Ali Smith - There But For The

What what what? the child said. You’re sinking. What are you sinking about?

They were passing a wall low enough to sit on. Anna put the jackets down on the wall between the two street signs. Crooms Hill. SE10. Burney Street. SE10. Above her head there was a sign saying Our Ladye Star of the Sea Church, with an arrow pointing the way. The old-fashioned spelling of Ladye in modern street sign Helvetica looked like a mistake.

She sat down next to the jackets. She looked at her watch.

What I’m sinking, she said, is that we’re not going any further unless you’ve got permission. Are your parents near enough to ask, or have you got a mobile or something?

We live there, the child said.

She pointed across the road towards a church.

In the church? Anna said.

The child laughed.

Behind there, she said. Kind of over there and behind.

How close? Anna said.

We’ve a mobile but we hardly use it, the child said, because my mum says what is the point of being on a train and shouting down a mobile, I’m on a train, because it makes it like not being on the train at all. She thinks you should be there on a train when you’re on one, therefore not be on a phone instead.

I’d like to meet your mum, Anna said. She sounds great.

She is great, the child said nodding. There is a history project in year six on mobiles. Motorola 1990 was the first one. It all happened ten years before I was born.

Uh huh. And will they be home or are they at work, your parents? Anna said.

They work at the university, the child said. It’s over there.

Well, can you run and tell your mum or dad where you are and who you’re with, Anna said, and come back either with your mum, or your dad, or with a note addressed to me saying that it’s okay and that you’ve got permission and that they know you’re safe?

The child put her hands on the wall, levered herself expertly into the air, let herself expertly fall.

I can, the child said. Though they trust me. I am not stupid. And your name is the same as mine. So what I tell them is I’m going to the tunnel with Brooke and then to the Observatory to see the Shepherd Galvano-Magnetic Clock.

Maybe, but listen, my name’s not Brooke, that’s you, Anna said. I’m Anna. Tell them I’m a friend of, of, the man who’s locked himself in the room at the Lees’ house.

Yeah, but when you first came, the child said, when we were at the Lees’ front door, you said you were called the same as me.

No I didn’t, Anna said.

I said, I’m Brooke, the child said, and then you said, what a coincidence, I’m Brooke too.

No, Anna said. The thing is, when we met on the steps, I didn’t know you were saying the word Brooke, I thought you were saying the word broke. And I’m broke. So I said, me too. It’s a pun.

Like, broken? the child said.

No, I meant it in the sense of having no money, Anna said.

What exactly is a pun therefore? the child said.

What exactly is a pun there for? Anna said.

The child thought this was very funny.

No, she said when she stopped laughing. What I want to know is, what constitutes a pun.

Constitutes? Anna said. Blimey. Constitutes. Well, um, pun. Well, they’re like if a word means differently from what you expect. Like, take me hearing the word broke when you said the word Brooke. That was a sort of involuntary pun.

Involuntary, the child said.

It means it happened without us meaning or choosing it, Anna said.

I know it means that, the child said. I was just saying it to see how it felt in my mouth to say it.

She sat beside Anna on the wall, crossing her legs like Anna, looking ahead like Anna.

Okay, Anna said. So.

And what is the point of a pun? the child said.

Um, Anna said.

And is it like if someone at school says to you, listen you, you’re history? the child said.

It depends, Anna said. Who said that to you? Like a teacher, for a project or something?

No, I mean, the child said. Because, obviously, it is a different meaning from me actually being history, when I am not even famous and I am only nine years old and will not be ten till next April, and have therefore not yet had much time to do anything to make me historic. I know that it doesn’t mean that I am like President Obama. I know it means something not good. But it would be good if I knew what it was called, because then I could say, the next time he says it to me, if he says it again, you can just stop using that pun at me right now.

Anna nodded.

I see, she said. I don’t think it’s a pun. A pun is more like — say you were at a musical at a theatre and it wasn’t a very exciting musical, and you were a bit bored. Instead of saying there’s no business like show business, you might say there’s no business like slow business.

The child’s face filled with delight.

I am going to go to a musical again, probably soon, she said. Show slow. Brooke Broke. I bet you are broke because you are redundant because of the recession, or are you a student or a postgraduate?

No, I had a job, but I gave it up, Anna said, because the job I had was rubbish.

Like community service like picking rubbish up on the heath? the child said.

No, Anna said. In my job I had to make people not matter so much. That was what my job really was, though ostensibly I was there to make people matter.

Ostensibly, the child said.

You know what that means? Anna said.

Yes, but I can’t think what exactly at this exact moment in time, the child said.

It means, uh, well, I don’t know how to explain what it means, Anna said. It means what things look like on the outside. Ostensibly my job meant one thing, but really it meant another.

Like lying, the child said. Or like punning?

Well, you tell me, Anna said. This is what my job was. First, I had to get people to talk to me about stuff that had happened to them, which was usually pretty horrible. That’s why they were having to tell me it in the first place, so that I could help them. Then, because there was pressure on me, I had to put pressure on them, to fit these true stories, their whole life stories in some cases, on to just two-thirds of one side of, do you know what A4 is?

A4, like paper? the child said. Or a road that is smaller than a motorway?

Paper, Anna said. So. Because I didn’t like this job, I told the people I worked for that I was going to leave. But they told me how good I was at the job, then they gave me a promotion which meant I made a lot more money. But my new job was to make people redundant, the ones who were doing my old job and weren’t good enough at getting people’s life stories to be less long. So, in the end, I left.

Your job was immortal, the child said.

I think you mean immoral, Anna said. But you might mean immortal.

It’s a pun! the child said.

Such good pun we’re having, Anna said.

The child squealed with laughter.

I’ve got one, I’ve got one, the child said. In a minute we will be going through — the punnel.

Ha ha. Only if you get back with a parent or a note that says we can, Anna said. Go on. I’ll wait here.

Will you? the child said.

Yes, Anna said.

And therefore definitely be here when I get back? the child said.

Therefore, yes, Anna said. Careful crossing the road.

Okay. See you, the child said.

The history child. She skipped off across the road, down the street opposite and round the corner. Anna watched her disappear. Then she wondered to herself. Did that child really just skip across that road? Did I imagine it? Have I just made up an idyll of childhood to make myself feel better, because that’s the kind of thing a child would do in an imagined idyll, skip rather than run?