bloody wedding DVD every time we come here, watching Daddy steal the show … Lucky? You and Daddy were lucky to gain such a fantastic son-in-law! Did you ever think of that?’
I break off, panting. I’m starting to lose control of myself. I don’t know what I’m going to say next. But I don’t care.
‘Don’t speak about your father like that!’ Mummy’s voice rockets shrilly through the room. ‘Do you know how much he loved you? Do you know how proud he was of you?’
‘If he’d loved me, he would have respected the man I love! He would have treated Dan like a proper family member, not like some … underling! He wouldn’t have lied about my imaginary friend because it was convenient for him!’ I stare at Mummy, my breath suddenly caught, my thoughts assembling themselves into a pattern which makes horrible sense. ‘I’m not even sure he loved me as a person in my own right. He loved me as a reflection of him. As part of the Marcus Lowe show. The princess to his king. But I’m me. I’m Sylvie.’
As I speak, I glance into one of Mummy’s gilt-framed mirrors, and see my reflection. My waist-length blonde hair, as girlish and wavy and princesslike as ever. It was Daddy who loved my hair. Daddy who stopped me cutting it.
Do I even like long hair?
Does long hair even suit me?
For a few moments I just stare at myself, barely breathing. Then, feeling heady and unreal, I walk to Mummy’s writing desk and reach for the handmade scissors I bought her for Christmas one year. I grab my hair with one hand and start to cut.
I’ve never felt so empowered in my life. In my life.
‘Sylvie?’ Mummy inhales in horror. ‘Sylvie. Sylvie!’ Her voice rises to a hysterical shriek. ‘What are you doing?’
I pause, my hand mid-snip, a length of blonde hair already on the floor. I look at it dispassionately, then raise my head to meet her eyes.
‘I’m growing up.’
SIXTEEN
I get through the rest of the day on autopilot. I pick the girls up from after-school club and try to laugh off their dismayed exclamations:
‘Mummy, what’s happened to your hair?’
‘Where’s your hair gone?’
‘When will you put it back?’ (Anna, blinking anxiously at me.) ‘Will you put it back now, Mummy? Now?’
And my first instinct is somehow to protect them. Soften the blow. I even find myself thinking, Should I buy a long blonde wig? Until reality hits me. I can’t protect the girls forever, and I shouldn’t. Stuff will happen in their lives that they don’t like. Shit happens. And they will have to cope. We all have to cope.
We eat supper and I put them to bed and then just sit on my bed – our bed – staring at the wall, until the events of the last few days overcome me like a wave over my head and I succumb to crying. Deep, heaving sobbing, my head buried in a pillow, as though I’m grieving all over again.
And I suppose I am grieving, in a way. But for what? For my lost real/imaginary friend Lynn? For the heroic father I thought I knew? For Dan? For our battered marriage? For the Sylvie I used to be, so blithe and innocent, tripping about the world with no bloody idea about anything?
My thoughts keep veering towards Daddy and Lynn and that whole issue … fabrication … whatever it was, but then I mentally jump away. I can’t deal with thinking about it. The whole thing is just surreal. Surreal.
And what I really care about – what I’m really fixating on, like a crazy obsessed person – is Dan. As evening turns into night and I finally get into bed, I can’t sleep. I’m staring up at the ceiling, words and phrases churning round my brain. I’m so sorry … I didn’t understand … You should have told me … If I’d known … If I’d only known …
He hasn’t replied to my voicemail. He hasn’t been in touch at all. I don’t blame him.
By morning I’ve dozed for a couple of hours and my face is deathly pale, but I get up as soon as the alarm goes, feeling wired. As I’m getting dressed for work, I automatically reach for one of my Mrs Kendrick-friendly sprigged dresses. Then I pause, my mind working hard. I push all my dresses aside and reach for a black suit with slim trousers and a well-cut jacket. I haven’t worn it for