With a click of his mouse, Luca blew up a thumbnail-sized picture. Immediately I was certain I was staring at a man I’d only known as a boy. His dark-brown hair was shoulder-length. Stubble had sprouted from his cheeks and chin, and his shoulders were broad. But there was no mistaking his smile or the sparkle in his green eyes.
No, I told myself. Your head’s playing tricks on you again.
‘Can you get me a bottle of water while I read up on them?’ I asked Luca, trying to get a grip on my nerves.
As he bounced downstairs to the kitchen, I typed ‘James Nicholson’ into a search engine and thousands of threads appeared. I refined my search, trying ‘James Nicholson’ and ‘Northampton’, and there were plenty of mentions of the two together. I clicked on his Wikipedia page and it confirmed his date of birth as October 8.
I leaned back and felt the blood drain from my face. It was James. It was my James. I was staring at a picture of the son I had abandoned. I scrolled through online newspaper features and found an interview.
The eldest of three siblings, James was raised single-handedly by his mother after his father suddenly disappeared. ‘I don’t remember a whole lot about him,’ James tells me, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. ‘I do know that he loved us all, but when he disappeared, our lives changed forever.’
I stopped and closed my eyes. The ghosts in the machine had found me.
‘Nobody knows what happened to him. It was hardest on my mum, though . . . Everyone who knew Dad says it wasn’t like him to just vanish and that something must have happened. And it hurts that we’ll probably never know what. Do I still think about him? Yeah, of course. Not every day, maybe not even every week. But he’s always in the back of my mind, somewhere.’
I was a naive idiot for not predicting how much the uncertainty might have haunted him. I glanced up at the wall in front of me to see a poster of Driver staring back. I’d walked past it dozens of times, never knowing my son was in my house.
‘He’s an amazing guitarist,’ said Luca when he reappeared with my drink, oblivious to the earthquake rocking his father. ‘He’s been giving me advice.’
‘You’ve spoken to him?’ My heart beat faster than I ever thought possible. ‘How?’
‘On Twitter. I messaged him to say how I think he’s really good and how I play the guitar too. I don’t know why I did, but I told him about having trouble with this one chord. He wrote back with advice and we’ve been direct messaging for a few weeks. Can you imagine how many kids write to him? But he makes time for me. He’s really cool.’
My two sons had been corresponding from opposite sides of Europe, neither of them knowing who the other really was.
‘That’s great,’ I replied before making an excuse to retreat to my bedroom balcony for air.
In organising Luca’s tickets, I had unwittingly unlocked Pandora’s box. But what scared me the most wasn’t that I was being forced to confront my past.
It was that maybe I was actually ready to.
Rome, Italy
7 April
I barely noticed the moisture pouring down the walls or the ringing in my ears as my son James played an energetic guitar solo on the colossal stage in front of me. As everyone around us cheered and sang, I stood motionless in the PalaLottomatica arena, gazing at him in awe. Luca was doing the same, but for very different reasons.
Goosebumps spread across my skin and made me itch, but I was unable to tear my eyes away from the boy I’d once tried to forget. I wondered how that scrawny, anxious little lad who’d urinated in his shepherd’s costume during the school nativity play had gained the mastery and confidence to enthral ten thousand strangers. I don’t think I absorbed a single lyric or was aware of how long Driver had remained on stage by the time the house lights illuminated the room.
‘Come on, Papa,’ yelled Luca, tugging my arm. But instead of heading for an exit sign, he dragged me against the flow of human traffic and towards the metal barriers at the side of the stage.
‘This isn’t the way out,’ I protested as discarded food cartons and plastic bottles crunched under our feet.
‘I know – we’re going to meet the band!’ He grinned. ‘I tweeted James and told him you got us tickets, so he put us on the guest list for the after-show party.’
My unprepared mind raced through a list of excuses. ‘We can’t, you’re too young,’ was all I could offer on such short notice.
‘I’m sixteen,’ he chirped, dragging me ever closer. ‘It’s cool.’
‘Luca, no. It’s late. I’m tired. Let’s go back to the hotel.’
He stopped in his tracks and shot me the most wounded of glances. ‘Papa! Please,’ he begged.
I desperately wanted to explain that we couldn’t meet his hero because, against all odds, they shared the same blood. Watching James perform at arm’s length was one thing, but being in the same room when he met his half-brother wasn’t something I was prepared for.
I’d promised Luciana I’d make things right with my past, but it was not the right time. I cursed God for playing more of his cruel games with me.
‘Luca Marcanio,’ shouted my son to a balding hulk wielding a clipboard and a headset. ‘We’re on the list.’
The man eyed us suspiciously, checked his list, crossed our names off and directed us backstage with a grunt. My breathing was shallow as we stepped into a sterile, whitewashed corridor and followed the sound of distant music. Eventually, we turned a corner to find a bar and a group of young people drinking and eating exotic canapés from waitresses’ trays.
Luca grabbed two glass bottles of cola from an ice bucket and passed one to me. I clenched mine to my wrist, hoping it would cool down my growing fever. He pointed out the other band members one by one as he scanned the room, desperate to see James.
Eventually his hero entered, clad in black jeans, a belt with a silver ram’s head buckle, and a white shirt. Quick as lightning, Luca scampered towards him.
I watched intently as, out of earshot, they shook hands. They shared the same dark, wavy hair, dimpled chins and my green eyes. I wondered if I alone was struck by their similarities.
I assumed James would be polite but brief with him. Instead, he reacted like they were old friends. I attempted to blend into the background until both pairs of the same eyes reached mine.
‘Papa!’ I looked down, pretending not to hear as my stomach dropped. ‘Papa!’ Luca repeated, a little louder. There was nothing for it but to look up. He beckoned me over. My legs threatened to give way as I joined them.
‘This is James.’
He smiled and held out his hand to shake mine. His fingernails were painted black and they drew me towards his cufflinks. They were ruby-red with small black squares in the centre. Catherine had bought them for my thirtieth birthday, the day everything changed.
‘Nice to meet you, Mr Marcanio,’ he began. ‘You have a good kid here.’
‘Thanks for inviting us,’ was all I could think to say.
‘Hey, a fellow Brit!’ said James, engaging me in a conversation I didn’t know how to have. I just wanted to throw my arms around him without explanation and then leave. ‘Where are you from?’ he continued.
‘I travelled around a lot.’