Hanif Kureishi: Midnight All Day

‘You know that, do you?’ He sighs. ‘It’s staring everyone in the face, like a slashed throat.’ He says after a time, ‘I’m not going to kill myself. But I could, just as well.’

‘I had it for two years, once.’

He squeezes my arm as Florence sometimes does. ‘Now it’s gone?’

I tap the wooden bar. ‘Yes.’

‘That’s good to hear. You’re a happy little man, are you, now?’

I am about to inform him that it is returning, probably as a result of meeting him. But this is despair, not depression. These distinctions are momentous.

We discuss the emptying out; the fear of living; the creation of a wasteland; the denigration of value and meaning. I tell him melancholy was part of my interior scene and that I considered it to be the way the world was, until I stood against it.

I announce, ‘People make themselves sick when they aren’t leading the lives they should be leading.’

He bangs the bar. ‘How banal, but true.’

By now the place has almost emptied. Martha collects the glasses, sweeps the floor and wipes down the bar. She continues to put out brandies for us.

She watches us and says, ‘There isn’t much intelligent conversation down here.’

‘What do you think of meditation?’ he says. ‘Eastern hogwash or truth?’

‘It helps my concentration,’ I say. ‘I’m an actor.’

‘There’s a lot of actors about. They rather get under one’s feet, talking about “centreing” and all that.’

I say, ‘Do you know any actors? Or actresses?’

‘Do you count ten breaths or only four,’ he says, ‘when meditating?’

‘Four,’ I say. ‘There’s less time to get lost.’

‘Who taught you?’

Your wife, I am about to say.

‘I had a good teacher,’ I say.

‘Where was the class … could you tell me?’

‘The woman who taught me … I met her by chance, one day, in a cinema. She seemed to like me instantly. I liked her liking me. She led me on, you could say.’

‘Really?’ says Martha, leaning across the bar.

‘Only then she took my hand and told me, with some sadness, that she was married. I thought that would suit me. Anyhow, she taught me some things.’

Martha said, ‘She didn’t tell you she was married?’

‘She did, yes. Just before we slept together.’

‘Moments before?’ said Martha. ‘She sounds like an awful person.’

‘Why?’

‘To do that to you! Do you want her to leave her husband?’

‘What for? I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.’

Archie laughs. ‘Wait ‘til he catches up with you!’

‘I hope I’m not keeping you,’ I say to Archie.

‘My wife will be on her REMs by now. I’ve missed my conjugals for today.’

‘Does she usually go to sleep at this time?’

‘I can’t keep that woman out of bed.’

‘And she reads in bed? Novels?’

‘What are you, a librarian?’

I say, ‘I like basic information about people. The facts, not opinions.’

‘Yes. That’s a basic interest in people. And you still have that?’

‘Don’t you?’

He thinks about it. ‘Perhaps you study people because you’re an actor.’

Martha lights a cigarette. She has become thoughtful. ‘It’s not only that. I know it isn’t. It is an excuse for looking. But looking is the thing.’ She turns to me with a smile.

‘That might be right, my dear,’ Archie says. ‘Things are rarely only one thing.’

For my benefit she shoots him an angry look and I smile at her.

‘Better make a move,’ he says. ‘Better had.’

I want to ask him more. ‘What does your wife do? Did you ever see her act?’

‘Told you she was an actress, did I? Don’t remember that. Don’t usually say that, as it’s not true. Like women, eh?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Saw how you appreciated my wife, on the train.’ He gets down from the stool, and staggers. ‘It’s beautiful when I’m sitting down. Better help us upstairs.’

He finds my shoulder and connects himself to it. He is heavy and I feel like letting him go. I do not like being so close to him.

‘I’ll give you a hand,’ Martha says. ‘It’s not far. You’re in the next room to one another.’

One on each side, we heave him upstairs. The last few steps he takes with gingerly independence.

At the door he turns. ‘Guide me into the room. Don’t know the layout. Could be pitch dark with only my wife’s teeth for light.’

Martha takes his key and opens the door for him.

‘Goodnight,’ I say.

I am not accompanying him into the bedroom.

‘Hey.’ He falls into the room.

I wave at Martha.

‘Archie,’ says startled Florence from the darkness within. ‘Is that you?’

‘Who else, dammit? Undress me!’

‘Archie-’

‘Wife’s duty!’

I sink down beside the wall like a gargoyle and think of her tearing at the warm mound of him. Now I have seen him, his voice seems clearer.

I hear him say, ‘I was just talking to someone —’

‘Who?’

‘That boy in the next room.’

‘Which boy?’

‘The actor, you fool. He was in the train. Now he’s in the hotel!’

‘Is he? Why?’

‘How do I know?’

He switches the TV on. I would not have done such a thing when she was sleeping. I think of Florence sleeping. I know what her face will be like.

*

Next morning it is silent next door. I walk along the corridor hoping I will not run into Florence and Archie. Maids are starting to clean the rooms. I pass people on the stairs and say ‘Good morning’. The hotel smells of furniture polish and fried food.

At the door to the breakfast room I bump into them. We smile at one another, I slide by and secure a table behind a pillar. I open the newspaper and order haddock, tomatoes, mushrooms and fried potatoes.

Last night I dreamed I had a nervous breakdown; that I was walking around a foreign town incapable of considered thought or action, not knowing who I was or where I was going. I wonder whether I want to incapacitate myself rather than seriously consider what I should do. I need to remind myself that such hopelessness will lead to depression. Better to do something. After breakfast I will get the train back to London.

I am thinking that it is likely that I will never see Florence again, when she rushes around the corner.

‘What are you doing? What are you intending to do? Oh Rob, tell me.’

She is close to me, breathing over me; her hair touches my face, her hand is on mine, and I want her again, but I hate her, and hate myself.

‘What are you intending to do?’ I ask.

‘I will persuade him to leave.’

‘When?’

‘Now. He’ll be on the lunchtime train.’

‘No doubt sitting next to me.’

‘But we can talk and be together! I’ll do anything you want.’ I look at her doubtfully. She says, ‘Don’t go this morning. Don’t do that to me.’

For some reason a man I have never seen before, with a lapel badge saying ‘Manager’, is standing beside the table.

‘Excuse me,’ he says.

Florence does not notice him. ‘I beg you,’ she says. ‘Give me a chance.’ She kisses me. ‘You promise?’

‘Excuse me,’ the hotel manager says. ‘The car you ordered is here, sir.’ I stare at him. He seems to regard us as a couple. ‘The rental car — suitable for a man and a woman, touring.’

‘Oh yes,’ I say.

‘Would you both like to look at it now?’

With a wave, Florence goes. Outside, I gaze at the big, four-door family saloon, chosen in a moment of romantic distraction. I sit in it.

After breakfast I drive into Lyme Regis and walk on the Cobb; later I drive to Charmouth, climb up the side of the cliff and look out to sea. It is beginning to feel like being on holiday with your parents when you are too old for it.