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?’
‘Because that girl was making … accusations!’ Mummy’s voice is suddenly raw and harsh and her face takes on the ugliest expression I’ve ever seen, a kind of contorted disgust which chills me to my heart.
The next moment it’s disappeared. But I saw it. I can’t unsee it. I can’t unhear that voice.
Our life was so glittery. I could never see anything but the gloss, the fun, the luxury. My handsome father and beautiful mother. My charmed, enviable family. But now I’m seeing hectoring emails. Lying parents. An ugliness lurking underneath everything.
‘Is there any …’ I swallow hard. ‘Is there any … truth in what she says?’
‘Of course not.’ Mummy’s voice is harsh again, making me flinch. ‘Of course not. Of course not.’
‘So why—’
‘We had to leave Los Bosques Antiguos.’ Mummy turns her head away, staring at the corner of the room. ‘It was all so unpleasant. Unbearable. The girl told her parents her story, and obviously they believed her lurid tale. Well, you can imagine how they reacted. And they spread such vicious rumours among our friends … We couldn’t have that kind of … We had to leave.’
‘So you sold the house.’
‘I expect we would have sold anyway.’
‘And you told me Lynn was imaginary. You messed around with the mind of a four-year-old.’ My voice is pitiless.
‘You kept asking about her, Sylvie.’ Mummy has developed a twitch in her left eye and she smooths it away repeatedly. ‘Always asking, “Where’s Lynn?” Singing that wretched song.’
‘“Kumbaya”,’ I say quietly.
‘It drove your father mad. It drove both of us mad. How could we