There but for The_ A Novel - Ali Smith [65]
How are the fallen mighty! May nearly said it out loud. She nearly laughed out loud. She pursed her mouth. She stopped herself. But the girl was a fine one, laughed at herself. She got herself up, dusted herself off, straightened what little there was of the daft little skirt and sat on the edge of the seat to unzip her boots. She was clearly going to give it a try again. She caught May looking at her.
A fall from grace, the girl said.
May liked that. She gave the girl a wink.
(May Winch is off-shift from the Mail Office and is at the Palace with some of the girls. They’re watching the accompanying feature, a Gracie Fields. It’s an old one, and people boo it to begin with since Gracie’s recently taken herself off to America and people aren’t very impressed with that. But it’s a funny one, and soon people are laughing along regardless of the fact that Gracie’s a bit of a runner-away.
In it Gracie is younger and wearing a big historical-looking hat. She throws an orange and it hits royalty by mistake. Then she argues with the policeman who arrests her, and she says to the policeman, if you keep on talking to me like that I’ll have to call a policeman. Then the judge in court asks her did she think it was appropriate behaviour, throwing an orange at a person of royal blood. And Gracie says, well, it was a blood orange.
There’s a dog somewhere in the theatre. It must have been smuggled in; dogs aren’t permitted in the pictures. When Gracie starts singing a song and reaches a particularly high note this dog starts up singing along. ArooooooOOOooo. Pretty soon the whole stalls is a riot every time Gracie hits the note and the dog joins in. Pretty soon it sounds like the people up in the balcony are rioting too.
The sound slows down suddenly and then stops. The film stops. Everybody shouts. The houselights come on. People are waving their arms about and shouting. The manager and the doormen walk up and down the aisles. There’s a scuffle down at the front, then one of the doormen walks back up dragging two boys, one on either side of him, one by the ear, one by the back of the neck, then the other doorman carrying at arm’s length a small wiry black and white Heinz 57 varieties mongrel, its tail going in circles like a propeller. The manager paces behind, ignoring all the eyes.
The place goes crazy with whistles and cat-calls. The chap sitting in front of May has turned to watch the parade go past up the aisle. Then his eye falls on May and her friends sitting there. He’s in Air Force uniform, he’s young. He’s not bad-looking. He’s with a girl but even though he is he still has a good look at all three of them and it’s May that catches his eye.
His girlfriend looks none-too-pleased.
The film starts up again but not in the right place. The audience shouts and boos then settles down to the story anyway, a load of silliness about the prince of a made-up country giving up his kingdom to have a love affair with a barmaid who’s a good singer. Gracie starts singing again and goodness knows what comes over May. It’s as if she can’t help herself. She knows she’s about to do it, and she knows she’s doing it only so as to annoy the snooty girlfriend. No other reason. No other time in her life so far has she ever been so bold and bad as she’s about to be right now when Gracie does it, hits that high note, and May starts up a howl, making it sound as much like that little dog sounded as she can.
It’s a split second before the roar of laughter shakes the whole place. Then everyone joins in. Soon the place is nothing but howling and yelping and laughter. May’s friends are black-affronted. The girl in front is