Hanif Kureishi - Collected Stories

However compelling the silence by the pond, it didn’t follow that they could not hear Ed and Ann upstairs in the morning, and it didn’t obviate the problem of the weekends, or the fact that they had promised to invite Ed and Ann for supper, something they had to get past, unless it was to remain a troublesome, undischarged obligation.

Meanwhile, Ed and Ann bought new clothes and shoes; Ann had her hair cut. Ed started to exercise, in order to change the shape of his body. One night, Ann decided she wanted to get a cat but decided a tattoo would be less trouble. A badger, say, on her thigh, would be unique, a distinguishing mark. Ed said, — That would be going too far, Ann!

— You won’t let me be different! screamed Ann.

— They’re driving you crazy! This is really getting to you.

— And it’s not to you?

— That’s it! he said, staring up at the ceiling. — They will have heard everything now!

— I don’t care! she said. — I’m inviting them in here, then we’ll know the truth! She took a sheet of paper from the drawer, wrote on it, and took it upstairs, pushing it under the door. A few minutes later, it was returned with thanks.

— They can’t wait to see us, said Ann, holding up the piece of paper.

The following weekend, Ed and Ann moved the table into the living room and put out glasses and cutlery; they shopped, cooked and talked things over. They both agreed that this event was the hardest thing they’d had to get through.

At a quarter to eight they opened the champagne and drank a glass each. At eight o’clock there was a knock on the door.

The two Anns and the two Eds kissed and embraced. Ed was looking healthy — he’d been swimming a lot. His Ann was wearing a long white dress which clung to her. She had nothing on underneath. It was so tight that to sit down she had to pull it up to her knees. She showed them her new tattoo.

It was late, almost morning, when the party broke up. Ed and Ann had left, and Ed and Ann were blowing out the candles and clearing a few things away when they fell upon each other and had sex on the rug, which they pulled under the table.

— We did it. I enjoyed the evening, said Ann, as they lay there.

— It wasn’t so bad, said Ed.

— What was the best bit, for you?

— I’m thinking of it now, he said.

— I’ll stroke your face, then, she said, — while you go over it in your mind.

The two Anns had been talking about their careers. Ed from upstairs, seated near the window and leaning back, had been looking out over the dark street, enjoying the small cigar Ed had given him. Ed had asked him a question, which the other Ed had chosen to answer at length, but only in his mind, though his lips smacked occasionally. Ed had watched his upstairs neighbour smoke, his impatience subsiding, trying to see what he liked and disliked about this familiar stranger. He had thought, — I know I can’t take all of him in now. All I have to do is look at him, face him, without turning away. If I turn away now, everything will be worse and I could be done for.

As he had continued to look, with pity, with affection, with curiosity, until the two of them had seemed alone together, Ed had found himself thinking, — He’s not so bad. He’s lost hope, that’s all. He has everything else, he’s alive, and there’s nothing wrong with him or her, or any of us here now. We only have to see this to grasp something valuable.

— And did you like her tonight? Ann said.

— I did, he said. — Very much so.

— What did you like?

— Her kindness, her intelligence, her energy and her soul. The fact she listens to others. She looks for good things about others to pick up on.

— Wonderful, she said. — What else?

He told her more; she told him what she had thought.

A fortnight later, on a Saturday morning, Ann went to the window.

— Ed, the van is here, she said.

— Good, said Ed, joining her. — There’s the guitar, the rug, everything.

The van was parked outside. The familiar objects were being carried in the opposite direction by the same two men. Ed and Ann from upstairs had given up their flat; they were going to Rio for six months and would leave their things with their parents. While they were away, they would think about what to do on their return.

When the van was packed, Ed and Ann went downstairs to wish their neighbours good luck. On the pavement, the couples said goodbye, wished each other well and exchanged phone numbers, sincerely hoping they would never have to see each other again.

The apartment upstairs was empty once more. Ed and Ann went back into their own flat. The silence seemed sublime.

— What shall we do now? said Ann.

— I don’t know yet. Then he said, — Oh, but now I do.

— What?

He offered her his hand. In the bathroom, she undressed and stood there with her foot up on the side of the bath, to let him look at her, before she sat down. He filled the jug from the sink taps and went to her and let water fall over her hair, body and legs. Her face was upturned and her eyes were eager and bright, looking at him and into the water, cascading.

If you think the living are difficult to deal with, the dead can be worse.

This is what Harry’s friend Gerald had said. The remark returned repeatedly to Harry, particularly that morning when he had so wearily and reluctantly got out of bed. It was the anniversary of his father’s death. Whether it was seven or eight years, Harry didn’t want to worry. He was to take Mother to visit Father’s grave.

Harry wondered if his children, accompanied perhaps by his wife Alexandra, would visit his grave. What would they do with him in their minds; what would he become for them? He would never leave them alone, he had learned that. Unlike the living, the dead you couldn’t get rid of.

Harry’s mother was not dead, but she haunted him in two ways: from the past, and in the present. He talked to her several times a day, in his mind. This morning it was as a living creature that he had to deal with her.

*

He had been at home on his own for a week. Alexandra, his wife, was in Thailand attending ‘workshops’. When they weren’t running away, the two children, a boy and a girl, were at boarding school.

The previous night had been strange.

*

Now Mother was waiting for him in her overcoat at the door of the house he had been brought up in.

‘You’re late,’ she almost shouted, in a humorous voice.

He knew she would say this.

He tapped his watch. ‘I’m on time.’

‘Late, late!’

He thrust his watch under her face. ‘No, look.’

For Mother, he was always late. He was never there at the right time, and he never brought her what she wanted, and so he brought her nothing.

He didn’t like to touch her, but he made himself bend down to kiss her. What a small woman she was. For years she had been bigger than him, of course; bigger than everything else. She had remained big in his mind, pushing too many other things aside.

If she had a musty, slightly foul, bitter smell, it was not only that of an old woman, but a general notification, perhaps, of inner dereliction.

‘Shall we set off?’ he said.

‘Wait.’

She whispered something. She wanted to go to the toilet.

She trailed up the hall, exclaiming, grunting and wheezing. One of her legs was bandaged. The noises, he noticed, were not unlike those he made getting into bed.

The small house seemed tidy, but he remembered Mother as a dirty woman. The cupboards, cups and cutlery were smeared and encrusted with old food.