So Many Ways to Begin

But by the time they rejoined her she seemed to have forgiven him, smiling pleasantly and waving her hand at the room. Are you going to show me around? she asked. He looked at her. Are you going to show me around? she asked again.

10 Letters, handwritten, 1966-68; Paper napkin, 1966

Their first letters were short, tentative, neither of them wanting to put into words what they had both felt the first time they met, neither of them wanting to allude to what could so easily seem absurd. I'm sorry but it's so far away, they each imagined the other replying. It would be different if we both lived in the same town. Really, I'm sorry, but I barely know you at all. Instead, they asked each other polite questions, and wrote safe remarks about their own lives, as if they were pen pals enquiring about life in another country What's your house like? Do you have brothers and sisters? What's your favourite film? Today I spent the whole afternoon up on Tullos Hill just looking at the sea. But gradually the questions, and the answers, developed into something more, something which began to imply a deepening interest in each other - What do you want to do when you're older? Will you always stay in your town? Are you going out with anyone at the moment? And, gradually, they stopped worrying about how long the letters were becoming, and how frequent, and they started signing off with love, without quite thinking what it would mean, and they started writing things like: It would be good to see you soon. I can't wait to see you. When will you b

e coming up again?

He had all her letters still, of course, filed neatly away in a shoebox with everything else in Kate's old room, the tops of the envelopes smudged with fingermarks where he had taken them out and put them away over the years. And there were phrases he could quote from memory: It's deadly boring working in the tea room but sometimes it's worth it for the folk you meet. There are seals on the beach near here you know, I can show you if you're ever up again. I heard there was a job going in the museum today. Isn't it funny to think we almost never met?

He didn't tell his mother, or Susan, but they both noticed the letters he'd started getting, and it wasn't long before his sister asked him who they were from. It's no one, he told her as they were walking to the bus stop one morning, David heading for the museum, Susan for her job in a solicitor's office. Susan was still holding the latest letter just out of his reach, studying the envelope's girlish scrawl, and David tried to look unconcerned. It's just someone helping me with my research, he said. She looked at him over her shoulder, grinning, making a questioning face. What? he said. I met them when I went up there to study the museum. He grabbed at the letter but she pulled away from him, laughing.

Them? she said. Them? She stopped and turned around. What's her name? she said. David looked at her, and realised that no matter how old they both got she would always be his older sister and would always eventually get her way. He was twenty-one but he might have been twelve for the way she was holding the letter away from him, taunting him with it. He gave her a shove, snatching the letter, and he couldn't keep himself from smiling when he said Eleanor, her name's Eleanor alright? She's just a friend, alright? Susan gave him a shove back.

Alright, she said, she's just a friend. David put the letter in his pocket, keeping his hand on it, running his fingers across the ink-smudged paper. Aren't you going to read it? she asked, as they walked on.

No, he said. Not now.

Why? she said. It's not private, is it? I thought she was just a friend? She nudged him again and this time when he looked at her it was with a smile which admitted something he wasn't yet willing to say.

You won't say anything to Mum though? he said quietly, just as they got to the bus stop. She looked at him, made a zipping her lips shut gesture, and winked.

But she did tell their mother; or if she didn't tell her then she at least said enough for her to guess. Or perhaps Dorothy simply worked it out for herself, because when he came back from his second trip to Aberdeen she said, so, tell me, you're serious about this girl then?

What girl? he said. She smiled, shaking her head at him. She was ironing his shirt for work the next day, knowing that he wouldn't have thought about it before he went away.

Well, she said, what's her name? How old is she? What does she do?

He laughed, dropping his bag and holding up his hands in defeat, pulling a chair out from under the table. Her name's Eleanor, he said, sitting down. She's eighteen. She's still at school but she works in the tea rooms at the museum sometimes. Dorothy rearranged his shirt on the board, turning it over so the buttons ran down one edge, pulling the seam straight as she slid the iron across the creases.

And have you met her parents yet? she asked, trying and failing to say the words as if the question didn't mean anything much. David pulled a face.

It's not like that Mum, he said. Not— and he caught himself, bending down to look for something suddenly important in his bag. His mother looked up, standing the iron on its rest.

Not yet? she suggested, smiling. David screwed up his eyes and shook his head.

No Mum, he said, his voice muffled by embarrassment and exasperation. It's not— I don't know. I like her, but, I don't know. It seems a bit soon to be meeting her parents, he said. Dorothy picked up the iron again, pressing it down on to the shirt's folded cuffs, resting her weight on them a moment.

I met your father's parents almost before we started courting, she said. He took me to his house after picking me up from Auntie Julia's and introduced me to them. It was very formal. I think he just wanted to show me off. They were very nice you know; it was so sad what happened. She put the iron back on the rest and started to fold the shirt, smoothing it out with the back of her hand. Of course, my parents didn't get to meet him until the wedding, she said. London was a long way from Suffolk in those days. David looked up at her and stopped himself from saying I know this Mum, you've told me all this before. I'd only met him a week earlier, she said, at a church-hall dance. Julia made sure I went and she made sure I talked to him as well, not that I needed much encouragement. She stopped, looking down at her hands where they rested on the folded shirt, looking at the ring still on her finger there.

I miss him David, she said. I really do. Her voice faltered. He stood up and moved awkwardly towards her. They both waited.

I know, he said. She took a sharp breath, blinking quickly, and held the shirt out towards him.

Anyway, she said briskly. So. Did you meet this Eleanor at the museum, was she working there when you went up? Or did you, I mean, was it something else? He took the shirt and shook his head, smiling, as if to say that she knew too much already, that he wasn't going to tell her anything more.

I don't know really, he said, I just did. It just happened, he said.

He went upstairs, and as he carried the folded shirt out of the room she mouthed thank you? behind him, shaking her head and unplugging the iron from the wall.

It just happened.

He could have walked straight past. The door might not have been ajar. She might not have been struggling to work the new coffee machine, and so the sudden shriek it made might not have caught his attention the way it did. He might not have had the money to spare, or the confidence to push the door a little wider and ask if she was still serving. He might not have misunderstood the museum layout and missed an entire room of exhibits, and so he might have been rushing to catch his train and not turned and seen her there.

These things, the way they fall into place. The people we would be if these things were otherwise.

The coffee machine shrieked, he turned his head, the door was ajar. Behind the gleaming mahogany counter, partly shrouded by a jet of steam, he saw her, frowning, pulling levers, banging her hand against the side of the machine. There didn't seem to be any customers. Sunlight was pouring into the room through tall sash windows, every surface shining, every spoon and coffee pot glinting, and as the steam cleared he caught his first sight of her face.

Or it was raining, and the room was dull and grey, and he couldn't see her properly from the other side of the room the details slip away, arranged and rearranged over the years.