Page 99 of The Two Lives of Lydia Bird

He reaches out and pulls my bobble hat off.

‘Wow,’ he says. ‘It’s like feathers. I love it.’

He’s seen my haircut countless times on-screen but this is the first time in person.

I run my hand over it, self-conscious. ‘I miss my long hair in this weather,’ I say.

He pulls my hat back on over my ears. ‘Better?’

I nod. ‘Better.’

‘Were you going somewhere?’ he asks.

I blink, trying to remember. ‘Not really. Just blowing away the cobwebs, making sure my legs still work, that kind of thing.’

‘That kind of New Year?’ he says.

‘Lunch at Mum’s got a bit out of hand yesterday,’ I laugh. ‘Headache today.’

He rubs his cold hands together. ‘I was coming to see you,’ he says. ‘I can come back later though, if you like? Or tomorrow?’

‘No,’ I jump in. ‘God, no. Come on, let’s go inside, it’s too cold out here anyway. I don’t know what I was thinking.’

I slide my arm through his as we turn towards mine. ‘Shawshank Redemption or Bond?’ I say. ‘You can choose.’

He screws his nose up. ‘Which Bond?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘James?’

Jonah shakes his head, laughing as I slide the key into the lock. ‘Happy New Year, Lyds.’

I turn back and smile.

‘You too, Jonah.’

In the background, Roger Moore messes around with a guy with metal teeth, and in the foreground, Jonah and I sit either end of the sofa and trade news as we work our way through a pile of turkey sandwiches.

I tell him silly work stories about Flo and Mary and show him pictures of Charlotte on my phone, and he tells me he spent last night at The Prince catching up with Deckers and co, who haven’t changed at all. Which is odd really, because Jonah and I are barely recognizable as the people we were a couple of years ago. I listen and nod in the right places, building up to asking him the things I really want the answers to.

‘Lion King?’ he says, flicking through the TV guide. ‘Or some shite about midwives?’

‘Er, hello?’ I say. ‘Who in this room delivered a baby with her bare hands last summer?’

Jonah lays the guide down. ‘God, I’d forgotten you did that,’ he says. ‘And with your bare hands too. You’re an everyday miracle worker, Lyds.’ He laughs as he tilts the neck of his beer towards me in salute.

‘I’ll take that,’ I say, gracious.

‘Good,’ he says. ‘It’s true.’

‘So …’ I sit up straighter, cross-legged on the sofa facing him. ‘What’s really brought you home, Jonah?’

He picks at the corner of the label on his beer bottle. ‘I just needed to clear my head.’

I take an educated guess. ‘Script woes again?’

‘Yeah,’ he sighs. I know he’s sometimes found it difficult to walk the line between staying true to his story and accepting the studio’s vision for the script, but he hadn’t mentioned anything about this lately.

‘I thought you’d ironed all that out?’

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