Hanif Kureishi - Something to Tell You

“I need to talk tonight.”

He said he wouldn’t be in my neighbourhood but in his office and local, the Cross Keys, in Acton, attending to company matters. It was a bit of a walk for me, but I needed time to think.

I tucked my iPod into my shirt pocket; with my hood up, street robbers wouldn’t be able to see the white wire or the telltale headphones.

First, however, I had to see Rafi. The boy had promised me a treat.

Rafi had decided to cook me a meal. When he and I had played football in the park a few days earlier, he had said, looking me over, “Man, you don’t look right. It’s not that your hair’s funny or your clothes more strange than usual. But you’re lonely-looking and thin, and I’ve never said that about you before. Old man, you’re not going to die, are you?”

If his generosity surprised me, it was because I’d noticed he was about to become a teenager. He loved mirrors, as I once did. His upper lip was dark now; soon he’d be shaving. Whereas before he was happy to talk, indeed to chatter away interminably, now he kept his words sullenly to himself. But not all of them. He could be cruel, abusive even, trying to hurt, as though trying to make a space between us. How I’d been missing his younger self, when he’d let me read to him and kiss him, and he slept between us, taking up most of the bed. When he needed me more.

I arrived at the house in the early evening to find my prodigal hot, his face shining and luminous with enthusiasm. I could smell burning.

“Hello, old man. Still alive?” he said, leading me in. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt under a pinny with the words THE MOTHER written on it. “Did you know-you can sniff my hair if you want?”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t disarray it. It’s punked-up specially.”

I pressed my nose into the fragrant spikes. “What is it?”

“Banana shampoo.”

“Yummy.”

“It doesn’t mean I’m gay because I like fashion.”

“But you like pink too.”

“Not as much as I used to. Is that a sign of gayness too?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t joke me, Dad. You know I kissed a girl.”

“Which girl?”

“You will never know that.”

Josephine had helped Rafi with the shopping and chopping before going for a run in the park. On a brightly patterned tablecloth, a place was set for one, along with the best, heaviest cutlery.

I noticed a folded piece of paper with the word menu written on it in wavy writing. I read: “Omelette du jour (omelette of the day). Fresh tomato and courgette. Very good quality eggs and butter (fresh). Fresh avocado and potatoes. Shallot (fresh) and fresh good quality cooking oils.” Under “pudding” he’d written “pistachio ice cream”; under “drinks” he was offering “water, cider.” He’d signed it, or rather, autographed it, at the bottom.

I was supposed to be having a serious talk with him, and wondered if this was the right time for it. Recently Josephine and I had met in a nearby deli with long tables and the papers spread all over them, a place full of mothers who’d just dropped their kids off at school. After, she was off to be interviewed for a job in a college psychology department.

I’d got there early to read the papers and hear the women’s voices. When I looked up and she was walking towards me, I was glad to see her; it was still her beauty and vulnerability I was drawn to, and the love in her eyes.

Though it was warm, I noticed she was wearing one of my scarves; she would always borrow my clothes, particularly the expensive ones-the raincoats she liked-though she was taller and thinner than me.

She wanted to talk because Rafi had been upsetting her, calling her, several times, “a fucking bitch and a ho.” He’d pointed his fingers at her and threatened to “blow her away” if she insisted he went to bed at a certain time.

She said, “As if America hasn’t done enough damage in the world! He takes these rap lyrics seriously. I hate all the aggressive gestures and shouting. What is it with boys and gangsters? You would say the boy has to move away from the mother. But why would they think that being a man is being a bastard?”

“It’s cartoon. The bling and posing is no more real than a pantomime dame in costume.”

“Not all those kids can tell the difference. I’ve decided to throw his CDs out. That stuff is now banned from the house! I don’t care that you hate censorship.”

I said. “It’s too late already. But I am sorry he spoke to you like that. Perhaps he’s anxious about you going to work. He thinks you’ll have less time for him.”

“Oh God,” she said, getting up and gathering her things. “Perhaps that’s it. I knew you’d make me feel worse. How did I ever waste ten years with you?”

Now, as I sat there looking at the evening newspaper, he came in and out of the kitchen. “Are you looking forward to it, dude?”

“I can’t wait.”

“It’s cooking up beautifully. There’s a lot of things I can cook now. Some of my dishes are legendary.”

“You’re lucky to have a good mother who taught you. Miriam and I ate bread and dripping, and later, burgers, chips and cakes.”

“D’you feel a fool for leaving here?”

“Sometimes.”

“Come back then. Don’t you love Mum?”

“I like her a lot. She’s looked after you brilliantly.”

“That’s not love.”

“It’ll happen to you,” I said. “Marriage, separation, kids here and there, the whole disintegrated thing. No one gets married at twenty-five and stays with their partner until they’re seventy unless they are deficient in imagination. May you have many wives, son. And that’s a curse!”

“Thanks, punk and role model.”

Eventually, like someone carefully carrying a birthday cake into a crowd, he brought the omelette out on a huge plate. He opened the napkin in my lap and gave me the knife and fork. He didn’t sit at the table with me but stood with his elbow on my shoulder.

“Start before it gets cold.” As I took each mouthful, he offered advice. “Put some salad with it, Dad.” “Mix up the things more. Here’s some bread.” “Don’t you like cucumber? Salad is good for you.”

The omelette was filled with melted cheese and a mixture of chopped tomatoes and courgette. Thus supervised, I was taking my last mouthful when he ducked back into the kitchen and came out with a bowl of pistachio ice cream. As it was, I could barely move.

“Deep, eh?”

“Not only deep but heavy too,” I said.

“Have you ever had a better meal?”

“How could I have had?”

“You’ll love this,” he said, putting the spoon in my hand. He went to a shelf, removed a bottle and poured me about half a glass of his mother’s vodka. Catching a whiff of it, he said, “Smells like petrol. But this ice cream is your favourite. Mum and I had to go out specially to get it.”

When I was eating my ice cream and finishing the vodka, he sat down and ate his own omelette, pouring ketchup over it until it was a red mess.

After the meal I lay down on the floor and slept briefly, while beside me Rafi sat cross-legged, attached to the TV by wires, clicking away like a widow at her knitting. Isolated figures murdered one another in what resembled the deserted Roman cityscapes of de Chirico.

I was woken up by his mother caressing my shoulder. “Did you enjoy it?”

I got to my feet slowly. “It was the best meal of my life.”

She and I still considered one another warily, like kids after a fight, both wondering which one will restart the conflict. But our fury with one another was diminishing; I felt reluctant to leave right away.

My favourite thing had always been to watch her in the house as she walked about, sat, combed her hair, showered, dressed, read. All day she was different, her numerous moods transforming her look, and I followed them, indeed lived in them, as a child lived with its mother. At night, as she slept, I’d listen to her breathing and I would kiss her hair. We had our difficulties and disputes, but I believed at least she wanted to be here with me, that I was always everything to her.