Intimacy

by Hanif Kureishi

  I know a place where I could meet some middle-aged women, if they are up so late! Once I level out they will be grateful for my company! They are a larger cause!

  I will seek some out!

  I begin to make for the door, wherever it is, with some urgency. This is typical of me – to be so close to something, and then flee.

  I catch sight of a woman dancing on her own. Surely it is her? I move towards her. No; it is not my love. I can’t make out much, but get the impression this woman won’t mind if I approach her. Apparently the drugs they take make them friendly, as if they could not manage it otherwise. Perhaps they should give them to all young people. Surely, in such a mood, they won’t care if you dance like a crashing helicopter? I want to learn to expect to be received kindly by people.

  I shout in the woman’s ear and she comes with me to the bar. I can’t hear much of what she says. But I imagine going home with her. If she says yes, I will go. A strange room; her things; odd places I have ended up in the past, lost in the city, waiting to see what will turn up. From there, in the morning, I will leave for Victor’s without going home.

  I was hit then. It seemed to be from behind, and it was a man. It might have been when I examined the ring through the woman’s eyebrow by the flame of my lighter. She would have interested Victor.

  Susan sits down beside me.

  ‘Don’t touch it, it’s only where I got punched,’ I say.

  ‘Were you aggressive?’

  ‘Why it happened, I don’t know. It is just what young people like to do. It’ll be okay by tomorrow.’

  ‘What is this?’ she asks.

  ‘A signed photograph of John Lennon.’

  ‘Why was it on the stairs?’

  I look at her in puzzlement. ‘Was it? I think I was looking for a better place to hang it.’

  ‘In the middle of the night?’

  ‘It seemed to be the right time.’

  ‘It’s cracked now,’ she says. ‘Look at the glass.’ She says, ‘Your poor face. Do you want me to bathe you?’

  I look at her and say, ‘There is someone I’m interested in. But she’s gone away. That’s the truth, I’m afraid.’

  ‘You? There’s someone interested in you?’

  ‘It surprises you?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘I am surprised that you are surprised.’

  She is crying.

  ‘Is she going to take you away from me?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so, now.’

  I open my mouth. I am about to speak.

  ‘What is it?’ she says.

  ‘No. Nothing,’ I say. ‘Come along.’

  In the bathroom she bathes me. Then I lead her back to bed, my hand on her arm.

  We lie there, back to back.

  What could be more dreadful than daylight? She is dressing at the end of the bed. The children are bouncing on the mattress. The younger one tries to open my eyelids with his fingers. The other pours apple juice in my ear, wondering whether it will exit through the other. He has the makings of a scientist.

  Susan goes downstairs with them.

  I turn on to my back, as I do every morning, and think, what do I have to do today? What obligations do I have? What pleasures might there be? Then I remember and shut my eyes.

  After a time the front door bangs and the house goes silent. The silence increases, enveloping everything in an ominous softness.

  I get up and go down the stairs, but a noise makes me hesitate at the bend. I can see that in the hall Susan is leaving for work, putting her short coat on and pushing her bicycle to the door.

  ‘Will you get something for later? See you at supper time!’ she calls out, shutting the door behind her.

  Without eating, drinking or thinking excessively, I do everything as quickly as I can. I shave and get some decent clothes on. Moving about the house, I discover my boys’ night clothes flung on the floor. I pick them up, smell them, and fold them on their beds.

  When the weather is warm, Susan puts talcum powder in her shoes and when she removes them her footprints remain on the floor, traces of her on the carpet, which stop suddenly, like a trail gone cold.

  Soon I am zipping up my bag.

  Standing up, I scribble a note. ‘Dear Susan, I have left this house and won’t be coming back. I’m sorry to say that I don’t think we can make one another happy. I will speak to you tomorrow.’ That is it. Then I notice she has left a note asking me to pick up her dry cleaning. Cursing, I hurry round the corner to fetch her clothes, and leave them in the bedroom.

  I wonder, then, where to place my note. The table in the living room is crowded with flowers, presents, cards. Last week Susan had a birthday party in a nearby restaurant. There must have been almost thirty guests. In her new denim dress and pretty shoes with flowers sewn on the sides, she rushed at each friend as they came in. There was kissing and hugging and shouted bits of gossip. Soon the floor was strewn with ribbon and wrapping paper. I sat and watched her dancing to Tamla Motown records with a school friend. They even danced nostalgically. I recalled a time I was in Venice. She was joining me at the Hôtel des Bains on the Lido, but I didn’t know at what time. I had gone downstairs and saw her by accident in the lobby, and she turned and recognized me and her face was full of pleasure.

  She’s not my type at all, but I’m sure there is something about her I could enjoy. I would like not to see her for a few months, in order to forget her; perhaps, then, I could get a clear view of what she is like, apart from me.

  I place the note at the other end of the table, leaning it against a cup. She will not miss it when she comes in. She will sit in that chair over there to read it. I wonder what she will feel then; I wonder what she will do then. The phone is at hand.

  I pick up my bag from the centre of the bedroom floor. I walk downstairs and open the front door. Tired but determined, I step outside. It hasn’t rained for weeks. The blossom is out. London is in bloom; even I am in bloom, despite everything.

  It is a lovely day for leaving.

  I shut the door behind me and walk away. I consider going through the park and seeing the boys. But my distracted demeanour would give me away and any questions could cost me the little courage I have. Perhaps I should turn and wave at the house.

  I can’t say I haven’t learned more in this crucible than I’ve learned anywhere: the education of a heart, slightly cracked, if not broken in places. Whether I will survive the knowledge and put it to good use – whether any of us will – is another matter.

  *

  Victor is sitting at the table in his black dressing gown, black socks and slippers, chewing on a piece of toast left on the table from last night, no doubt. But when I come through the door he gets up and kisses me.

  ‘It’s done?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘It is done.’

  Victor watches me and looks jaunty. I notice that the flat has been cleaned. There is not a pickled onion in sight.

  I consider unpacking, so as to make it clear to myself that I am staying. But looking around, I cannot see where I will put my things. He will leave for work later, and I will be here alone. I don’t feel like going to the office. Perhaps I will go for a walk.

  Victor takes my bag and puts it down in the corner. I notice that the coffee is fresh. There are croissants in the oven. I sit down and look at him, a friend. For a while – for how long I don’t know – this place will be my home.

  I wonder what time Susan will unfold the note and know, and know. She will not be back until the early evening. It is not too late to retrieve it.

  ‘Did you know I’d come?’

  ‘I thought you’d make it – eventually,’ Victor replies. ‘Perhaps in a few weeks. It had become inevitable.’

  ‘You could tell?’

  ‘How could I not?’ Then he says, ‘Have you told the kids?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That is the hardest.’

  I bite my lip.

  ‘I’ll speak to Susan
first,’ I say. ‘Then them. I’ve got a lot to say to them … about the whole business of people trying to live together.’

  He looks at me. He knows this. Still, he is unusually cheerful.

  ‘What’s making you smile?’ I enquire.

  ‘I have a new interest. We are having lunch in that new place, and then a walk in the park – ’

  ‘And then?’

  His eyes shine.

  He says, ‘By the way, that girl rang.’

  ‘Which girl?’

  ‘Nina. She heard you were looking for her.’

  I can only think of how good life on earth can be, at times. What grief two people can give one another! And what pleasure!

  He says, ‘I’ve written her number down in case you’ve forgotten it.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He hands me the slip of paper. I pick up the phone and push the buttons; then I replace the receiver.

  ‘Later,’ I say. ‘There will be time.’

  We walked together, lost in our own thoughts. I forget where we were, or even when it was. Then you moved closer, stroked my hair and took my hand; I know you were holding my hand and talking to me softly. Suddenly I had the feeling that everything was as it should be and nothing could add to this happiness or contentment. This was all that there was, and all that could be. The best of everything had accumulated in this moment. It could only have been love.

  About the Author

  Hanif Kureishi was born and brought up in Kent. He read philosophy at King’s College, London. In 1981 he won the George Devine Award for his plays Outskirts and Borderline, and in 1982 he was appointed Writer-in-Residence at the Royal Court Theatre. In 1984 he wrote My Beautiful Laundrette, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. His second screenplay Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987) was followed by London Kills Me (1991) which he also directed. The Buddha of Suburbia won the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel in 1990 and was made into a four-part drama series by the BBC in 1993. His version of Brecht’s Mother Courage has been produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre. His second novel, The Black Album, was published in 1995. With Jon Savage he edited The Faber Book of Pop (1995).

  His first collection of short stories, Love in a Blue Time, was published in 1997. His story My Son the Fanatic, from that collection, was adapted for film and released in 1998. Intimacy, his third novel, was published in 1998, and a film of the same title, based on the novel and other stories by the author, was released in 2001 and won the Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival. His play Sleep With Me premièred at the Royal National Theatre in 1999. His second collection of stories, Midnight All Day, was published in 2000. Gabriel’s Gift, his fourth novel, was published in 2001. The Body and Seven Stories and Dreaming and Scheming, a collection of essays, were published in 2002.

  His screenplay The Mother was directed by Roger Michell and released in 2003. In 2004 he published his play When The Night Begins and a memoir, My Ear At His Heart. A second collection of essays, The Word and the Bomb, followed in 2005. His screenplay Venus was directed by Roger Michell in 2006. His novel Something to Tell You was published in 2008. In July 2009 his adaptation of his novel, The Black Album, opened at the National Theatre, prior to a nation-wide tour. In 2010 his Collected Stories were published.

  He has been awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

  Copyright

  This ebook edition published in 2010

  by Faber and Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  All rights reserved

  © Hanif Kureishi, 1998

  The right of Hanif Kureishi to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–26806–1