The Love of My Life(16)

I flick through a pile of Emma’s industry achievements – acceptance letters from academic journals, a prize, fellowship and chair appointments.

Next there’s a university section, from which I pull a piece of paper topped by the University of St Andrews crest. But this is a letter, not a degree certificate.

I start reading, Dear Em—, and then stop.

Partly because there’s a blotch of black marker pen gouged through most of her name, which I’m surprised by, but mostly because I have a strong sense that this is where the line is. On one side there is trust in Emma, on the other, surveillance.

After a second, I carry on.

I have tried to make contact by phone but have been unable to reach you.

I can only reiterate what I said to your grandmother: I wholeheartedly encourage you to continue with your degree in Marine Biology, even if you feel unable to do so immediately. We would be delighted to welcome you back next academic year (or even the following year, if next September was too soon).

I should add that I was deeply saddened to learn of the challenges to your mental health that your grandmother described. I can only imagine how unappealing academic study might feel at this time. But many of us here in the department feel strongly that you have an excellent career in marine biology ahead of you, and will do anything we can to help you through the process of returning to the course.

Along with my colleagues I send you my very best wishes. Please do call or email at any point should you wish to discuss – now or at any time in the academic year.

Warmest regards,

Dr Ted Coombes

School of Biology



Before long, I find another University of St Andrews crest. I read this letter – also defaced by black marker pen, as if Emma couldn’t bear to see her name there.

It is an official letter of discharge from the university, acknowledging Emma’s permanent departure from her undergraduate degree. It requests that she destroy her student union card, and wishes her well. The date is November 2000, which I calculate as being the autumn term of her third and final year.

The dog is standing in the dining room doorway, watching me.

I try to think.

In one of the tidal deposits of Stuff on our landing, there is a picture of Emma on her graduation day. I adore it: her solemnity and defensive stance, the corner of a smile. There has never been any question that this is a picture of her graduating from St Andrews University.

I put down the paperwork and go upstairs to locate it. I find it quickly but, unlike mine, there’s no information on it, no cardboard mount with the name of the university or department engraved. Just Emma, my lovely Emma, wearing a black academic gown with a light blue hood, trimmed with gold brocade. No mortarboard.

After a long wait, I go back down to the study and search online until I find the academic gown details for St Andrews undergraduates.

The page loads slowly. Outside, the foliage sways in a gust of wind and fists of ivy pound at the window. The house, warm and overloaded, creaks and sighs as the pixellated images clear.

St Andrews science undergraduates wear a purple hood trimmed with white fur. I scan the other categories – arts, postgraduate, education – but not one involves a light blue hood with gold trim. I look again, and again, until I have no option but to accept it: Emma did not graduate from this university.

I have the sensation of a shelf being removed from my abdomen.

John Keats, still watching me, thumps his tail against the armchair; a short rap of support, or perhaps warning – I’m not sure. I kneel down in front of him, staring into his deep amber eyes, and tell him that there must have been a misunderstanding, even though I don’t see how there could have been.

Two whiskeys and six fig rolls down, I return to the paperwork in the dining room. There’s no longer any excuse for my actions, but I have alcohol in my system and I’m too unsettled to care.

I pull the stack of papers out again, and split it open at random. The thrill of wrongdoing makes me fast and efficient: I’m once again the man who went hurtling through his parents’ private papers, all those years ago, focused wholly on uncovering the truth.

I find myself reading a letter from the Naval Archdeaconry to Emma’s father, telling him it was his last chance to write to them before they would have to start the process of dismissal.

I read it a couple of times but this makes no more sense than the letters from her university. Emma’s father died in Zaire before this letter was even written.

Upstairs I hear what sounds like a child’s foot on a grouchy floorboard, so I push the papers back into the M&S bag. But as I do, a smaller piece of paper – a compliment slip, bearing the BBC logo – pirouettes to the floor. On it, a handwritten note: Hey doll, I’m sorry I missed you this morning. Call me. I don’t want this to be goodbye . . . Robbie x

I slide it back into the bag, and put the bag back where I found it.

In the kitchen, I drink another whiskey. All seems quiet now in Ruby’s room, but my thoughts are layering too fast; I can’t pause any of them long enough to interrogate them, let alone make sense of what I’ve just seen.

Without any real attempt to stop myself, I tiptoe into our bedroom and open Emma’s laptop. We use each others’ laptops all the time, but have never, would never – until now – do so for the purpose of spying. I don’t even know what I’m looking for. Just that I want to find something that will halt this creeping anxiety.