I mean, at least he’s honest.
I wheel out a few trite sentences, largely because I have few words for the relief. She’ll have to be tested from time to time, of course; there’s always the prospect of secondary tumours secreting themselves around her lymphatic system – but the odds are on our side. Relapse rates are fairly low, and Emma is relatively young and healthy.
Kelvin fiddles with his coffee. ‘We wrote a stock,’ he says, eventually. ‘For Emma. We haven’t saved it in the system – didn’t want you stumbling across it. But we did have to get something written. We wrote it during her chemotherapy.’
I swallow, thinking about the last few months. Uneaten meals, mouth ulcers, tiny wrathful spots on Emma’s skin. Ruby getting strep throat and Emma sobbing because she wasn’t allowed near her.
‘I’m sure this is an unappealing subject,’ Kelvin adds. ‘But we would publish an obit, of course, if she died.’
Emma’s still known for her BBC series, a lovely threeparter about the ecology of the British coastline: how conditions have changed for the creatures living in our estuaries and rocky shores, our beaches and dunes.A development researcher from the BBC had ‘discovered’ her, chairing a panel at a British Ecological Society event. He had been charmed by her wit and nonconformity, as most people are, and invited her down to discuss programme ideas.
I saw some of the resulting proposals, which described my wife as a SPARKLING NEW TALENT. She found it embarrassing; I found it very funny.
A year later she co-presented a threepart series with an established BBC naturalist and – in my very subjective opinion – radically outshone him. Before the final episode had aired, she was recommissioned for a second series. Viewers loved that she was funny even when barnacled to a cliff, waves smashing below.
Emma is not a celebrity, of course, and to this day I don’t see her as famous: she’s a self-confessed nerd, an academic. Her only motivation in taking the presenting job was to share her love of that magical place where the terrestrial world peters off into the unknowns of the ocean. She hated the attention and did the bare minimum of publicity interviews when This Land was in its prime. Even now she won’t come to newspaper parties. She says we’re all vultures.
But the fact remains that, long after she disappeared from TV screens, we’re still stopped in the street so that she can sign autographs, or discuss cliff zonation with socially awkward men. She was even asked to do Strictly. （She said no.）
I imagine most papers would run an obit if she died.
‘Now that everything’s looking – well, good,’ Kelvin says, ‘I wonder if you’d be happy to take a look at what we’ve written?’
‘As it happens, I’ve already made a start.’
Kelvin looks uncertain. ‘You have?’
‘Yes. It was a sort of personal project, really, but I’m sure one of you could knock it into shape.’
A pause. Then Kelvin says, ‘It can’t have been an easy task, with cancer treatment rumbling on in the background.’ His face greys with effort: this is way too touchy-feely for him. ‘But I’m sure any obit you’ve written for Emma will be significantly more personal and honest.’
I almost laugh at the irony of his trust in me. The fact of the matter is, my obituary for Emma is full of holes. It’s not honest at all.
Emma had an agent, back when she was presenting; a zealous and fiery woman called Mags Tenterden whom Emma worshipped. Mags was in negotiations with the BBC over the third series when Emma was, very suddenly, dropped from the programme, an old-timer booked in her place. There was an apocryphal story about changes in the commissioning team, but no reasonable explanation for Emma having taken the fall.
I was with her when she got the phone call. I don’t think I’ll ever forget her face.