Ali Smith - Autumn

The receptionist looks Elisabeth’s mother up on the computer. She tells Elisabeth that her mother isn’t listed at this surgery.

Yes she is, Elisabeth says. She definitely is.

The receptionist clicks on another file and then goes to the back of the room and opens a drawer in a filing cabinet. She takes out a piece of paper, reads it, then puts it back in and shuts the drawer. She comes back and sits down.

She tells Elisabeth she’s afraid that her mother is no longer listed on the patient list.

My mother definitely doesn’t know that, Elisabeth says. She thinks she’s a patient here. Why would you take her off the list?

The receptionist says that this is confidential information and that she’s not permitted to tell Elisabeth anything about any patient other than Elisabeth herself.

Well, can I register and see someone anyway? Elisabeth says. I feel pretty rough. I’d really like to talk to someone.

The receptionist asks her if she has any ID.

Elisabeth shows the receptionist her library card for the university.

Valid until my job goes, at least, she says, now the universities are all going to lose 16 per cent of our funding.

The receptionist smiles a patient smile. (A smile especially for patients.)

I’m afraid we need something with a current address and preferably also with a photograph, she says.

Elisabeth shows her her passport.

This passport is expired, the receptionist says.

I know, Elisabeth says. I’m in the middle of renewing it.

I’m afraid we can’t accept an expired ID, the receptionist says. Have you got a driving licence?

Elisabeth tells the receptionist she doesn’t drive.

What about a utility bill? the receptionist says.

What, on me? Elisabeth says. Right now?

The receptionist says that it’s a good idea always to carry a utility bill around with you in case someone needs to be able to verify your ID.

What about all the people who pay their bills online and don’t get paper bills any more? Elisabeth says.

The receptionist looks longingly at a ringing phone on the left of her desk. Still with her eyes on the ringing phone she tells Elisabeth it’s perfectly easy to print a bill out on a standard inkjet.

Elisabeth says she’s staying at her mother’s, that it’s sixty miles away, and that her mother doesn’t have a printer.

The receptionist actually looks angry that Elisabeth’s mother might not have a printer. She talks about catchment areas and registration of patients. Elisabeth realizes she’s suggesting that now that her mother lives outside the catchment area Elisabeth has no business being here in this building.

It’s also perfectly easy to mock up a bill and print it out. To pretend to be a person, Elisabeth says. And what about all the people doing scams? How does having your name on a piece of printed-out paper make you who you are?

She tells the receptionist about the scammer calling him or her self Anna Pavlova, for whom NatWest bank statements have been regularly arriving for the past three years at her own flat, even though she’s notified NatWest about it repeatedly and knows for sure no one called Anna Pavlova has lived there for at least a decade, having lived there herself that long.

So what does a piece of paper prove, exactly, in the end? Elisabeth says.

The receptionist looks at her and her face is stony. She asks if Elisabeth will excuse her for a moment. She answers the phone.

She gestures to Elisabeth to step back away from the desk while she takes this call. Then to make it even clearer she puts her hand over the receiver and says, if I could just ask you to let me accord this caller the requisite privacy.

There is a small queue of people forming behind Elisabeth all waiting to check in with this receptionist.

Elisabeth goes to the Post Office instead.

Today the Post Office is near empty, except for the queue waiting to use the self-service machines. Elisabeth takes a ticket. 39. Numbers 28 and 29 are apparently being served, though there’s no one at the counter at all, on either the Post Office side or the customer side.

Ten minutes later a woman comes through the door at the back. She shouts the numbers 30 and 31. No one responds. So she forwards the lit machine through the 30s, calling out the numbers as she does.

Elisabeth comes to the counter and gives the woman her passport envelope and the new photobooth shots, in which her face is definitely the right size (she has measured it). She shows her the receipt proving she paid the £9.75 Check & Send fee last week.

When are you planning to travel? the woman says.

Elisabeth shrugs. Nothing planned, she says.

The woman looks at the photographs.

There’s a problem, I’m afraid, the woman says.

What? Elisabeth says.

This piece of hair here should be off the face, she says.

It is off the face, Elisabeth says. That’s my forehead. It’s not even touching the face.

It should be right back off the face, the woman says.

If I took a picture of myself with it not where it is, Elisabeth says, I wouldn’t truly look like me. What would be the point of a passport photo that didn’t actually look like me?

I’d say that’s touching the eyes, the woman says.

The woman pushes her chair back and takes the photo sheet round to the counter where Travel Cash is issued. She shows it to a man there. The man comes back to the counter with her.

There may be a problem with your photograph, he says, in that my colleague thinks the hair is touching the face in it.

In any case, the hair is irrelevant, the woman says. Your eyes are too small.

Oh God, Elisabeth says.

The man goes back to his Travel Cash counter. The woman is sliding the pictures of Elisabeth up and down inside a transparent plastic chart with markings and measurements in different boxes printed all over it.

Your eyes don’t sit with the permissible regularity inside the shaded area, she says. This doesn’t line up. This should be in the middle and, as you can see, it’s at the side of your nose. I’m afraid these photographs don’t meet the necessary stipulation. If you go to Snappy Snaps rather than to a booth –

That’s exactly what the man I saw here last week said, Elisabeth says. What is it with this Post Office and its relationship with Snappy Snaps? Does someone’s brother work at Snappy Snaps?

So you were advised to go to Snappy Snaps already but you chose not to go, the woman says.

Elisabeth laughs. She can’t not; the woman looks so very stern about her not having gone to Snappy Snaps.

The woman lifts the chart and shows her again her own face with a shaded box over it.

I’m afraid it’s a no, the woman says.

Look, Elisabeth says. Just send these photos to the Passport Office. I’ll take the risk. I think they’ll be okay.

The woman looks wounded.

If they don’t accept them, Elisabeth says, I’ll come back in and see you again soon and tell you you were quite right and I was wrong, my hair was wrong and my eyes were in totally the wrong place.

No, because if you submit this through Check & Send today, this will be the last time this office will have anything to do with this application, the woman says. Once the application goes in, it’s the Passport Office who’ll be in touch with you about your unmet specifications.

Right, Elisabeth says. Thank you. Send them. I’ll take my chances. And will you do me a favour?

The woman looks very alarmed.

Will you say hello to your colleague who works here who’s got the seafood intolerance? Tell him the woman with the wrong size of head sends her best wishes and hopes he is well.

That description? the woman says. Forgive me, but. Could be anybody. One of thousands.