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She unfolded the sheet of clean white paper, and read the words in thick black type. Chemistry, B. English, C. Geography, B. Mathematics, C. Physics, B. She read the words over and over, holding the paper up to the light, a pale gasp of excitement breaking out from her pursed lips. The first in the family to stop on at school, and now the first in the family, the first in the street, to go on to university. She refolded the paper and put it back into the jagged-toothed envelope. She propped it up on the kitchen table, leaning it against the empty cocoa mug, staring at it, checking her name and address on the front. She didn't know what to do straight away, who to tell, whether to have a drink and celebrate, whether to start packing her bags there and then.
All the different ways there were of leaving home, and the one she'd chosen had finally settled within reach. Her first brother, away with the merchant navy before she was even born. Her second and third brothers married. Her sister, gone with a story that no one ever spoke of. And now her, with a place waiting at Edinburgh University, ready to slip out of the house for good.
She heard footsteps on the wooden stairs and her mother came into the room, standing just inside the doorway, looking at her. What's that you've got there? she asked, her voice a little slow with sleep.
Eh? It's just a letter from the school, Eleanor said, leaning over it slightly. Is Da awake? she asked. Is he up yet?
No, he's still sleeping for now, her mother said, walking acros
s to the kettle and filling it with water. What's the letter for? she asked. Eleanor turned round in her chair.
It's the results, she told her. Ivy put the kettle on top of the stove.
Oh aye? she said. I didn't know you were expecting those. There was a creaking from upstairs, the sound of someone getting out of bed, footsteps across the floor. So what does it say? Ivy asked. Eleanor listened for the steps to come downstairs. She glanced up at the ceiling, and at her mother, and at the empty doorway. Well? her mother said. Eleanor handed over the piece of paper in its thin brown envelope.
It's good, she said quietly, pre-emptively, watching her mother's eyes scan over the words. Or she didn't say anything, and looked the other way.
Ivy read the sheet of paper, nodded, and made an mmhmm sound in the back of her throat. Oh aye, she said. Stewart came into the room and looked at them both expectantly. Ivy handed him the sheet of paper and went back upstairs. Will you make that pot of tea? she said, as she left the room. Eleanor watched her go, unsure whether to be shocked or not, waiting to see if she would come back and say anything more. Her father looked at the results and let out a long low whistle, breaking into a shuffling jig around the kitchen table, pulling Eleanor into a tight and startling embrace, rushing to get dressed and knock on the neighbours' doors, launching a day of toasts and hugs and hearty thumps on the back - and never you mind what your mother thinks, he whispered to her at one point, wonderfully - a day in which the letter would take pride of place on the front-room mantelpiece, repeatedly taken down and unfolded and passed around from hand to careful hand.
And by six o'clock, when the front room was crowded full, the men still in their workclothes and the women quickly changed out of their aprons and headscarves into something a little smarter, their glasses full to the brim, and the conversations falling round to work and weather and sport, she managed to slip out of the house to the telephone box, dialling the number she still had scribbled on a paper napkin from work.
It was the first time she'd actually phoned him. After all their letters, and after all the times they'd spent together, it was still somehow unexpected. Her voice sounded strange and thin, coming all that way down the line while he stood in the entrance hall of the house, twisting the cable in his hand and glaring at his sister who had come down from upstairs to look at him accusingly.
That's bloody brilliant Eleanor, he said when she told him the news, and his excitement was as much from her phoning at all as from what she had to say. Her voice, breaking into his neat house like that, made him feel as though he were passing some kind of test. I knew you'd do it, he said.
Oh, she said, and then she was quiet for a moment. I've been waiting for someone to say that all day, she said.
She told him everything that had happened, how she'd waited a few moments to open the letter, how she'd hoped her father would see it first, how she hadn't really been surprised by her mother's reaction, and as her money started to run out, she said quickly, so you'll be coming up to see me again soon, aye? I'll see if I can't arrange for my folks to go away again, she said slyly. And he grinned and said you do that as the line went dead.
He sat on the bottom of the stairs for a minute, holding the warm receiver in his hand, looking out through the still open front door. His mother had gone outside with a pair of shears and her gardening gloves, and was busily cutting the hedge. She hacked at it with loose, stabbing gestures, letting the cut branches fall around her, stopping now and again to wipe the backs of her wrists across her eyes, glancing at him through the doorway once or twice. He put the phone down and went upstairs.
21 Train ticket, Aberdeen-Coventry (single), 15 September 1968
Eleanor took a model wooden boat from her bottom drawer, wrapped it in an old piece of newspaper, folded it into a navy-blue sweater, and tucked it down into a corner of the suitcase. She pressed folded skirts and blouses around it, a pair of shoes stuffed with balled-up socks and stockings, a handful of knickers, a pair of blue jeans, a dress still wrapped in the dry-cleaner's bag. She packed her field notes and sketches, her textbooks, her washbag, a packet of tissues, a hairbrush which had once belonged to her sister. She packed a magazine, a pillowcase, an envelope full of photographs and a thick bundle of letters, and when she pressed the lid down and forced the catch closed there was still plenty left that she wanted to squeeze in. Her father appeared in the doorway.
You all done there then petal? he asked, his head angling towards her and his thick eyebrows crinkling upwards. She looked at him a moment and tried a smile.
Aye, I think so, she said, as much as this case can manage anyhow, and she pushed on the lid to make sure the catches weren't going to burst open and spring her possessions back out into the room. She stood by the window, looking out down the street, towards the harbour. Stewart sat down on the chair in the corner of the room.
What time's he here? he asked.
About five, she said, looking at her watch.
Not be long now then, he said, folding his arms.
No, she said, not long.
Stewart must have sat in that room before, watching a son or a daughter pack up and leave, and now he was having to watch the last of his children go through the same routine; looking around for something forgotten, stroking the hair on the back of the head, not being able to look him in the eye. It was no easier now, surely, than the first time must have been.
You're not going for long then? he said. Just for a week or so?
No, she said, not long.
And you're sure you don't want to wait for your mother to come home first? She'll be awful surprised. Eleanor shook her head.
The train will go before she comes back, she said. She won't be back from work until six.
No, he said, I know. He narrowed his eyes, briefly, and she turned away, embarrassed, looking out of the window again.
