So Many Ways to Begin

Was that the same boat Mum's got at home? Kate murmured to him as they got out of the car at the cemetery, the one in that photo? He looked at her and nodded, holding her gaze for a moment so she could see that it wasn't something to be talked about just then.

In the evening, once people had started to go home from the wake, Donald took a large brown envelope from Rosalind's handbag and pulled out some more photographs. I thought you'd be interested in seeing some of these, he said, your line of work being what it is. He spread them out across the table. We found them in a chest of drawers in Ivy's room. David leant across and glanced at the pictures, damp-spotted black-and- white snapshots of weddings, birthdays, day-trips.

There's some other bits and pieces we found as well, Rosalind said, squeezing the edges of the envelope and tipping out a pil

e of ration books, union cards, Co-op stamps, pamphlets. Hamish, sitting on the other side of the table, reached forward suddenly, frowning, and picked out a grease-stained Illustrated Book of Knots.

That'll be mine for starters, he said. Where'd you find that?

David looked at a pale studio picture of Ivy and Stewart holding up a young baby, the baby dressed in a long gown and white bonnet, the edges of the picture a little out of focus, none of them smiling. He held it up, questioningly.

We're not sure but we think that's Eleanor, said Donald. Doesn't look much like I remember her, but we can't think it's anyone else.

It's been a long time since I've seen this though, Hamish announced, thumbing through the book of knots, pushing his thick-lensed spectacles up his nose, launching into the story of the grand send-off the family had given him when he'd first joined the merchant navy.

David half-listened, looking through the pictures, holding up a large print of a young couple on their wedding day, two sets of parents next to them, brothers and sisters fanning out on either side. Rosalind leant towards him.

Aye, that's us, she whispered, smiling shyly, glancing over at Hamish to be sure he couldn't hear her interruption. Seems like a fine long time ago now though, eh?

There were that many folk there, Hamish continued, oblivious. David pointed to a girl in the picture who looked about fifteen, with long hair and a blank expression.

Eleanor? he mouthed. Donald and Rosalind looked at each other.

Eh, no, that's her sister, Donald said quietly. Tessa.

She's in America now of course, Rosalind added. Has been for years. She stopped herself. You didn't know that though, did you? she said, her voice dropping away.

No, David said. I wasn't sure you were still in touch.

We get Christmas cards, Donald said, no more.

Are you folks listening at that end? Hamish asked, knocking the table, and the three of them turned back to face him.

Of course we are, said Rosalind.

You carry on there, Donald agreed. David finished the whisky Donald had put in front of him and listened to the rest of Hamish's story, looking around the emptying room, wondering where Kate had gone.

58 Email messages; printed copies dated March 2000

He'd always known how it would be, when it happened. He would be heaving great volumes down from dusty shelves in an archive office somewhere, turning thick pages and scanning endless rows of names until he found what he was looking for. He'd be filling out small pink request slips, waiting long afternoons while under-staffed departments worked their way through to his search. He knew, or he thought he knew, that when it happened he would be sitting in a room with notices saying Pencils only please; bags must be left at the front desk, where no one would notice the rush of exhilaration and fear which would shoot through him as he noted down the reference numbers for the copies he required, and carried them, trembling, to the counter.

But in the end, when it happened, it was nothing like that at all. He was sitting in front of a computer screen in Kate's old room, a mug of hot chocolate going cold beside him, the modem flickering as he checked his email, listening to Eleanor brush her teeth in the bathroom, listening to the radio he'd left on by their bed.

Kate had shown him how to use the computer on her first break back from university. He'd bought it a few years earlier with what was left of the redundancy money, but had only ever used it for writing letters. She'd shown him how to get connected to the internet, how to follow the links on the different pages, how to use the search engines to look for information on any possible subject he could think of. They'd sat side by side in front of the screen for most of an afternoon, while she showed him weather reports from Sydney Harbour, lecture notes from degrees at Leeds University, catalogues from the British Museum, the wedding photos of a couple called Jack and Mary somewhere in Florida, job adverts, property adverts, television listings, introductory guides to museums and exhibition centres, anything he suggested or which took her fancy as she clicked on the links from page to page. She kept tutting as she waited for the sites to load on to the screen, saying God I can't believe how slow this is, you should get a new computer Dad, this is well slow compared to the ones at uni, and every time she said it he looked at her in disbelief. A few minutes' wait seemed like a small price to pay for information from all over the world to come tumbling into your home.

He'd found the experience difficult to absorb at first. He'd become so used to the idea of information existing as a physical fact; books, papers, photographs, objects, the parched fragments of ancient civilisations inscribed on to stone and metal, kept secure in controlled environments. The idea that all information would eventually exist in this cacophonous airborne form astonished and alarmed him. It was overwhelming, unknowable, uncategorisable. The first few times, once Kate had finished showing him what to do and left him to it, he did nothing - sat in front of the screen with the browser logged on to a search engine, the cursor blinking impatiently in its small rectangular box. The endless choices that had suddenly reared up before him left him unable to move. He had no idea what he wanted to know.

Except, of course, that he did. He had every idea. There was only one thing he had ever wanted to know.

He started by simply entering her name into the search engines. Mary Friel, or Mary Friel + 1945, or Mary Friel + 1928/1929/1930, or Mary Friel + Donegal. The results came back either blank or with thousands of entries. So he started searching for adoption, tracing, family history, online archives, parish records. He looked at tourist information sites, local history sites, sites dedicated to the history of the Irish diaspora, sites concerned with the study of genealogy. And he realised, as he clicked and scrolled through the endless lists of links and databases, that the only way he would find her would be if she was waiting to be found. If she was sitting in front of a computer screen somewhere, tapped into this flood of new memories, clicking through these same sites and links with the same destination in mind. He didn't have enough information just to stumble across her on his own. She could have married, changed her name, left the country. She could have lied in the first place, and never been Mary Friel at all.

And he discovered that he wasn't alone. There were thousands of people doing just what he was doing, hundreds of thousands, listing themselves on databases and posting messages in the hope of finding the missing other. I was born in 1953, I gave up my daughter in 1942, I saw my son for the first and last time in 1962. He scrolled through these lists endlessly, looking for the name he wanted, looking for the date. Mary Friel, 1945. He chose a site to register with, paid the joining fee, and added his details to the list. Adopted son seeks birth mother. David Carter/Mary Friel /Believed March 1945. He put believed because it seemed to be the standard format, because there were so many stories of dates being mixed up, falsified, misremembered. Because people in his position were no longer sure what to believe.

When it happened, he had more or less given up. It was only habit which drew him back into Kate's old room a few evenings each week, looking for something to do before he went to bed; working his way through the lists, checking his email, searching through slowly and methodically and without any conviction that it was a worthwhile thing to do. He would sit on the folding metal chair in his pyjamas, running his bare feet back and forth across the carpet, squinting at the scrolling names or gazing blankly at his reflection in the darkened window while he waited for the modem to connect.

New Messages (1). Dear David. My mother's name is Mary Carr but her maiden name was Friel. She was in London during the war and gave up a baby boy for adoption in 1945. We'll need to talk more but I think she would be very interested to meet you.

When he called Eleanor's name, she came into the room with a toothbrush still in her mouth, her dressing gown hanging open around her nightdress. She said something inaudible, and he just pointed at the screen. She looked, and looked closer, toothpaste dribbling from the corner of her mouth as she tried to say it never is, is it? He nodded, not looking at her, not knowing what to say. They both looked at the words on the screen together, silently. She wiped at the spilt toothpaste with her sleeve, and laid her hand on his shoulder. He turned his face against her hand, and closed his eyes.