Girl Unknown(21)

‘Of course,’ I said, unlocking my office door. She followed me inside, and I asked her to sit. As she put her bag down and took a seat, it became apparent to me that Linda was her mother. They were so alike – the hair, the eyes. I thought of the letter with the DNA results in my jacket pocket and felt a pang of regret, as if having the test done were an act of betrayal to Linda and the love we had once shared. Linda had clearly believed I was the father, so why should I doubt her?

‘What in particular did you want to discuss?’

‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t submit it in time. The essay.’

‘Oh,’ I said, a little annoyed. ‘Why not?’

‘I wasn’t feeling well,’ she answered shyly. ‘And then the book I needed wasn’t in the library. It wasn’t on the shelves and it hadn’t been checked out. The staff had to put a search on it,’ she ended, rather hopelessly.

‘You should have come to me before the deadline.’

‘But I was ill …’

‘Too ill to pick up the phone?’

She started to justify her non-submission, but I stopped her. ‘It doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do. I’m telling you what you should have done.’

She looked at the floor. I had upset her by being too brusque. I felt bad, tried a softer tack: ‘There are procedures. A form to fill out for mitigating circumstances.’

‘Mitigating circumstances?’

‘This is far from ideal, but we’ll try to come up with a solution.’

My peace-offering was met with a timid shake of the head. Something of me within it, a hint or trace of who I was, my parentage, my lineage. I feared she was on the brink of tears. ‘It’s not the end of the world,’ I said.

‘It’s just that I found it so hard to concentrate.’

‘These things happen. You mustn’t take it to heart.’

She looked so crestfallen, so fragile, that I wondered if something else was going on. ‘Is anything else wrong?’ I asked.

‘It’s just … It’s nothing.’

‘Zo?,’ I said, as reassuringly as possible. If she needed to confide in me, I wanted her to feel comfortable enough to do that. ‘You can tell me.’

‘It’s Caroline,’ she said.

‘Caroline? My wife?’

‘She came looking for me …’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘On campus …’

‘Caroline was on campus? But when?’ I asked.

‘On Tuesday. She said you knew.’

I closed my eyes, rubbed them with my thumb and forefinger, and steadied myself.

‘You didn’t know?’ she asked innocently.

‘No,’ I admitted. Caroline had never said anything to me about coming to campus. But why wouldn’t she? We had seen each other every day – it’s not like we were ships in the night. What had she to hide?

I have to be careful, I thought. I didn’t know this girl at all, couldn’t be sure whether she was telling the truth about Caroline, or about anything else, for that matter. There was still the possibility that what she was saying was part of some elaborate mischief.

‘Oh,’ Zo? said, still upset.

I needed to calm her. I definitely did not want her leaving my office angry and upset, especially after McCormack’s comment. I couldn’t afford to have people talking. ‘It’s been very busy at home,’ I said. I thought about Robbie’s cello vibrating through the house, Holly’s studious introversion – the busy activity of family life. ‘Perhaps it slipped Caroline’s mind.’

‘Perhaps,’ Zo? said, a little forlornly.

Outside, the sound of a drill rose and fell in intensity. Its bright hum seemed to fill the room. I wasn’t sure yet about who Zo? really was. I might have been talking to my daughter or to a perfect stranger, but right then, I didn’t know, which made me circumspect and hesitant. I thought about the sample of hair I had sent off to the DNA lab without her knowledge and, of course, the letter in my pocket. ‘I don’t understand why she would have felt the need to come here to talk to you,’ I said, betraying my confusion.

‘Maybe she was trying to warn me.’

‘Warn you?’

‘I was sitting on a bench by the pond outside the Engineering building and she just came up to me. At first, I didn’t even know who she was. It freaked me out, the way she confronted me.’

‘Confronted you?’

I could tell she was trying to remain calm in her account, but still her voice trembled. I wasn’t sure whether I should apologize or question the veracity of her claim. Either way, I was dumbfounded by the idea of Caroline acting surreptitiously behind my back, sneaking about campus without my knowing. I thought about the conversation I would have with her later. Losing my temper wouldn’t achieve anything, but I had to let her know that her behaviour was unacceptable. If she wanted to meet Zo?, she should have asked me: that would have been the mature and responsible thing to do.

‘It’s just that I thought I had done everything … correctly,’ Zo? said. ‘I thought I had approached the matter in the right way.’

‘Did she tell you why she wanted to speak to you?’

‘She asked what I wanted, and how long I was going to chase after you, and when I would leave you alone. And had I thought about the effect I had exerted on your other children, and on her.’