The Love of My Life(95)

If she can hold on to herself after all she’s suffered, I can too. I must.

And now it’s just as it was the first time we were this close, in her friend’s yurt in a field in Cornwall in the middle of the night, surrounded by specimen pots and hair straighteners and half-eaten snacks and marine biology journals.

We are inches apart, and I have never in my life wanted to kiss someone so much.

This time, I lean in first. I kiss her, and this is what comes next.





Epilogue


EMMA

Six months later


A dead flower hat jelly is an unremarkable sight on the beaches of the Northwest Pacific: a colourless mass of sand-pocked gel in among the cuttlefish bones and dead seaweed sprayed along the strandlines; something for a child to poke at with a spade.

But if you could find one of these jellies in the rayless waters of the sea bottom, you’d hardly believe your eyes. The pinstriped bell glows daffodil-gold and the tentacles, finely inked, are tipped with joyous pink. The jelly pulsates through those cold waters with otherworldly, bioluminescent beauty; a coruscating miracle.

I invite you to think about an event in your past you’d do anything to erase.

You’re bound to have one, even if you’re young. And if you’re good at hiding it, it’ll be there on the strandlines of your own story: sand-camouflaged, unremarkable; visible only to those who know what to look for.

I was good at hiding mine. Twenty years, I kept it there, in plain sight. Then along came my husband, and he poked at it with a stick; poked and prodded and jostled and pushed until, eventually, the abandoned, shameful mass of my past was carried back out to sea where it could unravel once again. It’s alight in those deep waters, now. Alight, seen, impossible to hide.

But this is the thing: to Leo, my past really is as beautiful as that flower hat jelly. When he could see it clearly – once he’d recovered from the shock – he saw me clearly, too, for the first time, and he loved me even more.

The things we believe. The things we hide.

I’m not looking back anymore. I am here. All of me.

It is 6.45 a.m. and Leo is asleep. His face is folded into his pillow. He complains that he looks ancient these days, and because I promised myself never to lie to him again, I’ve had to agree: he needs at least three months in a spa. To me, though, he’s perfect. Marrying him for the second time, nothing unsaid, was beautiful.

He is the love of my life.

Next door our daughter is asleep. She still has Duck in bed with her, but she no longer cuddles him all night: she’s growing up so fast. I fear Duck’s days are numbered, but these bittersweet transitions are precious to me – I saw nothing of Charlie’s unfolding. I still don’t know what toy he clutched when he slept, who his best friend was; how much pocket money he used to get or what he spent it on. There is still so much to learn about him, whereas with Ruby I get to witness it all in real time. This is a privilege; I will not allow myself to see it in any other way.

She is the love of my life.

Across the Atlantic, my son is at a Christmas party. I know this because he’s sent me a text, which I’ve read at least thirty times since I woke up. A text! A drunken text!

Flying home tomorrow at 8am, he wrote. At a party, have to get up at 4am for the airport, think I’m going to just drink on through. You’re not allowed to give me sensible advice, by the way. Would be nice to have a walk on the Heath some time?

Charlie will never call me Mum, but he’s made an effort since he went back to Boston in September. Even with Janice still all over the place, he’s chosen to stay in touch.

There won’t be a time in my life where the loss of his childhood feels acceptable. I will never be at peace with the fact that I didn’t get to cry at his portrayal of a penguin at the school nativity. But I have enough, now. Even if it never grows beyond an occasional walk, I will have had a portion of my life with Charlie in it. And a portion is good enough, for me, because I lived the alternative for nearly twenty years.

He, this young man, is the love of my life.

‘Leo,’ I whisper, because I can’t wait any longer. ‘Wake up! Kiss me!’

Dawn breaks from the east in amber shadows, as Leo begins to stir.

We burrow in towards each other, and I tell him about Charlie’s message. ‘Oh wow,’ he says. ‘How wonderful . . .’ He’s still waking.

I kiss him, again and again, my hand lying on the warm plane of his chest. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to convey to this man how much I love him, but I’m trying.

A few minutes later, we look at his phone to check Wikideaths, but nobody has died.

A few minutes after that, I break wind. ‘Moped,’ I say, and I shrug.

Leo laughs – even after all these years – he laughs, and says, ‘You are disgusting, Emma.’

And this, now, is my life. My whole life, not my half-life. Emma and Leo. Leo and Emma.

We have been married for three weeks, together eleven years, and he knows every part of me.





Acknowledgements


And then there was a book!

This one didn’t take a village, it took a small continent. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to a great many people.

First and foremost, my thanks to those who’ve spared their time and expertise:

Professor John Spicer, Professor Mark Bower, Tim Bullamore, Dr Natalie Smith, Hannah Parry-Wilson, Dr Karl Scheeres, Hannah Walker, Dr Mike Rayment, Betty Lou Layland, Andrew Brown and the obituaries team at the Telegraph, Nathan Morris, Melissa Kay, Stuart Gibbon, Dr Ray Leakey, Dr David Barnes, Kian Murphy, Rose Child, David Bonser, Richard Hines, Dr Matt Williams, Rosie Greenwood, Professor Carl Sayer, Sarah Denton, Rosie Mason, Max Fisher, Chippy Douglass, Sophie Kenny-Levick and Bill Markham.