Hanif Kureishi - Collected Stories

— Do they look like that to you? she said. — Like the sort of people who’d be in and out? What an assumption to make about strangers!

— So far they haven’t taken any interest in their surroundings, said Ed. — Even I would look up at the building I was moving into.

— They’re busy right now. They must be incredibly stressed. Actually, I don’t believe you would look up.

Ed and Ann had been living together for three years. She was thirty and he was thirty-two. She was an assistant to a TV producer; he worked for a computer firm.

Ed and Ann had intended to go shopping, but this event was more compelling. The couple made coffee, fetched chairs and ate chocolate biscuits beside the window. When nothing much was happening, each of them in turn showered and dressed.

The van was empty. After paying the removal men, the new tenants disappeared into their flat. Ed and Ann had never been into the upstairs apartment, or into any of the other three apartments in the building. But it could only have been the same size as theirs, with a similar layout: bedroom, living room with a narrow kitchen at the end, and a bathroom.

Ed and Ann stood there, listening to the couple moving about.

Ann said, — I can tell they’re trying to decide what to do with everything. When things are in place they tend to stay where they are. Nothing changes without a real effort. That happened to us.

— Perhaps we should change something now, said Ed. — What d’you think?

— Don’t be silly. Listen, she said, looking up at the ceiling as though it were really transparent. — What they’re doing is trying to find a way to merge their things, their lives, in other words.

— I want to know why we’ve wasted so much time doing this, he said. — I feel cheated. Let’s go and see that Wong Kar-Wei film.

— Oh, no, she said. — I need something lighter.

Just as Ann and Ed were getting ready to go to the cinema, still trying to decide which film to see, the couple upstairs seemed to race out of their flat. Ed and Ann heard their feet on the uncarpeted stairs and the crash of the heavy front door.

— Look! called Ann, who had run back to the window.

Ed joined her immediately. — They’re standing there in the street. They don’t know where to go.

— Either they don’t know the area or they can’t make up their minds what to do.

— Weren’t we like that?

— They’ve decided. At last! There they go.

— What’s he reading? Can you see the book he’s carrying?

— He’s going to read! she said. — Aren’t they going to talk? You’re like that. He only opens books!

— He doesn’t know anything except there’s a hole in the centre of him! He’s hungry for information!

— Doesn’t he want information about her?

— That’s not enough.

Ed and Ann watched the couple walk away, until they turned the corner.

A few hours later, when Ed and Ann returned from the cinema, they looked at each other as if to say, where are they? Almost at that moment the couple from upstairs returned too. Ed and Ann heard the door to the flat upstairs slam; after a while they played a record.

— Ah, said Ed. — That’s what he likes.

It was a modern jazz record, known to people who liked ‘fusion’ but not, he guessed, to the general public. It made Ed want to hear it again, as if for the first time. He felt embarrassed to put his copy on, for fear the couple upstairs thought he was imitating them. Yet why should he have his life dictated by theirs? He played the record with the sound low, lying on the floor with his ear against the speaker.

— What do you think you’re doing? said Ann.

When the record stopped, Ed heard the woman upstairs yawn, then the man laughed and seemed to throw his shoes across the floor.

The following week, Ed and Ann were aware of the upstairs couple going to work, to the pub, to the supermarket, and to the second-hand furniture shop to buy a bedside table. The couple left for work at a similar time to Ed and Ann. The man walked to the same tube station as Ed, on the other side of the street. Ann said she’d seen the woman in the bus queue. But they had not actually run into each other face to face yet. They had had no reason to say hello.

— But, as Ann said, — it’s inevitable. Aren’t you looking forward to it? I don’t know anyone who has too many friends.

On Sunday Ed and Ann went to their local coffee shop for breakfast. It was a small café with only eight tables. They had just sat down when Ed noticed something in the Travel section of the newspaper, written by someone his age. ‘Bastard,’ he murmured, folding the page and tearing it out, to read later.

He looked up to see the couple from upstairs walking towards them. They came into the coffee shop, chose the table in the other alcove and ordered. They ate croissants and, just like Ed and Ann, the woman read the Culture pages and the man looked over the Travel section. He made a face, tore out an article, folded it up and put it in his jacket pocket.

Ed was about to comment on this when Ann said, — Is she attractive? Do you like her legs? You were looking at them.

— All I want is to see her cross them. Then I’ll get on with my life. Her hair’s all over the place. If she cut it and it was spiky, sort of punky, we could see what she was like.

Ann pulled back her own hair. — What d’you think? Look at me, Ed. What do you see?

— It’s as if the sun’s come out on a cloudy day, he replied, returning to his newspaper. Then he said in a low voice, — I guess we should go and say hello. Would you mind … going over?

— Me? I’m shocked. Why not you?

— You wanted to meet them. And it’s always me, he said.

Nevertheless, Ed got to his feet. The man, too, in the other alcove was already getting up. Ed went to him.

The two men shook hands and introduced themselves.

— I’m Ed from the flat downstairs, Ed said. — This is Ann, my wife. Here she is.

Ann had joined them. — I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your names, she said.

Ed said, — Ann, these are our new upstairs neighbours, Ed and Ann.

— Hello, Ann, said Ann. — Pleased to meet you. Do you want to hear about the neighbourhood?

— We thought you looked a little lost, said Ed.

— We’d love to hear about it, said Ann from upstairs.

Later the four of them walked back together, parting at the door of Ed and Ann’s flat.

Inside, Ed and Ann didn’t speak for a while. Ed watched Ann walking about; she seemed to be shaking her head as if she had water in her ears. Ann watched Ed glancing at the ceiling. They sat at the table, close together.

Ed whispered, — What time did they invite us for?

— Seven-thirty.

— Right. Are you looking forward to it?

— I’m wondering what they’ll cook and whether they’ll do it together.

He said, — We’ll see. It’ll be useful to get a look at their apartment, too. We’ve been talking about it for a while.

— What shall we wear?

— What? Normal clothes, he said. — It’s a casual, neighbourly thing, isn’t it?

— Maybe so, said Ann. — But I don’t feel casual at this moment. Do you?

— No, he said. — I don’t feel casual. I feel tense. I don’t even know what we should do now.

When Ed and Ann first met, they developed the habit, on Sunday afternoons, of going to bed to make love. They still did this sometimes; or they lay down and he read while she wrote in her journal of self-discovery. Now they took off their clothes and got into bed as if they were being observed. They had never before been self-conscious about any noise they might make. They had never lain there without touching at all. When Ed glanced at Ann’s unmoving body he knew she was listening for footsteps on the wooden floor above. It wasn’t until they heard the sound of Ed and Ann making love upstairs that they felt obliged to get down to it themselves, finishing around the same time.