by Ali Smith
He shut the book and put it back on the shelf. Everything hurt. He was ill and dying. He should go home.
Think of it this way. A pretty young woman arrives at the door. She is ragged, hungry and lost. She is knocking on all the doors of all the houses to see who’ll be generous; it is a test. The innocent family, out of the goodness of its heart, takes her in, feeds her and offers her hospitality. Then the family wakes up next morning sleeping on the floor because she’s stolen everything out from under them. Beds, bowls, breakfasts. Everything.
The father gets to his feet. He looks in the mirror. He looks the same as always. But his chest hurts. His back hurts. He puts his hand to a point halfway up his spine and he finds a hole in himself, in his back. The hole is the size of a small fist. Sure enough, his chest feels queerly empty. Then he understands. The pretty young woman has broken him open while he slept, put her hand in and thieved the heart out of him.
He looks at his wife. She looks the same as always. He looks at the girl, at the boy. They look the same as always. He has no idea whether their hearts have been taken too, along with his, and he has no idea how to find out. To say anything at all about it might break the spell and cause them all to collapse at his feet, hollowed out, the mere shell of a family. And then he’d collapse too, the mere shell of a man.
He knows he will have to get his heart back from wherever it’s been taken, from whoever has it now, or he’ll die. He thinks of the pretty young woman and how she fleered and flirted with him and how hard it was for him to deny her when she pressed him up against the wall of the house and dared him to kiss her and how proud he’d been when he’d said no, don’t, I cannot, I dare not. Cliché. Was fleered a real word? It sounded like a folk-tale word, but it was possible that Michael had made it up to alliterate with flirted.
He stood up, straightened his trouser-legs at his feet. He would go to the front of the shop to see what floor the reference section was on. He would check the word. Then he would go to the cash desk and buy Eve’s book. It was cheaper than the mountaineering books and it pleased him to think that it would be the first one of her own books back in the house since that woman Amber had robbed them all blind.
But there was no reference section in this bookshop.
No reference section? Michael said.
We don’t do dictionaries, the boy behind the counter said. We did, but we stopped. We replaced the reference section with the foreign phrasebook section. The foreign phrasebook section is on the second floor with the travel guides.
Right, Michael said. Thanks.
What kind of bookshop didn’t do dictionaries? The old Michael would have made a small scene, at least made a small comment. The new Michael got his wallet out and worried out loud that he’d left some mountaineering books he’d been looking at unshelved, upstairs in the café on one of the tables.
It’s okay, the boy said. Someone’ll find them and put them back. We’re paid to do that kind of thing. Eight ninety-nine, please.
What kind of bookshop had no reference section? It beggared belief. Cliché. What exactly, he wondered as he paid for Eve’s book and headed for the front doors, did beggars have to do with belief? Ah. See? You can take the man out of the words but you can’t take the words out of the man. He stopped and coughed in the damp street. It was February. It was a treacherous month. He coughed again. He coughed like an old man coughed. This was new to him, this deep kind of cough, this cough that suggested a damp old back passage he hadn’t known about, straight into his lungs. It felt tubercular. Maybe it was tubercular. Tuberculosis was back, it said so in all the broadsheets; it had developed a strain of itself that antibiotics couldn’t kill. Think of Keats, dead at twenty-six, an old man coughing it at twenty-six. Keats had loved Fanny too. Ouch. Below the belt, that one, it actually hurt, like being punched. He really needed to see a doctor. He needed to go to the surgery and have a proper check-up. He could go into the faculty and make an appointment with Dr Love. What seems to be the problem? Well, Doctor, I woke up last week black and blue, bruises all over my arms and legs and chest, absolutely no reason for me to be covered in bruises, it’s not like I ran a cross-country race or was beaten up or anything. Also, I keep understanding things. Understanding things? Yes, as if for the first time. Also, I can’t stop making stupid puns and they’re beginning to physically hurt. A split infinitive. Nurse, make a note of that. Also, I have no motivation. I feel bad almost all the time. Bad? Yes, bad. Hmm. And how’s your sleep pattern? I can’t sleep. All I want to do is drive around, day and night, all hours of the day and night, not stopping anywhere, though I try to avoid the C zone, obviously, I haven’t totally lost my mind. Also, tonight, I was in a bookshop and I notice I now seem to have the classic symptoms of exposure. And now I can’t stop coughing. How’s your appetite been? Well, I’m just not that hungry. No idea why. Right then. Let’s have a listen to you.
But what if the doctor put the stethoscope to his chest and looked up, puzzled, because there was no heartbeat there at all?
Below his feet was a glass basement cover set into the pavement and below that was a flurry of plants, weeds or something pressing up against the glass. It made him annoyed, the way they just grew. It made him feel very roughed-up indeed, weeds behind glass tiles that were six inches thick. All sorts of things like that left him outraged and helpless now. A picture of a woman’s face ten feet high on a billboard looked a bit like her. A girl on a tv advert for Imodium, laughing with her father about how they’d solved the problem of diarrhoea, was mockingly like her, yet not her; a smiling woman in the commercial that followed straight after, in a bed watching tv in a spotless private healthcare hospital, was momentarily like her, then not like her at all in any way. The back of the head of a long-haired boy going down into the Underground had one night made Michael have to stop and search for his next breath. A woman who sped past him in a car going the other way on the road to the Isle of Dogs was like her, then gone. But it wasn’t her car. It couldn’t have been her. Those plants below that glass were like her. Not just like her. Somehow they were her, in a city crawling with the temporary, contaminated forever by a holiday taken six months ago out in the sticks. For instance, Michael was walking now, he was walking past the shops on Tottenham Court Road, but Tottenham Court Road was nothing but a mirage and the streets radiating off it were the product of a bereft and infected imagination. Goodge Street was a delusion. The tube map was an illusion of connection and direction. The M25 was a vicious circular joke. The real world was elsewhere, like she was.
Imagine her, systematically emptying things room by room, shifting them through the front door and across the pavement into a van in the dead of night. She was in league with someone, a man, surely. She had to be. She’d need someone to help move the heavier things; you’d need someone to help you clean up afterwards. Maybe it wasn’t a man. Maybe it was that sullen cleaning woman from the holiday home in Norfolk; maybe they worked together as a team; one scouted out the holiday houses, then the other moved in on the families. Maybe they more-than worked together. He had seen them talking on the road to the village once, when he was on his way to the station.
Possible? It was possible. No it wasn’t, she was a loner, she worked alone; she went round the country in that old white car like the perverse opposite of a post-war government-employed district nurse, knocking on the doors of complete strangers in the middle of nowhere to health-test the cores of their bodies, the shells of their bodies. Coughs and sneezes spread diseases. Always use your handkerchief.
Either of you two young ladies need a lift? he’d called through the window. I’m going as far as the station. Could drop you off anywhere in the village.
The cleaner had opened the back door of the car and heaved her hoover up on to the seat. Just his luck. Amber had waved goodbye and turned to go back to the house. He watched her beautiful shoulders in the rear-view mirror as she rounded the path to the house and disappeared. Gone. The cleaner was sitting on the back seat li
ke the car was a taxi; she was next to the hoover with its plastic tube slung round her neck. The hoover was the kind that had a face painted on it, eyes and a smiley mouth.
Funny old world we live in, isn’t it, when they anthropomorphize even the things we use to clean the house, eh? he said.
It’s a Henry, the woman said. Top-of-the-range domestic.
What I mean is, when they make hoovers and so on look more human, to make us choose them and not another brand, you know, when we go to buy a hoover, he said.
I know what anthropomorphize means, the woman said.
I, ah, I wasn’t for a moment suggesting you didn’t, he said but the woman was staring out of the side window now, uninterested.
She was quite ugly-looking, ruddy. Most of the villagers looked like that, like all their lives they’d eaten nothing but raw beets they’d dug up out of fields.
He took a deep breath.
So where can I drop you off, Katrina? he said. And where’s your car today?
At the roundabout’s fine. I don’t have a car, the woman said.
I thought you had a Cortina, Michael said too late, before he remembered that the Cortina was a stupid joke between Eve and himself. But the woman hadn’t noticed. Maybe she was a bit slow. (But she’d known the word anthropomorphize.)
Don’t you find it a bit difficult, out here without a car? he said.
Out where? she said.
Well, out here, I mean, you know what I mean, I mean, transporting the bulk of this cleaning equipment, all the things you use to clean, from place to place, house to house, he said. A hard life.
It’s not heavy, she said. And it’s got little wheels.
I, eh, he said. Eh.
Right here’s fine thanks, Mr Smart, she said. Thanks very much.
She got out of the car, lugged the hoover out after her and shut the door gently.
Here, Michael said.
He got his wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket and opened it and took out three twenties. He held them out through his open car window.
Don’t know if my wife’s paid you yet this week, he said.
You don’t pay me. I come with the house, the cleaner said.
Every little helps, he said.
The cleaner was unsmiling. She took the money.
Goodge Street tube. Michael held his hand out in front of him. It shook, but only a fraction. Before he went through the barriers and down into the Underground in the rackety lift, he got out his mobile again. He scrolled up Eve’s number.
Answerphone.
Hello, he said. It’s me. How are you? I hope fine. Just a couple of things. Well, three. One, I’m not well. I’m pretty sure I’ve got some kind of exposure. Funny, I know. I’m not joking. Two, the legal people at Jupiter keep calling. It’s about the families. Can you give them a call? Three, there’s only £2,000 left in the main bank account and Astrid wants cash for a school trip and Magnus wants to go to Lourdes. Ha ha. I know. I’m not joking. Anyway I called the insurance about the house stuff. They estimate three months. Same as they said three months ago. What do you want me to do about it? Call me back. Speak soon.
Then he slapped shut his mobile, bought his ticket, walked into the lift and went down into the dark like a man who knew exactly where he was headed.
Magnus and Astrid were in the lounge watching tv. The lights were off. Michael switched the big light on.
Hello all, Michael said.
Magnus’s taciturn friend Jake was round again.
Hello Jake, Michael said. How are you tonight?
Jake murmured something that sounded like fine thanks. Michael switched the big light off again.
Thanks, Astrid said.
He slumped down into the only chair left.
Jake was round a lot these days; he stayed over a lot. Michael had begun to wonder if Magnus was seeing a bit more of Jake than was normal and whether he should tell Eve about it, or whether they might be experimenting with dope, but after half an hour of listening outside Magnus’s bedroom door one night and hearing them holding forth to each other about Pascal and Teilhard de Chardin and what to do about your parents’ imminent divorce, he’d stopped saying to Jake at midnight, won’t your mother be wondering where you are at this time of night, Jake?
The programme they were all watching in the dark was about Goebbels.
What are we watching, Astrid? he said.
UK History, Astrid said.
The guide was stuffed down the cushions of the chair he was in. Michael leafed through it until he found the right day and the right channel. He bent the page back so he could read it in the tv light.
UK HISTORY
7.0am The Nazis: A Warning From
History 8.0 The Nazis: A Warning From
History 9.0 The Nazis: A Warning From
History 10.0 The Nazis: A Warning
From History 11.0 The Nazis: A
Warning From History 12noon The
Nazis: A Warning From History 1.0
War Of The Century 2.0 War Of The
Century 3.0 War Of The Century 4.0
War Of The Century 5.0 Horror In The
East. 6.0 Horror In The East. 7.0 The
Nazis: A Warning From History 8.0 The
Nazis: A Warning From History 9.0 The
Nazis: A Warning From History 10.0
The Nazis: A Warning From History
11.0 The Nazis: A Warning From
History 12midnight The Nazis: A
Warning From History 1.0 Close
I guess we’re watching The Nazis: A Warning From History, Michael said.
You don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to. This house is full of other rooms, Astrid said.
You know, you get more like your mother every day, Michael said.
No way, Astrid said.
She flicked the channel immediately.
I meant it nicely, Michael said. I happen to like your mother.
People on tv were doing a makeover in an empty house. Statistics came up on the screen about how much more the house would be worth after they’d done it.
Michael groaned.
It’s just till the film comes on, for fuck sake, Astrid said.
No, I don’t mind the channel, Michael said. It’s just that I feel a bit rough. And Astrid, please don’t swear.
Rough how? Magnus said.
Hypothermia, Michael said. Classic case.
You need to be taken to shelter, Jake said.
Do I? Michael said. That’s nice. That’s nice to know. Shelter. That’s a nice word.
You need to be kept warm, and kept if possible totally like off the ground, Jake said. You should be given a hot drink and something to eat, and people round you need to give you moral support.
It was the most Jake had ever said in public. Michael wished Eve were here so he could say so to her, afterwards, tonight, in bed.
Someone should get into your sleeping bag with you to keep you warm, Jake said.
Let’s just not go there right now, Jake, Michael said.
And we have to watch you for heart failure, Jake said.
You don’t know how true that is, Michael said.
And it might help if you curl into the foetal position, but with your head like sloping towards the floor, Jake said.
Magnus had gone through and switched the kettle on. He came back with tea for Michael. Michael was touched.
Do you want something to eat? Magnus said.
No, thanks, Michael said. But thank you, Magnus.
Have an egg, Astrid said. There are eggs in the fridge that need to be eaten.
No thanks, Michael said.
You should, Astrid said.
Should I? Michael said.
Eggs are beautiful, Astrid said. When you eat an egg you are eating beautifulness itself.
Am I? Michael said. What a lovely thought.
Boiled or scrambled? Magnus said.
Or raw? Astrid said.
Fried, Michael said.
Worst for you, Jake said.
Thank you, Jake, Michael said.
Magnus went back through. Michael curled himself into the foetal position. He sloped his head off the armchair. He watched the adverts upside down. It was quite a good thing to do to adverts. It gave them back their surrealness. Magnus brought Michael a fried egg sandwich. The film came on. Black and white, old, 1930s. Margaret Lockwood. The Lady Vanishes.
It’s a Hitchcock, Michael said.
And you told me not to swear, Astrid said.
Ha ha, Michael said.
The film was very clever, really. It was crazy and meandering for half the plot as if things were just meaningless comedy, then all its clues fell brilliantly into place. A lot of English people were stuck in bad weather in a hotel in the mountains of eastern Europe, then they were all travelling home on the same train. But a sweet old lady went missing on the train and the young beauty who’d been travelling with her insisted she was real, she’d definitely existed, though everybody Germanic on the train, including a creepy brain surgeon, was conspiring to make the girl seem like a lunatic. Only the sporty young English cad believed her and even he wasn’t completely convinced. There were a lot of jokes about repressed sex and Freud and in the end it was a matter of national security.
The End.
Michael stretched his arms above his head and roar-yawned.
Fantastic, Magnus said.
Very good, Michael said.
Jake murmured something positive-sounding.
Michael stretched again. He actually felt quite good. Maybe it was the egg sandwich, doing him some good. Maybe it was the boys’ instinctual kindness, earlier. Maybe it was the fact that the film itself was such a very good one, one that, if someone had asked him, he’d have sworn he’d already seen, he was bound to have seen before, but in reality he’d never seen and would never have guessed the cleverness of or the plot of, even though it was such an old classic and must have been running continuously somewhere in the background of his tv-watching for years.
