There but for The_ A Novel - Ali Smith [74]
She looks at what it is that’s in her hands. It is a rectangular blue box wrapped in cellophane, a box of chocolates. Milk Tray.
She watches through the frosted glass in the front door as the blurred shape of him gets smaller, then disappears.)
I took her hand. It was cold to the touch. That was the worst, the very worst.
What’s she saying? the bald man driving the car said.
She’s just talking, the girl said. Leave her alone.
The girl was squashed into the back. May was strapped into the front. After Irish-Liverpool got her into the chair the girl had wheeled her down the corridor and they had both waved cheerily back at the nurses. Then the girl wheeled May straight into the lift and pressed down, and when the doors opened they went out past the place where the shops were and the people having the teas and coffees. The girl had taken off her puffy jacket then and had put it round May’s shoulders and had run out through the main doors with almost no clothes on herself in the cold. She spoke on a phone. She lit a cigarette. She stood dancing from foot to foot out there. The cold came in round May every time the doors opened by themselves.
You’ll catch your death.
Don’t feel the cold, me, the girl said before the doors closed on her again.
The bald man wasn’t wearing a suit.
Eventually he fixed the chair somehow on to the back of the car. He made a great fuss about it. He was an awful baby.
Can’t see a fucking thing with that there, the bald man kept saying and squinting at his mirror when they were driving along.
She was in the hospital, Gracie, it was before she ran away to America, and she had a cancer down there, you know, nobody could say where, the place was not what you call mentionable, and she had to have an operation. And she nearly died from it, there was a fair chance she would. But in the newsreel she was there after it all, back on her feet, and she winked right at the camera filming her. Oh it was glorious. Right at the camera she winked. She’d come through it, she had. And there was one she did where she played a singer called Sal. That was where the song came from, the one about Sally. And in it she had to go to a posh party and sing to the rich people, you know, be their evening’s entertainment. And she called the old rich woman Lady Tissue-paper, oh it made me laugh. And she taught this old rich woman to sing the words of a common song, and told her off for pronouncing the words wrong, oh it was so funny. I’ll never forget it. And in it, I’ll never forget this either, I’ll remember it as long as I live, there was a girl in the story a bit younger than Sal, a bit naïve, and she was very poor, and her father drank, and his drinking and hitting her had made her act bad. Well, Sal, she let this girl come and live with her. Goodness of her heart, the girl had nowhere else, her father’d thrown her out, she was on the street if it wasn’t for Sal. And the girl one day got angry with Sal all because Sal was kind to her. She started to act bad, break the plates and the little ornaments in the room. It’s not like they were much. But they were all she had. And Sal stands in the room and watches the girl break all the precious cups and the things all round her. And she just says to her, you go right ahead, you break it. And here’s my watch and all. You can have it, here, take it. Do what you want with it. Because I believe there’s something that has been put in you by all that’s happened to you and it’s got to come out.
Doesn’t half drone on, the bald man said.
Leave her, the girl said.
I went with Frank to the Palace and saw that one. My brother, Frank was.
Oh yeah, she was talking about him earlier, the girl said.
Did he lose his hair through carelessness? Here. You.