‘Oh God. Yes.’ Dan closes his eyes. ‘Yes, I didn’t mean that. I just …’ He pauses and I wait fearfully. ‘It was all becoming—’ He breaks off again, looking towards the sky.
I can’t finish his sentence in perfect, overlapping sync. Psychic Sylvie, who knew everything, has vanished. And now that the exhilaration of climbing up thirty feet has worn off, I can see us for what we are. A married couple from south-west London who have hit the buffers. Trying to sort it out. Finding our way. Not there yet.
‘I know it’s been an “ongoing nightmare”,’ I say at last. ‘Mary Holland told me.’
‘Oh, “nightmare” is probably too strong.’ Dan rubs his face, looking suddenly weary. ‘But it’s endless. I have your mother on at me every day. Emails from the lawyers, Joss Burton’s agent … This book is going to happen. And it’s going to be huge. She’s a big deal, Sylvie, and I’m not sure I can stop it this time.’
He looks so troubled, I should say something sympathetic, but my residual anger’s too great and I can’t help rounding on him in turn: ‘So why didn’t you tell me?’ Because it’s Dan who kept secrets, who drove wedges between us, who kept flicking to another page when I tried to read his whole story. ‘You should have told me right from the start. As soon as my father came to you, you should have said, “We need to tell Sylvie.” Then everything would have been different.’
I can’t help sounding accusing. I’ve developed a whole alternate universe in my head, where this is what happened, and somehow the situation made Dan and me stronger as a couple, instead of nearly splitting us up.
‘I should have told you?’ Dan stares at me incredulously, almost angrily. ‘Sylvie, do you have any idea … Your father would have killed me, for a start. The whole thing was a total secret from everybody. Even your mother didn’t want to know. All we were trying to do, round the clock, was contain it. Shut it down. Your father was after a knighthood, for God’s sake. He was adamant that no one could know about this scandal, least of all his daughter. And he really meant it. Can you imagine what kind of rage he was in?’
There’s a pause – then silently I nod. I can still remember the white-hot fury that would come into Daddy’s eyes. Not with me, never with his princess, but with others. And the idea of Daddy caged in by possible scandal … Yes, I can imagine.
‘And then, just when we were in the middle of it all … he had the crash. He was gone.’ Dan stops abruptly and I can see the remembered shock pass through him. ‘And there was no way I could have told you then.’
‘Yes you could,’ I say robustly. ‘That was the perfect time.’
‘Sylvie, you couldn’t cope as it was!’ Dan erupts furiously. ‘Do you remember what that time was like? Do you realize how worried I was? You were a bloody mess! If I’d come along and said, “Hey, guess what, you know your adored dad? The one you’ve gone into extreme grief over? Well, apparently he preyed on a sixteen-year-girl, or maybe he didn’t.”’ Dan rubs his face, hard. ‘I mean, Jesus. You were in meltdown, your mum was on another planet, what was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to do?’
He appeals to me directly, his face twisted up, as tentery as I’ve ever known it, and I can see years of strain in him. I can see all the decisions he’s been wrestling with. All alone.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, chastened. ‘I know. You did what you thought was best. And I realize it was out of love for me. But Dan … you were too protective.’
I can see Dan smarting at my words. All this time, he’s thought he was doing the right thing; the gallant thing; the best possible thing. It’s hard to hear that it wasn’t.
‘Perhaps,’ he allows after a pause.
‘You were,’ I insist. ‘And we need to stop talking about my “episode”. We need to accept that grief happens. Shit happens; life happens. And glossing over it or trying to say it’s an illness isn’t the way to go. Better to acknowledge it. Cope with it. Clear it up together.’
I have a sudden image of Dan and me working together with brooms, side by side, hot and sweaty and determined. It’s not the most romantic, Hallmark image of marriage … but it’s what I want us to be.
I can see Dan digesting what I’m saying – or at least trying to. It’ll probably take a while.
‘Fair enough,’ he says at last. ‘Maybe you’re right.’ Then his face changes; becomes a little more tense. ‘Have you seen what she wrote?’
‘Skimmed it,’ I say, looking at the ground.
The big question is sitting there in the air between us. I know he’s never going to broach it, so I have to. I take a breath, gearing myself up, preparing myself for his answer, whatever it is. ‘Do you think it’s true?’
At once his face closes up again, like a clam. ‘Don’t know,’ he says distantly. ‘It’s his word against hers. It’s a long time ago. Probably not worth speculating.’
‘But you’ve read everything she wrote.’ I peer at his face, trying to read it. ‘What do you think?’
Dan looks even more tortured. ‘I don’t like talking about this with you. It’s …’
‘Sordid,’ I say flatly. ‘It’s not what my family was supposed to be about. We were supposed to be the gilded, perfect ones, right?’
Dan winces, but doesn’t contradict me. God, he’s had a fucked-up view of my family. Ridiculous brunches with Mummy. Endless viewings of Daddy on that DVD, all golden and handsome. And all the while, scrabbling around with lawyers to keep our dirty washing out of sight.
‘I’m going to read all the files,’ I say. ‘Everything she’s written, everything she’s said. Every word.’
Dan looks appalled. ‘That’s not a good idea—’
‘I’m going to.’ I cut him off. ‘I have to know. Don’t worry, I won’t flip out. You know she was “Lynn”?’ I add, hunching my arms round my body. ‘My parents lied to me.’
‘I know.’ Dan grimaces. ‘That was the worst bit of all. Hearing you talk about your imaginary friend, and knowing …’ He shakes his head. ‘That was messed up.’
‘I felt guilty about Lynn my whole childhood. I felt ashamed and confused and stupid.’ My jaw grows tight at the memory. ‘And I will never forgive him for that, never.’ I speak the words viciously and look up to see Dan regarding me anxiously.
‘Sylvie, don’t go overboard. Don’t go too far the other way. I know this is all shocking. But he was still your dad, remember? You loved him, remember?’
I prod my feelings. My feelings about Daddy. I wait for the familiar torrent of grief and love and fury that he’s been taken from us. But there’s nothing. It’s as though the flow has been cut off at the mains.
‘Maybe I did.’ I watch a guy on rollerblades in the park trying to go backwards. ‘Maybe I will one day again. That’s all I can say, for now.’ I shoot him a sidelong look. ‘I never understood what went wrong with you and Daddy. Now I get it.’
Dan gives me a wry smile. ‘I thought I concealed my feelings perfectly.’
‘Not so much.’ I return his smile, but inside, I’m rewinding over the years, back to when Dan discovered all this; got dragged into a side street of our family map that he was never expecting. ‘It must have been awful for you.’
‘It wasn’t great,’ says Dan, his eyes distant. ‘I idolized your dad too, you know, in my own way. He was such a hero. So when these allegations came along, at first I was shocked. I wanted to defend him. I was glad to defend him. I actually thought it would be a way for us to become closer. Until …’ He gives a humourless laugh. ‘Well. Let’s just say … we didn’t.’
I nod bleakly. ‘I’ve read his emails to you. I know.’