There but for The_ A Novel - Ali Smith [39]
Anything vegetarian will be really lovely, thank you, Jen, Miles says. Please don’t go out of your way for me.
I’m only concerned that I’ve still got enough eggs, Jen says. But please don’t let that concern you for a moment. Eric?
Jen and Eric stand up and start gathering plates. Then Eric comes back from the kitchen and fills everybody’s glass with red, except Mark’s, probably because Mark’s white glass is still full and it looks like he isn’t drinking. Mark can’t think how to ask, and then the moment when he could have asked is gone.
The internet, Hannah is saying. If I need to know anything. That’s what’s so great about being alive now. But if it was just me, on a desert island, with just myself. Sometimes I have this dream, I’ve had it loads of times actually, it keeps coming back, where I’m at school even though I’m too old to be at school—
Are you naked in it? Richard says.
Everybody laughs except Hannah.
—and all the kids are much younger than me, and the exam paper is put down in front of me, she says, and all the little kids start writing the answers, and I sit there and I look at it and my mind goes completely blank, like an empty space, like the empty blank page I know I have to fill, you know, cover, with things I don’t know, and I’m sitting there and it’s not just that I don’t know how to answer any of the things in the exam, it’s that I don’t know anything.
She looks close to tears. Miles jogs her elbow gently.
The next time you have that dream, he says, and you’re sitting in front of that exam paper, tell yourself in your head that you do know. Sit at the desk and look at the paper and tell yourself about, uh, tell yourself you know—
A song, the child says.
Yes, a song, Miles says.
But I’m not musical, Hannah says crossing her arms and shaking her head. I haven’t a musical bone—
Yes, but you’ll know a song, there must be a song you like, Miles says.
I don’t know any, Hannah says.
What’s a song everybody knows? Miles says to Terence.
Everybody knows Somewhere Over The Rainbow, the child says.
Oh yeah, I know that one, Hannah says, from the film and everything.
Right, Miles says. When you’re in that exam room the next time, say to yourself, I’m all right, I know Somewhere Over The Rainbow.
But I don’t know anything about it, Hannah says. And if I look down at the exam paper, it’ll say, like, who wrote the rainbow song, and tell us everything you know about the rainbow song, and all I know is that it was from a film and I still won’t be able to answer anything right.
This is what we’ll do, Miles says. Terence is going to tell you three facts about that song. And the next time you have that dream, you’ll know three things about it and you’ll be able to instruct your subconscious to write them down.
Hannah sniffs, blows her nose.
I probably don’t even have a subconscious, she says.
Okay, Terence says. Three things about Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Uh. Right. It was written by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, Arlen did the music and Harburg the lyric. There’s two things.
There’s no way I’ll be able to remember that when I’m asleep, I can hardly remember it right now when I’m wide awake! Hannah says.
Okay, Terence says. Okay—I know. The first two notes form an octave leap.
He sings them.
Fucking pansy, Richard says under his breath.
And the way they do that, Terence says, makes the word somewhere leap right into the sky, out of hopelessness to hope.
Hannah’s face fills with panic. She turns to Miles and shakes her head.
Something more anecdotal, Miles says to Terence.
Anecdotal, Terence says.
He widens his eyes.
What’s anecdotal? the child says.
Like when you tell a story, Terence says.
There’s that really good story about it, about the little dog that always runs away, the child says.
Yes, Terence says. Yes. Good one, Brooke. So. Listen. You know the middle bit of the song? The bit about some day I’ll wish upon a star?
He hums it. De da de da de da de da.
Hannah nods.
Terence tells her that Harold Arlen, the man who wrote the tune, had written