Hanif Kureishi - Collected Stories

I recalled talking in bed with her last week, semi-asleep, with one eye open. I could see only part of her throat and neck and shoulder, and I had stared at her flesh thinking I had never seen anything more beautiful or important.

She glanced across the street. I froze. Of course her eyes moved over me without recognition. She walked on.

Being, in a sense, invisible, and therefore omniscient, I could spy on those I loved, or even use and mock them. It was an unpleasant loneliness I had condemned myself to. Still, six months was a small proportion of a life. What would be the purpose of my new youth? I had led a perplexed and unnecessarily pained inner life, but unlike Ralph, I had not felt unfulfilled, or wished to be a violinist, pioneering explorer or to learn the tango. I’d had projects galore.

My bewilderment was, I guessed, the experience of young people who’d recently left home and school. When I taught young people ‘creative’ writing, their excessive concern about ‘structure’ puzzled me. It was only when I saw that they were referring to their lives as well as to their work that I began to understand them. Looking for ‘structure’ was like asking the question: what do you want to do? Who would you like to be? They could only take the time to find out. Such an experiment wasn’t something I’d allowed myself to experience at twenty-five. At that age I moved between hyperactivity and enervating depression — one the remedy, I hoped, for the other.

If my desire pointed in a particular direction this time around, I would have to discover what it was — if there was, in fact, something to find. Perhaps in my last life I’d been overconstrained by ambition. Hadn’t my needs been too narrow, too concentrated? Maybe it was not, this time, a question of finding one big thing, but of liking lots of little ones. I would do it differently, but why believe I’d do it better?

That evening I changed hotels, wanting somewhere smaller and less busy. I ate three times and went to bed early, still a little groggy from the operation.

The next day was a fine one, and I awoke in an excellent mood. If I lacked Ralph’s sense of purpose, I didn’t lack enthusiasm. Whatever I was going to do, I was up for it.

There I was, walking in the street, shopping for the trip I had finally decided to take, when two gay men in their thirties started waving and shouting from across the road.

‘Mark, Mark!’ they called, straight at me. ‘It’s you! How are you! We’ve missed you!’

I was looking about. There was no one else they could have been motioning to. Perhaps my leather trousers were already having an effect on the general public. But it was more than that: the couple were moving through the traffic, their arms extended. I considered running away — I thought I might pretend to be jogging — but they were almost on me. I could only face them as they greeted me warmly. In fact, they both embraced me.

Luckily, their talk was relentless and almost entirely about themselves. When I managed to inform them that I was about to go on holiday, they told me they were going away, too, with friends, an artist and a couple of dancers.

‘Your accent’s changed, too,’ they said. ‘Very British.’

‘It’s London, dear. I’m a new man now,’ I explained. ‘A reinvention.’

‘We’re so pleased.’

I understood that the last time we met, in New York, my mental state hadn’t been good, which was why they were pleased to see me out shopping in London. They and their circle of friends had been worried about me.

I survived this, and soon we were saying our farewells. The two men kissed and hugged me.

‘And you’re looking good,’ they added. ‘You’re not modelling any more, are you?’

‘Not at the moment,’ I said.

One of them said, ‘But you’re not doing the other thing, are you, for money?’

‘Oh, not right now.’

‘It was driving you crazy.’

‘Yes, yes,’ I said. ‘I believe it was.’

‘Shame the boy band idea didn’t work out. Particularly after you got through the audition with that weird song.’

‘Too unstable, I guess.’

‘Would you like to join us for a drink — of orange juice, of course? Why not?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the other. ‘Let’s go and talk somewhere.’

‘I’m sorry, but I must go,’ I said, moving away. ‘I’m already late for my psychiatrist! He tells me there’s much to be done!’

‘Enjoy!’

I rang Ralph straight away.

‘You got your erection, eh?’ he said.

I insisted on seeing him. He was rehearsing. He made me go to the college canteen during his tea break and wait. When he did turn up, he seemed preoccupied, having had an argument with Ophelia. I didn’t care. I told him what had happened to me on the street.

‘That shouldn’t have occurred,’ he said, with some concern. ‘It’s never happened to me, though I guess I’ll start to get recognised when I’ve played Hamlet.’

‘What is going on? Don’t they do any checks first?’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘But the world’s a small place now. Your guy’s from LA.’

‘Mark. That’s his name. That’s what they called me.’

‘So? How can anyone be expected to know he’s got friends in Kensington?’

‘Suppose he’s wanted by the police somewhere?’

He shook his head. ‘It won’t happen again,’ he said confidently. ‘The chances of such a repeat are low, statistically.’

‘There have been other weird occurrences.’

‘For example?’ He didn’t want to hear, but he had to.

‘Tell me, first, how did he die, my body, my man?’

Ralph hesitated. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Why, are you not allowed to tell me?’

‘This is a new area.’

I went on, ‘In bed, I was aware of these twinges, or sensations. There were times in my Oldbody life, particularly as I got older, or when I was meditating, when I felt that the limits of my mind and body had been extended. I felt, almost mystically, part of others, an “outgrowth of the One”.’

‘Really?’

‘This is different. It’s as if I have a ghost or shadow-soul inside me. I can feel things, perhaps memories, of the man who was here first. Perhaps the physical body has a soul. There’s a phrase of Freud’s that might apply here: the bodily ego, he calls it, I think.’

‘Isn’t it a little late for this? I’m an actor, not a mystic.’

I noticed a lack of respect in Ralph. I was a puling twenty-five-year-old rather than a distinguished author. It hadn’t taken long before I was confronted with the losses involved in gaining prolonged youth.

I said, ‘I need to know more about my body. It was Mark’s face they were seeing when they looked at me. It was his childhood experience they were partly taking in, not yours or mine.’

‘You want to know why he snuffed himself out? I’m telling you, Leo, face it, this is the truth and you know it already. Your guy’s going to have died in some grisly fashion.’

‘What sort of thing are we talking about?’

‘If he’s young, it’s not going to be pleasant. No young death is a relief. The whole world works by exploitation. We all know the clothes we wear, the food, it’s packed by Third World peasants.’

‘Ralph, I am not just wearing this guy’s shoes.’

‘He was definitely “obscure”, your man. There’s no way I’m going to let them give you shoddy goods. Anyway, it’s impossible, at the moment, to just go and kill someone for their body. Their family, the police, the press, everyone’s going to be looking for them. The body has to be “cleared”, and then it has to be prepared for new use by a doctor who knows what he is doing. It’s a long and complicated process. You can’t just plug your brain into any skull, thank Christ. Imagine what a freak show we’d have then.’