Hanif Kureishi - Collected Stories

He had no idea of her real age. She could have been in her forties; she could have been in her early thirties. It was all the same to him.

‘Alan, light me one up,’ she said.

He pulled out a Players Number Six for her, and she took it and placed it in her mouth. She smoked heavily, and liked him to light her fags so she could hang on to his hand with hers.

‘Where you bin?’ she said.

‘Busy, busy, busy,’ he said.

She leaned forward. ‘It’s good to be busy. Doin’ what?’

He told her about the visit of his uncle, auntie and cousins. He told her the whole thing, dropping in the fact that they were from India. She listened attentively, as she always did, with one of her ears, rather than her eyes, pointed at him; he found himself speaking to the side of her head, to her wispy long hair and the lopsided smile.

‘Our father was in India for twenty years,’ she said. ‘’E was a tea trader. Said it was lovely. Better than ’ere in all this cold. Now your family are off.’

‘They’ve gone.’

‘You’re missing ’em.’ He didn’t say anything for a bit. ‘What?’ she said.

‘Yes. I do, and will.’ He added, ‘I’m going over there, when I’ve saved up.’

‘Won’t you take me?’

‘You?’

‘Oh, please say yes, you will.’

‘To India?’

‘Oh, take me, take me,’ she said. ‘My brother Ernie takes me nowhere.’ E just curses me. I beg ’im, just the day out, and why not? To smell and ’ear the sea, why not! They’ve got a blind school there.’

‘Where?’

‘Bombay. I’ve bin told of it! They might take me in to help the starvin’ sufferin’ children!’

What an extraordinary spectacle it would be in Bombay, the English Indian boy and the blind woman.

She was holding a chocolate. ‘Now, come ’ere, you poor boy. Open.’

He went to sit on the kitchen chair beside her. Her pinafore was stained. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, always half-closed. There was no reason, he supposed, for her to go to the trouble of keeping her eyes open. The dark moons of her eyes seemed to have become stuck to the top of her sockets.

‘Hot today.’

‘Where?’

‘All over.’ He was flapping his shirt. ‘I’m sticky.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Really? You need some talcum powder over you. I’ve got some somewhere. Let’s do this first,’ cause I know what you’ve come for.’

‘Do you?’

Ali opened his mouth in readiness. Then, he didn’t know why, he closed his eyes, as though expecting a kiss.

It was her other hand which reached up to his face; it was this hand which stroked his cheek, forehead and nose, and traced the line of his lips.

‘I’m only goin’ to feel ’ow big you are,’ she said, releasing the chocolate into his mouth. ‘’Ave you ’ad a birthday recently? You seem bigger. That’s what I’m trying to get at, Alan.’

‘No,’ he said, shaking his head, and thereby shaking off her hand at last. ‘No increase in size this week.’

‘Just a minute.’ Now she was holding up half a crown, which he took and pushed into his pocket.

‘Thanks. Lord, thanks, Miss Blake.’

‘Now keep still.’

She reached for his throat. Her hand was trembling. She was fumbling at something around his neck and then eased lower. Through his shirt she was feeling his chest as if she had never touched another human body and wanted to know what it was like. Her eyelids seemed to be twitching. He had never been this close to her before. He let the chocolate sit on his tongue without biting it, until it melted and dissolved in the heat of his mouth. He found himself thinking of writing to Zahida. When his father went to work tomorrow, he’d go into his room and take some of the flimsy blue airmail paper on which Dad wrote to his brothers. Ali always kept the stamps, and he’d write Zahida a love letter, the first of many love letters, full of poems and drawings, telling her everything. The letters, he knew, took more than a week to get there. He would start writing tomorrow and await her replies, which he would read on the school bus.

Miss Blake worked Ali’s shirt loose; it had come completely open. Nurses, like his mother, had to touch strangers all the time. Mother said it was natural; she had seen some rotten things, but no human body had disgusted her.

Ali was silently counting the money he’d make; at this rate he’d be able to stay with Zahida. There would be time for them to do ‘everything’, as she had put it. He would go where she went, to the club, to the beach, to parties, in the chauffeur-driven car. The family would welcome him as their own. In the evenings, he would sit around with the vociferous men telling stories and jokes, and talking politics. Maybe he’d get married over there and his parents would join him. He’d have to work out the details.

Miss Blake continued to touch him. She seemed to have several hands which went around his upper body, fluttering like dying birds. He had no idea where they would land next. His stomach? His back? He was unable to move, his eyes closed, and all he could hear was the radio, and nothing on it that he liked. He made to move, and Miss Blake let out a surprised cry and turned her face up to him. There was no alteration in the mushed clay of her eyes, but her mouth was twisted.

‘Alan,’ she moaned.

He slapped the table, and she slid another half a crown across it. He put it in his pocket and skipped to the door.

‘Alan, Alan!’ Her fingers grasped at the air.

‘You can’t make me miss The Munsters .’

She knew the house and could move quickly around it. But he was outside before she could touch him again.

Father was still at his desk, and his head was resting on his arms. Ali stroked his hair and then tickled his nose. Father sat up suddenly and looked around in surprise.

‘What time is this to come back?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘Don’t go out with Mike too much,’ said Dad, trying to locate his pen, which Ali could see had fallen on the floor. Ali pointed at it. Dad bent down to pick it up and hit his head on the edge of the desk’s open drawer. ‘Those boys are useless. They’re all going to be motor mechanics!’ he added, rubbing his head.

‘I want to find better friends. Just like you want to find a better job.’

‘That’s enough, Ali! We’ve got to work!’

Ali lay down on the sofa on the other side of the room. He pulled his shirt up; his fingers drifted across his body. He touched himself where Miss Blake had stroked him. He smelled his fingers. She was there on him, where Zahida had been earlier. Her money was in his pocket.

He got up. Pretending he was doing his homework, he began to draft his first letter to Zahida. He was already in movement, already leaving there.

Next morning, when he and Mike went past on the way to the open-air swimming pool, and Mike was singing a football song and kicking his kit bag on its cord, Miss Blake was at her gate, rattling the bolt.

‘Mike, Mike,’ she shouted. ‘Where’s Alan?’

‘’Ere ’e is,’ said Mike. ‘Can’t you see ’is stupid brown ’ead? Can’t yer smell ’im?’

‘Morning, Miss Blake,’ said Ali.

‘Alan, Alan!’ She was leaning far over the gate. ‘Don’t you want … want something to eat? A chocolate or something?’ ‘I do, Miss Blake. You know I do.’ Mike was laughing. ‘Just you wait there,’ Ali said. ‘I’ll be back after I’ve had me dip.’

‘But Alan, Alan!’ she called again, more urgently. ‘Won’t you come ’ere and light me snout?’

Ali looked at Mike, and shrugged.

Ali went back to her, drew the packet of Number Six from her hand, popped one in her mouth, took her lighter and lit it. She grasped his hand tightly as he knew she would. When the wind blew out the flame, he handed the lighter back to her. She slipped her hand through the gate and gave him sixpence, which he pocketed. He ran away up the street, to catch up with Mike.