Nell: The Date on the Back

Gran said the photograph had been taken in 1938. The writing on the back said 1939. Dad said he had always thought it was 1947, then admitted he might be remembering a completely different story involving a damaged conservatory.

I put the photograph on the kitchen table and decided that family history was an unreliable narrator with excellent biscuits.

“Who wrote the date?” I asked.

Gran leaned closer. “Not me.”

“Do you recognise the handwriting?”

“Your great-aunt, perhaps. Or my mother. They both made their nines like frightened tadpoles.”

This was vivid but not conclusive.

The photograph showed the market square under water, with a man standing on a step holding a chair above his head. I had been so interested in the flood that I'd barely noticed the chair. Now it was the thing I couldn't stop looking at. Someone had decided that particular piece of furniture was worth carrying into the weather.

Gran remembered being told the story as a child. She didn't remember every detail, and she said so. I recorded the conversation with her agreement, not because a recorder would make memory infallible but because I didn't want my notes to quietly improve her uncertainty into fact.

At the archive, a volunteer helped me compare the image with newspaper reports and street photographs. The shop sign in the background narrowed the date more usefully than Dad's conservatory. The water level did not match the highest marker in the passage because the photograph showed a different part of the square at a different point in the flood.

The answer was less neat than my first idea. It was also more interesting.

I sent Rosa a pitch about the flood markers, the changing shape of the square and what the old reports recorded well or badly. I included the questions I still needed to answer. She replied that the idea had potential and asked me not to promise an anniversary angle until the date was established.

I had, of course, almost promised an anniversary angle.

School continued around the research. Essays did not care that I had become interested in municipal drainage. The paper needed copy. Rafi's cover drawing arrived with a note asking us not to crop the left edge because the joke depended on the figure looking out of the frame.

We didn't crop it.

At the museum, my Saturday shifts involved fewer profound discoveries than I might have hoped. I sold pencils, restocked postcards, directed visitors towards the toilets that actually existed and learned how many people could ask whether a museum was free while standing beneath a sign that said FREE ADMISSION.

The work paid for part of the Manchester trip. It also gave Mum the opportunity to tell me that I could not rearrange the gift-shop display simply because I had a theory about narrative flow.

“Ask first,” she said.

“I know.”

“Knowing and doing remain separate departments.”

I left the mugs where they were.

When the shift and course schedules were confirmed, Kit and I booked the visit. I checked the ticket conditions, the connections and the return time. Dad helped me compare the options, then resisted the urge to print every page after I reminded him that Mum had already done it.

Taz asked whether I was nervous.

“Only about every stage of the journey and seeing her in a life where I don't know where the forks are.”

“Reasonable.”

“What if I hate it?”

“Manchester?”

“The distance. The new people. Being the visitor.”

Taz thought for a moment. “Then you'll find out something. You don't have to enjoy being apart to enjoy being together.”

I looked at her.

“Was that another mug?” she asked.

“A better one.”

The night before the trip, I packed too much. Then I took half of it out. I put the printed train details in my bag, along with a book, a charger, a sandwich and a small packet of the tea Kit liked. The tea was unnecessary. She could buy tea in Manchester. I brought it anyway because useful was not the only possible category of gift.

Kit called while I was choosing a coat.

“Bring the effective one,” she said.

“You've become my mother.”

“Only about waterproofing.”

I sat on the edge of the bed.

“I'm really looking forward to seeing you.”

“Me too.”

“No guide. No project. Just you.”

“And a city containing several complicated tram stops.”

“Nothing can frighten me now.”

We both knew that wasn't true. We laughed anyway.

After the call, I set my alarm and checked it twice. Outside, Marden settled into its ordinary evening. Somewhere across town, the rain chain might be making a sound I couldn't hear. Somewhere much farther away, Kit was getting ready for me to arrive.

For once, I let not knowing exactly how the day would go be part of looking forward to it.