The Whole Story and Other Stories by Ali Smith Read Free Book Online

It rains and rains. There are lots of shots of the TV people and the woman whose mother’s garden it is, sheltering under a big old tree. They decide the tree is diseased. In the next shower break they saw through the tree with chainsaws and dig up its roots with a JCB. By the end of the programme the TV people are excited, hiding behind a new pagoda as the woman brings her mother through and shows her the garden, which looks like a modern cemetery. She looks round, bewildered. When the TV people jump out and surprise her she bursts into tears. I can’t believe it’s really you, she says. I can’t believe it’s really them. There’s a montage of shots of before, during and after. Champagne is opened. The TV people affectionately jostle the woman, the husband and the mother. The mother is still shaking her head, wiping her eyes and staring at the TV people.
    The programme finishes. I go through to the kitchen to look at the clock in case the time on the video is wrong.
    Two. I phone the restaurant. They tell me I owe them £22.50.
    Three. I walk round to the restaurant and pay for the food which I take home and put, still in its bag, in the off oven.
    Four. I try your mobile. It passes me through to the answering service. A recording tells me I can leave a message. I leave you a message in which I know I sound slightly high-pitched and strange. At the end the recorded voice tells me I can re-record my message if I press three. I press three and delete my message. I switch the television back on and lie down on the couch again. Firefighters are at risk from there being too few firefighters. A commercial for Special K. Snooker. A woman saying to a man, I’m sorry, Luke, I really am. A footballer is appealing against a ban for using steroids. The answer is Gormenghast. An old EastEnders in which everyone looks younger and the clothes look dated. Of one hundred people who were asked to name a kind of animal featured in children’s stories, no one has answered elephant; a man’s family loses a life when he answers elephant. A cartoon. A football match between someone and Brazil. A photograph of a bridge in a village a hundred years ago, a voiceover saying, in those days there were no cars in my grandmother’s village. A boyband. A commercial for Kalms. An old Star Trek. A baseball team wants to change the name of its playing field. The weather tonight (clear). Heart-shaped bakeware for sale. An old Coronation Street in which everyone looks younger and the clothes look dated. Jerry Springer saying to an old man with one leg, so you met her in a convenience store? A commercial for digital TV. A: Morecambe and Wise, B: Mulder and Scully or C: Bonnie and Clyde. A glowing brain and a voiceover saying, I think there really is no inner conscious self. All we are is a machine built by genes. An idea can affect your mind like a germ, a parasite. We are the creations of our genes and our memes. I begin at the beginning of the channels again and it is like watching thrown-away rubbish come bobbing in towards me on a tide, stuff that has floated in from all over the world made of substances that will never decompose.
    Five. I switch the television off. I go through to the kitchen and try your mobile. The voice tells me to leave you a message. I leave a steady-sounding message saying I hope you’re all right and asking you to call me.
    Six. I go upstairs and look out the front window. I come downstairs and try your mobile again. The voice tells me to leave you a message. I leave one which sounds much less steady than the last and regret not deleting it as soon as I’ve put the phone down. I get my own mobile out and text you. WHR R U? XXX. I press send. Message fails. I press send again. Message fails again. I phone 453 and an automaton tells me I have 6p left on my phonecard.
    Seven. I open the front door. I stand in the middle of the road and check. I walk along a little so I can see all the way to the corner. I walk to the corner