Ali Smith - There But For The

May Young’s head spun. There was no getting away from it. Her number was up.

Ah well.

She closed her eyes.

Well, I can just go and get lost.

Well, it’ll be nice to be accompanied, it will, to the other side.

Well, it’s not so bad. There’s fates worse than death.

Well, when your number’s up, your number’s up.

Well, call my number, St. Peter, and we’ll see if it’s Bingo we’re playing. House! As long as it’s not Harbour House, dear God and all the angels.

May Young breathed. She felt her breath move in her chest, inside the awful pink below. She felt the long length of the deep last breath she’d take. She breathed the length of it.

But then, the next moment, she breathed in again fine with no problem at all.

Out. Then in again.

There was nothing wrong with her breathing.

She wasn’t gone anywhere at all.

I’m dead but I won’t lie down. Ha ha!

May felt immediately better. She opened her eyes fully. She looked all round. There was no man in a suit anywhere in the room. There was just a girl. Right then the door of May’s room began to open. A nurse! Quick! May sank back on to the pillows. She hung her arm over the edge of the bed so that the juice was near-spilling just in time. Irish-Liverpool came in. May Young was taking no chances. But the girl had seen. She’d reached to catch the tumbler. She’d watched as the nurse came in, and now she gave May a sly look.

May, you’ve a visitor this morning it seems! the nurse said. Another of the grandchildren.

The girl grinned at May. May looked at the Kleenex with the medicine in it, balled on the blanket. The girl saw her looking, turned to the nurse and smiled.

Yeah, she said. Just visiting Gran.

How are you doing today, May? the nurse shouted.

The girl reached forward as if to fold the blanket more neatly. She picked up the Kleenex. She used it to mop the little bit of juice that had spilled when May had slumped for the nurse’s benefit, then she stood up and opened the big bin with her foot on the footpedal and threw it in. She sat down again.

What day is it today, May? Ah, is she still not talking to us? the nurse said. It’s a pity. And isn’t that lovely now, May. Just when you think you’ve met them all, there’s more. Isn’t life just a wonder of children and more children.

Lose your calm and you lose all. May let her head stay sagged and her eyes half shut. She made to nod like a person who had swallowed what she was supposed to would nod.

How was the bus, was it bus you came by? the nurse said to the girl.

She meant the snow.

The girl didn’t say anything.

Not as bad as it looks out there, the nurse said.

She sat May forward and sorted the pillows behind her. She checked her for accidents. She announced to the room that May was clean, and that May was exceptionally good at keeping herself clean, and that it wasn’t at all an easy thing to, and that May should be proud. She checked the clipboard at the end of the bed. She turned to the girl.

See if you can get her to talk, she said. We’re all missing hearing her. I tell her all the time. We’re all missing her wit about the place. And if you’d like to take her for a turn about the ward, or out and down to the café, just give me the nod. She’s not been out of this room since Sunday. Do her good to see some different walls. Give me a shout and I’ll sort out a chair and we’ll lift her in and you can take her for a spin.

She was a kind nurse, Irish-Liverpool. She had the measure of the spirit of things. She knew there was more to an old body than an old body. But even so, May Young kept the sag in her jaw. She kept her head on its side. She kept her eyes half closed until the nurse, in a blur of uniform, went through the door and the door shut with a click. Then she waited another moment in case of anyone looking back through the little window in the door and seeing anything they shouldn’t.

No, the nurse was gone, she could hear her, cheery down the corridor.

She shunted herself up the bed as best she could.

The girl watched her do it.

My grandad, the girl said. He had two strokes, one after the other, in six months. The second one affected his eyes, his seeing. So they said he wasn’t to drive any more. We went to his house and my mum and dad took his car keys and they took the car out of his garage to our house, my mum drove our car home and my dad drove my grandad’s car. Then my grandad was always on the phone shouting about how they’d stolen his car, sometimes in the middle of the night too he phoned about it. Then one day my grandad came down from where he lived in Bedford to where we live, we live in like Greenwich, he came by himself on trains and tubes and that, though he still wasn’t supposed to be very well, I mean he walked with a stick and that, and he turned up banging on our front door with his fist though it’s not like there isn’t a bell, but he was like really angry, and he wouldn’t come in, he stood on the doorstep all out of breath and held up this letter that said on it that he’d sat a test and passed it and he could drive if he wanted, and he put his hand out like this and demanded his car and his keys, and my dad just gave him them, there and then, and off he went in his car. And he drove it till he died.

And then after he died — this was like two years ago, by the way — we eventually found out he’d got this boy who’s really good on computers to make up a letter, make it look like it was the kind of letter you’d get if you sat the test that said you could drive again. Like a really excellent forgery. The only reason we found out is because the boy came to my grandad’s house when we were all there having the sandwiches and that, after the funeral. He lives across the road from where my grandad lived. He said my grandad paid him fifty quid which was ten pounds more than he’d asked for, and that my grandad had also said that if he died the boy could have his car for nothing for doing that letter. Then the boy put his hand out and asked my dad could he have the car keys. And my dad just went straight into the kitchen and took them off the hook and came back to the door and gave him them. There and then. And my mother was like furious. Don’t suppose I can smoke in here, can I.

The girl stood up and went and had a look at the smoke alarm in the ceiling.

Could maybe get the cover off, she said. If it’s worked by a battery.

She dragged the big visitor’s chair over until it was directly under the smoke alarm. She climbed up on to it and balanced with one foot in the seat and another up on top of the edge of the high back. But because she was wearing boots the heels of which were like daggers, when one of the heels slid sideways on the cover of the shiny seat she lost her balance and toppled sideways off the chair, over the arm of it and on to the floor with her thin legs and the boots in the air.

How are the fallen mighty! May nearly said it out loud. She nearly laughed out loud. She pursed her mouth. She stopped herself. But the girl was a fine one, laughed at herself. She got herself up, dusted herself off, straightened what little there was of the daft little skirt and sat on the edge of the seat to unzip her boots. She was clearly going to give it a try again. She caught May looking at her.

A fall from grace, the girl said.

May liked that. She gave the girl a wink.

(May Winch is off-shift from the Mail Office and is at the Palace with some of the girls. They’re watching the accompanying feature, a Gracie Fields. It’s an old one, and people boo it to begin with since Gracie’s recently taken herself off to America and people aren’t very impressed with that. But it’s a funny one, and soon people are laughing along regardless of the fact that Gracie’s a bit of a runner-away.