The Whole Story and Other Stories

by Ali Smith

  Violet blinked awake. It wasn’t her daughter here in the chair today, it was that girl. She had been here all afternoon. She was young enough to curl her legs right under her in the chair, like a cat that lived here. Violet had no idea why she was here. She had been to visit many times but Violet didn’t even know her name.

  The girl saw Violet watching her. She uncurled her legs. She sat up.

  You ever been there? Violet said.

  The girl didn’t understand.

  I said Canada, Violet said louder. You ever been to Canada?

  The girl shook her head.

  Not been to the place with the falls? Violet said. A rich girl like you that could go anywhere she wanted in the world?

  The girl smiled.

  Oh I’m telling you. The noise off those falls is louder than anything. You can hear them from miles away. Miles away we were and we heard them. When we were stood right on the edge I couldn’t hear a thing. So I can say I saw a wonder of the world. And I can also say I heard a wonder of the world. How many people are there can say that then? Out of all the millions of people there are in the world. Nineteen fifty-three. They had a place for the dancing. You know?

  The girl nodded.

  I could have been a different person, Violet said. The other side of the world.

  The girl’s mouth opened and made the shape of a yes.

  You should go, Violet said.

  The girl nodded and piled the plates and cups together on the tray.

  No, I don’t mean go now, I mean go there, go to Canada, that place, what’s it called? Violet said.

  The girl smiled and looked at her watch. She lifted the tray and all the things slid together to one side. She was no good at knowing what to do with a tray. Violet watched the things silently clatter as they hit into one another but all there was was the noise they were making upstairs, the noise air could make coming out of an old leather lung, noise in the shape of a tune that shook the heart. Was it leather the bag was made of on bagpipes? She didn’t know. It was tough, anyway. It could take a lot. They were playing somewhere close, overhead, directly above in the bedroom maybe or maybe up in the loft with all the photographs in the boxes and the piled-up stuff Violet wouldn’t ever see again. They could kick it back to make room for themselves if they liked. They could make any mess they wanted. Violet didn’t mind.

  That girl had come back into the living room again. She was pulling on her jumper. Her time at Violet’s house was up.

  My daughter’s name is Jean, Violet said. I named her after Jean Simmons. You won’t have heard of Jean Simmons.

  The girl’s ponytail reappeared out of the top of her jumper.

  She was an actress, Jean Simmons, Violet said.

  The girl said something. She rummaged about in the pocket of her jacket and brought out something. It was a little book. It was the size of her hand. She flipped it open in the middle. Its pages were blank. She fished about in her other pocket for a pen and wrote something down and showed it to Violet. Violet took the book and held it up close to her eyes. The girl had written the place she was from. Violet had known the insides of a lot of the houses there. She had cleaned for people who had money. They would all be different people in them now.

  The place I just told you about, Violet said. I can’t remember the name.

  The girl took the book back and wrote something down again. Violet squinted at it; under the word Chelsea it said: Canada. Violet pushed the book away in the girl’s hand.

  No, she said. The place, the town where the water is. I can’t remember the name.

  The girl wrote something else. She showed Violet the page, two more words with a question mark after them. Niagara Falls ?

  That’s it, Violet said. That’s it. Niagara. Right on the edge and all that water. Smooth on the top like simmering and then it all falls away. It’ll be the same to this day. When you see it you can’t believe it, that people went over that edge in a barrel and survived, or fell in and were still living when they reached the bottom, but they did and they were, some of them. Not all of them. Now, she said. Listen. She took hold of the girl by the arm because the girl had looked at her watch again.

  What, the girl’s mouth said, or who, or wait.

  Violet sat herself up as straight as she could. She coughed. She swallowed. She cleared her throat. She waited for where her boys up above would get back to the start of their nimble lament again. She tapped her foot to count herself in and she sang the song to the rich girl.

  Chelsea’s friend Amanda had appeared to Chelsea in a dream in the middle of the night, wearing no clothes. It was not the only dream Chelsea had had like this. She walked along the leafy white-housed roads (Chelsea lived in Chelsea) and thought hard of other things. She thought about aerodynamics. She thought about the contents of nitrogen and oxygen in air. She thought about how Mrs Waterman shouted all the time, like she was shouting across a ravine. She thought how it was spring on the other side of the world, winter was finished over there and just about to start here in this unnatural warm. It was far too warm for this time of year. She thought about what would happen if global warming continued destabilizing the climate. She thought about the pond in the middle of Hyde Park. She thought about how microbes breathe in water. She thought about how Amanda was a microbiologist. Once she had sent Chelsea a text message from the middle of a river saying AM STNDN IN MDDLE OF TAY WEARING FULL BIOHZARD SUIT FRM HD TO TOE!! LV TO Y FRM ME + MANY LIFEFORMS. That was last year, when Amanda was still here. With no clothes on Amanda was sitting crosslegged on her futon and looking straight at Chelsea. Chelsea had woken up in the middle of the night wet, saying the word no. Troposphere tropopause ozone layer stratosphere, she thought as she pushed the door of the deli open. The deli was a very good one. It had an excellent reputation. Stratopause mesosphere mesopause thermospere aurora. The atmosphere had a structure. Chelsea knew the correct names for its levels.

  A lot of men in kilts were in the deli queueing behind Chelsea. When she left the deli, they left too. They were right behind her. She stopped in the middle of the pavement and turned round. They brayed their noise right at her. She laughed politely. They looked mud-spattered, they were grandly dressed, yet they looked as though they’d been sleeping rough.

  She checked her purse for change. She put a couple of pounds down on the pavement by the big-buckled shoe of one of the men and signalled thank you. He ignored it. He more than ignored it; he turned his beard up at it. He was offended. Maybe they were more official than they seemed. Possibly they were something to do with the V&A.

  But they marched squealing and wailing straight past the doors of the museum and they followed her all along the Brompton Road. She began to jog a little. She started to run. She dodged tourists and she crossed the road dodging the fast-coming cars. She ducked into Harrods. The doorman held the door open. They wouldn’t be allowed. But in they came, still following her, still making the awful noise. No security person did anything to help. They followed her through the Food Halls. They followed her through Jewellery. She doubled back and so did they; they crowded up the escalator behind her. She faced forward, innocent, staring straight ahead with one hand on the moving handbelt. But they were there squeeing and squawing and baying and bawing and heeing and hawing through Books then Toys then Leather Goods. They were following her down the stairs and out of the shop as if she were their bandmaster. They strutted behind her into Knightsbridge tube station where she lost them by ducking through the luggage gate.

  It was the airport train. She sat in the first seat she came to. She held her breath. They would still be fumbling about at the top for change for the ticket machines, trying to squeeze themselves and their uniforms and instruments through the automatic ticket barriers. The train left. A man opposite was reading his newspaper. A woman next to him stared unfocussed at nothing. Chelsea opened the box to check the sushi was still all right. She shut the box and she shut her eyes. The train ran on to the next stop and the doors opened and
she heard the brazen yelp of them coming from the carriage behind or ahead of her, and the doors closed. The man read his paper as if nothing was happening. The woman stared ahead at nothing. Another woman stared ahead at nothing. A woman along the carriage read a paper. Another read a book. A couple of people stood swaying with the train by the door. Two tourists in shorts leaned on a rucksack. Chelsea looked at the filthy floor. It had grey-white specks in its linoleum, like a fake starry sky beneath her feet. At every stop the doors opened, people got off and other people got on and the noise of them behind or ahead of her echoed beyond the train out into the network of tunnels.

  They played the same tune over and over out to Heathrow then back and after that they followed Chelsea off the tube and up the road still playing it.

  Would any of you like a cup of coffee or tea yet? Chelsea said again some hours later.

  The pipers were standing playing in a circle round the coffee table in the lounge. This was where they’d been standing since they’d battered their way through the front door. The door was still flung open. Their chests rose and fell as they took in breath and expended it. They breathed their different rhythms, all playing the same tune. The tartan-webbed bits of the pipes, resting against their shoulders, stuck out like branches. It was as if a copse of lopsided breathing trees had grown from nowhere out of the floor of her mother’s flat. Talking to them was as pointless as talking to trees. Can I get you anything? Chelsea had asked. Are you planning on staying long? Where else have you played? Have any of you been travelling? Have any of you been to Australia? I was there recently, I spent some time in Melbourne, do any of you know Melbourne?

  The men had ignored her like they were ignoring her now. Oh for fuck sake, Chelsea thought. She was mildly fearful that they might all do something unpleasant that would foul the carpet and the walls and she’d have to clean up after them. But she was a polite person so what she said out loud was: I also have several kinds of herbal tea. Or I could open a bottle of wine. Can I get anyone anything to eat?

  They looked anywhere but at her. They looked, if anything, contemptuous. Their cheeks filled with air and gradually emptied and filled again. Every breath went into the pipes which more and more resembled something alive, long-snouted and implacable with three legs in the air as if in a butcher’s shed strung up for slaughter; if left to sit by themselves on the floor, she knew, they would scuttle about blind and panicking, horrifyingly uneven, asphyxiating like sea creatures in the wrong element.

  She pushed the front door shut; its hinges were warped from the forced entry. She went to the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea. She poked at the sushi, still in its box. She had no appetite. Outside it was raining and the dark came early. She stood in the kitchen, leaned on the breakfast bar and tried to read a book. But she couldn’t concentrate; the noise they were making was monstrous. She switched the radio on but the noise was too loud for it. She switched it off again. She switched the television on and used text to get subtitles, but subtitles were only available on channels she didn’t want to watch. She switched it off again.

  She went through to the lounge.

  Please stop, she said.

  The pipers carried on breathing hard.

  You bastards, she said. Get out of my mother’s house.

  They puffed. They blew. They avoided her eye. Their avoidance of it was scornful.

  She thought about phoning social services and asking them what to do when a lot of poor-looking people from another country took up residence in your property. She didn’t know which department to ask for. Instead she phoned her mother who was staying in a hotel in Helsinki.

  What? her mother said.

  I can hardly hear you, Chelsea said.

  You woke me, her mother said. Time, for God’s sake. What do you want?

  What? Chelsea said.

  What? her mother said. Poor connection. I can hardly hear you.

  You’ll have to speak up, Chelsea said.

  Was there anything? her mother said.

  Chelsea held the phone away from her in the air, angled towards the lounge where the noise was. She held it there for ten seconds then she put the phone to her ear again.

  Hello? her mother said. Hello hello hello hello?

  Hello? Chelsea said into the receiver.

  I said, was there anything you actually wanted? her mother said.

  Never mind, Chelsea said.

  What? her mother said.

  It’s okay, Chelsea said.

  Things are fine here, her mother said. I’ll let you know if I need anything. Make sure you pay the floor-polisher bill, it’s £163, take it out of the cash. And your father’s suits need to be picked up from Arcadia and so do my things, there are seven different things altogether of mine there and could you check with him how many of his suits? And could you ask Maria to clear out the guttering?

  Okay, Chelsea said. She had no real idea what her mother was saying. It was probably about the dry cleaning, which she had already collected. Lots of love, her mother said inaudibly from her hotel in Finland. Bye, Chelsea said from the flat in London. She hung up. She lifted the receiver and dialled and pushed the phone as close to her ear as she could and put her finger hard into the hole of her other ear and she could hear that thousands of miles away the phone was ringing then the voice was on the answerphone, no distance away. The message was merry. It made Chelsea feel worse. She listened to it all the way to its end, listened to the nothing she was leaving in the space allotted for her own message and then hung up the phone again.

  She went through and sat on the couch. The tune they were playing grew on you. It was angry but it was loving. It was boisterous and gentle. It was full of loss and hope.

  Chelsea noticed that their naked knees beneath their kilts were massive. Their hands were red-raw from playing. The one nearest her had perspiration running down his face. They all did. It must be hard work, putting every breath into playing those things and playing them endlessly, wearing those great fur hats and heavy-looking jackets in a centrally-heated room.

  When the pipers reached the end again, Chelsea gave in. She applauded.

  Bravo, she said.

  The man nearest Chelsea almost smiled. The pipers signalled to each other over her head with nods and winks. They began the noise again at the beginning.

  In the middle of the night they were sitting all round her on the couch, on the arms of the couch, on the coffee table, on the chairs, on the floor. The working day was over. One of them was singing. Though it was harder to tell now that they had their bearskin hats off, she thought he might be the one who had seemed most disdainful earlier. If my true love she’ll not come, he sang. Then I’ll surely find another.

  It was a sad song about a wild time on a mountain. They all joined in at the chorus. At the end they cheered and clapped and clinked their glasses. The man with the beard, sitting next to Chelsea, started to sing. His face was deep red from working and drinking. He sang about how his sweetheart had promised him true, how he would lie down and die for her, so pretty she was, with her dark blue eyes and her face the fairest the sun had ever shone on.

  The small dark wounded-looking one sang about a man meeting a girl by chance on a road. She asks him how far to the city it is and which road to take and out of courtesy, and because the girl is so lovely, he goes out of his way and accompanies her. When they can see the spires of the city in the distance she thanks him. He gives her a gold pin from his coat and kisses her, and she’s gone. She appeared like an angel in feature and form as she walked by my side, he sang.

  Chelsea was broken by the song. At last she wept. At last the men looked pleased. They looked grave. They looked loyal. The one with the beard put his arm round Chelsea and gave her a wet kiss on the mouth. He smelt and tasted of whisky, or blood.

  Later, near dawn, she walked out to the park to get some air. The pipers followed her, two by two. She sat on a bench by the deserted autumn water and watched the birds rising and landing. The p
ipe band stood a little way off and played ceremoniously, one last time, as the morning came up round London.

  He was a Scottish boy and was working on a farm in Ontario. He’d signed up for the army underage at the end of the war and ended up in Canada after it and just stayed. I was nineteen. It was the land of opportunity and my mother, she saved the fare for me, she was half-Scottish herself, she had family out in Banff, her little sister, it was supposed to be a better life. But the whole time I was there I wanted my home. I was on my way home when I met him. He was sat across from me on the bus to the east, I liked the look of him, we got talking. When we got to the city we went to a picture, it was Affair With A Stranger, then he said he’d take me the next day to see a wonder of the world. We got there and you couldn’t hear a thing! The water of it was that loud. The spray was in the air, we were covered in it from just standing there, it was all in my hair. He wanted me to stay and we would have our own farm, the farms were huge over there, much bigger than here. But I was on my way home, I had my ticket and I didn’t know anything about farms, I had grown up in the city and anyway I wasn’t for marrying yet. The year after I got back home my mother died and the year after that I married a man I met at a Railways dance, he was a salesman, he sold glass.