calmly.
‘He was blacked up. Can you believe it? I thought they’d put a stop to all that. It’s fine for a white man to play Otello, but why cover his face in soot? We’re supposed to be colour-blind.’
‘Edward, I barely had time to notice before you dragged me out. I understand why you’re upset, but shouldn’t the best singers have the best roles?’
‘Yes, of course, but, for God’s sake, it looked like shoe polish on his face. He looked absurd. And Verdi’s Otello is not particularly interested in race. Otello is the archetypal jealous Italian husband.’
At that very moment, a gorgeous black man in a sharp suit walked past them, looking every inch as if he’d just walked out of Shakespeare’s imagination. He gave a barely perceptible nod in Edward’s direction, and an appreciative glance at Lisa. She was mesmerized.
‘Crikey, look at him, why didn’t they drag him off the streets and into the theatre!’
They both burst out laughing, and the tension dissipated. Edward smiled and enveloped her in his arms. He gently kissed the top of her head. They walked home to bed.
CHAPTER 5
‘I’m Going to Rescind that Ticket, Sir’
The postcard of St Augustine in his study with his little dog, sent from Venice, was signed Mr and Mrs Chamberlain. Lisa waited for the storm to break. Her mother wanted the details. She tried not to feel disappointed that her daughter had married in a register office. Lisa told her that she didn’t want a fuss. She told her mother that after the ceremony, they ate thin slices of veal, sipped champagne, and gorged on confectionary from a corner shop. It was exactly how she wanted it. Her mother forgave her, even though she knew that the Pope wouldn’t. She had always worried that there weren’t going to be grandchildren with Pete, and she had a mother’s instinct that it would be different this time around.
Lisa was pregnant when they returned from the honeymoon. They called their daughter Emma.
Lisa loved her with a visceral passion and ferocity. She herself was born in August, a Leo, and although she didn’t hold much faith in astrology, she was a lioness through and through. She had flaws aplenty, but she also had loyalty and courage in spades. Her revered Coco Chanel was a Leo too, and collected lions, and used them again and again in her work. Lions embroidered onto bags, costume jewellery, even jackets.
It had been a tricky start to motherhood, however. Emma was premature and tiny. Her lungs were not developed, so she was whipped away into intensive care before Lisa could bond with her. There was a terrible moment when she experienced a fleeting desire to grab the baby and smash its tender skull on the hard hospital floor. The feeling went as quickly as it came, but it horrified Lisa. Is this how an animal feels when confronted with the runt of the litter? It was a Lady Macbeth moment. She dared not tell a soul, not even Edward, who understood her so well, and would never judge. She felt a deep sense of shame.
The love for baby Emma came later, but, when it did, it was all-encompassing. It was the truest, purest, love of her life. Emma was her Achilles’ Heel. She would die for her. The difficult first few months – Emma in an incubator, with the only possible contact through a tiny finger-hole in the Perspex casing – brought her close to Chuck, who had by now been promoted to deputy head. He had become Edward’s trusted confidant.
Chuck had lost a baby. A boy. The baby had been three weeks old when he and Milly found him lifeless in his cot. Cold as any stone. Chuck – smart-talking Chuck, the coolest dude to come out of South Carolina – still cried when the boy was mentioned. His marriage to Milly had foundered under the strain, though they would always remain the best of friends. Milly ran a small local charity for battered wives. Edward arranged for it to be the school charity, supported by cake-sale days, and sponsored walks along the banks of the Mersey.
Some of Lisa’s colleagues disliked Chuck: he was too American, too forthright, too clever. But she knew what he had suffered. She sympathized, and he in turn revealed a tender side as baby Emma struggled to pull through those first weeks.
Despite this, Lisa was never entirely sure that Chuck could be trusted. Soon after arriving at St Joseph’s, she had been warned by a colleague to be wary of him.
‘Do you know what he said about you?’
‘No, Jan, and I’m not sure I want to. I’m insecure enough as it is.’
‘Well, I’m going to tell you because he’s no friend to you. He doesn’t like women, Lisa.’
‘What do you mean? He’s not gay. No one has a better gaydar than me. Go on then, what did he say?’
‘Well, it was at your book launch party. Someone asked for you and he piped up, “You can’t mistake her. She’ll be the one with her tits hanging out of her designer dress”.’
Lisa chuckled. ‘Oh come on, Jan. That’s the way he speaks. He means no harm. He’s just joking. You know he’s got a thing about breasts, because his wife is so flat-chested.’
‘Well, look at the way he dressed for your party, in all that combat gear and muddy boots. Why would anyone turn up to a party celebrating a book about fashion looking like that? It was a deliberate slap in the face. He doesn’t like you, Lisa. I see the way he watches you all the time.’
* * *
Emma wasn’t very lucky with her health. The under-developed lungs had consequences. Apnoea episodes in the night. Parental panic. More than one 999 call. The hospital became a familiar place.
Clinics, scans, tests. And then, during what was supposed to be a merely precautionary ultrasound, the radiographer said, ‘Something’s not quite as it should be here. Can you wait a minute while I consult a colleague?’
A more senior-looking figure came in, holding the printout of the ultrasound. ‘Nothing to worry about, but just to make sure, we’re going to admit Emma to hospital down in Birmingham where they specialize in this area.’ They refused to say exactly what was wrong, only that when a young child’s lungs struggle, it was important to keep an eye on the heart. ‘Let’s leave it to the experts in Birmingham.’
‘How do we get there?’ asked Lisa. ‘On the train?’
‘No, we’ll take her in an ambulance – just to be on the safe side. Maybe call your husband and get him to drive down and meet you? Nothing will happen before he gets there. It’ll probably be a day or two before they complete the necessary tests.’
‘You’re one of the Heart Kids now,’ one nurse joked, as little Emma was admitted onto the ward. A Heart Kid, thought Lisa, as if that were a good thing. You had to laugh or you’d go mad. Soon, Emma was hooked up to an array of machines, and a whole team of doctors was standing over the bed. And then Lisa heard words that no parent should ever hear: ‘Your daughter is in serious danger of heart failure. We are going to have to perform bypass surgery. Immediately.’ A ‘nil by mouth’ sign was hung up in preparation for surgery.
Broken hearts, Lisa thought. Men and women whine on about broken hearts. Narcissists. Know what it’s like to have a consultant tell you that your child needs bypass surgery. The kind of thing you associate with old men
