Adam Thirlwell - Politics

And Anjali’s G-string was hooked, the crotch of it was hooked round one of Nana’s fingers as another pushed into her. And her finger was bliss for Anjali. It could have been more blissful, however, if Anjali’s posture had been different. She was reclining but stretching up, tense. The G-string was cutting into her anus, her perineum — whatever, thought Anjali, unconcerned with anatomy, it hurt. But Anjali was now too excited to explain to Nana that she was in pain. She just wanted to come. She was in sex’s serious stages. So Anjali said nothing.

Fuck that hurts, thought Anjali. Oh no, oh no, oh this is wrong, thought Nana, remembering Moshe.

Anjali, in desperation, pushed down her G-string with her right hand, then settled back. She pushed it further down with her feet. It finished on her left foot. It dangled from her left foot. And Nana continued to touch her. Looking at Anjali’s closed eyes, Nana touched Anjali. And this was wonderful, thought Nana. As Anjali tightened and arched backwards, as she started to make small gasps, Nana was happy. Nana stared at Anjali’s cunt. She had a shiny mole just above her pubic hair.

Then Anjali came.

She looked at Nana. She looked at the G-string flopping from her left foot. Anjali giggled.

I told you I would tell you. So here it is. Nana and Anjali have just had sex.

It is, I reckon, socially awkward — bringing one of your friends to orgasm. Nana looked down at Anjali. She was resting her chin on Anjali’s head. But the main awkwardness for Nana was not psychological, not at the moment. It was physical.

Resting her chin on Anjali’s head, Nana’s mouth was closed. So she was breathing through her nose. This might not seem bad. But it was. Nana’s breathing was difficult, because her nose was blocked.

Nana needed to pick her nose.

Nana crept her hand from Anjali’s warm hair upwards to her inclined face. She pushed her face down towards her hand, moaning contentedly for happy Anjali. She was anxious with embarrassment. Then Nana upended the mucus from her nostril, she examined it, not now, she thought, on her little finger above Anjali’s head — a curved fleck of blood glazed with mucus. Then Nana was furtive. She stroked Anjali. Her idea was that she should stroke her languidly, seeming exhausted. She did this while curving her little finger out, displaying the correct and polite method of holding a Delft teacup, deftly. Then Nana let her arm flop over the edge of the futon, like the image of abandon, and draped the snot under the wooden frame. She squashed it, wiping off the wetness.

That was Nana’s solution to the immediate problem posed by infidelity.

It was obviously not the only problem. It may have been the first, but it was not the most important. Nana had been unfaithful. That was the most important problem.

But this is not really a story about unfaithfulness. Unfaithfulness was not why Nana was serious, not exactly.

This is a story about kindness.

If you are already in love with someone else, then you eventually decide what to do. For example, while Nana picks her nose in secret, let us have another look at the case of Stacey and Henderson. When Henderson was unfaithful with a girl of his own age called Beyonce, he decided in the end that he would leave Stacey for Beyonce. This was because Beyonce went down on him and Stacey thought that oral sex was crude. I am not defending Henderson. I am just stating facts. And this is one option available. You eventually decide to be cruel to someone else (Stacey) and kind to yourself (Henderson).

The irony of Stacey and Henderson’s break-up was that, only a month before, Stacey had met an iron-welder called Barry. He was a member of the National Iron and Steel Foundation. Barry was a big man. And big, for Stacey, was sexy. But Stacey had decided that she could not leave Henderson for Barry. She decided that it would hurt Henderson too much. This is another option available to the unfaithful person. You decide to be cruel to yourself (Stacey) and kind to someone else (Henderson).

This is a much rarer option. There is often an extra reason. For instance, there was actually a truer, more chancy reason why Stacey did not leave Henderson for Barry. Just as Barry’s penis glugged in and out of Stacey for the first and only time, Stacey’s mobile rang. It was three a.m. It was Henderson. He was five minutes away and wondering if he should come up. And the shock of this made Stacey sadly but surely ask Barry to leave, for ever. On the other hand, it was only for ever because she forgot to find out his phone number.

But anyway, in both the options I have outlined, it is the third party, the interloper, who was disregarded. In both these options, the rights of Beyonce and Barry were ignored. But what if you want to be kind to someone else and also kind to the third party? What if you want to be kind to everyone? What if you want to be kind to Stacey and Beyonce, or Henderson and Barry?

Nana wanted to be kind to everyone. But if you want to be kind to everyone, it is problematic. The room was pale blue. Nana had just made Anjali come.

And this is serious.

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This is getting more complicated. But I think that you can cope.

To summarise:

Nana was in love with Moshe.

Anjali was in love with no one.

Moshe was in love with Nana.

At the same time, Anjali and Nana seem to have embarked on an affair.

You can see it all now. This is the story of how Moshe was abandoned by his girlfriend. She left him for his best friend. Because that is the saddest, most obvious story.

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And Papa was the benevolent angel of this story. He was there, always just outside the central plot. He was the happy character. Well, all the characters were happy characters. But Papa was the happiest character.

At this point in the story, it was August. (This story took just under a year. It began in March, and now it was August.)

Papa was sitting in his office on Old Broad Street, in the City. He was looking at the paperclip holder designed by Nana at the age of twelve in her Craft, Design Technology class. Her Craft, Design Technology teacher was called Mr Scarborough. Mr Scarborough was adored by the mothers. He was tanned, and had reconstructed a farmhouse in Provence. He was distrusted by the fathers. He was adored by Nana because he had made her paperclip holder and then told Papa that Nana had made it. Papa had pretended to believe them both. This paperclip holder was made of tin, with a jagged design scored into it. The lid was a circular piece of beech wood. On it, Nana herself had glued four enamel turquoise squares in a diamond pattern.

It was not the most beautiful object in the world. I don’t think Papa would have ever said that it was beautiful. But it was Papa’s most loved object.

Papa’s office on Old Broad Street had a reduced waterfall falling down the back wall of the foyer, into a landscaped pool of ferns and water lilies. It made the foyer smell of chlorine. It was faintly like a swimming pool. And when ten-year- old Nana came to visit Papa she liked this swimming-pool smell. She liked curling up there on a leather sofa, watching the men watch their security TVs. Young Nana liked swimming. She imagined she could swim in the waterfall. She told Papa this. Papa explained that the pool at the bottom was not really deep enough.

In his office on Old Broad Street, Papa looked at Nana’s paperclip holder, filled diligently, as ever, with paperclips. He was happy because Nana was happy. His girl was in love and that made her happy. And that made Papa happy.

Papa is not a reliable guide to this story. He is not a good guide to the plot.

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Meanwhile, Anjali was on a break from filming. She was having a cigarette. She was standing on a fire escape round the back of a studio on Leonard Street, trying to blow smoke rings.