Who Do You Think You Are?

What had begun as straightforward attraction – coupled with the loneliness of washing up twenty years too late in the town I had left when I was still a boy – was, after taking her out the other night, starting to turn into something deeper. I had found myself thinking about her when she wasn’t there, found myself gripped at odd moments by grief for her family who I had never known, spent long minutes trying to picture her ex-husband, trying to imagine who he could be to have abandoned her at such a time. So that now, seeing her again after having had a few days to build her up in my head, I was able to start acting as I always do when confronted with someone who is managing to get under my skin: like a charmless half-wit who did an online course in the art of seduction and got a B+.

I was on full alert for any signal that she might have devoted similar amounts of mental energy to me in the intervening few days. The enigmatic quality she had was one of the things I liked so much, but it did leave a man hanging somewhat. We’d had a good time the other night, and I was sure I’d picked up enough of a vibe to believe she liked me – or at least that she wasn’t actively repelled by me. But there had been nothing when she said goodbye, no hint of even wanting to meet again. Maybe, having been through so much so recently, all she wanted was to steer clear of men altogether. Now I began to worry that by turning up again so soon I was doing the thing guaranteed to scare her away. Too late now, I thought. The only thing worse than turning up again too soon would be turning up too soon, muttering to myself in the doorway of the library, then turning on my heels and disappearing again.

She looked up as I strode towards her and spontaneously broke into a broad grin. ‘Hi! What a welcome surprise.’

‘Well, that’s always nice to hear. I’m not interrupting am I?’

‘You are interrupting, but you’re interrupting me watching cricket on the internet.’

‘Oh, right. What match is it?’ I have no interest in any sport but was willing to feign one now.

‘England and South Africa, one day international.’

‘What’s the score?’

‘England are batting, 226 for 3.’

I nodded. Good or bad? I wasn’t sure so I kept my face neutral. A Yorkshireman who didn’t get cricket was beyond shameful.

She clicked a button and sat back in her chair and looked up at me. ‘I haven’t got a clue what any of that means, by the way. My dad was into cricket and I never could be bothered to find out about it when he was alive. I thought I’d give it a go now but – ’ she shrugged ‘ – I have absolutely no idea what’s going on. Why do they keep hitting the ball and then just standing there and not running? No wonder they’re all fat.’

I laughed. Thank God. A girlfriend who knew more about sport than I did would be far too demeaning. Not that she was going to be my girlfriend of course.

‘Well, maybe I’ve got something else for you to concentrate on instead.’

‘Oh no, you haven’t brought me work have you? And I thought you just wanted an excuse to see me again.’

‘Well, that too, I mean, of course, you know…’ I stuttered to a halt.

‘What have you got for me then?’ She obviously felt sorry for me and was willing to gloss over my ham-fisted attempts at charisma.

‘Would you be able to tell me any more about Edgarsbridge pit? Just a bit of info on, I don’t know, productivity, particularly during the strike, how many were employed there, how many were working during the strike. Any photos, any reportage – anything really. ‘

‘You think we were onto something with that “other” Peter Milton?’

‘I don’t know.’ I liked the way she said ‘we’, as though we were colleagues working on a joint assignment. ‘I want to try and find out a bit more in case we are heading in the right direction.’

‘Have you spoken to anyone else?’ She was making notes as she was talking. ‘Did you manage to get in touch with his mother?’

‘No. I was right, she’s dead.’

Tash nodded. ‘OK. Any other family still around that you know of?’

‘Maybe his sisters. Or, you know, maybe brothers, who knows?’

‘Yeah.’ She was nodding slowly. I couldn’t tell if the raise of one eyebrow was her trying to be languidly charming or because it was so painfully obvious that I was lying. Or at least avoiding the truth. ‘Yeah, you should look into that. Check the electoral roll and whatever.’

‘Right.’ I nodded. ‘I will do. So, do you think you could find me any more stuff about Edgarsbridge?’

She stuck out her bottom lip. It was an oddly sexy mannerism she had. Or maybe it was that I was beginning to find everything about her oddly sexy. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I would have thought so. I’m not sure what exactly, but I’ll have a dig around and see what I can find.’

I smiled. ‘Excellent.’

‘OK, then.’ She looked up at me, one eyebrow raised again. Languidly charming, I decided. ‘Don’t tell anyone though – they’re very strict about us not doing people’s research for them.’

‘They’d rather you were watching cricket on the internet?’

‘No, they’d rather I actually got some work done, but they can’t have everything.’

I smiled. When was the last time I met a woman like this? One who made me laugh on purpose, rather than because I suddenly realised how comically mismatched we were.

‘So, when do you need this by?’

I took a breath. ‘How about tomorrow night? Seven o’clock outside again?’

She nodded with what appeared to be genuine enthusiasm. ‘OK. I’ll look forward to it.’

‘Me too. Especially if you wear that short skirt again.’

This time she raised both eyebrows. ‘OK,’ she said slowly. ‘See you then.’

I cringed to myself as I walked back to the door. If only she were ugly and boring, I would have slept with her by now.

Chapter 4 Tash

I stayed late at work that night, waiting to meet Ed. It was something I had started doing occasionally anyway. It made me look keen in front of the bosses, plus it delayed the awful moment of returning to Mum and Dad’s house. It was better than it had been, being back there without them, but only in the same way that acute appendicitis is better than a ruptured spleen.

The first few weeks I felt as though an evil set-designer had arranged things to be as poignant and painful as possible. The calendar marked with appointments and arrangements for months to come. A half-finished crossword on the side table with a pair of reading glasses folded on top. Unwashed plates by the sink, a load of wet laundry still in the machine, books with bookmarks twenty pages from the end. They’re never coming back, everything screamed at me, and they didn’t even know it.

At the beginning I’d needed all the stomach-clawing reminders every five paces: I didn’t want to run the risk of forgetting, even for a millisecond, and having to face remembering all over again. But slowly, the knowledge became absorbed in every part of me. I was a person whose parents were dead. I was an orphan. I couldn’t forget it, any more than I could forget about being absurdly tall, or being shortsighted, or being a librarian. So I’d tidied the worst of it away after six weeks or so, once I started washing again, and even, occasionally, eating. I went out and bought a brand new duvet set with a comforting, old-fashioned pattern of pink and turquoise roses. It was a woman’s duvet set, I decided, a duvet set that made no concessions to masculine sensibilities. I put it on the bed in my old room upstairs and I started going to bed there every night. Some nights I even slept.

But still, I was happier – well, not happier, but less miserable – when I wasn’t in the house. I generally went round to Geri’s straight from work but on the rare occasion she was busy or the more common occasion when I felt I ought to give her a break, I would stay at work a bit longer, reading the papers and surfing the internet until I felt tired enough to leave.

That night, though, I was genuinely absorbed in work, ferreting away for Ed’s Pete Milton mystery. Even if I had been a real person with a normal life I might have stayed late that night. I felt enthused, like I used to when I’d been doing what I still thought of as ‘my’ job at the Sentinel. I couldn’t give a shit about history, local or otherwise, and I was finding it increasingly hard to even fake an interest in some middle-aged woman’s family tree and whether her great-uncle was christened John but known as James or vice versa. But helping a journalist research a story, gathering the facts in order to get to the heart of the matter – that was what I did. Doing it again made me feel that my old self and my old life had not entirely disappeared. Maybe, one day in the distant future, this could be me again.

‘Hello, Tash.’

The woman’s voice behind me made me jump, and, as I recognised the blustering, over-friendly tones, I allowed myself a small grimace before turning round. Dolly Cheswold, the queen of the family history nutters, and the nuttiest of them all by a very long chalk. And believe me, she had some stiff competition on that score.

‘Hi Dolly.’ I forced a smile, sneaking an anxious glance at the clock. It was twenty to seven. My shift had technically finished at six, but the library didn’t shut until eight, and now Dolly knew I was here I risked being stuck with her for as long as she could carry on talking, which was usually an extremely long time. ‘Back again? I didn’t know there was a meeting tonight.’ Dolly ran the family history group, Who Does Doncaster Think You Are?, out of one of the library meeting rooms. I dreaded their weekly meetings because they never washed up their coffee cups, and someone, usually me, had to wait around to lock up and make sure they actually left the building and didn’t camp out behind the microfiche, so deep was their obsession.

‘Oh no, not tonight unfortunately. I’m just here to help out a friend.’ She gestured to a tall, fashionably dressed middle-aged woman hovering a few metres away from my desk.

The woman gave an apologetic half-smile. ‘Yes, I’m a family history virgin, I’m afraid. Dolly’s been kind enough to offer some of her expertise.’

‘Right,’ I said with a professional smile, trying to hide my surprise that this woman could be a friend of Dolly’s. She looked so normal.

‘Yes,’ Dolly butted in, ‘Jenny here – ’ she gestured again at the woman, ‘ – is my husband’s cousin’s widow.’ I nodded, trying to look engrossed. ‘She fancies finding out a bit about family history now she’s got all this time on her hands with no man to run round after, ha ha!’ Dolly always laughed too much and too long at things that weren’t funny. Such as the loneliness and crisis of identity that often accompany a bereavement. Jenny smiled diffidently again and I felt as though I should apologise for Dolly, for being associated with her in any capacity at all.

‘Great,’ I said, unconvincingly, to Jenny. ‘Well, you’ve certainly come to the right place. Have you thought about what you want to find out? Which branches of the family you’re interested in, how in-depth you want to go with it all?’

‘Erm…’ Jenny shook her head and shrugged. ‘Like I said, I’m a bit of a beginner.’

I tried to smile reassuringly and look as though I wasn’t just focusing on the fact that I wanted to be sure to have time to go to the toilet and brush my teeth before I had to meet Ed. ‘Do you have any information so far to start you off?’

She shook her head again. She looked as though she was regretting this whole thing and I wondered if Dolly, in her search for a new project, had bullied her into it.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘it’s a bit overwhelming just trying to work out where to start, there’s so much information out there.’

‘That’s where Tash comes in,’ Dolly put in proudly. ‘The staff here are wonderful; such a great help to us.’ Yes, I thought, cleaning up after you every week, listening to you wittering on for hours at a time. Such a great help.

‘Why don’t you take these,’ I said to Jenny, handing her a pile of leaflets. ‘They tell you what we can search for, how much it costs, but – you know, I hope Dolly hasn’t given you the wrong impression, we don’t actually do the research for you, you have to do it yourself.’ I tried to push the file of research I had spent the last couple of hours working on for Ed out of her line of vision. ‘You know, we’re really not allowed to, we just don’t have the time.’

‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘of course. Well, that’s the fun part, surely, the research?’

If you say so. ‘Well,’ I said with a not-very-surreptitious glance at the clock, ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave you in Dolly’s capable hands. Christine’s next door in the lending section, she’ll be popping in and out if you need anything. I’m afraid I’ll have to dash off, I’m meeting someone.’ As soon as I uttered the last sentence I realised my mistake, but it was too late.

‘Oh! Oh Tash, “meeting someone”? Oh how lovely!’ Dolly had somehow cobbled together the impression that I was a sort of cross between Bridget Jones and Miss Jean Brodie – a single woman, soon to be past her prime, both desperate for a man and yet totally fulfilled by my wonderfully absorbing work. ‘A young man, is it?’ And then, ‘Oh it’s not that nice young man we saw waiting outside, do you think? Is it Tash? Is he lovely and tall with a great head of hair and beautiful teeth?’

I cast about for something to say. The most I had noticed thus far about Ed’s teeth was that he had them all. ‘Um…’

‘Oh, well, if it is, then bloody good for you, Tash! Oh, well done indeed. It’s not often, is it, that a single woman of your age is lucky enough to find a wonderful specimen like him? Oh, and such a pleasant manner. I do believe that if young men still wore hats he would have doffed his at us, wouldn’t he, Jenny?’

It was then that I realised that she must indeed be talking about Ed. And I was surprised to notice that, though Dolly Cheswold was undoubtedly Doncaster’s biggest and busiest pain in the arse, she was, for once, right about something. I did feel lucky.

*

He was waiting for me, just as before, with his dark, 1990s trench coat and his shaggy hair, yet still, somehow, looking like a film star. Same time, I thought, same place. Same clothes. It was close to becoming a routine, and I was surprised by how much I liked that idea.

‘I’m afraid I didn’t find all that much,’ I told him, after we had sat down. We had gone to Dove again, neither of us having a clue as to where else might be half-decent in Doncaster these days. ‘Edgarsbridge was one of the more productive pits in Yorkshire during the strike, but it’s all relative and you’re talking about starting from a pretty low base. Ninety-seven percent of the miners in Yorkshire came out on strike – probably more round here – so yes, maybe more went back to Edgarsbridge than some of the other pits but you’d still only be talking about a handful of men. The one interesting thing about those personnel files is that the other blokes who went back were all employed at that pit before the strike and after, in a lot of cases. This Peter Milton – the mystery man – he was the only one who just worked there for those few months. Now – ’ I leaned back in my chair, feeling like Hercule Poirot, ‘I don’t want to tell you how to do your job but, you know, Milton’s not an especially common name. Say this Peter Milton – yours, ours – say he needed, or wanted, to go back to work for whatever reason. He probably couldn’t risk doing it over at Oldfield where people might see him, where word might get out. But if he was desperate enough to go back in the first place he might have been desperate enough to do it over in Rotherham. Plus, he was taken off their books a few weeks after our Peter Milton disappeared. I know that the strike was pretty much over by then anyway but… What?’

Ed was paler behind his freckly tan and he looked slightly sick.

‘What?’ I said again.

‘Nothing. So – you think it’s definitely the same Pete Milton?’

I shrugged. ‘Anyone can change a date of birth. Remember, it was way before the days of ID fraud and money laundering paranoia. He wouldn’t even have had to give them bank details.’

He nodded, still looking sick. ‘There’s something I should tell you.’

I could tell he hadn’t been properly listening to me. He had that look that men get when they wish you would hurry up and finish talking so that they can blurt out the thing that’s been bothering them the whole time they’ve been pretending to pay attention.

‘I am a journalist, that’s all true.’ He said it as though his being a journalist was the thing that had made me like him so far. ‘But – I’m not working on a story. Or at least, not just any story. I’m – Pete Milton is – was, whatever – The thing is, I’m his brother.’

‘Right.’ I blinked. Seemed as if it was family history research of a kind, after all. ‘Shit, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know,’ I said needlessly. ‘If I’d known, I wouldn’t have been so blunt.’

Ed shook his head. ‘You weren’t – you haven’t been. Don’t be sorry.’

‘I meant – ’ I blurted, then stopped.

‘What?’

I remembered what he’d said to me when he found out about Mum and Dad, and how grateful I had been to him. ‘I meant I’m sorry for you,’ I said. ‘Him being gone so long, not knowing. It must have been terrible for you.’ I wasn’t asking, it was a statement of fact. When he’d asked me about Mum and Dad, about how I managed to carry on, I’d had the feeling then that he knew already that I was just a moving, talking shell, that in some ways he was one too.

He was silent a minute. ‘I know everybody says that the not knowing that’s what everybody thinks is the worst, but I’m not sure. What about you? What would you choose? Not knowing, maybe never knowing, whether your parents were alive, or, well…being where you are now? Knowing.’

Tears sprang into my eyes. I looked down, hoping the light was dim enough that he wouldn’t notice. Ed did not seem like the kind of man who would be attracted to, or wish to exploit, a damaged woman, nor was I the type of woman who would wish to appear damaged. Although, seeing as I was crying in front of him for the second time in as many meetings, it was probably already too late.

He had been the first person to speak about my loss with such honesty, and I wanted to respond in kind. ‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘I mean, I know – ’ I swallowed. ‘I know that they’re gone, even if I don’t know where they’ve gone to.’ I tried to laugh and he smiled in sympathy. ‘But – Oh, Ed, there’s no good way of saying this. What I mean is, I do know that they didn’t choose to go. I wish – I wish so much that there was any possibility they might still be alive, and if the reason I didn’t know they were still alive was that they weren’t able to tell me, then it would be OK. But – I can’t imagine a way that that could be true.’ He was staring at me levelly, his mouth set in a flat line. ‘Can you?’

He shook his head. ‘No. No, you’re right. If Pete’s dead, then he’s dead and that’s terrible. If he’s alive then, obviously, that’s better, but – but, you know… Why?’ He lifted a hand as though he wanted to smash it heavily on the table, but he brought it back down slowly and tapped it once. ‘Why?’ His voice was flat, emotionless but his hand, I noticed, was shaking very slightly.

‘Christ,’ I said, ‘what a pair of tragic life stories.’

He smiled, picking up on my need to break the dark mood. ‘Maybe we should co-author a misery memoir?’

‘Yes.’ I was glad of an excuse to lighten the conversation. ‘Or we could just cut the crap and go straight to Take a Break magazine. I reckon “Disappearing Miner Left Hole in the Coalface of My Life” must be worth at least five-hundred quid. I might even net a couple of hundred for “Divorced and Orphaned in the Same Week”.’

He smiled again, but this time it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘So, you told me what happened with your mum and dad. And … you did say you’d tell me what happened with your husband too if I wanted you to.’

Oh shit. ‘Do you want me to?’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Very, very much. You’re starting to intrigue me here, Tash. I’d like to know more about you and, don’t worry, there’s not much you could say that would make me like you any less.’

That’s what you think. ‘I slept with his best mate.’ He was being so charming, so heart-tremblingly intense and interested and perfect. I wanted to put a stop to it now, before it went any further. And telling the truth seemed a pretty effective way of doing that.

There was a second or two when his face was fixed, unreadable, then I could see him begin to shut down and withdraw. So quickly and with just a few monosyllabic words, I had drained all the warmth from him.

‘So,’ I shrugged, determined to brazen it out. I would scare him off if it killed me. ‘There you have it. Pretty good grounds for divorce, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Well,’ he said slowly, as though he was trying to buy time in which to find the right words. ‘I suppose that depends on what exactly happened.’ There was a moment’s silence, the classic interview technique of trying to get your subject to give away more of themselves than they intended. ‘But, no,’ he continued. ‘Don’t tell me if you don’t want to. Jesus, we’ve only just met, I’m pretty sure none of this is any of my business.’

I swilled the wine around my glass, watching it slop about, the dregs sticking to the sides of the thick, artisan glass. Suddenly every part of me ached with fatigue. The blood travelling through my body felt slow and sticky, the breath in my lungs was heavy and cloudy. My skin ached with the effort of holding my body together. What the hell was I doing here, in this calm, homely bar with this sweet, handsome man? Why was I allowing myself to do things like this, to come to nice places, to meet nice people? I wasn’t supposed to like it here, I wasn’t supposed to enjoy it, I wasn’t supposed to be happy. Soon I would be back in London, soon Tim would be home and I had to be back there so that he knew where to find me. I was going back soon, that was the plan. I would go back to the place where I truly belonged and stop living out somebody else’s life in this slow, provincial nowhere that I kept on telling myself was no longer home.

I sighed heavily, too tired to stop myself. ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘I probably shouldn’t tell you. Not because it’s none of your business, but because I don’t have many friends up here and I can’t afford to lose any potential ones.’ I forced a smile. ‘I’m probably going to be stuck living here for a little longer while I sort out all of Mum and Dad’s estate. I don’t want to alienate you by going into the details of what a heartless bitch I really am.’

The tone I had been aiming for was light-hearted and self-deprecating, but I think what came out was probably more world-weary and self-hating. He raised his eyebrows in surprise, then smiled. ‘I know we haven’t known each other long, and despite what you say, I know none of this is any of my business, but you don’t seem like a heartless bitch to me. If what you say is really how it happened, then I’m sure you had your reasons.’

Did I? I wondered. Did I have my reasons? I had excuses, if that counted. And yes, maybe I had made things sound a little bit worse than they really had been. But let’s face it, what I had done was bad enough. Ed deserved to know that I was not the kind of woman he deserved.

I smiled at Ed now, determined to draw this part of the conversation to a close. I was so tired of it all: tired of thinking about it, tired of talking about it, tired of the person it had made me into. ‘Well, maybe I had reasons. I’m sure I did. I’m just not sure if they were good enough reasons.’

‘So,’ he said, attempting to make his tone light-hearted, ‘I guess things with your husband are definitely…’

He was asking what my circumstances were, I realised. Was I still hung up on Stephen? Was Stephen still hung up on me? Was there untold unfinished business and dirty laundry just waiting to be aired, were he to make the mistake of getting involved?