I’ve had enough. No more jouissance for you, mister.
I turn on my little camera and hold it up with one hand. I lean across the table and with one swipe of the other hand tip the jug of water into Gibbo’s lap, over his thighs, one hand and crotch. I’m weak, but it’s a good shot and perfectly aimed. The hot water does its work. I take a breath and watch him with pleasure. Up he leaps, crying out, wounded and mad. As he hops about, flapping at his genitalia, I reverse away from the table, keeping my camera on him. Posterity won’t miss a moment.
I say to Anita, ‘Now he’ll think twice about getting in my way again.’
Before he can attack me, Anita holds down his arms and rushes him to the bathroom to pour cold water over his sizzling parts.
I can see Samreen hurrying back towards me as Carlo and Pietro gather round.
‘What is it, Waldo?’ she says. ‘Have you finished your tea already?’
‘Yes,’ I say, in the uproar. ‘And I did what I came for. It’s been an excellent day. Sometimes it feels good to be alive.’
TWENTY
We have a party. The kids, Samreen, friends. Carlo and Pietro come across from the restaurant bringing cakes.
Anita takes my hand and tells me not to fret. With Gibbo it’s dead and done for. Some foolishnesses are worth it. But this was fun that stopped being fun. She is not complaining. She has gained a friend: Francesca, Eddie’s daughter.
‘I’m taking her to a gallery and then to a movie. I can be of use in that way,’ she goes on. ‘She’s a decent singer. She can play drums and piano …’
At the table, with the people I love around me, I am barely awake. There is a shadow over everything; the world has become silent, as they say it does before a tsunami. Laughter, chatter, clinking glasses and cutlery fade in and out. I am more than a little absent but I like to believe my face shows my relative content despite everything.
I have seen my death in their eyes. Dying certainly does for your looks. They are shocked by my appearance. Having shrunk into myself, I am gaunt; my eyes are too big for my face; my mouth twitches and people think I’ll vomit on them.
Everyone is being so kind it is clear I am near the end. After so long, I am less impressed by death than I used to be. I am thinking of my early life: my mother and father, and I forgive them, as I hope to be forgiven myself. I think of the women I’ve loved, and those who loved me. I consider Zee, Samreen and Anita going through my things when I’m gone, sending my clothes to the charity shop, sifting through my papers, and photographs; I hope they look at the material I shot in the last few months. I wonder how long Zee will stay here without me, or whether she’ll go to the US with Samreen.
‘I need to lie down,’ I say to Zee.
I am dust and my story ends here.
‘I’ll take you.’
The friends don’t stay long. The children say goodnight and the women get me to bed.
Zee caresses my head the way I like it. She answers my questions, but for a while has been quiet, as if stunned. She wanted me gone. She will have her wish.
Old age is the new childhood: she strokes and kisses me, her husband and baby. She says my name. I drift away.
This is as decent a way to go as any. Everything has been said, except her name. ‘Zee … Zee … You forgot about me for a time. But now you remember me. That’s all I want. There was only ever you.’
The breath of her love on my face. Dying’s not so bad. You should try it sometime.
About the Author
Hanif Kureishi grew up in Kent and studied philosophy at King’s College, London. His novels include The Buddha of Suburbia, which won the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel, The Black Album, Intimacy, and The Last Word. His screenplays include My Beautiful Laundrette, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid and Le Week-End. He has also published several collections of short stories. Kureishi has been awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the PEN/Pinter Prize, and is a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. His work has been translated into thirty-six languages. He is professor of Creative Writing at Kingston University.
By the same author
PLAYS
Plays One (The King and Me, Outskirts, Borderline, Birds of Passage)
Sleep With Me
When the Night Begins
The Black Album
SCREENPLAYS
My Beautiful Laundrette & Other Writings
Sammy and Rosie Get Laid
London Kills Me
My Son the Fanatic
The Mother
Venus
Collected Screenplays 1
Le Week-End
FICTION
The Buddha of Suburbia
The Black Album
Love in a Blue Time
Intimacy
Midnight All Day
Gabriel’s Gift
The Body
Something to Tell You
Collected Stories
The Last Word
NON-FICTION
The Faber Book of Pop (edited with Jon Savage)
Dreaming and Scheming
My Ear at His Heart
The Word and the Bomb
Collected Essays
A Theft: My Con Man
Love + Hate
Copyright
First published in the UK in 2017
by Faber & Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2017
All rights reserved
© Hanif Kureishi, 2017
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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 978–0–571–33203–8
The Nothing Page 11
