by Ali Smith
This is a pure love.
It is the first time Robert has ever thought of the world in terms of there being more than himself in it.
So how do you find the person you found if you lose the person after finding them and then there are a lot of long dark years between you?
If Einstein holds a mirror up to look at his own face and travels at the speed of light which is 186,000 miles per second, and the light leaves his face at the same speed, can Einstein ever catch up to the light leaving his own face?
It is the thought of the light leaving Einstein’s face in the famous mirror experiment.
It is terrible.
It is one of the most terrible thoughts Robert has ever tortured himself with, the light leaving the face of Einstein. He has lain in bed at night and agonized at the idea.
But up to now, up to today, he had never truly understood, more truly he’d understood nothing, about what the words and the realities – light, speed, energy, mirror, face – really meant and mean.
The light is leaving.
It is leaving Robert’s face.
—
Half an hour later and the light is still here.
Phew.
!
She’s standing right here. He wouldn’t even have to reach to touch her. (As if he’d ever.)
It’s weird but they’ve all ended up standing crowded together into the place between the outer door and the inner door and everybody (except Robert, who is shifting his attention from one conversation to the other) is talking at once, even the man who doesn’t say much.
The man is speaking about someone who has the word hero as his literal first name. He’s in a prison close to here, near the airport. The man went and met him, Charlotte went too, the day before yesterday. He’s telling his sister how hard it is to get in to see someone held in the prison at the airport and how ironic it is that someone called Hero is imprisoned, and at the same time that the person called Hero is truly heroic in the way he deals with being imprisoned though he’s innocent.
He got beaten up by government thugs in the country he ran away from because he wrote a blog about something governmental he disagreed with, the man says. Then he had to get out of the country because he heard they were coming to kill him for writing a second blog about being beaten up by government thugs.
Meanwhile his mother is showing Charlotte the electricity meter cupboard, the door of which is still off its hinges leaning up against the coat-stand, and has started telling her about when she came home to find their front door ajar, was coming back from the shops and saw it wide open though she knew she’d double locked it when she went out. She thought one of the kids must’ve come home early. But no, there was a bailiff and a locksmith and two men from SA4A POWER in the doorway.
They forced your door? Charlotte says. And entered your house without permission?
They wouldn’t let me into my own house, his mother says. I live here, I said. Who are you? They said was I Mrs Nureyev. Nobody of that name lives here, I said. How long have you lived here? they said. Since round about the time you were born, I said. They showed me letters they had copies of, saying a Mr R Nureyev lived here. They told me they were replacing our meters with prepay meters because Mr Nureyev hadn’t paid his bills for over a year.
Charlotte glances at Robert.
It wasn’t me, he says.
I showed them on my phone my own SA4A POWER account, his mother says, fully paid up as always, and they didn’t believe me. Even when I phoned SA4A POWER and had one of their robot voices on the phone verifying me as a customer. Because somewhere in their computer files they had the imaginary Mr R Nureyev, who of course doesn’t exist, never existed except at the Royal Ballet, listed as living here too. The bailiff and the SA4A man literally blocked the door, I mean stood in the doorway and blocked it with their arms. Finally, but only when they’d finished what they were doing, they accompanied me into my own house again and waited on either side of me while I went through the bureau and got the house deeds out and showed them our name. And they said, you’re clearly not a Mr Jeffrey Greenlaw, and threw me out of my own house.
So I called Jeff. But even when he came round and showed them his passport they refused to remove their new meters and put the old meters back. They got into their SA4A POWER truck and left.
Plus they really messed up the paintwork, see, here and here, and this was last September. I’m still arguing about it with SA4A automatons.
Art used to work for SA4A, Charlotte says laughing. Didn’t you?
Charlotte is lovely when she laughs. Robert sees the man go red round the neck, up to his ears.
Then he worries about whether his own ears have been doing anything he himself can’t see and others can.
They paid very well, the man says.
SA4A are the company that bus whole busloads of homeless people from other cities into this city, his sister says.
They do what? the man says.
A friend of mine told me, his sister says. They bus them down from places in the north because people tend to give more money here than they do in some other places, which means the government doesn’t have so many dead people on the streets.
Sacha, his mother says. That can’t be true.
Horse’s mouth, his sister says.
The government would never allow that to happen, his mother says.
Robert follows his sister quite often and knows that she hangs out sometimes with an old homeless guy in town. He thinks she may well even be sleeping with him. He hasn’t said anything to her. He is keeping it as a bartering tool in case he needs it. Any fragility his sister has is money in the bank to Robert [Greenlaw].
– never saw or spoke to a real human being the whole time I worked for them, the man is saying.
He has the canvas bag that Robert looked in earlier over his shoulder. He shifts its weight every few minutes.
What’s in the bag? Robert says.
It looks heavy, his sister says.
It is, the man says.
That’s Arthur’s memento mori, Charlotte says. Show them, Art. The thing we’re delivering today.
The man gets the stone out of the bag.
Wow. Very big marble, his sister says. For a very big game of marbles.
It is actually a marble, I mean, it’s made of it, marble, Charlotte says.
It’s the thing my mother was talking about in her will, the man says. Except, when we first read it, the will, we’d no idea what she meant. A smooth round stone among my possessions. We couldn’t find anything like it. My aunt, Iris, she’d been living with my mother for a while, I asked her, but she was none the wiser. Then I took all my mother’s things out of her wardrobe, I was taking them to the charity shop, and I found it under a lot of shoes. I’ve been carrying it around. I quite enjoy feeling the weight of it.
Bit of a masochist, Charlotte says.
Robert has seen the word masochist many times on the porn sites and ABUSEHEAP.
He blushes.
Not at all, the man says. But I’ll be sorry to let it go. I’ve liked having it about my person. It reminds me. All the things I didn’t realize. Things I never knew about her.
Robert exchanges a look with his sister. She obviously thinks it’s weird too.
Memory. It can be heavy, Charlotte says.
Other times, so light, his mother says.
Anyway, we’re off to pass it on, her memory. The stone. Like she asked, the man says.
They all go silent for a moment.
They stand at the open front door.
They still don’t go.
It feels miraculous.
If Robert were younger he’d think there was some forcefield involved whereby nobody could leave the house until the curse was solved or the destiny was met or the whatever was fulfilled.
/> Whatever, they just stand, even though the front door’s open, they’ve got their coats on, Charlotte is dangling a car key. They just stand, they stand and they stand, all of them, in the cold, between the inner and outer doors.
Which side’s your ex’s house on? Charlotte asks. And Ashley?
His mother nods her head towards his father’s front steps.
The guy on the other side, there, she says pointing the other way. Last summer he called me to the back garden fence on his side and he said, can I talk to your husband? I said what about. He said, I want to ask him about your trees. I said, I’m in charge of my garden, not my husband, you can ask me. He said, no, I’ll wait to speak to your husband. So I phoned Jeff, it was a Saturday, he was home, he came round. And the man shouted past me to him, though I was standing there too, and he said, I want to ask you to cut down your trees. We said why? It’s not like the trees were doing anything, blocking or overhanging his property or anything, nowhere near the sewers, they’re just lovely old trees, an ash, a rowan, the apple tree. And he said, the thing is, I don’t get much time, I work a lot, I only get a few hours a week in which I can do stuff in the garden, and I want you to cut down your trees so I can plant my trees. And we said, we’re not stopping you planting your trees, go ahead, what’s the problem? And he said, I don’t want to look out of my window and see trees that aren’t mine.
His mother and Charlotte and the man all talk about how complex being a neighbour is.
Then Charlotte says she’s had a thought, about Ashley.
There’s a filmmaker who made a film, years ago, in the middle of the last century, a really good one, she says. It’s about trauma I suppose, and it’s really startling. The thing is, it’s very much about not talking. About two men who are friends and are both deaf mutes, who can’t talk like everyone else does, so instead they find their own ways to. One’s thin and tall, one’s small and squat, they couldn’t be more different, but they couldn’t be more connected.
She tells them it was made just postwar, the early 50s, a British film, the two men wandering and living and working in a bomb-blasted landscape in London near the docks.
And the film says all these complicated things, and it does it without saying a word, she says. Wait. Art. Lend me your phone. It’s Free Cinema, British. She’s Italian, she was the only woman to make one of the founding films of the movement, Mazzetti, uh huh, Lorenza Mazzetti, here it is – oh. Oh no.
She looks at the phone screen.
She just died, she says.
Oh, his mother says. Oh dear.
A month ago, at New Year, Charlotte says. In Rome. It says here she was ninety two. Oh.
Charlotte looks dismayed.
Oh dear, his mother says again. Is it someone you know?
No, Charlotte says, no, not personally. Not at all.
But a good long life, his mother says. Ninety two. I mean.
An amazing life, Charlotte says. Lorenza Mazzetti. Truly.
She gives the man back his phone.
The film’s called Together, she says.
She looks at Robert.
You tell her, she says. I mean Ashley. You tell her about it, it’s a powerful story, and it might just, you know. Make a difference. You tell her for me. Don’t forget.
I will, Robert says, I’ll tell her as soon as I see her. I won’t forget. Lorenza. Mazzetti. Together.
It’s true that the arts can often be a help, his mother is saying. Not always, though. I mean, some of the finest words in the world have passed through me, and out again like so much excess vitamin c. But that’s when I was young and foolish, and I thought it was just words, for effect, what you said out loud so you could watch the power you have over others when you make them feel. I played a dead person, a dead person who comes back to life. Every second night, for a fortnight. From town to town, that summer. In Suffolk.
That immortal summer you had, the man says.
Then Robert says out of nowhere:
Can I come? To Suffolk?
Don’t be silly, Robert, his mother says.
Why not? the man says. If you’d like. There’s plenty of room.
Nice idea, Charlotte says. Why don’t you all come?
Excuse his rudeness, his mother says. He can’t go to Suffolk with you. He’s got school.
Yeah, I’d like to go somewhere, his sister says.
We can easily fit you all in, Charlotte says.
His mother starts to laugh.
I’m just laughing at hearing my daughter say she’ll travel anywhere in a car, she says.
It’s electric, his sister says.
Though when I say all, I don’t think we could fit Ashley and your ex husband in too, Charlotte says.
Bonus, his mother says. Be nice, a bit of space. Lovely thought. Kind of you. But we can’t. Look at Sacha’s hand.
My hand’s fine, his sister says. It wants to go.
No, no. I can’t possibly do anything so spontaneous, his mother says.
Why not? the man says. You only live once. Or twice in your case. Every second night for a fortnight.
Everybody laughs. The man looks very surprised then pleased.
But we hardly know each other, his mother says.
I have an ethos, the man says. It’s this. Time spent exchanging life and times with complete or comparative strangers can sometimes work out rather well. In some cases, it can even be life-changing.
Yes! his mother says. It’s true!
She blushes.
Both Robert and his sister notice.
No, I’ve got to get them to school, she says. And where would we stay? And what about – what about everything?
I can’t go back to school today with my hand like this, his sister says.
Then you can’t go to Suffolk either, his mother says.
Saturday tomorrow, Charlotte says. You could stay over, somewhere near the sea, take the train back at your leisure.
But we live right next to the sea, his mother says.
It’s a different sea, his sister says.
More or less, Charlotte says.
But you’ve things to do, family things, his mother says. We can’t intrude.
I’m going to meet a complete stranger, the man says. For an hour or so. Anyway. You could do what you liked. You could peel off at any point on the journey, anywhere you fancy the look of.
Where exactly are you going? his mother asks.
The man says the name of a place Robert has never heard of.
No, I don’t know it, his mother says.
Charlotte says the name of another place Robert has never heard of. His mother acts like she’s having an orgasm.
That’s it! It exactly! his mother says.
Is that where you were immortal, then? the man says.
It is, his mother says. What an amazing thing. And you’re going there, of all places. Today.
His mother is flirting with the man.
Come too. You can tell us about your immortal summer. On the way. Summer on the way, even in February, the man says.
Is the man flirting with his mother?
Nicely put, his mother says.
He’s a writer, Charlotte says. And you, she says (putting a hand for a moment on Robert’s shoulder and sending something like an electric shock through Robert), can tell us all at last the story of the hourglass and the glue.
The story of the what? his mother says.
Charlotte knows.
She knows he is ruinous.
His heart falls inside him like a stone falling through deep water.
Then Charlotte winks at him.
In the blink of her eye the world is made possible all over again.
His mother forgets to ask about glue (thank God) and starts to wax lyrical about being young an
d spontaneous and having conversations about time and the nature of the imagination at half past ten in the morning and going on road trips.
She sends him and his sister inside to pack things for overnight.
I’m really sorry, he says to his sister on the way upstairs. I didn’t know it’d hurt. Please don’t tell.
You’re dead, his sister says. My hand’s going to be scarred for life.
Stitch in time was a really witty thing to say, he says. (Appeasement.) And at least now you will never forget me. Every time you look at it you’ll think of me. The scar I mean.
You’re a silly little wanker, she says. And what the fuck have you done with the remote?
I posted it, he says.
You what? she says.
I put it in an envelope, he says, and put some of dad’s stamp collection on it –
The presentation stamps? she says. Which set?
The war folder. Four of the Star Wars 2015, three of the Dad’s Army, he says.
He’ll kill you, she says. He will. Where the fuck did you send it?
Deception Island, he says.
You posted it to an imaginary place? she says.
Deception Island’s real, he says. I looked it up, I looked up what is the most remote place on earth, and it’s one of the places that came up, it’s a hollow island in Antarctica, like an island with a hole in the middle of it like the top of a volcano. That’s because it is the top of a volcano, and nobody lives there because the volcano might go off, there are these old whaling stations from like a century ago, they’re all collapsed in on themselves. The beach is covered in whale bones. Nothing there, birds, gulls and petrels. Penguins. Seals and their babies.
You posted a lump of plastic to some place where it’ll sit and never rot and be a piece of rubbish for ever because there’ll be no use for it there? she says. And some plane’ll have to cross the world to deliver it just because of some stupid whim of yours?
He shrugs.
You’ve lost your mind, his sister says. Who did you send it to?
Mr WH Alebone, he says.
His sister stops in the middle of the stairs and has to hold on to the banister with her unbandaged hand because she is suddenly laughing so much.
One of the best things ever, to be able to make your sister laugh like that.
