Surprise Me(108)

‘He didn’t like that I’d seen beneath the glossy veneer,’ says Dan slowly. ‘He couldn’t really stand it.’

The sound of shrieking heralds the children, who are being ushered off the apparatus and into a room decorated with balloons. As they pass by, both Tessa and Anna gasp at the sight of us, as though it’s been several days since we saw each other.

‘Mummy, you got a hurt!’ says Tessa.

‘Just a tiny one!’ I call back. ‘I’ll get a plaster and it will all get better.’

‘Look, that’s my daddy! He’s there!’ Anna points at Dan, and all the children turn to gawp at us as though we’re celebrities, despite the fact that they see us pretty much every day at school, and all the other parents are here, too.

‘Should we go in with them?’ I say to Dan, my parental radar tweaking. ‘Are we supposed to be at the tea?’

‘No. They’ll be fine.’

We wave as they file into the party room – I can just about hear Tessa boasting, ‘My mummy always climbs up ladders’ – and then look at each other, as though we’re starting again.

I feel like another layer has been stripped off. The guarded look has gone from Dan’s eyes. As he meets my gaze, there’s a new honesty in them. With every revelation I understand Dan better; I learn more about him; I want to learn more about him. John’s voice runs through my head: Love is finding one person infinitely fascinating.

He’s my man. My Dan. The sun in my solar system. And I know he used to be eclipsed at times by a bigger, showier sun, and maybe that was always our problem. But now I can’t think how I ever compared Daddy to Dan, even in the privacy of my own brain, and found Dan lesser. Dan is my sun. Dan wins on every, every, every count …

‘Sylvie?’ Dan interrupts my thoughts and I realize that tears are streaming down my face.

‘Sorry,’ I gulp, brushing at my cheeks. ‘Just thinking about … You know. Us.’

‘Oh, us.’ His eyes lock on to mine and again, there’s that new truth to his gaze: an acknowledgement. It’s a different connection. We’re different. Both of us.

‘So what now?’ I venture at last.

‘Sixty-eight years, minus, what, a few weeks?’ says Dan at last, in unreadable tones. ‘It’s still a long time.’

I nod. ‘I know.’

‘Bloody long time. I mean, Jeez.’

‘Yup.’

Dan’s silent for a moment and I almost can’t breathe. Then he looks up and there’s something in his eyes which makes my heart twitch and tangle up in knots.

‘I’m up for it if you are.’

‘I am.’ I nod again, barely able to speak. ‘I am. I’m up for it.’

‘OK, then.’

‘OK.’

Dan hesitates, then lifts his hand and gently touches my fingertips, and my skin starts fizzing in a way I really wasn’t expecting. What’s happened to my nerve endings? To me? Everything feels brand new. Unpredictable. Dan starts nibbling my fingers, his eyes never leaving mine, and I stare back, transfixed, wanting more. Wanting to get a room. Wanting to rediscover this man that I love.

‘Sylvie? Dan? Are you coming in for tea?’ A cheery voice hails us and we both jerk round in shock to see the birthday girl’s mother, a woman called Gill, waving at us from the door of the party room. ‘We’ve got nibbles for parents, Prosecco …’

‘Maybe in a minute!’ calls back Dan politely. ‘By which I mean, “Can’t you see we’re busy?”’ he adds in a voice that only I can hear.

‘Don’t be like that,’ I say reprovingly. ‘She’s offering Prosecco.’

‘I don’t want Prosecco, I want you. Now.’ His eyes are running over me with a greed I haven’t seen in years; an urgency that makes 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.’