Something to Tell You

by Hanif Kureishi

  I said, “What I’ve heard doesn’t surprise me, Bushy. I think it’s good for our friend over there to keep busy and make a living.”

  “But do you know this? He pimping after something bigger. He cunnin’ to the core. There’s some rich Indian bird up West. After work he goes into her. She got a fine house in a quiet Soho street. You personally acquainted with the girl, Jamal?” He was prodding me on the arm. “Are yer?”

  “Yes, yes. Ajita.”

  “That’s the name, I think. You said it.”

  “You know this for sure?”

  Bushy tapped his nose. “Everything go round the Cross Keys line. The drivers outside talk, all the girls natter. But it was me who put all them pieces together, like you do with a dream.”

  “But, Bushy, I’m getting confused as well as annoyed. You told me Wolf had started on something hot with the Harridan.”

  “Look at her! It didn’t last. You can see why. The Harridan guess Wolf goes to someone else. She don’t like it, but she don’t want to lose him. He do the electrics, the plumbing, he can paint and all that. You know, I work for Miriam, not her. We’re family. Harridan weren’t ever my employer. I only did favours for her.”

  “What are the rumours about Wolf and this girl?”

  “He’s risking it.”

  “In what way?”

  “If he want to get his name on the contract to the pub and all that, and be on the same level with Jenny Harridan, he shouldn’t annoy her by going with other women.”

  So Wolf had wanted to take over the Cross Keys; indeed, he had started work on the upstairs rooms, which the Harridan was keen to rent out for private functions. But the rumour was, and it seemed inevitable, that the Cross Keys would be sold and converted into a pub selling basil risotto and Spanish bottled beers with diced limes jammed in the top. It was the end for ordinary street-corner pubs, and certainly for rough and cheap places. The Cross Keys didn’t seem the kind of hostelry that could survive. London was being decorated; perhaps the city would be rebranded “Tesco’s.”

  I said, “Wolf’s more than a little crazy. If the Harridan refuses to let him run the place with her, or if she chucks him out altogether, he might go nuts. He’s on the edge as it is.”

  Bushy said, “Doctor, don’t get me wrong, but have you thought you might be the crazy one? Paranoias an’ all that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Wolf’s getting laid at least. Sorry to tell you, but they’re at it a lot, he’s told the girls. He’s going to be chilled.”

  “Is he? Nothing helpful follows from that. It might be even worse. Crazies are always being let out of institutions because they’re chilled. A week later they’re sitting down to a plate of toasted balls.”

  “You’re the doc,” he said casually, making me wonder whether I was.

  “About Ajita, I should have guessed,” I said. “Perhaps I did, unconsciously. Now I can only worry about what he will tell her.”

  “About yer dirty crime?”

  “My dirty crime, yes.”

  “Is it going round and round yer head?”

  “At times.”

  “I hate that,” he said.

  I noticed Bushy was looking in a mirror at his nose and stroking it. I thanked him for the information and went round to the side of the bar where the girls worked.

  I ordered a drink from Wolf and said, “Wolf, please. I need that picture back. You stole it from me, an old friend. How could you do that to me? What sort of man are you?”

  “Don’t raise your voice. I’m not a thief,” he said. He leaned across the bar. “It was borrowed in lieu of other payments.”

  “You’re doing well,” I said. “I set all this up for you. Isn’t that recompense enough?”

  “A job in a bar?” He looked as though he wanted to spit at me. “You smoked my whole life like a cigarette, until it was ash.”

  I was almost out the door of the pub when I turned, nipped through a door marked “Private” and ran upstairs to Wolf’s room. His corner was characteristically neat: his jackets and trousers were on hangers, his shirts organised by colour, his shaving gear on a shelf above the sink. The rest of the room was such a mess of broken furniture, ripped curtains and cardboard boxes I wouldn’t have known where to start searching for the Hand.

  “Can you help me?”

  One of the girls was behind me, half-dressed in pink high heels with a flimsy dressing gown over her shoulders, backlit and looking like a woman in a movie by Fassbinder, one of my favourite directors.

  She said, “You the psychiatrist and me you don’t recognise.”

  “Hello, Miss Lucy, how you doing?” She shrugged. I asked, “Any chance of a quickie?”

  “Quick? You think I that sort?” she said, approaching me. At least she grinned before she pretended to slap me. “What you wanting up here?”

  I said, “I think Wolf might have something of mine.”

  As she appeared not to grasp a word I said, I kissed her and held her hand. We were looking at one another curiously.

  Wolf came in suddenly, looking annoyed and agitated, as though convinced he’d caught me at last, as he knew he would, and now would have to deal with me.

  I said, “Just looking for a G-string to floss with.”

  “Hi, Lucy.” He winked at me and said, “Up to your old tricks?” and went out.

  “He was bad temper today,” she said.

  I was laughing when I gave her my mobile number. I thought of Valentin and his charm and facility with women he didn’t know: it was a rare man who wasn’t afraid of women. How odd it was that I still identified with that part of him, after so many years.

  I followed her downstairs and watched her for one dance. At the end, I went over, kissed her and said, “I can’t wait to see you with your clothes on.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  I rang Ajita that night, but there was no reply. I decided to leave it a few days to see whether she called me. She didn’t. The following week I rang and again asked if she had time to meet. She sounded sleepy but at least said she’d been thinking about me “a lot.” We arranged lunch twice, but she cancelled each time, saying she had a cold.

  Finally I left a message with her saying I would be in the neighbourhood at the end of the week. I’d call by and see her, making sure it was early evening, when I knew Wolf would be working at the Cross Keys, a few hours before his evening excursions.

  I wanted to see her, I was ready for it, and she, apparently, for me—at last. She had sent me a text saying there was “something” she wanted me to look at as soon as possible. It was “urgent.”

  Before I could begin to think about what she might mean—whether she was going to tell me about Wolf, or about something he had told her—I received a frantic call from Miriam saying that Henry had disappeared.

  “Where’s he gone? What are you talking about?”

  I managed to grasp that she had had one of the dogs put down, at home. During what she called “the ceremony,” Henry had walked out of the house. He had gone to his flat—or wherever—and stayed away for three days, not ringing once.

  “Have you called him?” I said.

  “I’m afraid to. Well, I did a few times, but I turned the phone off when I heard his voice on the answering machine. I know he hates to talk on the phone. But what is he hiding—is it bad news, do you think? What if he’s been blown up?”

  “What? Why should he be?”

  “If he goes on a train, like in the Madrid bombings! Two hundred people killed! It could happen here, couldn’t it?”

  “He probably has more chance of winning an Oscar.”

  “What if he’s left me? It would finish me off.”

  “Has he said he’s left you?”

  “He only muttered something about not wanting to think about the Dalmatian.” I sighed. She began to cry. “It was bad enough having to have it put down. But it’s that daughter who has put him against me. You know where she lives? I’ll get her address and I
’ll have her again—this time for good!”

  On my way to visit Ajita later, I called around at Henry’s, not really expecting him to be there. He might have taken off, as he did sometimes, to stroll around some foreign city, like Budapest or Helsinki, for a couple of days, sketching, reading and visiting museums.

  But the window opened and his head popped out. He came down straightaway, in his slippers, and was agreeable, indeed excited, not appearing to be in crisis.

  “Was it the dog that did it?” I asked as we walked under Hammersmith Bridge, towards the station.

  “It was a damn good dog. I walked it often. The ‘ceremony’ was unusual.”

  “It was?”

  Miriam had invited some of the neighbours, the children, other friends, and of course Henry to be there when the vet injected the stricken dog with the fatal fluid.

  Henry said, “As I got down on my knees and took my place on the floor, lying there with my ear at the dying dog’s heart—the dog that didn’t know it was going to die—I enacted the goodbye with love, rolling about with all the shamelessness I could muster, even making appropriately agonising noises. No way can I be accused of shirking on my dog duties.”

  “I can’t wait to see the video.”

  “But when the others took their turn, it occurred to me that I couldn’t spend any more time with people who want to hug expiring mutts. The abyss of boredom is my phobia. I’m terrified of being enveloped and destroyed by it. I’ve never stopped running from it.”

  “Or towards it.”

  He was quiet, then said, “Miriam and I had decided to go clubbing later to a new place, the Midnight Velvet.” I must have made a face; he said, “You didn’t like the Sootie?”

  “Not at all, no. It made me feel wretchedly depressed, particularly seeing Josephine. I was annoyed that I allowed myself to be talked into going.”

  “You blame me?”

  “Partly, but mostly myself.”

  “I’m really sorry, Jamal. I tend to agree with you now.” He said, “For months I’d wanted to follow my desire to the limit, all along the razor’s edge. But those places no longer haunt or attract me either. Didn’t my own daughter call me a stupid, stoned fool? I hadn’t faced up to its exhausted decadence. I felt unclean, repelled by myself. I had become that dying dog. And there was something in my old life I missed.

  “I left Miriam without disturbing her—she was with her loved ones—and went home. The world of bloodied, shredded bodies under Bush-Blair had been making me angry and sick. I’ve been feeling more and more hopeless.

  “But on the night of the dying dog, I was up until dawn, reading poetry, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, running from book to book while listening to Mahler, Bach. Isn’t art the still point—a spot of sense—in a thrashing world? I wrote ideas down and emailed actors I wanted to use in the documentary. I outlined my ideas for Don Giovanni.”

  I said, “I’d been wondering recently whether you really are beyond one of the more useful male vanities—that of reputation,” I said.

  “I do think about it. I want to have been of little harm,” he said. “And of some use. I wouldn’t want to have betrayed my intelligence or my talent, such as it is. Talent exists, you know, and is inexplicable. I used to write, in my end-of-year diary roundup, ‘Thank God, nothing to be ashamed of.’ But this year I’ve done no work at all.”

  I said, “Why would it not be good for you to vegetate, to lie fallow for a while?”

  “Like some Chekhov character who wants to work but doesn’t know where to start, I believed my artistic ambition had run down. Now some sort of energy has come back.”

  “Lucky you, with a surge of new life. Miriam will be pleased.”

  “I’ll see her, and try to find some clarity. Will you come by later?”

  “I’m going to see Ajita.”

  He said quietly, “Is there any hope there?”

  “My guess is we’ll meet up for a bit tonight and then she’ll go out.”

  “Jesus, Jamal, how terrible. I know now you waited and waited for that woman and then—what? It just didn’t work out?”

  “Who said it won’t, in time?”

  “But there’s something sad there, aren’t I right?”

  “Something impossible.”

  We embraced; he went back to his flat. I got on the train, where at least I had the chance to read. Like Henry, I still had some impulse to learn, to understand.

  At Ajita’s, the housekeeper wore a crisp white uniform like a servant in the Edwardian children’s novels I used to read to Rafi. She led me to Ajita’s bedroom, right at the top of the house, knocked and said, “Miss—your visitor.”

  “Thank you,” said Ajita, coming out and kissing me. She almost knocked my ear off with a thin unmarked box. “It’s only a DVD. But it’ll interest you, I think. I know how much you like to be interested in things.”

  “Do I? But I thought you had something to tell me.”

  “To show you,” she said. “It’ll certainly surprise you, I know that for sure.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  The room took up the whole of the floor and had sloping attic windows which seemed Parisian to me. Visible were a range of Soho rooftops, aerials and chimneys; nearby, a waiter leaned out of a window, smoking.

  At the end of Ajita’s bed was a broad flat-screen television and a sound system playing an iPod. My ex-girlfriend was listening to some quiet girl funk, Lauryn Hill or some such, and dancing a little, good-humouredly, in her bare feet and dressing gown, with wet hair.

  I asked, “Are you in bed already?”

  “Just getting up. I eat late. You know both Mushy and I do.”

  “Is he here?”

  “Is it him you want to see? He’s gone back to America to try to find help for Alan, who is very ill.” I seemed to irritate her; perhaps she really hadn’t wanted to see me. She said, “Jamal, I’m sorry for being so flaky the last few days. I’ve been busy with lawyers.”

  “How come?”

  She hesitated. “I’ve been talking to the children every day, and to my husband. I kept saying I was going back, but each time I almost bought the ticket I thought, What for?

  “Mark is furious and wants me to come home. So I’ve told him I have decided to divorce. He’s kind, he doesn’t deserve it. But I have brought up our children and done my duty. Now there are other things.”

  “What does Mustaq think?”

  “Why the hell do you have to ask that? Of course, he’s agitated. He was keen on the marriage. He keeps saying I have to be secure. But there are things I absolutely need to do here.”

  “You’ve been in London a while.”

  “Aren’t you taking your turn now to make me feel rotten?”

  “Your absence reminds me of your mother’s absence when you and I started to go out. She was always not there, which was when your father first began to use you.” Unsurprisingly, she was furiously silent. I said, “But you have good things to do here—with your lover. You told me in Venice.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Are you going to marry him?”

  She snorted. “It’s not a relationship. It’s an encounter—of some sort. He gives me…I can tell you this, can’t I? For some reason I’ve always trusted you. And how could you be shocked? He…he—” I was watching her lips; she almost said his name. “He adores me, ties me, worships me, hits me—but very nicely. And all the time we are talking about everything, about him, me, the past and the future, about our dreams and fantasies. He gets me, intuitively. Jamal, it’s on a level, religious and spiritual, that I’ve never experienced before.”

  “We should celebrate.”

  “You mean it? Yes, why not? That hadn’t occurred to me, party boy.”

  She rang down; soon the housekeeper appeared with champagne and glasses. Then she brought in a selection of clothes. I helped Ajita dress for the evening, finishing the joint she’d left in the ashtray beside the bed.

  I said, “I hope all this is for me.
Give me a hug.”

  She wore a short black dress, high heels and a black choker at her throat; she put her hair up. She held me and kissed my face.

  “You missed your chance, baby, you know you did. I haven’t felt like this since I met you at college.” Then she said, “Darling sweetie, I almost forgot. Before we split tonight, will you watch something?”

  “But what is it?”

  She went to the TV with the DVD, opened it and dropped the disc into the player. “There you are,” she said. “Watch to the end.”

  “Won’t you sit with me?”

  “I’ll be back.”

  When she left the room, I thought I might just walk out. But I settled down in the cushions, still annoyed that, although she’d invited me over, it was only to observe her preparing to go out with a man—whose name she couldn’t say—who wanted to ruin my life.

  If the joint she’d given me was strong, the DVD was stronger, as she had known.

  I watched a good deal of the programme—the past, suddenly tangible, with its jumble of familiar faces unspooling in front of my eyes, a dream I couldn’t crash out of. I became confused and then dizzy. If I saw any more, the world might break apart entirely.

  I stood up and made it across the floor. Soon my head was over the toilet. I opened the windows and stuck my gasping mouth out into the roar of Soho.

  I took a cool shower. Ajita returned as I was drying myself. She didn’t seem surprised by my condition, but fetched me a dressing gown and some aspirin.

  “Okay? So you saw it, then?”

  “More than enough of it,” I said.

  “Hardcore?”

  “Yes, very.”

  “A revelation, even?” she said.

  “Maybe.” I asked, “Who else has looked at it?”