How to Be Both by Ali Smith Read Free Book Online

wall when a voice called down to me.
    I once caught a catfish, the voice said, that was so big I couldn’t land it. In fact it almost rivered me.
    I liked the word rivered so I looked up : it was a boy leaning over the top of the wall.
    I could feel from the mouth and the pull of it, hesaid, that it was a lot bigger than you from head to foot, and though you’re not that tall yourself it’s quite long for a fish, no?
    His cap was new : he was wearing a finely embroidered jacket, I saw its quality though the wall was more than 2 men high.
    So I couldn’t land it, he said. Cause it was a lot bigger than me too, and there was only me and the catfish, no one else, and I couldn’t hold it and bring it in myself. So I cut my line and I let it escape me, I had to. But it’s the best fish I’ve ever caught, that fish I didn’t catch, cause it’s a fish that will always be with me now and never be eaten, it’ll never die, that fish I’ll never land. I see you’ve done well today. Any chance you’d give me one of your hundred fish?
    Catch your own fish, I said.
    Well, I would, but you’ve taken so many it wouldn’t be fair to the river, he said.
    How did you get up there? I said.
    I climbed, he said. I’m more monkey than man. Coming up? Here.
    He leaned over the top and held out a hand but he was so far above me and his gesture so charming that I burst out laughing : I untied the smallest of the perch, separated it from its brothers and laid it in the grass.
    A piece of gold for making me laugh, I shouted up.
    I hoisted my other fish and my stick back on my shoulderand waved my hand : but when I’d got a little along the path the boy called me back.
    Can’t you throw that fish you gave me up here to me? he said. I can’t reach it from here.
    Don’t be lazy, I said. Come down and get it.
    Frightened you can’t throw a fish as well as you can catch a fish? he said.
    I’d happily throw it, but I’m not meant to misuse my hands, I said, cause I plan to earn my living by them, and throwing, as the masters say in all the books, could tire or hurt them.
    Scared you’ll miss, he said.
    You don’t know it yet, I said, but you’re besmirching an expert aim.
    Oh, an
expert
aim, he said.
    I put down my things and picked up the little perch.
    Hold still, I said.
    I will, he said.
    I aimed it. The boy turned with languor and watched both cap and fish on their way down the other side of the wall.
    There’ll be trouble now, he said. I’m supposed to keep it clean. What kind of fish was it you knocked it off with?
    A perch, I said.
    He made a face.
    Gutterfish, he said. Mudfish. Haven’t you anything tastier?
    Comedown and we’ll go to the river, I said. I’ll lend you my stick. You can catch yourself your own taste in fish. And if what you hook’s as big as the one you caught before I’ll help you.
    He looked pleased when I said this : then his face went miserable.
    Ah, I can’t, he said.
    Why not? I said.
    I’m not allowed near the river, he said. Not in these clothes.
    Take them off, I said. We’ll hide them somewhere. They’ll be fine till we get back.
    But then I worried for a moment in case I’d be expected to lose my own clothes if the boy did come down and remove his, cause I was now become my new self in the world, which involved taking strict pains to preserve what I appeared : though something in me also found this idea a good one, but in any case in the end there was no divesting of any sort, on this day at least, cause the boy called down –
    I can’t. These are clothes I have to wear. And I’ve got to go in a minute. I have to attend celebrations. It’s my birthday.
    Mine too! I said.
    Really? he said.
    Happy birthday, I said.
    And to you, he said.
    Years later he’d tell me it was my feet being bareon the path as I walked that he was most taken with, and it’d be some time, a long time, into our friendship before he’d tell me it wasn’t just cause he was in his best new clothes that he