Girl Meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis

by Ali Smith

  Boardroom two, he said. Five minutes. Okay Anthea?

  Okay Brian, I said.

  He was called Brian. Thank you, gods. Or if he wasn’t, he didn’t complain, or didn’t give a fuck what I was saying, or maybe wasn’t actually listening to anything I said.

  Okay, ladies and gents, Keith said. (Keith sounded American. I’d not yet met Keith. Keith was the boss of bosses.) Let’s do it. Get the lights, ah, ah, Imogen? Good girl. Thank you.

  Midge wasn’t speaking to me. She’d ignored me when I’d come into the room.

  I want you to look at these slides, Keith said. And I want you to look at them in silence.

  We did as we were told.

  Eilean Donan Castle on a cloudy day. The clouds reflecting in the water round the castle.

  The old bridge at Carrbridge on a snowy day. A ridge of snow on the bridge. The water under it reflecting the blue of the sky. Ice at its edges.

  A whale’s back rising out of very blue water.

  An archaeological site with a stretch of blue water beyond it.

  A loch in a green treeless valley with a war memorial at the front of it.

  An island rising out of very blue water.

  A Highland cow in an autumnal setting, behind it a thin line of light on water.

  The town. The river I’d just thrown a stone into, running right through the centre of it. The sky, the elegant bridges, the river banks, the buildings on the banks, their shimmering second selves standing on their heads in their reflections.

  Team, Keith said in the dark. Thank you all for being here. Water is history. Water is mystery. Water is nature. Water is life. Water is archaeology. Water is civilisation. Water is where we live. Water is here and water is now. Get the message. Get it in a bottle. Water in a bottle makes two billion pounds a year in the UK alone. Water in a bottle costs the consumer roughly ten thousand times the amount that the same measure of tapwater costs him. Water is everything we imagine at Pure. The Pure imagination. That’s my theme today. So here’s my question. How, precisely, do we bottle the imagination?

  One of the shaveys shifted in his chair as if to answer. Keith held a hand up to quieten him.

  Ten years ago, Keith said, there were twenty-eight countries in the world with not enough water. In less than twenty years’ time, the number of countries which don’t have enough water will have doubled. In less than twenty years’ time, over eight hundred million people – that’s right, eight hundred million people, people very much, in their way, exactly like you or me – will be living without access to enough water. Lights, please. Thanks.

  The picture of our town on the screen paled. Keith was sitting up on the desk at the end of the room with his legs crossed like a Buddha. He looked down at us all. Though I’d only been working here for half a week I’d heard rumours about these meetings. Becky on Reception had told me about them. The phones had to be muted for them. One of the High School girls had mentioned them, how weird it was when the Tuesday Creative Lecture was over and everybody came out as if hypnotised, or wounded. That’s what she called it, the Tuesday Creative Lecture. Keith, she’d told me, flew over for these meetings specially. He flew in every Monday, then out again after every Tuesday Creative Lecture.

  I felt suddenly sick. I’d been late for the Tuesday Creative Lecture. Maybe the boss of bosses would be late for his outward flight because of me.

  That’s why Pure’s here, Keith was saying. That’s why Pure is branching into water subsidiary, that’s why Pure is investing such a wealth of international finance and promise into such a small locality. Team, fresh water. The world is running out of it. Forty per cent of all the world’s freshwater rivers and streams are now too polluted for human use or consumption. Think about what that really means.

  He drew himself up, his back straight, suddenly silent. Everyone in the room sat forward, pencils and Palm Pilots at the ready. I felt myself sitting forward too. I didn’t know why. He held his hands up in the air for a moment, as if to stop time. Then he spoke.

  What it means is that water is the perfect commodity. Because water is running out. There will never, ever, ever again, not be an urgent need for water. So how will we do it? Question one. How will we bottle our Highland oil? Question two. What will we call it? Question three. What shape will its bottles be? Question four. What will it say on the labels on the bottles? And finally, question five. Will it say anything on the lids of the bottles? Answers, team! Answers!

  All round me there was frantic scribbling down, there were little clickings of buttons. Keith got down off the desk. He began to walk back and fore at the top of the room.

  What you come up with, he said, will need to indicate that water really matters to us. It will need to let us know that human beings aren’t ruled by nature, that on the contrary, they ARE nature. That’s good. They ARE nature. It will need to be about mindset. It will need not just to open minds to our product, but to suggest that our product is the most open-minded on the market. We can’t use Purely. The Alaskans use Purely. We can’t use Clearly. The Canadians use Clearly. We can’t use Highland. Our biggest rivals use Highland. But our name will need to imply all three. So come on, people. Throw me a name. I need a name. We need a name for our water. Come on. Ideas. I need to hear them. Purely. Clearly. Highland. Nature. Power. Ideas. Now. Concepts. Now.

  Keith snapped his fingers as he said each single word.

  Fluidity, a nice shavey called out next to me. Recycling. How water is smart, how water is graceful, how water, since it can change shape and form, can make us versatile –

  Good, Keith said, good, good! Keep it coming – and how we’re all actually about seventy-five per cent water. We need to suggest that water IS us. We need to suggest that water can unite us. No matter what our political or national differences.

  That’s very, very good, Keith said. Well done, Paul. Run with it.

  The whole room turned and bristled with jealousy at Paul.

  Of the first water, the one who was maybe called Brian said. Still waters run deep, a shavey called Dominic shouted from across the room. Soon the room was running pretty deep in thesaurus clichés. In deep water. Won’t hold water. Get into hot water. Head above water. Throw cold water.

  Water is about well-being, Midge said. About being well.

  Nobody heard her.

  It’s all about well-being, an unfamiliar Creative said on the other side of the room.

  I like that, Keith said. Very good point, Norm.

  I saw Midge look down, disheartened, and in that moment I saw what it was that was different about my sister now. I saw it in the turn of her head and the movement of her too-thin wrist. How had I not seen it? She was far too thin. She was really thin.

  And product package will dwell on how water makes you healthy, keeps you healthy, Dominic said.

  Maybe marketed with health-conscious products or a healthy make-yourself-over or let-yourself-relax package specifically aimed at women stroke families, Norm said. Water keeps your kids healthy.

  Good point, Norm, Keith said.

  I’d had enough.

  You could call it Och Well, I said.

  Call it – ? Keith said.

  He stared at me.

  The whole room turned and stared at me.

  I’m dead, I thought. Och well.

  You could call it Affluent, I said. That pretty much sums it up. Or maybe that sounds too like Effluent. I know. You could call it Main Stream. On the lid it could say You’re Always Safer Sticking With The Main Stream.

  The whole room was silent, and not in a good way.

  You could call it Scottish Tap, I said into the hush. That’d be good and honest. Whatever good means.

  Keith raised his eyebrows. He jutted out his chin.

  Transparency, Midge said quick. It’s not a bad route, Keith. It could be a really, really good route, no?

  A we-won’t-mess-with-you route, Paul said nodding. It’s mindset all right. And it combines honesty and nationality in
the same throw. Honest Scottishness. Honest-to-goodness goodness in a bottle.

  It takes and makes a stand, Midge said. Doesn’t it? And that’s half the bottle, I mean battle.

  Where you stand lets you know what really matters. If we suggest our bottled water takes and makes a stand, it’ll become bottled idealism, Paul said.

  Bottled identity, Midge said.

  Bottled politics, Paul said.

  I went to stand by the window where the water cooler was. I pressed the button and water bubbled out of the big plastic container into the little plastic cup. It tasted of plastic. I’m dead, I thought. That’s that. It was a relief. The only thing I was sorry about was troubling Midge. She had been sweet there, trying to save me.

  I watched a tiny bird fling itself through the air off the guttering above the Boardroom window and land on its feet on a branch of the tree over the huge Pure corporation sign at the front gate of the building. The bird’s casual expertise pleased me. I wondered if that group of people outside, gathered at the front gate under the Pure sign, had seen it land.

  They were standing there as if they were watching a play. Some were laughing. Some were gesticulating.

  It was a lad, dressed for a wedding. He was up a ladder doing some kind of maintenance on the sign. The work experience girls from the school were watching him. So was Becky from Reception, some people who looked like passers-by, and one or two other people I recognised, people Midge had introduced me to, from Pure Press and Pure Personnel.

  The nice shavey called Paul was standing beside me now at the water cooler. He nodded to me, apologetic, as he took a plastic cone and held it under the plastic tap. He looked grave. I was clearly going to be shot at dawn. Then he looked out of the window.

  Something unorthodox seems to be happening at the Pure sign, he said.

  When everybody in the Boardroom was round the window I slipped off to get my coat. I switched my computer off. I’d not yet put anything in the drawers of my desk so there was very little to take with me. I went past the empty reception, all the lights flashing like mad on the phones, and ran down the stairs and out into the sun.

  It was a beautiful day.

  The boy up the ladder at the gate was in a kilt and sporran. The kilt was a bright red tartan; the boy was black-waistcoated and had frilly cuffs, I could see the frills at his wrists as I came closer. I could see the glint of the knife in his sock. I could see the glint of the little diamond spangles on the waistcoat and the glint that came off the chain that held the sporran on. He had long dark hair winged with ringlets, like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, but cleaner. He was spray-painting, in beautiful red calligraphy, right under the Pure insignia, these words:

  DON’T BE STUPID. WATER IS A HUMAN RIGHT. SELLING IT IN ANY WAY IS MORALLY WRO

  The work experience girls were applauding and laughing. One of them was singing. Let the wind blow high, let the wind blow low. Through the streets in my kilt I’ll go. All the lassies say hello. They saw me and waved at me. I waved back. A Press person was on a mobile. The rest of Press and Personnel were crowded round looking concerned. Two security men stood listlessly at the foot of the ladder. One of them pointed towards the building; I looked up, but its windows, including the window I had myself been staring through a minute ago, were the kind you can’t see into.

  I wondered if my sister was watching me from up there. I had an urge to wave.

  NG., the boy wrote.

  The security men shook their heads at each other.

  Becky from Reception winked at me then nodded, serious-faced, at the security men. We watched the long-limbed boy sign off, with a series of arrogant and expert slants and curlicues, the final word at the bottom of his handiwork:

  IPHISOL.

  He shook the paintcan, listened to the rattle it made, thought about whether to keep it or to chuck it away, then tucked it into the pocket of his waistcoat. He took hold of the sides of the ladder, lifted his feet off the rung in one move, put them on the outsides of the downstruts and slid himself neatly to the ground. He landed on his feet and he turned round.

  My head, something happened to its insides. It was as if a storm at sea happened, but only for a moment, and only on the inside of my head. My ribcage, something definitely happened there. It was as if it unknotted itself from itself, like the hull of a ship hitting rock, giving way, and the ship that I was opened wide inside me and in came the ocean.

  He was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen in my life.

  But he looked really like a girl.

  She was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen in my life.

  you

  (Oh my God my sister is A GAY.)

  (I am not upset. I am not upset. I am not upset. I am not upset.)

  I am putting on my Stella McCartney Adidas tracksuit bottoms. I am lacing up my Nike runners. I am zipping up my Stella McCartney Adidas tracksuit top. I am going out the front door like I am a (normal) person just going out of a (normal) front door on a (normal) early summer day in the month of May and I am going for a run which is the kind of (normal) thing (normal) people do all the time.

  There. I’m running. That feels better. I can feel the road beneath my feet. There. There. There.

  (It is our mother’s fault for splitting up with our father.)

  (But if that’s true then I might also be a gay.)

  (Well obviously that’s not true then, that’s not true at all.)

  (I am definitely, definitely not a gay.)

  (I definitely like men.)

  (But so does she. So did she. She had that boyfriend, Dave, that she went out with for ages. She had that other boyfriend, Stuart. She had that one called Andrew and that weird English boyfriend, Miles or Giles who lived on Mull, and that boy Sammy, and there was one called Tony, and Nicholas, because she always had boyfriends, she had boyfriends from about the age of twelve, long before I did.)

  I am crossing at the lights. I am going to run as far as I can. I am going to run along the river, through the Islands, round by the sports tracks, past the cemetery and up towards the canal

  (is that the right way to say it, a gay? Is there a correct word for it?)

  (How do you know if you are it?)

  (Does our mother know about Anthea being it?)

  (Does our father know?)

  (It is completely natural to be a gay or a homosexual or whatever. It is totally okay in this day and age.)

  (Gay people are just the same as heterosexual people, except for the being gay, of course.)

  (They were holding hands at the front door.)

  (I should have known. She always was weird. She always was different. She always was contrary. She always did what she knew she shouldn’t.)

  (It is the fault of the Spice Girls.)

  (She chose the video of Spiceworld with Sporty Spice on the limited edition tin.)

  (She was always a bit too feminist.)

  (She was always playing that George Michael cd.)

  (She always votes for the girls on Big Brother and she voted for that transsexual the year he was on, or she, or whatever it is you’re supposed to say.)

  (She liked the Eurovision Song Contest.)

  (She still likes the Eurovision Song Contest.)

  (She liked Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)

  (But so did I. I liked it too. And it had those girls in it who were both female homosexuals and they were portrayed as very sweet, and it was okay because it was Willow, and she was clever, and we knew to like her and everything, and her friend Tara was very sweet, and I remember one episode where they kissed and their feet came off the ground and they levitated because of the kiss, and I remember that the thing to do when we talked about it at school the next day was to make sick noises.)

  Four texts on my phone. Dominic.

  WOT U UP 2?

  COMIN 2 PUB?

  GET HERE NOW.

  U R REQD HERE.

  (I hate text language. It is so demeaning.)

  (I will te
xt him when I get back from my run. I will say I left my mobile at home and didn’t get the message till later.)

  I am down to just over seven stone.

  I am doing well.

  We are really revolutionising the bottled water market in Scotland.

  Eau Caledonia. They love it as a tag. I got a raise.

  I get paid thirty-five thousand before tax.

  I can’t believe I’m earning that much money. Me!

  I am clearly doing the right thing. There is good money in water.

  (She is still insisting on calling them shaveys or whatever, and it is unfair of her to lump them all together. It is just fashion. Boys are worse followers of fashion than girls. I mean, men than women. She is wrong to do that. She is wrong )

  (they were holding hands at the front door, where any neighbour could see, and then I saw Robin Goodman lean my sister gently into the hedge, back against the branches of it, she was so gentle, and )

  (and kiss her.)

  (I should have known when she always liked songs that had I and you in them, instead of he and I, or he and she, we always knew, we used to say at college that that was the giveaway, when people preferred those songs that had the word you instead of a man or a woman, like that classic old Tracy Chapman album our mother left behind her that she was always playing before she went.)

  (I will never leave my children when I have fallen in love and am married and have had them. I will have them young, not when I am old, like the selfish generation. I would rather give up any career than not have them. I would rather give myself up. I would rather give up everything including any stupid political principle than leave children that belonged to me. Look how it ends. Thank God that feministy time of selfishness is over and we now have everything we will ever need, including a much more responsible set of values.)

  It is a lovely day to go for a run. It is not raining. It doesn’t even look like it will rain later.

  (My sister is a gay.)

  (I am not upset.) (I am fine.)

  (It’d be okay, I mean I wouldn’t mind so much, if it was someone else’s sister.)

  (It is okay. Lots of people are it. Just none that I have known personally, that’s all.)