The Love of My Life(25)

I had my allocated one celebratory drink on the top floor of the foyer at Birmingham Symphony Hall, with a kind woman from the alumni development stand. She asked me what my plan was now. I drained my wine and told her my first port of call would be to change my name.

She’d raised her glass. ‘Good for you!’ Then: ‘I’m sorry?’

‘I’m going to change my name,’ I repeated. It was the first alcohol I’d had in a long time. I noticed someone had discarded half a burger in the plant pot next to us. ‘I’m going to call myself Emma Merry Bigelow. Bigelow is my Granny’s name and she’s fierce. And Merry – well, I’d like to be more merry. I don’t ever want to think about my old name again. OK, well, have a good afternoon. It was kind of you to come over.’

And off I went, through a deserted convention centre and down to a canal, where I wandered for hours next to the still water, silver birch leaves fanning weightlessly across the path.

My phone rings as I shepherd Ruby across the trampoline club car park. Ruby notices my frenzied scrabble for the handset, but doesn’t say anything.

It’s Leo’s mother. She often calls when Leo hasn’t replied quickly enough to her text messages, and it’s always on a Wednesday, because she knows I don’t work on Wednesdays.

‘Jane!’ I cry, hand on chest. I have to try to calm down. He’s not going to call: he said no contact, and he meant it.

‘Oh, Emma, good. How are you? I just wanted to let you know that Barry came down with flu on Sunday,’ she says, without stopping to hear how I am. ‘Proper flu, he’s very unwell indeed.’ Her voice is taut and I know straight away what this is really about.

I tuck my phone into my shoulder and strap Ruby in, mouthing silently to my daughter that, yes, we are going to go and get an ice cream. Above us the sky is pale and troubled; the breeze is spiny with the promise of more rain.

I get into the driver’s seat after the call ends, just as my phone buzzes again.

‘Dear God, Jane,’ I sigh, picking it up.

‘Dear God, Jane,’ Ruby sighs, in the back.

It isn’t Jane.

I need to see you again, says a notification on my screen. After a pause, I swipe it open.

Please, he writes, in a second message.

‘Mummy. Mummy! ICE CREAM.’

I scrabble around and find Ruby a copy of The Marine Professional. ‘Here.’ I hand it to her. ‘I think you should learn about conger eels.’

‘OK,’ Ruby agrees, but only because I’ve taken her by surprise. I have maybe thirty seconds before I need to start driving in the direction of an ice cream.

We agreed there was nothing more to say, I write. Why do you need to see me?

He starts a response. I wait.

He replies: I’m going up to Northumberland next week. I need to sort through some things in the cottage. We could meet up there, if you’re nervous about getting together in London.

I close my eyes. Yes. No. Yes. No.

I have a conference in Newcastle next week. It would be easy. Less than an hour’s drive.

But Leo. Ruby. My promise.





Chapter Thirteen


LEO


‘Leo, can I have a word?’ someone asks. I look up: it’s Jim McGuigan, our editor-in-chief, dropping breezily into Kelvin’s chair. He’s a disconcertingly energetic man.

The rest of the team are at lunch. ‘Of course.’ I save my work. I’m writing up a cold war double agent one of our readers tipped us off about earlier. He recently died in Moscow after a successful retirement hustle importing Jaffa Cakes and Yorkshire Tea.

‘It’s regarding a piece you wrote,’ Jim says. ‘About Janice Rothschild.’

‘Oh?’

Patrick, the charming man who runs the Court and Social desk, pauses his typing so he can listen in. Jim gestures for us to duck into the meeting room across the walkway for some privacy.

I follow.

I was asked by one of our weekend supplements to write a short feature about Janice, which they published a few days ago – nothing that sounded like an obit, of course, just a look at her life and career to date. She’s still all over the news; there’s been no sighting of her and the police appear to have drawn a blank. Readers want to hear more about her life.

We receive complaints all the time on the obits desk, mostly because grieving relatives frequently believe it’s our role to nurture their loved one’s personal propaganda machine. When we don’t write a misty-eyed hagiography, and instead publish a truthful account of the deceased – crime, bigotry, sexual misdemeanours and all – they tend to send furious letters. But the Janice feature I wrote last week is unequivocally positive, and the piece was well received online. I’m surprised someone’s objected.

‘It was actually Jeremy Rothschild who complained,’ Jim says, as I sit down at the empty meeting table. ‘He was upset that you included the story of Janice leaving the psychiatric unit after they had their son.’

I frown.

He frowns back, with Senior Management steel.

One of the first things I did when writing this feature was to go back to the piece I found in our archive. It was very short – no more than a few photos of Jeremy and Janice leaving a psychiatric unit for mothers and babies, and a caption saying exactly that. The paper that published the photos has no morals, but they’re protected by an army of lawyers and they were smart enough not to speculate. The photos are more than enough to suggest Janice suffered a psychiatric emergency after giving birth.