The Love of My Life(7)

I understand why she wouldn’t want me to do it, of course, but these words aren’t meant to be a betrayal. They’re meant to be something beautiful. A hymn to this woman I love so deeply, so completely.

The writing hasn’t just helped treat my mental state; it’s reassured me that there’s no chance Emma could ever be forgotten, or otherwise overlooked. That matters to me.

Do whatever you need to do for yourself, she said when she was first diagnosed. Join a support group, get a therapist. This is going to be every bit as hard for you as it is for me.

So I did what I knew, and it helped.

Back in our bed, one of her sleeping hands is outstretched to my side of the bed, as if her subconscious knew what I was up to but has already forgiven me.





Chapter Four


LEO

Next day


The news about Janice Rothschild’s disappearance comes in on a news wire soon after I reach the office.

I’m checking our competitors’ obituary pages when Sheila, my colleague, sounds the receptionist’s bell on her desk. Ding! She always does this when someone has died. Publicly, we all agree it’s a terrible practice; privately, we find it funny.

Ding! We all look up. ‘Oh, no.’ Sheila says. She’s staring at her screen. ‘Sorry, ignore the bell. Reflex action. But – oh, God.’ She picks up her mobile, checks for something, then returns to her screen.

We wait. Sheila does everything in her own time.

After a few moments she sits back and passes her hands over her face. ‘Janice Rothschild has disappeared. Just walked out of rehearsals for her play. Three days ago; nobody knows where she’s gone.’

Kelvin, my editor, says, ‘Really? What play?’

Even for Kelvin, whose emotional range is slim, this is poor. Janice Rothschild and her husband Jeremy are among Sheila’s closest friends: Kelvin knows that. We all know that.

Kelvin’s question is answered by Jonty, another colleague, whose emotional range is far too broad. ‘She’s rehearsing All My Sons,’ he says. ‘I have tickets to see it in July. I absolutely can’t stand it, Sheila, please tell me you’re joking?’

Sheila massages her temples, ignoring them both.

‘This is awful,’ I say, quietly. ‘Sheila, I’m sorry.’

She ignores me too. ‘I – oh, God,’ she mutters. ‘Poor Jeremy. It says on the newswire that she’d seemed depressed in recent weeks but I . . . I just can’t believe that. She’s always been so . . . so fine.’

My editor remembers his job. ‘Very worrying indeed. But – ah . . . Do we have a stock on file?’

A stock is a pre-written obituary. We keep thousands of them in our filing cabinets, but Janice Rothschild, who is only about fifty and without any reported health concerns, has not even made it onto our ‘just in case’ list. She’s in a BBC adaptation of Madame Bovary right now, for goodness’ sake – I watched it on Sunday evening. Emma went to bed soon after it started, saying she wasn’t a fan of Janice Rothschild, but I thought she was excellent.

Sheila leaves her desk to call Jeremy.

Kelvin calls the pictures desk. ‘Can we please get a selection for Janice Rothschild? Maybe include a few of her in Madame Bovary . . . What? Oh, sorry – we’ve just heard she’s disappeared. I know – a bit shocking. Anyway, can we get a few of her with her husband? Just in case?’

Jeremy Rothschild presents the Today programme on Radio 4; he and Janice Rothschild have been married for decades. I look up his Twitter account, but he hasn’t said anything in seventy-two hours. Everyone else on the obits desk is doing the same. As one, we look up Janice’s Twitter, which has been silent for three weeks, and Jonty goes off to make tea. ‘She is delightful,’ he says, angrily. ‘I really will not cope if she’s taken her own life.’

I put my headphones on, unable to listen to my colleagues any longer, and spend a few minutes looking at #Janice-Rothschild. It really is breaking news; there’s only a little more than five minutes of tweets. I watch an achingly funny clip of her guest-starring in Ab Fab, and a very moving one of her overcoming chronic vertigo to climb a rock face for Sport Relief. By the time she reaches the top, everyone’s crying, even the cameraman.

None of these early tweeters seemed to have any idea why she’s disappeared. I run a quick check on our archive but only find one potential clue: a picture of her leaving a psychiatric unit nineteen years ago, a few weeks after giving birth to their son. Since then, nothing. She’s one of those relentlessly funny, upbeat women; the sort you wish you were friends with when you see them sparring with Graham Norton on TV. I wouldn’t have had a clue.

Sheila returns to her desk with a large bag of Wine Gums. She says she’s been unable to get hold of Jeremy. She doesn’t offer the sweets around. Instead, she eats, mechanically and in solitude.

‘Do not ask me to write a stock for her,’ she says, after a while. ‘I do not believe she could commit suicide. I’m not getting involved.’

‘But you know her so well,’ Kelvin tries, after a pause. ‘It would be a really personal piece.’

‘Which is precisely why I won’t do it.’ Sheila’s voice is crisp. ‘I’m not condemning a perfectly healthy, very precious friend to death.’