me shiver. He grips me by the hips and he’s breathing hard and I think he would have me right here, right now. But we’re in Battersea Park, at a children’s party. Sometimes I think Dan forgets these things.
‘We’ve got another sixty-seven years and some,’ I remind him. ‘We’ll find another moment.’
‘I don’t want another moment.’ He buries his face in my neck.
‘Dan!’ I bat at him. ‘We’ll get arrested.’
‘Fine.’ He rolls his eyes comically. ‘Fine. Let’s go and drink our Prosecco. You could wash your face, too,’ he adds as we start slowly walking up the balloon-decorated path. ‘Not that “blood-stained zombie” isn’t a good look.’
‘Or else I could scare the children,’ I suggest. ‘I could be the slasher zombie clown.’
‘I like it.’ He nods, and reaches a hand to ruffle the nape of my neck. ‘I like this, too. I like it a lot.’
‘Good.’
‘A lot.’ He can’t seem to remove his hand from my shorn neck and his voice has descended to a kind of dark growl, and I suddenly think: Oh my God, was Dan a short-hair guy all the time and I never even knew?
‘The girls hate it, of course,’ I tell him.
‘Of course they do.’ Dan looks amused. ‘And Mrs Kendrick?’
‘Hates it too. Oh, that’s the other thing,’ I add, ‘I’m thinking of leaving my job.’
Dan stops dead and stares at me incredulously.
‘OK,’ he says at last. ‘Where is my wife and what have you done with her?’
‘Why?’ I meet his gaze head-on; challengingly. ‘Do you want her back?’ I have another sudden image of the princess-haired, bubble-Sylvie that I was. She already feels a lifetime ago.
‘No,’ says Dan without missing a beat. ‘You can keep her. This is the version I like.’
‘Me too.’ He still can’t keep his hands off my bare nape and I don’t want him to stop. My whole neck is tingling. My whole me is tingling. I should have cut my hair off years ago.
We’ve reached the party building by now. I can hear the shrieks of children and the chatter of parents and all the conversations that will swallow us up as soon as we enter. Dan pauses on the doorstep, his fingers resting on the back of my neck and I can see a deeply concentrating, scrubcious look pass over his face.
‘It’s not easy, is it?’ he says heavily, as though coming to some almighty conclusion. ‘Marriage. Love. It’s not easy.’
As he says it, Tilda’s words come back to me, and they’ve never seemed so true.
‘If love is easy …’ I hesitate. ‘You’re not doing it right.’
Dan looks down at me silently, and even though I’m not psychic Sylvie any more, I can see emotions jumbling through his eyes. Old anger. Tenderness. Love.
‘Well then, we must be fucking masters.’ He suddenly pulls me to him and kisses me hard, almost fiercely, like a statement of intent. A vow, almost. Then, at last, he releases me. ‘Come on. Let’s get that Prosecco.’
EIGHTEEN
The house is all alone on a cliff, with huge glass windows framing the sea view and a vast linen wrap-around sofa, and beautifully scented air. I’m sitting on one end of the sofa and Lynn is sitting facing me.
Jocelyn, I mean. I know she’s Joss. That’s what I call her, to her face. But as I stare at her, all I can think is: Lynn.
It’s like looking at a Magic Eye picture. There’s Joss. Famous Joss Burton, founder of Maze, whom I’ve seen on book covers and in magazine articles, with her trademark white streak of hair and dark, intelligent eyes. And then, glimmering underneath, there’s Lynn. Traces of my Lynn. In her smile, especially. Her laugh. The way she crinkles up her nose in thought. The way she uses her hands when she talks.
She’s Lynn. My made-up Lynn, come to life, never imaginary at all. It’s like seeing Father Christmas and my fairy godmother, all wrapped up in one elegant, real-life woman.
It’s not the first time I’ve seen her as an adult. We met up for the first time a month ago. But I’m still finding it surreal, being here; being with her.
‘I used to talk to you every day,’ I say, my hands wrapped around a cup of Maze chamomile tisane. ‘I used to tell you my problems. I used to lie in bed and conjure you up and just … talk to you.’
‘Was I helpful?’ Joss smiles in that way I remember: warm and just a little bit teasing.