There but for The

by Ali Smith

  Is that a very taxing job, then, Richard asks, or can you more or less do it with your eyes shut?

  No, you do actually need your eyes to be open for it, Mark says.

  Oh, yeah. I remember now, Richard says. You’re the, uh, Hugo and Caroline’s friend.

  He clears his throat.

  That’ll be how you know Hugo, he says. I’d thought, before, you know, it might be the am-dram game.

  The what? Mark says.

  Likes a bit of a drama, Hugo, Richard says.

  Hugo looks wounded. Mark can feel Caroline pretending not to listen on the other side of him.

  Wildlife photography, only one of Hugo’s many exotic hobbies, Richard says.

  Hugo’s pictures of barn owls are legendary in the business, Mark says.

  I occasionally take a picture that’s of occasional use to publications, Hugo says. And Mark and his employers occasionally see fit to use one or two. I’m a lucky boy. What does your, uh, Miles do, Mark?

  You’ll need to ask him, Mark says.

  How about you, Miles? Hugo says.

  He says it civilly but it sounds like a threat.

  I’m so sorry, Miles is saying as Eric puts a plate down in front of him. I can’t believe I didn’t think to tell you. I’m vegetarian.

  Ah, Jan says coming through with three more plates. That might actually be a bit of a problem, Miles.

  What a shame, Caroline says. And the main course is lamb. From Drings, and everything. What a shame, Jan.

  What about just taking the sausage off and putting it to one side and then you can eat the fish? Hannah, who’s sitting next to Miles, says.

  He’s vegetarian, Hannah, Caroline says.

  Yes, I know, Caroline, that’s why I suggested it, Hannah says.

  I do wish you’d let me know, Mark, or let Hugo know so he could have let me know in advance, Jan says.

  I wasn’t actually party to the information that Mark would be bringing somebody, Hugo says.

  My apologies, Mark says. I’m so sorry.

  No, my fault, Miles says. Mine entirely. I’m an interloper. Happy just to eat salad to atone. Happy not to eat at all if it’s a problem. Happy just to have an enjoyable evening sitting here.

  And then he was killed by a Viking who brained him with a bone that came from an ox, the child at the other end of the table is saying. He was the Archbishop of Canterbury and they made him a saint. It is why the church of St. Alfege is called his name. It happened here, in Greenwich, in the year ten twelve.

  In the year twenty-five twenty-five. If man is still alive, Terence sings.

  Adorable, Caroline says.

  She smiles at Bernice. Adorable, she mouths the word the length of the table.

  I’m not responsible for any adorability here, Bernice says. I’m the bad cop.

  If woman can survive, Terence sings.

  And the church has survived and is still there, the child says, though it has been rebuilt on the place, the exact place the original church where they brained him stood.

  Ours are so grown up now, Caroline says. Theirs are still small, she says nodding at Hannah then at Richard. Lucky them, that’s all I can say. I have fond memories of life BCG. Before computer games. D’you like children, Mark? Oh, excuse me. I don’t mean that to sound like it sounds.

  Um, Mark says.

  I mean, I don’t know that you don’t have any. I was just assuming. I didn’t mean to sound patronizing.

  It is possible now for you lot to adopt, isn’t it? Hugo said.

  What lot, sorry? Mark says.

  Miles is talking to the child about the restoration of the Cutty Sark.

  The original, he says, was really fast. She was a tea-clipper, but built when tea-clippers were no longer relevant or really needed any more, but she was so adaptable and fast that she could even outrace the newfangled steamships.

  But what I wonder is, the child said, why is it a she?

  Would you rather we called it a he? Miles says.

  No, the child says. I just wonder why it is, that’s all.

  I don’t know, Miles says, but I’ll try and find out for you. I think ships are generally shes. And you know what Cutty Sark means?

  Miles tells the child its origin. Everybody round the table pretends to be entertained while he does.

  So the man in the poem is a bit merry, a bit drunk by the time he goes home, Miles says, and in the dark he passes a lot of people dancing round a fire, and one of them is a really good dancer and she’s wearing a very short shirt, so the man watches her, and shouts out well done short shirt! except it’s in Scots he shouts it, weel done Cutty Sark!—she’s so good at dancing and he’s so drunk he can’t help but blurt it out, out it comes. But the girl, well, she and her friends happen to be witches, and they’re angry they’ve been spied on, and they chase the drunk man as if they’re going to kill him, and even though his horse is good and fast he only escapes by the skin of his horse’s tail.

  Ha, the child says. Skin of his tail.

  Her tail, Miles says. The horse was female.

  That’s why the ship is a she, Hugo says. Same as the horse. Females, always a bit fast.

  Everybody laughs.

  Why is that funny? the child says.

  I hope they never reopen that bloody ship, pardon my French, Jan says. The traffic round here, I don’t know what it’s like where you live, Mark and Miles, but it’s really been getting me down lately.

  The child assures Jan that the ship will definitely be reopened to the public as soon as they remake it because nowadays you can do pretty much anything including remake something historic after it’s burned down.

  Yep-iep, her father says. You can do pretty much anything nowadays. Take film of people who don’t know you’re doing it and even shoot them dead from a helicopter that’s classed as a toy. Anything.

  Why has everybody stopped talking? the child says into the silence.

  Ah, Miles says and winks at the child. A time to be silent, a time to burn things down, a time to restore them, a time to get drunk, a time to race away from things as fast as you can on your horse, a time to brain the archbishop, a time to make some headway with the starter.

  Mark looks down at his plate. He looks at his full wine glass. He looks at his empty water glass. He looks at Miles’s plate. On it is what looks like salad and blue cheese, which is what they’ve also served to the child who is now poking at her plate with a knife and looking suspicious.

  A discussion starts about something Caroline has seen on a screen at a train station.

  And then I thought, Caroline says, that now that we can do that, morph a tiger first into the shape of a man’s foot and then into the shape of a trainer, I mean now that we have such tamed and, I have to say, beautiful images of something like a tiger and we can do exactly what we like with them, well why would we ever again be bothered about the extinction of real tigers? I stood and watched it happen and it struck me, we don’t and won’t need to see a real tiger ever again now, not now that we’ve got images like that, not really.

  That’s moronic, Hugo says.

  Caroline rolls her eyes.

  Everybody laughs.

  Personally I wouldn’t mind if they became extinct, Hannah says. I hate the way they’re always killing deer and zebras and things on the wildlife shows.

  The thought made me quite sad, Caroline says. But I mean, I looked at the pictures and, I have to say, I thought it. I mean, we don’t, do we? We don’t need real tigers any more. We’ve finally tamed the wild.

  That’s what they want you to think, my darling moron, Hugo says.

  Don’t call me a moron, darling, Caroline says.

  Way the advert worked on you is the real point, Richard says.

  Ah but no it isn’t, though, Caroline says. I can remember that it was an advert for trainers, but I can’t remember which make. So it didn’t work at all, actually, not the way they wanted it
to.

  Hannah asks the Bayoudes if they’ve ever seen a real tiger at home. Not in Yorkshire, they say. She asks where they’re from originally. They tell her they were living in Harrogate and working at the University of York, which is where they met. They work at the local university, they tell her. Bernice got a teaching post here in the arts faculty and Terence has latterly been accepted as a research fellow.

  We had some luck, Bernice says. It’s not easy to get academic jobs in the same place. Terence had a salary in York, so you might say we’re missing that. But we’re okay. We’re together. We miss York. But we like it here a lot.

  You’re the only ones in the whole borough, then, Jan says.

  Personally I like it here very much, Eric says sitting down.

  It is the first thing he’s said. Everybody turns and looks at him in surprise.

  Miles passes his own water glass over to Mark’s side of the table. Hugo watches him do it, then reaches over for Miles’s name card. He holds it in his hands, at arm’s length, as if he needs glasses to read it. Then he puts it back where it was.

  What is it you do again, Miles? Hugo says. I asked you before but we were interrupted by your vegetarianism.

  Everybody laughs.

  I’m an ethical consultant, Miles says.

  Ah, Hugo says.

  Mm, Richard says.

  Ooh, Jan says.

  What on earth’s an ethical consultant? Hannah says.

  Miles smiles at her.

  You’re the brave one, he says.

  Am I? Hannah says.

  She beams. Then she stops beaming when she sees the look Richard is giving her.

  What it means is, I work for firms who want to ensure they’re ethically sound, or who would like to present themselves as more ethically sound, Miles says.

  Ha, Hugo says.

  Ho, Richard says.

  I comb their profiles and make suggestions about where, depending on the brief, they could make themselves greener, or specifically help communities they’re local to, or capitalize on what’s already ethically sound about themselves. Or I highlight potential for all of these. Or, if it’s just presentation we’re talking, I suggest possible rebrandings.

  Gosh, Caroline says.

  He’s an ethic cleanser, the child says.

  Everybody round the table bursts out laughing.

  I don’t know why everyone’s laughing, the child says. I’m only repeating what he told me earlier.

  Freelance, I take it, Miles? Hugo says.

  What’s the per annum on that, roughly? Richard says. Pre-recession, let’s say.

  That word, Jan says. Banned at this table.

  This is delicious, by the way, Jan, Caroline says.

  From the way people keep saying it, Mark gathers that the woman’s name maybe isn’t actually Jan, is maybe more like Jen. He tries to remember what Hugo called her when he insisted to Mark that he come tonight. He panics inside. Has he called her Jan out loud? He tries to remember if he’s said her name to her.

  My bonds and shares, Terence is singing. May fall. Downstairs. Who cares? Who cares?

  You like to sing, then, Terence? Hugo says.

  Gershwin, the child says.

  You said it, Terence says.

  He and the child high-five. But at the word Gershwin Mark’s head fills with an unexpected music, a blast of Phil Spector production on He’s Sure The Boy I Love, so loud that it drowns the party out for a moment. When he can hear again, Jan or Jen is praising Hugo for something. She’s praising his singing voice.

  That song at the end of the first half, Jen says, right before the interval, the one about the war being over in their dreams, do you remember? I’ll never forget it. It was really moving. Wasn’t it, Caro?

  Hugo has apparently played Siegfried Sassoon in some kind of play, a play where he had to sing a song at the end of the first half. Mark takes a sip of water. It is new to him, the knowledge that Hugo can sing, the knowledge that Hugo acts in plays. He thinks of himself and Hugo in the bird-watching hut, Hugo behind him, deep inside him, saying, you are coming, aren’t you? Working on it, Mark said laughing, any second now. I mean weekend after next, Hugo said sounding offended even through the effort of love. You are coming to Jan and Eric’s?

  Terence Bayoude, it seems, knows a great deal about musicals. Richard says it’s amazing the things people get taxpayers’ money to study these days. Terence tells Richard that his research fellowship is in metallurgy. Richard looks annoyed. Jen tells Terence again that Hugo’s got a great voice and that the Bayoudes should hear him on stage. Mark begins to wonder if Jen is maybe sleeping with Hugo too. He watches the shape of Jen’s mouth and the flick of her eyes for how these respond to Hugo all through Terence talking about how microphones and film changed the shape of the standard popular song early last century by making it easier to sing short notes yet still be heard at the back of the balcony. That actually made it possible, he says, for songwriters to use more syllables. But his real passion, he says, is dancers. Then Jen asks him about the anal imagery in Busby Berkeley, about which there was an article in last week’s Guardian.

  Everybody laughs.

  What’s anal, again? the child asks.

  Caroline blushes.

  Oh God. I’m so, so sorry, Jen says to Bernice. I didn’t think.

  Terence tells the child that anal is the adjectival form of anus and that the anus is the opening at the end of the alimentary canal.

  I knew that, the child says. But then what’s the problem with saying the word?

  Then Terence tells everybody round the table that Busby Berkeley wasn’t a choreographer to start with, but came to it via the First World War, where he’d been a drill inspector.

  I’m not musical at all, Richard says.

  He hasn’t a musical bone in his body, Hannah says.

  Brained by the musical bone of an ox, the child says. Ha ha. St. Arpeggio St. Alfeggio.

  Her father laughs.

  Where did you get a word like arpeggio from? her mother says. As if I didn’t know.

  Is it stage musical or film musical you’re keen on, Terence, or both? Jen asks.

  I just don’t get music, Richard says again.

  Tell us some more facts like that one about Busby Berkeley, Terence, Eric says.

  Everybody turns and stares at Eric.

  Don’t encourage him, Bernice says. He’s anal enough about it already.

  The whole table falls silent again.

  Woah! Bernice says and hoots with laughter.

  Well, Terence says. James Cagney and George Raft and John Wayne. The tough guys of Hollywood, well, they were all trained as dancers first.

  That’ll be the day, Richard says.

  Discipline, yes, Hugo says, it’s a very particular discipline.

  And Fred Astaire, Terence says, had it written into his contracts that if he was being filmed dancing then his whole body was to be shown at all times, never just his feet or hands or head, never anything but the whole body.

  Richard drops his knife. It hits the side of his plate quite hard.

  Fascinating, Jen says nodding.

  Hannah yawns out loud.

  And Ruby Keeler, you know, the early tap dancer? Terence says.

  No, Hannah says like a teenager, we don’t.

  Keeler was the first really famous tap dancer, Terence says ignoring her. And when we see footage of her, dancing, these days, and we compare her to someone like Astaire, it’s easy to think she’s not very good, quite clumsy, because she’s so all over the place and clunky-looking. But in reality her dancing style came direct-descendant from the Lancashire Clog Dance. In fact it made Astaire’s possible. She was the first popularizer of the form.

  How do you know stuff like these things? Hannah says.

  I read them, Terence says. In books.

  No, but why do you know them? Hannah says.

  Why? Terence says.
<
br />   I always think it’s so funny what people know and why they do, Hannah says.

  Why does anybody know anything? Terence says.

  I never know why anybody knows anything, Hannah says. But I’d have thought you would know about, you know, your own culture, before you knew other things about cultures like Lancashire and places like that, I mean.

  Have you not met any or very many black people before or are you just living in a different universe? the child says.

  Silence thuds down round the table.

  No, Hannah says, I didn’t mean it like it sounds, like that. I was just surprised that he knew so much, knows so much about music and, and when his job is metal, and musicals.

  All art aspires to the condition of music, Bernice says. That’s Walter Pater. All art aspires to the condition of musical. That’s Terence Bayoude.

  Jen and Caroline and Hugo make knowing noises.

  And I didn’t understand any of that last comment at all, Hannah says.

  She looks desperate.

  That was lovely, Jen, Bernice says. Thank you very much.

  Miles, Jen says, there’s couscous as accompaniment to the tagine, and I can have a look in the fridge and see what will go with it, but it might be a bit haphazard, I hope you won’t mind. Or would you like me to make you an omelette?

  Anything vegetarian will be really lovely, thank you, Jen, Miles says. Please don’t go out of your way for me.

  I’m only concerned that I’ve still got enough eggs, Jen says. But please don’t let that concern you for a moment. Eric?

  Jen and Eric stand up and start gathering plates. Then Eric comes back from the kitchen and fills everybody’s glass with red, except Mark’s, probably because Mark’s white glass is still full and it looks like he isn’t drinking. Mark can’t think how to ask, and then the moment when he could have asked is gone.

  The internet, Hannah is saying. If I need to know anything. That’s what’s so great about being alive now. But if it was just me, on a desert island, with just myself. Sometimes I have this dream, I’ve had it loads of times actually, it keeps coming back, where I’m at school even though I’m too old to be at school—

  Are you naked in it? Richard says.

  Everybody laughs except Hannah.

  —and all the kids are much younger than me, and the exam paper is put down in front of me, she says, and all the little kids start writing the answers, and I sit there and I look at it and my mind goes completely blank, like an empty space, like the empty blank page I know I have to fill, you know, cover, with things I don’t know, and I’m sitting there and it’s not just that I don’t know how to answer any of the things in the exam, it’s that I don’t know anything.