Yet books about it were now in vogue – Publishers Weekly, the American book industry’s bible, had recently run a spread on the genre. No wonder the press’s rep force spoke with unbridled enthusiasm about the prospects for Carlson’s book, happy to be selling in a popular title for a change, one that didn’t require explanation or excuse, unlike the rest of the press’s obscurantist titles. The rights person had said a big book club deal was a possibility; the publicist had talked unprecedentedly about television appearances for the author. Even the university’s president and trustees (Everton excepted) seemed positively excited.

Admittedly Carlson was an unusual football coach, as interesting as he was successful (three times Rose Bowl champion, countless winner of the Big Ten). Even for the football non-enthusiast like Robert, there was something admirable in Carlson’s recruitment of countless black players from the Deep South, and in his insistence that all of them – even those turning pro – complete their educations. Carlson was the respectable amateur face of a college sport infamous for its professionalism, but he was also that rarest of things – a white hero to the black community. Robert couldn’t think of many others.

There was a knock on the door and Vicky came in. ‘Andy Stephens is waiting,’ and he could see the man standing by Vicky’s desk. One of the university’s cadre of accountants, he wore a cotton suit that was the colour of martini olives, a uniform of summer poised uneasily between comfort and convention.

Vicky handed him a pink message slip. ‘While you were on the phone,’ she said tersely, apparently still annoyed by his tetchiness before lunch.

He looked at the message. Duval called.

‘He said he could meet you at Nelson’s Coffee Shop on Wacker Drive at three fifteen.’

He looked at his watch: he had ten minutes. ‘Did you get his cell number?’

She shook her head sharply. ‘He said he was calling from a pay phone.’

Damn. He could stand up Duval or postpone Andy. A need to get it over with (though he couldn’t have said exactly what ‘it’ was) and some other un-articulated sense of obligation meant he felt there wasn’t any choice.

He went out into the corridor. ‘Andy, I’m really sorry, but I’ve got a kind of emergency. I’ve got to see somebody; I shouldn’t be gone more than an hour.’

Stephens looked at him with irritated, unaccepting eyes. ‘I suppose you want me to stick around?’

‘Could you? I apologise, but it’s family.’ Was this a lie? Well, Duval had almost been family once, or at least his grandmother Vanetta had.

II

IT WAS SEPTEMBER 1965, and the ambulance was a converted station wagon with two back fins. It came around the corner by the maple tree, then slid slowly to a stop on the gravel driveway in front of the old Michigan house. Two attendants emerged, wearing starched white uniforms. One wore yellow chukka boots on his feet and as he followed the other into the house he stopped to admire the rusting pump, verdigris with age, that sat unused in the back yard.

They wheeled his mother out in a large steel-framed bed, and his father locked the back door behind him – their own car was packed and ready to go. She was sitting up, propped against two pillows, wearing a fresh nightgown and a terrycloth robe draped around her shoulders. Her hair was freshly brushed, the auburn traces of its brown ends catching the glint of the midday sun. Bobby thought she looked like a beautiful queen. They let him come up to the bed to say goodbye, and even took down the side rail, but he still couldn’t reach her face to kiss her. She stroked his cheek instead and told him to be a help to his father.

He had thought before the men arrived that she was just going for a ride, and wondered if this meant she was getting better – after all, she had been in bed for days now. But his father had explained she was going all the way down to Chicago, as were they – ‘You’re already a week late for school as it is,’ his father explained. Bobby felt a twinge of jealousy as the ambulance departed, since his mother got to ride in it while he was stuck in the Chevy, sandwiched in the back between the twins. They were five years older than him, so he always had to sit in the middle over the hump. His father was driving, talking to Uncle Larry in the front passenger seat.

He often felt sick on the long drive and today was no exception.