‘Molly said he’s this boy who can fly, but if he ever starts to doubt he can fly, he won’t be able to do it any more.’ Felix pauses, pulling his duvet up to his chin. ‘Do you still believe in the portal, Mummy?’
I’m quiet for a moment, before saying, ‘Honestly, I don’t know. Why?’
Felix shifts on the bed, hugging his cuddly armadillo. ‘I don’t mind if you want to stay, if you like it here now. You’ll be my mummy either way. But I think if you stop believing, and start remembering stuff, it might be like Peter Pan not being able to get back to Neverland.’ Felix bites his lip. ‘That’s what Molly thinks anyway, and she’s the smartest person I know.’
‘Smarter than me?’ I say, smiling.
‘Yeah, she knows her thirteen-times table and everything.’
‘Well, she is definitely smarter than me, then,’ I say, kissing Felix on the head and turning on his night light. ‘I think we’ll be okay, Felix, whatever happens. Night night.’
But as I shut his bedroom door, I feel a nagging pull of panic in my chest. Over the last few days, I haven’t thought about going back at all. I haven’t even checked the forum recently. I logged out because I was getting too much spam. Is Felix right? Have I stopped believing I can fly?
Sam is out teaching his tai chi class, so I put a wash on, then empty the dishwasher, for what seems like the thousandth time this week. I lay out Felix’s sports kit ready for the next day, wipe down all the surfaces in the kitchen, then I really should sit at my desk, do a few hours’ work, but first, I take a minute to log in to the arcade game forum. There are no new messages, but even checking reassures me I have not given up.
On Friday I do a trial presentation of The House Is Going to Get You. I’ve spent ages on the pitch, I know it’s polished, but when I say it out loud, it feels flat, lacking the magic we all felt when we were brainstorming the idea. Trey’s 4D monsters look amazing, but my stilted words aren’t doing them justice. Michael tells me I need to be louder, consult my notes less, allow time to pause, but honestly, I’m worse than rusty, I’m completely green.
After the trial presentation, Dominique lingers, pulling me to one side.
‘Will you write me a reference, if we don’t win?’ She gives me a guilty grimace. ‘I can’t be out of work. I owe my tattooist money.’ She pulls up her sleeve to show me an intricate gold tattoo of a headless mermaid. ‘I have to get the head done, otherwise it’s just a fish with arms.’
‘Sure,’ I say, feeling utterly deflated.
Once the team have dispersed, Michael comes to find me in my office.
‘I’m not doing it justice, am I?’ I say.
He pinches his lips together, then says, ‘How’s the fog?’
‘Currently a dense smog,’ I say, then ask quietly, ‘Do you think memories make us who we are, Michael?’
‘No,’ he says firmly. ‘Who we are is our code of morals, the things we stand for, not our ability to recall the past.’
Michael has such a calm authority, I find myself saying, ‘Maybe you should be the one to deliver the pitch?’ I can’t believe I’m saying this because this is all I ever wanted – to pitch an idea myself, but there’s too much at stake for this to depend on me. I’m half expecting Michael to say, ‘No, you should do it, you’ll be great,’ but he doesn’t, he just nods. He must see my face fall because he adds, ‘It’s a team effort, Lucy. It was your idea.’
Though I know it’s probably the right call, that doesn’t stop me from feeling disappointed.
After work, I nip up to Selfridges with the vouchers I have thirty days to spend. I walk through the women’s clothing floor, go right past the shoes, then straight up to the toy department. Here, I find the perfect present for Felix’s birthday. In the tech department, I spend most of the vouchers on new speakers for Sam’s studio, arranging to have them delivered to the house. For Amy, I get some new giraffe pyjamas, then for Leonard, a shiny new watering can with a particularly long spout, perfect for hanging baskets.
On my way out, I nip down to the Food Hall, where I buy myself a croissant for the train home. Old habits and all that. As I’m paying, I see a mother struggling with both a baby and a toddler. The baby is screaming, the toddler is refusing to walk, and the woman’s eyes have the defeated expression of someone close to tears, desperately trying to hold it together. I’m about to leave the shop, but then I turn back.
‘Hey, I just wanted to tell you you’re doing a great job,’ I tell the woman.
‘She’s hungry, that’s why she’s crying,’ the woman says, as though I’d asked her for an explanation. ‘My boy won’t sit still long enough for me to feed her. I shouldn’t have come shopping with them both, but it’s my mum’s birthday and . . .’ She takes a breath, and I shake my head, she doesn’t need to explain.
‘I’m a mum, I get it. Look, I’m not in a rush. Why don’t you let me distract your son, give you a chance to feed your daughter?’
So that’s what we do. I usher the little family over to a booth, then I split my croissant with the boy while his mother breastfeeds his sister. The woman, who I discover is called Greta, starts weeping when I insist on buying her a pastry too.
‘I’m sorry. I get emotional when my milk lets down. Don’t let me keep you, if you’ve got somewhere to be,’ Greta says, wiping her tear-streaked cheek.
‘It’s okay,’ I tell her, ‘I don’t need to be anywhere else.’ And even though there are a hundred things I could be doing, even though there is never enough time, right now, it’s true.
On Saturday, Sam and I run around getting the house ready for Felix’s party. Sam buys balloons shaped like space aliens, and I attempt to bake a cake. There’s an online tutorial on how to make the perfect shark cake. It has an ‘Ace It’ rating of four, which means ‘not that hard’, but I don’t know who these people are, baking shark cakes, because they clearly don’t have toddlers pulling on their legs while they do it.
Cake iced, it looks more like a blue log with teeth, so I write ‘shark’ on the side in white icing, just to clarify what it’s supposed to be. Then I rush up to London to get Leonard. He’s waiting for me outside, holding a book-shaped package, wrapped in brown paper.
‘It’s a book on building your own smokehouse, so he can smoke his own ham,’ Leonard says, and he’s so pleased with himself, I don’t want to point out that an eight-year-old probably won’t be able to build his own smokehouse, but then, what do I know, he’s a pretty amazing kid. As we start driving, Leonard opens the glove box, and inspects the interior of my car.
‘Is this one of those cyborg cars?’ he asks.
‘Electric.’
‘You know the government can track all your movements in these?’
‘Right.’