Best British Short Stories 2020

^{HANIF KUREISHI} SHE SAID HE SAID

Sushila was walking in the park when she saw Mateo and his male assistant sitting on a bench. As she approached them, she noticed Mateo was dishevelled in his black suit; in fact, he was very drunk, which was unusual for him at that time of day, late afternoon. She greeted him, kissing him on both cheeks, and he asked if she would sleep with him. Why hadn’t they slept together? he went on. They could do it right now, at his place, if she had time. He had always found her sexy but had been too nervous to mention it.

They had known each other for at least eighteen years but he had never spoken to her in this way. She was surprised and tried to seem amused. She had always liked him. Clever, witty, Mateo worked with her husband, Len. His wife, Marcie, was a confidante. They had all gone to the coast together.

The next morning, she saw Mateo again, in the supermarket. Not with his assistant, and not drunk, he came right over and repeated his remarks in almost in the same words, adding that Sushila had been with Len for a long time and surely she was bored with him. Women liked variety, he said, and he was offering some. They should get together, even if it was only once; nothing more need be said.

Sushila kept her temper. She told Mateo that she would never sleep with him. Not in a thousand and one lifetimes. Not ever. If this was his idea of seduction she wouldn’t be surprised if he were still a virgin.

Right away she called Len and reported what Mateo had said on both occasions. Len was pale and agitated when he got home. He asked Sushila if she was OK, then texted Mateo to say he wanted to meet. Mateo responded. He was headed out of town. But he hoped that Len had some new artwork to show him. Could he bring it by next week? Len had been drawing so well recently; his work had reached a new level.

Mateo was surprised when Len arrived empty-handed. Where were the new drawings? Four days had passed, and Len was now calm. He had discussed the matter with Sushila and could levelly report to Mateo what he had heard about his behaviour, first when drunk in the park, and then when sober, in the supermarket.

Mateo apologised without reservation and asked Len to forgive him. But Len said that he didn’t think he was ready to. Forgiving, or even forgetting, wasn’t the point. He didn’t understand why Mateo – whom Len thought he knew – had behaved in this way. Mateo said that he had no idea either but that it would be best if they put it behind them. Len asked Mateo why he had repeated the offer to Sushila when he was sober and smart enough to know better, and Mateo said that he hadn’t wanted Sushila to think that he wasn’t serious, that she wasn’t really desired.

Len thanked Mateo for his consideration. After their meeting he walked around the park for a long time, unable to put the conversation out of his mind. Silence breeds poison, he thought, and what had happened pressed on him more and more, until an idea occurred. He would discuss it with Mateo’s wife, Marcie. She and Mateo were still married but no longer together, living next door to each other as friends. Marcie had been seriously ill recently, but Len was keen to know what she made of it all, whether she found her husband’s seduction attempts ugly, crazy, or something else. Maybe he was having a breakdown? Or was he just an imbecile and Len had failed to notice?

So Len went to see Marcie, who was convalescing in bed. Knowing she had grown tired of Mateo’s antics with other women when they were together, he felt it wasn’t wrong to tell her what Mateo had said to Sushila. Marcie knew Mateo; she might be objective.

Having relayed the story, he added that, during their conversations about it Sushila had revealed new facts to him, that he had been unaware of, which no one had told him. It turned out that in the past two years, Mateo had approached other female friends in a similarly crude way. Susan, for instance, had mentioned her experience with Mateo to Sushila, and Zora also. Maybe there were others. Had Marcie also heard about his behaviour?

Len wanted to emphasise that, as Marcie knew, Sushila was kind, protective and certainly no hysteric. It wouldn’t be like her to make too much of the exchanges in the park and the supermarket. But she had been humiliated and demeaned by the encounters. What did she, Marcie, think of it all?

Although she listened, Marcie barely said anything; she didn’t even move her head in an affirmative or negative direction. Her self-control was remarkable. Usually, when faced with a gap or silence in conversation, people babble. Not Marcie. When at last Len suggested that Mateo seek therapy and the source of his discontent – this was, these days, the generally accepted panacea for wrongdoing – Marcie said that Mateo had been in therapy for twenty years. Evidently these things took time, Len said. ‘They can do,’ Marcie murmured.

When Len went home and told Sushila that he had gone to Marcie’s place, she was angry with him. He wasn’t her representative. Why hadn’t he discussed the plan with her first? She was the one it had happened to. It wasn’t even his story. What did he think he was doing?

Len said that there had been nothing light or flirty about Mateo’s approach, as far as he understood it. Mateo had insulted him as a human being too; he was entitled to take offence and seek an explanation, if not revenge. It wasn’t often, he said, that you experienced deliberately inflicted cruelty. And from a friend! His view of Mateo – one of his oldest friends and someone whose advice he had always trusted – had changed for good. The insult was now general. It didn’t belong to anyone and it could happen again. Women were at risk. Len would hate himself if he didn’t speak out.

Sushila told Len that he was becoming fixated. It had been a lapse. Women had to put up with this kind of thing all the time. Not that she wasn’t touched or impressed by Len’s concern. But she didn’t think Mateo would do it again; he was mortified by what he had said; his regret was genuine and his behaviour had obviously been self-destructive. Len said that self-destructive things were what people most enjoyed doing. Sushila agreed, adding that Mateo resembled a gambler who repeatedly risked his own security. She herself liked rock climbing, which at times put her life in danger. But Marcie would have a word with Mateo. Marcie was the only one who could get through to him. In the future Mateo would hesitate, if only for Marcie’s sake.

Len doubted that. And he didn’t understand how Marcie could just sit there, putting up with the embarrassment. But Sushila said, please, he knew Marcie was ill. It might be a good idea for him to apologise to her for intruding like that. Was he prepared to do that?

Before he could begin to consider this, Sushila went further. She wanted to speak frankly now. Len could be a little conventional, if not earnest at times, in his ideas about love. He could? he enquired. How was that? Well, Marcie was celibate and Mateo, they were coming to understand, might be a serial abuser. Otherwise they could be the model contemporary couple. Despite everything, they were genuine companions with an unbreakable link that he, Len, couldn’t grasp. No one had loved Marcie as Mateo had, and Marcie was devoted to Mateo. Even if he did something crazy now and then, which we all did at times, she stood by him. You had to respect that.

Len mocked the idea of a passionless passion. It didn’t make sense and was probably why Mateo was frustrated. Assaulting women made him feel potent.

Sushila said she didn’t think that was it. But, with regard to Marcie, she wanted to add that often we love others because of their weakness. And if we were able to keep all the crazy people from being crazy, well, who would want to live in that dull, bureaucratic world?

They had grown tired of discussing it, there was nothing to add, and the topic seemed to have been dropped from their lives, when, a week later, an invitation arrived. Mateo’s birthday was the following week and they were invited to the celebration. Sushila went into town and spent an afternoon looking for a present. She asked Len to promise not to say anything. A party wasn’t the time or place. Len vowed to keep his mouth shut, adding that he would sulk a little and maintain his distance, so that friends knew the incident had registered but wasn’t killing him any more.

However, once they got to the party Mateo, or at least a man who resembled him, approached Len immediately. Mateo had shaved his beard, cropped his hair, and seemed to have coloured it. Before Len could discover if this was a disguise, Mateo put his arm around Len’s shoulder and pressed his mouth to his ear. He wanted to have a word with him, over there, in a corner of the room. Would Len follow him, please?

Len had told the story to many people, Mateo said. Someone in Mateo’s office had even mentioned it. Now exaggerated rumours were spreading. But hadn’t Len accepted his apology and agreed to end the matter? ‘Do you want to stab me in the heart and make my wife weep all night?’ Mateo said. ‘She did that, OK? She cried after you walked right into her home and bullied her. And my assistant, standing over there, saw what happened in the park. He admits it was messy, but no more than that.’

Len pushed him away. ‘Don’t fucking stand so close to me,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying. You’re actually a savage. What about Susan, Zora and all the other women?’

Mateo replied that everyone knew seduction was difficult these days. In these impossible times, courtship rituals were being corrected. In the chaos, those seeking love would make missteps; there would be misunderstandings, dark before light. Anger was an ever-present possibility. But it was essential that people try to connect, if only for a few hours, that they never give up on their need for contact. Otherwise, we would become a society of strangers. No one would meet or touch. Nothing would happen. And who would want that? Of course, Len was known in their circle to have issues with inhibition. If there was an opportunity to be missed, he’d miss it for sure. Didn’t he dream repeatedly that he’d gone to the airport and all the planes had left – at least that was what he had memorably told everyone at supper one night. He was a born misser.

Len told Sushila he had to go out for some air, but once he was outside he didn’t want to go back. He felt as if he didn’t quite recognise anything any more. The world was stupid, and there was no way around that. He started to walk quickly away but knew that however far he went, he’d have to come back to this place – if he could find it.