Hanif Kureishi - Collected Stories

‘What’s wrong?’ she had asked. They were back in his bedroom.

‘You’re leaving tomorrow. I don’t want you to go.’

‘When I grow up,’ she said, ‘I’m going to be a pilot like my dad used to be.’ Ali had never been in an aeroplane. ‘I’ll fly everywhere. I’ll come and see you.’

‘That’s a long time away.’

Ali envied his cousins seeing one another almost every day. They lived close to one another and the family’s drivers ferried them to one another’s houses whenever they wanted. ‘We are being called to weddings and parties the whole time.’

Then Zahida said, ‘Papa told me you’re invited to stay with us.’

‘But that’s not going to happen, is it? My parents don’t like to go anywhere.’

‘Come on your own. There’s plenty of room. All kinds of bums and relatives turn up at home! Come for the holidays, like we do here. Christmas would be good.’

He said with shame, ‘I would, but Dad doesn’t have the money to send me.’

‘Why not?’

He shrugged. ‘He doesn’t earn enough.’

She said, ‘Save up. Didn’t you help out at the circus last Easter?’

‘Yes.’

‘It made us all laugh like mad. You weren’t a clown, were you?’

‘I came on to clean up after the elephant,’ he said. ‘It made the audience laugh. Mostly I carried props around.’

‘But you’re so small!’

‘I’ll get bigger.’

She said, ‘You’re big enough now to wash cars and dig gardens.’

‘That’s true,’ he said. ‘I can do that.’

‘You can.’

He kissed her. ‘Tell India I am coming!’

He was surprised to see his father standing at the foot of the stairs, watching them both.

It was then the taxis had arrived, hooting their horns.

When everyone had gone, Ali’s mother sighed with relief. She was leaving for work. His mother was a nurse who worked nights; when she could, she slept during the day. Now, she and father had a row about what the eldest uncles had said to Dad. In a sulk, Ali’s father went into his room and sat at his desk with his back to Ali. He was studying law by correspondence course, which Dad’s wealthiest brother, the head of the family, was paying for. He had become angry with Ali’s father, who had failed his exams and didn’t seem to be making much of himself in England. At lunchtime, he had shouted, ‘There are so many opportunities here, yaar, and the only one you’ve taken is to marry Joan! Why are you letting down the whole family?’

As it was, his mother was already annoyed with the men. A few days before, after she had shown off her new washing-machine, they had given her all the Bombay family’s washing to do. ‘I’m not their servant,’ she said, throwing down the pillowcases filled with dirty clothes. Father, with Ali’s help, had to figure out how to work the machine, one reading the instructions, the other fiddling with the dials, as a pool of water crept across the floor. Then they ironed and folded the clothes, pretending it was Joan’s handiwork.

Dad might now study for hours, with a furious look on his face. Ali sat down, too. In his father’s room, where Ali was supposed to have been preparing for the new school year if he was to keep up with the other pupils and not become like his father, all he could hear was the ticking clock. The house seemed to have stopped breathing. His mother wouldn’t return until the morning; she’d make his breakfast, ensure he had a clean towel, and, when Mike knocked, send him to the swimming baths.

Ali slipped out without his father appearing to notice; he didn’t want to stay at home if no one was laughing or talking. He was surprised to find Mike still outside, kicking a tennis ball against the front wall.

‘Come on out, yer bastard. Bin waitin’ for yer,’ he said. ‘What you bin doin’, cryin’ and all that?’

He and Mike trudged across the flat park at twilight; goal posts like gallows stood in the mud.

‘You took yer time gettin’ out,’ said Mike. ‘Nearly dark now.’

‘People were round.’

‘’Ate it when that ’appens. Yer with yer mates now. Everyone’ll be down the swings.’

Ali and Mike always went straight to the swings. If it was raining, they shared cigarettes in the dank shed where the footballers changed for the weekend league.

Mike shouted, ‘There they are! The scrubbers are out!’

They started to run. It wasn’t far. Ali knew all the kids; they weren’t his friends but they lived near by, some younger, others older. His mother called them ‘rough’.

‘Where you bin?’ one of them said to Mike.

‘Waitin’ for Ali.’ E ’ad idiots round. There were dozens of ’em, smellin’ the place out. It can’t be allowed, so many darkies in a council ’ouse!’

The girls were on the swings, the boys smoking, spitting and hanging from the metal uprights. The boys attempted to twang the girls’ braces against their breasts as they swung up and down, but mostly they were discussing the dance. It was up at Petts Wood and there’d be a reggae group. At the moment, they all loved Desmond Dekker’s music and were talking about whether they’d be let in to the dance hall or have to sneak in through the back way and get lost in the darkness. The girls would be allowed to slip past the doormen, but the boys were obviously too young. Ali knew he had no chance.

‘There’s nothing wrong with my family,’ Ali said to Mike.

‘You over ’ere now,’ said Mike.

The two of them looked uncomprehendingly at each other. Ali spat and strode away, but realised he didn’t want to go home. He would walk the streets until he was ready to see his father.

At the top of the road he noticed Miss Blake’s light on behind the net curtain. Sometimes he went in to see her on his way back from the young actors’ club or his Spanish guitar lesson. She always gave him sweets and half a crown. She lived with her brother, a porter at Victoria Station who was well known for fighting in the local pubs.

Miss Blake was blind and always at her gate when the children returned from school and the commuters from work. Some of the other kids would cry out at her — ‘She’s playing a blinder today!’ — but she would continue to stand there, a pure, inane smile on her lips. Sometimes, Ali walked around his bedroom with his eyes closed and his hands out in front, trying to know what it was like for her. He had visited her a lot lately, needing a few pennies. In return, she asked to hear what he’d done at school and what he thought of his friends. He had begun to enjoy his monologues; it was like keeping a diary out loud. Whatever he said, she would listen. It was odd, but he spoke to her more than he did to anyone else.

He tapped on the front window. ‘Hi, Miss Blake.’

‘Come on in, Alan, dear.’

She thought his name was Alan. He enjoyed being Alan for a while; it was a relief. Sometimes he went all day being Alan.

He followed her into the kitchen which had patches of curling lino over the bare floorboards. The kitchen couldn’t have been painted for twenty years and it smelled of gas. To keep warm, Miss Blake always kept the stove lit. She knew where everything was in the house, just by touch. The radio was playing wartime big-band music.

She got him a glass of water which he tried never to drink, the glass was so filthy, and he placed it next to the metal box in which she kept her change. She always seemed to have plenty of coins. She was meant to have paintings inherited from her family, and in the neighbourhood it was rumoured that, unable to see them, she had sold them.

She sat there, waiting for him to speak.

At first, he thought he would tell her about the visit of his family and the restaurants they’d all been to; how they’d seen the zoo, Madame Tussaud’s and Hyde Park. But he had never mentioned his Indian connection before. She didn’t know he was half-Indian; she was the only person he knew who wasn’t aware of this.