Girl Meets Boy - Ali Smith [20]
My grandfather used to say that all the time, lo and behold, I told her. They’re dead, my grandparents. They drowned. This used to be their house.
Tell me about them, she said.
You tell me about you first, I said. Come on. Story of your life.
I will, she said. Yours first.
If my life was a story, I said, it’d start like this: Before she left, my mother gave me a compass. But when I tried to use it, when I was really far out, lost at sea, the compass didn’t work. So I tried the other compass, the one my father had given me before he left. But that compass was broken too.
So you looked out across the deep waters, Robin said. And you decided, by yourself, and with the help of a clear night and some stars, which way was north and which was south and which way was east and which was west. Yes?
Yes, I said.
Then I said it again. Yes.
Now do you want to know mine? she said.
I do, I said.
It begins one day when I come down a ladder off an interventionist act of art protest, and turn round and see the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. From that moment on, I’m home. It’s as if I’ve been struggling upstream, going against the grain, until that moment. Then we get married, me and the person, and we live together happily ever after, which is impossible, both in story and in life, actually. But we get to. And that’s the message. That’s it. That’s all.
What sort of story’s that? I said.
A very fishy sort, she said.
It sounds a bit lightweight, as stories go, I said.
I can be heavy-handed if you want, she said. Fancy a bit of heavy-handing? Or would you prefer something lighter? You choose.
Then she held me tight.
Lo and be held, she said.
You’re very artful, you, I said.
You’re not so bad yourself, she said.
We woke up. It was light. It was half past two in the morning. We got up and opened the window; we leaned together on the sill and watched the world wake up, and as the birds fought to be heard above one another before all the usual noise of day set in to drown them out she told me the story of Iphis.
A long time ago on the island of Crete a woman was pregnant and when the time came close to her giving birth her husband, a good man, came to her and said, if it’s a boy we’ll keep him, but if it’s a girl we can’t. We can’t afford a girl, she’ll have to be put to death, I’m so sorry, but it’s just the way things are. So the woman went to the temple and prayed to the goddess Isis, who miraculously appeared before her. You’ve been true to me so I’ll be true to you, the goddess said. Bring the child up regardless of what it is and I promise you everything will be fine. So the child was born and it was a girl. The mother brought her up secretly as a boy, calling her Iphis, which was a name both boys and girls could be called. And Iphis went to school and was educated with her friend Ianthe, the beautiful daughter of a fine family, and Iphis and Ianthe grew up looking into each other’s eyes. Love touched their innocent hearts simultaneously and wounded them both, and they were betrothed. As the wedding day approached and the whole of Crete prepared for the celebration, Iphis got more and more worried about how, being a girl like Ianthe, she would ever be able to please her bride, whom she so loved. She worried that she herself would never really enjoy her bride the way she longed to. She complained bitterly to the gods and goddesses about it. On the night before the wedding, Iphis’s mother went back to the temple and asked the goddess to help. As she left the empty temple its walls shook, its doors trembled, Iphis’s jaw lengthened, her stride lengthened, her ribcage widened and broadened, her chest flattened, and the next day, the wedding day, dawned bright and clear and there was rejoicing all over the island of Crete as the boy Iphis gained his own Ianthe.
Though actually, the telling of it went much more like this:
A long time