There but for The_ A Novel - Ali Smith [99]
If a story isn’t a fact, but it is a made-up version of what happened, like the one that is a book made up about the real man who tried to blow up the Observatory, I mean, what is the point of it? Mr. Garth leaned his head on the handlebars. Think how quiet a book is on a shelf, he said, just sitting there, unopened. Then think what happens when you open it. Yes, but what exactly happens? Brooke said. I have an idea, he said, I’ll tell you the very beginning of a story that’s not been written yet, and then you write the story for me, and we can see what happens in the process. Okay, Brooke said. That is a really interesting idea. Yes? Mr. Garth said. Okay. Here goes. There was once a man who lived in a small room and, without leaving that room, managed to cycle his bike three thousand miles. Do I have to remember it exactly word for word, Brooke said, or can it be approximate? It can be as approximate as you like, Mr. Garth said. Yeah but the thing is, Brooke said, if I write it, you have to write one too, where I get to tell you how to begin. Okay, Mr. Garth said, it seems only fair. It’s a deal. What’s my beginning? I think it is an idea rather than a beginning, Brooke said. Okay, Mr. Garth said, I’m all ears. All ears! That was funny. Brooke told him about the picture of the man in the telescope book who is all eyes. Is that my beginning? Mr. Garth said, a man covered in open eyes like butterflies? No, Brooke said. This is it. You have to imagine that if you were sitting there where you are, on the bike, and also here in the room with you was another version of you, like, say you but three or four days before you were ten years old, I mean if it was nearly your tenth birthday. I mean if you were in the room and you were exactly the same age as me, and at the same time you’re in the room too, old like you are. I mean older, because you are not old like old people, but you are quite old. I get it, Mr. Garth said. I see, myself then and myself now, yes. So if that really happened in reality, what story would you tell your self and what story would your self tell you? Brooke said. Mr. Garth closed his eyes for a bit of time. Then he opened them very wide. Nearly your birthday, then? he said. It is on Sunday the 11th, Brooke said. I’ll write it for you for your birthday, Mr. Garth said, but you’ll need to bring me some blank paper, can you? Yes, Brooke said, and would you like a biscuit too, the thing is I actually know where Mrs. Lee keeps them. No, Mr. Garth said, I don’t need a biscuit. But I can have one, Brooke said. Yes, Mr. Garth said. Thank you, Brooke said. She went down the stairs and into what was Mr. Lee’s study before he moved house to Bloomsbury. There were still things and furniture and so on waiting for him to come and collect them. She found A4 paper in the photocopying tray on the desk. She took two sheets because she didn’t know how long or short the story would need to be. Then she went into the kitchen and opened the cupboard door above the microwave and climbed up on to the unit next to the waste disposal and opened the plastic box and took one of the teacakes out and put the lid back on the box and the box back exactly where it had been, as if no one had touched a thing. And anyway an adult had said it was okay, so she could.)
The fact is. The fact apparently is. The fact seems to be. The story goes. Once upon a time a man threw a clock out of an upstairs window. Why did the man throw the clock out of the upstairs window? So he could see time fly. But that joke isn’t altogether a very good one, because to be true it should really end like this: so he could see time fall. Brooke turns to the very back of the History Moleskine, which is where she’s decided she’ll put the really good joke Mr. Garth told her after she came upstairs with the paper for him. She writes across the top: Joke Told By Mr. Garth to Brooke Bayoude Wednesday 7th of April at about 3.30pm or 1530 in 24 hr time. She underlines this. Then she writes the following.
Mr. Miles Garth—Will you remember me in a months time.
Brooke Bayoude