a story of love (ali smith)

... we were sitting up, leaning on each other in the early morning light; now that it was May the light came in just before three and soon there would be almost no dark at all. Birds sang and leaves lifted, and the door to your bedroom was always open because all the doors in the house warped in the summer. You leaned back, and began a story;
There was once, you said, someone who was in love with the sky.
Yes, I said, and I could see the sky spread out before her as she ran towards it with her arms out, a never-ending blue, travelling steadily round the world with the weather racing below it, nothing above the clouds but light. I held your hand, and closed my eyes. I imagined her saving her money so she could go up in planes and jump out of them, free-falling through the empty air. She loves the sky, I thought, because it's the one thing in her life that will always be there, that will never go away. She probably loves trees too, and puts her arms around them in the park to speak to all the years ringed into their trunks.
You were still talking. And so, in the end, you were saying, his mother gave in and saw how good it all was and stopped being ashamed and let them live together, so they got a flat in London and settled down and were happy ever after. The end.
Who settled down? I said. Who lived together? I don't get it. How could you settle down in a flat with the sky?
You looked hard at me as if I was mad.
Unless she lived in a top flat, did she? I said. And she put in dormer windows. So she could see it above her all the time.
Your mouth fell open and you looked at me as if I was speaking in a language you couldn't understand. I was frightened. I couldn't think why you were looking at me like this. But you burst out laughing. Not the sky, you said. Not the sky. There was once a man who was in love with this guy.