The First Person: And Other Stories - By Ali Smith Page 0,16

work, not just because he woke late, but because he goes and stands out on the roof for several minutes then leaves home later than usual. That evening he takes a taxi, but though he’s home half an hour early and goes straight out on to the roof, it’s raining, and it’s noticeably cold, much colder than yesterday.

There’s no way a child would climb a tree in such weather. The tree would be too slippery. There’d be no point in sitting in a tree in the rain.

The leaves are nearly out on these trees. It’ll soon be summer. The ends of their branches against the grey sky look like they’re swollen, or lit, or like they’ve been painted with luminous paint.

It doesn’t look like it will brighten. It doesn’t look like anything is going to happen tonight.

He decides he’ll wait out there on the roof for a little while longer, just in case.

The third person is another pair of eyes. The third person is a presentiment of God. The third person is a way to tell the story. The third person is a revitalisation of the dead.

It’s a theatre of living people. It’s a miniature innocent thief. It’s thousands of boots that are made out of glass. It’s a total mystery.

It’s a weapon that’s shaped like a tool.

It comes out of nowhere. It just happens.

It’s a box for the endless music that’s there between people, waiting to be played.

fidelio and bess

A young woman is ironing in a kitchen in a prison. But she’s not a prisoner, no. Her father’s the chief gaoler; she just lives here. A young man comes into the kitchen and tells her he’s decided that he and she are going to marry. I’ve chosen you, he says. She is desultory with him. She suggests to the audience that he’s a bit of a fool. Then she sings a song to herself. It’s Fidelio I’ve chosen, it’s Fidelio I’m in love with, she sings. It’s Fidelio who’s in love with me. It’s Fidelio I want to wake up next to every morning.

Her father comes home. Then, a moment later, so does Fidelio himself, who looks suspiciously like a girl dressed as a boy, and who happens to be wreathed in chains. Not that Fidelio’s a prisoner, no. Apparently the chains have been being repaired by a blacksmith (whom we never see), and Fidelio, the girl’s father’s assistant, has brought the mended chains back to the gaol.

But it seems that Fidelio isn’t much interested in marrying the boss’s daughter. Fidelio, instead, is unnaturally keen to meet a mysterious prisoner who’s being kept in the deepest, darkest underground cell in the prison. This particular prisoner has been down there for two years and is receiving almost no food or water any more. This is on the prison governor’s orders; the prison governor wants him starved to death. He’s clearly a man who’s done great wrong, Fidelio says, fishing for information – or made great enemies, which is pretty much the same thing, the gaoler says, leaning magnanimously back in his kitchen chair. Money, he says. It’s the answer to everything. The girl looks at Fidelio. Don’t let him see that dying prisoner, the girl says. He couldn’t stand it, he’s just a boy, he’s such a gentle boy. Don’t subject him to such a cruel sight. On the contrary, Fidelio says. Let me see him. I’m brave enough and I’m strong enough.

But then the prison governor announces to the gaoler, in private, that he has just decided to have this prisoner killed. I’m not murdering him, the gaoler says when the governor tells him to. Okay, I’ll do it myself, the prison governor says. I’ll take pleasure in it. And I’ll give you a bag of gold if you go and dig a grave for him in the old well down there in his cell.

It’s agreed. In the next Act, the gaoler will take the boy Fidelio down to the deep dungeon and they’ll dig the grave for the man who, we’ve begun to gather, is Fidelio’s imprisoned husband. Meanwhile, as the First Act draws to a close, Fidelio has somehow managed to get all the other prisoners in the place released out of the dark of their cells into the weak spring sun of the prison yard for a little while.

They stagger out into the light. They stand about, ragged, dazed, heartbreakingly hopeful. They’re like a false resurrection. They look up at the sunlight. Summer time, they sing,