Hanif Kureishi - Collected Stories

Lisa, pale and thin, didn’t understand why he was being so gentle. Somehow she had thought he would never come back. She was prepared for that. But he had returned.

He stroked her face and hair, looked into her eyes and said, ‘I’ve only got you.’

After, they sat in the garden.

It had been raining. A strong sea was running. It was early evening when Bodger, Feather and Vance came up the lane past Lisa and Rocco’s house. Bodger carried a couple of bottles of wine and Feather some other provisions. They were on their way to her place. She had arranged to massage both Bodger and Vance, but now her right hand was bandaged. All day Vance had been fussing around her, both contrite and annoyed, and kept touching her reassuringly, as if to massage her.

‘I’m not apologising to them,’ said Vance.

‘I wonder what they’re doing,’ said Feather. ‘Stop for a minute.’

‘Just for a second,’ said Bodger.

They all looked over the hedge.

‘Well, well.’ Vance said. ‘Who would have believed it?’

Rocco had dragged a couple of suitcases outside and was attempting to throw the contents — papers and notebooks — onto a shambolic bonfire. As the papers caught fire, the wind blew them across the garden. In the doorway Lisa, with a cardigan thrown over her shoulders, was folding her clothes and placing them in a pile. As they worked, she and Rocco chatted to one another and laughed.

‘It’s true,’ said Feather.

Bodger turned to Vance. ‘You’re a bloody fucking fool.’

Vance said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘This didn’t have to happen!’

Feather said, ‘Go and tell them.’

‘It’s too late,’ Vance said.

‘Tell me if this pleases you!’ Bodger cried. ‘Be glad then — and dance!’

‘Bodger, they’ve been wanting to get out for weeks. And I’m paying for it.’ Vance added, ‘It’s amazing, he’s actually doing something. And we’re left behind.’

He turned and saw Moon scurrying up the lane, calling out, ‘I’m not too late, am I?’

‘You’re always late, you little shite. Who’s minding the shop?’

‘Vance, please,’ said Moon. ‘I’ve shut it for a few minutes.’

‘Get back there and open up — before I open you up!’

Moon looked over the hedge. Vance was about to grab him when Feather gave him a look; Vance noticed that Moon was crying under his shades.

Rocco had seen them by now, but he didn’t look up. He stood by the fire flinging balls of paper into the flames.

Wearing her black dress and straw hat Lisa stood in the doorway smiling. In a strange, abstract motion, she raised her flat hand and waved to all of them. Vance turned and walked away up the lane, lowering his head and shoulders into the wind. Lisa went back into the house. Without moving, the others stood in a line watching Rocco until it began to drizzle and the fire went out. At last they went away, wondering what they would do now. It was raining hard.

One morning after a disturbed night, a year after they moved into the flat, and with their son only a few months old, Baxter goes into the box-room where he and his wife have put their wardrobes, opens the door to his, and picks up a pile of sweaters. Unfolding them one by one, he discovers that they all appear to have been crocheted. Not only that, the remaining threads are smeared with a viscous yellow deposit, like egg yolk, which has stiffened the remains of the ruined garments.

He shakes out the moths or flies that have gorged on his clothes, and stamps on the tiny crisp corpses. Other flies, only stupefied, dart out past him and position themselves on the curtains, where they appear threateningly settled, just out of reach.

Baxter hurriedly rolls up the clothes in plastic bags, and, retching, thrusts them into the bottom of a dustbin on the street. He goes to the shops and packs his wardrobe with fly killer; he sprays the curtains; he disinfects the rugs. He stands in the shower a long time. With water streaming down him nothing can adhere to his skin.

He doesn’t tell his wife about the incident, thinking, at first, that he won’t bother her with such an unimportant matter. He has, though, spotted flies all over the flat, which his wife, it seems, has not noticed. If he puts mothballs in his pockets, and has to mask this odour with scents, and goes about imagining that people are sniffing as he passes them, he doesn’t care, since the attack has troubled him.

He wants to keep it from himself as much as from her. But at different times of the day he needs to check the wardrobe, and suddenly rips open the door as if to surprise an intruder. At night he begins to dream of ragged bullet-shaped holes chewed in fetid fabric, and of creamy white eggs hatching in darkness. In his mind he hears the amplified rustle of gnawing, chewing, devouring. When this wakes him he rushes into the box-room to shake his clothes or stab at them with an umbrella. On his knees he scours the dusty corners of the flat for the nest or bed where the contamination must be incubating. He is convinced, though, that while he is doing this, flies are striking at the bedsheets and pillows.

When one night his wife catches him with his nose against the skirting board, and he explains to her what has happened, she isn’t much concerned, particularly as he has thrown away the evidence. Telling her about it makes him realise what a slight matter it is.

He and his wife acquired the small flat in a hurry and consider themselves fortunate to have it. For what they can afford, the three rooms, with kitchen and bathroom, are acceptable for a youngish couple starting out. Yet when Baxter rings the landlord to enquire whether there have been any ‘outbreaks’ before, he is not sympathetic but maintains they carried the flies with them. If it continues he will review their contract. Baxter, vexed by the accusation, counters that he will suspend his rent payments if the contagion doesn’t clear up. Indeed, that morning he noticed one of his child’s cardigans smeared and half-devoured, and only just managed to conceal it from his wife.

Still, he does need to discuss it with her. He asks an acquaintance to babysit. They will go out to dinner. There was a time when they would have long discussions about anything — they particularly enjoyed talking over their first impressions of one another — so happy were they just to be together. As he shaves, Baxter reflects that since the birth of their child they have rarely been to the theatre or cinema, or even to coffee shops. It has been months since they ate out. He is unemployed and most of their money has been spent on rent, bills, debts, and the child. If he were to put it plainly, he’d say that they can hardly taste their food; they can’t even watch TV for long. They rarely see their friends or think of making new ones. They never make love; or, if one of them wants to, the other doesn’t. Never does their desire coincide — except once, when, at the climax, the screams of their child interrupted. Anyhow, they feel ugly and their bodies ache. They sleep with their eyes open; occasionally, while awake, they are actually asleep. While asleep they dream of sleep.

Before the birth, they’d been together for a few months, and then serious lovers for a year. Since the child their arguments have increased, which Baxter imagines is natural as so much has happened to them. But their disagreements have taken on a new tone. There was a moment recently when they looked at one another and said, simultaneously, that they wished they had never met.