by Jon McGregor
Sometimes, it was light outside before he was able to sleep. He would sit on the edge of the bed, reading, listening to the radio, his hands shaking. Or he would stand by the window, looking out at the lamplit blur of the night sky, hearing the occasional shouts and sirens drift faintly across the city. Or he would slip out of the house and walk through the shadowed streets, thinking, unable to think, trying to pound some sleep into his tired body. His colleagues got used to him rushing through the front door half an hour or an hour late, toast crumbs around his mouth, his shirt tucked in and his tie knotted as he ran from home. I'm sorry, I slept through the alarm, he would say, and Maureen on the front desk would usually reply that he didn't look as if he'd slept at all, beckoning him over to straighten his collar and tell him to wipe his mouth before the seniors saw him. They started to joke about it in the staffroom, marking up a graph of his arrival times on the noticeboard, and he had no answer when Malcolm asked him what was on his mind so much these days, and he could only smile and pretend to look embarrassed when Anna said odds on it's a woman and they all laughed. It was easier to let them think like that. He wouldn't have known where to begin if he'd wanted to tell them what it really was.
Your misuse of museum time and resources has also been noted, with particular regret.
He went to the archive office at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, where Julia and his mother had worked, and under the pretence of a research project he searched through the lists of patients in the maternity wing at the relevant time. But he found nothing. He contacted trades unions, and Irish emigrant workers' associations, and even tracked down a domestic service museum in Bath, looking for more archives he could search through, looking for a box of files which would reveal a line of detail on a Mary who had stopped work suddenly in 1945. But he found nothing. Domestic employment tended to be rather informal, he was told. The names weren't always recorded, or even known. He went to Somerset House and found that the entry for his own birth matched the birth certificate he had, listing his mother and father as Dorothy Carter and Albert Carter, and when he got home he asked furiously how such a lie had been incorporated into official history. But his mother could tell him nothing. He wrote letters, on headed museum paper, to museums and social centres across Donegal and the north of Ireland, asking for artefacts and recollections connected with domestic service in England during the war, and although he accumulated a large boxful of photographs and transcribed interviews he found no answers there. He discovered that history's secrets are not always easily found, that all the archives in the world weren't enough when he didn't even know who or what he was looking for, or where he should be looking.
These matters have all been discussed with you, formally and informally, on previous occasions. This letter therefore serves as a written warning that if an immediate improvement in your standard of work is not forthcoming, disciplinary proceedings will commence with a view to terminating your employment. As a valued member of staff we would very much hope that this does not become necessary.
He sometimes wondered what would have happened if he had lost his job then. He tried to construct an alternative story from the scraps of what would have remained, wondering if he would have gone to see Eleanor again, wondering if he would have found another job in a museum or whether that would have been the end of it, wondering whether he would have read and re-read Eleanor's letters with bitter regret instead of excitement and then fond recollection. He wondered what other story he would have ended up with, carried on the backseat of his car to show someone who at long last wanted to know.
But it was impossible to say, he knew. There was no clear parallel life into which he would have fallen had his job been taken away from him, just as there hadn't been a celibate loneliness waiting for him in the event of his failing to notice Eleanor in the tea room that day. Just as he hadn't been irrevocably formed, or broken, the moment Julia had said you can leave him with me, I'll look after him until you get back. It was more complicated than that. Lives were changed and moved by much smaller cues, chance meetings, overheard conversations, the trips and stumbles which constantly alter and readjust the course of things, history made by a million fractional moments too numerous to calibrate or observe or record. The real story, he knew, was more complicated than anything he could gather together in a pair of photo albums and a scrapbook and drive across the country to lay out on a table somewhere. The whole story would take a lifetime to tell. But what he had would be a start, he thought, a way to begin. What he had would be enough to at least say, here, these are a few of the things which have happened to me, while you weren't there. This is a small part of how it's been. You don't need to guess any longer, you don't need to imagine or wonder or dream. This is a small part of the truth.
19 Identity badge, Junior Curatorial Assistant, Coventry Museum, w/photo, 1967
He came out of work one evening, almost a year after Julia had first let everything slip, and saw his mother, waiting for him. He stopped, hesitating, looking back through the foyer towards the stairs to his office, wondering if there was some work he could catch up on. He carried on down the steps, saying goodbye to two of his colleagues and catching Dorothy's eye as she turned round. She smiled at him, and he nodded, glancing away up the street.
Hello love, she said. I just got off the train and I thought I'd see if you were around, you don't mind, do you? Who are those two? I don't think I've met them before. She was talking quickly, her hands fidgeting at her waist, and she leant in towards him as he told her that that was Paul from Conservation and a girl called Anna who was doing her second work placement from university. He didn't look at her as he spoke. Well, they both seem nice, she said, her hands still pulling at each other. Is work going okay then? He shrugged and started walking, and she walked with him, saying oh, well, as long as work's going okay, her voice trailing out as she waited for him to pick up the thread and tell her something more, some new project he'd been working on, a disagreement he'd had with another curator, something funny a visitor had said, any small part of his day he might want to share with her. But he said nothing.
They turned the corner towards the two cathedrals, Dorothy having to break into a half-run occasionally to keep up with his long strides. She said, I just got back from seeing Julia. She said, she's not doing too badly, all things considered. He didn't reply. She said, the nurses there are doing a very good job with her; it can't be easy.
They walked past the old cathedral, and David glanced up at the ruined north wall, the unroofed sky a burnished August blue through the arched hole where the windows had once been. He'd seen archive photos of the fire, the great billowing folds of flame reaching up through the sky to light the bombers' path, and he'd read the accounts of the churchwardens who'd put themselves on fire duty, chasing across the lead roof with buckets of sand, booting fizzing incendiaries into the road until they'd had to retreat down long ladders and watch the whole city burn. She said, I went over and cleaned her house afterwards. It doesn't look like Laurence has been there for a long time. We'll have to think about doing something with all her things sooner or later, I mean, there's a whole lot of it in there. We'll have to talk to someone about it, she said. She touched his arm, and he jerked it away. Oh, she said. Sorry love. He didn't say anything.
They walked past the looming walls of the new cathedral, with its tall narrow windows letting the light squeeze in, with the skeletal steel spire that crowds had gathered to watch being lowered into place by helicopter, and she said, well anyway, we'll have to talk to Laurence about it, when the time comes. She said, I don't suppose he'll be much use though. David didn't say anything. They stood across the road from the bus station, waiting for the traffic to clear so they could cross. She said, when are you going down there next? She said, I'm sure she'll be very pleased to see you again you know. A heavy lorry clattered past, loaded with rubble and soil from a building site, and they both stepped back.
She said, David, don't be like this, ple
ase. She was out of breath from trying to keep up with him. She said, David, please, I can't.
They crossed the road, and as they walked round past the bus station she said, I thought I might have a go at getting the garden tidied up this weekend. It's been getting a bit out of hand again. She said, of course it was your father who was the expert, and they both flinched a little at her use of the no longer comfortable word. She glanced at him, and continued, saying, but I imagine he'd have a thing or two to say if he saw the garden now, don't you think? He looked at her, not quite meeting her eye, and made a gesture with his head which was almost a nod. She sighed impatiently, and said, yes, well, it's up to you whether you want to give us a hand or not. Give me a hand I mean, she said, correcting herself.
She said, David, are you even listening to me? They crossed the route of the new ring road, following the fenced footpath between a maze of trenches and banks and towering concrete stilts. She said, this isn't going to make things any easier you know. She said, I mean, I know you're upset, but I don't see how this is going to help David. He didn't say anything. She held his arm, and said, David, and again he pulled it away.
They walked through the streets beyond the city centre, past flat-fronted terraces which opened straight out on to the street, past bay-windowed semis by the park, past a row of houses which had once been watchmakers' workshops, the attic windows built tall and broad to let the light flood in on their intricate work. They crossed the road by a parade of shops and started walking up the long hill which led towards their house.
She stopped for a moment to get her breath back, and when he didn't wait for her she scurried after him, turning to try and meet his eye, saying, David, how long are you going to keep this up? He didn't say anything. She said, what do you want me to do? She said, David, I've said I'm sorry; I've said it over and over again; what else do you expect me to do? It's not fair David, she said, it's just not fair. And if it hadn't been for people walking nearby she would have been shouting, the force of it already trembling in her voice.
Do you think I never worried about this? she said, a moment later. He was silent, and she said again what she'd already said so many times: I was going to tell you; I wanted to tell you. I was waiting for the right moment and I never found it and then it only got harder, I couldn't think of a way to begin. I'd have had to tell your father as well, and I thought you'd both be better off not knowing. She reached into the sleeve of her jacket for a tissue, and David still didn't speak.
They walked past the school Albert had been working on before he died, built to take the pressure off the overcrowded grammar Susan and David had both attended, where temporary classrooms had hidden the bomb-craters in the playground and lunch breaks had had to be taken in shifts. They turned the corner into their estate, past a small strip of woodland, and left again into their street.
She said, in desperation, David, I never lied to you. If you'd ever asked me I would have told you the truth, but you always seemed happy with the way you thought things were; it didn't seem fair to upset things for you. I wouldn't have lied to you, ever, she said. You believe that at least, don't you?
He stopped abruptly and looked at her, meeting her eyes for the first time since he'd seen her at the bottom of the museum steps. He peered at her for a moment, closely, as if watching to see what else she had to say, and when he saw that she was starting to cry he allowed a smile to open out across his otherwise impassive face before turning away. She watched him go. She called his name, quietly in case the neighbours heard. She followed him to the door. She said, oh if your father was here you wouldn't, and he turned, waiting for her to finish her sentence, but she said nothing more. He stood in the opened doorway, blocking her path, and saw Susan walking up the street towards them.
He said, almost in a whisper, you've got no idea, have you? He stood aside to let her into the house, and as she squeezed past him the phone started to ring. He left it a moment, watching her disappear upstairs, and when he picked it up he was almost breathless with the adrenalin pulsing through him. He said hello and Eleanor said guess what? Guess what? Oh David, you'll never guess what.
20 Examination results, Scottish Highers, July 1967
A single sheet of paper, slightly larger than letter-size, an expensive-looking rough-grained texture with a circular watermark just visible about halfway down the page. The name of the examinations board at the top, an address, a reference number. An official seal at the bottom, lipstick red and frilled at the edges. A ruled table with columns for subject, paper, date, and grade. The thick black type that can change a life. The paper held delicately, at arm's length, as though creasing it or tearing it would invalidate what it said. As though the ink were still wet and could be smudged or removed.
She hadn't got any sleep the night before it came, she told him. He imagined her sitting up all night, drinking cocoa and trying not to think about it. Sitting in the kitchen, sitting in the front room, in her father's chair, standing out in the backyard, looking down at the lights in the harbour, softened and wavering in the warm night air.
She didn't want to open it when it came, she said. She heard the letter box go and she sat in the kitchen and she didn't move. The envelope landed with a tap and a skid across the smooth stone floor, and it was a minute before she stalked out of the kitchen with a butter-knife at the ready to slit open the envelope. The brown paper broke into two rows of jagged teeth. She slid out the letter and unfolded the clean white sheet.
She didn't know what she was expecting. For months she'd been going over it in her head, going backwards and forwards, convincing herself she'd passed, convincing herself she'd failed. She didn't know what was going to happen. She didn't know what she wanted to happen. It was new territory; her staying on at school at all had been new territory for the whole family. Her mother had left school at fourteen to work at Williamson's, learning to gut and split and fillet the heavy flat fish with vicious speed, salting and carrying them into the field and spreading them out like great white sheets in the sun to dry. Her father had left school at eleven to help his father's friend in the shipyard at the bottom of the hill; there was a photo of him from soon after he'd started there, half-hidden in a group of hard-looking men all bristling with moustaches and hammers and tongs, his small eyes shut tight against the blaze of the flashgun, his cap a few sizes too big for him still. So they didn't understand, either of them, what Eleanor had been doing at school those last few years, why she'd carried on fussing with books and things when she could have been bringing money into the house.
She unfolded the sheet of clean white paper, and read the words in thick black type. Chemistry, B. English, C. Geography, B. Mathematics, C. Physics, B. She read the words over and over, holding the paper up to the light, a pale gasp of excitement breaking out from her pursed lips. The first in the family to stop on at school, and now the first in the family, the first in the street, to go on to university. She refolded the paper and put it back into the jagged-toothed envelope. She propped it up on the kitchen table, leaning it against the empty cocoa mug, staring at it, checking her name and address on the front. She didn't know what to do straight away, who to tell, whether to have a drink and celebrate, whether to start packing her bags there and then.
All the different ways there were of leaving home, and the one she'd chosen had finally settled within reach. Her first brother, away with the merchant navy before she was even born. Her second and third brothers married. Her sister, gone with a story that no one ever spoke of. And now her, with a place waiting at Edinburgh University, ready to slip out of the house for good.
She heard footsteps on the wooden stairs and her mother came into the room, standing just inside the doorway, looking at her. What's that you've got there? she asked, her voice a little slow with sleep.
Eh? It's just a letter from the school, Eleanor said, leaning over it slightly. Is Da awake? she asked. Is he up yet?
No, he's still sleeping for now, her mother said, walking acros
s to the kettle and filling it with water. What's the letter for? she asked. Eleanor turned round in her chair.
It's the results, she told her. Ivy put the kettle on top of the stove.
Oh aye? she said. I didn't know you were expecting those. There was a creaking from upstairs, the sound of someone getting out of bed, footsteps across the floor. So what does it say? Ivy asked. Eleanor listened for the steps to come downstairs. She glanced up at the ceiling, and at her mother, and at the empty doorway. Well? her mother said. Eleanor handed over the piece of paper in its thin brown envelope.
It's good, she said quietly, pre-emptively, watching her mother's eyes scan over the words. Or she didn't say anything, and looked the other way.
Ivy read the sheet of paper, nodded, and made an mmhmm sound in the back of her throat. Oh aye, she said. Stewart came into the room and looked at them both expectantly. Ivy handed him the sheet of paper and went back upstairs. Will you make that pot of tea? she said, as she left the room. Eleanor watched her go, unsure whether to be shocked or not, waiting to see if she would come back and say anything more. Her father looked at the results and let out a long low whistle, breaking into a shuffling jig around the kitchen table, pulling Eleanor into a tight and startling embrace, rushing to get dressed and knock on the neighbours' doors, launching a day of toasts and hugs and hearty thumps on the back - and never you mind what your mother thinks, he whispered to her at one point, wonderfully - a day in which the letter would take pride of place on the front-room mantelpiece, repeatedly taken down and unfolded and passed around from hand to careful hand.
