Hanif Kureishi - Collected Stories

‘Be a fool and to hell with everyone else,’ Anthony had said.

As Marina dressed now, Ian knew they were close to a permanent break. They had had their time in Paris and the distance between them was considerable. In the past few days she had talked of returning to London, finding a small flat, getting a job, and bringing up the child alone. Many women did that now; it seemed almost a matter of pride. He would be redundant. It was important for her to feel she could get by without him, he saw that. But if their love, from a certain point of view, seemed like a dangerous addiction, he had to persuade her that they had a chance together, even though, half the time, he did not believe it himself. He did not want to fight; everything was going to hell and that was the fate he had to submit to. But a part of him was not ready to submit. Believing in fate was an attempt to believe you had no will of your own and he did not want that, either.

‘I’m hungry,’ she said.

‘We’ll eat then.’

He helped her to her feet.

She said, ‘I’ve been feeling dizzy.’

‘Tell me at any time if you want to sit down, and a chair will be produced.’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

He held her, leaning forward over her stomach.

She said, ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’

‘I’ll always be here, if you want me.’

She regarded herself in the mirror. ‘I look like a penguin.’

‘Let’s set out across the tundra, then,’ he said.

‘Don’t mock me.’

‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.’

‘Let’s not start,’ she said.

She was anxious, now her breasts were full, her cheeks red, and her arms, legs and thighs sturdy, that he had loved only her slimness and youth. She felt weary, too, and seemed, in her late twenties, to have passed into another period of her life, without wanting to. All she wanted, most of the time, was to lie down. Veins showed through the pale skin of her legs; every evening she asked him to massage her aching ankles. But her skin was clear; her long hair shone. There was no spare flesh on her. She was taut, pressed to the limit; and healthy.

At the bottom of the stairs she was breathless, but they were both glad to be outside.

He liked walking in Paris: the streets lined with galleries, and the shops full of little objects — a city of people concerned with their senses. It seemed quiet, and stifled by good taste, compared to the vulgar rush, fury and expense of London, which had once again become fashionable. The walls of the London newsagents were lined with magazines and papers, full of the profiles of new artists, playwrights, songwriters, actors, dancers, architects — spitting, cynical, unsettling and argumentative in the new British way. Restaurants opened every day, and the chefs were famous. At midnight in Soho and Covent Garden, you had to push through crowds as if you were at a carnival. It was not something Ian could take an interest in until he had a love, and was settled.

As he walked, Ian saw a smartly dressed, middle-aged man coming towards him, holding the hand of a girl about the same age as his daughter. They were talking and laughing. Ian presumed the girl was late for school, and her father was taking her; there was nothing more important for the man to do. Close, encouraging, generous, available — Ian thought of the father he had wanted to be. He knew children needed to be listened to. But these were ideas he would have to revise; he could not, now, be his own father, in another generation. There would be a distance. He imagined his daughter saying, ‘Dad walked out. He was never there.’ He would do his best, but it was not the same; he had failed without wanting to.

Ian turned away and waited for Marina to catch up. Her head was bent, as it often was, and she wore a grey woolly hat, with a bobble. Over her long black dress she had on an ankle-length fur-collared overcoat, and trainers. When she was next to him, he took her arm.

He had become accustomed to her size. For days he seemed to forget they were having a child until, at unexpected moments, the terror of how overwhelming it could be seized him, along with the fact that they couldn’t escape one another. At the beginning they had talked of an abortion; but neither of them could have lived with such a crude negation of hope. They loved one another, but could they live together? This was the ordeal of his life. If he was unable to make this work, then not only had he broken up his family for nothing, but he was left with nothing — nothing but himself.

He thought of what she had to take on: him grumbling about how awful everything was, and groaning and yelling in his sleep, as if he were inhabited by ghosts; his fears and doubts; his sudden ecstasies; his foolishness, wisdom, experience and naivety; how much he made her laugh and how infuriated she could become. How much there was of other people! If falling in love could only be a glimpse of the other, who was the passion really directed at? They were living an extended, closer look at one another.

In a café nearby, where they had been going every day, she sat down while he stood at the bar to order breakfast. He spoke English in a low voice, as Marina was annoyed that he would not try to speak French. It was almost twenty-five years since he had studied the language, and the effort and his helplessness were humiliating.

He watched as the Parisians came in, knocked their coffee back, devoured a croissant, and hurried off to work. Marina sat with her hands under her stomach. The baby must have been awake, for he — they knew it was a boy — was kicking in her. At times, so thin and stretched had her stomach become, she felt she would split, as if the boy were trying to kick his way out. There were other anxieties — that the baby would be blind or autistic — as well as new pains, flutterings and pulses in her stomach. These were ordinary fears; he had been through this before with another woman, but did not like to remind her.

‘You look even more beautiful today,’ he said, sitting down. ‘Your eyes are brighter than for a long time.’

‘I’m surprised,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘It’s been so difficult.’

‘A little, yes,’ he said. ‘But it’ll get easier.’

‘Will it?’

Of course he was ambivalent about having another child. He recalled sitting in the flat with Jane, having returned from the hospital with their daughter. He had taken a week off work and realised then how little time he and Jane had spent together over the past five years. Once, their fears had coincided; that had been love, for a while. He saw that they had had to keep themselves apart, for fear of turning into someone they both disliked. He did not want to use her words; she did not want his opinions inside her. The girl was, and remained, particularly in her rages, the expression or reminder of their incompatibility, of a difference they were unable to bridge. He was looking forward to seeing his daughter without Jane.

‘What’s bothering you today?’ Marina said, when they were drinking their coffee. ‘You stare into the distance for ages. Then you jerk your head around urgently, like a blackbird. I wonder what sort of worm it is you’ve spotted. But it’s nothing, is it?’

‘No. Only … I’ve got to talk to Anthony this afternoon … and I haven’t decided what to say.’

‘Or what to do.’

‘That’s right.’

She said, ‘You don’t want to go back?’

‘I don’t know.’ They buttered their croissants in silence. ‘Things are certainly starting to seem a little aimless here.’ He said, ‘Anthony’s changed.’

‘In what way?’

‘You don’t want me to go on about it, do you?’

She said, ‘But I love our talks. I love the sound of your voice … even if I don’t listen to every word.’