Jon McGregor - So Many Ways to Begin

You know Malcolm's leaving at the end of next year, don't you? she said. He shrugged, and nodded, and turned away to put the folder he was still holding back into the filing cabinet, trying and failing to hide his surprise. Malcolm Newbold was the Head Curator and had been there since the museum first opened. I thought I might go for the job, she said, but I'm not sure about it. He kept his back to her, thumbing through the files, wanting her to leave. He felt her moving closer, and wondered if that was her breath he could feel on the back of his neck.

Do you think I should? she asked. I mean, do you think there'd be any point? The uncertainty in her voice surprised him. He turned round, not understanding why she even needed to ask, why she needed to ask him. She was sucking her lip, anxiously, fiddling with the hair on the back of her head. He wanted to reassure her, despite everything, to touch a hand to her arm and say that of course she should apply, she was perfectly capable, she should know that.

He said, I don't know Anna. That's for you to say.

How about you? she asked. Will you apply?

I don't know, he said again. He moved past her, their sleeves touching as he did so, and opened the door. Christine was still waiting. Sorry about that, he said, and followed her down towards the delivery doors. At the end of the corridor he glanced over his shoulder and saw Anna standing behind his desk, sliding his papers and pencil pots into slightly different positions, adjusting the angle of the lamp and, just as he turned the corner, reaching for his chair.

Kate knelt up on her chair, stretching out across the table for the big pack of felt-tip pens. And anyway, she said, Mrs Dunn said Lisa's picture was too messy to go in the class-book, I heard her saying it to Lisa, she said Lisa would have to do it again. Kate's friends both sniggered, ducking their heads as if they were still in the classroom and were trying to hide something, or as if they thought Kate's dad might hear.

Yeah and plus as well, said Becky, sitting across from Kate and chewing the end of a pencil, I heard her say she was going to send it to Tony Hart. The three girls laughed again, and Rachel stuck her tongue into her lower lip, making a sound like a der-brain.

Be funny if she did, they'd probably put Lisa Jones age five on it because they wouldn't believe she was eight, she said, and they all sank into their seats with laughter.

They worked quietly for a moment, passing the pencils and rulers and rubbers and felt-tips backwards and forwards across the table.

Have you done all the people on yours yet? Rachel asked, looking across the table at Becky's work.

Nearly, Becky said. Have you?

Nearly, Rachel said, picking her pencil up again and crossing something out. She paused. Kate, have you decided who you're inviting to your birthday yet? she said. Kate didn't look up.

Nearly, she said.

David stood in the kitchen, next to the open back door, listening. He knew he shouldn't, that Kate would see it as some kind of betrayal, would shriek indignantly if she saw him standing there, but he couldn't help it. It was the same impulse which made him close his eyes and pretend to be asleep when she came into the room, or wait just around the corner when he collected her from school, or crouch beside her bed and watch her as she slept; the need to know more about her, to gain some admittance into the ever-enlarging secret territories of her life, to be granted a glimmer of understanding of this confident child his baby girl had become.

Does your dad draw family trees all the time? he heard Becky say.

No, Kate said airily, only sometimes because most of the time he finds old stuff in the ground or at jumble sales, I think, and he collects it for the museum and he makes expeditions of it.

Exhibitions, said Rachel quickly.

That's what I said, Kate replied.

Didn't.

Did.

Didn't.

Did.

David smiled. He liked the thought of his making acquisitions at jumble sales; he wondered what misunderstanding that had grown out of, what else there was about his job that she couldn't really grasp. He'd taken her down to the museum a few days earlier, and shown her some old family trees they had in the archives, to help her understand what her teacher was asking them to do; he'd got out the long rolls of darkened paper, cracked and smudged with age, and when he'd said that the family tree she was drawing would one day look like that, faded and almost illegible, she'd only gazed at him blankly, disbelievingly, not yet old enough to share his sense of the long hurried march of time. It was only the second time she'd even been to the museum; she didn't like history, she said. She was going to be a fashion designer, she said, so why did she need to know about history?

But she'd come to him when she needed help with the class project they'd been set, asking him what was a family tree and how do you know what to write on it and what is a maiden name, and her friends had been keen to come round and share in his expertise; had in fact squabbled, from what he could tell, for the privilege. He'd sat round the table with them, asking if they had their lists of brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents, and the dates of when these people had been born and maybe married and maybe died, and he'd drawn an example of how a family tree might look, with the carefully ruled straight lines, the generations, the branches, the blank spaces where there was any uncertainty. He tried to explain that it didn't actually have to look like a real tree, that it was just a way people had of describing it, but they were determined to use the felt-tips so he didn't argue and instead left them to it, telling them he was going out to the garden to make the most of the first decent Sunday afternoon they'd had all year.

Who's got the green pen? asked Becky.

David opened the back door, hesitating, trying to make himself go outside.

Kate's using it, Rachel murmured, still colouring in the trunk of her tree with a brown felt-tip. She's had it for ages, she added, and Kate sighed and tutted and muttered that it was her pen anyway. Becky sat back in her chair, waiting, looking across at the other girls' work.

You haven't got all the dates on yours, she said, leaning towards Kate. How come?

My mum didn't know all of them when I asked her, Kate said, not looking up, it's all my nana' s brothers and sisters and she said she couldn't remember all of them, there was too many.

Why don't you ask your nana? Becky asked.

We never see her, Kate said. Rachel looked up from her work, first at Kate, and then at Becky, and then at Kate again.

You never see your nana? Why not? she said.

She lives in Scotland, Kate said. It's too far away.

It's not, said Rachel, we went on holiday in Scotland last year so it's not too far. Kate didn't say anything for a moment.

But anyway we don't see her, she said quietly.

Why don't you phone her up and ask her then? asked Becky.

Mum won't let me, Kate said.

Oh, Becky said. The three of them were silent again, concentrating on their drawings, Becky tracing over her pencilled branches with a biro while she waited for the green felt-tip, the scrape and scribble of the other girls' pens the only sound for a moment.

They always say it's too far away but really I think my mum doesn't like her mum, Kate said abruptly. I think she was not very nice to her or something. The others looked at her. Anyway I've finished now anyway, she said, passing the green pen to Becky and sitting back in her chair.

Let me see let me see, said Rachel, pulling Kate's piece of paper across the table and looking at it for a moment before passing it back. It's nice but it doesn't look like a tree much, she said. Kate gasped.