by Ali Smith
In her head she hears a voice saying something about the water.
She blinks. I’m sorry, I was miles away, she says.
The girl who was reading the book is standing in front of her at the bar.
On another planet, Gemma says. Can I help you?
Some water, the girl says. For that lady. I think she should maybe drink something.
I’m sorry, Gemma the Cruise Assistant says. We’re completely sold out. I can make you a hot drink if you’d like to choose one from the Drinks List.
The girl frowns, smiles, shakes her head.
I don’t want to buy water, she says, I just need you to give me some for the lady over there who’s feeling unwell.
I’m sorry, Gemma the Cruise Assistant says. It’s not allowed to just give out water. You have to buy bottled water, and I’m awful sorry but there’s none left. If you could choose something else off the List.
She indicates the Drinks List framed on the wall next to the bar.
You’re not allowed to give out water? the girl says. She looks Gemma the Cruise Assistant in the eye.
The boat shifts slightly beneath them.
That’s right, Gemma says.
See that lady over there on the seat? the girl says. She’s seriously dehydrated. She needs to drink something. Have you not got ordinary tap water? You must have. What do you use to make the coffee and tea?
The girl doesn’t sound at all foreign, she actually sounds Scottish. But she doesn’t look Scottish and the book in her hand on the bar is in a language with letters Gemma doesn’t recognize; the language, whatever it is with its tailed and coily letters, makes her feel queasy, like she felt when she went to the Baptist church on Castle Street with her friend once, years ago, and the people in the congregation kept standing up and shouting stuff out about God whenever they felt like it, like mad people.
The girl is speaking slowly and clearly now as if she thinks Gemma is an idiot. The fucker.
I’m really sorry, madam, Gemma says. I’m not allowed to use the water for ordinary drinking, it’s only to be used for hot drinks.
Why can’t it be used for ordinary drinking? the girl says.
Anyway, the bar is closed, Gemma says.
The girl looks at Gemma as if she hasn’t heard properly what she said. The bar is what? she says.
The bar has to close for the hour while the boat is empty, Gemma says. It’s mandatory.
The girl snorts.
It’s for licensing laws, Gemma says.
You just said I could buy something off the Drinks List, the girl says. Were you open then, ten seconds ago, and now you’re shut?
I’m awful sorry, Gemma says.
The girl leans forward, still looking her square in the eyes. Her skin is definitely dark this close up though she still sounds really Glasgow. Gemma takes a step back.
Listen, you, the girl says. Do you know what dehydration actually does to someone?
While she is talking about blood and dizziness and seizures and hospitals, Gemma looks her back in the eye, maintains her polite face and thinks the word over and over in her head. Fucker fucker fucker fucker fucker. What are they like, the fuckers, coming here and thinking just because they’ve bought their ticket they can be telling people what to do? Coming here and then not even wanting to see how beautiful the sights are. Not even interested. Reading a book in a weirdo language instead. Thinking the world owes them a living. Gemma almost smirks, manages not to, nods politely as if she’s listening. When the girl has finished, she smiles her most friendly smile at her, reaches up above her head, pulls down the metal blind that shuts the bar off from the rest of the room and locks it in place with the padlock.
She can hear the girl’s disbelief on the other side of the blind. She jumps when the blind rattles, when the girl hits at it a couple of times. She is full of sudden excited glee; it is like a different person is in her, pushing against her own skin to get out of her. She puts her arms around herself. Her heart is beating like mad. The foreign girl can complain if she likes. She is out of here in ten weeks and away.
The floor is covered in the ripped-up cardboard and discarded plastic of a busy morning. The rubbish bin is overflowing at the back. Whose idea was it to call them fuckers? She doesn’t know; it is what everyone calls them on the boat and in the boat office. Every morning the queue of them waiting to get on the boat reaches all the way to the main road. They wear bright colours and sunglasses, they carry all manner of useless stuff around with them. They’re so hopeful, like dogs waiting for their time for a walk.
There isn’t much light in here with the blind down. The only window is small and blocked by the fridge; through the crack of daylight visible she can see the castle outside falling and lifting. There isn’t much room to move, and there is nothing left to drink except the coffee and tea water, and she can’t drink that, she’ll need it all the way back.
That German woman might die.
She wonders what the girl is doing. If it was her out there, and it was an emergency, she’d go round the boat collecting the dregs from other people’s glasses and cans and bottles and give her that. She wonders if that’s what that girl is doing now. She puts her head close to the blind but she can’t hear anything. The astonishing thing about that girl is how smooth her skin was. When she brought her face close to Gemma’s across the bar Gemma had seen its surface, and how her eyes were, they were
She sinks on to the bar stool. The eyes were beautiful. The beautifulness of them has sliced so deep into her without her even knowing that’s what it was doing that she stares at the blind straight ahead of her because if she looks down she might see herself peeled back, opened at the skin; she doesn’t dare look down in case she is actually bleeding. She remembers the wounded look on the face of the old Canadian lady as she stood on the deck and stared out at the summer land. She fingers the twenty pound note in her pocket. Somewhere in Canada in the future she will be smiling off a screen, telling people she’s never seen and never will things about tartan and clans and the place she’s from. Her voice will come out of a TV into the air of a place she has no idea about. There are versions of her all over the world by now; smiling versions of her have crossed so many seas and she doesn’t even know it.
Maybe she should push the blind up and go out there and help the girl. She should use the hot drinks water. Nobody will know; she will say they sold a huge number of teas and coffees. It’s such a hot day. Nobody will wonder. She will put in money out of her pay to make it look like more were sold. She will hide a pile of sachets and tea bags in her rucksack. The German woman will blink and nod and say she saved her life. The girl with the eyes that can read unexpected languages will smile at her. Maybe she is from the city that Gemma is going to be studying in. Maybe when the boat docks today and Gemma leaves for home, the girl will tuck the book under her arm and follow Gemma the Cruise Assistant home at a distance, being shy, and knowing Gemma is shy. On the way home Gemma will slow down and let her catch up; they will walk past the cemetery along to the end of the canal and down into the town, and Gemma will show her the sights. The art gallery. The museum. The cathedral. The theatre. The castle. The rabbits eating the grass on the hill under the castle, if they are patient enough to catch sight of them. The seals in the river, if they’re lucky, if the river is low. The places where Gemma went to school. The boat office. Gemma has a key; everybody else will have gone home. There will be nobody else in there, it will be empty, and the light will be evening light by then. She tosses her hair. She takes a deep breath.
When she reaches to open the blind she finds it’s locked. Then she can’t find the tiny key she needs for the padlock anywhere. She looks on all the surfaces. She goes through all her pockets one by one, then does this over again. She looks all around her on the floor. She empties the rubbish out and checks through it. She picks up the stool. She empties the sachet boxes. She looks behind the whisky miniatures.
She pulls at the padlock but though it
’s only a small one it won’t give. She turns it up the way so she can see its slot. She pokes at it with her nail, then lets it drop. She can’t remember whether Andy has a key for it or not. She sits back down on the stool.
There is nothing to do about it. The room she is in sways because the boat is swaying on the surface of the water, tugging at the ropes that hold it to the dock, and it is nowhere even near time to go yet, so nobody will find her for ages, and it is hot, it is almost airless, and now she is thirsty herself and there is absolutely nothing in here that she is allowed to drink.
She is drunk it is theee ooonly waay to beee. The trees have moveen tops look. It is good drunk. It is better than good, it is the only way, drunk as a skunk is it ck? as a sck un ck drun ck and even though she is it, even though she is out of her brain like, she is pretty good becaaaause she can still. Really straight like a marksman man, like a expert marksman man, really. She hit it she must have like really good aim to be so pissed and still hit it. She heard it hit the stone IN LOVING MEMORY CHARLES ROBERT CAMERON BORN 4 DECEMBER 1907 DIED 18 MARCH 1978 THE LORD GAVETH AND THE LORD TAKETH AWAY bottle never broke kind of, uh. Bounced, uh huh, must have hit it on the thick glass bit of it not the thin glass bit of it. So she can throw it again if she gets up and goes over and gets it back, she can throw it again if she gets up and. She is smashed, not it. Ha ha ha. She is the thin. She is what is it out of her brain is what she is, out of her b.
Never even broke rememer don’t forget it it is a good thing to. She has drunk it all now it is all finished because the other two bottles are broken on the gr g l r ass. The bonnie glrass of Inverness, poem at school, Culloden the massacre and the Jacobites and the girl after and a tragedy, when all Jacobites were massacred and the girl is made like really sad because of it. Bonnie ass of Inver no bony ass of hee hee hee oho hohee hee hee hee. Bony oh ho hoo. Hoo. Other two broke on the stone when they were thrown. One second they were not broken they were bottles, and now. What can happen in a second, that, eh? cept not always, it doesn’t always happen because look at that one it never broke when she threw, like, that is just amazeen. So there is it, that bottle still, should keep it for if he comes with the broken guns, in case, he might let her take a shot if he, because her good aim, she has aim, she has. What is just amazeen, just amazeen, is that it never. All them others are in pieces. The bottles labels paper holdeen together broken bits BACARDI BREEZE. She had better pick up the g l ass in case someone with a dog and the dog’s paws, it would be a shame for it. Lot of people take their dogs for their walks in here but there is never any dogshit she has seen, people are respectabful, because of the dead like probly. She would like a dog. She would keep it off the g r ass out of respect for them on the underneath of it, them dead for years, they wouldn’t be wanteen to be walked on by paws of a dog or peoples feet crosseen over their bodies and their heads all day and ha! sometimes night too. Cathy Maclennan at school shaggeen that Vaughn MacDonald from third year up by the old graves and came down the path half-past ten straighteneen her clothes and saw her here on her way out from the shag, she had g r ass stains, she was telleen him she left her mobile phone up there, she said would he go and get it and he said no way, you go, and she said, no way am I goeen back up there it’s near dark like, they were both goeen to each other no, no way, then she seen her and goes look theres that Jasmine McKinlay, so she shouts over to Cathy Maclennan I don’t mind goeen, whats your mobile number and I could ring it on mine and then you could hear it and find it, but Cathy Maclennan just ignored her, like, as if she wasn even there, and says to her next day at Home economics, they were doeen fruit and cheese scones, she comes over and says I saw you in the cemetery by yoursel you are fuckeen mental man, there are druggies there and everytheen, you are mad like always goeen in there by your sel I saw you hangeen about, full o dead people, you’re a weirdo to go there if youre not actually like shaggeen someone, huh, Cathy Maclennan is the bony ass of, just shoween off that she’s got a shag, horrible fuckeen place, disgusteen morbud place Cathy Maclennan says to her, but then she said back to Cathy Maclennan, she said, well right when you like die will you be wanteen to go to heaven and Cathy Maclennan said well duh obviously, if there is one, and then she said, she said, well there you go because if its heaven then somebody must be dead, thats what heaven is int it, you cant get into it unless youre like out of it, ha ha ha, they had a notice up sayeen it wan a prize, it is actually the most the best-kept cemetery in the whole of SCOtland, probly because the g rass is always really neat and everytheen and when she comes back theyve always like cleared up the bottles she broke the last time she was here, doesn seem to matter where in the place she was breakeen them they find it and its gone, and there is never no noise except that birds, and the noises trees makes, and she has been here loads and never seen a druggy, not even one time, maybe if she sees one they could give her sometheen that would last longer than three fuckeen alcopops. Maybe if you are a druggy you might not want to be near a place like it, maybe you would halogenate, see the dead and everytheen. Except thon man, he isn’t, because she said are you a druggy? and he says no. One was a air rifle, one is sometheen else, she has forgot remember och come on Jas remember, it is, ach, it is called a, cant, more power than the air rifle, can blow off a hand or a big bit of the shoulder, she watched and the whole shoulder, the whole of the shoulder, was like just blown away to notheen, wee flakes of stone, you never seen anytheen like it. He says he knows her parents the man. If maybe he came tonight and she has thon bottle she never broke, she could ask. She could prop it on the top like and then if he would let her take the gun because her aim, right? Even when she is like even stocious as this, man. She hit it for definite, its not that she missed it, it for definite hit it, the stone, it just never broke. It is a mirage, like when he made the wine out of notheen for them at the weddeen in Religious Studies. It is a mirage that it never broke. She could prop it on the head ha ha ha an angel with it on its ha ha ha head. Hee hee hee hee hee. Would you like a drink Mrs Angel, if it was red bull it would give you wings ha ha ha you arent needeen them you already got them look on your back, you been drinkeen already hee hee hee an angel drinkeen a Bacardi breezer hee in the clouds hee hee oh god feeleen really oh feeleen sick now shit shit stop, right, sit for a minute, there, sit still, there. There. There. Aye wait though. Aye.
It is empty but it is no actually broken. A great noise it makes though, though, it is a great noise. She really really loves it, the sound of it when it breaks. Every noise has its own noise of its own breakeen. When you drop it froma bove its different the noise. When you throw it really hard its different. When you drop it gently the noise is more gentle. When you try not to break it and it still breaks, that is a different noise again. They are all different and unique like every snowdrop that like falls from the sky above is, they are all formed from water crystals and no one is ever the same as any other one is, that is amazeen. Snow for fucks ake! There will never evr be snow again, it is so hot, God, it was the hottest day she can ever remember, it is not possible to have snow in her head even in her imanation, how could there ever be it, snow? Eh? Again? How? Eh? It is so warm in the world there will never be snow or Xmas or that again. Little do-nkey, carry Ma-ry safely on her wa-y. Ring out those bells tonight Bethlee eehem, Bethlee eehem, Ring out those hmm tonight the ground isn even dampish, summer is fuckeen fantastic like, she could sleep here tonight, it would be fine no body would come, they are lockeen the gates around tennish these nights, but it is still not dark or anytheen till after and they open it in the morneen for visitors to come first thing before their work she supposes to see their nearest and deadest, ha ha, in the morneen for the mourneen ha ha ha ha ha, last night it was morneen at like God knows she doesn’t know really really early when she was walkeen home like, she never left here till it was like getteen light again and all and by the time she was home it was light.
What if Cathy Maclennan’s mobile if it began to ring by itself up there and nobody answereen it, s
omebody at the other end listeneen to the ringeen, the beep of it somewhere in the grass, notheen but birds and trees and stones to hear it.
She wonders what tone it has. Is it a TV programme? or a S Club song. Or maybe it is switched off.
Fuck she is sobereen up, is she? Is she? Look at the, trees are still moveen their tops, it is near dark now but she knows it wont get much more it, but theres notheen left in any of these bottles whether theyre broken or no. She runs her fingr through where the label is holdeen the broken bits but theres notheen left to drink on the inside of the bits and no, careful or she cd, ah you bastard, ah, shit. She sucks it to stop it bleedeen. Thank god she never used her tongue to look for anytheen left. It is a pity there is none left since it is antispeptic. She will be a doctor and fix it all when she is qualified doing the qualifications at the college, they are sayeen at thon careers she could if she wants be whatever she wants because they are sayeen she is really like, you know, if she uses her brain, but they keep sayeen you will have to want to nobody’s goeen to do it for you except you well but if you are and people see, like that girl Jacqui who no body will talk to because she is like so fuckeen swot, fuckeen thinks the world owes her a liveen like, look at her, and if you are it then you get all the time people goeen on about fuckeen who do you think you, all that stuff. No, it would be good to win the lottery like, you would never have to work, or famous on the TV, in a house like big brother or in a pop group that wins a TV phone-in with millions, or no, no because she will be a marksman, join the, whatever it is they need marksman for, must be loads they need them for. They must need people with aim. Because even when she is skuncked, no skun k ed, shit, it is beginning to come back, it is, och, beginning to, shit. Is it? Is it? She bangs the back of her hand against the trunk of the tree above her head, it is a pine tree, och uh huh, not faraway enough the sore rough when she hits it, och, fuck sake three isn’t long enough, three, it isn’t even proprly night yet, look, still see them moveen in the sky, and she is beginning to again. Finger still bleedeen and its fuckeen sore. Three is not enough, remember, next time Jas get four, maybe five, ask Gemma for the money, say it is for a school trip to Kincraig Wildlife Park. Maybe he will come again, that was good last night when he did. It was nearly this dark when he came. She could still see the tops of the trees but only just. That would be good. If he was to come again tonight. Last night she saw him, he was up by the angels and she went over and asked him, he jamp in the air when he saw her, she thought he was maybe a druggy and wondered if he had anytheen, she says to him, was he and he said no. He just stood and looked at her and says it:
