Hanif Kureishi - Collected Stories

‘Talk!’

‘Have you been drinking already?’

‘Just the one. I’m petrified he’ll do something lunatic during the meeting this afternoon. I wish you would look after him today.’

‘I am not yet a saint. I’ll have coffee with the girls and we’ll laugh about this.’

The boy emerged from the bathroom with his mass of hair — which Mal maintained would one day have to be removed surgically, under anaesthetic — slicked down with water. Mal noticed he had added perfumed hair gel, which sat on his head in lumps, mingling, no doubt, with his nits.

Mal took their luggage out to the car. Wallace had no choice but to follow, carrying a plastic bag which contained drinks, his Gameboy, pens, and many half-eaten Easter eggs.

In the back of the car, Mal stroked him. ‘Come on. No one’s going to love you if you behave like this. You need charm to get by in this world.’

The boy put his hands over his face as the taxi pulled away. He was wearing the goalkeeping gloves he refused to be parted from.

‘Don’t ever touch me. Or point at me. Don’t do anything bad to me, you bastard.’

Mal noticed the driver’s wide eyes watching them in the mirror. Clearly, he was from a country with stricter notions of how children should behave.

‘For Christ’s sake, shhh …’

They were on their way to see Andrea Knowles, a young film director, who was considering using Mal as editor on her first feature film. It was a job he needed badly; it would be a significant step up. Inevitably, Wallace’s mother had refused to alter their arrangement. Mal had tried to leave Wallace with his wife, but Wallace had taken to calling her a bitch and had kicked her.

Mal and Wallace’s mother had had a ‘fling’ ten years ago, lasting a few weeks. By the time Wallace was born, they had returned to their separate lives. All Mal wanted was for her to disappear into the mulch of the past. Somehow she had become pregnant and refused a termination.

‘How can you kill a baby?’ she said.

‘There are several methods I could suggest …’

What did he remember of their affair? One long conversation — their only real talk — during a party. Later, the girl playing the same jazz records over and over; they were all she could afford. Making love while there was a thunderstorm outside, the branches of the trees striking the windows. It wasn’t long before they ran out of ideal moments.

Now she was unrecognisable to him and lived with her husband, an unemployed alcoholic decorator. For years, Mal had hardly been allowed to see or even speak to the boy, though he contributed to his upkeep. When Wallace was six, Mal was given access to him about twice a year. All day they wandered around overheated shopping malls in the Midlands. Sometimes Mal phoned him, but Wallace never volunteered any information. After several silences, he said he had to go — Rugrats was on.

A friend of Mal’s once joked about how fortunate Mal was to have at least one of his kids living elsewhere. Mal had reddened with fury; for a week, this jibe marked his mind. Being a father entailed various duties which he wanted to follow, except that Wallace’s mother prevented them. The word ‘duty’ sounded odd to him. It was as unlikely a word, these days, as ‘moral’ or, to him, ‘spiritual’. He liked to think he had a pragmatic mouth. Despite this, in his feelings, Mal had had to let his son go — giving him to another man, admitting how little there was of him in the boy — and semi-forgetting him. This was aided by the birth of his younger son.

A year ago, Wallace’s mother and her partner had taken a market stall at the weekends, selling home-designed T-shirts. She didn’t like Wallace hanging around the market every weekend. Mal guessed this was the real reason for Wallace’s having to ‘get to know’ his real father, by visiting every three weeks.

Mal was relieved to have got his son back before it was too late. Of course, his wife was afraid of the effect this stranger would have on her family. She argued about the length of time Wallace could stay; she refused to let Wallace share his half-brother’s bedroom. It had taken Mal a week to convert his own work-room into a space for Wallace, with a TV, video, Playstation and music system. Wallace hated the room but stayed in it during the day, though not at night. He had ‘insonia’ and heard moans coming down the chimney. Mal lay awake, hearing Wallace watching movies in the living room at four in the morning.

If Mal thought things were beginning to go well in his life, Wallace was the fate he couldn’t elude. He had welcomed the boy, but the boy was a genius at not being welcomed. Mal liked to say he wanted to sue for less custody. Sometimes Wallace would play football with Mal, or let himself be taken to the cinema. But Wallace’s passion was shopping in London. Mal bought him things to assuage his furious greed: one big thing, it seemed, every day. Wallace had always insisted Mal buy him toys his mother wouldn’t let him have or couldn’t afford: guns, lightsabres, Playstation discs, Gameboy games, videos of horror films. Nevertheless, Mal knew that as soon as he dropped the boy off at his mother’s house, a two-hour drive away, his mobile phone would ring and he would be castigated for the presents, which would be dumped in the basement. The same thing happened if Mal gave him the autographs of movie actors, or film posters and videos.

Now Mal said, ‘I’ll buy you something at the railway station.’

A space opened in Wallace’s distress. ‘Buy me what?’

‘Anything to stop you abusing me and give me some peace.’

‘That’s all you want.’

‘Wouldn’t you?’ said Mal.

‘I don’t want to be here.’

‘But we’re going to see a woman called Andrea. It’s very important that you be nice to her.’

‘Why?’

‘She might give me a job and I can earn more money to spend on you.’

‘I’ll tell her you’re too lazy and bad-mannered.’

Mal started to laugh.

‘What’s funny?’

‘You.’

‘I can stop you laughing.’

‘Don’t I know it.’

On his last visit, Wallace had thrown some of Mal’s papers on to the floor and wiped his feet on them; later, he’d held a cushion over his half-brother’s face and punched him. Mal had ripped his belt from his trousers and raised it. His wife cried out and he rushed from the house. Underneath Wallace’s whimpering, moaning and abuse, a child was screaming for help. No one knew what to do, but didn’t someone have to do something? In such circumstances, how did you learn to be a parent?

As it was, Mal drank when the boy was around. Wallace destabilised him in ways he couldn’t grasp, making him believe he was either incompetent and useless or a monster, a feeling which had begin to poison all areas of his life. On his last job, a television serial, his concentration had failed and he had had to do several all-nighters to complete the job. He was afraid that Andrea had heard about this.

At the railway station, Wallace led his father to comics, sweets and drinks. Then Mal obtained sandwiches for both of them, secured a table in one of the cafés and went to get coffee and a beer. On his return, Wallace had disappeared.

Mal waited and drank his beer. Perhaps Wallace had gone to the toilet. After a while, when Wallace’s absence seemed to freeze reality into one stopped moment of horror, Mal had no choice but to gather up their bags and the coffee and shuffle through the shops, toilets, bars and cafés as rapidly as he could, asking strangers if they’d seen a plump kid with a filthy face, wearing a Beano shirt.

Wallace was alone at a table, driving a hamburger into his mouth and studying his compass.

Mal sank down. ‘Jesus, I can hardly breathe. If you do that again, I’ll tell your mum.’