Jon McGregor - So Many Ways to Begin

She came through into the kitchen, looking at him curiously. What did you say? she asked, very quietly and slowly.

I'm just saying Eleanor, you need to pull yourself together, he said.

She told him it was his fault that she was in this hopeless ugly town. She said that if it wasn't for him she'd still be in Scotland, with her friends, with people who understood her. She said she wished he'd never suggested coming away here.

He told her that she didn't know what she was saying, that she wasn't making sense, that her head needed looking at. These were the worst things they could think of to say to each other, and they chose their words deliberately.

They stood there, glaring, and he felt suddenly that it wasn't even Eleanor standing in front of him, that it was somehow- someone else altogether. Outside, it started to rain.

When he lifted his hand, and when he felt his hand closing into a hard angry knot, she didn't flinch or turn away. She looked at him, her eyes tracking the arc of his. fist. She watched it hanging there, and her body seemed to slacken in front of him, waiting.

The sudden pounding of the rain made him catch a breath, his fist trembling weakly in the air, and he brought his arm down behind his back. Her expression didn't change. She turned away and looked out through the open window into the yard and, as suddenly as it had begun, the heavy rainfall came to a stop. A bird started singing.

And then there were the good days. Sitting in the back room with the window wide open, holding on to each other after a hot and spoilt day, untightening their tensions with a bottle of wine. The air drifting in from outside, thick and heavy, hungry for rain. Children shouting, the sound carrying all the way from the park.

Eleanor leant forward to pour herself another glass of wine, reaching back to rest a hand on his knee. I was scared though, she said quietly, I really didn't know where he'd gone. He sat forward, looking over at the photograph of her father, listening to her story of being lost on the heath one summer. He stroked his hand up and down her back, finishing his glass of wine and passing it to her. He lifted the hem of her T-shirt and tucked his hand beneath it, pressing it flat against her skin.

So where was he hiding? he asked.

Out on the moor, her father on the top of the rise, his taut outline silhouetted against the raw blue sky. She watched him put a hand to his chest, catching his breath, and then she crouched down to peer into the heather, looking at a crack in the hard grey rock, wondering how deep it went, trying to squeeze her hand into the gap. She stayed there for a few moments, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the undergrowth's shade, and then she stood up. Hold up now! she called, brushing the dirt from her knees and her hands.

Her father's silhouette had disappeared. Everything seemed suddenly very quiet. The faint huzz of the insects, the occasional pop of a gorse pod in the midday heat, the distant crashes from the shipyard in the town below. But no voices. No sign of life besides her own anxious breathing.

She ran to the top of the rise and looked but he wasn't anywhere. Maybe he'd sat down somewhere for a rest and she just couldn't see him, she thought. Maybe he'd fallen asleep and that's why he couldn't hear her shouting. Or maybe this was him vanished for ever, like Bill's dad did that time, or Annie's. Or like Grandad Hamish who got lost at sea. She wondered if she'd be okay to find her way home. She wondered if her mother would be cross with her for losing him. She walked on, swinging her arms stiffly, turning her head from left to right, scanning the hot landscape for any signs of life. All she saw were butterflies, pure white ones and red-brown ones, lifting and falling and tumbling across the heather. All she heard were the insects, her breathing, her feet kicking the dry sand along the track.

She remembered when the teacher told the class about Bill's dad. Bill sat scowling, like it didn't matter to him, like it was no bother and if anyone wanted to say otherwise they'd have him to deal with. His dad had been missing two weeks when they found him on the tideline down at Cammachmore, and they wouldn't let Bill look at him. But he said that didn't bother him, what difference did it make, and whenever she saw him he was always scowling like that, for weeks and weeks and weeks.

She hadn't got very far when she stopped and called out again. Her small voice fell flat amongst the heather and the bracken. She stood and turned and looked all around her, clenching her fists and trying hard not to be very close to tears. Maybe if she went back now and told someone, they could fetch up a whole lot of men to look for him. They could spread right out across the heather, like when the beaters sent the birds up for the guns. He might be lying somewhere with a turned ankle, and she'd never find him on her own, not even if she kept looking until it was dark. It'd be too late then, maybe.

She heard something behind her and before she could turn around there was a pair of thick strong arms wrapping around her waist and lifting her into the air, the sky sprawling dizzily away, his laughter gasping into the back of her neck. She tried to pull away but he was holding too tightly. That was a good one, eh Ellie? he said. Had you wondering there, didn't I? She didn't say anything. He let go of her and she moved away, sitting with her back to him and her arms wrapped around her knees. His hat was lying on the track a few feet away, where it must have fallen when he leapt up to grab hold of her. She felt like rushing over and stamping on it, or picking it up and running with it all the way to the sea, throwing it in and watching it fill with water and sink beneath the surface. But she didn't. She just glared at it, hotly, her eyes stinging a little. Probably she got some sand in them when he pulled her over, she thought.

You alright petal? he asked. I didn't frighten you, did I? She didn't say anything, but rubbed the corner of her eye roughly with the bony heel of her hand. She heard him shuffle and fidget behind her. She heard the snap and hiss of a match being struck, the slow sigh he always made when he lit a cigarette. Aye well, I'm here now, he said quietly.

David watched Eleanor carefully while she told him the story; how it had seemed like hours that she'd stood there in the crackling silence and wondered where he'd got to and if she should go for help, how he'd suddenly leapt out behind her, laughing, and lifted her up into the air. I told him it wasn't funny, she said, smiling.

He lifted her T-shirt higher and pressed his mouth against the warm expanse of her back. Don't stop, he said. It was so rare for her to talk like that, even to mention her family, or her childhood, or anything north of the border; and especially not in that way, the memories coming easily, her body relaxed, laughter spilling out around the words. He didn't know why she'd brought it up then, why she'd rushed upstairs to find the rarely opened packet of photographs she kept at the bottom of the wardrobe somewhere. Some distant sense memory triggered by the heat of the day perhaps, or by the voices of children playing out in the streets. Some rip in the smothering comfort blanket those pills provided. A little more wine than usual. But just hearing her talk like that, with the slow evening closing in outside, with her leg lifted up on to his lap and his fingers climbing inside the ankle of her trousers, things seemed okay for the first time in months, things seemed okay and normal. A husband and wife talking about their families, their childhoods, the things that matter and the things that don't.

She stacked the photographs back up on the mantelpiece, and opened another bottle, and they waited for the taut closeness of the air to break into rain. And as the first fat drops slapped on to the path outside she put her glass down on the table, took his out of his hand, and leant over to kiss him. She stood up, a little unsteadily, and pushed her skirt to the floor.