Hanif Kureishi - Collected Stories

The other person says it’s lovely, the moonlight and so on. Then there’s no talking. I can’t see a sausage but my ears are at full stretch. Yes, kissing noises.

Nadia says: ‘Here’s the condoms, Bubble!’

My sister and the Flounder! Well. The Flounder lights a lantern. Yes, there they are now, I can see them: she’s trying to pull his long shirt over his head, and he’s resisting.

‘Just my bottoms!’ he squeals. ‘My stomach! Oh, my God!’

I’m not surprised he’s ashamed, looking in this low light at the size of the balcony over his toy shop.

I hear my name. Nadia starts to tell the Flounder — or ‘Bubble’ as she keeps calling him — how the Family Planning in London gave me condoms. The Flounder’s clucking with disapproval and lying on the bench by the window looking like a hippo, with my sister squatting over his guts, rising and sitting, sighing and exclaiming sometimes, almost in surprise. They chat away quite naturally, fucking and gossiping and the Flounder talks about me. Am I promiscuous, he wants to know. Do I do it with just anyone? How is my father going to discipline me now he’s got his hands on me? Billy shifts about. He could easily be believing this shit. I wish I had some paper and a pen to write him a note. I kiss him gently instead. When I kiss him I get a renewal of this strange sensation that I’ve never felt before today: I feel it’s Billy I’m kissing, not just his lips or body, but some inside thing, as if his skin is just a representative of all of him, his past and his blood. Amour has never been this personal for me before!

Nadia and the Flounder are getting hotter. She keeps asking Bubble why they can’t do this every day. He says, yes, yes, yes, and won’t you tickle my balls? I wonder how she’ll find them. Then the Flounder shudders and Nadia, moving in rhythm like someone doing a slow dance, has to stop. ‘Bubble!’ she says and slaps him, as if he’s a naughty child that’s just thrown up. A long fart escapes Bubble’s behind. ‘Oh, Bubble,’ she says, and falls on to him, holding him closer.

Soon he is asleep. Nadia unstraddles him and moves to a chair and has a little cry as she sits looking at him. She only wants to be held and kissed and touched. I feel like going to her myself.

*

When I wake up it’s daylight and they’re sitting there together, talking about their favourite subject. The Flounder is smoking and she is trying to masturbate him.

‘So why did she come here with you?’ he is asking. Billy opens his eyes and doesn’t know where he is. Then he sighs. I agree with him. What a place to be, what a thing to be doing! (But then, come to think of it, you always find me in the kitchen at parties.)

‘Nina just asked me one day at breakfast. I had no choice and this man, Howard —’

‘Yes, yes,’ the Flounder laughs. ‘You said he was handsome.’

‘I only said he had nice hair,’ she says.

But I’m in sympathy with the Flounder here, finding this compliment a little gratuitous. The Flounder gets up. He’s ready to go.

And so is Billy. ‘I can’t stand much more of this,’ he says. Nadia suddenly jerks her head towards us. For a moment I think she’s seen us. But the Flounder distracts her.

I hear the tinkle of the car keys and the Flounder says: ‘Here, put your panties on. Wouldn’t want to leave your panties here on the floor. But let me kiss them first! I kiss them!’

There are sucky kissing noises. Billy is twitching badly and drumming his heels on the floor. Nadia looks at the Flounder with his face buried in a handful of white cotton.

‘And,’ he says with a muffled voice, ‘I’m getting lead in my pencil again, Nadia. Let us lie down, my pretty one.’

The Flounder takes her hand enthusiastically and jerks it towards his ding-dong. She smacks him away. She’s not looking too pleased.

‘I’ve got my pants on, you bloody fool!’ Nadia says harshly. ‘That pair of knickers you’ve sunk your nose in must belong to another woman you’ve had here!’

‘What! But I’ve had no other woman here!’ The Flounder glares at her furiously. He examines the panties, as if hoping to find a name inside. ‘Marks & Spencers. How strange. I feel sick now.’

‘Marks & Spencers! Fuck this!’ says Billy, forcing my hands off his face. ‘My arms and legs are going to fucking drop off in a minute!’

So up gets Billy. He combs his hair and turns up the collar of his shirt and then strolls into the living room singing a couple of choruses from The The. I get up and follow him, just in time to see Nadia open her mouth and let off a huge scream at the sight of us. The Flounder, who has no bottoms on, gives a frightened yelp and drops my pants which I pick up and, quite naturally, put on. I’m calm and completely resigned to the worst. Anyway, I’ve got my arm round Billy.

‘Hi, everyone,’ Billy says. ‘We were just asleep in the other room. Don’t worry, we didn’t hear anything, not about the condoms or Nina’s character or the panties or anything. Not a thing. How about a cup of tea or something?’

*

I get off Billy’s bike midday. ‘Baby,’ he says.

‘Happy,’ I say, wearing his checked shirt, tail out. Across the lawn with its sprinkler I set off for Dad’s club, a sun-loved white palace set in flowers.

White-uniformed bearers humble as undertakers set down trays of foaming yogurt. I could do with a proper drink myself. Colonels with generals and ladies with perms, fans and crossed legs sit in cane chairs. I wish I’d slept more.

The old man. There you are, blazer and slacks, turning the pages of The Times on an oak lectern overlooking the gardens. You look up. Well, well, well, say your eyes, not a dull day now. Her to play with.

You take me into the dining room. It’s chill and smart and the tables have thick white cloths on them and silver cutlery. The men move chairs for the elegant thin women, and the waiters take the jackets of the plump men. I notice there are no young people here.

‘Fill your plate,’ you say, kindly. ‘And come and sit with me. Bring me something too. A little meat and some dhal.’

I cover the plate with food from the copper pots at the buffet in the centre of the room and take it to you. And here we sit, father and daughter, all friendly and everything.

‘How are you today, Daddy?’ I say, touching your cheek.

Around us the sedate upper class fill their guts. You haven’t heard me. I say once more, gently: ‘How are you today?’

‘You fucking bitch,’ you say. You push away your food and light a cigarette.

‘Goody,’ I say, going a little cold. ‘Now we know where we are with each other.’

‘Where the fuck were you last night?’ you enquire of me. You go on: ‘You just fucked off and told no one. I was demented with worry. My blood pressure was through the roof. Anything could have happened to you.’

‘It did.’

‘That bloody boy’s insane.’

‘But Billy’s pretty.’

‘No, he’s ugly like you. And a big pain in the arse.’

‘Dad.’

‘No, don’t interrupt! A half-caste wastrel, a belong-nowhere, a problem to everyone, wandering around the face of the earth with no home like a stupid-mistake-mongrel dog that no one wants and everyone kicks in the backside.’

For those of you curious about the menu, I am drinking tear soup.

‘You left us,’ I say. I am shaking. You are shaking. ‘Years ago, just look at it, you fucked us and left us and fucked off and never came back and never sent us money and instead made us sit through fucking Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita .’

Someone comes over, a smart judge who helped hang the Prime Minister. We all shake hands. Christ, I can’t stop crying all over the place.