CHAPTER 6 #2
“Why would I? I don’t actually read the books for my essays.
It’s only law. I get some bits off Wikipedia and mash them up, and—” She sighed.
“Well, if it’s not good, then it doesn’t matter.
I am the dunce of the Law Department. They made a mistake when they let me in, one day they’ll find me out, and—”
“Nobody thinks they belong here,” Nat said, looping her arm through his.
Leaves crunched beneath their feet, just beginning to turn.
“It’s the great secret of this place. You spend the entire time waiting to be found out and sent home.
And then you realize that everyone else was thinking the same thing all along. ”
“You never,” Emma said.
“I always.” Nat groaned. “Could you live up to the bishop of Durham? When my father was here, he was a model young man. Beloved of the Theology Department. Head of a thousand serious societies. Forget telling him I’ve never set foot in the church youth group he recommended.
The day he finds out I plan to abandon all serious professions to become an actor is the day his soul will crumple and die.
I’ll never be able to face him. He’d be too kind and too disappointed. ”
“You’ll tell him when you’re ready.”
Nat heaved a dramatic sigh. “If only you could magic family into being happy with your decisions.”
Emma only managed a small smile. “If only you could magic family into doing anything.”
Her only family had been her mother. Since everyone else related to Emma had made themselves conspicuously absent—whatever she said or did—it was hard not to wonder if it was something about her that pushed people away.
Like her father. And his wife, whom she’d glimpsed only once, through the window of her father’s Porsche.
Emma had just turned eleven, on one of those rare birthdays spent in England.
They had been outside the Natural History Museum.
Her father had stood on the pavement and tugged at the collar of his blazer, although it was custom-tailored and there wasn’t a single wrinkle in it, as he explained why he couldn’t spend the day with Emma, after all.
He and Amal had had a call from their son’s housemaster.
Adam had fallen from his horse at school.
He was only bruised, and the matron was with him in the dormitory, but you know how it is.
They both wouldn’t feel right until they’d driven up to Ludgrove and seen him.
He knew Emma would understand. Emma, who had never met her half brother or been within touching distance of a boarding school, had nodded.
Her father’s hug was brief, and scratchy from his stubble.
The woman in the car had not turned to look.
She was very beautiful, even in profile.
She had snapped the overhead mirror back into place as though she had wanted to break it.
As the Porsche drove away, Emma’s mother had held her hand tightly.
Emma never found out how Adam recovered.
She wasn’t sure if he or his sister, Poppy, had even heard of her.
She had hoped, one day, her father might ask her to meet them.
A family dinner at his house in Hampstead.
Or a holiday together, crushed into the Porsche on the way to Devon, all three siblings in the back, laughing at their dad’s music choices. But no invitation had come.
When her father had called to talk about choosing her degree, he’d sounded so pleased at the idea of her studying law, she’d thought he might come to the University to visit. But he’d never quite been able to make that work out either.
If there was a trick to winning over family, Emma had never learned it.
“Forget it.” Nat shook off his gloom. “Now, normally I pride myself on being a supremely and exclusively decorative being.” He struck a pose.
Emma laughed, glad to see his mood lift.
“But I have some real good to do in the world today, I see. Emma, we are going to get you to the Library. Has it not occurred to you it might be of some help in your fellowship project?”
“But—”
“No, don’t try it. The Library has everything. Probably histories of the river, or archive photos and such. Wouldn’t that be useful?”
Emma’s feet slowed to a halt. The flood. The archives might tell her if there had ever been another like it. Or other freak events, like frogs mating out of season. And if she could prove the anomalies in the ecosystem were new, it could be the base for her case on climate change…
“You’re going to see what happens when you actually crack a book. You may even discover how clever you are in the process.”
At that, Emma snorted.
“Clever,” Nat repeated, in a tone that brooked no argument. “For one thing, you scraped through your exams last year without, apparently, having read a single book. Secondly, you are friends with me, which bespeaks a level of intelligence beyond most mortals.”
So Emma stopped arguing. But she also elbowed Nat in the ribs for good measure.