So Many Ways to Begin

Anna, Chris said. Have you told David t

he news yet? David glanced up from helping Kate to kneel in front of him with the cake on her lap. Anna turned suddenly to Chris, shaking her head.

What's that then love? asked Dorothy, stretching her arms around Susan and David, reaching out to pull Eleanor a little closer into the group. You've got some good news? Anna tried to laugh.

No, it's nothing, she said. Chris nudged her as she lifted the camera again.

You should tell them, he said, starting to smile. Anna looked embarrassed.

It's not you-know-what is it? said Dorothy, with a singsong in her voice, ignoring Susan's tut and roll of the eyes.

No, said Anna, it's not that, it's nothing, really.

Oh no dear, Dorothy said. You'll have to tell us now. You can't leave us guessing like that.

She got the head curator job, Chris said abruptly, fixing David's gaze as he said it, smiling. Anna lowered the camera and looked at the ground for a moment, and looked at David, an apology briefly in her eyes.

Oh, well done! said Dorothy. Now, shall we get this picture taken?

As the two of them were walking away across the park, having given the camera back and wished Kate a happy birthday again, having said goodbye and thank you for the cake, Dorothy broke the silence by saying well really. There's no need to gloat. Really. I thought you'd been working there longer than her anyway? she said to David.

Yes Mum, he said, I have. Thanks for reminding me. He started to tidy away the crisp packets and drinks bottles, glancing over at Anna and Chris as they reached the gates of the park, Chris with one hand around Anna's shoulder, the other hand wiping the back of his leg.

He remembered things. He sat in his office at work, writing reports and assessments so that he could keep out of everyone's way - could keep out of Anna's way - and he looked out of the window, and he remembered things.

He remembered Chris swearing, asking him what the fuck he'd done, calling him a silly cunt, asking him what the fuck he thought he was supposed to do now. He remembered Chris's voice sounding very much as though he was crying. He remembered Chris sliding his arms under his body and picking him up, and the agonising pain of each of those jolting steps.

It was difficult to accept, Anna getting the job he'd always imagined would be his, the job which should have been only the first step towards all those grand ambitions he'd had as a child, as a young man, the job which now seemed feebly out of reach. It was difficult to take instructions from Anna, to have to answer to her after everything that had happened.

He remembered Anna, the way she'd stood there in that dress. Her bare shoulders. The movement of the dress when she'd turned in the doorway, the way it had swung around the backs of her long bare legs.

He remembered Chris, laying him down by the telephone box, saying bloody hell, fucking hell, you're not going to tell anyone, are you, you're not going to say it was me? Saying it was an accident, mate, fucking hell, it was an accident.

He remembered lying there on the ground, the flow of blood seeming to slow and the sound of an ambulance in the distance, watching Chris wipe his hands across the backs of his trousers as he walked away.

49 Library tickets, green card with handwritten annotations, c. 1980s

Eleanor came to him that evening with a familiar urgency in her eyes, and they made love for the first time in months. You're safe now, she kept whispering, pulling him closer and closer against her, as if she'd understood far more about the scene in the park than he'd realised, as if by these fierce clinging acts of love she could protect him from it all.

He was reading a library book, sitting on the edge of the bed in his pyjamas and dressing gown, and when she came into the room he didn't even look up. She took the book from his hands, kissed him, and pulled at his belt and his pyjama buttons until her hands were against his bare skin, pressing and stroking and pulling and pinching. She pushed him back on to the bed, clambering after him, kneeling over his body and working her way forward until, shrugging her dressing gown from her shoulders, she could lower herself towards his mouth.

It was quick, and it was unexpected, but by then it almost always was. A stray glance, a quiet evening, a warm day, and the weeks and months of shared solitude - brief dry kisses, hugs, little more - would be swept aside in a hurried series of remembered moves and gestures. The hand on the back of the head. The unbuttoned skirt. The kneeling. The tugging at underwear. The clutching at each other's bodies. And the kissing, always the kissing. We should do this more often, they usually said, afterwards, but they didn't.

She fell back on to the bed, pulling him towards her, saying come here come here, you're safe now, come here, and as he felt the heat of her skin against his, the pull of her legs around his waist, he tried to remember when the last time they'd done this had been.

Two months, three months ago, with mud on their shoes and leaf-litter in their hair, an afternoon in the park with Kate having degenerated into a tickling match, the press and wrestle of their laughing bodies in the cold clear air reminding them again of what they'd been missing; and when they'd got home, for once she wasn't too tired, or too tearful, or too concerned about Kate playing alone in her room, and the moment hadn't passed, and they'd faced each other in their room and begun in the usual way. It was almost always the same. She would unbutton the back of her skirt, or he would do it for her. She would smile slyly, and meet his eye, and they would kiss. Her skirt would be pulled or pushed or wriggled to her ankles, and her knickers would follow, and then she would place her hand on the back of his head and push him lightly but firmly to the floor. He would kiss her, kneeling, and she would sink back on to the edge of the bed, and he would keep kissing her until she had finished. She would pause, and call him up on to the bed, and the two of them would be together again, holding, moving, murmuring.

Hey, she said, later. How're you doing? They were both sitting up in bed, dressed in their pyjamas again, reading. He looked at her and smiled.

Not bad, he said. Not bad at all. She laughed, embarrassed, and lowered her eyes.

No, but apart from that, she said. I mean, you know, what happened today and everything. He put his book down.

It's okay, he said. It was fine. Why? She looked at him and said nothing.

She said, and the job? Were you, are you very disappointed? He thought for a moment, and when he spoke he almost sounded surprised.

No, he said. No, I'm not. I thought I would be, but I'm not, I don't think. I don't know, he said. Maybe I'm just losing interest in the whole business. Maybe I'm growing out of it, he said, smiling. He picked his book up and started reading again, and she didn't ask him any more about it.