Jon McGregor - So Many Ways to Begin

Ivy laughed. The way she's staring, you'd think she'd never seen a good-looking boy in a suit before, she said. But I don't think you need to worry about our Hamish noticing any, he's not so quick that way just yet. Ellie fetched a cooling rack down from the shelf above the oven, put it on the kitchen table, and passed Ivy a palette knife.

Well, some are quicker than others she said, glancing down at Ivy's almost un-noticeably swollen belly. Ivy stopped sliding the scones on to the cooling rack and looked up at her. Looks like it's not just scones you've got in the oven there, Ellie added, her eyebrows raised a little and her mouth breaking into a smile. Or Ivy said, there's something I've to tell you and Ellie said, there's no need I can see for myself. Ivy looked at her, put the baking tray down beside the sink, and rested her oven-gloved hands across her stomach.

Oh, Ellie, is it showing already? she said, whispering, her voice cracking and her eyes edged with tears. Or she turned away and said, Eleanor Davies, I really don't know what you're talking about, slamming a baking tray into the sink a little harder than she meant to. Or she looked at her friend and knew there was nothing to say.

Ellie pulled a chair across for Ivy to sit on. She sat beside her and pressed a hand to her arm, or around her shoulder, or wanted to touch her but kept her hands twisted together under her chin.

Aye love, it is, she said. Is that a problem? Ivy smiled thinly.

Of course it is, she whispered, it's a big problem, isn't it? You know I'm too old to do this all over again.

Nonsense, said Ellie, tutting, you're still young yet, and she smiled. Ivy didn't smile back but looked up at Ellie.

No, she said. You know what the doctor told me, she said. The two women looked at each other, and Ivy didn't need to remind Ellie what she meant; that each of her five pregnancies had been difficult, marked by debilitating sickness and pain, that each birth had been harder, longer, and more dangerous than the one before, that the arrival of her long-awaited daughter, the source of such happiness, had nearly killed her and Tessa both.

Aye, said Ellie, quietly. Aye, I know love. The singing faded away next door. There was a bump and a crash, and an indignant shout from young John. Ivy looked up, startled, relaxing again when she heard him laugh. Ellie smiled at her. It never stops, does it? she said, and Ivy smiled back.

No, no it doesn't, she said. Ellie took the oven gloves from her, hung them up, and popped the cooling scones on to a blue-and-white dinner plate. She passed Ivy a handkerchief from her cardigan pocket; clean this morning, she said, and Ivy took it and dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose.

I'm just wondering if it's worth it at all, you know? she said, as Ellie stood at the sink wiping down a baking tray. I just don't know why I bother, she said. You near kill yourself bringing them into the world, you break your back bringing them up, and all for what? They cut loose first chance they find, and they're gone, eh? she said, nodding her head in the direction of the other room. I'm just wondering, she said, her voice brittle with the tense shame of what she was daring to say; I'm just wondering. There's people can fix these things, aren't there? She grasped the handkerchief between her thumb and fingers, twisting it into a cord, twisting the cord into a knot. Ellie turned to look at her, and heard a noise from the far side of the room. Hamish was standing in the open doorway, looking at the two women.

Uncle James is wanting more cakes, he said, looking reluctant to come any closer. Ellie walked briskly across to him with the plate of scones.

There you go, she said, see how he goes on with these, eh? Hamish took the plate, and Ellie shut the door behind him, turning back to Ivy with her eyes wide and fearful as the scones were greeted with a cheer in the room next door.

Well and you know our mother's not very well at all. Not at all. Donald's voice was calm and measured as it came down the phone line, and David waited for him to go on. Aye, Donald said. The doctors have told us not to expect her back out of the hospital. They've said it'll probably be months at the most, he said.

David wondered what he was supposed to say, what he was supposed to feel. I'm sorry, he said. He'd assumed it would be something like this, when the card from Donald had been forwarded on to him from the museum — Please telephone as soon as is convenient, it said simply — but he was still unprepared. I'm sorry, he said again.

We thought you'd want to know, Donald said, Ros and me, and the others. He coughed. We thought Eleanor would want to know, he said. He coughed again. Excuse me, he said.

He asked Eleanor if she wanted to go there, if she wanted to see her mother, and she couldn't bring herself to answer him straight away. But what did Donald say? she asked, and he told her again. Her mother was ill, she didn't have long left, they were welcome to go up and visit if they wished.

What do you think he means by welcome? she said.

It was more than five years since Kate had left home, and their lives had finally settled back into some kind of routine, some kind of direction. Eleanor was working part-time at the city council, and David had found a temporary post at the archives office. They had time to eat breakfast together, and two days a week they would catch the same bus into work, kissing each other briefly goodbye amongst the push and hurry of the nine o'clock crowds. They took it in turns to cook dinner, experimenting with new recipes they got from the friends they ate out with once or twice a week. Susan came to stay, regularly, sleeping in the room which had always been Kate's but which they'd started learning to call the spare room. And most weekends they went to his mother's, to keep her company and to do the jobs around the house she'd started struggling to do. They were almost busy, as David joked to Eleanor one worn-out evening, and they were happy, in the ordinary ways which had evaded them for so long.

A week after that first brief conversation with Donald, they met each other from work and walked home. It was cold enough for gloves and scarves, and Eleanor reached into David's pocket for extra warmth as they walked through the centre of town. They'd been talking about Ivy's illness for days, and about whether they should go up to Aberdeen. They'd argued about it, and they'd both said things they regretted, and in the end he'd said that he'd leave it to her to make up her mind; he didn't want to talk about it any more. She turned to him now, squeezing his hand, her voice low and determined. So, she said, I've decided. About my mother. I don't want to go. He looked at her. I can't, she said. It's too late now.

David had never known much about Ivy, besides the bare facts which Donald had outlined for him when he was working on the family tree, besides what little Eleanor had said. But as he spoke to Donald over those last few months, following the progress of Ivy's swift decline, he found out a little more.

He learnt that her own mother had died while she was still a very young child, and that no one had ever known Ivy mention her in company. I couldn't even promise you her name right, Donald said; it's Lizzie I think but I could be wrong — it's been known, he said wryly, before asking after Eleanor and telling David to phone again in a week for more news.

He learnt that she'd picked up most of the household's income for the first six or seven years of her marriage, taking in laundry and finding cleaning jobs in the big houses while Stewart spent his days lined up outside the shipyards waiting for rumours of work to drift in on the tide, and that she'd done all this work whilst carrying the first three of her six children. I think she was exhausted even by the time John came along, Donald said. Her sister told me that, he added, not long ago.