Ali Smith - Girl Meets Boy

Oh, he says. I never thought of it that way.

Let’s leave the police on message until lunchtime, I say. Then we’ll go up and sort the bail. And after that we’ll all go for something to eat.

Paul is very good in bed.

(Thank goodness.)

(Well, I knew he would be.)

(Well, I hoped.)

I feel met by you, he says afterwards. It’s weird.

(That’s exactly what it feels like. I felt met by him the first time I saw him. I felt met by him all the times we weren’t even able to meet each other’s eyes.)

I definitely felt met by you this morning at the station, I say.

Ha, he says. That’s funny.

We both laugh like idiots.

It is the loveliest laughing ever.

(I feel like we should always be meeting each other off trains, I think inside my head. That’s if we’re not actually on the same train, going the same way.)

I say it out loud.

I feel like we should always be meeting each other off trains, that’s if we’re not actually on the same train travelling together. Or am I saying too much out loud? I say.

You’re saying it too quietly, he says. I wish you’d shout it.

It’s raining quite heavily when we make love again and afterwards I can hear the rhythmic drip, heavy and steady, from the place above the window where the drainpipe is blocked. The rhythm of it goes against, and at the same time makes a kind of sense of, the randomness of the rain happening all round it.

I never knew how much I liked rain till now.

When Paul goes downstairs to make coffee I remember myself. I go to the bathroom. I catch sight of my own face in the little mirror.

I go through to Anthea’s room where the big mirror is. I sit on the edge of her bed and I make myself look hard at myself.

I am a lot less than an 8 now.

(I can see bones here, here, here, here and here.)

(Is that good?)

Back in my own room I see my clothes on the chair. I remember the empty clothes on that memorial, made to look soft, but made of metal.

(I have thought for a long time that the way my clothes hang on me is more important than me inside them.)

I hear Paul moving about in the bathroom. He turns on the shower.

He turns everything in the world on, not just me. Ha ha.

I like the idea of Paul in my shower. The shower, for some reason, has been where I’ve done my thinking and my asking since I was teenage. I’ve been standing those few minutes in the shower every day for God knows how long now, talking to nothing like we used to do when we were small, Anthea and I, and knelt by the sides of our beds.

(Please make me the correct size. The correct shape. The right kind of daughter. The right kind of sister. Someone who isn’t fazed or sad. Someone whose family has held together, not fallen apart. Someone who simply feels better . Please make things better. THIS MUST CHANGE.)

I get up. I call the police station.

The man on the desk is unbelievably informal.

Oh aye, he says. Now, is it one of the message girls or boys or whatever, or one of the seven dwarves that you’re after? Which one would you like? We’ve got Dopey, Sneezy, Grumpy, Bashful, Sleepy, Eye-fist, and another one whose name I’d have to look up for you.

I’d like to talk to my sister, Anthea Gunn, please, I say. And that’s enough flippancy about their tag from you.

About their what, now? he says.

Years from now, I say, you and the Inverness Constabulary will be nothing but a list of dry dusty names locked in an old computer memory stick. But the message girls, the message boys. They’ll be legend.

Uh huh, he says. Well, if you’d like to hang up your phone now, Ms Gunn, I’ll have your wee sister call you back in a jiffy.

(I consider making a formal complaint, while I wait for the phone to go. I am the only person permitted to make fun of my sister.)

Where’ve you been? she says when I answer.

Anthea, do you really think you’ll change the world a single jot by calling yourself by a funny name and doing what you’ve been doing? You really think you’ll make a single bit of difference to all the unfair things and all the suffering and all the injustice and all the hardship with a few words?

Yes, she says.

Okay. Good, I say.

Good? she says. Aren’t you angry? Aren’t you really furious with me?

No, I say.

No? she says. Are you lying?

But I think you’re going to have to get a bit better at dodging the police, I say.

Yeah, she says. Well. We’re working on it.

You and the girl with the little wings coming out of her heels, I say.

Are you being rude about Robin? she says. Because if you are, I’ll make fun of your motorbike again.

Ha ha, I say. You can borrow one of my crash helmets if you want. But you might not want to, since there’s no wings on it like there are on Robin’s helmet.

Eh? she says.

It’s a reference, I say. To a source.

Eh? she says.

Don’t say eh, say pardon or excuse me. I mean like Mercury.

Like what? she says.

Mercury, I say. You know. Original message boy. Wings on his heels. Wait a minute, I’ll go downstairs and get my Dictionary of Mythical –

No, no, Midge, don’t go anywhere. Just listen, she says. I’ve not got long on this phone. I can’t ask Dad. There’s no one Robin can ask. Just help us out this once. Please. I won’t ask again.

I know. You must be desperate to get out of that kilt, I say and I crack up laughing again.

Well, when you stop finding yourself so hilarious, she says, actually, if you could bring me a change of clothes that’d be great.

But you’ve been okay, you’re both okay up there? I say.

We’re good. But if you could, like I say, just, eh, quite urgently, justify half an hour’s absence to Dominorm or whoever, and disengage yourself from the Pure empire long enough to come and bail us out. I’ll pay you back. I promise.

You’ll need to, I say. I’m unemployed now.

Eh? she says.

I’m disengaged, I say. I’m no longer Pure.

No! she says. What happened? What’s wrong?

Nothing and everything is what happened, I say. And at Pure, everything’s wrong. Everything in the world. But you know this already.

Seriously? she says.

Honest to goodness, I say.

Wow, she says. When did it happen?

What? I say.

The miracle. The celestial exchange of my sister for you, whoever you are.

A glass of water given in kindness, that’s what did it, I say.

Eh? she says.

Stop saying eh, I say. Anyway I thought we’d saunter on up in a wee while –

Eh, can I just stress the word urgent? she says.

Though I thought I might drive out to a garden centre first and buy some seeds and bulbs –

Urgent urgent urgent urgent, she says.

And then I thought I might spend the rest of the afternoon and early evening down on the river bank –

URGENT, she yells down the phone.

— planting a good slogan or two that’ll appear mysteriously in the grass of it next spring. RAIN BELONGS TO EVERYONE. Or THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A SECOND SEX. Or PURE DEAD = BRILLIANT. Something like that.

Oh. That’s such a good idea, she says. Planting in the riverbank. That’s such a fantastic idea.

Also, you’re being too longwinded, I say. All the long sentences. It needs to be simpler. You need sloganeering help. You definitely need some creative help –

Does that creative have a small c or a big C? she says.

— and did you know, by the way, since we’re talking sloganeering, I say –

Midge, just come and help, she says. Like, now. And don’t forget to bring the clothes.

— that the word slogan, I say, comes from the Gaelic? It’s a word with a really interesting history –