Surprise Me

No wonder Dan talked about an ‘ongoing nightmare’. Daddy was the nightmare.

At last I raise my head, my cheeks flaming. I’m churned up. I want to wade in. I want to confront Daddy. I want to have it out. Phrases are flying around my head: How could you? Apologize! You can’t speak to Dan like that! That’s my husband!

But Daddy’s dead. He’s dead. It’s too late. I can’t confront him, I can’t talk to him, I can’t demand why he behaved like that, or have it out, or make it right; it’s all too late, too late.

And guilt is rising in me, making my face still warmer. Because I didn’t help Dan, did I? All along, I blanked out Daddy’s flaws, I glorified him, I made it impossible for Dan ever to speak the truth. And that was the chasm.

‘Are you OK?’

I jump, shocked, at Mary’s voice, and abruptly realize I’m rocking back and forth in my chair, my jaw jutting out as though for a fight.

‘Fine!’ I hastily sit upright. ‘Fine. It’s … quite heavy stuff.’

‘Yes.’ She gives me a sympathetic look. ‘Probably a bit much to try to digest it all.’

‘I need to go, anyway.’ I glance at my watch. ‘School pick-up time.’

‘Ah.’ She nods. ‘Well, come back any time you’d like. Ask me anything you’d like to know.’

‘Have you heard from Dan?’ The question spills out before I can stop it.

‘No.’ She gives me a neutral look. ‘I’m sure he’s doing everything he can.’

I have about ten thousand questions I want to bombard her with, but as we walk to the lifts, two are circling high above the rest.

‘My father,’ I say as I press the lift button.

‘Yes?’

‘Did he … Is it … You don’t think …’ I can’t say it out loud. But Mary understands exactly.

‘Your father always maintained that Jocelyn Burton has a fertile imagination and the affair was entirely fictitious,’ she says. ‘Her full account is all there in the files for you to read. Thousands of words. Very descriptive. However, you may feel that it’s not helpful for you.’

‘Right,’ I say. ‘Well … maybe.’ I watch the lift indicator changing: 26 – 25 – 24 – and then draw breath. ‘My father,’ I say again.

‘Yes?’

I bite my lip. I don’t know what I want to ask, exactly. I try again. ‘I’ve been reading the emails between Dan and my father. And …’

‘Yes.’ Mary meets my eye and I have a feeling that, again, she knows exactly what I’m driving at. ‘Dan is very patient. Very smart. I hope your father knew how much he did for him.’

‘But he didn’t though, did he?’ I say bluntly. ‘I’ve seen it in those emails. Daddy was awful to him. I can’t believe Dan stuck it out.’ Tears suddenly spring to my eyes as I think of Dan, uncomplainingly dealing with Daddy’s charmless missives. Never telling me a word. ‘I mean, why would he? Why would he?’

‘Oh, Sylvie.’ Mary shakes her head with an odd little laugh. ‘If you don’t know—’ She breaks off, surveying me with such a wry gaze I almost feel uncomfortable. ‘You know, I’ve been intrigued to meet you, all this time. To meet Dan’s Sylvie.’

‘Dan’s Sylvie?’ A painful laugh rises through me. ‘I don’t feel like Dan’s Sylvie right now. If I were him I would have left me ages ago.’

The doors open, and as I get in, Mary holds out her hand. ‘Very nice to meet you at last, Sylvie,’ she says. ‘Please don’t worry about this second book. I’m sure it will all be resolved. And if there’s any more information I can give you about Joss … or Lynn …’

‘What?’ I stare at her, puzzled. ‘What do you mean, Lynn?’

‘Oh, sorry. I know it’s confusing.’ Mary raises her eyes ruefully. ‘Jocelyn is her full name, but she was known as Lynn as a teenager. For legal purposes, obviously, we—’

‘Wait.’ My hand jams the Hold button before I’m even aware I’m reacting. ‘Lynn? Are you telling me … she was called Lynn?’

‘Well, we generally refer to her as Joss, obviously.’ Mary seems puzzled by my reaction. ‘But she was Lynn then. I thought you might remember her, in fact. In her account, she certainly mentions you. She used to play with you. Sing songs with you. “Kumbaya”, that kind of thing.’ Mary’s face changes. ‘Sylvie? Are you all right?’

I’ve been living inside a bubble inside a bubble. I feel surreal. As I stride along Lower Sloane Street, the same phrase keeps running through my head: What’s real? What’s real?

When I finally left the Avory Milton offices, I tried Dan’s phone about five times. But he wasn’t picking up, or didn’t have signal, or something. So at last I left a desperate, frantic voicemail: ‘Dan, I’ve just found out, I can’t believe it, I had no idea, I’m so sorry, I got it all wrong. Dan, we need to talk. Dan, please ring me, I’m so, so sorry …’ and kept on in that vein until the beep went.

Now I’m heading to Mummy’s flat. I’m in a bit of a state and should probably pause for a calming drink of something – but I’m not going to. I have to see her. I have to have this out. I’ve already phoned up the school and put the girls into after-school club. (They’re pretty good about last-minute phone calls from frazzled London working parents.)

I let myself into Mummy’s flat with my latchkey, stalk into the drawing room with no greeting, and say in unforgiving tones, ‘You lied.’

Mummy jumps and looks round from where she was sitting, staring into space, a cushion clutched to her chest. She seems suddenly small and vulnerable against the vast expanse of the sofa, but I thrust that thought from my mind.

‘Lynn,’ I say, my eyes searing into hers. ‘Lynn, Mummy. Lynn.’

To her credit, she doesn’t say, ‘What do you mean, Lynn?’ She gazes past me as though she’s looking at a ghost, her face slowly creasing up in anxiety.

‘Lynn!’ I practically yell. ‘You told me she was imaginary! You screwed me up! She was real! She was real!’

‘Oh, darling.’ Mummy’s hand nervously crushes the fabric of her jacket.

‘Why would you do that?’ My voice is perilously close to a wail, a childlike wail. ‘Why would you make me feel so terrible? You wouldn’t let me talk about her, you made me feel so guilty … and all the time you knew she was real! It’s sick! It’s messed up!’

As I’m talking, an image flashes into my head of Tessa and Anna. My gorgeous girls with their precious thoughts and dreams and ideas. The idea of messing with them, altering them, making them feel bad about anything … is just anathema.

Mummy isn’t answering. I stalk round to the front of the sofa so that I’m facing her, breathing hard. ‘Why? Why?’

‘You were so small,’ says Mummy at last.

‘Small? What’s that got to do with it?’

‘We thought it would make things simpler.’

‘Why simpler?’ I stare at her. ‘What do you mean, simpler?’

‘Because we had to leave so hurriedly. Because …’

‘Why did we have to leave so hurriedly?’