The First Person: And Other Stories - By Ali Smith Page 0,9

I mean. He was eleven or twelve. He never came in here before it, the father I mean, the German, and he never comes in now. And the house next to his. That’s where the girl lives who’s in debt because of the pyramid.

Egypt? the man said.

Scheme, the woman said. Not to tell tales or nothing but I was at Asda and I heard her telling someone on her mobile that she had a dream.

The man leaned on the bar.

You’re a dream, Paula, he said.

This is her dream, the woman said. Would you believe it. An angora jumper she’d bought on her credit card, listen to this, upped and left home because it was unhappy living with her. Then the jumper phoned her from the airport but because it couldn’t speak, because jumpers can’t, can they, she didn’t know what it was trying to say.

An angry jumper? the man said.

No, an angora jumper, she said. It’s a kind of wool, a warm expensive kind. And the house next to that. His daughter’s a druggie. Whenever she comes back to the village he won’t let her in the front door. First she throws stones at the living room window. Then the old bloke calls the police. The house next to that. Divorced. He had an affair. She got custody. He’s a nice guy. He works in the city. She’s a teacher. She’s got a Cinquecento.

She held up a glass, examined it against the light.

The house next to them, she said.

Uh huh? he said.

That’s my house, she said.

You’re not married, are you, Paula? the man said.

You are, the woman said. I can tell a mile off.

I’m not married, the man said. I’m as single as the day is long.

This time of year you’ll be less single, then, she said.

You what? he said.

The days being shorter and all, the woman said.

What you laughing at? the man said. What you looking at?

He was talking to me. I pretended I hadn’t heard or understood.

What’s she think she’s looking at? the man said.

Won’t be long, the woman called over to me. Sorry to keep you waiting.

No worries, I said. It’s fine.

She went through the door at the back. Have you not thawed out the scampi? she was shouting as she went.

The man stared at me. There was quite a lot of hostility in his stare. I could feel it without me even looking back properly. When the woman came through from the kitchen and put down in front of me, like a firm promise that I would definitely be fed, condiments, and a knife and fork both neatly wrapped in a napkin, he shouted over at me from his place at the bar.

You agree with me. Don’t you? You think it looks just like magic, he said. Like a magician off a TV programme when we were kids just, you know, waved his hand in the sky over all our home towns and down came the whiteness.

He started to come over; he looked like he might actually punch me if I said I disagreed. But when he reached the table I could see he was less drunk than he seemed. It was almost as if he was pretending to be more drunk than he was. He sat down on the stool across the table from me. He wasn’t much older than me. His face was crumpled, like a piece of wrapping that someone has tried to squeeze in their fist into as small a ball as possible.

I looked down at my knife and fork wrapped in the napkin. There were little cartoon sprigs of holly all over the napkin.

The man picked the HP sauce bottle up out of the arrangement of salt and pepper and mustard and vinegar sachets and sauce bottles in front of me.

You know what the H and the P stand for on a bottle of HP? he said.

Houses of Parliament, I said.

His face fell. He looked truly disappointed that I knew. I pointed to the picture on the bottle’s label. I shrugged.

You’re not from round here, he said. Didn’t think so, he said. Something about your shape of face. Don’t get me wrong, he said. It’s a nice shape of face. I’m from fifty miles from here, he said. Originally, I mean. What you drinking, then? he said.

He said it all very loudly, as if he was saying it not really to me but for the barmaid back behind the bar to hear.

How about I tell you, he said putting his foot