Ali Smith - Public Library and Other Stories

At first I thought it was just that you really liked books, just that you were someone who really loved your work. I thought it was just more evidence of your passionate and sensitive nature.

At first I was quite charmed by it. It was charming. She was charming.

But here are three instances of what it was like for me.

1: I’d be deep asleep, in the place where all the healing happens, the place all the serious newspapers talk about in their health pages as crucial because that’s where the things that fray or need patched in our daily lives get physically and mentally attended to and if we don’t attend to them something irreparable will happen. Then something would wake me. It’d be you, suddenly sitting straight up in the bed so all the covers would be off both of us, then it’d be you not there, I mean I’d come to myself and the covers would be off me, I’d open my eyes into a blur of dark, put my hand out and feel the place going cold where you should be. Then a light would come on somewhere in the house. Then a small noise would be happening. I’d get up. I’d blur my way downstairs, one hand on the wall. I’d blur into the front room, or the kitchen, or the study. You’d be sitting at the table. There’d be a too-high pile of books on it. Even in the blur I’d be able to see that that pile was going to topple any moment. You’d be sitting beyond it, looking through a book. Your eyes would be distant, as if closed and open at the same time. I’d stand there for a bit. You’d not look up. What’s going on? I’d say. It’d come out sounding blurry. Nothing, you’d say, I just need to know whether Wing was actually the original kitten of Charlie Chaplin. To know what? I’d say. In a letter to Woolf somewhere, you’d say. There’s a kind of family tree, and I know Athenaeum is one of the kittens that Charlie Chaplin gave birth to. But there’s another one and I’m pretty sure it’s not Wing or at least not called Wing in this particular reference and I need to know what its name is and whether it’s another name for Wing, or whether Wing was actually another cat altogether or maybe even another name for Charlie Chaplin. You’re looking up her cats now? I’d say. Now? What the fuck time is it? I need to know, you’d say. Why exactly do you need to know this? I’d say. Because I realized I don’t know it, you’d say. In what context could it possibly be useful? I’d say. I’ll just be another minute, you’d say. I know pretty much where to look, it’ll just take a minute. You’d pull another book out of the pile and catch the pile, shunt it back together with your elbow, wait till it was definitely not going to fall, and open the book at the index at the back. I’d go up to bed. I’d lie there unable to sleep. When you’d come up again two and a half hours later I’d be pretending not to be awake. You’d sigh back into bed and lie down next to me. Immediately you’d be asleep. But for me the windowblind would be edged with something far too bright. What would that noise be now? Birds.

2: We’d be talking about something really important, well, important to me at least. We’d be talking, for instance, about what happened to me at work, how everybody’s running really scared about the cuts. I’d tell you what had happened in the office that day. And you’d say, God, you know that’s exactly like in psychology. And I’d say, what in psychology, like manic depression or passive aggression? And you’d say, no, not psychology, I don’t mean psychology, I mean pictures, it’s exactly like in pictures, and I’d say, pictures of what? and you’d say, well, what happens is, this woman, she’s a bit past it though she used to be a good singer, she got a medal for it, but now she’s more middle-aged and she’s trying to get a job as an extra in films so she can pay her rent, and the first thing Mansfield does is, like, the story opens and this woman is lying in bed in a rented room and she’s got no rent. Oh, right, Mansfield, I’d say. Yeah, you’d say, and she wakes up and she’s cold and she thinks it’s maybe because she hasn’t eaten properly, so then it’s like a pageant of images crosses the ceiling in front of her, pictures of hot dinners sort of marching over the ceiling, and then she thinks she’d like some breakfast and then on the ceiling it’s a pageant of images of big breakfasts, it’s brilliant really when you consider what it’s doing, it’s a story about the fantasy of nourishment and what happens when that fantasy hits, like, reality, she even uses the word nourishing at one point I think. It’s a fantastic critique of cinema actually. Yeah, I’d say, but I’m struggling to make the link between you telling me the plot of a short story and Johnston email-bullying me at work. Are you saying I’m a bit past it? No, you’d say, listen, if you read it you’d see, it’s obvious, I’ll go and get it for you. No, don’t, I’d say. It’s okay, really. I can sort it out for myself. I don’t need to talk about it to anybody. But you’d be on your way to the shelf, and it’s got this really lovely little throwaway phrase, you’d be saying, I can’t remember it exactly but it kind of goes, something fell, sepulchral , she’s so brilliant, that so-simple word fell with the word sepulchral after it, wait, it’s here somewhere, I’ll look it up. Look up the word sepulchral for me while you’re at it, would you? I’d say. You know what sepulchral means, you’d say. Yeah, obviously, I’d say, everyone knows what sepulchral means. Well, everyone will one day, you’d say. Ha ha, yes, I’d say. Too true. And I’d have to tell myself to remember to look up what it meant later. I myself am not very interested in books, or words. When we were first together you used to tell me it was a relief, to be with me, because I wasn’t.

3: There was the day I came home from work and I found you sitting holding a glossy book, and the cardboard envelope from Amazon still on the floor. The book was open on your knee, one page black, one page white. On the black page there was a picture of a twined thick piece of hair. On the white page there was another picture of a coiled palmful of hair, darker, and a black and white picture of a woman, a girl. You were crying, and it was about the most ridiculous thing I could think of, in the real world with all its awful things to really cry about. The thing is, I never imagined her in colour before, you said. The book you were holding was called Traces of a Writer. It was full of pictures of what was left of your favourite writer after she died, pictures of a brooch, a little knife, bits of fabric, a little pair of scissors, a chess set, things like that. This was the day I first called her your ex-wife. I said, it’s like living with an extra person in our relationship. It’s like there’s always someone else. I meant it as a joke. But you were off on to the next page. You said, look, look, what’s this little leather thing? It’s called the fairy purse. Look. It’s a purse, for a sovereign. She gave it to her friend when they were schoolgirls, her friend that stayed with her all through her life, you know. It’s a bit weird, though, looking at this private stuff, isn’t it? I said. You’d stopped crying. It’s a bit necro, no? I said. You wiped at the sides of your eyes. It says here there’s a message inside it, a note, you said. It says here it’s never been taken out because it’s too fragile, but that it says on it, ‘Katie and Ida’s fairy purse’. How do they know it says that, if they haven’t ever taken it out? I said. And what if your ex-wife doesn’t want people looking at her private stuff? I don’t know that I’d want the general public always to be reading my letters or looking at my private writings, even if they did have research grant money to do it and they could give looking at old bits of rubbish left behind by a dead person a grandiose name like The Memory Meme And Materiology In Katherine Mansfield’s Metaphorical Landscape. Stop pretending you’re stupid, you said, why do you always pretend you’re stupid, why do you always pretend to be less than you are, and why do you always use my passion for what I’m working on against me to duck responsibility in our relationship? Ha! I said, I do know some stuff, actually. I can read Wikipedia as well as the next person, actually, and if she’s your ex-wife, then which does that make you, the vain incompetent who was always letting her down and who sold everything after she was dead and made a fortune out of it, or that poor woman she kept calling the Mountain? Because whichever one of those you are, that makes me the other, and I’m not playing that kind of weirdo role-play thank you very much. She was cruel, your ex-wife. She was a piece of work, all right. It was shortly after that that you threw the glossy book at the shelf and four of the little cups we’d bought in Mexico broke. Then I went over to the shelf, took the fifth cup, held it up above the fireplace and dropped it, and we both watched it break. It wasn’t long after that particular day that you and I split up.