Four more days.
Chapter Fifteen
EMMA
Ruby and I leave for the airport on Monday. My daughter, inspired by a book at nursery, has it in her head that we’re going to stay on a tea plantation in Darjeeling. She wraps Duck in a muslin and warns him the days will be hot but the nights rather cold.
I leave her to lecture him on climactic conditions in the Rangbhang Valley, sitting on the train seat beside me. I get out my phone. It’s only 8.30 but I’m exhausted already.
I dial his number.
‘Emma?’
‘Hi.’ I focus on the front page of the copy of Marine Biologist magazine I’ve been trying to read, where a shoal of tiny pipefish float calmly in a wrecked ship.
‘Hi.’ His voice drops.
‘Is this a bad time? Is someone there with you?’ I roll the magazine into a tube.
‘No.’ He sighs. ‘I’m alone. I’m just not used to talking freely with you.’
‘I see.’
There’s a silence, so I continue. ‘Look, I know you’ve got a lot on your plate. But you haven’t responded to my messages and I’m on my way up north as we speak. Newcastle for a conference this afternoon, then Northumberland for two nights. Are you still in Alnmouth? Are we still meeting?’
‘I am still in Alnmouth,’ he says. ‘And I very much want to see you, yes.’
‘I’ve got a cottage for Tuesday and Wednesday nights. It’s less than a minute from yours. The lane that goes down the side of the post office? It’s number fifteen.’
‘Right.’
‘Come over when Ruby’s asleep. Any time after eight. I don’t mind which night.’ I roll the magazine into an even tighter tube. ‘We’re leaving Thursday.’
‘OK,’ he says, after a pause. ‘I’ll come round on Tuesday night. But Emma, I . . .’
I wait. Ruby is still chatting away about tea plantations.
‘Oh, look, I’ll tell you when I see you,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to do this on the phone.’
‘Are you sure? Do you have news? Are you all right?’
‘I’ll see you on Tuesday,’ he says, and ends the call.
I close my eyes and tell myself everything will be OK. I’ve survived twenty years of this back and forth with him, after all.
Chapter Sixteen
LEO
When the Queen dies, a global response plan named Operation London Bridge will be set in motion by her private secretary. Prime ministers and presidents will find out first, but the international press will follow soon after. At my newspaper, we have twelve days’ coverage ready to go. At the BBC they have prerecorded TV packages ready, and staff carry out emergency drills every few months. The armed forces are on standby, your local village radio station is primed. Just say the word.
Obituary writers, on the other hand, need to operate at this level of preparedness for just about everyone. If a singer cancels his stadium tour, you can guarantee I’ll be writing his stock – what if he’s losing a battle with addiction? We have moles in politics, in finance, in theatre, film, the church and beyond. Basically, if you’re not looking good, we’ll be writing you up.
Someone always slips through the net, though. Someone we just weren’t ready for. Today it’s Billie Roland, celebrated mistress of half the cabinet in the early eighties. Heart attack in the middle of the night – she lay there for three days before her son let himself into her flat and found her.
I haven’t a clue why we didn’t have her written up in advance. All I know is that she had a dizzyingly busy and fascinating life, and that we are woefully behind. Everyone apart from Sheila is off, we’ve had to completely reshuffle tomorrow’s obituary page and the poet who was meant to have sent us his buddy’s obit by midday has disappeared into thin air. I’m racing against the clock to get Billie a half page vertical filed by our print deadline at 4 p.m.