As Joss pours fresh tisane into my cup, I glance towards the stunning view of a cliff top giving way to endless pale-grey December sky with churning sea beneath. I’m deliberately testing myself and, to my own satisfaction, my heart remains quite steady. I’ve had a full course of therapy and lots of practice – and while I’ll never be the type to dance merrily across a tightrope, I’m a lot better with heights now. A lot better.
And I still see the counsellor who helped me. Once a week, I knock on her door, looking forward to the session, knowing I should have done this years ago. Because it turns out she’s pretty good at talking about issues other than heights. Like fathers. Imaginary friends. Old alleged affairs. That kind of thing.
Of course, I’ve read everything now. First I read Through the High Maze, cover to cover, twice over, searching for clues; reading between the lines. Then I went into Avory Milton and read Joss’s whole account of the episode with Daddy. It took a morning, because I kept breaking off. I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it. I did believe it. I hated myself for believing it.
It was weeks before everything properly shook down in my head. And now I think …
What do I think?
I exhale as my thoughts describe the same circle they have done constantly, ever since that day I went to see Mary Smith-Sullivan.
I think Joss is a truthful person. That’s what I think. Whether every single detail is accurate, I can’t know. But she’s truthful. Mary Smith-Sullivan isn’t as convinced. She keeps saying to me: ‘It’s her word against his.’ Which is right, and it’s her job as a lawyer to protect her client and I understand that.
But the thing is, it’s Joss’s words which feel true. As I read her story, little details of what he’d said and how he’d behaved kept jumping out at me. I kept thinking: That’s Daddy. And: Yes, that’s just how it was. And then I found myself thinking: How would our sixteen-year-old holiday neighbour know Daddy so well? And it led me logically to one place.
I came to that conclusion four months ago and went to bed feeling numb. I couldn’t even talk to Dan about it. But the next day I woke up with my mind totally clear, and before I’d even left for work, I’d written a letter to Joss. She phoned me up as soon as she got it and we spoke for an hour. I cried. I’m not sure if she did, because she’s one of those very tranquil people who has found their way through the maelstrom. (That’s a quote from Through the High Maze.) But her voice shook. Her voice definitely shook. She said she’d thought of me a lot, over the years.
Then we met in London and had a cup of tea together. We were both nervous, I think, although Joss hid it better than I did. Dan said he was happy to come as moral support, but I said ‘no’. And actually, if he’d been there, I would never have had that amazing chat I did with Joss. She told me that Dan, all along, had been the one positive force in the whole matter. She said he’d persuaded her that the affair with my father wasn’t necessary to the powerful story she was telling in Through the High Maze, and it might even detract.
‘Do you know?’ she said then, her eyes shining. ‘He was right. I know he was trying to defend your father, but he made a good point, too. I’m glad I didn’t make that book about my teenage self.’
There was a pause, and I wondered if she was about to say she wouldn’t ever tell that part of her story and I needn’t worry any more. But then she pulled out a huge bound sheaf of papers, and I could see the wary look in her eye and I instantly knew. ‘This is the proof of the new book,’ she said. ‘I want you to read it.’
And so I read it.
I don’t know how I did it so calmly. If I’d read it a few months ago, with no warning, it would have freaked me out. I probably would have thrown it across the room. But I’ve changed. Everything’s changed.
‘Sylvie, your last email troubled me,’ Joss says as she puts down the teapot. She has a way of talking which