There but for The

by Ali Smith

  Jennifer is near tears.

  What if Rick was just playing football and kicking the ball and just as he was about to kick in a goal, just, out of nowhere—? Or Nor was doing modern dance like normal at the class on a Wednesday and then right in front of the big mirror, she—? What if Dad was fishing and he just, you know,—?

  Well, then, the river would be the best place for him, May says. And it’s not often you’ll catch me saying that.

  She puts down the iron and lifts Jennifer, who is clammy with anger, on to her knee on one of the kitchen stools.

  But what if one day I came home from school, Jennifer is saying, and I went to make you a cup of tea, and then when I got through with the cup of tea, there was just a, a pile of ash on the chair, and there on the floor were your legs, and there on the arms of the chair were your arms?

  Right. If this actually ever happens, May says, are you listening? These are my instructions. You are to just put the mug of tea in one of my hands there on the side of that chair regardless, have you got that? Because I’ll be wanting that tea.

  Jennifer nearly laughs. She is almost persuaded. Then she goes limp again on May’s lap.

  The water inside the iron on the ironing board makes a small impatient noise.

  Jennifer, there is no way in a million you’re going to burst into flames, May says.

  It’s not me I’m worried about, Jennifer says.

  You’ve not to think about such things, May says. If you thought about such things you’d go mad. And the worst thing about worries is, they’re contagious.

  How are they contagious? Jennifer says.

  What I mean is, if you worry, May says, then I have to worry too.

  Jennifer looks desolate. She climbs off May’s knee and goes and stands by the sink.

  In the future, she says, I will keep my worries in the confines of my own head.

  God and all the angels only know where she got that from. She is quite a child for the saying of things strangely. It’s my life too, you know, is what she said in the middle of an argument they were having about breakfast cereal, and that was when she was barely four years old. May had had to turn round, turn away, so her child wouldn’t see her laughing. And another time, last year, she’d just turned seven. What if, when we’re praying like to St. Anthony about things being lost, what if the being who hears us and sees us and helps us isn’t St. Anthony at all but is Rascal the dog? Recently too she’s started refusing to take her mother’s hand if they’re crossing a road.

  May pats her knee. Jennifer gives in, comes back and climbs back up. But her head is hot under May’s chin, too heavy against her chest. The weight of her is sullen, maybe settling in for the afternoon if May’s not careful.

  The iron sighs on the ironing board again.

  Could be quite good, mind you. If you burst into flames, May says.

  Good?—if—? Jennifer says lifting her head.

  Especially if you were on horseback, May says. You on that Shetland pony, what’s its name, going over the jumps. You’ll be all lit up like a bonfire on horseback at the Summer Fête at the Park.

  Ha! Jennifer says.

  Instead of the Hoop of Fire, May says, the police dogs would be wanting to jump through you.

  Actually, Jennifer says, something like that would be pretty groovy.

  She sits forward. But then she drops her head again.

  What now? May says.

  Because what if I was doing the jumping at the Fête and I looked up at the seats in the spectator stand for you to see me doing it, Jennifer says muffled against her cardigan.

  Uh huh? May says.

  And there was no you there, Jennifer says.

  May nods.

  Tell you what, she says with her mouth against the parting of her girl’s hair. If I spontaneously combust I’ll send my arms and legs by themselves to the park to watch you do it.

  Finally she has made Jennifer laugh.

  They’ll need a seat each, mind, so that makes four seats. And you can pay out of your pocket money. That’s only fair, May says.

  Jennifer is laughing out loud now.

  And I’m only letting you go to that Fête in the first place if you’ll hold my hand when we cross the road, May says. And my other hand. And my arm. And my other arm. And my leg. And my other leg.

  When Jennifer is properly helpless with laughter May shifts her legs like you do when you’re playing the horsey game with a very small child, the bit where they think they’re going to fall but know all the same that you’ve got them safe.

  She catches her youngest at exactly the moment of letting her go.)

  May Young eyed the strange girl there in the chair. The nails of both her hands were purple with varnish and far too long for properness. She was pressing the little buttons in the thing in her hand. It was as if the whole world was in thrall to the things. They all had them, used them as readily, as meekly, as May was supposed to take the stuff off the medicine cabinet. They swallowed it, hook and line. It was all supposed to be about how fast things were; they were always on about how fast you could get a message or how fast you could get to speak to someone or get the news or do this or that or get whatever it was they all got on it. And at the same time it was like they were all on drugs, cumbersome like cattle, heads down, not seeing where they were going.

  The girl thumbed and fingered away at her own world in her hand like it didn’t matter that she was in May’s hospital room, or in anyone’s hospital room, on earth, in heaven, wherever. It didn’t matter where in or out of the world she was.

  Maybe she was on a, what was it, scheme, a school scheme, the things they make them do instead of schoolwork, to visit people in hospital, to go and be visitors for people who got no other visitors.

  But May had plenty of visitors. She’d no need for a girl on a school scheme. They were always endlessly coming, May’s visitors, and standing about round the bed. She’d no need for strangers to do it too.

  Maybe she was a friend of Patrick’s girls and was doing a good turn for the Girl Guides, visiting an old person and getting a badge.

  Maybe it was like when they came round singing to people in the hospital, like with the Christmas carols. Not just Christmas neither, because it was weeks after Christmas now and they’d been round again, they were round not that long ago singing their jolly song, on and on it went, interminable, about I am Jesus and they crucified me, and then they hung me up on a tree, all the details of the blood and the nails. It was January, nowhere near Easter. There was no excuse for it.

  She lifted her hand and made to wave the girl away.

  I’m not needing visitors, she said with her hand. You’re free to go.

  The girl in the chair saw May’s hand move. She looked up from the thing she was holding in her own hand. She reached up to an ear and took the thing in her ear out.

  Woke up, then, the girl said.

  The girl spoke loudly and clearly.

  May glared at her. She leaned forward. She wasn’t some old lady who was always asleep with her mouth open, some old lady who couldn’t hear.

  She reached out for the jug and she didn’t miss, she got it, by the handle.

  Want me to do that? the girl said.

  May looked her a stony look. The girl was clearly some kind of do-gooder, and if not, she was a thief. Well, May had no money in her purse. Her watch, in the locker, was worth next to nothing, £17 it had cost, at the airport once. The girl would soon find out there was nothing here for her to take.

  May put down her hand on the wool blanket. It had the Kleenex with their medicine in it on the blanket. She opened the hand. She let the Kleenex go. The old hand lifted. It wavered towards the plastic tumbler. She got it. She brought it back to the jug and put the pouring place against its lip. She poured herself the juice. It went more or less safely into the tumbler. She reached and put the jug down, and not just down but in the right place.

  Then
she looked the girl in the eye.

  That girl looked right back.

  It is Mrs. Young, right? the girl said. If you’re not Mrs. Young, tell me. I’m supposed to sit with a Mrs. Young.

  She waved a piece of paper at May.

  Please make sure someone visits Mrs. Young of twelve Belleville Park, the girl said. If you’re Mrs. Young, you took some finding, but we did it, we found you. That’s if you’re actually her, like.

  Now May Young knew who that girl was.

  What Philip had seen, when it was his turn, was a man in a suit standing at the back of the room. Hello, who’s the chap? he’d said, and May had turned and seen nobody there. May’s own mother had seen a man too. That man’s back, she’d said. Where? May and Philip had said, what man? May’s mother was on morphine. There, she’d said nodding towards the window, but he’ll not do any harm. May and Philip had looked. Nobody there.

  So it was true. This was how it happened. They sent strangers, not people you knew. They’d sent her a girl instead of a man in a suit. They’d not sent Jennifer, because Jennifer wouldn’t be a stranger, but they’d sent her a girl the age of Jennifer.

  May Young’s head spun. There was no getting away from it. Her number was up.

  Ah well.

  She closed her eyes.

  Well, I can just go and get lost.

  Well, it’ll be nice to be accompanied, it will, to the other side.

  Well, it’s not so bad. There’s fates worse than death.

  Well, when your number’s up, your number’s up.

  Well, call my number, St. Peter, and we’ll see if it’s Bingo we’re playing. House! As long as it’s not Harbour House, dear God and all the angels.

  May Young breathed. She felt her breath move in her chest, inside the awful pink below. She felt the long length of the deep last breath she’d take. She breathed the length of it.

  But then, the next moment, she breathed in again fine with no problem at all.

  Out. Then in again.

  There was nothing wrong with her breathing.

  She wasn’t gone anywhere at all.

  I’m dead but I won’t lie down. Ha ha!

  May felt immediately better. She opened her eyes fully. She looked all round. There was no man in a suit anywhere in the room. There was just a girl. Right then the door of May’s room began to open. A nurse! Quick! May sank back on to the pillows. She hung her arm over the edge of the bed so that the juice was near-spilling just in time. Irish-Liverpool came in. May Young was taking no chances. But the girl had seen. She’d reached to catch the tumbler. She’d watched as the nurse came in, and now she gave May a sly look.

  May, you’ve a visitor this morning it seems! the nurse said. Another of the grandchildren.

  The girl grinned at May. May looked at the Kleenex with the medicine in it, balled on the blanket. The girl saw her looking, turned to the nurse and smiled.

  Yeah, she said. Just visiting Gran.

  How are you doing today, May? the nurse shouted.

  The girl reached forward as if to fold the blanket more neatly. She picked up the Kleenex. She used it to mop the little bit of juice that had spilled when May had slumped for the nurse’s benefit, then she stood up and opened the big bin with her foot on the footpedal and threw it in. She sat down again.

  What day is it today, May? Ah, is she still not talking to us? the nurse said. It’s a pity. And isn’t that lovely now, May. Just when you think you’ve met them all, there’s more. Isn’t life just a wonder of children and more children.

  Lose your calm and you lose all. May let her head stay sagged and her eyes half shut. She made to nod like a person who had swallowed what she was supposed to would nod.

  How was the bus, was it bus you came by? the nurse said to the girl.

  She meant the snow.

  The girl didn’t say anything.

  Not as bad as it looks out there, the nurse said.

  She sat May forward and sorted the pillows behind her. She checked her for accidents. She announced to the room that May was clean, and that May was exceptionally good at keeping herself clean, and that it wasn’t at all an easy thing to, and that May should be proud. She checked the clipboard at the end of the bed. She turned to the girl.

  See if you can get her to talk, she said. We’re all missing hearing her. I tell her all the time. We’re all missing her wit about the place. And if you’d like to take her for a turn about the ward, or out and down to the café, just give me the nod. She’s not been out of this room since Sunday. Do her good to see some different walls. Give me a shout and I’ll sort out a chair and we’ll lift her in and you can take her for a spin.

  She was a kind nurse, Irish-Liverpool. She had the measure of the spirit of things. She knew there was more to an old body than an old body. But even so, May Young kept the sag in her jaw. She kept her head on its side. She kept her eyes half closed until the nurse, in a blur of uniform, went through the door and the door shut with a click. Then she waited another moment in case of anyone looking back through the little window in the door and seeing anything they shouldn’t.

  No, the nurse was gone, she could hear her, cheery down the corridor.

  She shunted herself up the bed as best she could.

  The girl watched her do it.

  My grandad, the girl said. He had two strokes, one after the other, in six months. The second one affected his eyes, his seeing. So they said he wasn’t to drive any more. We went to his house and my mum and dad took his car keys and they took the car out of his garage to our house, my mum drove our car home and my dad drove my grandad’s car. Then my grandad was always on the phone shouting about how they’d stolen his car, sometimes in the middle of the night too he phoned about it. Then one day my grandad came down from where he lived in Bedford to where we live, we live in like Greenwich, he came by himself on trains and tubes and that, though he still wasn’t supposed to be very well, I mean he walked with a stick and that, and he turned up banging on our front door with his fist though it’s not like there isn’t a bell, but he was like really angry, and he wouldn’t come in, he stood on the doorstep all out of breath and held up this letter that said on it that he’d sat a test and passed it and he could drive if he wanted, and he put his hand out like this and demanded his car and his keys, and my dad just gave him them, there and then, and off he went in his car. And he drove it till he died.

  And then after he died—this was like two years ago, by the way—we eventually found out he’d got this boy who’s really good on computers to make up a letter, make it look like it was the kind of letter you’d get if you sat the test that said you could drive again. Like a really excellent forgery. The only reason we found out is because the boy came to my grandad’s house when we were all there having the sandwiches and that, after the funeral. He lives across the road from where my grandad lived. He said my grandad paid him fifty quid which was ten pounds more than he’d asked for, and that my grandad had also said that if he died the boy could have his car for nothing for doing that letter. Then the boy put his hand out and asked my dad could he have the car keys. And my dad just went straight into the kitchen and took them off the hook and came back to the door and gave him them. There and then. And my mother was like furious. Don’t suppose I can smoke in here, can I.

  The girl stood up and went and had a look at the smoke alarm in the ceiling.

  Could maybe get the cover off, she said. If it’s worked by a battery.

  She dragged the big visitor’s chair over until it was directly under the smoke alarm. She climbed up on to it and balanced with one foot in the seat and another up on top of the edge of the high back. But because she was wearing boots the heels of which were like daggers, when one of the heels slid sideways on the cover of the shiny seat she lost her balance and toppled sideways off the chair, over the arm of it and on to the floor with her thin legs and the boots in the air.

  How are the fallen mighty! May
nearly said it out loud. She nearly laughed out loud. She pursed her mouth. She stopped herself. But the girl was a fine one, laughed at herself. She got herself up, dusted herself off, straightened what little there was of the daft little skirt and sat on the edge of the seat to unzip her boots. She was clearly going to give it a try again. She caught May looking at her.

  A fall from grace, the girl said.

  May liked that. She gave the girl a wink.

  (May Winch is off-shift from the Mail Office and is at the Palace with some of the girls. They’re watching the accompanying feature, a Gracie Fields. It’s an old one, and people boo it to begin with since Gracie’s recently taken herself off to America and people aren’t very impressed with that. But it’s a funny one, and soon people are laughing along regardless of the fact that Gracie’s a bit of a runner-away.

  In it Gracie is younger and wearing a big historical-looking hat. She throws an orange and it hits royalty by mistake. Then she argues with the policeman who arrests her, and she says to the policeman, if you keep on talking to me like that I’ll have to call a policeman. Then the judge in court asks her did she think it was appropriate behaviour, throwing an orange at a person of royal blood. And Gracie says, well, it was a blood orange.

  There’s a dog somewhere in the theatre. It must have been smuggled in; dogs aren’t permitted in the pictures. When Gracie starts singing a song and reaches a particularly high note this dog starts up singing along. ArooooooOOOooo. Pretty soon the whole stalls is a riot every time Gracie hits the note and the dog joins in. Pretty soon it sounds like the people up in the balcony are rioting too.

  The sound slows down suddenly and then stops. The film stops. Everybody shouts. The houselights come on. People are waving their arms about and shouting. The manager and the doormen walk up and down the aisles. There’s a scuffle down at the front, then one of the doormen walks back up dragging two boys, one on either side of him, one by the ear, one by the back of the neck, then the other doorman carrying at arm’s length a small wiry black and white Heinz 57 varieties mongrel, its tail going in circles like a propeller. The manager paces behind, ignoring all the eyes.