There but for The_ A Novel - Ali Smith [53]
What, if anything, did Mark remember of all this, more than fifty years after it happened?
He remembered the blur of a grey London day and his hand in his mother’s hand.
He remembered she was wearing a coat whose cuff was folded back.
He remembered the feel of the cuff of this coat as they moved, as it rubbed against his wrist.
Say that the line we walk is very fine
Mark sat on the park bench, way in the future. Last week he’d read in the paper about the twenty-fourth copycat suicide in a French telecom company, where suicide was now being treated as a contagion.
What about that, then, Faye?
Say that the concept’s part of our design
On the one hand, nothingness; on the other, birds that sang in their sleep.
On the one hand, nothing; on the other, a feeble attempt at it, rhyme.
On the one hand, nothing; on the other, but here’s something, Faye, I read it in a book and I knew you’d like it. It’s about the song called For Me and My Gal. It took three grown men to write that song. And one of the three was Jewish, well, maybe more than one was, I can’t remember, but this one definitely was. And he fell in love with a girl and wanted to marry her, and she wanted to marry him too. So he takes her to the rabbi, to get married in the synagogue, this was in New York, and the rabbi says to her, are you a good Jewish girl, my child? and she says o yes, your worship, I am that, and he says to her, what was your mother’s full name, my child? And she says, my mother’s name was Emma Cathleen Bridget Hannigan Flaherty O’Brien, your worship. And the rabbi sent them away with a flea in their ear. So they went and got married at City Hall instead. Anyway, the girl’s name was Grace, and Grace’s favourite song all her life was this one her husband had helped write, and when she died he had the title of it engraved on her headstone. For Me and My Gal.
The end.
Nice one, Faye, what do you say?
Say that your own heart’s keeping time for mine
He sat forward on the bench. He stood up. Half past four.
He left the park.
He walked past a pub, caught sight of his reflection in the glass of its window.
Old man.
The front door of the Lees’ house was wide open. A girl with a clipboard and a man carrying a camera rig were standing in the doorway. The cameraman was gesticulating at a man in a van parked at the kerb. The girl with the clipboard was speaking to Jen Lee, who was also in the doorway and who, just at that moment, caught sight of Mark at the foot of the steps and looked away as if either she had no idea who Mark was or she was making it clear she didn’t want to have to deal with him now.
Hello!
Mark looked down.
It was the child, the Bayoude child.
Oh, hello, he said.
I remember you, she said.
I remember you too, Mark said. Something happening?
It’s Channel 4, she said.
Right, Mark said. How’s your dad and mum?
They’re very well, thank you, the child said. They got your nice card saying thank you for the book and everything. We have it up all the time, on the mantelpiece, in the front. It is an honour kept only for very special cards.
That’s lovely, Mark said. I’m honoured.
Yes, you are, the child said.
Oh, hello Mark, Jen called down now. How are you?
She was free; the clipboard girl had come down the steps to the van and was unloading a heavy-looking tripod. The cameraman had disappeared, probably inside.
I don’t think they’ll need to speak to you, she said. I think we’re pretty much giving them what they’re after.
Good, Mark said. Well. I was just passing. I was just up at the park for the afternoon, and was just, you know, passing.
Right, Jen said. Well, if you’ll excuse me. Lovely to see you. You do look well.
She went back through the door into the hall.
What did you do in the park? the child