So Many Ways to Begin

It's not five yet, is it? he asked.

No, she said; I just wanted to be sure. He stood, slowly, lifting himself to his unsteady feet by pushing on the wooden arms of the chair, and picked up the suitcase.

Well, he said, puffing a little, let's at least get you all downstairs and ready for the young man. You sure you've got everything in here? he asked again, moving awkwardly towards the door and the top of the stairs. Eleanor tried to take the case from him.

I'll be alright with that Da, she said, let me take it. He put it down and turned to her, breathing heavily, and said now Eleanor, you're not out that front door yet. She didn't say anything. She looked at the floor and nodded, or she looked straight at him and tried to say all the things she was feeling, or she turned to the window again. He picked up the case and went downstairs, one heavy step at a time, clutching on to the handrail, stopping twice to get his wind, and by the time he got to the bottom his breath was pinched and loud. Eleanor stood in her room, trying not to listen, looking at the two neatly made beds, the chest of drawers, the wardrobe, the chair in the corner, the window.

He was sitting in his armchair in the corner when she got downstairs, wiping his forehead with a white handkerchief, the suitcase squatting in the middle of the room. She stood in the doorway. The street outside was quiet, the children and their families away to the beach, and the only sounds in the room were the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece, the softening wheeze of her father's breath. They heard hurried footsteps outside, and a knock at the door, and they looked at each other.

That'll be David then, she said, and he nodded.

He was standing in the entranceway at home when she told him what had happened, just as he'd been standing there when she'd told him about her exam results a year earlier, fiddling with the address book and pens on the phone shelf, the last of the evening's light falling through the glass panels of the front door. It took him a while to understand what she was saying, her words not making sense even once he'd told her to slow down and start again.

But she can't do that, he said. It's not up to her; she can't just not let you go. Eleanor sighed impatiently, and it was years before he realised just how wrong he'd been. He heard her dropping more coins into the slot, and she said so what am I going to do?

She'd come in from supper, she told him, a bit later than usual because she'd been round the shops with Heather after work. There's something we need to discuss, her mother had said, as she sat down at the table, and straight away she'd heard something in that voice, in those words, something she was more than used to. She'd turned to her father, but he'd looked down at his empty plate and said only, are you not going to wash your hands before you come to the table now? She got up from her chair, washed and dried her hands at the sink, and sat down again, and as she did so her mother took a large white envelope from her lap and slid a stapled bundle of papers from it. A letter came for you from Edinburgh, from the university, she said.

It's not the first time she's done that David, Eleanor told him. I wasn't surprised about that part of it at all.

It's a list of all the things you'll be wanting when you start down there, her mother said. It's an awful long list. There's a couple dozen books and some of them are costing near ten bob each. Eleanor caught her father glancing up at her, and she could see already what was happening. You'll need a set of bedlinen for your room, her mother said, and a whole lot of stationery. And you know what else? It says here you'll be needing formal wear on occasion. On occasion!

She said all this, she told him, with a voice put on, a voice Eleanor described as her airs and graces voice.

So tell me, her mother went on, since you're the bright spark of the family now, whe

re were you planning on finding formal evening wear, and bedlinen, and all those books? How were you thinking we were going to pay for it all? Because I don't think a year's worth of serving teas has quite covered it, has it now? She leant towards Eleanor, lowering her voice. Or had you not given it any thought, eh? she said.

The food was ready on the table. A large brown casserole dish on a mat in front of Stewart, steam piping out of the small hole in the lid. Butter melting over the hot salted potatoes in their bowl. Half a loaf of bread ready to be cut on the board, and no one touching a thing. Eleanor looked back at her mother, and perhaps allowed herself a smile as she saw a way around all these objections. Or perhaps she didn't dare smile. Perhaps she sat lower in her chair, dropping her gaze from the cold stillness of her mother's eyes.

There's a grant will pay for that, she said, quietly, or proudly, or defiantly. They give you a grant for all your expenses.

I thought that would be enough David, she said, her voice stumbling and rushing down the phone line towards him. I thought she'd maybe smile or say that's okay then at least, she said.

But instead there was her mother's hand cracking down on to the table, a flinch from both Eleanor and her father, her mother's voice cutting sharply into the room, saying this family has never taken charity and it's not about to start off now.

It's not charity, replied Eleanor, and David imagined that there were already tears in her eyes as she realised how soon the conversation would be over. It's a grant, she said. Everyone gets one, she said.

She'd worked a year for this, saving her wages from the tea room and working spare shifts at the social club so that her mother wouldn't have this excuse, couldn't say these things, and it seemed impossible that it would all come to nothing now, that the plans she'd made so carefully were not going to work out. She'd studied the prospectus so many times it was falling apart; she had a room booked in the halls of residence, and a suitcase ready to pack, and textbooks already bought. She'd been waiting a year for this, she'd been waiting her whole life for this.

It's a grant, she said again, hopelessly. Everyone gets one.

A couple of times before, waiting together at the station for his train, he'd said why don't you come with me, only half as a joke, and both times she'd been cross and said he wasn't to say that, it wasn't funny, it wasn't fair. But that August evening, with Eleanor waiting on the end of a 400-mile phone line, with the sunlight pouring through the frosted glass, with all the bearings he'd always taken for granted so recently pulled away, he saw with absolute clarity that it could be as easy as saying the words. That things can sometimes happen just because you ask them to.

What am I going to do? she asked him again.

He walked from the train station to her house in a slight daze, uncertain of what was going to happen, or whether he was even doing the right thing. The harbour quays seemed quieter than usual, the road less busy. A trawler headed towards the mouth, the low sputter of its engine floating back across the water. From somewhere on the north side came the sound of hammer on sheet steel, ringing through the afternoon. The still dry air was salted with the smell of fish and diesel and rusting iron. He got to the bridge, and crossed over the Dee into Torry, stopping a moment to wipe the sweat from his face, his hands, the back of his neck.

He walked up the hill, quickening his pace as he got closer, anxious to get it over with. There were very few people around, and his footsteps sounded out loudly along the narrow street. The front-room window of her house was open when he got there, and as he knocked on the door he heard her voice through the net curtain saying that'll be David then, and her father muttering something in brief reply.

He didn't go inside. He waited by the door, listening to their low voices, listening to her footsteps clattering quickly up and down the stairs, and then she wras there, ready, with him. Stewart met his eyes just once, as the three of them stood there shuffling their feet.

David, he said, nodding.

Afternoon Mr Campbell, he replied, as though they were bumping into one another in the street, as though it wouldn't be long before they saw each other again. He picked up Eleanor's suitcase. He said, well. He turned away, while Eleanor said goodbye to her father, and then he walked with her back down the hill.

22 Book of Co-op dividend stamps, 1968

Stewart took a white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at the sweat on his forehead, to keep it from trickling into his eyes. He stood, with one hand on the door frame, one foot on the front step, watching the pair of them until they'd rounded the corner at the bottom of the hill, waiting to see if one or other of them might turn around, just once. Or he went back inside as soon as they'd said their goodbyes, closing the door sharply behind him, breathless with rage and regret. Or he waited a moment, went inside to put the kettle on, and came back out to see whether they might not, after all, still be there.