Chapter 6

      I’m not the best at being sensible, or doing paperwork, or generally behaving like a grown-up. Whatever elements of those things I do possess, I need to use for my work, and for my mum. For those two, I have to be good – I have to keep up to date on appointments, and qualifications, and news, and fill in forms, and respond to queries.

      In my own life, though, there is something of a more relaxed attitude. Like I have no idea where my birth certificate is, and I don’t have a lawyer, and I’m not registered with a dentist, and I keep all my important papers crammed into a plastic carrier bag so old it’s starting to disintegrate. I’ve even let my passport expire – although I think that might be accidentally on purpose, to remove the temptation to ever do a runner.

      None of this helps when attempting to navigate a tricky legal situation involving ending a marriage carried out in a foreign country. Luckily, what I do have is Tom – Willow’s boyf and the owner of Briarwood.

      Tom is a tech geek, and it was him who tracked me and Van down last year so Willow could tell us about Lynnie’s situation. He’s quiet and shy until you know him, super clever, and absolutely 100 per cent the shizz when it comes to stuff like this.

      With his help, I take the first steps towards doing something I should have done years ago – getting out of a long-dead marriage. He helps me find out what I need to do, and he sets me up with a solicitor to help me do it, and he basically stands over me until I’ve started the first raft of paperwork.

      When it’s done – when those first tentative steps are taken – I feel really weird. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d buried the whole thing. I’d trained myself not to give it much head space – because, given half a chance, Seb and my time with him would sneak right into that head space, and take it over, like some evil alien virus in a space station lab.

      Don’t get me wrong, I think about him every day. But I’ve developed the astonishing ability to derail that particular train of thought every single time it appears on the tracks. It’s one of the reasons why I’m so twitchy all the time – I’m never still, and I know it drives people mad. I’m always biting my nails or tapping my toes or smoking or waving my hands or moving around in some way.

      It’s like I’m entirely made of nervous tics and mental self-defence mechanisms that allow me to function, and the way they show up to the outside world is through this constant jigging about.

      After Tom has helped me, after I’m forced to re-engage with the whole thing, I feel some kind of strange meltdown going on inside me. It’s like all my internal organs and my brain start to liquefy. I can barely move, or think, or do anything other than lie on my bed in the cottage I share with Lynnie and Willow and Van, and stare at the ceiling.

      I don’t suppose it helps that I’m staring at a ceiling I’m already familiar with, in the cottage where I spent most of my childhood. It’s like I’ve come full circle, and everything in between leaving here in my late teens and being back in my early thirties never happened. Like there’s this whole part of my life that I maybe dreamt, or imagined, or read in a book.

      After almost an hour of tossing and turning and kicking the duvet and running a marathon while stationary, I glance at my phone, and see that it’s just after 8p.m. Not late enough to go to sleep, even if I was capable of shutting down my brain long enough for that to happen.

      I chew my lip for a minute to fill in time, and allow myself a moment to rethink, before calling Finn. When he answers, I can hear whooping and cheering in the background.

      ‘What happened?’ I ask, genuinely interested. The boffins at Briarwood are working on all kinds of interesting projects. ‘Did they invent a new kind of jet engine? Cure for cancer? Phone that doesn’t let you dial when drunk?’

      ‘No,’ he replies, sounding amused. ‘They built a whack-a-mole where Star Wars characters pop up out of the holes. They’re busy smashing Darth Vader up with mallets.’

      ‘Oh,’ I reply, slightly disappointed.

      ‘Well, to be fair, the whack-a-mole heads are interchangeable – so you could have Marvel, or Disney, or whatever, depending on what licensing you could get. The marketing plan is to sell them as customised – so you could buy one with the faces of your enemies on, like your boss or your ex or your little brother.’

      ‘That could definitely work,’ I say. ‘The possibilities are endless. It could be a very useful tool in anger-management classes, don’t you think? They should pitch it to psychiatrists. And head teachers! I bet it’d be a great thing to have in a school for letting out some pent-up rage.’

      ‘I’ll pass on your very valid suggestions to the team. There’s a long way to go yet, they need to check if they can patent it or if anyone else already has, that kind of thing. Anyway. What can I do for you, my tiny pickled herring?’

      ‘Erm … I’m not sure. Some stuff’s happened. Feel a bit weird. Feel a bit trapped in the cottage. Just wanted to talk to someone in the outside world to prove it still exists.’

      ‘You do sound weird. Weirder than usual. Have you had anything to eat today?’ ‘Yes, of course!’ I reply, outraged but also doing a silent recount of my calorific intake and finding it lacking.

      ‘Anything other than a whistle pop?’

      ‘Well … not much more, to be honest. Lynnie insisted on cooking tonight, and made a lentil pie with sugar instead of salt. We all had to pretend to like it and secretly throw it away afterwards. Except Van – I think he actually liked it, the freak.’

      The background noise has died down, and I can tell he’s walked outside. I picture him standing there, by the fountain outside the main house, in the rapidly fading light.

      ‘I’ll come and get you,’ he says, ‘in about an hour. I’ll make sure the kids are all right, and I’ll see you then. Wrap up warm.’

      I agree, blow some kisses down the phone, and flop back down onto the bed. Obviously, being the very definition of contrary, my body decides that it’s now very very tired, and would quite like to go to sleep.

      I drag myself up, and into the shower, and into jeans and a T-shirt and a thick fluffy jumper with red and black horizontal stripes on it. It makes me look like a bumblebee that’s gone over to the dark side.

      When I wander through to the living room, Mum and Willow are both crashed out watching Wizards of Waverley Place. Mum’s developed this strange taste for teen TV shows since she’s been ill, and sadly she’s sucked us all into her evil world of cute kids who live on boats and sweetly dysfunctional families and cheerleaders and nerds.

      Lynnie looks up at me as I enter, and I see the quick momentary confusion flicker across her face. I reach up and touch my hair, pretending I’m tucking it behind my ears, and tonight at least, it’s enough. She sees and registers the red hair. She smiles, her eyes lighting up as she recognises me. It’s heartbreaking and lovely at the same time.

      ‘You look like Dennis the Menace, Auburn,’ she says, pointing at my sweater. ‘If he was transgender.’

      ‘Why thank you, Mother,’ I reply, giving her a little twirl. ‘That’s exactly what I was aiming for. I’m popping out for a bit with Finn, is that okay with you two?’

      Of course, what I actually mean is ‘Is that okay with you, Willow’, as she’ll be the one left with Mum. Van’s outside, in the VW camper van man-cave he calls home, so she’ll have help if she needs it – but