Hanif Kureishi - Collected Stories

‘One time I did do that, but I put it down the drain.’

‘People use it to commit suicide too. One can’t be too careful, you see.’

She leaves him. He notices that the bearded man has arrived, and is laughing and sprinkling himself with alcohol beside the fish tank. He raises his hand in acknowledgement of Baxter. Later, before Baxter passes out, he sees the bearded man and the female neighbour go into the conservatory together.

Early in the morning his neighbour’s husband carries Baxter home.

Baxter is still asleep beside the bed, where he has collapsed, when the landlord visits. Fortunately he has forewarned them, and Baxter’s wife has stuffed the blue pole, potions and any devoured items into a cupboard. The man is susceptible to her; when necessary she can be both charming and forceful. Even though a fly lands on his lapel as they are talking, she convinces him that the problem is ‘in remission’.

After lunch, Baxter empties the full saucers once more, and sets out new ones. Once more the flies begin to die. But it is no longer something he can bear to look at. He stands in the bedroom and tells his wife that he will be out for the afternoon, and will take the kid with him. No, she says, he has always been irresponsible. He has to insist, as if it is his last wish, until she gives in.

It has made her sullen, but it is an important victory. He has never been alone with his son. In its sling, weighted against his body, he carries this novelty about the city. He sits in cafés, puts it on his knee and admires its hands and ears; he flings it in the air and kisses it. He strolls in the park and on the grass gives it a bottle. People speak to him; women, particularly, seem to assume he is not a bad character. The child makes him more attractive. He likes having this new companion, or friend, with him.

He thinks of what else they might do. His lover’s phone number comes into his mind. He calls her. They cross the river on the bus. At her door he wants to turn back but she is there immediately. He holds up the child like a trophy, though Baxter is fearful that she will be unnerved by the softened features of the other woman alive between them.

She invites them in. She is wearing the ear-rings he gave her; she must have put them on for him. They find themselves sighing at the sight of one another. How pleased she is to see them both; more pleased than he has allowed himself to imagine. She can’t stop herself slipping her hands inside his coat, as she used to. He wraps her up and kisses her neck. She belongs in this position, she tells him. How dispirited she has been since he left last time, and hasn’t been in touch. Sometimes she hasn’t wanted to go out. At times she has thought she would go mad. Why did he push her away when he knew that with her everything seemed right? She has had to find another lover.

He doesn’t know how to say he couldn’t believe she loved him, and that he lacked the courage to follow her.

She holds the baby, yet is unsure about kissing him. But the boy is irresistible. She hasn’t changed a nappy before. He shows her. She wipes the boy down, and rubs her cheeks against his skin. His soother stops twitching and hangs from his lips.

They take off their clothes and slip into bed with him. She caresses Baxter from his fingertips to his feet, to make him hers again. She asks him to circle her stomach with kisses. He asks her to sit on her knees, touching herself, showing herself to him, her thumbs touching her pubic bone, making a butterfly of her hands. They are careful not to rock the bed or cry out suddenly, but he has forgotten how fierce their desire can become, and how much they can laugh together, and he has to stuff his fingers in her mouth.

As she sleeps he lies looking at her face, whispering words he has never said to anyone. This makes him more than peaceful. If he is away from his wife for a few hours he feels a curious warmth. He has been frozen, and now his love of things is returning, like a forgotten heat, and he can fall against any nearby wall and slide down it, so soft does he feel. He wants to go home and say to his wife, why can’t we cover each other in affection for ever?

Something is brushing his face. He sits up to see a fly emerging from his lover’s ear. Another hangs in his son’s hair. His leg itches; his hand, too, and his back. A fly creeps from the child’s nose. Baxter is carrying the contagion with him, giving it to everyone!

He picks up the sleeping child and wakes the dismayed woman. She attempts to reason with him, but he is hurrying down the street as if pursued by lunatics, and with the desire to yell heartless words at strangers.

He passes the child to his wife, fearing he is looking at her a little wildly. It has all rushed back, what he owes her: kindness, succour, and something else, the details elude him; and how one can’t let people down merely because one happens, one day, to feel differently.

Not that she notices his agitation, as she checks the baby over.

He take a bath, the only place in the flat they can feel at peace. Drinking wine and listening to the radio, he will swat away all thoughts. But the vows he made her aren’t affection, just as a signature isn’t a kiss, and no amount of promises can guarantee love. Without thinking, he gave her his life. He valued it less then, and now he wants it back. But he knows that retrieving a life takes a different courage, and is crueller.

At that moment his heart swells. He can hear her singing in the kitchen. She claps too. He calls her name several times.

She comes in irritably. ‘What do you want?’

‘You.’

‘What for? Not now.’ She looks down at him. ‘What a surprise.’

‘Come on.’

‘Baxter —’

He reaches out to stroke her.

‘Your hands are hot,’ she says. ‘You’re sweating.’

‘Please.’

She sighs, removes her skirt and pants, gets in the bath and pulls him onto her.

‘What brought that on?’ she says after, a little cheered.

‘I heard you singing and clapping.’

‘Yes, that’s how I catch the flies.’ She gets out of the bath. ‘Look, there are flies floating on the water.’

A few days later, when the blue pole has flickered and died — and been smashed against the wall by Baxter — and the bowls of powder have been devoured, leaving a crust of frothing corpses, the Operative is at the door. He doesn’t seem surprised by the failure of his medicaments, nor by Baxter’s fierce complaints about the hopeless cures.

‘It’s a course,’ he insists. ‘You can’t abandon it now, unless you want to throw away the advances and go back to the beginning.’

‘What advances?’

‘This is a critical case. What world are you living in, thinking it’ll be a simple cure?’

‘Why didn’t you say that last time?’

‘Didn’t I? I’d say you’re the sort who doesn’t listen.’

‘The blue pole doesn’t work.’

He speaks as if to a dolt. ‘It draws them. The vibration makes them voracious. Then they eat. And perish for ever. But not if you kick it to pieces like a child. I passed your wife on the doorstep. She’s changed since the last time. Her eyes —’

‘All right!’

‘I’ve seen it before. She is discouraged. Don’t think she doesn’t know what’s going on!’

‘What is going on?’

‘You know.’

Baxter puts his head in his hands.

The Operative sweeps up the remains of the blue pole and offers Baxter a bag of grey crystals. ‘Watch.’ He pours them into a bowl — the sound is a whoosh of hope — and rests it on the floor. The flies land on it and, after a taste, hop a few inches, then drop dead.

The Operative kisses his fingers.

‘This is incomparable.’

‘Argentinian?’ asks Baxter. ‘Or South African?’