The First Person: And Other Stories - By Ali Smith Page 0,30
is really more important than another song because of politics, yet really, in reality, I’d prefer to wallow about in some kitschy old nonsense that feeds my delusions of grandeur?
Eh? you say.
You look astonished.
That’s how supercilious? That’s how solipsistic? I say.
I never said anything about solipsistic, you say. I don’t even know what it means. I never said super anything. You’re misunderstanding me.
You think I’m insignificant and irresponsible! I yell. Don’t you?
You’re on your feet too now. You’re shouting too. You shout something about a basket case. You shout that you’re not shallow or knowledgeless or wasteful or the kind of person who’d buy an accordion because of its brand name. Then, in a list of smarting adjectives, you tell me what I am.
What I am is out through the front door.
What I do is close it behind me with a self-righteous slam.
All the way across town, alongside the still-resonating slam of the door behind me, I have that maddening song in my head about the girl who loses her yellow basket. When I get back to the flat there’s nobody else in and I sit on the step between the kitchen and the living room and try to think up adjectives for you, adjectives I could fling at you like sharp little stones, but all I can really hear in my head is the argument Ella Fitzgerald is having with the boys in her band:
Was it green?
No no no no!
Was it red?
No no no no!
Was it blue?
No no no no!
I think I remember Ella Fitzgerald’s voice becoming more and more comically annoyed at the backing singers getting the colour wrong each time, so that by the time she sings the final string of no’s she sounds almost irate.
Then I start to wonder if I’ve remembered the order of the colours in the argument correctly.
I go over to the pile of CDs. They’re my CDs; they weren’t hard to take with me, you’re not really one for jazz. I find the right one. I look on the listings for A Tisket, A Tasket. I insert it into the machine and keep the button pressed in until it reaches track eight.
The song is a piece of blunt charm, the way it courts misery then glances away from it with a loss at the heart of it that’s not really a loss after all, or a loss that’s pretending not to be a loss, and the slight hoarseness of Ella Fitzgerald’s younger, gruffer self as she sings it is so blithe, almost as if unaware of the modulation her voice will soon be capable of when she’s older and she’s wiser. But what is it all about, in the end? What’s the mysterious basket? Who’s the mysterious little girl who steals it? Why will Ella Fitzgerald die if she doesn’t get it back? When it ends I am sitting on the step laughing at you calling me a basket-case; I am laughing so much with my arms round myself and at the same time am so near tears that the next track on the CD, the song’s near-twin, I Found My Yellow Basket, takes me by surprise.
The boys in the band who sing with Ella Fitzgerald on this second song are very gracious. They offer to cover the cost, for her, of the loss of her original basket in the other song. Oh no, you don’t have to, she tells them, I’ve got good news for you, and I realize, hearing the lightness in her voice as she sings about how now she’s on her way, feeling light and gay, what a total relief it is that there’s a song in the world where Ella Fitzgerald gets to track down that mysterious hidden basket-stealing girl and find the missing yellow basket. She sings about how happy she is. Then she sings the word now for the last time. It sounds so innocent, so like the happy peal of a bell, that I feel ashamed.
The doorbell goes.
Outside the door is a large black box. It looks expensive. It looks new. It’s so big it comes up to nearly my waist. The man who’s brought it up all the stairs is red and breathless. I sign for it and drag it inside. It’s very heavy. At first I have no idea what can be in it.
Then it dawns on me what’s in there, of course it is, with its black and white keys in the dark.
I know neither of us will have the first