by Jon McGregor
There were so many things he could have said.
He could have described the way she looked; she's shorter than me but not by much, she's got quite long hair, it's a kind of faded brown but it goes blonde in the sun and it falls across her face when she's daydreaming, she doesn't smile all that often but when she does the whole shape of her face changes, it gets rounder and softer, and her eyes are the colour of honey and her skin, her skin's so smooth it's like it's been polished by the cold north wind, and her body, I mean, her skinny hips her slip of a waist her pebble-round shoulders her smooth small breasts I mean I can't keep my hands to myself when I'm with her she's so warm and alive and she's just so I mean when she undresses I just want to applaud and do you know what I mean?
But he didn't say this. He took out a photo and showed it to Susan, and she smiled and said oh, well, she's pretty isn't she? and he took it back and said I know.
He could have described the way he felt when he was with her; she's the only girl I know who laughs at my jokes, and the sound of her laughing is my favourite sound in the world, we do so much talking when we're together, we talk about so many things and it's exciting to find out about her and have her find out about me, it's great to have someone so interested in who I am, and she loves making plans, she makes plans for us, we make plans, what we'll do in the future, where we'll go, she makes anything and everything seem possible and she wants to do it all with me, she wants me to be a part of her life and that's all I've ever wanted, does that make sense to you at all?
But instead he shrugged and said, I don't know, we just get on well together. And Susan said well, that's good. That's the main thing.
He could have said I've never felt like this about anyone before.
He could have said and you know what? She doesn't keep any secrets from me.
To which Susan could have replied how do you know that? You can't know that.
But he didn't say these things, and she didn't reply.
Instead, he talked briefly about Eleanor leaving school with good exam results, about her saving up for a year to go to university and her family now not allowing her to. He said that she was going to study geology at the new university, once they were settled in. He mentioned the flat he'd found, and the social club he'd booked for the reception, and Susan said it sounded like he'd got it all worked out, she was impressed.
And you're sure you're doing the right thing? she asked. He laughed.
No, I'm not sure, he said. But I can't imagine doing anything else.
24 Doorkey on a knotted loop of string; Wedding certificate, October 1968
It rained the day they moved into their first home together, a second-floor flat on a main road about half an hour's walk from the museum. It was early evening by the time she unlocked the door and they burst in, rainwater streaming from their hair and down the collars of their damp clothes.
You said the weather was finer in England, she said, laughing accusingly, wiping her face with her hands.
I lied, he said, holding up his hands in surrender, letting her come for him.
It had rained all day. It was raining when he left home in the morning, a thin drizzle which seeped through his new suit and clung to his skin, and it was raining when he stood on the steps of the registry office to wait for her, the rain thickening and the woman behind the front desk coming outside to hand him an umbrella, saying he wanted to be careful he didn't catch a cold. It was raining when Eleanor arrived, ten minutes late, in a car his friend Danny had borrowed from his uncle and strung with white ribbon, and she had to lift the skirts of her dress a little as she came up the steps towards him, smiling and avoiding his eyes, sheltered from the rain by a folded newspaper Danny held over her head. It was raining when they repeated their vows, raising their voices over the noise of the rain rattling impatiently against the wired-glass skylights, the dozen of them in that small office-like room glancing up at the heavy sky, and it was raining as they drove to the reception.
Everyone was waiting for them when they arrived, David's family and his colleagues from the museum and his friends from school, and some of them rushed out with umbrellas to gather the two of them safely in, and some of them stood in the doorway and laughed, and everyone raised the first glass of many as David stood on a chair to welcome them all, and thank them for coming, and ask them to tuck into the food which had been provided. And the afternoon went by as fast as the rain flashing past the window - people shaking his hand and offering advice, or tipping a cheek towards him for a kiss and beaming congratulations, and his mother crying, of course, partly from happiness and partly from his father not being there to see it, and his grandparents, all the way up from Suffolk for the first time, saying they couldn't believe how much he'd grown and they couldn't believe he was marrying already and how happy they were for him, and Eleanor sitting quietly for a while when Susan said something about welcome to the family, but she couldn't sit for long because someone drifted by to talk to her and squeeze her hand and fill her glass. And the speeches came and went, and the music got louder, and the tables, littered with half-eaten sausage rolls and cucumber sandwiches and emptied-out bowls of cheese and onion crisps, were pulled to one side so the two of them could be pushed across the carpet to dance.
I kept wanting to stop and take pictures, they told each other later. I wanted to write things down so I wouldn't forget them. I just wanted to stand still and watch and not have anyone say anything to me for a moment because I was worried it was all passing me by.
The photos they ended up with, mostly taken outside the registry office and stuck into a slim red album, didn't seem quite enough. He wanted more. He kept the cards people gave them, with their messages of love and good luck and best wishes, but they had nothing in them about the day itself, and he wanted more. I'll just have to keep telling you about it, she said, smiling, when he said these things to her, so you don't forget.
There was more dancing, and more speech-making. There was a table loaded with gifts, a cake, balloons being burst by excited children, singing. There was his mother crying again, there were people catching him for a quick hello and well done before someone else interrupted, there were people saying they knew it was early but they were sorry they had to be off, and then it seemed like no time at all before they were calling out their sudden goodbyes and running back through the rain to the car. And his family and his friends all crowded together in the entrance to wave and cheer them both on their way, and the children threw rice and confetti over the car, and the rice falling against the window sounded like yet more rain. Danny drove them the short distance to the flat, and as they got out of the car the rain seemed to fling itself down with one final flurry of temper, soaking them through in the brief time it took to run from the car, up the steps, and in through their new front door.
The flat seemed lighter and larger than he'd remembered. She whirled around in excitement, the lace-edged skirts of her white dress lifting and billowing out around her pale legs for a moment before she stopped and looked at him, proudly, and said what do you think?
He hardly recognised it. She'd obviously been busy during the few rushed weeks between coming down from Aberdeen and their wedding day. When the landlady had shown him around the flat he'd worried that it might be too cramped, or too gloomy, and he'd worried about what Eleanor might think. But she'd said it was fine when she'd first seen it, and then she'd banished him, insisting that she stayed there and he lived at his mother's until they were married, not letting him see what she was doing to the place.
She'd cleaned the windows and thrown away the filthy net curtains; she'd scrubbed and polished every possible inch of floor and wall and surface; she'd arranged the furniture so that there was room to move around. There were new sheets on the bed, and clean covers on the settee. There was a vase of flowers in the bedroom, and the lounge, and even the kitchen. There were large framed pictures of butterflies on the wall. It felt like a different flat entirely, and for the first time he u
nderstood what it was going to mean to share his life with somebody.
It's not bad, is it? he said. You've done a smashing job, he said, and there was something almost child-like about the look of proud pleasure which swept across her face. She turned and rushed suddenly around the room, closing the curtains, locking the door, taking out her earrings and putting them in a small bowl on the mantelpiece over the gas fire, turning back to him with a smile.
Hey, she said, hooking a finger into the waist of his trousers and pulling him towards her. Can you help me out of this dress now?
Their nakedness felt strange all over again. He felt inadequate, set against her. His body seemed shapeless, awkward, where hers was poised and flowing, delicate, ready to knock him into silence at the first sight of her. It didn't take long for them to grow more comfortable with each other - to insist on the abandonment of towels, sheets, needless underwear; to allow each other the long slow looks they needed to grow used to the bareness of their skin - but that first morning they dressed quickly, turning away from each other, barely speaking. They walked out into the cold-edged sunshine, their steps a little clumsy together, dazed by the rush of the day before, dazed by the rush of the weeks and months since they'd first made their plans. They went to a cafe for breakfast, walked through the Memorial Park, and, because they couldn't really think what else to do, went back to the flat again. She quickened her pace as they got closer, and broke into a run, taking the steps two at a time and racing him to the front door.
They only lived in the flat for six months; it was a time which would later come to seem unreal, a time which was almost entirely spent preparing for the future. They talked a lot, sitting in the darkened lounge with bottles of wine, or lying together in bed, or walking round and round the park; asking each other questions about their lives before they met, getting to know each other, telling secrets and sharing ambitions and making plans. They asked each other, more than once, if they thought they had done the right thing, and each time they said yes, of course, what else could they have done? It was a cold winter, and they spent a lot of time apart, working or looking for work, or visiting Julia, or looking for a new place to live. The one gas fire didn't work very well, and there was a crack halfway up the bath which meant it could only be filled about six inches deep. They were short of money. They had their first arguments. But it was their home, their first home together, and Eleanor wore the front-door key on a long loop of string around her neck as though it were a talisman, and always raced him home so she could be the one to unlock the door.
Once, he was reading a magazine in the lounge when he heard the bathroom door open. He looked up and saw her walk silently into the kitchen, pour herself a glass of water, drink it, and walk back past him to the bedroom. She didn't look at him. She seemed not to notice he was there. Her skin was flushed red from the hot bathwater, her hair brushed back away from her face and hanging in straight stretched lines to her shoulders, water beading down her back. She was naked, except for the long loop of string with the key dangling from it hanging between her breasts and swinging against her stomach as her wet feet padded across the bare linoleum floor.
25 Lacework placemats (wedding gift), 1968
It took him much longer than he'd expected to tell her what Julia had said, and the longer he didn't tell her, the more difficult it became. He didn't tell her when they spent that first night together in Aberdeen, or when he wrote, or when he went to see her again. He didn't tell her while they were talking and deciding if what they were planning to do was the right thing, while he was trying to persuade her that it was. He didn't take the opportunity when they made the long journey south together, her small suitcase on the seat beside them, her home country sliding away past the window. He kept it to himself until they were married, and he kept it to himself the six months they lived in the flat, and finally he spat it out in the middle of an argument they had soon after moving into their new house, when she said he knew nothing about her parents, that he didn't understand what she'd been through as a child, her voice loud and trembling, and he banged his hand against the table and said that at least she knew who her parents were.
She flinched violently at the sound of his hand on the table. She stared at him. What are you talking about? she said. His eyes were shut tightly, and his hand pressed flat against the table, the skin whitening under his fingernails. He didn't say anything.
David, what are you talking about? she said again, putting down her knife and fork, reaching her hand out across the table, leaning towards him.
I don't know El, he said, opening his eyes. It's a bit complicated. She waited. They sat like that for a minute or two, their dinners going cold on their plates, while outside it got dark and the lights started to come on in the houses behind.
David? she said eventually.
He told her what he knew, what Julia had said so casually and mistakenly, how his mother had tried to explain, how he couldn't get it to make sense in his head. His hands were shaking when he'd finished talking, and he looked down at them in his lap, intrigued, as though he wasn't quite sure that they belonged to him. He looked up at her, smiling, embarrassed. Jesus, El, I'm in a bit of a state. I'm sorry, he said.
He wanted her to stand up, to rush round the table and hold on to him. But she didn't. She just sat and looked at him, and when she spoke she sounded confused, frightened.
She asked him all the questions he'd been asking; about whether his father and his sister had known, who else knew, how it had managed to be kept secret for so long, what it said on his birth certificate, what he knew about this girl Mary from Ireland, what he was going to do now, how long he'd known about it, how long had he known?
She tilted her head sharply towards him when he told her how long it had been, disbelievingly, as if she hadn't quite heard him right. Why didn't you tell me? she asked, and he looked down into his lap, shaking his head. How did you manage not to tell me? she said.
It's complicated, was all he could say. I don't know. I didn't know where to begin. The words sounded familiar even as he said them; they were the answers his mother had given him to the questions which had haunted their conversations since he'd first found out. How did you manage not to tell me. What were you thinking. How could you bear not to tell me.
They did the washing up together, scraping the uneaten food into the bin, standing in close silence while he stacked the pans and filled the bowl with hot water and she waited with a clean tea towel. She touched his arm. You okay? she said. He nodded, not looking at her. She slid her arms around his waist, pressing her face against his chest for a moment. I don't know what to say, she told him. I don't know how to make it better for you. He put the plates in the bowl.
There's nothing to say really, he said. It can't be changed. I'm just sorry I didn't say anything before.
No, no, it's okay, she said, don't worry, it's okay. She took her arms back from around his waist. I just wish there was something I could do, she said awkwardly. To make it easier, she said.
You could start by drying these, he told her, rinsing the plates and balancing them in the drying rack. She smiled, and didn't say anything else, and they did the rest of the dishes in silence.
Later, years later, she told him she'd been frightened. She told him that she had the sensation of his not being who she thought he was, of his slipping uncertainly away from her. It made me really panic though, she said; it felt like anything might happen. It made me feel a bit lost. It made me wonder if I'd even made a mistake, if I'd have to go back home after all or where I could go. But she didn't say these things at the time. She kept them to herself. She finished the drying up, and put everything away, and sat with him for the rest of the evening watching television, resting her head against his shoulder, slipping her hand inside his shirt and running her fingers backwards and forwards across his skin. You okay? she murmured, after a while, and he nodded.
I just can't stop thinking about it, he said. I don't know what to do about i
t. She kissed his cheek, and stroked his head, and kissed his cheek again.
It's okay, she said. It'll be okay. He nodded. He didn't seem convinced,
26 Geologist's rock-hammer, in original case (wedding gift, unused), c.1969
They had plans when they first got married, when he asked her to come to Coventry, to leave her home and be with him, so many plans. She was going to apply for a place at the new university in Warwick, and study for her geology degree there while he worked at the museum; she could go on and do further study, or get a job with an engineering firm, or a surveying company, or she could find a job abroad somewhere, in mining or drilling or research; there were museums all over the world where he could find work. You'll be able to do anything, he told her, and this was all she'd ever wanted to hear, and she fell in love with him saying those words. He would get a promotion by the time she finished her degree, they decided, maybe two, and he could begin to plan the new museum of his own that he'd always had in mind, and each evening they'd come back and sit together in their own home, telling each other about their days.
She would start by studying at the new university - and maybe once she'd got the degree she would take it home to show her family, to say look this is why I came away, it was worth it, was it not? Don't you think so? - and after that she'd be able to do anything. I'll be the first ever Campbell with a degree, she told him excitedly, more than once; won't that be something? She could even find a job, later maybe, with one of the oil companies that had begun to move into Aberdeen, they could live up there for a time, and things would be okay with her family again, once she'd proved herself like that, proved that all that schooling was worth it after all, and even her mother would have to say well now, Eleanor, perhaps I was wrong. Won't that be something? Eleanor said, laughing at the thought of it, standing in their kitchen with a tea towel clenched in her fist as she did an impression of her mother trying to say sorry - her face pinched and sour, her eyes lowered, the laughter cracking out of her again as she mimicked her mother's muttering voice. Won't that be something David? she said again, clapping her hands.