Girl Meets Boy - Ali Smith [31]
It’s not the print-outs, Paul says.
And maybe you don’t like me, maybe you’re embarrassed that I said what I felt, well, never mind, I won’t mind, I’m a grown-up, I’ll be okay, but I needed to say it out loud, to tell you anyway, and I’m tired of feeling things I never get to express, things that I always have to hold inside, I’m fed up not knowing whether I’m saying the right thing when I do speak, anyway I thought I’d be brave, I thought it was worth it, and I hope you don’t mind me saying.
Words are coming out of me like someone turned me on like a tap. It’s Paul. He – turns me on!
But as soon as he gets the chance, Paul cuts in.
Imogen. Listen. It’s your sister, he says.
My heart in me. Nothing else. Everything else blank.
What about my sister? What’s happened to my sister? I say.
* * *
Paul is waiting for me at the station when the train pulls in.
Why aren’t you at work? I say.
Because I’m here instead, he says.
He slings my bag into the boot of his car then locks the car with his key fob.
We’ll walk, he says. You’ll see it better that way. The first one is on the wall of the Eastgate Centre, I think because of the traffic coming into town, the people in cars get long enough to read it when they stop at the traffic lights. God knows how anybody got up that high and stayed up there without being disturbed long enough to do it.
He walks me past Marks and Spencers, about fifteen yards down the road. Sure enough, the people in the cars stopped at the traffic lights are peering at something above my head, even leaning out of their car windows to see it more clearly.
I turn round.
Behind me and above me on the wall the words are bright, red, huge. They’re in the same writing as was on the Pure sign before they replaced it. They’ve been framed in a beautiful, baroque-looking, trompe l’æil picture-frame in gold. They say: ACROSS THE WORLD, TWO MILLION GIRLS, KILLED BEFORE BIRTH OR AT BIRTH BECAUSE THEY WEREN’T BOYS. THAT’S ON RECORD. ADD TO THAT THE OFF-RECORD ESTIMATE OF FIFTY-EIGHT MILLION MORE GIRLS, KILLED BECAUSE THEY WEREN’T BOYS. THAT’S SIXTY MILLION GIRLS. Underneath this, in a handwriting I recognise, even though it’s a lot bigger than usual: THIS MUST CHANGE. Iphis and Ianthe the message girls 2007.
Dear God, I say.
I know, Paul says.
So many girls, I say in case Paul isn’t understanding me.
Yes, Paul says.
Sixty million. I say. How? How can that happen in this day and age? How do we not know about that?
We do now, he says. Pretty much the whole of Inverness knows about it now, if they want to. And more. Much more.
What else? I say.
He walks me back past the shops and up the pedestrian precinct into town, to the Town House. A small group of people is watching two men in overalls scouring the red off the front wall with a spray gun. IN NO COUNTRY IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW ARE WOMEN’S WAGES EQUAL TO MEN’S WAGES. THIS MUST CHA
Half the frame and the bit with the names and the date have been sprayed nearly away but are still visible. It’s all still legible.
That’ll take some shifting, I say.
Paul leads me round the Town House, where a whole side wall is bright red words inside gold. ALL ACROSS THE WORLD, WHERE WOMEN ARE DOING EXACTLY THE SAME WORK AS MEN, THEY’RE BEING PAID BETWEEN THIRTY TO FORTY PERCENT LESS. THAT’S NOT FAIR. THIS MUST CHANGE. Iphis and Ianthe the message boys 2007.
Probably Catholics, a woman says. It’s disgusting.
Aye, it’ll fair ruin the tourism, another says. Who’d be wanting to come and see the town if the town’s covered in this kind of thing? Nobody.
And we can say goodbye to winning that Britain in Bloom this year now, her friend says.
And to Antiques Roadshow ever coming back to Inverness and all, another says.
It’s a scandal! another is saying. Thirty