by Ali Smith
She made a plan to go up in a hot air balloon and catch some cloud in a bag.
But of course it’s impossible to catch, keep or own a cloud.
Also, hot air balloons, as she discovered, can only fly in the spring if the sky is cloudless.
So she decided she’d go up in the balloon and catch mist instead.
To be sure to find some mist she went further south, to mountainous country, Lans en Vercors near Grenoble, where the morning sky was bound to be misty.
The balloon rose. The sky cleared. The day became one of the clearest days for that time of the year in the place’s living memory. Floating above the mountains covered in snow, what she bagged was pure clear air.
As it happens, the day she chose to catch this air was exactly the time of year that alchemists say is the best time to collect dew on its voyage from Earth to Heaven. Ancient alchemy says you need dew that’s been gathered over a thousand days to distil and manufacture the kind of elixir that can make all sorts of things better.
Dean made a short film, less than three minutes long, of her journey to catch the air. It’s called A Bag of Air.
Up goes the huge hot air balloon. Its shadow gets smaller on the ground and in the film frame the higher it gets. Out come the hands of the artist. Into the clear plastic bag goes some air, then the bag in her hands is twisted and knotted, like a small balloon itself. Then she does the same thing again, a new bag, different air, caught and knotted, the same.
The film is a piece of pure joke-vision. But in it, breathing takes flight. Alchemy and transformation become matters of good spirit. Something dismissible and ridiculous – and magic if you’ll let it be – happens in front of your eyes.
Then the three minutes of black and white film are over and what’s left is the story of human beings and air, something we hardly ever notice or think about, something we can’t live without.
3
* * *
Now for 140 seconds of cutting edge realism:
SHUT UP just shut the fUck Up can someone tape her mouth shut she deserve to be relentlesly abused what a Cunt go and die hang yourself you ugly Cunt we are all having a laugh at you You are a shit show nobody couldn’t play fuck marry kill with you its just Kill you are a Tampon you are odios you deseve to be raped left for dead your Daughter deserves to be raped and stabed to death with a Kitchen KNnife your like a broken record bleeding heart liberal fuck WE know where you Live we now where your kid goes to school shut Up if you don’t shut YOU mouth we will shut it for you you will be shut up WTF You think you doing you bring these Attacks on yourself fucking disgusting fucking fucking yuo disgust me you need raped you need anil raped you will be anil raped then rape in your cakehole then dead kill yourself hang yours elf you fat Arse ugly cunt you need to be poked with a massive Dildo you are typical muslim black faGGot you are simplY unforgivable beyond the pail people like You are destroying the Western World so full of shit jimmy savile should have raped you in Hospital you are disabled because God Hates You nex time you are out on a dark night we will get you good and you children you should be scared you imigrant shit you need hate maile to Sort you out you deserve hate you Scrotum face arseole face you are a pedo for fkc sake I cant stand you you are a fukcing Joke you should be force to feed and house a bunch of violence foreign invaders see how you like it fat retard bitch slag slut TRAITOR TRAITER hypocrite your children will Die you are a failure in Life everybody can see you worthless piece of shit go and drink some floor polish drink some disnfectant you flithy queer immgrant suck my DICK pig ugly jog on
It was the time of the year when everything was dead. I mean dead in a way that meant it seemed that nothing would ever live again.
The sky was a massive closed door. The cloud was dull metal. The trees were bare and broken. The ground was ungiving. The grass was dead. The birds were absent. The fields were frozen ruts of earth and the deadness went down under the surface for miles.
Everywhere the people were afraid. Food stocks were low. The barns were almost empty.
This was the time of the year, traditionally, at which the sages, the elders, the youths, the maidens, the very old people and the people wearing masks and bearskins so they could masquerade as ancient ancestors risen from the dust, all decided that the only way to make life come back to the world was to choose a young woman from among the maidens and sacrifice her as a gift to the gods by making her dance herself to death.
The gods, according to tradition, like a death. They like a pure death. So the purer the maiden the better. And she was usually a really good dancer, the one they chose, especially chosen so she’d be a particularly spectacular high-kicking sacrifice.
The day came. The whole of the village gathered. The sage had painted himself bright silver with hope. Everyone turned up to watch, even the 300-year-old woman, poking around with her walking stick in the fallow furrows. Everyone raised their fists in the air and did a bit of a dance to get things going.
Then the dance of the maidens began.
It was mesmerizing. It went like clockwork. It turned all the maidens into a single piece of choreographed machinery, made them into nothing but its components. It circled and jerked, jerked and circled.
At last the circle opened to reveal the chosen girl, a young and brilliant maiden with her whole life ahead of her. The dance opened to her at the same time as it closed on her.
What was supposed to happen now was that she was meant to fall to the earth. Then she was to start pawing at the ground like a beast, then to do a wild dance until she flailed herself to death.
Then everyone would celebrate, because everything would start to grow again.
But what happened was this.
The girl at the centre of things folded her arms. She shook her head. She stood and tapped her foot.
I’m not a symbol, she said.
The dance stopped.
The music stopped.
The villagers gasped out loud.
She said it louder.
I’m not your symbol. Go and lose yourself or find yourself in some other story. Whatever you’re looking for, you’re not going to find it by making me or anyone like me do some dance for you.
The villagers stood on the world stage not knowing what to do. Some of them looked aghast. Some of them looked bored. Some of the maidens began a fluttery panic because if not this girl it’d be one of them who’d have to dance to death.
It’s unnecessary, the girl said. Come on. We can all think of a better way to do this.
Some of the villagers grew angry; others looked at the scenery, looked askance. A couple of them looked pleased. An ancestor took his bear-mask off and wiped sweat off his forehead; it’s hard to wear those costumes for any length of time.
There are much less bloody ways to hope for spring, the girl said. Better ways of working fruitfully with the climate and the seasons, than by sacrificing people to them. And anyway, you’re only doing it because some of you get off on the brutality. One or two people always do, always will. And the rest of you are worried that if you don’t do what everybody else is doing then the ones who get off on it might decide to choose you for the next sacrifice.
Some of the audience, out beyond the villagers in the rows of seats in the theatre, were also getting pretty angry. They’d come to see a classic. They weren’t getting what they’d paid for. Critics were shaking their heads. Critics wrote furiously on their screens with their little iPad pens. They tapped furiously at their iPhones.
People like a good riot.
The gods, however, laughed.
One of them nodded to the others, reached down, scooped the girl into invisible god-sized hands and transformed her into herself. The god did this in the blink of an eye so fast that no villagers, no audience, even noticed it happen. But the gods had given that girl an armour that sealed itself round her. The girl felt real strength go through her like a god-breath.
Real strength was a matter of sensing something alive in you bigger than
just your own breathing.
Then the 300-year-old woman stepped forward. She’d know how to deal with this.
Tell us a bit about yourself, dearie, she said in her ancient voice.
But the girl just laughed.
As you well know, old lady, that’d be the first step towards me vanishing altogether, she said. Because as soon as you all hear me say anything about myself, I’ll stop meaning me. I’ll start meaning you.
A murmur went through the crowd.
My mother told me, they’ll want you to tell them your story, the girl said. My mother said, don’t. You are not anyone’s story.
The 300-year-old woman made a gigantic effort to pull herself a little more upright. She flared a nostril like she could smell something unpleasant.
What if we sacrifice you anyway? she said. Regardless of how willing or unwilling you are?
The girl laughed carefree.
You can try, she said. Kill me anyway. No doubt you will. But you know as well as I do, though I’m so young and you’re so old, that I’m older and wiser right now than you’ve ever been.
A gasp went through everyone onstage, and everyone offstage, and all the millions of viewers on the web.
The girl laughed even louder.
Go on, the girl said. Do your worst. See if it makes things better.
12.33 on the coffee truck dashboard clock – but who cares what time it is? Richard is free of time, maybe for the first time ever. He is giddy with wide-open afterlife, travelling through a 30mph zone at 60mph (he can see the speedo, he’s practically sitting in the driver’s seat) with a woman on either side of him, now that’s the way to do it. He is getting a lift to the nearest city. The woman called Alda is taking these people somewhere and asked him if he wanted a lift too and he said yes and now they’re all in the front because there’s nowhere to sit in the back except on the linoleum down between the cupboards and the machines. The girl who gave him the pen is jammed against the passenger door. He himself is sardined between the women, one of his legs on each side of the stick. It is lucky the truck is an automatic or it’d have been a bit tricky.
The seats are very nice, done in bright brown leather. These trucks are snazzy on the inside. The doors on the driver’s cabin open with a nod to the retro, like continental doors, the opposite way from doors on normal cars or trucks. But the steering wheel’s on the right, like it should be. It’s gimmicky, but impressive all the same.
What’s that place over there? he says. On the hill. The castle.
That’s not a castle, the coffee truck woman says. It’s Ruthven Barracks.
The coffee truck woman’s name is Alda Lyons. She told them outside the station. She’s one of the town’s librarians.
Where the Jacobite rebellion ended, she says. Burned down the day after Culloden.
Day after what? Richard says.
Culloden, she says.
Thought that’s what you said, Richard says. Culloden. A very good film.
It’s not just a film, Alda says. It’s a battle. And a place.
Yes, Richard says. Film too. A very good one, Peter Watkins. Last battle of the English against the Scots.
Well, she says (very like a librarian). Hanoverians against the Jacobites. But folk do like to simplify. Things do simplify over time. Ruthven Barracks was burned down in April 1746. What was left of the Jacobite army gathered at the barracks on the day after the battle, they were waiting to see what to do next, and the message came through from Bonnie Prince Charlie saying the fight was over and every man was to fend for himself. So they set fire to it so the other army couldn’t use it any more, and went on their way.
Watkins made the film about the nuclear strike that they were too scared to show, Richard says. War Game.
I remember, Alda says. I remember his Culloden too.
Culloden, Richard says. Culloden.
So good they named it twice, Alda says.
I’m repeating the way you say it, Richard says, because I’ve been saying it wrong all my life. I’ve been saying Culloden.
Even though you saw that film and the film was so good, Alda says. Eh?
Cassandra here, next to me, the young woman in the security guard uniform says. She knows a fact or two about nuclear strikes that she was terrifying me with yesterday.
Eternal nuclear autumn, the schoolgirl says. We are now globally just five nuclear explosions away from it becoming the only season that we’ll have on this planet.
Five. Is that all? Alda says.
Possibly less, the girl says. Given that I am twelve years old, and there are just twelve years left to stop the world being ruined by climate change, I’d say there’s an urgency the age of me to do something to stop it.
Thought your name was Florence, the man says.
I am capable of being a person of more than one name, the girl says.
Me too, Alda says.
I meant Cassandra like the prophet in legend, the security guard says, who told people what was true about the future but nobody ever believed a word she said.
The security guard is the girl’s friend or family. Her name is Britt, like Ekland he supposes. (Though she is actually nothing like Britt Ekland, more’s the pity.
Sexist. Man with no emotional intelligence.
Very true. But maybe a little harsh on yourself, his imaginary daughter says.)
That Ruthven location, Richard says. Is it beautiful? I’m looking for a place.
For making a film? the girl says.
No, he says. For a friend of mine who died recently. I’m looking for a place where I can just send, you know. A thought, a nod of the head, into the sky in a beautiful place for her. Which is why, I think, I came north in the first place.
I can think of much better places to do something like that, Alda says.
When did your friend die? the girl asks.
August, he says.
That’s not very long ago, Alda says. I’m sorry.
Thank you, he says. She was a scriptwriter, often my scriptwriter. I was lucky to work with her. The best. You’re far too young to have seen some of what she did, in fact you maybe all are. 1960s, 70s, 80s, if you watched TV in those decades you’ll have seen something by her, you’ll be bound to have, you’ll never have forgotten it if you did, and even if you have, it’ll be somewhere inside you. A very great talent, very undersung.
Alda jerks a thumb back in the direction of the ruin they passed.
It’s beautiful there, sure, she says. But the history. Not so beautiful.
Ah, he says. Right.
The systematic controlling of peoples by other peoples, Alda says. The fight, the destruction, the defeat.
Was your friend a defeated person? the girl says.
It’s just not a word I can associate with her in any way, he says.
Well, not there then, Alda says. They built the barracks on top of a castle or two that’d already been burned down. It’s been like it is now since 1746, probably because if they’d built on top of it someone else would’ve burned down whatever they built. The new British government first built the barracks after the Act of Union, they wanted to make more money out of their new land. So they militarized it. It was a military zone for about a century here. Especially after Culloden. Then sporting estates. Deerpark.
Far too mountainous for people to ever live here, Richard says. But then that’s what’s beautiful about the Highlands. It’s so beautifully deserted everywhere.
He watches a flush going up the neck of Alda the coffee truck woman; it spreads up to her ear from under the collar of her jacket.
No, this was a thriving busy place, she says. Quite definitely populated, much busier than it is now. Not that the Clearances made an impact here anything like how badly they did elsewhere in the north.
The clearance, Richard says.
Clearances, Alda says. Another new word for your collection.
As in sales, in shops that are closing? the girl says.
As in when
the English ruling class, with the help of the corrupt clan chief landowners, systematically cut down the population of the Highlands, Alda says, and this is only 200 years ago, a blink of history’s eye, and by systematically cut down I mean they treated people much like you’d cut down brushwood or gorse, and then wrote in the papers that they were improving the area, pacifying its wild savages. They were clever, the people who’d lived here. They had to be. It’s very tough farming terrain, but they’d worked it out and made it work, for them, against the odds, for centuries. Those wild unbridled savages I’m descended from.
Filmmaker, yeah? like a film director? the security guard Britt says.
He tilts his head towards her and says it with irony.
Yes, like a film director.
Yeah? she says. Really?
TV mainly, he says. For my sins. I’m from a time when anything progressive on TV was quite often thought to be a kind of sin.
She starts to tell him a long story about a film she saw on TV once that she’s never forgotten. But Richard stops listening because the radio, on at low volume in the truck, is playing the old pop song about joy and fun in seasons in the sun by the man with the thin sounding voice, singing about how he’s going to die soon and how he’s saying goodbye to all his friends, and Richard has just remembered this:
one night in 1970-something, 3? 4?, Paddy phoning, waking him up.
Doubledick, I need you here right now. If you can, can you?
2.45am. He flags down a taxi in the rain.
A pre-adolescent twin opens the front door.
You mother called me, he says. What’s wrong?
Coming through the wall is music, quite loud for 3am.
You’re here, Paddy says. Good. We don’t know what to do. It’s worst in my bedroom but the boys can hear it in theirs too right through at the back of the house. The bathroom’s the only place there’s any respite. But we can’t all sleep in the bath.
The song finishes; the music stops.
There we go, Richard says.
