Surprise Me

There’s silence as my words sit in the air. I’ve never seen Dan look so shoffed. I don’t think he can speak. But that’s OK, because I have more to say.

‘I’ve been living in a bubble.’ I swallow hard. ‘A climate-controlled, safe bubble. But now it’s burst. And the weather has blown in. And it’s … exhilarating.’

Dan nods slowly. ‘I can see. Your face. It’s different.’

‘Bad different?’

‘No. Real different. You look more real.’ He surveys me, as though trying to work it out. ‘Your eyes. Your expression. Your hair.’

I put up a hand and feel my bare neck. It still feels unfamiliar. Exposed. It feels like a new me.

‘Princess Sylvie is dead,’ I say abruptly, and there must be something about my tone, because Dan nods gravely, and says:

‘Agreed.’

I suddenly become aware of an extendable ladder being placed against the platform we’re on. A few moments later, a guy in his twenties appears, holding a helmet. As he sees my bloody face, he recoils, aghast.

‘Did that injury happen on our premises?’ He has a reedy voice and sounds freaked out. ‘Because you are not an authorized client, you have not undergone the health-and-safety briefing, you are not wearing approved headwear—’

‘It’s OK.’ I cut him off. ‘I didn’t injure myself on your premises.’

‘Well.’ He gives me a resentful look and holds out the helmet to me. ‘All clients must wear protective helmets at all times. All clients must register before using any apparatus and be fitted for a harness.’

‘Sorry,’ I say humbly. I take the helmet from him and put it on.

‘Please descend from the apparatus,’ the guy adds in such a disapproving voice that I feel an involuntary giggle building. ‘Forthwith.’

Forthwith? I glance at Dan and see that he’s hiding a smile, too.

‘OK,’ I say. ‘I’m going.’ I eye the extendable ladder and feel a wave of nausea. ‘In a minute.’

‘I can show you a gentler way down,’ Dan says to me. ‘Unless you felt like hurling yourself down the rope ladder, headfirst?’

‘Not today.’ I match his deadpan tone. ‘Another time.’

I follow Dan across a rickety ropy bridge to a lower platform. My legs are trembling violently in a kind of aftershock state. Every time I glance down I want to heave. But I smile brightly at Dan whenever he looks round and somehow I keep going and we make it. Vincit qui se vincit keeps running through my head. She conquers who conquers herself.

And then we descend an easier ladder and pretty soon we’re on the ground. And I am really, really glad. In fact, I slightly want to hug the ground in gratitude.

Not that I would ever admit this to anyone.

‘OK.’ Dan suddenly rounds on me. ‘Now we’re on the ground and you’re not going to fall off in fright, I’m going to say it again: what the fuck?’ His eyes are wide and I realize he’s genuinely freaked out. ‘What happened to your face, your hair …’ He’s counting off on his fingers. ‘How do you know about your dad? I leave you for two nights and all hell breaks loose.’

Two nights? It feels like an eternity.

‘I knew you were lying about going to Glasgow,’ I say, a familiar pain washing over me. ‘I thought you’d gone to … I thought you were leaving me. You said you needed space, you said you needed to escape …’

‘Oh God. Yes.’ Dan closes his eyes. ‘Yes, I didn’t mean that. I just …’ He pauses and I wait fearfully. ‘It was all becoming—’ He breaks off again, looking towards the sky.

I can’t finish his sentence in perfect, overlapping sync. Psychic Sylvie, who knew everything, has vanished. And now that the exhilaration of climbing up thirty feet has worn off, I can see us for what we are. A married couple from south-west London who have hit the buffers. Trying to sort it out. Finding our way. Not there yet.

‘I know it’s been an “ongoing nightmare”,’ I say at last. ‘Mary Holland told me.’

‘Oh, “nightmare” is probably too strong.’ Dan rubs his face, looking suddenly weary. ‘But it’s endless. I have your mother on at me every day. Emails from the lawyers, Joss Burton’s agent … This book is going to happen. And it’s going to be huge. She’s a big deal, Sylvie, and I’m not sure I can stop it this time.’

He looks so troubled, I should say something sympathetic, but my residual anger’s too great and I can’t help rounding on him in turn: ‘So why didn’t you tell me?’ Because it’s Dan who kept secrets, who drove wedges between us, who kept flicking to another page when I tried to read his whole story. ‘You should have told me right from the start. As soon as my father came to you, you should have said, “We need to tell Sylvie.” Then everything would have been different.’

I can’t help sounding accusing. I’ve developed a whole alternate universe in my head, where this is what happened, and somehow the situation made Dan and me stronger as a couple, instead of nearly splitting us up.

‘I should have told you?’ Dan stares at me incredulously, almost angrily. ‘Sylvie, do you have any idea … Your father would have killed me, for a start. The whole thing was a total secret from everybody. Even your mother didn’t want to know. All we were trying to do, round the clock, was contain it. Shut it down. Your father was after a knighthood, for God’s sake. He was adamant that no one could know about this scandal, least of all his daughter. And he really meant it. Can you imagine what kind of rage he was in?’

There’s a pause – then silently I nod. I can still remember the white-hot fury that would come into Daddy’s eyes. Not with me, never with his princess, but with others. And the idea of Daddy caged in by possible scandal … Yes, I can imagine.

‘And then, just when we were in the middle of it all … he had the crash. He was gone.’ Dan stops abruptly and I can see the remembered shock pass through him. ‘And there was no way I could have told you then.’

‘Yes you could,’ I say robustly. ‘That was the perfect time.’

‘Sylvie, you couldn’t cope as it was!’ Dan erupts furiously. ‘Do you remember what that time was like? Do you realize how worried I was? You were a bloody mess! If I’d come along and said, “Hey, guess what, you know your adored dad? The one you’ve gone into extreme grief over? Well, apparently he preyed on a sixteen-year-girl, or maybe he didn’t.”’ Dan rubs his face, hard. ‘I mean, Jesus. You were in meltdown, your mum was on another planet, what was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to do?’

He appeals to me directly, his face twisted up, as tentery as I’ve ever known it, and I can see years of strain in him. I can see all the decisions he’s been wrestling with. All alone.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, chastened. ‘I know. You did what you thought was best. And I realize it was out of love for me. But Dan … you were too protective.’

I can see Dan smarting at my words. All this time, he’s thought he was doing the right thing; the gallant thing; the best possible thing. It’s hard to hear that it wasn’t.

‘Perhaps,’ he allows after a pause.