Hanif Kureishi: Collected Stories

Jimmy shouted, ‘It’s my bed! And stop fucking that woman, she’s overdosing!’

There was nothing in the woman’s eyes.

‘Is she all right?’ Roy asked.

‘She still alive,’ the boy explained. ‘My finger on her pulse.’

Jimmy cried, ‘They stole my fucking booze and drunk it, found my speed and took it, and stole my money and spent it. I’m not having these bastards in my basement, they’re bastards.’

Jake said to Roy: ‘Number one, he’s evicted right now this minute. He went berserk. Tried to punch us around, and then tried to kill himself.’

Jimmy winked up at Roy. ‘Did I interrupt your evening, man? Were you talking about film concepts?’

For years Roy had made music videos and commercials, and directed episodes of soap operas. Sometimes he taught at the film school. He had also made a sixty-minute film for the BBC, a story about a black girl singer. He had imagined that this would be the start of something considerable, but although the film received decent reviews, it had taken him no further. In the mid-eighties he’d been considered for a couple of features, but like most films, they’d fallen through. He’d seen his contemporaries make films in Britain, move to LA and buy houses with pools. An acquaintance had been nominated for an Oscar.

Now at last his own movie was in place, apart from a third of the money and therefore the essential signed contracts and final go-ahead, which were imminent. In the past week Munday had been to LA and New York. He had been told that with a project of this quality he wouldn’t have trouble raising the money.

Kara said, ‘I expect Roy was doing some hard work.’ She turned to him. ‘He’s too much. Bye-bye, Jimmy, I love you.’

While she bent down and kissed Jimmy, and he rubbed his hand between her legs, Roy looked at the picture of Keith Richards and considered how he’d longed for the uncontrolled life, seeking only pleasure and avoiding the ponderous difficulties of keeping everything together. He wondered if that was what he still wanted, or if he were still capable of it.

When Kara had gone, Roy stood over Jimmy and asked, ‘What d’you want me to do?’

‘Quote the lyrics of “Tumblin’ Dice”.’

The girl in the hat touched Roy’s arm. ‘We’re going clubbing. Aren’t you taking Jimmy to your place tonight?’

‘What? Is that the idea?’

‘He tells everyone you’re his best friend. He can’t stay here.’ The girl went on. ‘I’m Candy. Jimmy said you work with Munday.’

‘That’s right.’

‘What are you doing with him, a promo?’

From the floor Jimmy threw up his protracted cackle.

Roy said, ‘I’m going to direct a feature I’ve written.’

‘Can I work on it with you?’ she asked. ‘I’ll do anything.’

‘You’d better ring me to discuss it,’ he said.

Jimmy called, ‘How’s the pregnant wife?’

‘Fine.’

‘And that young girl who liked to sit on your face?’

Roy made a sign at Candy and led her into an unlit room next door. He cut out some coke, turned to the waiting girl and kissed her against the wall, smelling this stranger and running his hands over her. She inhaled her line, but before he could dispose of his and hold her again, she had gone.

Marco and Jake had carted Jimmy out, stashed him in Roy’s car and instructed him to fuck off for good.

Roy drove Jimmy along the King’s Road. As always now, Jimmy was dressed for outdoors, in sweaters, boots and heavy coat. In contrast, Roy’s colleagues dressed in light clothes and would never inadvertently enter the open air: when they wanted weather they would fly to a place that had the right kind. An overripe gutter odour rose from Jimmy, and Roy noticed the dusty imprint of Marco’s foot on his chest. Jimmy pulled a pair of black lace-trimmed panties from his pocket and sniffed at them like a duchess mourning a relative.

This was an opportunity, Roy decided, to use on Jimmy some of the honest directness he had been practising at work. Surely it would be instructive and improving for Jimmy to survive without constant assistance. Besides, Roy couldn’t be sucked into another emotional maelstrom.

He said, ‘Isn’t there anywhere you can go?’

‘What for?’ said Jimmy.

‘To rest. To sleep. At night.’

‘To sleep? Oh I see. It’s okay. Leave me on the corner.’

‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘I’ve slept out before.’

‘I meant you’ve usually got someone. Some girl.’

‘Sometimes I stay with Candy.’

‘Really?’

Jimmy said, ‘You liked her, yeah? I’ll try and arrange something. Did I tell you she likes to stand on her head with her legs open?’

‘You should have mentioned it to Clara on the phone.’

‘It’s a very convenient position for cunnilingus.’

‘Particularly at our age when unusual postures can be a strain,’ added Roy.

Jimmy put his hand in Roy’s hair. ‘You’re going grey, you know.’

‘I know.’

‘But I’m not. Isn’t that strange?’ Jimmy mused a few seconds. ‘But I can’t stay with her. Kara wouldn’t like it.’

‘What about your parents?’

‘I’m over forty! They’re dying, they make me take my shoes off! They weep when they see me! They —’

Jimmy’s parents were political refugees from Eastern Europe who’d suffered badly in the war, left their families, and lived in Britain since 1949. They’d expected, in this city full of people who lived elsewhere in their minds, to be able to return home, but they never could. Britain hadn’t engaged them; they barely spoke the language. Meanwhile Jimmy fell in love with pop. When he played the blues on his piano his parents had it locked in the garden shed. Jimmy and his parents had never understood one another, but he had remained as rootless as they had been, never even acquiring a permanent flat.

He was rummaging in his pockets where he kept his phone numbers on torn pieces of cigarette packet and ragged tube tickets. ‘You remember when I brought that girl round one afternoon —’

‘The eighteen-year-old?’

‘She wanted your advice on getting into the media. You fucked her on the table in front of me.’

‘The media got into her.’

‘Indeed. Can you remember what you wore, who you pretended to be, and what you said?’

‘What did I say?’

‘It was your happiest moment.’

‘It was a laugh.’

‘One of our best.’

‘One of many.’

They slapped hands.

Jimmy said, ‘The next day she left me.’

‘Sensible girl.’

‘We’d exploited her. She had a soul which you were disrespectful to.’ Jimmy reached over and stroked Roy’s face. ‘I just wanted to say, I love you, man, even if you are a bastard.’

Jimmy started clapping to the music. He could revive as quickly as a child. Nevertheless, Roy determined to beware of his friend’s manipulations; this was how Jimmy had survived since leaving university without ever working. For years women had fallen at Jimmy’s feet; now he collapsed at theirs. Yet even as he descended they liked him as much. Many were convinced of his lost genius, which had been perfectly preserved for years, by procrastination. Jimmy got away with things; he didn’t earn what he received. This was delicious but also a provocation, mocking justice.

Roy had pondered all this, not without incomprehension and envy, until he grasped how much Jimmy gave the women. Alcoholism, unhappiness, failure, ill-health, he showered them with despair, and guiltlessly extracted as much concern as they might proffer. They admired, Roy guessed, his having made a darkness to inhabit. Not everyone was brave enough to fall so far out of the light. To Roy it also demonstrated how many women still saw sacrifice as their purpose.