Page 102 of The Two Lives of Lydia Bird

‘Did you send him any back?’

She raises her eyebrows. ‘Do I look like a girl who’d write mucky letters, Lydia?’

‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ I say, and she just laughs and taps the side of her nose.

We look up as the doors open and a class from the local primary troop in, filling the library with noise and wet wellingtons.

Turpin covered himself in glory just now when I emptied the contents of my old school bag out on to the rug. I’ve been up to the loft and I’m pretty sure what I’m searching for is in here somewhere. A dried-up Lypsyl, a magazine with a band on the front I can’t remember the name of, a pre-smartphone envelope of photos. I delved deeper to lift out the stuff at the bottom and one of those things happened to be a spider the size of Jupiter. Already jittery from venturing into the loft, I let out a scream as I shook it off my arm, alerting the cat, who shot off Freddie’s chair and landed on it with terrifying precision. I can’t say for sure if he squashed or ate it, but I don’t think it’s going to be troubling me any time soon.

I take a few deep breaths now and sit down on the rug, my teen life spread around me. Exercise books covered in doodles and graffiti; I flick through them, nostalgic for easier days. My careful handwriting, bubble dots above the i’s, red ruler lines, teacher’s marks in green. For a girl who didn’t like chemistry, I scored pretty well in the homework I copied off Jonah Jones. I set the books aside and pick up the thing I went to the loft in search of: a small wooden music box decorated with colourful painted birds.

It’s been years since Jonah gave me this for my birthday. At the time he told me he saw it in a charity shop window and thought I might like it because of the birds and all; nonchalant, no big deal. I accepted it in the spirit it was given and used it to stash the bracelet Freddie gave me that same morning. It isn’t in there any more, lost somewhere along the passage of years. I pause to smile when I find the yellow plastic flower ring Freddie gave me, and a couple of knotted necklaces and a pair of earrings I think might have been Elle’s rather than mine. Nothing else of worth or note except, underneath them all, a small, smooth pebble. I take it out and lay it in the palm of my hand. It’s pale grey and marbled with white, no bigger than a Brazil nut. It’s nothing special to look at, but as I close my hand around it I remember the day Jonah slipped it into my palm as we filed into the school hall for our first exam. For luck, he whispered, folding it into my shaking fingers.

I glance at my mobile on the coffee table. I haven’t heard from Jonah since he flew out on Saturday. I don’t think I will. He left me with his manuscript, the trace of his kiss on my forehead and the ball in my court. I think back to my earlier conversation with Flo, to those letters she still has in a shoebox in her wardrobe.

Something soul-deep and undeniable has shifted inside me lately when it comes to Jonah Jones. I’ve realized that you can love people in different ways at different times of your life. He’s my oldest friend, but I turned to him as a man the other night. I turned to him in the small hours of the morning as someone I love, and he gave me sanctuary and protection without question.

I turn the small grey pebble over and over, thinking about the ending to the story he’s written, and then I get up and find some paper and a pen. Words have always been Jonah’s thing, really, not mine, but maybe tonight I can find the right words for both of us.

Dear Jonah,

So, I read the manuscript and I love it – of course I do. I cried on page one, and to be honest, all the way through, because Freddie is there on every page. You’ve brought him, and us, to life with your magic words.

I’m not surprised people have fallen in love with your story. I have too – I’m so very, terribly proud of you. But, Jonah, here’s the thing. I think they’re right – you should change the ending.

Every story has a beginning, a middle and, if you’re lucky, a happy ending – your characters deserve that much after everything they’ve been through. Your audience does too. Let people leave the theatre with empty popcorn buckets but hearts full of hope, because surely there’s more than one happy ending for everyone?

I wish I could say all of this to you in person, but I think we both know Phil would fire me if I asked for any more time off at the moment! Besides … some things are difficult to say out loud, so maybe it’s as well.

You and me … it’s complicated, isn’t it? But then again it isn’t, really, when you think about it. We both loved Freddie – if he was still here, I’d be his wife and you’d be his best friend, and I don’t for a minute think that would have ever changed. We’d have all grown old, although I don’t think he’d have ever truly grown up.

But he isn’t here. There’s just you and me. We’re for ever changed because we loved him, and things changed for ever because we lost him. But aren’t we lucky to have shared so much? We have a for-ever bond. I can’t imagine sharing my life with someone who didn’t know him.

Change the ending, Jonah.

Love Lydia x

Wednesday 29 January

I almost didn’t mail the letter, because I’m not sure our friendship can survive it. I queued in the post office, anxious, and in front of me a small child reached up and slid his hand into his mum’s. It reminded me of that grey pebble being slipped into my hand for luck, and it gave me just enough courage to pass the letter over.

That was more than three weeks ago and he hasn’t replied. I’ve imagined any number of reasons why. Perhaps the letter got lost in the post and he’s out there in LA thinking I haven’t bothered to read the script – or worse, that I read it and hate it. Or maybe he’s got it and he’s mortified because I’ve read the signs all wrong and he doesn’t know how to let me down gently. Or it could be that he’s moved to Vegas and married a showgirl, my letter still unopened on his doormat. If it’s that one, I hope someone does me the kindness of scrawling ‘return to sender’ on the envelope.

‘I wish your mother had never introduced me to these,’ Ryan says, unwrapping his mint biscuit. He’s surreptitiously eating his lunch behind the front desk in the library, breaking my no food or drink rule. I don’t mind; he comes down every now and then to spend his lunch break with us, drawn as much by Flo and Mary as me, I suspect. They’re both in this afternoon, sitting either side of Ryan behind the desk.

‘How’s it going with Kate?’ I ask. He’s been seeing Kate, the Uma-Thurman lookalike who ran the speed-dating sessions, for a while now. They bumped into each other in the supermarket a couple of months after the event; as he tells it their eyes met over the cucumbers, but I think he’s embroidering the truth for the sake of comedy.

‘Good.’ His ears turn pink. ‘She’s …’ He puts his biscuit down while he thinks. ‘You know that place in town next to the dry-cleaner’s?’

I frown as I try to bring the high street to mind. ‘The butcher’s?’

‘Best pork pies for miles,’ Mary says.

Ryan rolls his eyes. ‘The other side.’

‘The fancy-dress shop?’ I say.

Ryan nods. ‘She’s into all that stuff.’

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