So Many Ways to Begin

by Jon McGregor

  No, she said. I don't know.

  Dark curly hair, he said, down to here, quite slim. She looked at him very briefly, her head held low.

  No, Eleanor said, I don't know her. She got up from the table and turned the television on, sitting at the end of the sofa and resting a cushion on her lap, pulling her dressing gown across her knees. Kate stood up from the floor with a doll still in her hand and went to sit next to her, shuffling across to rest her head against her mother's arm. Eleanor edged away for a second before lifting her arm and wrapping it around her daughter's back.

  Half a year later, with Christmas and New Year and winter behind them, with Kate at his mother's house and Eleanor still hiding in bed, he phoned Anna. He thought they should discuss the themes for the next foyer display, he said. As if it couldn't have waited until the next day. As if it was perfectly usual to speak about work like that on a Sunday afternoon. As if he hadn't known that Chris was going to be working away all weekend.

  They talked about the foyer for a minute or two, no more, and fell silent. And he lowered his voice as he said, so, shall I come round?

  She was quiet at first, and he wasn't sure if she'd heard him. He could hear a lawnmower somewhere nearby, and music. It sounded as if she had the back door open, and he imagined her sitting there with a warm breeze blowing through the house. Sorry? she said.

  He looked up at the ceiling, squeezing the back of his neck.

  I was just wondering, he said. If you're not doing anything. If you've not got anything to do, maybe I should come round. I'm not doing anything, he added. She hesitated for only a moment.

  Okay, she said. Yes. Okay. He held the phone away from his face, looking at it, wondering what he was doing.

  Okay, he said.

  43 Small fragment of metal, unidentified, 1983

  For a long time, he thought about it every day. That strange expectant atmosphere. The feeling of needing to leave but being unable to. The shock of that first touch, the dizzying force of it. Later, he found himself able to not think about it for days at a time, weeks even, caught out only by some passing reminder - birdsong, summer evening sunlight, rubble overgrown with birch trees and wildflowers. He would see these things, hear them, and he would remember.

  But eventually even these things failed to bring it to mind, and he was able to go for months without remembering what had happened that day. And by the time he and Eleanor were driving to Liverpool to catch the Belfast ferry, almost twenty years later, it took something as direct as her stroking the bare warm skin of his belly and catching her finger on the old faded scar to bring it suddenly back.

  She said are you sure you don't mind me coming with you? He drew his breath in sharply and laughed.

  Well, it's a bit late now isn't it? he said. Her finger was still moving back and forth across the scar, looking for and finding the twin trails of tiny dotted lines where the stitches had once been, and he thought once more of the things he'd never told her, the things he wasn't going across the water to say.

  The first punch was a shock. It shouldn't have been. He should have been thinking more clearly, when Chris suggested it, he should have thought about whether it really was quicker to cut across the site of the old car factory on their way back home, squeezing through a gap in the fence while Chris talked about the work he'd once done there, pointing out the brickworked outlines of the old warehouses and offices, the paint shops, the testing bays, the assembly line. He should have wondered if there was more to the conversation's drift towards marriage and trust than just the two pints of beer swimming through them, the long sloping fall of the evening's light and the birds sliding across the sky. He should have listened, and thought, and realised what might be coming. He should have known that the offer of a drink after work was out of the ordinary, that their talk had been a little too awkward, a little too forced, that Chris had seemed all along to be waiting for something. But he hadn't thought about any of these things; or if he had, he'd done nothing about them, and so when that first punch came, it came as a shock.

  He turned just as Chris caught him with it in the stomach, noticing the strange grim look of concentration on his face, even as his body folded around that lump of a fist, even as his feet were scraping and scrabbling across the stony ground. He looked up, almost laughing, as if it might have been a joke or he could turn it into one, and he said what what are you doing what's this? Chris said nothing, and brought the heel of his open hand crashing into the side of David's head like a hammer.

  And even as the punches were falling across his face, his ribs, his kidneys, David still found the time to be surprised, the breath to say but but what no but I didn't do anything what are you fuck I didn't do a thing. Chris laughed when he heard this, and kicked David's legs out from under him, the sun-baked concrete cracking hard against the side of his face as he fell to the floor.

  What did you think you were doing, mate? Chris said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. How did you think you were going to get away with it?

  I didn't do anything, David said, there's nothing, we only, and Chris called him a liar, a liar and a cunt, kicking him in the side of the head as he lay on the ground.

  It was a hot summer' s day when he went to her house, when he telephoned and asked if he should come round and she said okay, when he walked over there and she opened the door and said hello. She'd tied her hair up, and long curls of it were falling loose across her face, and she kept blowing them out of her eyes, fanning herself with a piece of paper and saying it's hot, I'm hot, aren't you? And every time she said it she giggled, nervously or embarrassedly or excitedly, he couldn't tell. She had a laugh that made his ears flush red. She asked him in, and she poured them both a drink, and she dropped ice cubes into the glasses. She dared him to suck a whole ice cube and he dared her back, and they stood there in her kitchen with their mouths puckered around a block of ice each, grimacing at each other, her eyes watering and sparkling, and when she spat hers out, laughing, she touched him once again. Her two hands flat to his chest, gently, briefly. It had been months since Eleanor had touched him like that.

  She was wearing a blue dress, a very pale blue, as though it had been washed too often, cut low and hanging from her bare round shoulders on straps as thin as parcel string. Her feet were bare. She caught him looking at her and smiled.

  They sat in the front room with their drinks. They sat next to each other, and she turned towards him, folding her legs beneath her and stretching one arm out along the back of the sofa. And she talked a lot, quickly, she laughed and the way she laughed made him feel uncomfortable and good at the same time. And when she didn't talk she took a long slow sip of her drink, looking at him over the top of her glass, a long slow look which he wanted to turn away from but couldn't. He had no idea what he was doing, now that he was there, and he wanted to leave, and he didn't want to leave. She asked him how things were with Eleanor, and he said the same, that she wasn't spending so long in bed but that she still wouldn't leave the house and she still looked puffy-eyed when he came in from work. He told her the doctor had been talking about a different medication and that he wasn't sure it was really the answer. It was almost a routine conversation by then.

  How long has it been now? she asked. He had to think for a moment.

  He said, she's not always like it, you know, it comes and goes. She was fine when she was pregnant, and fine for a while afterwards. But it just comes on sometimes, he said. It doesn't seem like there's anything either of us can do to stop it. I'm not even sure the pills make much difference, he said; they just make it easier to deal with, they're only damping things down. She wras watching him while he told her this, nodding, leaning towards him slightly.

  She said, it's good, you know, what you do for her, it's impressive.

  He said, well no, not really, I mean, she's my wife, what else would I do?

  She was wearing a long bead necklace, she was twisting it between two fingers and when she let it go it fell agai
nst her bare skin and again he couldn't help looking.

  She said, I'm glad you're here, it's good to have you here.

  Well, it's good to be here, he said, trying to be mock-polite but actually meaning it. It was good to be there, on her sofa, with a cold drink on a hot afternoon, and her sitting there in that dress, blowing curls of dark hair out of her eyes, and talking, and laughing, and touching her fingers to her lips.

  She said, is it? suddenly, demandingly. Is it good to be here, are you glad you're here?

  Yes, he said, yes it is, yes I am, and he was confused and she was quiet.

  He finished his drink. He went to the toilet. He washed his face and his hands, and when he came out of the bathroom at the top of the stairs she was there.

  She was standing in the open doorway of the room next to the bathroom, leaning against the door frame slightly, one ankle curled round behind the other. The blue dress hung down to her knees, but with one leg lifted like that it rode up higher, almost halfway up her thigh. He looked at her. That was all. He just looked at her. She lifted a hand to adjust the knot of hair at the back of her head, and she smiled. That was enough. That moment, standing there looking at her, and her smile, her smile for him, that hot day with the windows open and the sleepy sounds of summer drifting through the house, a lawnmower somewhere, children shouting, that was enough.

  How do I look? she said.

  She told me David, she fucking told me, Chris said. He lit a cigarette, breathing heavily, and told David to stand up, half helping and half pulling him up by the collar of his jacket. David lifted his hand to his face, checking his swollen lips, his cheeks, the bruises around his eyes, looking at the blood on his fingers as he pulled his hand away. Hecoughed, and spat blood on to the ground, and wondered if that was it over already.

  He said, Chris, look, it wasn't like that, it wasn't, we didn't. Chris lifted his hand, already starting to turn away.

  Fuck it, he said. Forget it, he said. He turned back towards David, and for a moment David thought he was reaching out to shake his hand, that this was the end of it after all; but instead he reached for the collar of David's jacket, yanking him towards the ground, leaning over to spit the words into his ear. He said, you and Eleanor, that's your problem. He said, I don't care if she's not giving you any or if she makes you sleep in the spare room or if she won't even undress in front of you ever again mate. He said, it don't bother me, it's not my problem, it's nothing to do with me, but you fucking keep your eyes off mine, alright? He said these things quietly, with a smile in his voice as though he was trying not to laugh, and he gripped David's jacket tighter, so that the collar squeezed and cut into his neck. And all David could think about, as he felt the veins on his neck starting to pulse, was that there was only one way Chris would have known about those things. There was only one person he'd ever discussed them with.

  Alright? Chris said again, and David nodded, making a noise which was supposed to be yes, okay, I understand. Chris stood up straight, and as he did so he pushed David away. David felt his feet slip from under him, felt his face smack against the warm hard ground again, felt small stones and grit grinding against the skin of his cheek. There was something sharp underneath him, jutting into his stomach, and just as he was arching his back away from it, he felt the weight of Chris's feet stamping on his back, a sudden gasp of pain as the something sharp broke through his skin, gouging and twisting and tearing into his muscles and his flesh.

  Chris backed off, and he rolled over to look down at the pain. For a moment, there was nothing; a rip in his shirt, a glimpse of something hard and rust-coloured. But as he looked, and as Chris began to turn and walk away, the blood suddenly poured out, seeping through the fabric of his shirt, sliding thickly across his skin. He looked at the blood, and he looked at Chris, still only a few yards off but moving further, and he looked up at the empty pale blue sky.

  He washed his face and his hands, he came out of the bathroom, and there she was, standing there in that dress, looking at him. How do I look? she said, and it seemed as if she really wanted to know, as if she wasn't sure, when every inch of her was breathtaking and desirable, her elegant bare feet and the smooth straight rise of her legs, the way her dress pulled against the curve of her hips and the press of her breasts, her shoulders, her neck, her eyes. Her eyes looked strange for a moment, when he looked, anxious almost.

  He said, you look good, and she said, do I? really? as if she genuinely didn't think so, as if she thought he might be humouring her somehow. As if there was no one who told her each day how very good she looked.

  He said, softly, yes Anna, you do, you look very good. She smiled again, looking away for a moment, looking over her shoulder into the room. He still hadn't moved. When she turned back her eyes looked different and she wasn't smiling.

  She said, quietly, looking straight at him, alright then, come on, and she turned quickly in the doorway, stepping into the room, out of sight.

  He didn't even breathe.

  That movement, the turn of her hips, the swing and lift of her dress around the backs of her legs.

  He found it difficult to remember, later, how long she had waited, how long he had stood there looking at the open door.

  He didn't move. He couldn't.

  She reappeared, and when she spoke this time her eyes spilled clearly over into tears, her voice cracking. She said don't be shy. She said I thought you wanted to.

  He said, I do.

  She said well come on then, and she opened her mouth slightly, and there were tears down both her cheeks, shining.

  He wanted her, immensely.

  He couldn't move.

  Later, he would have liked to have been able to say that he thought of Eleanor at that moment, that he remembered how much he loved her still and how important it was that he went straight back home and told her. Or that he thought of Kate, and how privileged he felt to be a part of her life, and that he knew with sudden clarity that he could do nothing to jeopardise that. But these things wouldn't have been true. It was only fear which kept him from moving towards her. Fear of what might happen if he did, fear of what might happen then, and next, and for the rest of his life.

  He turned and walked down the stairs, slowly, his knees buckling with each step, feeling the weight of her gaze on his shoulders, watching him. He hesitated again at the bottom of the stairs, wondering whether he should turn and say something, or change his mind, or stay for another drink so that they could both pretend nothing had happened at all. He heard the swirl of her dress behind him as she turned away from the top of the stairs, and he heard her bedroom door closing, and he thought, even then, about going back. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt and opened the front door, stepping out into the afternoon sun and walking quickly away.

  He was surprised, as he lay there, by just how much pain there was, a ragged-edged, nameless, roaring pain. He was surprised by how much blood continued to spill out of him, pooling thickly across the cracked and broken ground. He tried to bring his hands to the place where it hurt, to see if he could take out what had broken into him, to pinch the edges of the wound and stop the endless outpouring of blood. But his hands quivered uselessly when he tried to move them, lifting weakly into the air, falling again. He turned his head, watching Chris moving further away, watching the birds cluster and sweep across the evening sky.

  He thought about when Kate had been born, and the visceral sense he'd had of the need to protect her, the violence he'd felt rising in his body at the thought of anyone so much as intending her harm. He realised that he'd already failed her, and he wondered who would be there to protect her now, if they would do a better job than it seemed he was capable of.

  He saw Chris turning round without breaking his stride, looking back from fifty yards away. He saw him stopping, turning again, shielding his eyes from the low sun. They looked at each other. David lifted his bloodied hands, in some feeble gesture of need, and Chris ran, stumbling, across the broken ground.


  44 Pair of child's gloves, striped, c.1983

  When Eleanor was eight years old, she told him once, she lost a pair of gloves on the way home from school. It was getting close to spring and the day had turned warm, so she'd left them in her coat pocket, not realising they had fallen out until just before she got to her front door. She spent an hour looking for them, running back to school with her head down, scanning the pavement and the gutter and the railing tops. She got to the school just as her teacher was leaving, and he let her back in to look under her desk, in the cloakroom, in the corridor, in the outside toilets, but they weren't there. She ran back to the house, her frantic search blurred by hot, frightened tears. I didn't want to get into trouble for being home late, she told him, but I didn't want to get into trouble for losing the gloves either. When she gave up, and knocked on the door, and wasn't able to meet her mother's questioning glare, she got into trouble for both. She was sent to bed without any tea, and smacked on each step of the steep stairs, and wasn't allowed another pair of gloves until she was old enough to buy them for herself. I used to wear socks on my hands, she said, when it was deathly cold, and hoick my hands up into my sleeves so that no one could see.

  When Kate was seven years old, the autumn after David had been in hospital, Eleanor bought her a new pair of gloves and attached them to her winter coat with two lengths of bright red wool. She took a sewing kit out from the cupboard under the stairs one Sunday afternoon and settled down into the sofa by the window. Kate stood and watched her for a few moments, distracted from the farm she was building in front of the fireplace, a look of puzzled concentration in her eyes.