So Many Ways to Begin. Jon McGregor
for mouse droppings in the basement, and it was a few years more before the job started to involve any of the work he’d imagined doing when he’d been a twelve-year-old boy poring over hand-drawn gallery designs and displays.
Julia came to see him after a few months, once he’d settled in. He was talking to an attendant in the foyer when she came through the main door; she stopped and looked for a long moment, surprised, she admitted later, by the pounding sensation of pride she’d felt.
Excuse me young man, she said, approaching him finally, Dorothy waiting by the door, I wonder if you might be able to show me around the museum? He turned to her, looking taller than she remembered, looking suddenly much older than the boy who’d visited her so often, and said I’m sure I can manage that Auntie Julia. She took his arm and let him lead her slowly around the first gallery, stopping to look at each of the display cases, asking questions, asking some of the questions more than once. He wondered if there was something wrong with her hearing. Dorothy had been before and hung back a little, noticing at the same time how grown-up David seemed and how much Julia had suddenly aged. She watched him showing Julia the case of medieval artefacts, lumps of pottery and ironware and stonework, most of it found during the recent rebuilding of bomb-damaged sites, scraped out of the mud as new foundations were dug into the ground. She watched him showing her the prehistoric case, a few bones and brooches and artist’s impressions, telling her that he didn’t think they were very reliably dated or sourced. Julia winked, lifting a finger to her lips. I won’t tell if you don’t, she whispered. He moved on to the natural history displays, a whole rack of beetles balanced on nail-heads, a cotton-wool drawer of speckled birds’ eggs, a tray of pinned butterflies, a panoramic landscape crowded with stuffed birds. His enthusiasm dropped when he showed her these; he half turned away even as he dutifully described each panel.
I don’t even know why they call it natural history, he said. It’s not the same at all.
Well, Julia said, starting to smile, gesturing towards the birds’ glassy-eyed gazes and tensed jaws, I’d say they were history now Daniel, wouldn’t you? She turned towards the other side of the room, but he didn’t move, looking at her curiously. Dorothy started to say something, but stopped herself, meeting David’s eye, shaking her head, glancing away. He hesitated, stepping towards Julia.
Auntie Julia? he said. She stopped a few feet away.
What’s that dear? she asked.
Auntie Julia, he said, you called me Daniel. She looked at him blankly.
No I didn’t, she said. Why on earth would I do a thing like that?
You did, he said, quietly insistent. You said Daniel. She turned to Dorothy, half-smiling, as if asking her what he was talking about. Dorothy shrugged, tutted, and peered closely at a case of flint axe heads. Julia looked back at David.
Don’t be silly, she said tiredly, indignantly. I think you need to get your ears checked, don’t you? And your manners. He watched her walking back down the gallery, sitting in a chair by the door to the foyer and looking pointedly away from them both. His mother nudged him. Well done, she murmured. Good work.
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 be 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