The First Person: And Other Stories - By Ali Smith Page 0,35

a woman? when exactly do we stop being girls?) turned towards me as we walked along a busy street, backed me expertly up against the wall of a builder’s restoration of a row of old shops in the middle of London in broad daylight, and kissed me. The kiss, out of nowhere, took me by surprise. When I got home that night my fourteen-year-old self was roaming about in my house knocking into things, wild-eyed and unpredictable as a blunt-nosed foal.

It is shocking to see yourself as you haven’t been for nearly thirty years. It is also a bit embarrassing, having yourself around, watching your every move as if watching your every move is the last thing that could possibly interest anyone.

What do you reckon to the house, then? I say. Do you like it?

She barely glances round her. She shrugs.

Would you like some coffee? I ask.

She does it again, the insolent look-then-look-away. She makes insolence a thing of beauty. For a moment how good she is at it actually makes me proud and I nod.

You go girl, I say.

She looks at me as if I’m insane.

Where? she says.

Ha, I say. No, you go girl is a phrase, like a cliché. It’s from music. It means good on you, too right, that kind of thing. It’s American. It’s borrowed from black culture. It’s from later. I mean, you’re too young for it.

She makes a tch noise, almost non-existent.

I put the mug of coffee down on the table for her. She picks it up.

Use the coaster, I say.

She is looking at what’s in the mug in horror.

No, because I need it to have milk in it, she says and her accent is so where I’m from and so unadulterated that hearing her say more than four words in a row makes my chest hurt inside.

I’ve no milk, I say. I forgot you took it with milk.

Also it’s, like, the too-strong kind, she says. It’s a bit too strong for me.

She says it quite apologetically.

It’s all I’ve got in, I say.

I like the instant kinds of it, she says. The other kinds taste too much.

Yes, but instants are full of freezing agents, I say. They do all sorts of damage to your synapses –

By the time I’ve got to the word freezing and agents in this sentence her eyes have gone blank again. She pushes the cup away and put her head in her hands. I feel suddenly forlorn. I want to say: look, aren’t you amazed I ever even managed to buy a house? Don’t you like how full of books it is? You like books. You don’t have to pretend you’re not clever to me. I know you are. I’d have loved the idea of a house full of books like this when I was your age.

Was I really going to say that: when I was your age? Would I really have found myself saying that appalling phrase out loud?

There are quite a few things, though, that I do want to say to her. Concerning our mother for instance, I want to say something like : don’t worry, she’ll be okay. It’s a bad time now that’s all. She doesn’t die until you’re more than twice the age you are now.

But I can’t say that, can I?

I want to say: your exams come out fine all the way down the line. You’ll do all right at university. You’ll have a really good time. Don’t worry that you don’t get off with that boy who smells of the linoleum at Crombie Halls of Residence in the first week. You don’t have to get off with someone in Freshers’ Week, it’s not necessary, it’s not important.

I want to tell her who to trust and who not to trust; who her real good friends are and who’s going to fuck her over; who to sleep with, and who definitely not to. Definitely say yes to this person, it’s one of the best things that’s going to happen to you. And don’t be alarmed, I want to say, when you find yourself liking girls as well as boys. It’s okay. It’s good. It works out very well. Don’t even bother yourself worrying about it, not for a single afternoon, not for a single hour in a single afternoon. Don’t, by the way, vote Labour in 1997; it’s like a vote for the Tories. No, really. And when you’re twenty-two and you go for the sales job in the middle of Edinburgh and you’re backing