So Many Ways to Begin

by Jon McGregor

  She's in America now of course, Rosalind added. Has been for years. She stopped herself. You didn't know that though, did you? she said, her voice dropping away.

  No, David said. I wasn't sure you were still in touch.

  We get Christmas cards, Donald said, no more.

  Are you folks listening at that end? Hamish asked, knocking the table, and the three of them turned back to face him.

  Of course we are, said Rosalind.

  You carry on there, Donald agreed. David finished the whisky Donald had put in front of him and listened to the rest of Hamish's story, looking around the emptying room, wondering where Kate had gone.

  58 Email messages; printed copies dated March 2000

  He'd always known how it would be, when it happened. He would be heaving great volumes down from dusty shelves in an archive office somewhere, turning thick pages and scanning endless rows of names until he found what he was looking for. He'd be filling out small pink request slips, waiting long afternoons while under-staffed departments worked their way through to his search. He knew, or he thought he knew, that when it happened he would be sitting in a room with notices saying Pencils only please; bags must be left at the front desk, where no one would notice the rush of exhilaration and fear which would shoot through him as he noted down the reference numbers for the copies he required, and carried them, trembling, to the counter.

  But in the end, when it happened, it was nothing like that at all. He was sitting in front of a computer screen in Kate's old room, a mug of hot chocolate going cold beside him, the modem flickering as he checked his email, listening to Eleanor brush her teeth in the bathroom, listening to the radio he'd left on by their bed.

  Kate had shown him how to use the computer on her first break back from university. He'd bought it a few years earlier with what was left of the redundancy money, but had only ever used it for writing letters. She'd shown him how to get connected to the internet, how to follow the links on the different pages, how to use the search engines to look for information on any possible subject he could think of. They'd sat side by side in front of the screen for most of an afternoon, while she showed him weather reports from Sydney Harbour, lecture notes from degrees at Leeds University, catalogues from the British Museum, the wedding photos of a couple called Jack and Mary somewhere in Florida, job adverts, property adverts, television listings, introductory guides to museums and exhibition centres, anything he suggested or which took her fancy as she clicked on the links from page to page. She kept tutting as she waited for the sites to load on to the screen, saying God I can't believe how slow this is, you should get a new computer Dad, this is well slow compared to the ones at uni, and every time she said it he looked at her in disbelief. A few minutes' wait seemed like a small price to pay for information from all over the world to come tumbling into your home.

  He'd found the experience difficult to absorb at first. He'd become so used to the idea of information existing as a physical fact; books, papers, photographs, objects, the parched fragments of ancient civilisations inscribed on to stone and metal, kept secure in controlled environments. The idea that all information would eventually exist in this cacophonous airborne form astonished and alarmed him. It was overwhelming, unknowable, uncategorisable. The first few times, once Kate had finished showing him what to do and left him to it, he did nothing - sat in front of the screen with the browser logged on to a search engine, the cursor blinking impatiently in its small rectangular box. The endless choices that had suddenly reared up before him left him unable to move. He had no idea what he wanted to know.

  Except, of course, that he did. He had every idea. There was only one thing he had ever wanted to know.

  He started by simply entering her name into the search engines. Mary Friel, or Mary Friel + 1945, or Mary Friel + 1928/1929/1930, or Mary Friel + Donegal. The results came back either blank or with thousands of entries. So he started searching for adoption, tracing, family history, online archives, parish records. He looked at tourist information sites, local history sites, sites dedicated to the history of the Irish diaspora, sites concerned with the study of genealogy. And he realised, as he clicked and scrolled through the endless lists of links and databases, that the only way he would find her would be if she was waiting to be found. If she was sitting in front of a computer screen somewhere, tapped into this flood of new memories, clicking through these same sites and links with the same destination in mind. He didn't have enough information just to stumble across her on his own. She could have married, changed her name, left the country. She could have lied in the first place, and never been Mary Friel at all.

  And he discovered that he wasn't alone. There were thousands of people doing just what he was doing, hundreds of thousands, listing themselves on databases and posting messages in the hope of finding the missing other. I was born in 1953, I gave up my daughter in 1942, I saw my son for the first and last time in 1962. He scrolled through these lists endlessly, looking for the name he wanted, looking for the date. Mary Friel, 1945. He chose a site to register with, paid the joining fee, and added his details to the list. Adopted son seeks birth mother. David Carter/Mary Friel /Believed March 1945. He put believed because it seemed to be the standard format, because there were so many stories of dates being mixed up, falsified, misremembered. Because people in his position were no longer sure what to believe.

  When it happened, he had more or less given up. It was only habit which drew him back into Kate's old room a few evenings each week, looking for something to do before he went to bed; working his way through the lists, checking his email, searching through slowly and methodically and without any conviction that it was a worthwhile thing to do. He would sit on the folding metal chair in his pyjamas, running his bare feet back and forth across the carpet, squinting at the scrolling names or gazing blankly at his reflection in the darkened window while he waited for the modem to connect.

  New Messages (1). Dear David. My mother's name is Mary Carr but her maiden name was Friel. She was in London during the war and gave up a baby boy for adoption in 1945. We'll need to talk more but I think she would be very interested to meet you.

  When he called Eleanor's name, she came into the room with a toothbrush still in her mouth, her dressing gown hanging open around her nightdress. She said something inaudible, and he just pointed at the screen. She looked, and looked closer, toothpaste dribbling from the corner of her mouth as she tried to say it never is, is it? He nodded, not looking at her, not knowing what to say. They both looked at the words on the screen together, silently. She wiped at the spilt toothpaste with her sleeve, and laid her hand on his shoulder. He turned his face against her hand, and closed his eyes.

  What are you going to do? she asked. He kissed her hand, and said nothing.

  59 Ferry tickets; handwritten letter; route map (from website); all June 2000

  It wasn't yet light when the ferry arrived. He stood out on the deck, his eyes stinging with sleep in the cold wet morning air. He looked out over the warehouses and lorry-parks, tracing the light-strung line of the motorway as it skirted around Belfast and headed towards the Lough. There was a map and a list of directions in the car's glove compartment, but he knew he wouldn't need them. He murmured the route to himself as the boat settled in against the jetty wall: M2 towards the airport, past Antrim, through Randalstown, through Londonderry, across the border . . .

  I'm going to Donegal, he'd said to his mother, a month ago, and she'd nodded and said right then, okay, okay. I've been in touch with a woman called Mary, he'd said, as gently as it was possible to say such a thing, her maiden name was Mary Friel, and she'd nodded and smiled and said right then, okay, okay, turning her face away from him as she started to cry, and he'd noticed again how much older she was looking, the veins of her neck swollen behind the skin like knotted cords, the backs of her hands arching at the knuckle.

  They'd been driving for an hour when he saw the first flag, a worn-looking union flag hanging fr
om a telegraph pole, and he remembered how very many more there had been the last time he was there. He counted another three union flags and a half-dozen tricolours, no more. The sun began to burn more brightly through the mist hanging low over the fields, the land falling away to their left as they climbed higher. Muddy-footed sheep scrambled away from the side of the road as they passed. He asked Eleanor how she was feeling, but she was asleep, or trying to be, and before he'd even noticed how far they'd come they were driving down the long hill overlooking Londonderry, across the bridge and out along the wooded road on the other side.

  They were almost twenty miles into Irish territory before he realised they'd crossed the border, that they'd long since passed the spot where once there had been concrete blocks and tall steel fences, razor wire, soldiers with loaded guns and crackling radios; now there was nothing except a gravelled change in the texture of the road. They stopped in a lay-by for sandwiches and coffee and pieces of foil-wrapped cake, looking down over the long narrow bays of the inner coastline, the still grey water glinting in the strengthening light. Eleanor stretched, arching her back and lifting her face, and leant against David's shoulder.

  All this sitting down's no good for an old body, she said, rubbing the sides of her legs and bending her knees.

  Well, David said, you're not that used to it. Maybe you should go for a run before we go any further, he joked, get the blood moving. She laughed sarcastically and then turned to face him.

  Do you think I look old though? she asked. She lifted her hand to her hair; I mean, does this count as grey hair now?

  He smiled, and looked away, and said I don't know, maybe you could call it highlights. Distinguished highlights, he said, smiling. She laughed again, swirling the last of the coffee around in the bottom of the plastic mug, stepping away from the car and flicking the dregs on to the ground. She watched the shadows of small clouds slipping across the hillside on the other side of the narrow bay. They both stood still for a moment, listening to the quietness of the morning, not saying anything.

  It doesn't seem like all that long since I was here before, he said. She pressed closer against him.

  It's more than twenty years, she said. Kate was only three.

  I know, he said. A lorry roared and clattered past, and they turned away from the dust and grit thrown up in its wake.

  Where does it all go? Eleanor said. I don't feel old enough to have a daughter in her twenties already. He slipped his arm around her waist, pushing her round to face him. And you don't look old enough either, he said, smiling, really.

  I do too, she said, pulling away, embarrassed. She looked down at the water again, watching a small red fishing boat struggling out on the tide, and said, you know, when I phone her up I'm still thinking of a ten-year-old Kate answering the phone, I don't know why, I can't help it.

  I know, he said, me too. And he found himself thinking about her again, about how much of an adult she'd seemed at the funeral. He wondered what she would say if he told her now why he'd made that first trip to Ireland, the one she could barely remember, and why he was making this second one now. He tried to imagine being able to say such a thing. He wondered if she would understand, or if her indignant words would be familiar: Why didn't you tell me before? How long have you known? How could you not have told me this before? He thought about the photos he had of her in the albums on the back seat, which one of them showed her as someone old enough to have been told: the young woman leaving for university, the almost-teenager starting at big school, the young girl sugar-drunk with birthday-cake excitement, the toddler sitting on her proud grandmother's knee.

  They got back into the car and headed for Letterkenny.

  David,

  I don't think I've written you a letter since you spent that fortnight in London with Julia, when you were fourteen. Do you remember? You said you wanted to see all the rooms in the British Museum instead of just a few. I'm not sure if you managed it. I can't remember why I wrote to you then, I think I was sending you some socks, wasn't I? Or I just wanted to know how you were. Stupid really, but I think I was missing you, and people didn't use the telephone so much in those days, did they? It was strange writing to you though, it took me a long time to think what to say.

  But listen to me. I'm not getting to the point at all. There are some things I've been trying to say to you, and I haven't managed, so I'm writing them down and I'll give this to Eleanor to give to you before you go. Does that make me a coward, would you say?

  Now I've been sitting here for half an hour, looking at the wall, and I don't know where to start. We've been over it so many times, maybe there isn't much point trying to explain myself again. I did the wrong thing, not telling you. You know that. But I thought it was the best thing to do and maybe you'll understand that one day. Maybe you already understand but you just haven't told me yet.

  The truth, David, is that I chose you. I chose to keep you. I think sometimes you forget that, or maybe you never understood it in the first place. I could have taken you back to the hospital and owned up. Or I could have let Julia be your mum instead. But as soon as I picked you up that first time, with Susan there next to me and the picture of Albert up on the mantelpiece, you were part of our family and I knew I couldn't not keep you. I was there from the very beginning, David. I might not have carried you in my womb, but I changed your nappies and I fed you, I was there when you learnt to walk, and to talk, and when you fell over and cut your knees. I don't have to try very hard to remember the weight of you on my hip, or the feeling of holding your hands above your head as you took your first steps, or the smell of your skin when I tucked you into bed at night. Your first word was Mum, David, and you said it to me.

  But I can understand why you were angry when you found out. I can understand why you might still be angry now, after all this time. I think I would be, in your position. But I was never a bad mother, was I? We looked after you, and fed you, and clothed you, and tried to do our best for you, didn't we? Sometimes, and I'm sorry to say it, I don't think you've given us enough credit for that. I made one mistake, David, one wrong choice, and I don't want you to punish me for it for the rest of my life.

  So that's what I wanted to say. If you're reading this you should be halfway to Mary's house by now. Be careful, will you? And say hello to Mary for me. Tell her I'd like to meet her one day, if that would be possible, if it seems like things are working out that way.

  There's a programme starting that I wanted to watch, so I'll leave it there. I think I've probably said more than enough already anyway. But I hope you find what you're looking for over there, David, and I hope you'll be able to tell me something about it when you come home. Phone me if you get the chance, if you want to. And please be careful.

  Love, Mum

  They arrived in Letterkenny just after lunchtime, crawling the last couple of miles through traffic cones, surrounded by the heaped mud and painted stakes of new building works, bulldozers and diggers circling through the fields on either side of the road. Eleanor unfolded the emailed directions and waited for David to ask for them, but even here, as he drove through the crowded and narrow streets of the town centre, past the bus station and the shopping arcade and the school, he could recite the route by heart. They drove out of the centre along a main road, past an estate of new bungalows, and then suddenly they were there. They parked the car outside, and sat for a moment, looking. This is definitely it then? Eleanor said. He nodded, squeezing the back of his neck. You okay? she asked. He looked at her and smiled weakly.

  I don't know what I'm going to say, he whispered. She put a hand on his knee.

  You'll think of something, she said. Come on.

  They got out of the car and stood at the front door. She looked at him. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and he knocked.

  60 Biscuit tin, rusted, used as money box or for keepsakes, c.1944

  When Mary's husband died, her eldest daughter persuaded her to move into town, into a small bungal
ow just around the corner from her, so that she'd be closer to other people if anything should happen. She hadn't liked it at first. She'd missed the open fire, the view across the fields, the smooth shine of the worn stone floor. She'd missed the smell of their clothes hanging together in the wardrobe. The weekly steaming ritual of the bath being filled. The photos and drawings pinned up across the walls, the tools hanging up on the back of the door, all the familiar bits and pieces of a home she had spent a lifetime making her own. The walls were thin in the new place, the doors hollow, and the electric heaters took so long to warm up and cool down that she had to watch the weather forecast just to know when to turn them on.

  You're only lonely without Daddy, her children told her, when she said she wanted to go back, and she didn't think they were right but they were. You'll get used to it, they said, you'll like it there soon enough, and she found it hard to believe but she eventually did. She started to like sitting by the window, watching people walk in and out of town, waving back at anyone who smiled or waved. She started to like not having to worry so much about dust and draughts and smoke and ash. She liked being able to put her wet clothes into a machine and take them out as dry as if they'd been on the line for a week. And now that she had two rooms she didn't need, she liked having the children come to stay, bringing their own children with them, and boxes of toys, and new photographs for her to put up on the wall, filling her front room with stories of their new lives and jobs in the places they'd settled now, retelling old stories of the life they remembered growing up with.

  And one day, barely stopping to think what she was doing, she told her eldest daughter what had happened all those years ago, when she worked in the big house in London, and got into trouble, and had to come home with her hands empty and her heart broken. You can understand why I didn't tell you before, can't you? she said, when her daughter had finished asking questions, and Sarah nodded, and shook her head, and said well of course, I suppose I do.