There but for The_ A Novel - Ali Smith [16]
What what what? the child said. You’re sinking. What are you sinking about?
They were passing a wall low enough to sit on. Anna put the jackets down on the wall between the two street signs. Crooms Hill. SE10. Burney Street. SE10. Above her head there was a sign saying Our Ladye Star of the Sea Church, with an arrow pointing the way. The old-fashioned spelling of Ladye in modern street sign Helvetica looked like a mistake.
She sat down next to the jackets. She looked at her watch.
What I’m sinking, she said, is that we’re not going any further unless you’ve got permission. Are your parents near enough to ask, or have you got a mobile or something?
We live there, the child said.
She pointed across the road towards a church.
In the church? Anna said.
The child laughed.
Behind there, she said. Kind of over there and behind.
How close? Anna said.
We’ve a mobile but we hardly use it, the child said, because my mum says what is the point of being on a train and shouting down a mobile, I’m on a train, because it makes it like not being on the train at all. She thinks you should be there on a train when you’re on one, therefore not be on a phone instead.
I’d like to meet your mum, Anna said. She sounds great.
She is great, the child said nodding. There is a history project in year six on mobiles. Motorola 1990 was the first one. It all happened ten years before I was born.
Uh huh. And will they be home or are they at work, your parents? Anna said.
They work at the university, the child said. It’s over there.
Well, can you run and tell your mum or dad where you are and who you’re with, Anna said, and come back either with your mum, or your dad, or with a note addressed to me saying that it’s okay and that you’ve got permission and that they know you’re safe?
The child put her hands on the wall, levered herself expertly into the air, let herself expertly fall.
I can, the child said. Though they trust me. I am not stupid. And your name is the same as mine. So what I tell them is I’m going to the tunnel with Brooke and then to the Observatory to see the Shepherd Galvano-Magnetic Clock.
Maybe, but listen, my name’s not Brooke, that’s you, Anna said. I’m Anna. Tell them I’m a friend of, of, the man who’s locked himself in the room at the Lees’ house.
Yeah, but when you first came, the child said, when we were at the Lees’ front door, you said you were called the same as me.
No I didn’t, Anna said.
I said, I’m Brooke, the child said, and then you said, what a coincidence, I’m Brooke too.
No, Anna said. The thing is, when we met on the steps, I didn’t know you were saying the word Brooke, I thought you were saying the word broke. And I’m broke. So I said, me too. It’s a pun.
Like, broken? the child said.
No, I meant it in the sense of having no money, Anna said.
What exactly is a pun therefore? the child said.
What exactly is a pun there for? Anna said.
The child thought this was very funny.
No, she said when she stopped laughing. What I want to know is, what constitutes a pun.
Constitutes? Anna said. Blimey. Constitutes. Well, um, pun. Well, they’re like if a word means differently from what you expect. Like, take me hearing the word broke when you said the word Brooke. That was a sort of involuntary pun.
Involuntary, the child said.
It means it happened without us meaning or choosing it, Anna said.
I know it means that, the child said. I was just saying it to see how it felt in my mouth to say it.
She sat beside Anna on the wall, crossing her legs like Anna, looking ahead like Anna.
Okay, Anna said. So.
And what is the point of a pun? the child said.
Um, Anna said.
And is it like if someone at school says to you, listen you, you’re history? the child said.
It depends, Anna said. Who said that to you? Like a teacher, for a project or something?
No, I mean, the child said. Because, obviously, it is a different meaning from me actually being history, when I am not even famous and I am only nine years old and will not be ten till next April, and have therefore not yet had much