Hanif Kureishi: Collected Stories

‘A grand?’

Jimmy said, ‘That’s how expensive it is — a month’s rent in advance, a deposit, phone. You’ve avoided the real world for ten years. You don’t know how harsh it is. You’ll get the money back — at least from him.’

Roy shook his head. ‘I’ve got a family now, and I haven’t got an income.’

‘You’re a jealous bastard — an’ I just saved your life. It’s a mistake to begrudge me my optimism. Lend me your pen.’ Jimmy made a note on the back of a bus ticket, crossed it out and rejigged it. ‘Wait and see. Soon you’ll be coming to my office an’ asking me for work. I’m gonna have to examine your CV to ensure it ain’t too low-class. Now, do you do it every day?’

‘Do what?’

‘Work.’

‘Of course.’

‘Every single day?’

‘Yes. I’ve worked every day since I left university. Many nights too.’

‘Really?’ Jimmy read back what he’d scrawled on the ticket, folded it up, and stuck it in his top pocket. ‘That’s what I must do.’ But he sounded unconvinced by what he’d heard, as if, out of spite, Roy had made it sound gratuitously laborious.

Roy said, ‘I feel a failure. It’s hard to live with. Most people do it. I s’pose they have to find other sources of pride. But what — gardening? Christ. Everything’s suddenly gone down. How am I going to cheer myself up?’

‘Pride?’ Jimmy sneered. ‘It’s a privilege of the complacent. What a stupid illusion.’

‘You would think that.’

‘Why would I?’

‘You’ve always been a failure. You’ve never had any expectations to feel let down about.’

‘Me?’ Jimmy was incredulous. ‘But I have.’

‘They’re alcoholic fantasies.’

Jimmy was staring at him. ‘You cunt! You’ve never had a kind word for me or my talents!’

‘Lifting a glass isn’t a talent.’

‘You could encourage me! You don’t know how indifferent people can be when you’re down.’

‘Didn’t I pick you up and invite you to stay in my house?’

‘You been trying to shove me out. Everything about me is wrong or despised. You threw my clothes away. I tell you, you’re shutting the door on everyone. It’s bourgeois snobbery, and it is ugly.’

‘You’re difficult, Jimmy.’

‘At least I’m a friend who loves you.’

‘You don’t give me anything but a load of trouble.’

‘I’ve got nothing, you know that! Now you’ve stolen my hope! Thanks for robbing me!’ Jimmy finished his drink and jumped up. ‘You’re safe. Whatever happens, you ain’t really going down, but I am!’

Jimmy walked out. Roy had never before seen Jimmy leave a pub so decisively. Roy sat there another hour, until he knew Clara would be home.

*

He opened the front door and heard voices. Clara was showing the house to two couples, old friends, and was describing the conservatory she wanted built. Roy greeted them and made for the stairs.

‘Roy.’

He joined them at the table. They drank wine and discussed the villa near Perugia they would take in the summer. He could see them wearing old linen and ancient straw hats, fanning themselves haughtily.

He tilted his head to get different perspectives, rubbed his forehead and studied his hands, which were trembling, but couldn’t think of anything to say. Clara’s friends were well off, and of unimaginative and unchallenged intelligence. About most things, by now, they had some picked-up opinion, sufficient to aid party conversation. They were set and protected; Roy couldn’t imagine them overdosing on their knees, howling.

The problem was that at the back of Roy’s world-view lay the Rolling Stones, and the delinquent dream of his adolescence — the idea that vigour and spirit existed in excess, authenticity and the romantic unleashed self: a bourgeois idea that was strictly antibourgeois. It had never, finally, been Roy’s way, though he’d played at it. But Jimmy had lived it to the end, for both of them.

The complacent talk made Roy weary. He went upstairs. As he undressed, a cat tripped the security lamps and he could see the sodden garden. He’d barely stepped into it, but there were trees and grass and bushes out there. Soon he would get a table and chair for the lawn. With the kid in its pram, he’d sit under the tree, brightened by the sun, eating Vignotte and sliced pear. What did one do when there was nothing to do?

He’d fallen asleep; Clara was standing over him, hissing. She ordered him to come down. He was being rude; he didn’t know how to behave. He had ‘let her down’. But he needed five minutes to think. The next thing he heard was her saying goodnight at the door.

*

He awoke abruptly. The front door bell was ringing. It was six in the morning. Roy tiptoed downstairs with a hammer in his hand. Jimmy’s stringy body was soaked through and he was coughing uncontrollably. He had gone to Kara’s house but she’d been out, so he’d decided to lie down in her doorway until she returned. At about five there had been a storm, and he’d realised she wasn’t coming back.

Jimmy was delirious and Roy persuaded him to lie on the sofa, where he covered him with a blanket. When he brought up blood Clara called the doctor. The ambulance took him away not long after, fearing a clot on the lung.

Roy got back into bed beside Clara and rested his drink on her hard stomach. Clara went to work but Roy couldn’t get up. He stayed in bed all morning and thought he couldn’t ever sleep enough to recover. At lunchtime he walked around town, lacking even the desire to buy anything. In the afternoon he visited Jimmy in the hospital.

‘How you feeling, pal?’

A man in his pyjamas can only seem disabled. No amount of puffing-up can exchange the blue and white stripes for the daily dignity which has been put to bed with him. Jimmy hardly said hallo. He was wailing for a drink and a cigarette.

‘It’ll do you good, being here.’ Roy patted Jimmy’s hand. ‘Time to sort yourself out.’

Jimmy almost leapt out of bed. ‘Change places!’

‘No thanks.’

‘You smug bastard — if you’d looked after me I wouldn’t be in this shit!’

A fine-suited consultant, pursued by white-coated disciples, entered the ward. A nurse drew the curtain across Jimmy’s wounded face.

‘Make no mistake, I’ll be back!’ Jimmy cried.

Roy walked past the withered, ashen patients, and towards the lift. Two men in lightweight uniforms were pushing a high bed to the doors on their way to the operating theatre. Roy slotted in behind them as they talked across a dumb patient who blinked up at the roof of the lift. They were discussing where they’d go drinking later. Roy hoped Jimmy wouldn’t want him to return the next day.

Downstairs the wide revolving door swept people into the hospital and pushed him out into the town. From the corner of the building, where dressing-gowned patients had gathered to smoke, Roy turned to make a farewell gesture at the building where his friend lay. Then he saw the girl in the leopard-skin hat, Kara’s friend.

He called out. Smiling, she came over, holding a bunch of flowers. He asked her if she was working and when she shook her head, said, ‘Give me your number. I’ll call you tomorrow. I’ve got a couple of things on the go.’

Before, he hadn’t seen her in daylight. What, now, might there be time for?

She said, ‘When’s the baby due?’

‘Any day now.’

‘You’re going to have your hands full.’

He asked her if she wanted a drink.

‘Jimmy’s expecting me,’ she said. ‘But ring me.’

He joined the robust street. Jimmy couldn’t walk here, but he, Roy, could trip along light-headed and singing to himself — as if it were he who’d been taken to hospital, and at the last moment, as the anaesthetic was inserted, a voice had shouted, ‘No, not him!’, and he’d been reprieved.