Something to Tell You

by Hanif Kureishi

  Now I was laughing, and she was shaking her head darkly. I knew that any dismissiveness of the Sootie was a sore subject for Miriam because she and Henry had recently been in deep dispute about “the scene.”

  After I had mentioned the Sootie to Karen—this was a while ago—she had gone to investigate with Miriam, wrapped in an acre of sticky plastic, looking not unlike a potato in clingfilm, as Henry put it. She had decided to make three programmes for TV about what she liked to describe, in “tab-speak,” as “the underbelly—or potbelly, more like—of British suburban sexuality”: swapping, dogging, fetishism and the like. She had already taken Miriam out to lunch to discuss it.

  Miriam was excited not only by the idea of appearing on TV, but of working as an “adviser.” Karen had suggested that Miriam would be the right person to persuade potential participants in the programme to take part. Miriam saw it as an “opportunity”; it would make her “a professional” in the media, like Henry’s friends. Miriam had even said that Karen was planning to feature me on the programme, as a “psychological expert.” “She promised you’d get paid,” Miriam had added. “What do you think?”

  “Was Karen cheerful?”

  “Oh yes. When I saw her, she was about to go out on a date with an American TV producer. I gave her great advice about what to wear.”

  But when Miriam had put Karen’s proposition to Henry as something they could do together, without any hesitation he’d trashed Karen and “her ilk,” delivering an intense monologue about “the end of privacy.” If everyone could become a celebrity, and no celebrity could control how they were seen, there could be no more heroes or villains: we were living in a democracy of the mad, of the victim and the exhibitionist. The media had become a freak show.

  “What’s the alternative?” asked Miriam, exasperated.

  Henry argued that such intimacy, such a close-up of the individual, had always been the privilege of the novel and the drama. That was how, until recently, we examined the Other, through the imagination and intelligence of an artist like Ibsen or Proust. Now everyone revealed everything but no one understood anything. Being gawped at on television would not give him pleasure, nor would it provide one watt of illumination for the public.

  Most of this Miriam characterised as “overbrainy bollocks,” but she understood Henry found her desire to work on the programmes as “vulgar and idiotic.” It wasn’t something she wanted to do alone, and it wasn’t something he could participate in.

  “I’ve never felt so different to him,” she said. “We do everything together. Until he announces he’s a superelitist, too grand to go along with a ditch pig like me. The other day he said, ‘Miriam, how did you live so long and yet manage to pick up so little?’”

  “What did you say?”

  “‘I haven’t had fucking time! I’ve had five children and more abortions than you’ve had orgies! While you people were nancying around in theatres, I was in a psychiatric hospital!’”

  “That’s no excuse,” Henry had replied blithely. “So was Sylvia Plath.”

  I said, “Henry makes some people feel ignorant. But he doesn’t want to do that to you.”

  The odd thing was that, despite Henry’s contempt for television, he wasn’t too grand, after the night at the Sootie, to refer to Bushy as his “client” while trying to set up another gig for him. “I should have been a pimp,” Henry had told me. “The perfect job for an artist. Even William Faulkner thought so. Failing that, I’ve become an agent.”

  “For Chrissakes, Henry,” I said. “What are you doing?”

  He told me that, after the Sootie gig, Bushy had had a few requests for private parties—straight and bent—which Henry was “processing.” Henry said the odd thing was how “being in management” wasn’t any less compelling than anything else he’d done. But he asked me this: “Do you think Bushy’s mental health will hold up?”

  “You mean, do I think it could be like the last days of Edith Piaf? Or that you yourself could end up in a locked cage, screaming naked?”

  “That’s what I was wondering. But he’s asked me to do this stuff. It’s not me pushing him into it. I blame you entirely. You’ve given him the confidence.”

  My guess was that Henry was becoming bored with his “retirement.” He had been with Miriam for more than a year, and had spent a lot of time sitting around in her house, talking, cooking, walking the dogs in the grounds of Syon House or by the river, just being with his new love. One evening he had plunged into the chaos of the garden, digging, pulling weeds and planting. With his new predilection for exposing his body, he wore only gloves, boxer shorts and Wellington boots.

  Whatever Henry did, of course, he’d do obsessively. To him it was all work—digging the garden, directing Hamlet in Prague—except that you didn’t get abused in the newspapers for digging the garden. “Nor do you get international recognition,” I pointed out.

  Now Miriam came to sit with me on the sofa as I watched the match, taking my arm. I told her that Henry’s fascination with Bushy’s career was because he had always been intrigued by performance. Once the sexual side of “the scene” had become exhausted—which, in my view, hadn’t taken long—Henry had become interested in the images, metaphors and ideas that the Sootie inspired in him.

  I said, “I saw Henry watching the proceedings in the Sootie, and he had his director’s face on. He presses his fingertips together and looks over the top of them with huge concentration.” I made the gesture for her. “I bet a good deal of what he’s seen will eventually turn up in the production of Don Giovanni he’s not planning. Bushy will be his Leporello. Fucking artists, that’s what they do.”

  There was some sort of trade-off with Bushy too, because in exchange for Henry helping him with his career, Bushy was clearing out and rebuilding the shed at the end of Miriam’s garden. This was where Henry was intending to work. Not only did he want to become a sculptor but, to prove it, he was determined to sell at least one of his works. This new direction had occurred to him after I’d taken Henry and Miriam to lunch with Billie and Mum.

  The two women no longer wanted to lunch at the Royal Academy, which they considered too “old women,” so we went to a place they’d read about in The Independent, at the bottom of the Portobello Road, not far from the Travel Bookshop. Billie and Mum liked the nearby market, which was less crowded during the week. The restaurant might have been expensive, but they had no interest in saving money. Spending seemed to have become proof of their existence.

  Over lunch Henry had conceived the idea that it would be a good idea for him to work seriously with clay. Billie would give him lessons, once the studio they were having built was ready.

  During and after this lunch—Mum, Henry and Billie discussing their favourite sculptors, Miriam texting—Miriam had kept her temper, despite an early setback. On arrival, she had shown off her latest tattoo, a little dove on her foot, which failed to create the interest she’d anticipated. Indeed, Billie said, “Apparently Freddie Ljungberg—the Arsenal football god, for those who know nothing—was poisoned by his tattoos.” “He can’t have been using Mike the artist,” said Miriam. “Where’s he based?” Billie asked. “Hounslow,” Miriam replied.

  Mother was gazing at Billie, smiling a little bit, which she did a lot of the time. Billie was smirking. This new, bright side of Mother—something dark had slowly been scraped off, or fallen away of its own accord—was independent, self-absorbed and dismissive of anything that didn’t immediately concern her.

  It can’t have been a coincidence that a few days later, when Bushy began work on the sculpture shed, Miriam decided that Henry had to marry her. She had said this before but now she began to insist, saying that, until she had a new rock on her finger, she couldn’t believe he loved her.

  I had endured years of this whiney self-righteous side of Miriam and had grown no fonder of it, but Henry took it seriously, as he had to. The two of them spent the night together at least twice a week, either at his place or h
ers, but she still had children at home, at least some of the time. So it wasn’t possible for them to live together, even if they wanted to. Though it would be an infinite regress of impossible confirmation, she required proof of his commitment, particularly now, when he was spending hours on the phone to Lisa and Valerie.

  As far as Henry was concerned, he didn’t want to marry anyone—“Jesus, I don’t want to get back into that, unless it’s for a very good reason, like tax avoidance”—but Miriam interpreted this as rejection. Not only that, but from her point of view he was still married to Valerie: it was she he considered to be his “main” wife.

  As I was leaving after the football, Miriam came after me. “Brother, you’ve got to speak to him for me. I can feel myself getting wild. The other night I had a razor blade in my hand, ready to start cutting again. Help me, bro.”

  The next day I met Henry for lunch. When he eventually turned up, I said to him, “Your hair’s everywhere, you haven’t shaved, there’s dribble on your tee-shirt. You look a little manic, man, and my sister wants to marry you.”

  “You’d be crazy, bro, in my circumstances,” he said. “I think I need a dozen oysters. Will you have some?”

  “I will indeed,” I said. “Is there news of the famous Hand?”

  He looked up from the wine list and removed his glasses. “Jamal, I know Miriam’s a mouth, but I am continuing to urge everyone to keep it zipped. I don’t want this story carried around town—or in the newspapers.” He went on, “It is amusing. Except the thing’s worth a lot of money.”

  “A hand? Is this the Hand of God?”

  He said, “A fucking Ingres. It’s a drawing. Brown crayon, a woman in profile. Valerie’s room is so crammed with art I hated to go in there. Her father was a collector. The very rich are insouciant about such things.”

  “I guess Lisa can keep it.”

  “What the hell for? It’s not insured and she can’t sell it. Only a criminal would buy it, and she likes criminals even less than her own family. The stupid thing is, Valerie lives in such a fog of self-preoccupation that she didn’t notice it was gone. Lisa must have been sitting in her digs waiting for her mother to explode.

  “Lisa lost her temper and went round and jabbed at the bare patch. It’s some sort of protest. Now Lisa’s getting a lot of attention, and so is Valerie, who makes me have lunch with her. Then she starts.” Henry enjoyed doing her brittle English accent, like a female radio announcer circa 1960. “‘Christ Almighty Henry, we rip up masterpieces around here? Is that our relation to culture? I am on the board of the Tate Modern! They’ve asked me to help at the Hay Festival! I’m helping save all kinds of fucking art for the nation, fighting to keep culture alive in these dirty times, and our own daughter does this! If it gets in the papers we’re going to look like fools.’ On and on. And you think I get the chance to say anything?”

  “What does she want you to do?”

  He leaned towards me. “Valerie does have an idea. Don’t scream—it involves you.”

  Henry, I knew, rather sensibly liked to pass his problems on to others in order that he didn’t have to think about unpleasant subjects. This was a good compromise with regard to Valerie, as there were many occasions when he needed her.

  He said, “You know she respects you, man.”

  “She considers me an arse and a pretender. My social credit’s flat. It’s been too long since I’ve had a nice review, or any kind of review.”

  “You are rather floundering about. Why don’t you just publish something?”

  “Why don’t you?”

  He went on, “But Valerie is respecting you right at this moment, because Lisa will listen to you. My daughter has a thing about your books, she underlines stuff in them for some reason, and knows what abreaction and cathexis mean. I’m not asking you for a favour, I’m just saying the bitch has got a loft in New York where you can stay. Consider the West Village before you say no. You know you like nosing around the little bookshops and cafés there.”

  “I attempt to take care of your daughter’s mental health and in exchange I get free accommodation in New York?”

  “As if I were the only one with woman problems. You know I was watching you in the Sootie.”

  “You saw me watching my ex. What did you think?”

  He said, “I was wondering what such a sight would do to someone’s head. I only hope you’ve been seeing Ajita.”

  I told Henry that the last time I’d been to the house, to see Rafi, I’d stroked Josephine’s hair in the kitchen. Not only because I wanted to, or because she had a headache, but because I’d been in search of the mole I’d seen in the Sootie. Of course I wasn’t able to find it. Then I realised I’d been looking on the wrong side. But had it really been her there? Had it really been me?

  Henry touched my hand. “Old chap, I know she’s an agony, but do what you can for my daughter. If I don’t get that picture back, or if it gets damaged, I’m going to be hurting in the nuts.”

  Not long after I’d said goodbye to Henry—he would stay in the bar, read the paper and finish the bottle—Valerie rang.

  She was keen to invite me to dinner but, of course, wanted to talk about Lisa and the Hand. I could take some of her talk but turned down the party—for which she had gathered a stellar cast of American film agents—as I suspected she’d use it as an opportunity to get me into one of her “little rooms,” where she’d go on more about Lisa.

  Now she was saying to me, “Of course, with Lisa, there’s no reason for all that combing through the past you usually do. There just isn’t time for that nonsense. This is an emergency situation, as she slips away from us into insanity.”

  I told Valerie I would consider her request to help Lisa—help her what?—but added that I didn’t believe there was much I could do personally. Not that I believed that saying no meant anything to this family.

  Nevertheless, I didn’t expect to hear from any of them quite so soon.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  The doorbell rang.

  That evening, when my last patient had gone, I was preparing to have dinner with Ajita. She had rung earlier and said she had a free evening; would I join her at the Red Fort in Dean Street? When I turned my phone on, I saw she had texted me to say she was tired and was going to bed. I was disappointed: Hadn’t she dreamed and yearned for me tirelessly for years, as I had about her? Now, probably in response to my diffidence, she could hardly get out of bed for me.

  Restless and horny, I was considering a visit to the Goddess; later, maybe I could go and find Henry and Bushy. I wanted, at least, to see whether Bushy had been able to perform without me.

  So I thought it might be Wolf at the door. But it was Lisa standing there, holding her bicycle and—unusually for her—smiling.

  “Ready?”

  “Was I expecting you?”

  She shrugged and continued to smile under her damp woolly hat. I wasn’t ready for anything except for a walk, despite the rain. I didn’t want to invite her in as, no doubt, she’d have stayed until Tuesday. I grabbed my coat and went out.

  “You ride it,” she said, pushing the bicycle towards me. “We’re going on a journey.” Some of the way I rode the bike, which was big and heavy, particularly when she sat on the rack, this ungainly, two-bodied burden heaving itself up the Fulham Palace Road. The rest of the way she trotted behind me.

  “Where to?”

  “Somewhere calming,” she said. “You’ll like it.”

  Beside Bishops Park we came to a locked gate—and, after opening it, to what appeared to be a field. There were lights in a couple of sheds, but otherwise it was dark in a way it rarely is in London.

  “Come on,” said my tour guide.

  What could I do but follow her across, trying to avoid puddles? It was hopeless; my feet sank into the mud, and my beloved green Paul Smith loafers, which I’d got in a sale, were waterlogged. I was furious, but what was the point of stopping or complaining now?

  At the end of the
allotment, not far from the river, we came to a shed and she led me in, using a torch. She lit candles. We sat on wooden crates, and she rolled a cigarette. I noticed an old picture of her father pinned to the wall, ripped from a newspaper. Water dripped on our heads.

  “I love to sit here,” she said. “It’s meditative. But it gets damp.” She was quiet for a bit. “What do you think of me taking the Ingres?”

  “It’s your inheritance. What difference does it make whether it’s today or another day?” Picking up a candle, I peered at the shelves. “This is more interesting. What are these things?”

  “Objects I picked out of the river mud and cleaned.”

  Half-crushed Coke cans; shards of crockery; rusted keys; glass; a plastic bottle stuffed with mud; a showerhead; a length of metal pipe. Some had been cleaned; other pieces were enshrouded in a skin of grey mud. Here these broken pieces had some uncanny, compelling force, making you want to look more closely at them and wonder about their provenance.

  “I’m impressed.”

  “Anyone can do it. All you need is a bucket and a toothbrush. Oh, and a river.”

  There was a pile of books: Plath, Sexton, Olds, Rich. “You’ve been reading.”

  For some reason I was thinking of the library my father had made in Pakistan, and wondering whether anyone used it now.

  She said, “My parents don’t know I do it. They’d get too excited.”

  “You’re writing too.” I was looking at a pad with slanted writing on it.

  “Don’t tell. You understand why I don’t want them to know?”

  “Your secret is how much you resemble your parents,” I said. “But you’re entitled to your privacy. As they are to theirs. Did you see your father’s piece in the paper?” She almost nodded. “What did you think?”

  Last weekend Henry had written an open letter to Blair, saying he was resigning from the Party he’d joined in the mid-60s because Labour had become dictatorial, corrupt and unrepresentative. Apart from the egregious lying, there had been insufficient debate over Iraq. Dissent was not encouraged in the Party, which was now run for television rather than with the aim of redistributing wealth and power. What had Blair achieved, apart from the minimum wage and the proposed extension of pub opening hours? For Henry, the Labour Party, along with other organisations, including corporations, had moved towards the condition of being cults, a project which not only claimed your loyalty but your inner freedom.