay or kids?”

“Both,” she says honestly.

“Sounds like a real bastard. Not that most here won’t answer to that description. Still, I’ll keep my eye out. You want to leave your number?” She does not.

At last she concedes defeat. She could look again tonight, when the rougher side of London comes out to play, but she doesn’t think she’ll find him here.

As much as she hates to admit it, she needs help.

She’s out of options, with no idea where to look or what to do next. So she finally does what she always does when she’s in trouble. What she should have done from the beginning.

She calls Barry.





Chapter Twelve



The conversation is not an easy one. Holly doesn’t actually tell him everything (she hasn’t completely lost her mind), just what he needs to know. She says that there are complications keeping her in England. That long ago, when Jack was still recovering and she was in shock at the turn her life had taken, she fell into a short-lived affair with an old family friend. That when she conceived Eden so quickly, she panicked and let everyone assume it was Robert’s baby. That the father made it clear he wasn’t interested in sticking around, or providing any kind of support, and that she hasn’t kept in touch.

“But I need to find him now,” she says. “It’s important. And I don’t know where to start.”

On the other side of the Atlantic, Barry is quiet. She can almost hear his brain whirring. A daughter she’s never mentioned. An affair she never talked about. And now an old lover she urgently needs to find. What’s next? To his credit, he doesn’t ask.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he says at last, and that’s all.

Barry has two personas: the shiny, public one he’s constructed where he’s everyone’s favorite guy and a quieter, more authentic one. So far as Holly knows, she and Jack, along with Barry’s wife and children, are the only ones who get to the latter. The price for getting behind the curtain is total trust on both sides, and now he’s realized she’s kept secrets all these years. That even when they first met, when they were at their most intimate, he had no idea who she really was. There’s no easy way past that. But she has no choice. She needs his help, in a way she never has before. She needs him to find Peter.



* * *





She’s pulling into the drive when the door opens and Jane flits down the steps. “Darling!” she cries. It’s an old family joke, but one with an edge. Barrie, unhappy about Wendy’s pending nuptials, added a clause to his will, stating only children with the Darling surname were eligible for future royalties from his works. Wendy kept her name, as have all her descendants. Holly would have chosen to be a Wightwick happily, but Robert—ever the practical one—persuaded her not to be foolish.

“Mother,” Holly says. She steps out of the car and leans into Jane’s embrace. Her mother smells like cold fresh air, clean and crisp. She draws her arm through Holly’s and leads her into the house.

“Whatever are you wearing? Don’t tell me you’ve finally succumbed to that dreadful American style?” Jane asks, eyeing the baseball cap Holly’s forgotten to take off. Jane’s own silver locks are neatly coiled into an elegant bun.

“No, I . . . I’m trying out a new product that makes your skin more sensitive to the sun. I didn’t want to burn,” she says lamely. She takes off the hat as they step into the cool darkness of the front hall. She pulls out the ponytail and runs her fingers through her hair.

“Goodness, much better.” Her mother releases her with a final squeeze. “Let me see you. Still as lovely as ever.”

“How was Surrey?” Holly says self-consciously.

“Beautiful. Bit boring though. We went to see the spring gardens, and the couple I was with had a horrid time keeping up. Quite disappointing, really. I met them through yoga, and I must say, you would think they’d be in better shape. But they did give me a remarkable bottle of whiskey. You must try it—I’ve put it in the library.”

She breezes down the hall ahead of Holly with the easy, carefree grace that marks her as the dancer she once was. The same grace Holly used to have, and misses every single day. She follows behind her tiny mother, trying not to feel ungainly.