Hanif Kureishi - Collected Stories

‘She already knows you don’t want me around.’

‘Is that what she says?’

‘You never visited me on my birthday.’

‘I wasn’t allowed to.’

Wallace said, ‘I didn’t like the sandwiches you got for me.’

‘I understand. I’m your father and I have no idea what you like to eat.’

Wallace burped. ‘It’s okay, thanks. I’m full now.’

In the train, Mal sat opposite the boy and closed his eyes.

‘Will we crash?’ said Wallace loudly. Everyone in the carriage was looking at them. ‘They all crash, don’t they?’

Mal put on his sunglasses. ‘I hope so.’

‘Listen —’ Wallace had other concerns, but Mal was squeezing balls of wax as far into his ears as they’d go.

He could tell they’d arrived, the air was cooler and fresh. With renewed optimism, Mal carried their bags down to the front, telling Wallace how he’d always loved English seaside resorts and their semi-carnival feel. Such decay could provide a mesmeric atmosphere for a film. If Andrea decided to employ him, he wondered whether she might let him set up a cutting-room here. The family could stay. Wallace might like to visit.

They were both tired when they arrived at the small hotel, which smelled of fried bacon. They looked through into a sitting room full of enormous flower-patterned furniture, in which an old couple were playing Scrabble.

Wallace said, ‘Are you sure it’s only one night?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve lied to me before.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You’ve lied about this whole thing.’

In their room, Mal opened the windows. He went out on to the balcony and smoked a joint while watching the untroubled people walking on the front. Wallace settled down on the bed with his Gameboy. Mal unpacked a change of clothes for Wallace and a couple of books on psychology for himself. He took a shower, opened a bottle of whisky and took a long draught.

When he could, Mal walked about naked in front of Wallace, showing him the stomach flopping above the thin legs, the weak grey pubic hair, the absurd boyish buttocks. Wallace needed to take him in, to see him, as Mal believed people in complete families did daily.

Lately, Mal had been unable to stop worrying about whether Wallace had something wrong with him. Perhaps a certain drug or psychiatrist might be of benefit. Yet Wallace had friends; he was doing better at school than Mal ever had. You couldn’t pathologise him for hating his father. For Mal, the strain was in having to work this out for himself. Recently he had been mulling over a memory from his student days of two acquaintances discussing R. D. Laing. At the time, he had been embarrassed by his ignorance and instinctively regarded what they said as pretentious, as showing off. But something about families and the impossibility of living within their contradictions, which made children mad, had stuck in his mind. Perhaps this was Wallace’s predicament. Was he the embodiment of his parents’ mistake, of their stupidity? Wasn’t Wallace somehow carrying all their craziness? What, then, could Mal do?

Mal lay on the bed next to him. ‘Wallace, will you cuddle me? Will you hold me and let me kiss you?’ But Wallace was trying to look elsewhere. Mal said, ‘Maybe you know your mother wouldn’t like you becoming close to me.’

‘She certainly thinks you is a great big fool.’

Mal shut his eyes but was too aware of Wallace to drift off. The joint was making him dreamy. He said, ‘I was — almost — a fool. I haven’t thought of this for a long time. When I was seventeen and my father had just died, I packed a few things and left home, leaving my mum, who never spoke to me, or to anyone much —’

Wallace looked up.

‘Was there something wrong with her?’

‘I couldn’t stay to find out. I had dyed my hair multi-coloured. I wore a slashed leather jacket and dirty trousers covered in straps and zips, and black motorcycle boots. I went to live in the back of a junk shop we’d broken into —’

‘Could the police have taken you to prison?’

‘If they’d found us. But we hid, smashing and burning the furniture for heat. We drank cider and took —’

‘You were drunk?’

‘A lot of the time.’

‘Did you fall down and hurt yourself?’

‘Often, yes. Except that my uncle, my father’s brother, who was recovering from heart surgery, climbed in through the window one day while we were asleep.’

‘Were you still drunk?’

‘He said that had my father been alive, he’d have been killed by how I was living. I guess I was that man’s lost sheep. He couldn’t rest until I was safe. You know that Bible story about the sheep?’

‘Sheep? I’ve seen Chicken Run .’

‘Right. The next day, my uncle took me to the local college and begged them to admit me. I didn’t want to go.’

‘You didn’t want to learn anything?’

‘I hated learning.’

‘At school, I’m on the top table.’

‘Excellent. My uncle said I could live at his house as long as I was at college. So I couldn’t drop out. One time in class, the teacher showed a film called The 400 Blows . I figured watching movies was better than work. This film was about a young, unhappy kid — like me, then — who didn’t get along with his mum and dad. I kept thinking it was like looking at a series of paintings. It was the first time that beauty had seemed to matter to me. I realised that if I could be involved in such work, I’d get a crack at happiness.’

Mal sat up and poured himself another drink.

Wallace said, ‘What happened then?’

‘That’s how I trained to be a film editor. It’s why we’re here today.’

The phone rang in the silence. Wallace answered.

‘Mum? Is that you?’

It was Andrea, downstairs. Mal started to put his clothes on. ‘Champ, we’d better go.’

‘Why should we? I don’t want her!’

Mal wanted to plead with the boy to be polite but knew it would make things worse.

Outside the hotel, Mal introduced Wallace to Andrea.

‘He’s my real daddy but not really,’ said Wallace.

‘You can only have one real daddy.’

Wallace was staring at her. She crouched down and showed him the ring through her nose.

‘You can touch it.’

He stroked it.

‘Does it hurt?’

‘Nope. Well, it does now. I’ve got another one, called a stud.’ She put her tongue out.

‘Yuckie. What if you swallow it?’

‘See if you can grab it, Wallace.’

It was a good little game.

‘Can we go to the pier?’ asked Wallace.

Mal gave Wallace a five-pound note.

‘Of course.’

Wallace said to Andrea, ‘He’s going to start being all nice now you’re here.’

Wallace walked in front, doing karate kicks and shooting imaginary people. He made circular movements with his arms and hands which Mal recognised from rappers. Mal said that when he was a kid, he and his friends wanted to be ‘hard’, like the cockney criminals they’d heard about. Now the kids based themselves in fantasy on Jamaican — American ‘gangstas’.

On the pier, Wallace stopped suddenly to get down on his knees and peer through the wooden slats to the sea below.

‘Come on, gangsta,’ said Mal.

‘What if we fall through?’ said Wallace. ‘We could die down there.’

Andrea took his hand. ‘I’m quite a swimmer. I’d carry you to safety on my back, like a dolphin.’

Wallace disappeared into the hot, noisy arcades and began to dispose of his money. As they followed him, Andrea told Mal about the film, for which most of the finance was in place; she was rewriting the script. They had time to discuss the films they were currently thinking about when, to Mal’s surprise, Wallace said he wanted to go on the trampolines. His money was gone, but Andrea offered to pay for him. Wallace took off his shoes and jumped up and down, yelling.