How to Be Both

by Ali Smith

  But behind them, at the main door, she’d seen Helena Fisker come in.

  Most people in the school were pretty respectful of Helena Fisker.

  Helena Fisker had been reprimanded, most recently, George knew from people in art, for designing the school Christmas card. She was known for being really good at art. The picture of the robin she’d presented them with was apparently such a cute one that they’d simply let her place the order and stamped the form for the printer. It was paid for and printed up with the name of the school on the back. Five hundred had arrived from the printer in a huge box.

  When they’d opened the box they’d found, instead of the robin, a picture of a really ugly massive blank concrete wall in the sun.

  Helena Fisker, the story goes, had smiled at the Head as if she couldn’t understand the fuss when she was called to his office and made to stand on the carpet in front of his desk.

  But it’s Bethlehem, she’d said.

  Now this gang of girls was standing in front of George and filming and squealing at her with no idea that Helena Fisker was standing behind them. Helena Fisker caught George’s eye over the tops of their heads. Then Helena Fisker shrugged her eyes.

  Her doing just that knocked everything those girls were saying and doing into the land-of-not-meaning-anything-much.

  Helena Fisker reached her hand over the tops of those little girls’ heads and plucked the phone out of the main girl’s hand.

  All the girls turned round at once.

  Hi, Helena Fisker said.

  Then she told them they were a silly little bunch of wankers. Then she asked them why they were all so interested in urine and what their problem was. Then she pushed past them and held the smartphone over the bowl of the toilet that George had just flushed.

  All the girls squealed, especially the one whose phone it was.

  You can choose. Delete or drop, Helena Fisker said.

  It’s waterproof, you ethnic cow, one of the girls said.

  Did you just call me an ethnic cow? Helena Fisker said. Great. A bonus.

  Helena Fisker slammed the front of the smartphone on the edge of the toilet door. Bits of plastic flew off.

  Now we can test your phone’s waterproofing and we can test the school’s policies on racism, she was saying as George left.

  Thanks, George had said later when they were queuing up outside history.

  She had never actually spoken to Helena Fisker before.

  I liked that speech you gave in English that day, Helena Fisker said then. That story you told about the BT Tower.

  (It had been George’s turn, in the going-round-the-room order, to give a three-minute talk about empathy. She’d had no idea what to say. Then Ms Maxwell had said in front of the whole class, though in a quiet and nice way, it’s okay if you don’t want to talk today, Georgia. This had made George even more determined to do it. But when she stood up her mind went blank. So she’d said some things her mother was always saying about how near-impossible it was to inhabit anyone else’s shoes, whether they lived in Paraguay or just down the road or were even just in the next room or the next seat along from you, and ended it by telling the story of a pop singer who was having her lunch in the restaurant of the BT Tower when it was called the Post Office Tower in the 1960s and was so outraged at the way the maître d’ was bossing one of the underwaiters around that she took the bread roll she’d just been given off her side plate and threw it at the maître d’ and hit him on the back of the head.)

  That’s all she and Helena Fisker have ever said to each other.

  A couple of times since that thing in the toilets happened, though, George has caught herself thinking something unexpected. She has caught herself wondering whether those girls, that girl with the phone – if the phone memory had survived – had deleted or maybe kept the film.

  If that film still existed it meant there was a recording of her somewhere and in it she was looking straight over their heads into the eyes of Helena Fisker.

  George opens the door.

  Thought you maybe weren’t in, Helena Fisker says.

  I am, George says.

  Good, Helena Fisker says. Happy New Year.

  Henry sits up in the bed when George and Helena Fisker come into George’s room.

  Who are you? Henry says.

  I’m H, Helena Fisker says. Who are you?

  I’m Henry. What kind of a name is that? Henry says.

  It’s the initial of my first name, Helena Fisker says. The people who don’t really know me tend to call me Helena. But I know your sister. We’re friends at school. So you can call me H as well.

  It’s the same initial as my first name, Henry says. Did you bring a present?

  Henry, George says.

  She apologizes. She explains to Helena Fisker that since their mother died whenever people come to the house they generally tend to bring Henry a present, sometimes several presents.

  Don’t you get them too? Helena Fisker says.

  Not as many as he gets, George says. I think they think I’m too old for presents. Or they’re more scared of trying to give me anything.

  Did she bring a present or not? Henry says.

  Yes, Helena Fisker says. I brought you a cabbage.

  A cabbage isn’t a present, Henry says.

  It is if you’re a rabbit, Helena Fisker says.

  George laughs out loud.

  Henry, too, clearly thinks this is very funny. He curls into a laughing ball in the bedclothes.

  Your hair’s all wet, he says when he stops laughing.

  That’s what happens when you walk through the rain with no hat or hood or umbrella, Helena Fisker says.

  George takes her over to the bookcase and shows her the leak and the rain dripping every few minutes on to the cover of the top book on the pile.

  At some point, George says, this roof will stave in.

  Cool, Helena Fisker says. You’ll be able to look directly out at the constellations.

  There’ll be nothing between me and them, George says.

  Except the occasional police helicopter, Helena Fisker says. The great lawnmower in the sky.

  George laughs.

  Two seconds after she does she realizes something and she is surprised.

  What she realizes is that she has laughed.

  In fact she has laughed twice, once at the rabbit joke and once at the lawnmower.

  The thought of it pretty much surprises her into another laugh, this time inside herself.

  That makes it three times since September that George has laughed in an undeniable present tense.

  The first time H comes to the house again after New Year she hands George the A4 envelope she’s carrying under her arm. She takes off her jacket and hangs it up in the hall.

  George holds the envelope back out for her to take.

  It’s for you, H says.

  What is it? George says.

  I brought you some stars, H says. I printed them up off the net.

  George opens it. Inside there’s a photograph on thick paper. It’s summer in the picture. Two women (both young, both between girl and woman) are walking along a road together past some shops in a very sunny-looking place. Is it now or is it in the past? One of them is yellow-haired and one of them is darker. The yellow-haired one, the smaller of the two, is looking at something off camera, off to her left. She’s wearing a gold and orange top. The dark-haired taller girl is wearing a short blue dress with a stripe round the edging of it. She is in the middle of turning to look at the other. There’s a breeze, so her hand has gone up to hold her hair back off her face. The yellow-haired one looks preoccupied, intent. The dark one looks as if something that’s been said has struck her and she’s about to say a yes.

  Who are they? George says.

  French, H says. From the 1960s. I was telling my mother about your sixties kick and I told her that story, the one you told in Maxwell’s class about the BT Tower and she wanted to know which singer it was and then she
started looking up singers she’d liked, especially ones her mother’d liked, and she got annoyed that I didn’t know any of them and made me look them all up on YouTube. Then, when I did, I thought this one (she points at the blonde one) looked a bit like you.

  Really? George says.

  My mother says they were both huge stars, H says. Not together, separate stars. They both had huge careers and changed the music industry in France. My mother went on and on about it. Actually she went off on a tangent, I told her about your mother at one point and she went all (H starts doing a lightly French accent) it is not fair for your friend, she is not going to get the important boredoms and mournings and melancholies that are her due and are owing to her just from being the age that she is, for now it will be interrupted by real mournings and real melancholies, anyway then I thought I’d bring the picture round to get away from her going on about it, then I thought I could ask you if you want to come out to the car park with me.

  A car park? George says.

  The multi-storey, H says. Want to come?

  Now? George says.

  I guarantee it’ll be really boring, H says.

  George looks out of the window. H’s bike is leaning against the wall outside. Her own bike is in the shed still with last summer’s puncture. In her head she can see the tyre useless in the dark, the bike all lopsided against the gardening stuff.

  Okay, she says.

  They walk towards town with H wheeling her bike between them. When they get to the multi-storey George goes towards the lift door but H puts a finger to her mouth then points at the glass-walled security cubicle. There’s a man in a uniform in it with what looks like a newspaper for a head. He’s asleep under it. H points at the fire doors that lead to the stairs. She opens one of the doors with great care. It’s heavy. George props it with her foot. When they’ve both squeezed through, H eases it closed.

  It’s a Monday night in February so there aren’t many cars. There’s only one solitary four-wheel drive parked up on the top deck, which is the roof of the car park and is open air, open to the sky, its concrete flooring wet from the rain and shining under the car park lights.

  George and H lean as far over the top deck wall as they can (they make them this high so it’ll be less inviting to suicides, H says). They look down at the roofs of their city, the streets near-empty, shining too after the rain. An occasional car passes below. Nobody much is out.

  This is what the town will look like when I’m dead too, George thinks. And if I were to jump, right now? Nothing about it would change. They would just clean up whatever mess I’d make and then the next night it would rain or not rain, the street surface would be shiny or matt, the occasional car would pass below and on the busy days the traffic would queue up down there to park in here so people could go to the shops, this deck would fill with cars then later it’d empty of cars, and the months would pass one after the other, February coming round again, and again, and again, February after February after February, and this historic city would carry on being its historic self regardless.

  She stops thinking it because H has fetched, by herself, by dragging it up the steps in the stairwell, the shopping trolley they passed on the way up which someone’d abandoned at the lift doors on the floor below.

  It’s quite a new trolley. It crosses the concrete without too much noise.

  Here, H says. Hold it steady for me.

  George holds it still while H climbs into it, no, not so much climbs as vaults. All she has to do is take hold of the side and flick herself into the air and she’s in. It is pretty impressive.

  How’s your chariot-driving? she says.

  Put it this way, George says. There’s only one car up here and if I push you, no matter what direction I intend to push you in, you’ll hit it. And if you’re fortunate enough not to hit it –

  She points at the steep entry and exit slopes that dip in real suddenness down to the next floor.

  Ski-jump, H says. The ultimate challenge.

  She glances above her head at where the security camera is. Then she jumps out of the trolley as easily as she jumped in.

  Right, she says. You first.

  She nods at George then nods towards the trolley.

  No way, George says.

  Go on, H says. Trust me.

  No, George says.

  We won’t do the slope, H says. I promise. I’ll be careful. I think we’ve time for one. If there’s time for two and he stays asleep and no one comes up I’ll get you to do me too.

  She holds the trolley steady.

  She’s waiting.

  There’s nowhere for a foothold so George has to balance herself on the sides of it and sort of roll into it and turn herself the right way up again

  (ouch).

  Ready? H says.

  George nods. She braces herself against the sides of the trolley and equally as much against the fact that she isn’t the kind of person who usually does something like this.

  Want me to keep hold of it all the way across or just to push it really hard then let it go? H says.

  The latter, George hears herself say.

  She is quite surprised at herself.

  Latter. Fortunate. You use words, H says, that I never hear anyone else using ever. You’re wild.

  Literally, George says inside the cage of the trolley.

  Latter. Fortunate. Literally. Here goes, H says.

  H swings the trolley round so George is facing the expanse of the car park roof. She angles it away from the exit slopes. The next thing George knows is the way she’s forced backwards by a forward shove so strong that for a moment it’s like she’s going in two directions at once.

  Later, back at home, George goes downstairs to make coffee and leaves Henry in her room talking to H.

  Yeah, that’s her, H is saying. The heroine of the Anger Games.

  It’s Hunger Games, Henry says.

  Catnip, H says.

  Her name’s not Catnip, Henry says.

  By the time she gets back upstairs Henry and H are engaged in a kind of verbal ping-pong.

  Henry : As blind as?

  H : Houses.

  (Henry laughs.)

  Henry : As safe as?

  H : A bell.

  Henry : As bold as?

  H : A cucumber.

  (Henry rolls about on the floor laughing at the word cucumber.)

  H : Okay. Switch!

  Henry : Switch!

  H : As keen as?

  Henry : A cucumber.

  H : As pleased as?

  Henry : A cucumber.

  H : As deaf as?

  Henry : A cucumber.

  H : You can’t just keep saying cucumber.

  Henry : I can if I want.

  H : Well, okay. Fair enough. But if you can, I can too.

  Henry : Okay.

  H : Cucumber.

  Henry : Cucumber what?

  H : I’m just playing it your way. Cucumber.

  Henry : No, play it properly. As what as a what?

  H : As cucumber as … a … cu–

  Henry : Play it properly!

  H : Likewise, Henry. Like plus wise.

  When H goes home at eleven George literally feels it, the house become duller, as if all the light in it has stalled in the dim part that happens before a lightbulb has properly warmed up. The house becomes as blind as a house, as deaf as a house, as dry as a house, as hard as a house. George does all the things you’re meant to do before bed. She washes, she brushes her teeth, she takes off the clothes she’s been wearing in the daytime and puts on the clothes you’re meant to wear at night.

  But in bed, instead of the usual jangling nothing in her head, she thinks about how H has a mother who is French.

  She thinks about how H’s father is from Karachi and Copenhagen and how, H says, according to her father, it is actually perfectly possible to be from the north and the south and the east and the west all at once.

  She thinks this is maybe where H gets her eye
s from.

  She thinks about the picture of the two French singers on her desk. She thinks about how she might be said to resemble a French girl singer from the 1960s.

  She will put that picture up by itself, give it a whole wall like she’s done with the poster her mother bought her of the film actress when they went to the museum in Ferrara and saw the exhibition about the director her mother liked who always used this actress in his films.

  She thinks about how she’s never cycled two on a bike before, where one person does the cycling by standing on the pedals and the other person sits on the seat and holds on to her at the waist but loosely enough so that she can continue to move quite freely up and down.

  She thinks about how polite H was when she apologized to the security man at the car park. In the end he had seemed rather charmed even as he’d threatened them with the police.

  Finally she lets herself think about how it feels:

  to be so frightened that you almost can’t breathe

  to speed so fast and be so completely out of control

  to know the meaning of helpless

  to spin across a shining space knowing any moment you might end up hurt, but likewise, all the same, like plus wise you just might not.

  Then she wakes up and for once it’s morning and she has slept right through without any of the usual waking up.

  The next time H comes to the house George isn’t expecting her and is in her mother’s study. She has sneaked in there where she’s not meant to be and is sitting at the desk with the big dictionary open looking to see if LIA, without the R, happens to be a word in its own right.

  (It doesn’t.)

  She looks at the list of words that begin with LIA. She imagines her mother in the dock in a courtroom. Yes, your honour, I did write the word above his head, but I wasn’t writing the word you imagine. I was writing the word LIANA and a liana, as I’m sure you know your honour, is a twisting woody tropical plant which can hold the weight of a man swinging through the trees, familiar to us for instance from the Tarzan films of my youth. From this it should be easy to deduce that the word I was writing would have been meant finally as a compliment.

  Or

  Yes, your honour, but it was going to be the word LIATRIS, which your honour may or may not already know is a plant but can also mean a blazing star, from which it should be easy to deduce etc.