Jon McGregor - So Many Ways to Begin

After a few minutes he lifted his head, wiped his face and said nothing more. She slipped her arm around his and they walked on, leaning together into the rise of the hill, climbing up to the small patch of woodland and out into the village. They found a bus stop at the edge of the village green, and he noticed the shop window of the potter's gallery and wandered over to have a look, and bought the vase. They went home, and although it was years before they went out to the countryside again, she did at least seem to be better for a time; leaving the house, talking about university again, letting the pills gather dust in the bathroom cabinet. He dared to hope that that might be the end of it, that they could go back to the way things were always meant to have been; so when she went back on to the medication after Christmas, dulled and shaken by a higher dosage, he began to feel that things might never really change, that this was the life he'd stumbled into, that he was trapped by something he could neither understand nor control.

She was fourteen, she told him, sitting on the quayside with two of her friends, laughing and talking about boys, enjoying the long evening and glad to be out of the house. She heard her mother's voice behind her, and was pulled to her feet. Spun around to face those hard, narrowed eyes.

Let me smell your breath child.

The words spoken low and calm, the gaze intent and steady, the grip on the arm already bringing a soft smudge of bruising to the skin. Eleanor's friends looking carefully in the other direction, edging away, brushing down the backs of their skirts with their hands. The cigarette floating away between driftwood and dead fish and polystyrene scraps, rising and falling on the swell, the paper unfurling and spilling burnt tobacco down into the dark water. Ivy leant closer into her daughter's pale face.

Breathe, she said. Eleanor looked at her. She exhaled as weakly as she could but Ivy must still have smelt the damp sour stink of cigarette smoke. She stood back and slapped Eleanor hard around the side of the face. Her friends jerked their shoulders at the sound and moved a few steps further away. Eleanor's face coloured suddenly and her eyes started to shine.

I'm sorry Mam, she whispered. I'm sorry. Ivy pulled her closer.

Don't give me sorry, she said, it's too late for sorry child. You'll get what's due and keep quiet, aye? Standing close to each other, intimately close, blind to anyone else, their world reduced for the moment to this self-enclosed space of anger and resentment and shame.

Eleanor tried to say something, sorry perhaps, or I won't do it again, or they made me, or any of the other weak responses she knew wouldn't be enough. But her words crumpled under the weight of Ivy's glare, and all that came out was something like a whimper.

What's that? said Ivy. You say something? There was no reply, and perhaps it was only then that something snapped inside Ivy, the sight of her louring daughter, the embarrassment of people turning to watch, the knowledge that people would be talking later in the day. Or perhaps it didn't take anything to snap for Ivy to pull her daughter suddenly by the arm, to swing her round and point her in the direction of the steep road home. Get going girl, she spat into her ear, pushing the back of her head, get going quick or you'll see what I don't do. Eleanor walked quickly across the quayside, her head bowed and her shoulders turned protectively in, keeping her eyes to the ground. Or she walked tall, daring any of the onlookers to meet her eye, even turning to wave to her friends. Or she ran, her eyes a blur of tears. Before Ivy followed her, she turned to Eleanor's two friends and called out to them: I'll be talking to your mothers too, Ruth, Heather, don't think I won't. They watched her silently, and she turned and followed her daughter home.

The walk back to their house was a steep one. The pavement was stepped in places, and there were handrails bolted to some of the houses, to be caught hold of on icy days. The first time David went to see her parents he'd had to stop twice on the way to catch his breath, and Eleanor had laughed at him, saying he was nothing but a soft southern sass.

I never said a word more, she told him, safe in their bed with the lights out and the covers pulled up around them, I could just hear her steps and her breathing at the back of me. I thought she might have calmed down once we got to the top, or that she might be too worn out to do anything much. But she had this way of winding herself up, you know? David looked at her eyes in the half-dark under the covers; they were calm and clear, almost puzzled, as though she was considering something that had happened to someone else, as though she was still surprised by it all.

The door closed behind them, and Eleanor turned to face her mother's fury in the unlit hall. There were open-handed slaps at first, to the arms and legs, to the face, each slap held high in the air like a question — as if to say do you want this one too my girl? — and although Eleanor held out her hands to block them, Ivy was always quick enough to find a way through. There was nothing frantic about it. There was no loss of control. Each blow was considered, aimed, carefully delivered. And there was no sound from either of them; just Ivy's laboured breathing and the occasional wince or whimper escaping through Eleanor's tightly gritted teeth. The slaps closed up into tightly clenched fists, thudding into her ribs and the side of her head. Eleanor cowered under the punches, wrapping her arms around her head and crouching against the wall as Ivy whispered why don't you stand up, child, stand up now, eh? Or Eleanor refused to buckle, looking her mother in the eye, flinching with each thud of a fist but not falling down this time; Ivy realising with a sudden shock that her daughter was now an inch or two taller than her.

Didn't you ever try to push her away, or hit her back? David asked, stroking the side of her face.

It didn't occur to me, Eleanor said. I was used to it. I knew she'd stop eventually. I didn't want to make it worse, she said.

Ivy paused a moment, lifting her daughter's face to look her in the eye. Is that enough for you child? she asked. Will you be lying to me again? Eleanor didn't speak. Did you hear me there? said Ivy, raising her voice. I asked you a question. Eleanor looked at her, her mouth firmly shut, and Ivy, infuriated, lunged forward, shoving her fists against Eleanor's shoulders, knocking Eleanor off balance and against the front-room door, the door banging open and Eleanor stumbling backwards to the ground. Stewart was standing there, staring at Ivy, his fists trembling by his side.

God's sake Ivy, he said tensely. Do you not think that's enough now? The two of them looked at each other. Eleanor struggled to her feet, pushing past Ivy and up the stairs to her room.

You'll not be eating tonight, Ivy called out after her.

Later, she told him, after her parents had gone to bed, she stood in the washroom and eased out of her clothes, hanging them up on the back of the door and looking at her pale marked body in the mirror. She splashed herself with water, flinching against the cold, and worked a bar of soap into a lather across her skin. She ran her hands carefully across her body, working around the bruises and the swollen cuts, rinsing off the soap with cupped palmfuls of cold water which splashed down her chest and her belly and her legs and on to the dirty towel on the floor; taking her time, as though soap and water might wipe away the bruises and the hurt and the fear of it happening again one day soon.

And the next time she saw Ruth and Heather, nothing was said. They didn't ask if she was okay, or offer sympathy, or make any reference to what had happened at the harbour or to what they assumed had happened afterwards. There were things which didn't need to be said, or which had been said before. Instead, she told him, they took a packet of cigarettes each across to the golf course, and sat on a bench together, and smoked their way relentlessly through the evening until Eleanor was sick into the bushes, the girls laughing and applauding as she wiped her mouth and pretended to light up once more. It was funny, she said. We laughed about it for hours. It felt like some kind of triumph, you know?