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He tried to imagine the young girl whose handwriting this was, and the much older woman she must have become. He traced the shapes of the letters with his thumb, hoping for more clues than those few words could give.
Friel.
He practised saying the name, whispering it to himself in that large bare room littered with piles of paper. He wondered why even the date of birth was uncertain. And the hunger came back once more, the hunger to know, the hunger that had never really gone away. Friel. Mary Friel. David Friel.
And someone might say, my God, I don't believe it, with the shock that comes from sudden recognition, from a memory abruptly refreshed. My God, where did you find this? Reaching out to touch it, mouthing the words written across it, saying, I never thought. I remember when. They said I couldn't, I couldn't. But however did you find it? someone might ask. I mean it could have been anywhere couldn't it? I wasn't really looking, he was going to say, smiling, shrugging, it was an accident more than anything.
An accident, like the Mildenhall ploughman tearing through thick frosty soil to haul out the treasured silver plates with his bare hands. An accident, like Julia's original slip of the tongue.
40 Scrapbook w/postcards, tickets, maps, etc., 1979
He stood out on the deck, watching the dockers wrestle the heavy mooring ropes into place around the bollards, watching the oily slip of water between the boat and the quay narrow to nothing, and he felt the sudden rush of tears. It was unexpected. Hedidn'tso much burst into tears as subside into them, his face collapsing slowly in on itself, his eyes squeezing shut and his lips rolling over each other, his head bowing as though in prayer. He gripped the rail, steadying himself, grateful for the sprays of rain drifting down across the docks and flashing through the haloes around the warehouse lights. He wiped his eyes and his cheeks with the backs of his hands. The people standing around him began to move away, down to the car deck or the passenger exits, wandering off in twos and threes. A low grinding vibration shook through the boat as the bow doors opened. He looked out over Belfast, the buildings huddled together under the low grey sky, towers poking up out of the gloom, a line of hills rising faintly in the distance.
He walked from the dock to the bus station, following the directions on a map he'd brought with him. The streets were quiet and dark, as if people were waiti
ng until the last possible moment before heading out for work, keeping their heads down and their lights low. The people who'd come off the boat with him walked quickly, holding umbrellas or newspapers up against the rain. A police Land Rover hurtled past, a skirt of steel-plating around its wheels, metal grilles across its windows, hurling up spray from the road. A man watched him from inside a dark blue news-stand, cutting open bundles of newspapers. Another man came out of a side street ahead of him, pushing a handcart blooming with cut flowers in black buckets, and he tried to nod good morning but the man ignored him. He came to a hotel with all its front windows boarded up, found his bus waiting in the bus station behind it, and took his seat.
Later, he stuck the tickets and maps and handwritten directions into a scrapbook, along with the other remnants of the journey - postcards, bus tickets, beer mats, notepaper printed with the addresses of bed and breakfast guesthouses - and he imagined someone, someone smiling, wrinkles creasing around their eyes and away from the corners of the mouth, someone saying look how close you came, saying ah but you're here now though.
He woke up with no idea of how long he'd been asleep or how far the bus had travelled. From the window he could see long sloping fields of wheat and open pasture, large white farmhouses and open-walled barns set back from the road, mournful-looking long-haired cattle standing unexpectantly in the damp corners of fields. It could have been the southwest of England, or Wales, or Northumberland, except for the hard-edged accents of the other people on the bus, or the union flags which hung limply from every other telegraph pole along the road. The hills got higher, and the fields on either side became more barren, littered with rocks and striped with marshy puddles. Sheep sprang away from the roadside, mud stained halfway up their legs, colliding with each other as they hurried away from the bus. Valleys fell away to one side, steep-sided and channelled out by narrow streams. They reached the top of the ridge, passing through a small town, and as they came down the other side, the driver changing down through the gears and leaning heavily on the brake, he saw Londonderry appear below them, hooked to the near side of the river by a long narrow bridge, ringed by a wall which no longer held the whole city within it. He changed buses in Londonderry, crossing the border soon afterwards. A soldier got on to the bus to look at the passengers. Another one walked around outside, crouching at each corner to peer at the axles, glancing up at the tops of the surrounding hills, waving them through with a swing of his heavy black gun.
Eleanor's anxieties about leaving the house went further than keeping her from walking to the shops. They made her worry about other people's journeys, and about David and Kate's in particular. When David had to drive somewhere for work she would question him repeatedly about where he was going, why he was going, how long it might take, which way he was planning to go. She took comfort in seeing him perform small rituals of safety - checking the oil and the water and the brakes before he left, putting a blanket and a first-aid kit in the boot of the car, fastening his seatbelt before she waved him goodbye. So it took a long time, when he finally decided to make this trip to Donegal, to persuade her to let him go. It'll only be for a few days, he said, maybe a week. You'll be fine with Kate, my mum will come round and help out. Please, he said. But she only asked him not to go. He said he wouldn't drive, and she said that made her feel better but she still didn't want him to go. What will you do? she said. You've got no idea where to go. What are you expecting to find? I don't know, he told her. I just want to have a look. I just want to see what it's like. But it's not safe there, she said, how will I know you're okay?
So he didn't tell her about the soldiers or the Land Rover when he spoke to her on the phone that evening. He told her about the hills, and the flags, and the sheep, and he told her about his first darkened view of Belfast in the morning.
What's the weather like? she said. Where are you now? He could hear Kate in the background, saying she couldn't hear, saying it was her turn to talk now.
It's been raining all day, he said. I'm in Donegal Town. The room's a bit small but it's clean and everything. He could hear voices in another room, and see someone moving around in the lounge, setting tables for breakfast. She asked how long he was going to stay, what he was going to do.
I don't know, he said, a couple of nights here, I think, so I can try and work out where to go next. He read the names in the visitors' book on the table beneath the phone, turning a few of the pages. How're things at home? he asked.
Fine, she said quickly. You know, fine. Weather's nice. Your mum said she might come round tomorrow.
He closed his eyes a moment. There were things he wasn't saying, and he wanted to say them. He wanted to tell her how he felt now that he was finally there, that he was at once excited and disappointed, that he'd been surprised to feel no sense of homecoming; how utterly lost he had in fact felt when he'd arrived. But he wasn't sure if she wanted to hear these things, or if she wanted him to be there at all, and so he said nothing.
And how's Kate doing? he said.
Well, she's fine, she said. You want to speak to her? He said that he did, and he listened to Eleanor holding the phone out, leaning over to Kate and asking if she wanted to speak to her daddy. He heard the soft whump of the sofa cushions, and pictured Kate burying her face in them, trying to hide herself. Eleanor spoke again. She's gone all shy on you, she said, a smile in her voice. She misses you, you know, already.
I know, he said. He hesitated, looking to see if the woman was still setting the tables in the dining room, lowering his voice. And you're okay? he asked.
Yes, she said. I'm fine. He heard the edge of her voice tighten, and knew that she'd closed her eyes.
You've been making sure you take them then? he said. You haven't missed any? There was a long silence, without even the sound of Eleanor's breath reaching down the phone line to him, and he wasn't quite sure if she was still there. Eleanor? he said.
Yes David, she said. Yes, I have. He heard Kate running into the kitchen and dragging a stool across the floor, and he heard Eleanor telling her not to do that, the phone lowered away from her face. I've got to go, she said, speaking to him again.
Right, he said, okay. He started to say look sorry, I didn't mean to, and he heard something breaking in the kitchen, a plate or a glass, and Kate screaming in surprise, and Eleanor telling her not to move. He said I love you, I'll be home soon, over the noise, but he wasn't sure if she'd heard.
On his first morning in Donegal, after breakfast, he walked through the town centre, calling into a newsagent's by the market square to buy a handful of postcards, sending one to Eleanor and Kate and keeping the rest to stick into a scrapbook. The streets were busy with people shopping, women mainly, standing at shop counters set just in from the door, loading cuts of meat and handfuls of vegetables into cloth shopping bags, chatting to the flat-hatted shopkeepers or to the women beside them in the queue. He found himself looking out for women in their late forties and early fifties, stupidly, as if he might somehow catch the eye of one and recognise something in her face, and be recognised in turn.
He walked away from the square, past a small ruined castle and across a river, looking for the town library. It was closed. There was no museum. He walked along the river to a jetty, watching some men unloading armfuls of netting from their boat. He went for a drink in a bar, barely able to see for a moment as he stepped in from outside, blinking quickly and asking for a stout. At the edge of town, just off the Ballybofey Road, in a steeply sloping field beneath an oak tree, he found a memorial stone to the famine dead, buried together there beneath his feet.
Kate said hello to him on the phone that evening, but sank into a breathy silence when he said hello back, when he asked her what she'd been doing, as if she couldn't quite believe it was him at the end of the line.
He phoned Anna, and she said oh hello, I was wondering how you were getting on. It's been quiet at work without you there, she said, half-laughing, are you heading back soon? He told her he'd be
a few more days yet, there was still plenty left to see. She said well we all miss you, speaking, as she often did, as if she meant something else, something more, and he wondered again if there really was something more to be meant. The teasing sound of her voice when she spoke like that reminded him of her fingers trailing through the hair on the back of his head, or of her breath moving across his cheek when they looked over layout diagrams together, leaning over the desk, her elbow pressed against his.
