Read The One Before the One for Free Online Page B

and Shona having to stay in and wait for a washing machine to be delivered, it’s just Lexi and I who find ourselves standing in the starkness of the Pump House Gallery in Battersea Park, staring at a square of turf.
    ‘So, by actually filming the grass growing …’
    The curator, Barnaby Speck (I always read the accompanying leaflet from start to finish) is a bald, fleshy-lipped man who gives a little jump on words he finds exciting, like ‘growing’.
    ‘… Rindblatten is saying something about the mysterious, unseen nature of time. Time not experienced by us, time of the –’ He jumps so much on this word, I see his red socks leave his shoes – ‘Other of Otherness.’
    ‘Eh?’ Next to me, Lexi screws her little nose up. ‘How do you go from a piece of grass, right?’ I nudge her in the ribs, which she reacts to with a comedy death rattle under her breath. A woman in a green beret turns round and tuts.
    ‘In short …’ Barnaby Speck clears his throat in our direction. ‘By actually witnessing the growing of the grass, Rindblatten forces us to acknowledge the events taking place in places we cannot or see, and thus expresses beautifully …’
    I am suddenly aware of Lexi’s warm, minty breath in my ear. ‘What about that one there?’
    I shoot her a sideways glance.
    ‘What one?’
    ‘The tall one with the dark hair and glasses.’ She gestures in the direction of a man near the front of the crowd, peering intently at the installation – essentially, a napkin-sized square of turf surrounded by four camera lights, entitled:
Otherness. The Other. An Objective Study of Displacement
by Jergen Rindblatten. Lexi grimaced when I read from the leaflet: ‘I smell a bollock,’ she sniffed in that left-field way she has with words. ‘But we can go if you want.’
    I crane my neck to get a proper look at the man who is lanky, wearing a cardigan and looks about twelve.
    ‘Nose too small.’
    ‘What?’ Lexi frowns. ‘What do you mean, nose too small?’
    The woman in the green beret turns round again and purses her thin, crimson lips at us. Then, thankfully, Barnaby Speck moves on from talking about the grass and we are encouraged to disperse and look at Jergen Rindblatten’s accompanying sketches on the subject of ‘Otherness', which line the wall of the sun-flooded gallery.
    ‘Can’t do a small nose; it looks like it belongs on a doll and makes mine look even bigger.’ We stand, admiring a sketch entitled,
Untitled.
‘Also, he looks about your age.’
    Lexi sighs and looks around. I study the drawing, which looks like a square to me but I’m sure it’s layered with meaning if you know how to interpret these things.
    Suddenly, Lexi gasps.
    ‘Ohmigod!’ She nudges me in the elbow. ‘I might actually have found my future husband.’
    I look to where she’s indicating, to see a lean, black guy, record bag draped across his broad chest, looking intently at the drawing next to us.
    ‘Good God, no, he’s wearing a gold chain.’
    ‘Yeah? And? He’s gorgeous! I’d ’ave him. He looks like Dizzee Rascal.’
    ‘Who the hell’s Dizzy Rasta?’
    ‘You know,’ says Lexi. ‘"Bonkers"!’
    ‘Bonkers?’
    ‘The song, “Bonkers”.’
    I roll my eyes at her. Who in their right mind would bring out a record called
Bonkers
for crying out loud. Then she starts singing:
    ‘Some people think I’m bonkers, some people think I’m mad. Some people think I’m crazy but there’s nothin’ crazy ’bout—’
    ‘Lexi!’ I grab her by her rapping arm. The tattooed arm. ‘Just concentrate on the art, will you?’
    We make our way around the gallery, which sits at the top of a spiral staircase in a tall, old pump house in the middle of Battersea Park. Outside, down below from where we’re standing, I can see two swans gliding on a lake, which glitters with hot, afternoon sun, and a young couple standing arm in arm on a wooden bridge.
    I turn my attention to another drawing, which depicts what