Something to Tell You

by Hanif Kureishi

  “What do you think of the job?” I waited while he wondered about it. He didn’t seem delighted. “Wolf, you know how to take your chances. I’ve got to go away for a few days, and you can’t stay here. Give it a try.”

  “Sleeping in a bar—is that my worth?”

  “Pretty much. There are many friendly girls and dozens of scams going down. Tonight you’ll be in a better position than last night. You should leave Ajita alone.”

  He laughed mirthlessly. “Who said I was going to see her again? She and I said a lot to each other. She needed to talk, she couldn’t stop. I think I was her therapy, but there’s nothing else going on, don’t worry.” He gave me his mobile number. “When do I start?”

  I was pleased to see I’d startled him when I said “Right away.” I drew him a map, led him gently to the door and celebrated when I shut it behind him.

  That evening I went to Miriam’s for a drink. Bushy was out front, cleaning the car. “It’s working,” he said. “Relieved?”

  Wolf had successfully arrived at the Cross Keys; the Harridan had already pinched his arse and evaluated his muscles. I said I couldn’t help wondering whether it was wretched for Wolf to work in such a place. Were we humiliating him? Would it make him more pissed off? On the other hand, the Wolf I remembered was interested in most people. He’d like the girls; he’d soon be sleeping with one of them and helping the others.

  It had been Bushy’s idea. He must have been hoping that the Harridan, being keen on men, would fancy Wolf, thus releasing Bushy, who’d be able to trade at the Cross Keys without harassment from her. At the same time, Bushy would be able to “have a look” at Wolf, sussing out how bad and desperate he might turn out to be.

  “Good,” I said. “Let’s park Wolf there for a while and see what happens. He might settle down. Thanks, Bushy, for sorting this out for me. I appreciate it. Do you have any more dreams? It’s a fair exchange, I think.”

  “Bushy don’t want that,” he said, looking around as though to ensure we weren’t being observed. “Bushy want something else now.”

  “What is it?”

  “I bin getting itchy fingers. I’m going to play again,” he said. “I got to do it sober, like I got to do everything sober now, otherwise Miriam will cut me off, she already threatened. I had a group, a few years ago, but we fighted onstage. One night they all walk off and only me left there. Since then I done just the one gig. What I want…”

  “Yes?”

  “Will you come with me? I get nervous, I sweat buckets, my nose starts to run. And you know what it means if that happens.”

  “What?”

  “With diarrhoea comin’ out me nose? I’ll ’ave to get outta there. I’ll be so embarrassed I could hurt myself. But if you’re there, doctor in the house, I’ll be good.”

  If he’d been my patient, I’d have said no, it was something he had to get through himself. Since he wasn’t, I could go and see him play guitar, while drinking and talking with Henry and Miriam.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Now you’ve agreed, I’ll arrange it for definite—at the Caramel Sootie.”

  “The Kama Sutra?”

  “They know me there personally. I never have to give my name: I helped them with their heating. You can imagine, they were grateful.”

  “Can’t it be a more ordinary venue? Why not the Cross Keys?”

  “It’s dark, innit, at the Sootie? They’re screwing. They won’t be interested in me.”

  “Or your nose.”

  “That’s it. An’ what’s that Woody Allen joke Henry told me? If sex between two people is great, sex between five people is even better!”

  “But what could be worse,” I replied, “than to feel desire and have it satisfied immediately?”

  “Shrinky, don’t be alarmed up. It ain’t compulsive to screw if you don’t wanna. Meself, I wouldn’t touch some of them people with asbestos gloves on. But Henry and Miriam rate it better than sex. There’s this twenty-stone guy who lies there, and birds dressed as schoolgirls—”

  “They’ve told me about the Sootie, thanks.”

  “You’ll do it?”

  “I’ll have to ask Henry and Miriam.”

  “Let me embrace you, man.”

  He held on to me before saying, “You knows you’ll ’ave to look right, dress up an’ all. The only other way they’ll let you in is bollock naked, and I can tell you, there’s draughts in there which will cut you in two. Henry and Miriam will help you. I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “My comeback and your come-out.”

  “Indeed.”

  He tapped the side of his nose. “You an’ me, eh—pals!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Luckily, before this humiliation, I’d have a break. Ajita and I had finally decided to go away.

  The holiday was Mustaq’s birthday present to her. For a long time Ajita had wanted to go to Venice, and she asked me to accompany her. She was nervous about my response, imagining I would refuse her, that I was still angry about the way she’d deserted me after her father died. Or worse, that I was disappointed with her now she had reappeared. It was more likely, of course, that I had disappointed her.

  I could only make three nights away, but I told her I would be delighted. She and I had been talking on the phone regularly—about her brother, my work and what there was for her to see in London—but we’d met only once in the city since finding one another again. I was nervous. During the weekend we spent at Mustaq’s, I’d felt as though she were already interviewing me for a position as her lover, a situation I was incapable of fulfilling with her, or anyone, while Josephine was still on my mind. Perhaps Mustaq was keen to help Ajita find someone, for both their sakes. He often looked irritated with her.

  Mustaq’s secretary booked two rooms in the Danieli. Ajita came to the flat to pick me up on the way to the airport. There were two taxis, one for us and the other for her luggage. She made coffee while I finished packing. “You know, I’ve never seen anywhere you’ve lived as an adult,” she said. “Does it smell of toast all the time? It needs work, this flat, it’s coming apart. If you don’t do it, it’ll lose value. I’ll find a builder for you.”

  She asked permission before opening drawers, looking in cupboards, picking up things and asking where I’d got them. She wanted to see Josephine’s drawings, as well as photographs of her and of Rafi, which she looked at for a long time.

  “A happy family, all of you quite pleased to be together,” she said. “We seem to know each other, you and I, and yet we’re strangers. Who are you really, Mr. K?”

  Now the shock of our meeting again had worn off, we were easier with each other. She was less of the care-laden older woman and more as she had been at university, laughing and enthusiastic, expecting the best of the world, despite everything. I, perhaps, was less suspicious.

  Having tea in the Danieli is lovely; the view is one of the most calming I have seen. Arm in arm, Ajita and I went on boat trips, consulted guidebooks, visited the Lido and looked at Tiepolos and Tintorettos in deserted churches. It was cold; she wore a fur coat, fur hat and boots, but the sun was bright in the morning. It was the most peace I’d experienced in a long time.

  Ajita insisted on buying me new clothes, dressing me up and parading me around expensive shops, informing me my wardrobe needed “help.” We found watches with pictures, on the face, of Nixon meeting Elvis in 1970: Presley in his big collar and huge belt phase, with much bling. Ajita bought me one, as I had, as she put it, “lost the last one.” It was true I hadn’t obtained a new watch; I had the time on my phone, and in my consulting room there was a clock on the shelf above the couch. She got one for Mustaq too, more amused than I by our identical watches.

  In the afternoon, when she napped, I wrote in her room and read Tanizaki for the first time, amazed by his view of the tenacity of desire, particularly in the old, whom it can still grasp by the throat, refusing to let them go.

  Uncharacteristically, Ajita had brought some
grass with her. Not wanting to get kicked out of the hotel, we smoked out of the windows of café toilets, like schoolkids.

  “This is fun, Ajita.”

  “Isn’t it? As soon as I stopped leading a conventional life, I cheered up. At home, after a smoke, I dance like a madwoman.”

  “You mean home in Soho?”

  “Yes. My temporary new home in London. The place I’ve absconded to, like the teenage runaway I nearly became.”

  We giggled about how well we got on, saying that if we’d stayed together, we’d have married, divorced and become friends like this. I told her about Josephine, and how much there still was between us, saying that the furious disputes I had with her were the ones I preferred.

  When I asked Ajita about Mark, her husband, she said he was a good man and a decent liberal American. I guessed his days were numbered.

  She said, “Mark and I married when Mustaq was worried about me, when his music career was starting. At the same time, Mark worked hard to build up the business. He manufactured clothes in the Far East, where he spent a lot of time. I brought up the kids in a good apartment in Central Manhattan. One day they were gone. My husband was in L.A., in our other place. I knew I had to return to London, which I’d avoided for years. There was too much there—it was an unhealed wound. But I had to restart my life.”

  On the last morning, we were to have brunch in Harry’s Bar. Coming down to the lobby, Ajita cried out: it was under a foot of greasy water. It was not a tsunami; the sea was slowly rising. This happened three times a month.

  We were given galoshes and clambered out of the hotel. St. Mark’s was a trembling lake. Submerged tables and chairs stood in the street like objects in an installation, with drowned pigeons bobbing around them. Tourists squeezed past one another on trestles; shopkeepers attempted to pump out their premises. I looked out past the bursting waves towards the Lido, wondering how hobbling Byron swam so far. Even as a kid I wouldn’t have been able to do half that distance.

  We waded to Harry’s, and after we’d downed too many Bellinis, I was about to reach across the table to take her hand. I wanted to tell Ajita how easy we seemed with each other. Perhaps something might develop between us. We had one night left; couldn’t we try more kisses and conversation, and see where they took us?

  “Ajita—”

  “I don’t want to interrupt,” she said, “but I need to! I’ve been meaning to tell you—I’ve met someone.” She was laughing. “I just knew it would happen in London, my lucky city. It’s extremely early days.”

  “I see.”

  “He’s tender and makes me feel beautiful. That’s all I’m saying—certainly not his name. I can hardly say it to myself, let alone to you or my husband. It was you, though, Jamal, who gave me the confidence.”

  Disappointment winded me. She had returned and I had let her go. At least age had taught me that the pain would not last, that I would even feel relieved.

  “That’s wonderful,” I said. “What a great thing to happen.”

  “Do you really think so?” She was watching me. “We’ll see. I can’t tell you any more about it,” she said. “It might be bad luck, and I’ll make a fool of myself. Don’t think it’s only pleasure.”

  “Why not?”

  “For the first time, I’ve been talking about Dad. He’s interested, this man, in what happened to Papa.”

  “That’s good.”

  “You know, Jamal, I noticed an odd thing.”

  “Where?”

  “Mustaq’s people—who have been investigating the matter—found a press picture of Dad driving into his workplace the day he was murdered. We’ve studied it on a computer. We are almost certain he is wearing the watch you gave to Mustaq. Isn’t that strange? What happened?”

  “I wish I could remember,” I said. “I was really knocked over by the abuse story. I do recall your dad coming to my house once, on his way home, asking if I wanted a lift to yours—to see Mustaq.”

  “He touched you then?”

  “I thought he liked me. A lot of people seemed to fancy me. I didn’t know what to make of it.”

  “I know it was a long time ago, but Mustaq and I aren’t going to give up on trying to find out the truth about Dad.” She was looking at me. “You okay?”

  “It’s still difficult for me to think about that time.”

  She grasped my hand, which I’d omitted to withdraw properly, and kissed it. “It was me! I made you so unhappy, Jamal! I was unfaithful! I haven’t faced that properly.”

  “How could you know what you were doing?”

  “Can’t you forgive me?”

  “Yes.” I called the waiter. “Let’s just drink to you—to your return, and to your happiness.”

  “Thank you, darling.”

  I said, I hope without sarcasm, “Your new man doesn’t object to you going away with me?”

  “He knows what a valuable friend you are now.”

  “I can’t wait to meet him. Can we get together with him when we’re back home?”

  “I’m not sure about that. We’ll see. Don’t make me go too fast.”

  We drank a lot that day, and my hope increased that though I, the eternal vacillator, didn’t feel capable of claiming her, she might claim me, by inviting me to her room. Then her boyfriend called. Her face seemed to open, and she laughed, hurrying outside the hotel to speak to him.

  I left her to it, once more forfeiting love for a novel. Unable to concentrate, I called Rafi on his mobile. He was watching The Simpsons and was too busy to gossip. “Phone back in a year,” he suggested.

  I put my coat on and walked those lugubrious, echoing Venetian alleys, passages, bridges and archways for more than three hours.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “So?” said my sister, almost as soon as I walked in the following night, on my way to visit Wolf at the Cross Keys. Kids and corpulent neighbours drifted in and out of the kitchen as usual, cats jumped out of windows, and there was always a stinking, dribble-jawed dog farting on any chair you wanted to sit on.

  “What so?”

  “Don’t fuck with me!” she said, suddenly attempting to throw me on the ground. The two of us struggled; I fought her off—no, I didn’t, I couldn’t—and the dogs barked.

  “Bitch, maybe one day I’ll be stronger than you,” I said, getting up. I wasn’t too pleased about being attacked and thrown down by her. No one would want unnecessary contact with Miriam’s floor.

  We stood apart, out of breath, hair and laughter over her face. I was convinced she’d dislocated my shoulder again. For a while my differences with Miriam usually ended with my arm in a sling. Kids stepped around us disapprovingly, talking about eBay.

  Miriam said, “You and Ajita. Is it on?” In Venice I’d bought Miriam a black-and-white carnival mask to wear on “the scene.” She kissed me and said, “Henry and I have been frantic for it to work out between you two. He told me you were keen on her again.”

  “Who’s asking you two meddlers? You know these things take a lot of time with me.”

  “Time? When you met her, the Beatles were still together.”

  “They weren’t, actually.”

  I took off my sweater and tee-shirt. She fetched a clean blanket, spreading it out on the sofa. I lay down, and she stroked, tickled and scratched my back, something she knew I loved. I turned round and she did the same on my stomach, her nails raking my bulging stomach, not as grand as Henry’s “waterbed” but heading that way.

  I was drifting off when she said, “You staying for supper? I’m making some dhal, and Henry’s coming by later. I’ve hardly seen him. There’s a crisis: Valerie’s been insisting that he go over there all the time.”

  “He goes?”

  “I guess you don’t know this, but Lisa went into the house when there was no one home and stole a hand from her mother’s bedroom wall.”

  “A what?”

  “I dunno. A hand.”

  “What was a hand doing on the wall?”
/>   “It’s a picture, for fuck’s sake. A famous drawing by some old guy. She’s hidden it and won’t give it back. Bushy’s been trying to help Henry find it. But she’s a cunnin’ one.”

  “What,” I sighed, “is she intending to do with this hand?”

  “Apart from trying to make her family crazy, you mean? Who knows? It’s like a hostage.”

  I was mystified by the story of the stolen hand but didn’t want to hear any more about Lisa.

  I said, “Bushy wants me to come to the Sootie.”

  “I noticed you two have become pretty close, talking together outside on the street rather than in my kitchen. Still, I’ve never seen him so excited. Is it true you’re giving him the inspiration to play live again?”

  “I may be the fuel, but he has to be the rocket. I said I would have to ask you, but wouldn’t it spoil your evening to have your brother hanging around that fuckery the Sootie as, you know, a spare prick?”

  I got up and put my tee-shirt on.

  She was laughing. “Oh no, don’t worry about me and Henry. We know how to take care of ourselves. Looks like you’re going to have to come, bro.” She pinched my cheek and poked me in the stomach. “I can’t wait to see what you’ll wear. You want me to help you choose something unsuitable?”

  “No fear.”

  “Have you done anything like this before?”

  “Not even in the privacy of my own bedroom. There’s no reason why you would have noticed, but analysts and therapists always dress oddly, the men looking uncomfortable in the sort of jackets that provincial academics wear while the women resemble wealthy hippies, in bolts of velvet with flowing scarves.”

  “I can’t wait to see you at the Sootie,” she said. “I’m so going to laugh my big tits off. You’ve always been timid, a mincing little thing.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Actually, you’ve got better,” she said. “You were shy and quiet before, terrified of people, mooching in your room for days, not talking, miserable. In Karachi your nickname was Sad Sack. But you did change—when you went to live in that house in London.”