Ali Smith - Public Library and Other Stories

Above all, though, it was the story of what may have happened to his body five years after his death that I couldn’t stop thinking about. I was still amazed by it now, cycling my bike home from the station.

But then I got home and opened my mail and I stopped thinking about anything because there was a Barclaycard statement waiting for me which claimed I’d spent a fortune.

I only very rarely use that credit card, or any of my credit cards. I’m quite good credit-wise, honest. In fact, that card had actually been a hundred pounds in credit for months, which is why I’d recently used it to buy some shirts for Christmas in a clothes shop in London called Folk.

I looked at the total again. £1,597.67. Had I really spent that much money on four shirts?

I turned the statement over. Previous balance from last statement£100.37. 11 Dec Folk, London £531.00. 21 Dec Lufthansa, Koeln £1,167.04 1,840.70 U. S. Dollar, USA, Exch Rate 0.6340 Incl Non Sterling Trans Fee of £33.88 03 Jan New Balance £1,597.67.

Lufthansa.

I hadn’t bought anything from Lufthansa ever.

I phoned the Barclaycard number at the top of my statement.

Hi there!

An automaton instructed me that I could answer its questions either by pressing the buttons on my phone or by speaking into the gaps it would leave for me. It had been recorded by someone with a north-of-England voice, friendly, like a not too abrasive stand-up comedian. I gave this matey automaton my card number and it offered me some options. When none of these involved speaking to someone about a fraudulent claim and I didn’t answer quickly enough either with button pushing or by saying something, the automaton asked me to tell it out loud what I wanted.

I’d like to speak to someone, I said.

I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that, the automaton said. Try again.

I’d like to speak to someone, I said again.

I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that, the northern automaton said. Try again. Try saying something like: Pay my bill .

Speak to someone, I said.

I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that, the automaton said.

I stayed silent.

I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that, the automaton said. Hold on. I’ll just put you through to a member of our team who’ll be able to help you. Just so you know, all our calls are recorded for training and legal purposes.

I listened to the muzak for a bit.

Hello, you’re speaking to indecipherable, how can I help you? a real person said to me down the phone from somewhere that had the sound of very far away.

He asked me some security questions, to check it was really me.

There’s a transaction on here, I said, that I didn’t make and I didn’t authorize.

Don’t worry, Ms Smith, he said. Thank you, Ms Smith. I can see that, Ms Smith. Yes, Ms Smith, thank you.

He put me through to some more muzak. Some minutes later a woman answered. She also had the slight delay round her voice which signalled that although she was here in my ear, I was maybe on the phone to somebody on a totally different planet. She asked me the same security questions. Then she told me that this card had been presented for use yesterday for a transaction costing two pounds –

Two pounds! I said and this is what went through my head as I said it: I’d never use a credit card for something so small . It was as if I needed proof that I hadn’t used my credit card even though I knew full well that I hadn’t.

Meanwhile, the woman was still speaking.

— card was then withdrawn just before the transaction went through, she said.

It wasn’t me, I said. I’d just like to make that really clear.

She told me Barclaycard would be in touch with me, that I’d hear from them over the next three weeks and that I was to be sure to reply within the requested timeframe or they would consider the matter resolved and charge my card accordingly.

For a transaction that I didn’t make? I said.

Be sure to reply within the requested timeframe, Ms Smith, she said.

And look — it’s in dollars, I said. I haven’t been to the States since 2002. I want it noted right now that I made no such transaction and that my card has been defrauded. I want this sum of money, for a ticket I never bought and a transaction I never carried out, wiped off my account. And I want you to stop this card this instant.

Yes, I can do that, Ms Smith, the woman said. There. Just a moment. Now. The card is now stopped. Please now destroy this card, Ms Smith. Barclaycard will send you a new card within the next five days or so.

I don’t want a new card, I said. Someone’ll probably just get its details and defraud it too. And how did Lufthansa get my details? Why did Lufthansa believe that this was me buying a ticket when it wasn’t?

It will now go forward for further investigation so that we can ascertain the facts of this situation, thank you, Ms Smith, the woman said.

It wasn’t me, I said again.

I sounded petulant. I sounded like a child.

Thank you for being in touch with Barclaycard, Ms Smith, she said. Have a lovely evening.

I pressed the hang-up button on my phone and found I was in my front room.

What I mean is, even though I’d been there the whole time, I’d actually just spent the last half hour somewhere which made my own front room irrelevant, even to me.

I stood by the fireplace and it was as if I had been filled with live ants. I went antsily around the house from room to room for about half an hour. Then I stopped, stood by the dark window, sat down on the edge of the couch. I told myself there was nothing to do about it but laugh it off. It happens all the time. People are always getting scammed. That’s life.

I picked up a book but I couldn’t concentrate to read.

I began to wonder instead who the person was, the person who’d pretended, somewhere else in the world, to be me. What did he or she look like? Was he or she part of a group of people who did this kind of thing? Or was it a single individual somewhere in a room by him- or herself? Somewhere in the world this person knew enough about the numbers on a card in my wallet in the dark of my pocket to fool a respectable airline company into selling an expensive ticket.

I looked at the statement again. It didn’t say anything about where the ticket was from or to. Dec 21. Maybe this other me had been going home for Christmas. Did she have a family? Did the family know she was a fraudster? Were they maybe a family of fraudsters? I could see them all round a long table set for Christmas; I stood ghost at their feast and watched them with their arms round their shoulders as Hogmanay gave way to New Year. How could she be me? I hadn’t sat in Departures with a print-out ticket paid for by me. I hadn’t walked down the tunnel that led to the door of the aeroplane, or climbed the steps out in the cold of the winter airport air.

Oh Christ. Passport.

I ran upstairs. I pulled open the cupboard door. But my passport was safe there on the underwear shelf.

I put it back. I closed the door. I laughed. Oh well. I came downstairs and put the kettle on, thought about making something to eat. But it was after nine o’clock and if I ate now I’d not sleep.

So I sat on the kitchen stool until the kettle boiled and I thought about how once, years ago, I had been really well pickpocketed in an Italian seaside resort by a child. The child, a dark-haired girl with a miniature accordion slung on her shoulder, had been walking up and down outside the restaurant we’d decided to eat at, playing the opening riff of Volare. I must’ve looked an easy touch; she had approached me and asked for money and when I’d said no she had talked to me briefly and shyly while thieving from me with such sleight of hand that it wasn’t till I’d put my hand in my pocket half an hour later for the roll of cash I was carrying so I could pay the bill and found the pocket empty that I knew. She’d done it with such artistry that I almost didn’t regret what she’d taken. On the contrary, I’d felt strangely blessed. It was as if I’d been specially chosen.