The First Person: And Other Stories - By Ali Smith Page 0,1

goes back to see her in later life when she’s an old whore and he’s an internationally famous movie star, and he brings her a lot of presents because he’s such a nice man and never forgets a kindness. And is the short story more like Princess Diana?

The short story like Princess Diana, she said. Right.

I sensed the two men, who were getting ready to leave the café, looking at me curiously. I held up my phone.

I’m just asking my friend what she thinks about your nymph thesis, I said.

Both men looked slightly startled. Then both men left the café without looking back.

I told her about the conversation I’d just overheard.

I was thinking of Diana because she’s a bit nymphy, I suppose, I said. I can’t think of a goddess who’s like a nymph. All the goddesses that come into my head are, like, Kali, or Sheela-Na-Gig. Or Aphrodite, she was pretty tough. All that deer-slaying. Didn’t she slay deer?

Why is the short story like a nymph, Kasia said. Sounds like a dirty joke. Ha.

Okay, I said. Come on then. Why is the short story like a nymph?

I’ll think about it, she said. It’ll give me something to do in here.

Kasia and I have been friends now for just over twenty years, which doesn’t feel at all long, though it sounds quite long. ‘Long’ and ‘short’ are relative. What was long was every single day she was spending in hospital; today was her tenth long day in one of the cancer wards, being injected with a cocktail of antibiotics and waiting for her temperature to come down and her white cell count to go up. When those two tiny personal adjustments happened in the world, then she’d be allowed to go home. Also, there was a lot of sadness round her in the ward. After ten long days the heaviness of that sadness, which might sound bearably small if you’re not a person who has to think about it or is being forced by circumstance to address it but is close to epic if you are, was considerable.

She phoned me back later that afternoon and left a message on the answerphone. I could hear the clanking hospital and the voices of other people in the ward in the recorded air around her voice.

Okay. Listen to this. It depends what you mean by ‘nymph’. So, depending. A short story is like a nymph because satyrs want to sleep with it all the time. A short story is like a nymph because both like to live on mountains and in groves and by springs and rivers and in valleys and cool grottoes. A short story is like a nymph because it likes to accompany Artemis on her travels. Not very funny yet, I know, but I’m working on it.

I heard the phone being hung up. Message received at three forty-three, my answerphone’s robot voice said. I called her back and went through the exact echo of the morning’s call to the system. She answered and before I could even say hello she said:

Listen! Listen! A short story is like a nymphomaniac because both like to sleep around – or get into lots of anthologies – but neither accepts money for the pleasure.

I laughed out loud.

Unlike the bawdy old whore, the novel, ha ha, she said. And when I was speaking to my father at lunchtime he told me you can fish for trout with a nymph. They’re a kind of fishing fly. He says there are people who carry magnifying glasses around with them all the time in case they get the chance to look at real nymphs, so as to be able to copy them even more exactly in the fishing flies they make.

I tell you, I said, the world is full of astounding things.

I know, she said. What do you reckon to the anthology joke?

Six out of ten, I said.

Rubbish then, she said. Okay. I’ll try and think of something better.

Maybe there’s mileage in the nymphs-at-your-flies thing, I said.

Ha ha, she said. But I’ll have to leave the nymph thing this afternoon and get back on the Herceptin trail.

God, I said.

I’m exhausted, she said. We’re drafting letters.

When is an anti-cancer drug not an anti-cancer drug? I said.

When people can’t afford it, she said. Ha ha.

Lots of love, I said.

You too, she said. Cup of tea?

I’ll make us one, I said. Speak soon.

I heard the phone go dead. I put my phone down and went through and switched the kettle on.