Hanif Kureishi: Midnight All Day

I return to the hotel to say goodbye to Florence again. In the conservatory, reading the papers, is Archie, wearing a suit jacket over a T-shirt, brown shorts and black socks and shoes, looking like someone who has dressed for the office but forgotten to put their trousers on.

As I back away, hoping he has not recognised me, and if he does, that he will not quite recall who I am, he says, ‘Have a good morning?’

In front of him is a half-empty bottle of wine. His face is covered in a fine glacé of sweat.

I tell him where I’ve been.

‘Busy boy,’ he says.

‘And you? You’re still around … here?’

‘We’ve walked and even read books. I’m terribly, terribly glad I came.’

He pours a glass of wine and hands it to me.

I say, ‘Think you might stay a bit longer?’

‘Only if it’s going to annoy you.’

His wife comes to the other door. She blinks several times, her mouth opens, and then she seems to yawn.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ asks her husband.

‘Tired,’ she whispers. ‘Think I’ll lie down.’

He winks at me. ‘Is that an invitation?’

‘Sorry, sorry,’ she says.

‘Why the hell are you apologising? Get a grip, Florrie. I spoke to this young man last night.’ He jabs his finger at me. ‘You said this thing …’ He looks into the distance and massages his temples. ‘You said … if you experienced the desires, the impulses, within you, you would break up what you had created, and live anew. But there would be serious consequences. The word was in my head all night. Consequences. I haven’t been able to live out those things. I have tried to put them away, but can’t. I’ve got this image … of stuffing a lot of things in a suitcase that can’t be closed, that is too small. That is my life. If I lived what I thought … it would all blow down …’

I realise Florence and I have been looking at one another. Sometimes you look at someone instead of touching them.

He regards me curiously. ‘What’s going on? Have you met my wife?’

‘Not really.’

My lover and I shake hands.

Archie says, ‘Florrie, he’s been unhappy in love. Married woman and all that. We must cheer him up.’

‘Is he unhappy?’ she says. ‘Are you sure? People should cheer themselves up. Don’t you think, Rob?’

She crooks her finger at me and goes. Her husband ponders his untrue life. As soon as his head re-enters his hands, I am away, racing up the stairs.

My love is lingering in the corridor.

‘Come.’

She pulls my arm; with shaking hands I unlock my door; she hurries me through my room and into the bathroom. She turns on the shower and the taps, flushes the toilet, and falls into my arms, kissing my face and neck and hair.

I am about to ask her to leave with me. We could collect our things, jump in the car and be on the road before Archie has lifted his head and wiped his eyes. The idea burns in me; if I speak, our lives could change.

‘Archie knows.’

I pull back so I can see her. ‘About our exact relation to one another?’

She nods. ‘He’s watching us. Just observing us.’

‘Why?’

‘He wants to be sure, before he makes his move.’

‘What move?’

‘Before he gets us.’

‘Gets us? How?’

‘I don’t know. It’s torture, Rob.’

This thing has indeed made her mad; such paranoia I find abhorrent. Reality, whatever it is, is the right anchor. Nevertheless, I have been considering the same idea myself. I do not believe it, and yet I do.

‘I don’t care if he knows,’ I say. ‘I’m sick of it.’

‘But we mustn’t give up!’

‘What? Why not?’

‘There is something between us … which is worthwhile.’

‘I don’t know any more, Florrie. Florence.’

She looks at me and says, ‘I love you, Rob.’

She has never said this before. We kiss for a long time.

I turn off the taps and go through into the bedroom. She follows me and somehow we fall onto the bed. I pull up her skirt; soon she is on me. Our howls would be known to the county. When I wake up she is gone.

*

I walk on the beach; there is a strong wind. I put my head back: it is raining into my eyes. I think of Los Angeles, my work, and of what will happen in the next few months. A part of my life seems to be over, and I am waiting for the new.

After supper I am standing in the garden outside the dining room, smoking weed, and breathing in the damp air. I have decided it is too late to return to London tonight. Since waking up I have not spoken to Florence, only glanced into the dining room where she and her husband are seated at a table in the middle. Tonight she is wearing a long purple dress. She has started to look insistent and powerful again, a little diva, with the staff, like ants, moving around only her because they cannot resist. One more night and she will bring the room down with a wave and stride out towards the sea. I know she is going to join me later. It is only a wish, of course, but won’t she be wishing too? It is probably our last chance. What will happen then? I have prepared my things and turned the car around.

There is a movement behind me.

‘That’s nice,’ she says, breathing in.

I put out my arms and Martha holds me a moment. I offer her the joint. She inhales and hands it back.

‘What are you thinking?’

‘Next week I’m going to Los Angeles to be in a film.’

‘Is that true?’

‘What about you?’

She lives nearby with her parents. Her father is a psychology lecturer in the local college, an alcoholic with a violent temper who has not been to work for a year. One day he took against London, as if it had personally offended him, and insisted the family move from Kentish Town to the country, cutting them off from everything they knew.

‘We always speculate about the people who stay here, me and the kitchen girl.’ She says, suddenly, ‘Is something wrong?’

She turns and looks behind. As Martha has been talking, I have seen Florence come out into the garden, watch us for a bit, and throw up her hands like someone told to mime ‘despair’. A flash of purple and she is gone.

‘What is it?’

‘Tell me what you’ve been imagining about me,’ I say.

‘But we don’t know what you’re doing here. Are you going to tell me?’

‘Can’t you guess?’ I say impatiently. ‘Why do you keep asking me these things?’

She takes offence, but I have some idea of how to get others to talk about themselves. I discover that recently she has had an abortion, her second; that she rides a motorbike; that the young people carry knives, take drugs and copulate as often as they can; and that she wants to get away.

‘Is the bar shut?’ I ask.

‘Yes. I can get you beer if you want.’

‘Would you like to drink a glass of beer with me?’ I ask.

‘More than one glass, I hope.’

I kiss her on the cheek and tell her to come to my room. ‘But what will your parents say if you are late home?’

‘They don’t care. Often I find an empty room and sleep in it. Don’t want to go home.’ She says, ‘Are you sure it’s only beer you want?’

‘Whatever you want,’ I say. ‘You can get a key.’

On the way upstairs I look into the front parlour. In the middle of the floor Florence and Archie are dancing; or rather, he is holding on to her as they heave about. The Scrabble board and all the letters have been knocked on the floor. His head is flopped over her shoulder; in five years he will be bald. Florence notices me and raises a hand, trying not to disturb him.

He calls out, ‘Hey!’

‘Drunk again,’ I say to her.

‘I know what you have been doing. Up to!’ he says with leering emphasis.