Girl Meets Boy - Ali Smith [34]
No, no, Midge, don’t go anywhere. Just listen, she says. I’ve not got long on this phone. I can’t ask Dad. There’s no one Robin can ask. Just help us out this once. Please. I won’t ask again.
I know. You must be desperate to get out of that kilt, I say and I crack up laughing again.
Well, when you stop finding yourself so hilarious, she says, actually, if you could bring me a change of clothes that’d be great.
But you’ve been okay, you’re both okay up there? I say.
We’re good. But if you could, like I say, just, eh, quite urgently, justify half an hour’s absence to Dominorm or whoever, and disengage yourself from the Pure empire long enough to come and bail us out. I’ll pay you back. I promise.
You’ll need to, I say. I’m unemployed now.
Eh? she says.
I’m disengaged, I say. I’m no longer Pure.
No! she says. What happened? What’s wrong?
Nothing and everything is what happened, I say. And at Pure, everything’s wrong. Everything in the world. But you know this already.
Seriously? she says.
Honest to goodness, I say.
Wow, she says. When did it happen?
What? I say.
The miracle. The celestial exchange of my sister for you, whoever you are.
A glass of water given in kindness, that’s what did it, I say.
Eh? she says.
Stop saying eh, I say. Anyway I thought we’d saunter on up in a wee while –
Eh, can I just stress the word urgent? she says.
Though I thought I might drive out to a garden centre first and buy some seeds and bulbs –
Urgent urgent urgent urgent, she says.
And then I thought I might spend the rest of the afternoon and early evening down on the river bank –
URGENT, she yells down the phone.
– planting a good slogan or two that’ll appear mysteriously in the grass of it next spring. RAIN BELONGS TO EVERYONE. Or THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A SECOND SEX. Or PURE DEAD = BRILLIANT. Something like that.
Oh. That’s such a good idea, she says. Planting in the riverbank. That’s such a fantastic idea.
Also, you’re being too longwinded, I say. All the long sentences. It needs to be simpler. You need sloganeering help. You definitely need some creative help –
Does that creative have a small c or a big C? she says.
– and did you know, by the way, since we’re talking sloganeering, I say –
Midge, just come and help, she says. Like, now. And don’t forget to bring the clothes.
– that the word slogan, I say, comes from the Gaelic? It’s a word with a really interesting history –
No, no, no, she says, please don’t start with all that correct-word-saying-it-properly-the-right-way-not-the-wrong-way stuff right now, just come up and get us out of here, Midge, yes? Midge? Are you there?
(Ha-ha!)
What’s the magic word? I say.
all together now
Reader, I married him/her.
It’s the happy ending. Lo and behold.
I don’t mean we had a civil ceremony. I don’t mean we had a civil partnership. I mean we did what’s still impossible after all these centuries. I mean we did the still-miraculous, in this day and age. I mean we got married. I mean we here came the bride. I mean we walked down the aisle. I mean we step we gailied, on we went, we Mendelssohned, we epithalamioned, we raised high the roofbeams, carpenters, for there was no other bride, o bridegroom, like her. We crowned each other with the garlands of flowers. We stamped on the wineglasses wrapped in the linen. We jumped the broomstick. We lit the candles. We crossed the sticks. We circled the table. We circled each other. We fed each other the honey and the walnuts from the silver spoons; we fed each other the tea and the sake and we sweetened the tea for each other; we fed each other the borhani beneath the pretty cloth; we fed each other a taste of lemon, vinegar, cayenne and honey, one for each of the four elements. We handfasted, then we asked for the blessing of the air, the fire, the water and the earth; we tied the knot with grass, with ribbon, with silver rope, with a string of shells; we poured water on the ground in the