Hanif Kureishi: Midnight All Day

‘When?’

‘This afternoon. Siesta. You know.’

I look at Florence.

‘The walls are thin,’ he says. ‘But not quite thin enough. I went upstairs. I had to fetch something from the bathroom. But what an entertainment. Jiggy-jig, jiggy-jig!’

‘I’m glad to be an entertainment, you old fucker,’ I say. ‘I wish you could be the same for me.’

‘What was Rob doing this afternoon?’ Florence says. ‘Don’t leave me out of the game.’

‘Ha, ha, ha! You’re a dopey little thing who never notices anything!’

‘Don’t talk to her like that,’ I say. ‘Talk to me like that, if you want, and see what you get!’

‘Rob,’ says Florence, soothingly.

Archie slaps Florence on the behind. ‘Dance, you old corpse!’

I stare at his back. He is too drunk to care that he’s being provoked into a fight.

I feel like an intruder and am reminded of the sense I had as a child, when visiting friends’ houses, that the furniture, banter and manner of doing things were different from the way we did them at home. The world of Archie and Florence is not mine.

I am waiting for Martha on the bed when I hear Florence and Archie in the corridor opening the door to their room. The door closes; I listen intently, wondering if Archie has passed out and Florence is lying there awake.

The door opens and Martha rattles a bag of beer bottles. We open the windows, lie down on the bed and drink and smoke.

She leans over me. ‘Do you want one of these?’

I kiss her fist and open it. ‘I know what it is,’ I say. ‘But I’ve never had one.’

‘I hadn’t till I came down here,’ she says. ‘These are good Es.’

‘Fetch some water from the bathroom.’

Meanwhile I remove the chair from its position beside the wall and begin shoving the heavy bed.

‘Let’s have this … over there … against the wall,’ I say when she returns.

Martha starts to help me, an enthusiastic girl, with thick arms.

‘Why do you want this?’ she asks.

‘I think it will be better for our purposes.’

‘Right,’ she says. ‘Right.’

A few minutes after we lie down again, undressed this time, there is a knock on the door. We hold one another like scared children, listen and say nothing. There is another knock. Martha doesn’t want to lose her job tonight. Then there is no more knocking. We do not even hear footsteps.

When we are breathing again, under the sheets I whisper, ‘What do you think of the couple next door? Have you talked about them? Are they suited, do you think?’

‘I like him,’ she says.

‘What? Really?’

‘Makes me laugh. She’s beautiful … but dangerous. Would you like to fuck her?’

I laugh. ‘I haven’t thought about it.’

‘Listen,’ she says, putting her finger to her lips.

Neither of us moves.

‘They’re doing it. Next door.’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘They are.’

‘They’re quiet,’ she says. ‘I can only hear him.’

‘He’s doing it alone.’

‘No. There … there she is. A little gasp. Can you hear her now? Touch me.’

‘Wait.’

‘There … there.’

‘Martha —’

‘Please…’

I go into the bathroom and wash my face. The drug is starting to work. It seems like speed, which I had taken with my friends in the suburbs. This drug, though, opens another window: it makes me feel more lonely. I return to the room and switch the radio on. It must have been loud. We must have been loud. Martha is ungrudging in her love-making. Later, there is a storm. A supernatural breeze, fresh, strangely still and cool, fans us.

Martha goes downstairs early to make breakfast. At dawn I run along the stony beach until I am exhausted; then I stop, walk a little, and run again, all the while aware of the breaking brightness of the world. I shower, pack and go down for breakfast.

Florence and Archie are at the next table. Archie studies a map; Florence keeps her head down. She does not appear to have combed her hair. When Archie gets up to fetch something and she looks up, her face is like a mask, as if she has vacated her body.

After breakfast, collecting my things, I notice the door to their room has been wedged open by a chair. The maid is working in a room further along the hall. I look in at the unmade bed, go into my room, find Florence’s sweater and gloves in my bag, and take them into their room. I stand there. Her shoes are on the floor, her perfume, necklace, and pens on the bedside table. I pull the sweater over my head. It is tight and the sleeves are too short. I put the gloves on, and wiggle my fingers. I lay them on the bed. I take a pair of scissors from her washbag in the bathroom and cut the middle ringer from one of the gloves. I replace the severed digit in its original position.

As I bump along the farm track which leads up to the main road, I get out of the car, look down at the hotel on the edge of the sea and consider going back. I hate separations and finality. I am too good at putting up with things, that is my problem.

London seems to be made only of hard materials and the dust that cannot settle on it; everything is angular, particularly the people. I go to my parents’ house and lie in bed; after a few days I leave for Los Angeles. There I am just another young actor, but at least one with a job. When I return to London we all leave the flat and I get my own place for the first time.

*

I have come to like going out for coffee early, with my son in his pushchair, while my wife sleeps. Often I meet other men whose wives need sleep, and at eight o’clock on Sunday morning we have chocolate milkshakes in McDonalds, the only place open in the dismal High Street. We talk about our children, and complain about our women. After, I go to the park, usually alone, in order to be with the boy away from my wife. She and I have quite different ideas about bringing him up; she will not see how important those differences can be to our son. Peaceful moments at home are rare.

It is in the park that I see Florence for the first time since our ‘holiday’. She seems to flash past me, as she flashed past the window in the train, nine years ago. For a moment I consider letting her fall back into my memory, but I am too curious for that. ‘Florence! Florence!’ I call, again, until she turns.

She tells me she has been thinking of me and expecting us to meet, after seeing one of my films on television.

‘I have followed your career, Rob,’ she says, as we look one another over.

She calls her son and he stands with her; she takes his hand. She and Archie have bought a house on the other side of the park.

‘I even came to the plays. I know it’s not possible, but I wondered if you ever glimpsed me, from the stage.’

‘No. But I did wonder if you took an interest.’

‘How could I not?’

I laugh and ask, ‘How am I?’

‘Better, now you do less. You probably know — you don’t mind me telling you this?’

I shake my head. ‘You know me,’ I say.

‘You were an intense actor. You left yourself nowhere to go. I like you still.’ She hesitates. ‘Stiller, I mean.’

She looks the same but as if a layer of healthy fat has been scraped from her face, revealing the stitching beneath. There is even less of her; she seems a little frail, or fragile. She has always been delicate, but now she moves cautiously.

As we talk I recollect having let her down, but am unable to recall the details. She was active in my mind for the months after our ‘holiday’, but I found the memory to be less tenacious after relating the story to a friend as a tale of a young man’s foolishness and misfortune. When he laughed I forgot — there is nothing as forgiving as a joke.