by Jon McGregor
He said he had a train to catch. She asked him when he might be there again and neither of them seemed surprised by the question. He said soon, probably, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to make such a long journey for the sake of an afternoon in a museum. She said my name's Eleanor by the way, Eleanor Campbell, and he told her his. She wrote her address on a paper napkin and he put it in his pocket, and he wrote his telephone number on another napkin and she put it in hers. He told her he'd write, and she said she'd like that, and he picked up his bag and walked away, replaying the conversation over and over again in his head.
These things, the way they happen. These things, the way they begin.
Will you write again soon? Isn't it funny to think we almost never met?
11 Cigarette holder, tortoiseshell, believed 1940s
It was only when Julia started smoking again that they realised something was really wrong. Before that, her slips and slides of memory had seemed like absent-mindedness, eccentricity, nothing more. I've been a dizzy old bat ever since the war, she said once, looking for her keys, it's nothing new, and his mother said which war's that then, the Boer? and they both yelped with laughter while he and Susan rolled their eyes.
But when she started smoking, it seemed different somehow.
They were having dinner at her house - David, his mother, a woman called Alice, Alice's husband - sitting around a large table in the bay window of the back room, listening to Julia and Dorothy talk mostly about their time working together during the war. Dorothy told the story, not for the first time, of how they'd once had to use sterilised strips of torn bedsheet when they ran out of bandages, and Julia did what Dorothy assured everyone was a note-perfect impression of the merciless ward sister inspecting the resultant dressings. Alice's husband asked Julia why, when she was clearly in no need of the income, and could have gone to live with her brother in the country to be with her son, she'd gone into nursing at all, and Julia said that she'd just felt the need to be useful for once. One got the impression from the newspapers, she said, that there was an awful lot of nursing to be done. David sat and listened, and asked questions occasionally, and tried not to look as though he'd let the heavy red wine go to his head. Towards the end of the meal, when the puddings had been eaten and the talk had turned to coffee, just as a warm sighing quiet had settled on to the room, Julia took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one up, offering them round to the rest of the table. It surprised him, because he'd never seen her smoking before, or smelt smoke around her, or seen ashtrays in the house.
Alice and her husband both took one, leaning in towards the candles to light them. David shook his head quickly as Julia held the packet out to him, and his mother just looked at her. Julia put the packet away, inhaled deeply, coughed and tapped a few flakes of ash into her pudding bowl. Dorothy watched her. When did you start smoking again Julia? she asked, sounding surprised.
Cigarettes weren't a problem at the time. Most people seemed to smoke to some extent; pubs were always clouded with it, cinemas provided ashtrays, and people often offered a packet around at the end of a meal. He didn't know why his mother was so worried about it. Later, she told him that they'd both given up after the war, when a surgeon had shown them some photographs of tar-blackened lungs and told them what medical opinion was only just beginning to suspect. It was something we decided together, she said. It was like a pact between us, something to do after it was all over. I don't mind, she told him later, I'm just surprised, that's all.
Julia looked at Dorothy blankly, as if she hadn't heard her. Dorothy repeated herself. My dear girl, what are you talking about? Julia said. I've been smoking since I left school, since before I met you, you know that. The room shifted to a very different sort of quiet, a catch of breath and a stilling of hands.
Dorothy tried to laugh and said but Julia I thought we both gave it up, didn't we? Julia frowned, took a long draw on her cigarette, and coughed again.
I think you've had too much to drink Dotty, she said, smiling. Should I make those coffees now? They were all looking at her, wondering what to say. David didn't quite know what was going on, but his mother, and Alice and her husband, obviously did.
They looked at each other, and then Alice said, quite calmly, do you have an ashtray Julia? I hate to make a mess of your dishes here.
Of course, of course, said Julia, getting up from the table with a jolt, how silly of me. Now then.
And she swept around the room, her hands reaching for the ghosts of ashtrays which had long since been got rid of, on the sideboard, on the coffee table, on top of the piano, beside the record player. She went twice around the room, and then spun to a standstill by her chair, looking at them with a sudden flicker of fear in her face. She looked at the cigarette in her hand. She said, oh bugger, oh bloody bugger, and for a moment she looked like a child, shrinking in front of them. She looked at the cigarette and stubbed it out on her pudding dish. She laughed, and said well that's me showing my age already then, eh? twirling her finger around the side of her head, her bracelets spinning and rattling against each other. No one else laughed. She sat down slowly, covering her face for a moment with her hand. She looked up at Dorothy. Oh Dotty, she said quietly, her voice cut with disappointment as well as fear, her eyes flitting to each of them, looking for some kind of reassurance.
It wasn't long before her fears began to be realised, piece by disjointed piece. Conversations started to peter out in the middle, names were repeatedly forgotten, doctor's appointments missed. She got lost in a department store in town, bursting into confused tears at the top of an escalator, and when the staff took her into a back room and tried to calm her down she was unable to remember her address. Dorothy began to realise that she wasn't eating properly, or changing her clothes, or keeping the house as clean as she had once made a point of doing. They started to visit her more often, doing her shopping for her while they were there, trying to prompt her into using the bathroom and changing her clothes. They took her to the doctor's, looking for a name for what was happening to her, looking for things they could do to make it better. I'm too young to be doolally, she said, and the doctor said he couldn't approve of the term but unfortunately there were cases where loss of faculty could have an early onset. It seems, bluntly, that yours might be one of those cases, he said. Laurence was an officer in the army by then, and when they tried to encourage him to take leave so he could look after his mother he told them he didn't think that would be possible. You carry on there, he wrote, in a short letter to Dorothy, I'm sure you're doing a fine job. Julia asked about him, often, and continued writing to him for some years, and when even people's names began to slip out of reach his was the last name she forgot.
12 Picture postcard, Union Street, Aberdeen, c. 1966
When he made his first journey back to Aberdeen, five or six months after they'd met, they still hadn't used the words boyfriend, or girlfriend, or going out, and there were a few awkward first hours where they realised how little they still knew of one another - taking a moment to recognise each other at the train station, standing a little way apart, avoiding eye contact and having no idea what to say. But eventually, helped along by a couple of beers and a gin, they stood at the end of the harbour, next to the coastguard's tower, and dared to put their hands together, and to kiss, and it was a fierce, breathless, impatient kiss which lasted so long that the coastguards banged on the window and shouted at them, laughing and cheering. They walked quickly away to the end of the harbour wall, embarrassed, laughing, looking out at the calm bright sea, looking across the harbour mouth to the lighthouse and the half-ruined gun battery on the rocky knuckle of Girdleness, and the black cormorants standing along the jetty like a funeral party, waiting for whatever the next tide might bring. She pointed out her house, anonymous amongst the rows of stone-built terraces that climbed the low hill away from the shipyards, cut off from the rest of Aberdeen by the River Dee, and she pointed out the rooftops and towers of Union Street's gra
nd procession, and he smudged his thumb along her narrow eyebrows and kissed her again.
They walked back along the harbour wall, through the huddled rows of fishermen's cottages and out on to the long unexpected sweep of beach which stretched for two miles or more up to the River Don. Everyone had their deckchairs turned away from the sea to face the sun, and as they held hands along the prom they felt as though they were on a stage. They walked past the ice-cream huts and candyfloss sellers and postcard stalls, and she told him how in winter the waves would race each other up the steps and over the refreshment huts, lunging landwards with the full weight of the North Sea rushing in behind. You should come back and see it then, she added.
They didn't go to her house that first time. They walked back into town along the harbour road, through streets piled high with fish crates and ropes and chainlinks as fat and heavy as Brunei's, wandering through the richer part of town to Duthie Park and the old Winter Gardens, scrambling down from a small station platform on to a recently abandoned railway line, hopping along the sleepers and make-believing they could follow the tracks all the way to America. My brother Hamish has been to America lots of times, she told him, once they'd given up and turned back towards the park. He's in the merchant navy, she said proudly. Donald's over to see him there next year; him and Ros are thinking about emigrating.
Have you ever thought about emigrating? he asked her lightly. Or going south at least? Slipping his arms around her waist and pulling her towards him, kissing her cheeks and her eyelids and her lips.
Aye, of course I have, she said indignantly, as if the very question was an insult.
Where would you go? he asked.
I don't know, she said, kissing him back. Anywhere, she said. Away from here.
School's the same as ever, it's difficult and it's not much fun but I'm going to stick it out, I'm going to get my Highers. Sometimes I think it's my only chance. I do spend an awful lot of time in class just thinking about you though, and I'm looking forward to seeing you again soon. I suppose really it's my turn to come see you, but I doubt my folks would let me do that. My da's already asking after you, he says he wants to know when he's going to get a chance to meet you1.1 told him it was nothing like that, but now I'm not so sure - what do you think?
Eleanor's house was small, as all the houses were on that side of the harbour; gloomy inside, draughty and probably difficult to heat, but well built, with granite blocks from the local quarries, and solid enough to last a couple of centuries or more. There were two bedrooms upstairs, divided by a steep and narrow stairway, a small front room, a kitchen at the back of the house, a scullery and an outside toilet. Her parents didn't own the house, but her grandfather had lived there as well, and his father before that, so the family history felt as though it was etched into the hard grey stone.
From just outside the house it was possible to look right down the street to the harbour, to the tall crooked cranes of the shipyards, the freighters unloading at the docks, the seagulls clouding and clamouring around the fishmarket on the end of the central pier. From just outside the house it was possible to hear what people were saying in the front room, or in the hallway, or, if they were talking loudly enough, in the kitchen. If there were more than a few people in the kitchen, as there were the first time David went there with Eleanor, it was possible to stand at the front door and hear them all raising their voices to make themselves heard over each other, laughing, banging on the table to get themselves some attention.
It was dark by the time they got there, that first time, finally braving an introduction on his third visit to Aberdeen. The light from the kitchen was shining out through the pane of glass over the front door and Eleanor hesitated before going in, listening. I don't believe it, she whispered, it sounds like they're all here. I'm sorry, she said. Her father, Stewart, came out into the hallway and greeted them loudly, shaking David's hand and inviting him in to meet the rest of the family. It just so happens they were all passing, he said, and from the corner of his eye David could see Eleanor shaking her head as he came into the kitchen and was introduced to her mother, Ivy, her brothers, Donald, William and John, Donald's wife, Ros, a couple of young children, and a great-uncle James sitting in the corner by the stove. There were bottles of beer out on the table, and the remains of a meal stacked up by the sink, and he was peppered with hellos and how-are-yous before he'd managed to get his bearings. He found himself answering questions about how far he'd come and what he was doing in these parts and what it was he did for a living back home, struggling to understand their flinted accents, and struggling to be understood in return - Eh? What's that son? Say again? - one of them still asking him to repeat himself while another was asking him something new, all turning to each other and discussing what it was he might have said once they'd given up on asking him again.
It was a small room, mostly taken up with the big wooden table they were sitting around, the wood worn to a shine by the years of scouring and cleaning, the crumbs from the meal already wiped away. There weren't enough chairs for all of them, so the younger men, Eleanor's brothers, were standing along the back wall, in front of the window and the kitchen sink, blocking the door to the scullery and the backyard, looking him up and down and muttering remarks to each other.
Coventry? asked one of them suddenly, while David was trying to explain to Stewart about being from London originally but having left there as a small child. Is it Coventry where they make all the cars? David nodded.
You make cars then? he was asked.
No, he told them, no, I work in a museum.
There was an awkward pause, and then another brother said museum, eh? You're no a geologist like our Eleanor reckons she's going to be? David shook his head, smiling, and tried to make a joke about being involved with more recent history than the formation of the earth's surface. There was another awkward pause and then the same brother said aye right, so what do you reckon then, is it true what Ellie says about there being oil under the sea? Great-uncle James, sitting in the corner, burst into a laugh that sounded more like a cough, and even Stewart smiled and shook his head. David didn't know what to say.
It's not just me, Eleanor protested, everyone's saying it. Mr Read showed me the maps and everything.
Aye, said Donald, the oldest of the brothers there, and there's a herd of camels going by outside just now. Eleanor tutted, and pretended to smile, and nudged David towards the door.
Well, we've got to get to the pictures, she said. We're meeting Ruth and folk, we'd better get going.
What's on? John asked. Lawrence of Arabia? Everyone in the room laughed, Great-uncle James slapping his hand against his knee, and Eleanor turning and pushing David ahead of her, and as they opened the front door he heard one of the men saying make sure he gets you home in plenty of time now, and another man saying oil be waiting up, and the hard-edged laughter followed them both as they hurried away down the hill.
13 Pocket appointment diaries (incomplete set), dated 1935-1959
The first time they persuaded Laurence to visit Julia in the nursing home, she was smoking again, sitting by the window with her back partly turned to the door. They stood behind him in the doorway, and he looked back into the corridor as if he thought they might have the wrong room. They nodded, and he stepped forward. Hello, Mother? he said tentatively. She didn't seem to hear him. He took a half-step closer. Mother? he said again, and she still didn't move, the cigarette held out on the arm of her chair, a steady plume of smoke trailing towards the ceiling. Dorothy interrupted impatiently, pushing past Laurence and putting a hand across Julia's shoulder as she spoke, leaning over to look her in the eye.
Hello there Julia love, she said, it's Dorothy. We've brought Laurence to come and see you at last, and she said the at last so quietly that only Laurence could hear. Julia turned round, looking at David first, curiously, and then at Laurence, some level of understanding that wasn't quite recognition passing across her face.
Hello darling,
she said, smiling abruptly. Hello, how good of you to come and see me. Have you got a kiss for poor Julia? Laurence stood in front of her for a moment, looming over her, gripping the fingers of one hand with the other, running his thumb back and forth across his palm. Julia looked up and turned her cheek towards him. He bent down to her so slowly and hesitantly that he almost lost his balance and had to grab on to the back of her chair, and as his lips touched her face he held them there, closing his eyes and seeming to hold his breath before lifting away and stepping back slightly. David looked at his mother, and past her to the window, and at Laurence. The room felt suddenly very full.
Laurence sat down on the edge of Julia's bed, his hands in his lap, looking at her. He reached up and smoothed his hair back across his head with the heel of his hand. He said, look, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to come and see you, I've been posted abroad an awful lot, you know. She ignored him, as she'd learnt to do when there was something she didn't understand, gazing steadily at the room as if he hadn't spoken at all. He tried again. So, how are they looking after you in here? Is the food good? Have you met many people? His voice was loud and slow and he leant towards her slightly as he spoke. She looked at him, and at Dorothy.
I don't think you need to shout dear, she said dryly, we can all hear you. She squashed her cigarette into the ashtray.
Laurence had signed up for officer training when he did his National Service and had been in the army ever since. He'd never married, and there were no children that anyone knew about, and from the few letters he wrote to his mother it seemed as though the army had become his entire life, talking about my boys, and the old man, as if they were his family now. David only once heard Julia say she minded these long and repeated absences, or how seldom he ever wrote to say how he was, and even then it was with an insistence that she was just being silly, that he was a grown man and what did she have to complain about? I mean, she said, he's only following in his father's footsteps, isn't he?
