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Did you even? he asked quietly She put the gloves back on and pulledher way around the thickly spiked stem of a rose bush

I thought it was best, she said He'd been hoht time, she said She pulled a bulb out bythe soil in around it Her voice was stretched and thin The dates fitted, she said I didn't think he needed to know David turned away before she'd finished speaking I thought he'd find it easier, not knowing, he heard her say, her voice falling away into the earth

Soht outside before he was able to sleep He would sit on the edge of the bed, reading, listening to the radio, his hands shaking Or he would stand by the , looking out at the la the occasional shouts and sirens drift faintly across the city Or he would slip out of the house and walk through the shadowed streets, thinking, unable to think, trying to pound soot used to hih the front door half an hour or an hour late, toast crumbs around his mouth, his shirt tucked in and his tie knotted as he ran froh the alarm, he would say, and Maureen on the front desk would usually reply that he didn't look as if he'd slept at all, beckoning hihten his collar and tell him to wipe his mouth before the seniors saw hi up a graph of his arrival times on the noticeboard, and he had no anshen Malcolm asked him as on his mind so much these days, and he could only smile and pretend to look embarrassed when Anna said odds on it's a wohed It was easier to let thein if he'd wanted to tell them what it really was

Your misuse of museuret

He went to the archive office at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, where Julia and his mother had worked, and under the pretence of a research project he searched through the lists of patients in theHe contacted trades unions, and Irish erant workers' associations, and even tracked down a do forfor a box of files which would reveal a line of detail on a Mary who had stopped work suddenly in 1945 But he found nothing Domestic employment tended to be rather informal, he was told The names weren't always recorded, or even known He went to Somerset House and found that the entry for his own birthhis mother and father as Dorothy Carter and Albert Carter, and when he got home he asked furiously how such a lie had been incorporated into official history But hisHe wrote letters, on headed al and the north of Ireland, asking for artefacts and recollections connected with doh he accuraphs and transcribed interviews he found no answers there He discovered that history's secrets are not always easily found, that all the archives in the world weren't enough when he didn't even knoho or what he was looking for, or where he should be looking

These matters have all been discussed with you, formally and informally, on previous occasions This letter therefore serves as a written warning that if an immediate i, disciplinary proceedings will co your employment As a valued member of staff ould very much hope that this does not become necessary

He sometimes wondered ould have happened if he had lost his job then He tried to construct an alternative story fro if he would have gone to see Eleanor again, wondering if he would have found another job in a museu whether he would have read and re-read Eleanor's letters with bitter regret instead of excitement and then fond recollection He wondered what other story he would have ended up with, carried on the backseat of his car to show so last wanted to know

But it was impossible to say, he knew There was no clear parallel life into which he would have fallen had his job been taken away fro for hi to notice Eleanor in the tea room that day Just as he hadn't been irrevocably formed, or broken, the moment Julia had said you can leave hiet back It was ed and s, overheard conversations, the trips and stus, history made by a million fractional moments too numerous to calibrate or observe or record The real story, he kneas ether in a pair of photo albums and a scrapbook and drive across the country to lay out on a table somewhere The whole story would take a lifetiht, a way to begin What he had would be enough to at least say, here, these are a few of the things which have happened to me, while you weren't there This is a ser, you don't need to iine or wonder or dream This is a small part of the truth

19 Identity badge, Junior Curatorial Assistant, Coventry Museum, w/photo, 1967

He ca, al slip, and saw hisback through the foyer towards the stairs to his office, wondering if there was some work he could catch up on He carried on down the steps, saying goodbye to two of his colleagues and catching Dorothy's eye as she turned round She s away up the street

Hello love, she said I just got off the train and I thought I'd see if you were around, you don't mind, do you? Who are those two? I don't think I'veat her waist, and she leant in towards hiirl called Anna as doing her second work placement from university He didn't look at her as he spoke Well, they both see at each other Is work going okay then? He shrugged and started walking, and she walked with hi okay, her voice trailing out as she waited for hi ree funny a visitor had said, any sht want to share with her But he said nothing

They turned the corner towards the two cathedrals, Dorothy having to break into a half-run occasionally to keep up with his long strides She said, I just got back fros considered He didn't reply She said, the nurses there are doing a very good job with her; it can't be easy

They walked past the old cathedral, and David glanced up at the ruined north wall, the unroofed sky a burnished August blue through the arched hole where the s had once been He'd seen archive photos of the fire, the great billowing folds of flaht the bombers' path, and he'd read the accounts of the churchwardens who'd put the across the lead roof with buckets of sand, booting fizzing incendiaries into the road until they'd had to retreat down long ladders and watch the whole city burn She said, I went over and cleaned her house afterwards It doesn't look like Laurence has been there for a long ti with all her things sooner or later, I mean, there's a whole lot of it in there We'll have to talk to someone about it, she said She touched his arm, and he jerked it away Oh, she said Sorry love He didn't say anything

They walked past the loo walls of the new cathedral, with its tall narros letting the light squeeze in, with the skeletal steel spire that crowds had gathered to watch being lowered into place by helicopter, and she said, well anye'll have to talk to Laurence about it, when the tih David didn't say anything They stood across the road fro for the traffic to clear so they could cross She said, when are you going down there next? She said, I'ain you know A heavy lorry clattered past, loaded with rubble and soil fro site, and they both stepped back

She said, David, don't be like this, ple