Ali Smith - There But For The

Right, Jen said. Well, if you’ll excuse me. Lovely to see you. You do look well.

She went back through the door into the hall.

What did you do in the park? the child said. Did you go to the Observatory? Did you go to the Planetarium?

Yes to the first and no to the second, Mark said.

Were you at the Observatory all afternoon? the child said.

No, I spent some of it sitting on a bench talking to my mother, Mark said.

On the phone? the child said.

In my head, Mark said. She’s long dead, my mother.

Oh. I knew that, the child said.

Forty-seven years dead last week, Mark said.

That actually happens to be longer than both my parents have even been alive, the child said.

Last Thursday, to be exact, Mark said.

That makes it sound like it was last Thursday that it happened, the child said.

In some ways it was, Mark said. Just last Thursday. Directly before the Cuban Missile Crisis. Ever heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis?

No, but it sounds serious, the child said.

Oh, it was, very serious, then, Mark said.

Mark took the folded pieces of paper out of his pocket, made sure the one he was putting back in was Miles’s handwritten note, and held the magazine article out to the child.

Do you think you could slip this under his door for me? he said.

The child nodded, sure.

She ran into the house.

Half a minute later she skimmed out the front door and down the steps again.

They sent me out in case I disrupt the filming, she said. And I tried to just go up anyway but Mrs. Lee is sitting on the stairs and I couldn’t get past.

Oh, Mark said. Well. It doesn’t matter.

But I can give it to someone who can get it in for you later, the child said.

Great, Mark said.

And Mrs. Lee says to tell you they might want to speak to you after all, the child said, because when Celia, who is what is called the producer, found out you were here the night it happened she decided that therefore it would be an interesting angle.

I’ve no wish, Brooke, to speak to anybody about anything right now, Mark said.

Right then Celia the producer appeared at the door and stood there shading her eyes down the street, as if looking for someone. Mark turned his back, made a face at the child. The child nodded, jerked her head to show him which way to go. She ducked down a passageway to their right, into a break between the houses. Mark followed.

As they came round the corner and down the steps through the passageway the noise level rose. There were quite a lot of people standing around at the fence below the backs of the houses, and more people standing and sitting on the grass across by the modern flats. There were so many it resembled a local fête, or an impromptu protest or campsite. There were several different-sized tents pitched on the grass, Mark counted them. Nine.

The child introduced him to a Scottish woman who had, it seemed, been coordinating food deliveries to the window by means of an amateur-looking pulley system slung between some of the windows on the back of the row of houses. She shook his hand. She was very interested to hear that he’d been present at the original dinner party.

They’ve stopped feeding him anything but meat via the house now, she said. It’s cruel. We had to do something. Finally he’s eating fruit again, and fresh vegetables, thank goodness. People are coming here with things they’ve cooked, too, for him, but just in case, because you never know how folk are, we’re only sending up fresh raw stuff or things we know are okay, things we can vouch for the safety of.

Mark looked at the rickety zigzag of the pulley system, and at the huge posters the other people living on the crescent had put up in their windows.

GO AWAY

THIS IS PRIVATE LAND

DON’T YOU HAVE

HOMES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

We tend to send the basket up at the same time every day, she said. You might think there are a lot of people here now, but last weekend at the one o’clock basket we had a hundred and fifty waiting to see the hand come out.

The one o’clock basket? Mark said.

Uh huh, Anna said.

She smiled.

Just the hand? Mark said. You never see his face?

He has the blind down low, see? she said.

She pointed at the window behind which, presumably, Miles was.

And at ten to one every day, Anna said, we get access to the upper flat next door, the people are very kind, the Gispens, there’s Mrs. Gispen over there, look—

She waved, and a middle-aged woman leaning on the bonnet of a car waved back.

— and at one o’clock exactly we activate the pulley and swing the basket down and over, and he opens the window and puts his hand, his arm, out and takes what he wants out of the basket, Anna said.

Wow, Mark said. Who’s paying for the provisions and everything?

When she saw him getting his wallet out she sent him over with Brooke to a teenage girl and a thin and beautiful older woman, both sitting on a rug on the grass outside one of the tents. Someone had pinned a piece of paper above the door of the tent with the words Smokers’ Area on it; they were both smoking. They were interested to hear that Mark had been one of the original guests — even the morose teenage girl, who looked as if a state of being interested in things might constitute a severe life-change.

The girl’s name was Josie, Brooke told him. She had constant access to the house. She’d deliver the note under the door.

Would you? Mark said.

Yeah. No sweat, she said.

The woman sounded very upper class. She introduced herself as the acting camp treasurer.

I’ve only £30 on me in cash right now, Mark said, but I can nip to a machine and get a little more, if that’d be a help.

The treasurer told him they’d had so many offers of donations recently that they were joking about getting a PED.

What’s a PED? Mark asked.

Pin Entry Device, the posh woman said.

Chip & Pin thing, the teenage girl said flicking at the ashy end of her cigarette with a finger.

A small girl was kicking a football against a sign that said No Ball Games. A group of women of all ages were sitting in a circle, knitting round a camping stove. A good-looking man was cooking what looked and smelled like paella in a huge pan over another stove. Three dogs sat nearby, watching. A man came over with a tray of cups of milky tea and offered Mark one.

They’re good as gold, the dogs, he said, though nobody seems to own them, and we get all manner of birds and squirrels, all from the park, I’ve never seen so much wildlife, even the odd parrot, and there’s a fox that comes at night and all, pretty tame, and I’ve never seen a fox and dogs that don’t go for each other’s throats, but they haven’t. Some of them, the more hippy ones here, say it’s because Milo attracts animals to him, like St. Francis. But it’s the cooking and the bin bags, I’d say. Beautiful, the fox I saw. A big red. Came right up to the edge of the grass.

Mark asked the man how long he’d been camping here.

Three weeks at the weekend, the man said. I was a day tripper for three before that. Then I thought, well, this is interesting, isn’t it? I wanted to see what was going to happen. I was worried every time I went home that I’d miss something. What if something happened and I wasn’t here to see it? So my son, that’s him there, said, look, Dad, here’s the sleeping bag. Don’t know how much longer we’ll get away with it (he nodded at the signs in the windows). It’s not like we’re noisy or anything. We’re good as gold. They’ve tried to rout us three times regardless, twice with the police. But I’m here till the end.

Just one thing, if I may, Mark said. It’s Miles, his name. Not Milo.

Yeah, I know, Anna’s always going on about that too. But Milo’s better, Milo’s got something about it, hasn’t it? the man said. It’s catchier. It’s catching on round the camp, Milo, where Miles sounds a bit, well, wet. A bit middle class, you know?