He was still in Edinburgh, still happy with his doctoral work and his new life of semi-secretive affairs, each one ending, so he claimed, without much trouble or remorse. I read the letter one morning on my way to work on one of the rare occasions when I’d managed to push through the packed fetid carriage and find myself a seat. The important paragraph began halfway down the second page. To Jeremy it would have been no more than an item of serious gossip.You remember my tutor, Tony Canning. We went to his rooms once for tea. Last September he left his wife, Frieda. They were married for more than thirty years. No explanation apparently. There’d been rumours around the college that he’d been seeing a younger woman out at his cottage in Suffolk. But that wasn’t it. The word was he dumped her too. I had a letter from a friend last month. He heard it from the Master’s mouth. All this has been an open secret around the college but no one thought to tell me. Canning was ill. Why not say it?
