Hanif Kureishi - Collected Stories

He was making me nervous, more nervous, even, than Patricia. He chopped out some generous lines of coke and offered me one.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

He was snorting one himself when there was a knock on the door. It was one of his Thai staff. Matte went to him and then, to my surprise, turned to me.

‘I’m being told that someone called Patricia is looking for you.’

‘Oh, Christ.’

Matte laughed, and said to the man, ‘He can’t be found anywhere at the moment. He’s indisposed.’ He shut the door. ‘She’s after you, eh? Wants your body.’

‘Maybe I should appreciate her appreciation more. There’ll be a time when no one will want to jump my old bones.’

‘The one thing I’ve never wanted is to get old, to see your own skin blotted and withered.’

‘Why is that?’

‘I’m from a big family. As a kid, I hated grandmothers, aunts, old men and women kissing me. Their lips, mouths, breath over me — makes me nearly lose me lunch to think of it.’

I said, ‘I remember my grandmother’s cheeks and hands, her cardigan, her smell, with nothing but love. She had learned things, which made me feel safe. Anyhow, you haven’t been old yet. How do you know you won’t like it?’

‘I haven’t died yet. Or visited Northampton. I just know they won’t agree with me.’

He kept looking at me as though there was something he wanted to know or ask me.

I said, ‘I’ll only be here a minute. All I want to do is relax.’

‘You do that. I’ve got a party to run.’

‘Right.’

Somewhat self-consciously, I turned to look out at the dark sea, hoping that when I turned back he’d be gone. I heard him lock the door. Before I could speak, I was hit, and lost my bearings.

Instinctively, I imagined Matte had struck me from behind, smashing his fist onto the back of my head with some strength. That was how it felt. But he had encircled my neck with his arm, kicked my legs away and forced me to my knees. I thought: now he’s going to shoot me in the back of the head. During this I recalled, incorrectly I hope, a line from Webster: ‘Of all the deaths, a violent one is best.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Leo, shut it! If you keep still I won’t damage you.’

‘Keep still for what?’

He was searching in my hair, not unlike the way I would grab my kids and examine their heads for nits. I said, ‘I never had you down for a madman.’

‘’Scuse me,’ he said, relaxing his grip. ‘I found the mark.’

‘Mark?’

‘Didn’t you know? I guess they like to believe it’s all seamless. You can get up now. How old are you really? No need to pretend. I am nearly eighty. A good age in a man, don’t you think?’

I murmured, ‘You look well.’

‘Thanks. So do you.’

He said, ‘Senex bis puer.’

‘An old man is twice a boy?’

‘That’s the one. I’ve just taken up wrestling, along with the kick boxing.’ He put up his hands. ‘Wonderful sport. I’ll show you a few moves later.’

I wiped my face. ‘I think I’ve got the idea.’

But I pushed him then, a couple of times, quickly, and he fell back. He was flushed with fury. For a moment, I thought we’d be wrestling. We’d have enjoyed that. But before he could react, I’d dropped my hands and was laughing, so the argument was whether he’d lose his temper or not.

He managed not to, distracting himself by opening a cabinet within which there was a monitor. He switched it on and flicked to a channel showing the orgy room. I spotted Alicia dancing alone, naked. She looked freer than I had seen her before.

‘Want this on? Or would you prefer to slip into someone comfortable — when I’ve finished with you?’

‘Neither.’

‘Nor me,’ he said. ‘Nothing’s ever new for people like us. It takes a lot to turn us on — if anything does at all.’

‘What else is there? Why have we done this?’

‘But there is something left. You don’t know?’

‘Not unless you go to the trouble of telling me,’ I said.

‘Murder. It is the deepest, loveliest thing. You haven’t tried it yet?’ I shook my head. ‘One must experience everything once, don’t you think?’

I said, ‘No one’s ever hit me like that.’

‘Shame.’

‘Why did you do it?’

He touched my neck, chest and stomach. ‘I considered that body for myself, but wanted something a bit wider and more chunky. I’m surprised it hung around there for so long. Still, they did have an excellent choice of new facilities. It would have looked good on me. It doesn’t look bad on you. How does it feel?’

I moved my limbs a bit. ‘Fine — until you attacked me.’

‘How long have you had it?’

‘Not even three months.’

‘I didn’t hurt you, did I?’

‘I’ll survive,’ I said. ‘I’m just a little annoyed. Thanks for the concern.’

‘It was your body I was thinking of, rather than you. Hey, what d’you think of my body?’ Without waiting for a reply, he removed his shirt. ‘Sometimes, all you want is to be able to look in the mirror without disgust.’ I nodded approvingly, but, obviously, not approvingly enough. ‘What about this?’ he said. He was showing me his penis, even slapping it against his leg with obscene pride. ‘It just goes on and on.’

‘Incomparable.’

‘That’s what they all say. How are my buns?’

‘Jesus. With those you could be your own hotdog.’

‘I’ve been in this body for three years. You get used to bodies, and the person you become in them. As with jeans, Newbodies are better the more they’re worn in. You forget you’re in them.’ He pulled at his stomach. ‘Look at that: I’m increasing here, but I don’t want to be perfect. I figured out that perfection makes people crazy, or feel inferior.’

‘Whereas’, I said, ‘it’s one’s weaknesses that people want to know?’

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘No one ever gets rid of those. I think I’ll do another ten years — or even longer, if things go well — in this facility before moving on to something fitter.’ He filled his glass once more and held it out. ‘To us — pioneers of the new frontier!’

‘We have a secret in common,’ I said, ‘you and me. Do you get to discuss it much with others?’

‘They do talk about it, “the newies”. But I want to live, not chatter. I love being a funky dirty young man. I love pouting my sexy lips and being outstanding at tennis. My serve could knock your face off! You should have seen me before. I’ve got the photographs somewhere. What’s the point of being rich if you’re lopsided and have a harelip? It was a joke, a mistake that I came out alive like that! This is the real me!’

‘What I miss,’ I said, ‘is giving people the pleasure of knowing about me.’

He was unstoppable. ‘Soon everyone’ll be talking ’bout this. There’ll be a new class, an elite, a superclass of superbodies. Then there’ll be shops where you go to buy the body you want. I’ll open one myself with real bodies rather than mannequins in the window. Bingo! Who d’you want to be today!’

I said, ‘If the idea of death itself is dying, all the meanings, the values of Western civilisation since the Greeks, have changed. We seem to have replaced ethics with aesthetics.’

‘Bring on the new meanings! You’re a conservative, then.’

‘I didn’t think so. I guess I don’t know what or who I am. It’s always uplifting, though, to meet a hedonist — someone relieved of the tiring standards which hold the rest of us back from the eternal party.’

‘You still think I’m just a playboy, do you? Look at those books!’ He pointed at a shelf. ‘I’m taking those in! Euripides, Goethe, Nietzsche. I’m dealing with the deepest imponderables. You know what happened to me? I was seventy-five years old. My wife leaves me — not for some virile fucker, but to become a Buddhist. She prefers old fat stomach to me! Some other cultures go for different body shapes, you know.’ He went on, ‘Mostly, my children don’t bother with me. They’re too busy with drugs! My friends are dead. I can buy women, but they don’t desire me. I didn’t just work all my life, I fought and scrambled and dug into the rock surface of the world with my fuckin’ fingernails! I lost it all and I was dying and I was depressed. You think I wanted to check out in that state?’