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Later, she heard herwisdom beyond her years, she sheltered the boat beneath the harbour of her over-hanging bedsheets before the door had even swung open And there'll be no supper for you either et yourself away into bed now, her ot into bed without saying a word, and her mother closed the bedroory She closed her eyes against the daylight still flooding into the roo below the floorboards, and to herresponse She stretched a hand out under the bed, finding and running her fingers over the gnarled and knotted wood of the model boat as she waited for sleep to come

Soht and found hio downstairs and find Eleanor sitting on the sofa there, wide-eyed and unable to sleep, holding the rain of the wood Go back to bed, she'd say, not looking at hi, I just can't sleep He'd sit next to her, fetch her a glass of water, ask her if she wanted to talk, sot to work in the o back to bed He'd ask her to come back to bed with him, to talk if she needed to talk, to lie down and close her eyes and come back to bed with him

I'm fine, she'd say, leave me be Go back to bed yourself

28 Page torn from

Aberdeen Press & Journal, cruust 1968

Sometimes, if she was prompted, Eleanor would tell other people besides David about her life before she came to Coventry; Susan perhaps, or Susan's husband John, or one of David's colleagues from work, if the wine had been around the table a few times and she felt for once that no harm could come from it You never tell us about Aberdeen, Susan would say, so; what's it like?

Aberdeen? she'd say There's not all that much to tell It was a bit colder than it is down here, there were fewer jobs about - what did you want to know?

Well, Susan would persist, I don't know I mean, what did your parents do, and your brothers and sisters, as your house like, that kind of thing

And Eleanor would tell theht of the and the outside toilet, the tin bath hanging on the wall, the belting for getting soot on the laundry that hung around the fireplace,it all sound distant and unreal She told them about her father's job in the shipyard, and her brothers leaving the house one by one to work in the merchant navy, the shipyard, the railways, the joiner's shop at the far end of town; and she told them about her own first job at the museum tea rooms We didn't have much for entertainment, she told them once, mainly I had my head stuck in a book and just about the only place I could find quiet enough for reading was in the lav so long as it ar, filling her glass again, bawling out an imitation of one of her brothers - Mam! Ellie's been in there for hours, will ye tell her? - and lowering her head for a moment as she ran out of steam

People laughed when Eleanor told these stories Not at the stories thes into bleak caricatures, at the unexpected contrast with her usually quiet and self-contained self Sohed more from an aard e sent to bed without supper for cursing, or being s a schoolbook - than because they were amused She'd usually had too s, and by the tiret Did I say too much David? she would ask, as he helped her up the stairs Did I embarrass myself any? Did I say too much?

Was that true? he asked her, once What you said last night? He was standing halfway up a stepladder as he said this, a paintbrush balanced wetly on the lip of a tin They were decorating their back room, finally, the furniture stacked under a sheet in the middle of the room, wallpaper shreds scattered across the floor Eleanor was rubbing down the wall on the other side of the room, her hair tied back from her face with an elastic band and the sleeves of an old work-shirt rolled up to the elbow

Hh shush of the sandpaper Was what true?

You know, he said, about being smacked, in the teeth you said The words felt odd even as he said them

Oh, that, she said, aye, of course She seemed distracted, surprised that he'd even had to ask

I hed a little, picking at a stray scrap of wallpaper still stuck to the bare grey plaster