Hanif Kureishi - The Last Word

He was considering what sort of lesson this might be when he said goodbye to Julia early the next morning.

She put her arms around his neck and said, ‘It’s like being struck by lightning. I’ve fallen in love. I will love you now, Harry, and never let you go. Do you remember my name?’

‘Julia. Is that right?’

‘I won’t forget yours. I could have kissed you when I poured the Earl Grey.’

‘What Earl Grey?’

‘Don’t you remember? The first time in the garden at Mamoon’s. You sat there looking so beautiful and worried. I wanted you then. I’ve seen you in the yard. I know you’ve been concentrating. Your mind always seems to be somewhere else. But something eternal passed between us. Didn’t you feel it?’

‘A bit,’ he said. ‘It was you .’

‘Yes. I’m confused. Didn’t you know that?’

‘Sort of.’

‘You don’t remember? I offered you a digestive biscuit and a Jaffa.’

‘I would never forget a Jaffa. But I must have been wondering if I’d ever be able to write the book.’

She whispered, ‘Your penis is my dog. I love the taste of you in my mouth.

‘Bon appétit.’

He was surprised but gratified by her love. He guessed he was a novelty in the town, where the gene pool was limited; the ecstasy would soon wear off. He would enjoy it while it lasted.

A few nights later, having removed his boots upstairs, Harry snuck out of Mamoon’s house like an errant teenager, quietly closing the door behind him.

He breathed in: the evening air was a whisky shot; the music in his car was soon rocking, and he sang as he ripped through the lanes. It was true: his genitals were deaf to reason. But wasn’t it rather that his reason had become deaf to the cry of his genitals? Hadn’t his mother said, ‘Take love where you find it, little boy, and consider yourself lucky’? But it wasn’t just a cry of lust: he was quivering and insomniac. He was finding it impossible to spend the whole night in the house of cries.

He had read through most of Mamoon’s early relationship with Peggy, and had begun on the part where Mamoon, whilst travelling, first saw his ‘luscious’ Colombian lover Marion. What vertigo she had given him: Mamoon had found a woman who had challenged, desired and infuriated him.

Meanwhile, Peggy, who in her diaries was suffering more than even she liked — perhaps bringing forward her own death — had continued to come to Harry, usually in the guise of his mother. Something about the past hadn’t been settled or organised; the story wasn’t complete. This ghost of a mother had begun to ask him questions about who he was and who he truly loved. Was he capable of love? Could he truly be with anyone? ‘Why are you talking to me?’ he shouted. She was frightening him. ‘Please, I beg you, leave me alone.’

And so, when Mamoon and Liana had retired, Harry once more went for a drink with the locals. He waited for Julia to hurry through the door and slide in beside him, a block of warmth and scent. Though she had eagerly invited him to see her again, and he saw her in the house, emptying the dishwasher and ironing, he had sworn to himself that he would eschew her. But now they would spend the night together. Delighted to be of service, he would smack her with a hairbrush as she requested, sleep in her arms, and leave early in the morning before anyone was awake.

But in the morning he was still tired; he had been up late talking to her, and this time he overslept. He could hear people moving around the house. He looked for his clothes and phone, and noticed, on a desk, along with copies of Closer magazine, several atlases, anthologies of poetry and books on myth. He was creeping down the stairs and trying to reach the front door without being heard when Julia’s arm shot out from behind the living-room door.

‘Five more minutes with me,’ she begged. ‘Just five. Look—’

She must have risen early to tidy up. The curtains billowed: the beer cans had vanished, the ashtrays were emptied, and the furniture returned to its place. In the front room, filled with a monumental TV, a sofa, some low chairs and a table, Harry quickly ate the bacon and eggs Julia had insisted on cooking for him. She sat opposite, drinking her favourite strong country cider — cloudy, with bits in it — eating a profiterole, and smoking a cigarette.

‘What is that doing there?’ Harry indicated the flag of St George above the mantelpiece. He noticed, on the mantelpiece itself, three bottles of the champagne Mamoon and Liana drank, and a big chunk of fine cheese next to it. There was also an old, passport-sized photograph of Mamoon leaning against a Toby jug.

‘My brother Scott the Skin is with the National Party. We’re British stock. Aren’t you?’

‘Julia, haven’t you noticed — I apologise for talking about it too much — but I am writing a book about an Indian.’

‘Shut up. The old man’s no trouble,’ she said. ‘By the way, were his parents and brother coloured too?’

‘Oh yes. The whole family. Black as night.’

‘But he isn’t Somalian and he’s always giving the Muslims a criticism, they say.’

‘Yes, I guess.’

‘Do you really like Muslims?’

He said, ‘The world’s full of people with unusual beliefs, Julia. Scientologists, Rastafarians, Catholics, Moonies, Mormons, Baptists, Tories, dentists, captains of industry — every madness has its cheerleader. The asylums and parliament are crammed full of delusionists, and only a madman would want to eliminate them. My father had the right idea. Begin from an assumption of insanity and then laugh, where possible.’

‘Scott says they think we’re unclean filth who’ll burn in hell. He says, where’s our country gone? Who took it away?’

‘But the country’s much nicer now. Everyone’s broke, but it’s stable, unlike everywhere else in Europe. And there’s less hate around than there used to be.’ He said, ‘Talking of unusual beliefs, when I finished my last book and was waiting for a good idea, I went down to South London and researched a long story on the new skinheads. They’re all huff and puff. A bunch of Widow Twankeys pissing in the wind.’

She put her finger to her lips. ‘Shhh. . Jesus, zip it up and put it away. The local town, where I bet you’ve never been, is full of Poles and Muslims. White workers like us no one cares about. There’s a mosque in a house they watch, the lads. The boys set fires to scare the towel-heads and black crows. They follow them and hit them. That’ll teach ’em to try and blow us up.’

He got up. ‘Thanks, but I’d better go write a book.’

‘Please, Harry, I like you so much. I’m not like them. I don’t go round hating. Are you trying to cliché me?’

‘Don’t give me reason to.’

‘Good, you lover boy. Now, five more minutes.’ She asked, ‘If you like the writer’s work so much, give me one of his stories.’

‘Now?’

‘While I finish my roll.’

While she held it up and took a tiny nibble, Harry said, ‘Mamoon’s last big work, a novella, Afternoons with the Dictator , was a top piece of comic satire about a raggedy bunch of five overthrown Third World dictators meeting in a cafe on the Edgware Road for tea. It was adapted as an opera at the Barbican and one weekend at the beginning of this job, Mamoon sent me, as a test, I suppose, to see it. It was all stilts, inflated uniforms and industrial music. I liked it, but it would have killed him to see it. According to him, the world needs no exaggeration.’

‘What’s in the story?’

‘These dictators — men who would roast your dachshund or drink your eyeballs in soup — walk about with their shopping in plastic bags; they play cards; they drink. At first their talk is mostly banal, about how the lifts in their buildings don’t work, or what a nuisance it is to get your army uniform adjusted for a good price, particularly when you’re getting fat sitting on the sofa watching Big Brother . Not only that, they cannot watch Newsnight without anxiety, and they complain about how the money they stole from the populace doesn’t go as far as people think in these straitened, inflationary times.