years. It’s very much not a Mrs Kendrick sort of outfit. Which is exactly what I want.
My head has clarified overnight. I can see everything differently in the pale morning light. Not just me and Dan … and Daddy … and our marriage … but work. Who I am. What I’ve been doing.
And it needs changing. No more ladylike steps. No more convention. No more caution. I need to stride. I need to grab life. I need to make up for lost time.
I drop the girls at school and nod, smiling tightly, as everyone who didn’t see me last night gasps over my new chopped hair. Parents, teachers – even Miss Blake the headmistress as she passes by – all of them blanch in shock, then rearrange their faces hastily as they greet me. The truth is, it does look quite brutal. Even I was shocked anew when I saw myself in the mirror this morning. I say pleasantly, ‘Yes, I fancied a change,’ and ‘It needs a bit of tidying up,’ about six hundred times, and then escape.
I must book a proper haircut. I will do. But I have other things to do first.
As I arrive at Willoughby House, Clarissa’s jaw drops in horror.
‘Your hair, Sylvie!’ she exclaims. ‘Your hair!’
‘Yes.’ I nod. ‘My hair. I cut it off.’
‘Right. Gosh.’ She swallows. ‘It looks … lovely!’
‘You don’t have to lie.’ I smile, touched by her efforts. ‘It doesn’t look lovely. But it looks right. For me.’
Clarissa clearly has no idea what I mean – but then why should she?
‘Robert was wondering what you were up to yesterday,’ she says, eyeing me warily. ‘In fact, we were all wondering.’
‘I was cutting my hair off,’ I say, and head to the computer desk. The Books are stacked neatly in a pile and I grab them. They go back twelve years. That should be enough. Surely?
‘What are you doing?’ Clarissa is watching me curiously.
‘It’s time for somebody to take action,’ I say. ‘It’s time for one of us to do something.’ I swivel to face her. ‘Not just safe little actions … but big actions. Risky actions. Things we should have done a long time ago.’
‘Right,’ says Clarissa, looking taken aback. ‘Yes. Absolutely.’
‘I’ll be back later.’ I put the Books carefully into a tote bag. ‘Wish me luck.’
‘Good luck,’ echoes Clarissa obediently. ‘You look very businesslike,’ she adds suddenly, peering at me as though this is a new and alien idea. ‘That trouser suit. And the hair.’
‘Yes, well.’ I give her a wry smile. ‘It’s about time.’
I arrive at the Wilson–Cross Foundation with twenty minutes to spare. It’s an office in a white stucco house in Mayfair and has a staff of about twenty people. I have no idea what they all do – apart from have coffee with idiots like me at Claridge’s – but I don’t care. It’s not their staff I’m interested in. It’s their money.
The Trustees’ Meeting begins at eleven o’clock, as I know from consulting the Diary of Events that Susie Jackson sent me at the beginning of the year. I’ve heard her describe Trustees’ Meetings many times, over coffee, and she’s quite funny about them. The way the trustees won’t get down to business but keep chatting about schools and holidays. The way they misread figures but then pretend they haven’t. The way they’ll make a decision about a million pounds in a heartbeat, but then argue for half an hour about some tiny grant of five hundred pounds and whether it ‘fulfils the brief of the Foundation’. The way they gang up on each other. The trustees of the Wilson–Cross Foundation are very grand and important people – I’ve seen the list and it’s all Sir This and Dame That – but apparently they can behave like little children.
So, I know all this. I also know that today, the trustees are making grants of up to five million pounds. And that they’ll be listening to recommendations, including from Susie Jackson herself.
And what I know, above all, is that she owes us.
I’ve told the girl at the front desk that I have an appointment, and as Susie comes into the reception area, holding a thick white folder, she looks confused.
‘Sylvie! Hi! Your hair.’ Her eyes widen in revulsion, and I mentally allot her two out of ten in the Tactful Response category. (Ten out of ten goes to the girls’ headmistress, Miss Blake, who caught sight of me and was clearly shocked, but almost instantly said, ‘Mrs