Page 98 of The Two Lives of Lydia Bird

‘I think that’s the least of his worries,’ Mum laughs.

Phil is on a throne in the corner being mobbed by two-year-olds all desperate to lodge their Christmas demands. Ryan is turning out to be terrible at queue management, unable to organize people who barely reach his green Lycra-clad knee. In fact, they’re crawling up him, using him like a climbing frame to launch themselves at Phil. He looks across at me, all big eyes and ‘help me’ hands, but I just laugh and throw him a double thumbs-up.

‘I think we need to call the police,’ Julia says. ‘The small people are out of control. There’s jelly on the new rug.’

That isn’t what I see though. I see my library full of people, and my friends and family all gathered to support me. I see knackered parents leaning on the bookshelves getting to know each other with a glass of punch in their hands, and I see kids fizzing with the joy and anticipation of the season. What I see is life. Noisy, messy, complicated life, and I love it.

Tuesday 31 December

‘See you tomorrow,’ I say, waving madly at Elle and Charlotte until the call cuts at her end. She’s grown ridiculously fast – Charlotte that is – filling out all her creases with juicy, gorgeous baby rolls. We’re spending the first day of the New Year together tomorrow, lunch at Mum’s. Stef’s coming too. I’ve met him a few times now, thankfully with his shirt on, and I really like him. He’s not much of a talker but what he does say is usually quite pithy; his dark sense of humour appeals to me.

Tonight, though, it’s just me and a glass of fizz. Jonah is still in LA; we talked a couple of days ago and even managed to make light of the fact that he isn’t able to come and bang on my door at midnight this New Year’s Eve. God, that feels like so much more than a year ago. I feel snake-like, as if I’ve shed a whole layer of myself and emerged the same but different, part of me left behind.

It’s been three months since I last walked through the back door to another universe. I’ve done a lot of thinking since then; I’ve even been for a couple of sessions with a therapist. I told her everything – about the pills, the lot – and to her credit she didn’t reach under her desk and feel for the panic button.

I’ve made my peace with the fact that I’ll never know for certain if the pink pills truly allowed me to move between worlds, if they inadvertently illuminated the flightpath to another world beyond our own.

I’ve also made my peace with the possibility that it was a sophisticated self-preservation strategy, vivid lucid dreams as my subconscious unjumbled my thoughts, layering my actual life over an alternative version. It could have been that; my new therapist certainly thinks so. But you know what? I wouldn’t stake my life on it.

I step out of my back door before I turn in, and I scan the clear night sky. If Jonah was here, he’d be able to point out the planets and far-away constellations, but it’s enough for me to just look up and let my eyes travel slowly across the darkness. It’s really quite something. Every now and then, if I narrow my eyes and try hard enough, I think I catch a glimpse of something, the faint outline of a door standing ajar. I imagine myself there, so close to it I can hear distant voices; the rumble of familiar laughter, the excited shriek of a child. I smile as I pull the door gently shut, then I turn the key and let it float away across the stars.

2020

* * *

Thursday 2 January

I’m in a turkey- and gin-related slump. Yesterday’s lunch at Mum’s turned into a bit of an all-day party; half the neighbours came in and there may or may not have been an ill-advised conga along the icy pavements, all very silly and led by Stef of all people, who it seems turns into a party animal after a couple of drinks.

And now I’m home again and I’ve got a tender head, a house-brick-sized parcel of turkey in the fridge and the esteemed Turpin as a companion.

‘Shawshank Redemption or James Bond?’ I ask him.

He stares at me from his favoured perch on Freddie’s chair.

‘Wink once for Bond, twice for Shawshank?’ I suggest, amusing myself even as he ignores me.

‘You’re a tough audience,’ I tell him. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to go back and see what Agnes is doing?’

I think he recognizes my tone as sarcasm and turns his backside towards me.

‘Fine,’ I mutter. ‘I’ll decide myself.’

I’m trying to work up the energy to go for a walk. I’ve got that post-party lethargy, and because it’s a brand-new year I feel obliged to at least attempt to shake it off and make something of the day. My conviction carries me as far as the front step, new striped bobble hat and woolly gloves on courtesy of my mum. She gave Elle a similar but different set, and we switched them when she wasn’t looking. Left or right? Shops or park? I’ve no real intention or destination, so I just strike out towards the corner, and as I do someone else rounds it towards me.

He’s tall, his shoulders bunched into his coat and scarf, but even from this distance I recognize him. Jonah Jones looks my way and I see the precise moment he knows it’s me under all these stripes; he slows for a moment and then speeds up until we meet in the middle.

‘What are you doing here?’ I reach out and clutch him by the arms, incredulous, blindsided by the sight of him in person after seeing him so often on the small screen. ‘You’re in LA!’

He laughs, pulling his navy woollen hat off. He needs a haircut, as usual, but my God, his unguarded smile is a sight for my sore eyes. I don’t think I’d gauged from the iPad screen quite how much he’d caught the sun or how much LA has given him his spark back. He’s not the same man who boarded the plane all those months ago. He isn’t the Jonah I remember as Freddie’s sidekick, either. He looks older, more grown-up, as if he’s stepped into bigger shoes and found them a better fit.

‘Evidently I’m not,’ he grins. ‘All that wall-to-wall sunshine, Lyds, it drives you nuts.’

‘You’ve come to the right place then.’ I can’t stop looking at him. ‘I’m just so glad to see you, Jonah.’ I shake my head, still in shock.

‘You too,’ he says. ‘Come here.’

He pulls me into his arms, and honestly, it’s like a dam bursting. It’s not a polite hug. It’s a ‘you matter to me, I can’t believe you’re here, let me look at you, you’ve just brightened my world’ hug. We rock and we laugh, and eventually I step backwards, thrilled to my bones.

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