So Many Ways to Begin

What you should understand, she said very quietly, letting go of the card and stepping back slightly, is that most girls would have given false names to the nurses, you know? For fear of someone being told.

She didn't look at him as she spoke, and at first he wasn't quite sure what she'd said.

Absolutely, she said, they'd have given false names. That's what I did, she said.

I can't find them here, Sarah called through from her mother's bedroom, and Mary left the room to go and help her.

So when they sat down on the long plump sofa opposite the gas fire, Mary adjusting the cushions behind her and opening the first of the albums out across their laps, they knew, they both knew what was happening. But neither of them said anything about it. Sarah, standing back again, watching from the kitchen doorway, didn't know, and so perhaps it was for her that they kept quiet. Eleanor, sitting at the table in the window again, didn't know, although she immediately saw some small change in David's manner, and in his voice, and so perhaps it was also for her that they kept quiet. Or perhaps it was because they weren't quite sure and they both preferred, for the moment, not to know.

Well then, Mary began. I suppose my story's longer than yours, on account of my being around a lot longer, so it's a good job we're sitting down. He smiled, and leant a little closer towards her, a little closer to the pictures in the album.

So, she said. This is the first photo of us. This is us at my sister Cathy's wedding, all of us except Jack, who was away. I'm fifteen, that's me there, see? This would have been just before I went over to England for the first time, she said. Just before we went to the hiring fair in Deny.

He listened to the words, to the soft drifting sound of her voice, and he looked at the pictures. He found his hand moving towards each photograph the way Mary's had done at the table, as though his fingers might feel something more than he could find with his eyes, some extra detail, some texture or colour or life. But there was only the glossy press of the cellophane laid over each page, the slight ridge of each photograph's edge.

She talked on, explaining each picture, talking around it, telling the story of growing up in such a large family, of having to follow her brothers in travelling for work, of what had happened in London, of coming home to raise a family of her own. She sent Sarah back to her room to look out the biscuit tin from under her bed, with her rainy-day money in; will you look now, she said, that's the same tin I had back then. The words came easily, the story tumbling out with the pictures the way that she'd always imagined it would, sitting in a room with the fixed and silent attention of a man like this, her long-rehearsed words filling the room. She talked on, and he listened, and he asked questions, and she answered, and she was still talking by the time Sarah had turned on the side lights, and cleared the table, and twice offered them another pot of tea.

And when she had finished they both sat together for a time, not speaking, their hands touching lightly against each other, both knowing what needed to be said now but neither of them wanting to be the one to begin.

62 Bill for room and board, Conway's of Letterkenny, June 2000

As they were leaving, Mary produced a package of photographs, reprints of the ones she'd shown him in the album. It was neatly tied with string, and wrapped in a plastic bag to keep it out of the rain. I'd still like you to have these though, she said, all the same. If you'd like them. David took the package, and nodded, and tried to say yes, thank you, I would. Eleanor moved away to the car, and Sarah backed away into the house, as if they thought they should make way for one last private moment; but as the two of them stood there they could do little more than smile.

I'm sorry, said David.

Oh, not a bit, said Mary. It's you that's come all this way now. He shrugged. I should be apologising to you. I think Sarah got a bit carried away with herself there, I think maybe she found what she wanted to find, you know? I think she didn't stop to be sure. She only said you were coming a few days ago, I haven't had a chance to . . . she said, her voice fading, her hands reaching for what she was trying to say. It would have been nice though, wouldn't it? she said. Before it was too late. She stopped, and closed her eyes, and he thought about calling Sarah back outside. But it's okay, she said, finally. I don't mind. And I don't think you'll mind, will you?

No, he said. No, I won't.

It's better than nothing though, isn't it? she said, almost smiling, and he could only nod in reply.

They didn't drive straight to the hotel. It was earlier than they'd expected, and Eleanor said they should have a look at the scenery while there was still some light. They drove north out of Letterkenny, following a road he half remembered from his previous visit, heading up towards the Fanad peninsula. They didn't speak much. Neither of them seemed certain what to say.

Are you glad you came, at least? Eleanor asked eventually, and he took so long to answer that she thought he hadn't heard her. They drove into a small market town, coming to a river at the bottom of a steep hill, and as they crossed an old stone bridge he glanced at her and said yes, yes I am.

Well, she said. That's the main thing. They followed the road out of the town, through another small village, and out to the shore of a long narrow bay, pulling off the road on to a gravelled car park by a slipway. He turned the engine off, and they watched a pair of men working on a fish farm in the middle of the bay.

I was expecting more people though, he said. Not that it matters now. She shifted in her seat, turning her body towards him, waiting for him to say more. He opened the car door. I thought there'd be a whole crowd of them there, he said, waiting to meet me. I didn't think it would just be the two of them like that. I think I thought it would be more of a get-together, he said, swinging his legs out and resting his feet on the gravel.

Maybe that would have come later, she said softly. He looked at her, and she saw for the first time the disappointment he was feeling, etched across his face, darkening in his eyes.

Maybe, he said.

He got out of the car and wandered over to the water. She reached for the door handle on her side, but stopped, letting her hand fall as she watched him kicking small stones from the concrete slipway into the sea. She thought he might pick one up and skim it across the water, remembering when she'd first taught him how, a young woman showing her landlocked boyfriend the way to search out a flat stone and curl his finger around its corner, to bend his knees as he flicked it across the waves. She remembered his boyish delight when he'd finally made one bounce, and she wondered whether she'd ever really imagined, then, still being with him now, still being able to see that fizzing, sparking, skinny young man in the ageing figure he'd become, with his greying hair, his loosening skin, his tired and heavy heart. She couldn't remember being able to think that far ahead.

He didn't skim any stones. He kept his hands in his pockets, and his eyes down, and the waterproofed men on the fish-farm rafts finished up their work, and a pair of diggers on the other

side of the bay fell quiet and after a few minutes he got back into the car.

It's getting dark, he said. Shall we go back to the hotel?

She waited until he'd run a bath and settled into it before asking him anything else. She put the lid down on the toilet and sat there, watching him smooth soap lather up each of his arms and across his chest, watching him slide down into the water to rinse it off.

She said, David, were you surprised though? The way it turned out? He looked at her, sitting up a little straighter. He splashed water over his face, and wiped it away with his hands. She said, tentatively, I mean, could you not have asked a few more questions before we came over? Didn't the dates seem wrong from the start?

I don't know, he said. It seemed to just about fit. I think it was Sarah who got the dates muddled. You know she was doing all this without telling her mother? he said, turning to Eleanor. Eleanor's eyes widened and she shook her head.

No, she said. Oh no, really? David nodded, and shrugged, and sat forward to wash his feet.