The support act has finished, and the cascades of speakers flanking the stage spill funk while men in black get the stage ready for Sir Tom. Olly, Tink and, thankfully, both boys are heading in our direction. The crowd are swarming to the toilets and the bar; those left behind are packing up picnics, ready to stand and dance.
‘I nearly didn’t make it,’ she says, suddenly. ‘I had a grief blackout about my parents at the end of my second year; I nearly quit my course. But I managed to reverse the process before they physically removed me from campus.’
There’s another pause, while I try to decide whether or not I believe her. Behind her, the sky lies in stripes of soft blue and magenta.
‘And as for the robes, I haven’t the faintest idea, Leo. Surely their colours change, over the years?’
What she’s saying makes sense. If I’d had more time with her Folder of Important Bits, I might have found yet another letter from St Andrews accepting her back onto her course. And I could call the university, or even the academic outfitters, and ask if the colours for the Bachelor of Science have changed over the years. Christ, I could call Jill if I really wanted to, and ask if Emma finished her degree.
But the unsettling truth is that I don’t want to. What if I find out she’s misled me? Now, after I’ve given her a chance to put it right?
I found out I was adopted by mistake. A few weeks after we met, I’d proudly taken Emma up to Hitchin to meet my parents, and during lunch I’d gone up to the spare room to get some old photo or trinket; I can’t remember what. Mum and Dad’s bedroom was being recarpeted, so the spare room was full of boxes that normally lived under their bed. I saw a folder labelled LEO – BABY STUFF and opened it, because why wouldn’t I? I expected photos, maybe a hospital wristband, a cardboard envelope of pliant baby hair.
Instead, I found my birth certificate, with the name ANNA WILSON for ‘mother’ and ‘UNKNOWN’ for ‘father’。 My parents, sitting downstairs, were called Jane and Barry Philber.
I’ll never forget my search through the rest of the folder: the adoption paperwork, the endless local authority correspondence and – shockingly – a letter from an agency, asking if my birth mother could contact me. Told them no, someone had written on it.
Told them no.
I remember the sound of the ice cream van pulling up at the park; the benign tick of my parents’ clock. I remember recognising fury in the glutinous mass of thoughts as I considered the task ahead of me. I didn’t want to smash apart my foundations and start excavating. I wanted Jane and Barry Philber to be my mum and dad.
With hindsight, however, I’ve come to see that the most agonising thing about that day was the jolt of recognition I felt as I tore through the adoption paperwork. It had never crossed my mind that I might not fully belong in that family, and yet – in my heart, my nervous system, somewhere, everywhere – I had known. Those papers had simply legitimised my lifelong feeling of non-belonging.
I drove Emma down the M1 in shattered silence. ‘You deserved better, Leo,’ she said, when we got back to London. There were tears in her eyes as she closed her arms around my clenched body. ‘So much better.’
‘Where’s Tom Jones?’ Oskar asks, humphing down onto the picnic rug. He bitterly objects to discipline, especially when a security team is involved. ‘Uncle Leo, will you teach me one of his songs?’
I smile. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say to Emma, and I open the cool box. ‘What you’re saying makes perfect sense.’ She shrugs, as if to say it doesn’t matter at all. ‘I think I’ll teach you “Sex Bomb”，’ I tell an appalled Oskar. ‘And I’m getting your parents a beer, which they’re going to need after your shabby behaviour.’
My brother sits down next to me. He’s angry. I pass him a beer, wordlessly, and put a hand on his shoulder. Oskar makes a lunge for the beer, something Olly would normally find funny, but today he just snatches it away and says, ‘Seriously, Oskar. Don’t push it.’