Jon McGregor - So Many Ways to Begin

It was the first time she'd actually phoned him. After all their letters, and after all the times they'd spent together, it was still somehow unexpected. Her voice sounded strange and thin, coming all that way down the line while he stood in the entrance hall of the house, twisting the cable in his hand and glaring at his sister who had come down from upstairs to look at him accusingly.

That's bloody brilliant Eleanor, he said when she told him the news, and his excitement was as much from her phoning at all as from what she had to say. Her voice, breaking into his neat house like that, made him feel as though he were passing some kind of test. I knew you'd do it, he said.

Oh, she said, and then she was quiet for a moment. I've been waiting for someone to say that all day, she said.

She told him everything that had happened, how she'd waited a few moments to open the letter, how she'd hoped her father would see it first, how she hadn't really been surprised by her mother's reaction, and as her money started to run out, she said quickly, so you'll be coming up to see me again soon, aye? I'll see if I can't arrange for my folks to go away again, she said slyly. And he grinned and said you do that as the line went dead.

He sat on the bottom of the stairs for a minute, holding the warm receiver in his hand, looking out through the still open front door. His mother had gone outside with a pair of shears and her gardening gloves, and was busily cutting the hedge. She hacked at it with loose, stabbing gestures, letting the cut branches fall around her, stopping now and again to wipe the backs of her wrists across her eyes, glancing at him through the doorway once or twice. He put the phone down and went upstairs.

Eleanor took a model wooden boat from her bottom drawer, wrapped it in an old piece of newspaper, folded it into a navy-blue sweater, and tucked it down into a corner of the suitcase. She pressed folded skirts and blouses around it, a pair of shoes stuffed with balled-up socks and stockings, a handful of knickers, a pair of blue jeans, a dress still wrapped in the dry-cleaner's bag. She packed her field notes and sketches, her textbooks, her washbag, a packet of tissues, a hairbrush which had once belonged to her sister. She packed a magazine, a pillowcase, an envelope full of photographs and a thick bundle of letters, and when she pressed the lid down and forced the catch closed there was still plenty left that she wanted to squeeze in. Her father appeared in the doorway.

You all done there then petal? he asked, his head angling towards her and his thick eyebrows crinkling upwards. She looked at him a moment and tried a smile.

Aye, I think so, she said, as much as this case can manage anyhow, and she pushed on the lid to make sure the catches weren't going to burst open and spring her possessions back out into the room. She stood by the window, looking out down the street, towards the harbour. Stewart sat down on the chair in the corner of the room.

What time's he here? he asked.

About five, she said, looking at her watch.

Not be long now then, he said, folding his arms.

No, she said, not long.

Stewart must have sat in that room before, watching a son or a daughter pack up and leave, and now he was having to watch the last of his children go through the same routine; looking around for something forgotten, stroking the hair on the back of the head, not being able to look him in the eye. It was no easier now, surely, than the first time must have been.

You're not going for long then? he said. Just for a week or so?

No, she said, not long.

And you're sure you don't want to wait for your mother to come home first? She'll be awful surprised. Eleanor shook her head.

The train will go before she comes back, she said. She won't be back from work until six.

No, he said, I know. He narrowed his eyes, briefly, and she turned away, embarrassed, looking out of the window again.

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.