Collected Stories

In a Blue Time

When the phone rings, who would you most like it to be? And who would you hate it to be? Who is the first person that comes into your mind, Roy liked to ask people, at that moment?

The phone rang and Roy jumped. He had thought, during supper in their new house, with most of their clothes and books in boxes they were too weary to unpack, that it would be pleasant to try their new bed early. He looked across the table at Clara and hoped she’d let the phone run on to the answering machine so he could tell who it was. He disliked talking to his friends in front of her; she seemed to scrutinise him. Somehow he had caused her to resent any life he might have outside her.

She picked up the phone, saying ‘Hallo’ suspiciously. Someone was speaking but didn’t require or merit a reply. Roy mouthed at her, ‘Is it Munday? Is it him?’

She shook her head.

At last she said, ‘Oh God,’ and waved the receiver at Roy.

In the hall he was putting on his jacket.

‘Are you going to him?’

‘He’s in trouble.’

She said, ‘We’re in trouble, and what will you do about that?’

‘Go inside. You’ll get cold standing there.’

She clung to him. ‘Will you be long?’

‘I’ll get back as soon as I can. I’m exhausted. You should go to bed.’

‘Thank you. Aren’t you going to kiss me?’

He put his mouth to hers, and she grunted. He said, ‘But I don’t even want to go.’

‘You’d rather be anywhere else.’

At the gate he called, ‘If Munday rings, please take his number. Say that otherwise I’ll go to his office first thing tomorrow morning.’

She knew this call from the producer Munday was important to him, indeed to both of them. She nodded and then waved.

It wouldn’t take him more than fifteen minutes to drive to the house in Chelsea where his old friend Jimmy had been staying the last few months. But Roy was tired, and parked at the side of the road to think. To think! Apprehension and dread swept through him.

Roy had met Jimmy in the mid-seventies in the back row of their university class on Wittgenstein. Being four years older than the other students, Jimmy appeared ironically knowing compared to Roy’s first friends, who had just left school. After lectures Jimmy never merely retired to the library with a volume of Spinoza, or, as Roy did, go disappointedly home and study, while dreaming of the adventures he might have, were he less fearful. No — Jimmy did the college a favour by popping in for an hour or so after lunch. Then he’d hang out impressing some girls he was considering for his stage adaptation of Remembrance of Things Past.

After he’d auditioned them at length, and as the sky darkened over the river and the stream of commuters across Blackfriars Bridge thinned, Jimmy would saunter forth into the city’s pleasures. He knew the happenin’ cinemas, jazz clubs, parties. Or, since he ran his own magazine, Blurred Edges, he’d interview theatre directors, photographers, tattooists and performance artists who, to Roy’s surprise, rarely refused. At that time students were still considered by some people to be of consequence, and Jimmy would light a joint, sit on the floor and let the recorder run. He would print only the trifling parts of the tape — the gossip and requests for drinks — satisfying his theory that what people were was more interesting than their opinions.

Tonight Jimmy had said he needed Roy more than he’d ever needed him. Or rather, Jimmy’s companions had relayed that message. Jimmy himself hadn’t made it to the phone or even to his feet. He was, nevertheless, audible in the background.

On the doorstep Roy hesitated. Next morning he had a critical breakfast meeting with Munday about the movie Roy had written and was, after two years of preparation, going to direct. He was also, for the first time, living with Clara. This had been a sort of choice, but its consequences — a child on the way — had somehow surprised them both.

He couldn’t turn back. Jimmy’s was the voice Roy most wanted to hear on the phone. Their friendship had survived even the mid-eighties, that vital and churning period when everything had been forced forward with a remorseless velocity. Roy had cancelled his debts to anyone whose affection failed to yield interest. At that time, when Roy lived alone, Jimmy would turn up late at night, just to talk. This was welcome and unusual in Roy’s world, as they didn’t work together and there was no question of loss or gain between them. Jimmy wasn’t impressed by Roy’s diligence. While Roy rushed between meetings Jimmy was, after all, idling in bars and the front of girls’ shirts. But though Jimmy disappeared for weeks — one time he was in prison — when Roy had a free day, Jimmy was the person Roy wanted to spend it with. The two of them would lurch from pub to pub from lunchtime until midnight, laughing at everything. He had no other friends like this, because there are some conversations you can only have with certain people.

Roy pushed the door and cautiously made his way down the uncarpeted stairs, grasping the banister with feeble determination as, he realised, his father used to do. Someone seemed to have been clawing at the wallpaper with their fingernails. A freezing wind blew across the basement: a broken chair must have travelled through a window.

There was Jimmy, then, on the floor, with a broken bottle beside him. The only object intact was a yellowing photograph of Keith Richards pinned to the wall.

Not that Jimmy would have been able to get into his bed. It was occupied by a cloudy-faced middle-aged woman with well-cut hair who, though appearing otherwise healthy, kept nodding out. Cradled into her was a boy of around sixteen with a sly scared look, naked apart from a Lacoste crocodile tattooed onto his chest. Now and again the woman seemed to achieve a dim consciousness and tried shoving him away, but she couldn’t shift him.

Jimmy lay on the floor like a child in the playground, with the foot of a bully on his chest. The foot belonged to Marco, the owner of the house, a wealthy junkie with a blood-stained white scarf tied around his throat. Another man, Jake, stood beside them.

‘The cavalry’s arrived,’ Jake said to Marco, who lifted his boot.

Jimmy’s eyes were shut. His twenty-one-year-old girlfriend Kara, the daughter of a notable bohemian family, who had been seeing Jimmy for a year, ran and kissed Roy gratefully. She was accompanied by an equally young friend, with vivid lips, leopard-skin hat and short skirt. If Roy regretted coming, he particularly regretted his black velvet jacket. Cut tight around the waist, it was long and shining and flared out over the thighs. The designer, a friend for whom Roy had shot a video, had said that ageing could only improve it. But wherever he wore it, Roy understood now, it sang of style and money, and made him look as if he had a job.

Kara and the girl took Roy to one side and explained that Jimmy had been drinking. Kara had found him in Brompton Cemetery with a smack dealer, though he claimed to have given that up. This time she was definitely leaving him until he sorted himself out.

‘They’re animals,’ murmured Jimmy.

Marco replaced his foot on his chest.

The kid in the bed, who had now mounted the woman, glared over his shoulder, saying to Jimmy, ‘What the fuck, you don’t never sleep here no more. You got smarter people to be with than us.’

Jimmy shouted, ‘It’s my bed! And stop fucking that woman, she’s overdosing!’

There was nothing in the woman’s eyes.

‘Is she all right?’ Roy asked.

‘She still alive,’ the boy explained. ‘My finger on her pulse.’

Jimmy cried, ‘They stole my fucking booze and drunk it, found my speed and took it, and stole my money and spent it. I’m not having these bastards in my basement, they’re bastards.’

Jake said to Roy: ‘Number one, he’s evicted right now this minute. He went berserk. Tried to punch us around, and then tried to kill himself.’

Jimmy winked up at Roy. ‘Did I interrupt your evening, man? Were you talking about film concepts?’

For years Roy had made music videos and commercials, and directed episodes of soap operas. Sometimes he taught at the film school. He had also made a sixty-minute film for the BBC, a story about a black girl singer. He had imagined that this would be the start of something considerable, but although the film received decent reviews, it had taken him no further. In the mid-eighties he’d been considered for a couple of features, but like most films, they’d fallen through. He’d seen his contemporaries make films in Britain, move to LA and buy houses with pools. An acquaintance had been nominated for an Oscar.

Now at last his own movie was in place, apart from a third of the money and therefore the essential signed contracts and final go-ahead, which were imminent. In the past week Munday had been to LA and New York. He had been told that with a project of this quality he wouldn’t have trouble raising the money.

Kara said, ‘I expect Roy was doing some hard work.’ She turned to him. ‘He’s too much. Bye-bye, Jimmy, I love you.’

While she bent down and kissed Jimmy, and he rubbed his hand between her legs, Roy looked at the picture of Keith Richards and considered how he’d longed for the uncontrolled life, seeking only pleasure and avoiding the ponderous difficulties of keeping everything together. He wondered if that was what he still wanted, or if he were still capable of it.

When Kara had gone, Roy stood over Jimmy and asked, ‘What d’you want me to do?’

‘Quote the lyrics of “Tumblin’ Dice”.’

The girl in the hat touched Roy’s arm. ‘We’re going clubbing. Aren’t you taking Jimmy to your place tonight?’

‘What? Is that the idea?’

‘He tells everyone you’re his best friend. He can’t stay here.’ The girl went on. ‘I’m Candy. Jimmy said you work with Munday.’

‘That’s right.’

‘What are you doing with him, a promo?’

From the floor Jimmy threw up his protracted cackle.

Roy said, ‘I’m going to direct a feature I’ve written.’

‘Can I work on it with you?’ she asked. ‘I’ll do anything.’

‘You’d better ring me to discuss it,’ he said.

Jimmy called, ‘How’s the pregnant wife?’

‘Fine.’

‘And that young girl who liked to sit on your face?’

Roy made a sign at Candy and led her into an unlit room next door. He cut out some coke, turned to the waiting girl and kissed her against the wall, smelling this stranger and running his hands over her. She inhaled her line, but before he could dispose of his and hold her again, she had gone.

Marco and Jake had carted Jimmy out, stashed him in Roy’s car and instructed him to fuck off for good.

Roy drove Jimmy along the King’s Road. As always now, Jimmy was dressed for outdoors, in sweaters, boots and heavy coat. In contrast, Roy’s colleagues dressed in light clothes and would never inadvertently enter the open air: when they wanted weather they would fly to a place that had the right kind. An overripe gutter odour rose from Jimmy, and Roy noticed the dusty imprint of Marco’s foot on his chest. Jimmy pulled a pair of black lace-trimmed panties from his pocket and sniffed at them like a duchess mourning a relative.

This was an opportunity, Roy decided, to use on Jimmy some of the honest directness he had been practising at work. Surely it would be instructive and improving for Jimmy to survive without constant assistance. Besides, Roy couldn’t be sucked into another emotional maelstrom.

He said, ‘Isn’t there anywhere you can go?’

‘What for?’ said Jimmy.

‘To rest. To sleep. At night.’

‘To sleep? Oh I see. It’s okay. Leave me on the corner.’

‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘I’ve slept out before.’

‘I meant you’ve usually got someone. Some girl.’

‘Sometimes I stay with Candy.’

‘Really?’

Jimmy said, ‘You liked her, yeah? I’ll try and arrange something. Did I tell you she likes to stand on her head with her legs open?’

‘You should have mentioned it to Clara on the phone.’

‘It’s a very convenient position for cunnilingus.’

‘Particularly at our age when unusual postures can be a strain,’ added Roy.

Jimmy put his hand in Roy’s hair. ‘You’re going grey, you know.’

‘I know.’

‘But I’m not. Isn’t that strange?’ Jimmy mused a few seconds. ‘But I can’t stay with her. Kara wouldn’t like it.’

‘What about your parents?’

‘I’m over forty! They’re dying, they make me take my shoes off! They weep when they see me! They —’

Jimmy’s parents were political refugees from Eastern Europe who’d suffered badly in the war, left their families, and lived in Britain since 1949. They’d expected, in this city full of people who lived elsewhere in their minds, to be able to return home, but they never could. Britain hadn’t engaged them; they barely spoke the language. Meanwhile Jimmy fell in love with pop. When he played the blues on his piano his parents had it locked in the garden shed. Jimmy and his parents had never understood one another, but he had remained as rootless as they had been, never even acquiring a permanent flat.

He was rummaging in his pockets where he kept his phone numbers on torn pieces of cigarette packet and ragged tube tickets. ‘You remember when I brought that girl round one afternoon —’

‘The eighteen-year-old?’

‘She wanted your advice on getting into the media. You fucked her on the table in front of me.’

‘The media got into her.’

‘Indeed. Can you remember what you wore, who you pretended to be, and what you said?’

‘What did I say?’

‘It was your happiest moment.’

‘It was a laugh.’

‘One of our best.’

‘One of many.’

They slapped hands.

Jimmy said, ‘The next day she left me.’

‘Sensible girl.’

‘We’d exploited her. She had a soul which you were disrespectful to.’ Jimmy reached over and stroked Roy’s face. ‘I just wanted to say, I love you, man, even if you are a bastard.’

Jimmy started clapping to the music. He could revive as quickly as a child. Nevertheless, Roy determined to beware of his friend’s manipulations; this was how Jimmy had survived since leaving university without ever working. For years women had fallen at Jimmy’s feet; now he collapsed at theirs. Yet even as he descended they liked him as much. Many were convinced of his lost genius, which had been perfectly preserved for years, by procrastination. Jimmy got away with things; he didn’t earn what he received. This was delicious but also a provocation, mocking justice.

Roy had pondered all this, not without incomprehension and envy, until he grasped how much Jimmy gave the women. Alcoholism, unhappiness, failure, ill-health, he showered them with despair, and guiltlessly extracted as much concern as they might proffer. They admired, Roy guessed, his having made a darkness to inhabit. Not everyone was brave enough to fall so far out of the light. To Roy it also demonstrated how many women still saw sacrifice as their purpose.

Friendship was the recurring idea in Roy’s mind. He recalled some remarks of Montaigne. ‘If I were pressed to say why I love him, I feel that my only reply could be, “because it was he, because it was I”.’ Also, ‘Friendship is enjoyed even as it is desired; it is bred, nourished and increased only by enjoyment, since it is a spiritual thing and the soul is purified by its practice.’ However, Montaigne had said nothing about the friend staying with you, as Jimmy seemed set on doing; or about dealing with someone who couldn’t believe that, given the choice, anyone would rather be sober than drunk, and that once someone had started drinking they would stop voluntarily before passing out — the only way of going to sleep that Jimmy found natural.

Roy no longer had any clue what social or political obligations he had, nor much idea where such duties could come from. At university he’d been a charged conscience, acquiring dozens of attitudes wholesale, which, over the years, he had let drop, rather as people stopped wearing certain clothes one by one and started wearing others, until they transformed themselves without deciding to. Since then Roy hadn’t settled in any of the worlds he inhabited, but only stepped through them like hotel rooms, and, in the process, hadn’t considered what he might owe others. Tonight, what love did this lying, drunken, raggedy-arsed bastard demand?

‘Hey.’ Roy noticed that Jimmy’s fingers were tightening around the handbrake.

‘Stop.’

‘Now?’ Roy said.

‘Yes!’

Jimmy was already clambering out of the car and making for an off-licence a few steps away. He wasn’t sober but he knew where he was. Roy had no choice but to follow. Jimmy was asking for a bottle of vodka. Then, as Jimmy noticed Roy extracting a £50 note — which was all, to his annoyance, that he was carrying — he added a bottle of whisky to his order. When the assistant turned his back Jimmy swiped four beer cans and concealed them inside his jacket. He also collected Roy’s change.

Outside, a beggar extended his cap and mumbled some words of a song. Jimmy squatted down at the man’s level and stuffed the change from the £50 into his cap.

‘I’ve got nothing else,’ Jimmy said. ‘Literally fuck-all. But take this. I’ll be dead soon.’

The man held the notes up to the light. This was too much. Roy went to snatch them back. But the bum had disappeared them and was repeating, ‘On yer way, on yer way …’

Roy turned to Jimmy. ‘It’s my money.’

‘It’s nothing to you, is it?’

‘That doesn’t make it yours.’

‘Who cares whose it is? He needs it more than us.’

‘ … on yer way …’

‘He’s not our responsibility.’

Jimmy looked at Roy curiously. ‘What makes you say that? He’s pitiful.’

Roy noticed two more derelicts shuffling forward. Further up the street others had gathered, anticipating generosity.

‘ … on yer way …’

Roy pulled Jimmy into the car and locked the doors from inside.

Along from Roy’s house, lounging by a wall with up-to-something looks on their faces, were two white boys who occupied a nearby basement. The police were often outside, and their mother begging them to take them away; but the authorities could do nothing until the lads were older. Most mornings when Roy went out to get his Independent he walked across glass where cars had been broken into. Several times he had greeted the boys. They nodded at him now; one day he would refuse his fear and speak properly. He didn’t like to think there was anyone it was impossible to contact in some way, but he didn’t know where to begin. Meanwhile he could hardly see out of his house for the bars and latticed slats. Beside his bed he kept a knife and hammer, and was mindful of not turning over too strenuously for fear of whacking the red alarm button adjacent to his pillow.

‘This the new house? Looks comfortable,’ said Jimmy. ‘You didn’t invite me to the house-warming, but Clara’s gonna be delighted to see me now. Wished I owned a couple of suitcases so I could stand at the door and tell her I’m here for a while.’

‘Don’t make too much noise.’

*

Roy led Jimmy into the living room. Then he ran upstairs, opened the bedroom door and listened to Clara breathing in the darkness. He had wanted to fuck her that night. When the phone rang he was initiating the painstaking preparatory work. It was essential not to offend her in any way since a thumbs-down was easy, and agreeable, to her. He had been sitting close by her and sending, telepathically — his preferred method of communication — loving sensual messages. As they rarely touched one another gratuitously, immediate physical contact — his hand in her hair — would be a risk. But if he did manage to touch her without a setback and even if, perhaps, he persuaded her to pull her skirt up a little — this made him feel as if he had reached the starting-gate, at least — he knew success was a possibility. Bearing this in mind he would rush upstairs to bed, changing into his pyjamas so as not to alarm her with uncovered flesh. He had, scrupulously, to avoid her getting the right idea.

He tried to anticipate which mood would carry her through the bedroom door. If there was something he’d neglected to do, like lock the back door or empty the dishwasher, arduous diplomacy would be imperative. Otherwise he would observe her undressing as she watched TV, knowing it would be only moments before his nails were in the bitch’s fat arse.

But wait: she had perched on the end of the bed to inspect her corns while sucking on a throat pastille and discussing the cost of having the front of the house repointed. His desire was boiling, and he wanted to strike down his penis, which by now was through the front of his pyjamas, with a ruler.

As she watched TV beside him and he played with her breasts, she continued to pretend that this was not happening; perhaps, for her, it wasn’t. She did, though, appear to believe in foreplay, at least for herself. After a time she would even remove all her clothes, though not without a histrionic shiver to demonstrate that sex altered one’s temperature. At this encouragement he would scoot across the floor and hunt, in the back of a drawer, for a pair of crumpled black nylon French knickers. Rolling her eyes at the tawdry foolishness of men she might, if his luck was in, pull them on. He knew she was finally conquered when she stopped watching television. Unfortunately, she used this opportunity, while she had his attention, to scold him for minor offences. He could, with pleasure, have taped over her mouth.

In all this there must have been, despite their efforts, a unifying pleasure, for next morning she liked to hold him, and wanted to be kissed.

Roy could only close the door now. Before returning to Jimmy he went into the room next door. Clara had bought a changing table on which lay pairs of mittens, baby boots, little red hats, cardigans smaller than handkerchiefs. The curtains were printed with airborne elephants; on the wall was a picture of a farmyard.

What had he done? She puzzled him still. Never had a woman pursued him as passionately as Clara over the past five years. Not a day would pass, at the beginning, when she didn’t send him flowers and books, invite him to concerts and the cinema, or cook for him. Perhaps she had been attempting, by example, to kindle in him the romantic feeling she herself desired. He had accepted it like a pasha. At other times he’d attempted to brush her away, and had always kept other women. He saw now what a jejune protest that was. Her love had been an onslaught. She wanted a family. He, who liked to plan everything, but had really only known what sort of work he sought, had complied in order to see what might occur. He had been easily overrun; the child was coming; it gave him vertigo.

He was tugging at a mattress leaning against the wall. Jimmy would be cosy here, perhaps too cosy, reflected Roy, going downstairs without it.

Jimmy was lying with his feet on the sofa. Beside him he had arranged a beer, a glass and a bottle of Jack Daniels taken from the drinks cupboard. He was lighting a cigarette from the matches Roy had collected from the Royalton and the Odeon, smart New York restaurants, and kept to impress people.

There was no note from Clara about Munday, and no message on the machine.

Roy said, ‘All right, pal?’ He decided he loved his friend, envied his easy complacency, and was glad to have him here.

Jimmy said, ‘Got everything I need.’

‘Take it easy with the Jack. What about the bottle we bought?’

‘Don’t start getting queenie. I didn’t want to break into them straight away. So — here we are together again.’ Jimmy presented his glass. ‘What the fuck?’

‘Yeah, what the fuck!’

‘Fuck everything!’

‘Fuck it!’

The rest of the Jack went and they were halfway through the vodka the next time Roy pitched towards the clock. The records had come out, including Black Sabbath. A German porn film was playing with the sound turned off. The room became dense with marijuana smoke. They must have got hungry. After smashing into a tin of baked beans with a hammer and spraying the walls, Roy climbed on Jimmy’s shoulders to buff the mottled ceiling with a cushion cover and then stuffed it in Jimmy’s mouth to calm him down. Roy didn’t know what time the two of them stripped in order to demonstrate the Skinhead Moonstomp or whether he had imagined their neighbour banging on the wall and then at the front door.

*

It seemed not long after that Roy hurried into Soho for buttered toast and coffee in the Patisserie Valerie. In his business, getting up early had become so habitual that if, by mistake, he woke up after seven, he panicked, fearing life had left without him.

Before ten he was at Munday’s office where teams of girls with Home Counties accents, most of whom appeared to be wearing cocktail dresses, were striding across the vast spaces waving contracts. Roy’s arrival surprised them; they had no idea whether Munday was in New York, Los Angeles or Paris, or when he’d be back. He was ‘raising money’. Because it had been on his mind, Roy asked seven people if they could recall the name of Harry Lime’s English friend in The Third Man. But only two of them had seen the film and neither could remember.

There was nothing to do. He had cleared a year of other work to make this film. The previous night had sapped him, but he felt only as if he’d taken a sweet narcotic. Today he should have few worries. Soon he’d be hearing from Munday.

He drifted around Covent Garden, where, since the mid-eighties, he rarely ventured without buying. His parents had not been badly off but their attitude to money had been, if you want something think whether you really need it and if you can do without it. Well, he could do without most things, if pushed. But at the height of the decade money had gushed through his account. If he drank champagne rather than beer, if he used cocaine and took taxis from one end of Soho to the other five times a day, it barely dented the balance. It had been a poetic multiplication; the more he made the more he admired his own life.

He had loved that time. The manic entrepreneurialism, prancing individualism, self-indulgence and cynicism appealed to him as nothing had for ten years. Pretence was discarded. Punk disorder and nihilism ruled. Knowledge, tradition, decency and the lip-service paid to equality; socialist holiness, talk of ‘principle’, student clothes, feminist absurdities, and arguments defending regimes — ‘flawed experiments’ — that his friends wouldn’t have been able to live under for five minutes: such pieties were trampled with a Nietzschean pitilessness. It was galvanising.

He would see something absurdly expensive — a suit, computers, cameras, cars, apartments — and dare himself to buy it, simply to discover what the consequences of such recklessness might be. How much fun could you have before everything went mad? He loved returning from the shops and opening the designer carrier bags, removing the tissue paper, and trying on different combinations of clothes while playing the new CDs in their cute slim boxes. He adored the new restaurants, bars, clubs, shops, galleries, made of black metal, chrome or neon, each remaining fashionable for a month, if it was lucky.

Life had become like a party at the end of the world. He was sick of it, as one may grow sick of champagne or of kicking a dead body. It was over, and there was nothing. If there was to be anything it had to be made anew.

He had lived through an age when men and women with energy and ruthlessness but without much ability or persistence excelled. And even though most of them had gone under, their ignorance had confused Roy, making him wonder whether the things he had striven to learn, and thought of as ‘culture’, were irrelevant. Everything was supposed to be the same: commercials, Beethoven’s late quartets, pop records, shopfronts, Freud, multi-coloured hair. Greatness, comparison, value, depth: gone, gone, gone. Anything could give some pleasure; he saw that. But not everything provided the sustenance of a deeper understanding.

His work had gone stale months ago. Whether making commercials, music videos or training films, Roy had always done his best. But now he would go along with whatever the client wanted, provided he could leave early.

Around the time he had begun to write his film, he started checking the age of the director or author if he saw a good movie or read a good book. He felt increasingly ashamed of his still active hope of being some sort of artist. The word itself sounded effete; and his wish seemed weakly adolescent, affected, awkward.

Once, in a restaurant in Vienna during a film festival, Roy saw that Fellini had come in with several friends. The maestro went to every table with his hands outstretched. Then the tall man with the head of an emperor sat down and ate in peace. And what peace it would be! Roy thought often of how a man might feel had he made, for instance, La Dolce Vita, not to speak of 8½. What insulating spirit this would give him, during breakfast, or waiting to see his doctor about a worrying complaint, enduring the empty spaces that boundary life’s occasional rousing events!

Bergman, Fellini, Ozu, Wilder, Cassavetes, Rosi, Renoir: the radiance! Often Roy would rise at five in the morning to suck the essential vitamin of poetry in front of the video. A few minutes of Amarcord, in which Fellini’s whole life was present, could give him perspective all day. Certain sequences he examined scores of times, studying the writing, acting, lighting and camera movements. In commercials he was able to replicate certain shots or the tone of entire scenes. ‘Bit more Bergman?’ he’d say. ‘Or do you fancy some Fellini here?’

In New York he went to see Hearts of Darkness, the documentary about Coppola’s making of Apocalypse Now. He was becoming aware of what he wouldn’t do now: parachute from a plane or fight in a war or revolution; travel across Indonesia with a backpack; go to bed with three women at once, or even two; learn Russian, or even French, properly; or be taught the principles of architecture. But for days he craved remarkable and noble schemes on which everything was risked.

What would they be? For most of his adult life he’d striven to keep up with the latest thing in cinema, music, literature and even the theatre, ensuring that no one mentioned an event without his having heard of it. But now he had lost the thread and didn’t mind. What he wanted was to extend himself. He tormented himself with his own mediocrity. And he saw that, apart from dreams, the most imaginative activity most people allowed themselves was sexual fantasy. To live what you did — somehow — was surely the point.

In his garden in the mornings, he began to write, laying out the scenes on index cards on the grass, as if he were playing patience. The concentration was difficult. He was unused to such a sustained effort of dreaming, particularly when the outcome was distant, uncertain and not immediately convertible into a cheque or interest from colleagues. Why not begin next year?

After a few days’ persistence his mind focused and began to run in unstrained motion. In these moments — reminded of himself even as he got lost in what he was doing — the questions he had asked about life, its meaning and direction, if any, about how best to live, could receive only one reply. To be here now, doing this.

That was done. He was in a hurry to begin shooting. Private satisfactions were immaterial. The film had to make money. When he was growing up, the media wasn’t considered a bright boy’s beat. Like pop, television was disparaged. But it had turned out to be the jackpot. Compared to his contemporaries at school, he had prospered. Yet the way things were getting set up at home he had to achieve until he expired. He and Clara would live well: nannies, expensive schools, holidays, dinner parties, clothes. After setting off in the grand style, how could you retreat to less without anguish?

All morning his mind had whirled. Finally he phoned Clara. She’d been sick, and had come downstairs to discover Jimmy asleep on the floor amid the night’s debris, wrapped in the tablecloth and the curtains, which had become detached from the rail. He had pissed in a pint glass and placed it on the table.

To Roy’s surprise she was amused. She had, it was true, always liked Jimmy, who flirted with her. But he couldn’t imagine her wanting him in her house. She wasn’t a cool or loose hippie. She taught at a university and could be formidable. Most things could interest her, though, and she was able to make others interested. She was enthusiastic and took pleasure in being alive, always a boon in others, Roy felt. Like Roy, she adored gossip. The misfortunes and vanity of others gave them pleasure. But it was still a mostly cerebral and calculating intelligence that she had. She lacked Jimmy’s preferred kind of sentimental self-observation. It had been her clarity that had attracted Roy, at a time when they were both concerned with advancement.

Cheered by her friendliness towards Jimmy, Roy wanted to be with him today.

*

Jimmy came out of the bathroom in Roy’s bathrobe and sat at the table with scrambled eggs, the newspaper, his cigarettes and ‘Let It Bleed’ on loud. Roy was reminded of their time at university, when, after a party, they would stay up all night and the next morning sit in a pub garden, or take LSD and walk along the river to the bridge at Hammersmith, which Jimmy, afraid of heights, would have to run across with his eyes closed.

Roy read his paper while surreptitiously watching Jimmy eat, drink and move about the room as if he’d inhabited it for years. He was amazed by the lengthy periods between minor tasks that Jimmy spent staring into space, as if each action set off another train of memory, regret and speculation. Then Jimmy would search his pockets for phone numbers and shuffle them repeatedly. Finally, Jimmy licked his plate and gave a satisfied burp. When Roy had brushed the crumbs from the floor, he decided to give Jimmy a little start.

‘What are you going to do today?’

‘Do? In what sense?’

‘In the sense of … to do something.’

Jimmy laughed.

Roy went on, ‘Maybe you should think of looking for work. The structure might do you good.’

‘Structure?’

Jimmy raised himself to talk. There was a beer can from the previous night beside the sofa; he swigged from it and then spat out, having forgotten he’d used it as an ashtray. He fetched another beer from the fridge and resumed his position.

Jimmy said, ‘What sort of work is it that you’re talking about here?’

‘Paying work. You must have heard of it. You do something all day —’

‘Usually something you don’t like to do —’

‘Whatever. Though you might like it.’ Jimmy snorted. ‘And at the end of the week they give you money with which you can buy things, instead of having to scrounge them.’

This idea forced Jimmy back in his seat. ‘You used to revere the surrealists.’

‘Shooting into a crowd! Yes, I adored it when —’

‘D’you think they’d have done anything but kill themselves laughing at the idea of salaried work? You know it’s serfdom.’

Roy lay down on the floor and giggled. Jimmy’s views had become almost a novelty to Roy. Listening to him reminded Roy of the pleasures of failure, a satisfaction he considered to be unjustly unappreciated now he had time to think about it. In the republic of accumulation and accountancy there was no doubt Jimmy was a failure artist of ability. To enlarge a talent to disappoint, it was no good creeping into a corner and dying dismally. It was essential to raise, repeatedly, hope and expectation in both the gullible and the knowing, and then to shatter them. Jimmy was intelligent, alertly bright-eyed, convincing. With him there was always the possibility of things working out. It was an achievement, therefore, after a calculated build-up, to bring off a resounding fuck-up. Fortunately Jimmy would always, on the big occasion, let you down: hopelessness, impotence, disaster, all manner of wretchedness — he could bring them on like a regular nightmare.

Not that it hadn’t cost him. It took resolution, organisation, and a measure of creativity to drink hard day and night; to insult friends and strangers; to go to parties uninvited and attempt to have sex with teenage girls; to borrow money and never pay it back; to lie, make feeble excuses, be evasive, shifty and selfish. He had had many advantages to overcome. But finally, after years of application, he had made a success, indeed a triumph, of failure.

Jimmy said, ‘The rich love the poor to work, and the harder the better. It keeps them out of trouble while they’re ripped off. Everyone knows that.’ He picked up a porn magazine, Peaches, and flipped through the pages. ‘You don’t think I’m going to fall for that shit, do you?’

Roy’s eyes felt heavy. He was falling asleep in the morning! To wake himself up he paced the carpet and strained to recall the virtues of employment.

‘Jimmy, there’s something I don’t understand about this.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t you ever wake up possessed by a feeling of things not done? Of time and possibility lost, wasted? And failure … failure in most things — that could be overcome. Don’t you?’

Jimmy said, ‘That’s different. Of mundane work you know nothing. The worst jobs are impossible to get. You’ve lived for years in the enclosed world of the privileged with no idea what it’s like outside. But the real work you mention, I tell you, every damn morning I wake up and feel time rushing past me. And it’s not even light. Loneliness … fear. My heart vibrates.’

‘Yes! and don’t you think, this is a new morning, maybe this day I can redeem the past? Today something real might be done?’

‘Sometimes I do think that,’ Jimmy said. ‘But most of the time … to tell you the truth, Roy, I know nothing will get done. Nothing, because that time is past.’

When the beer was gone they went out, putting their arms around one another. On the corner of Roy’s street was a rough pub with benches outside, where many local men gathered between March and September, usually wearing just shorts. They’d clamber from their basements at half past ten and by eleven they’d be in place, chewing a piece of bread with their beer, smoking dope and shouting above the traffic. Their women, who passed by in groups, pushing prams laden with shopping, were both angrier and more vital.

One time Roy walked past and heard Springsteen’s hypodermic cry ‘Hungry Heart’ blaring from inside. He’d lingered apprehensively: surely the song would rouse the men to some sudden recklessness, the desire to move or hunt down experience? But they merely mouthed the words.

He thought of the books which had spoken to him as a teenager and how concerned they were with young men fleeing home and domesticity, to hurl themselves at different boundaries. But where had it led except to self-destruction and madness? And how could you do that kind of thing now? Where could you run?

Roy’s preferred local was a low-ceilinged place with a semicircular oak bar. Beyond, it was long and deep, broken up by booths, corners and turns. Men sat alone, reading, staring, talking to themselves, as if modelling for a picture entitled ‘The Afternoon Drinkers’. There was a comfortable aimlessness; in here nothing had to happen.

Jimmy raised his glass. Roy saw that his hand trembled, and that his skin looked bruised and discoloured, the knuckles raw, fingers bitten.

‘By the way, how was Clara this morning?’

‘That was her, right?’ said Jimmy.

‘Yeah.’

‘She’s big outfront but looking great. A bit like Jean Shrimpton.’

‘You told her that?’

Jimmy nodded.

Roy said, ‘That’s what did the trick. You’ll be in with her for a couple of days now.’

‘Still fuck her?’

‘When I can’t help myself,’ said Roy. ‘You’d think she’d appreciate the interest but instead she says that lying beside me is like sleeping next to a bag of rubbish that hasn’t been collected for a fortnight.’

‘She’s lucky to have you,’ said Jimmy.

‘Me?’

‘Oh yes. And she knows it too. Still, thank Christ there’s plenty of pussy back on stream now that that Aids frenzy has worn off.’

Roy said, ‘All the same, it’s easy to underestimate how casual and reassuring married love can be. You can talk about other things while you’re doing it. It isn’t athletic. You can drift. It’s an amicable way of confirming that everything is all right.’

‘I’ve never had that,’ said Jimmy.

‘You’re not likely to, either.’

‘Thanks.’

After a time Jimmy said, ‘Did I mention there was a phone call this morning. Someone’s office. Tuesday?’

‘Tuesday?’

‘Or was it Wednesday?’

‘Munday!’

‘Munday? Yeah, maybe it was … one of those early days.’

Roy grasped him by the back of the neck and vibrated him a little. ‘Tell me what he said.’

Jimmy said, ‘Gone. Everything vaporises into eternity — all thoughts and conversations.’

‘Not this one.’

Jimmy sniggered, ‘The person said he’s in the air. Or was. And he’s popping round for a drink.’

‘When?’

‘I think it was … today.’

‘Christ,’ said Roy. ‘Finish your pint.’

‘A quick one, I think, to improve our temper.’

‘Get up. This is the big one. It’s my film, man.’

‘Film? When’s it on?’

‘Couple of years.’

‘What? Where’s the hurry? How can you think in those kinda time distances?’

Roy held Jimmy’s glass to his lips. ‘Drink.’

Munday might, Roy knew, swing by for a few minutes and treat Roy as if he were a mere employee; or he might hang out for five hours, discussing politics, books, life.

Munday embodied his age, particularly in his puritanism. He was surrounded by girls; he was rich and in the film business; everywhere there were decadent opportunities. But work was his only vice, with the emphasis on negotiating contracts. His greatest pleasure was to roar, after concluding a deal: ‘Course, if you’d persisted, or had a better agent, I’d have paid far more.’

He did like cocaine. He didn’t like to be offered it, for this might suggest he took it, which he didn’t, since it was passé. He did, nevertheless, like to notice a few lines laid accidentally out on the table, into which he might dip his nose in passing.

Cocaine would surely help things go better. As Roy guided Jimmy back, he considered the problem. There was a man — Upton Turner — who was that rare thing, a fairly reliable dealer who made home visits and occasionally arrived on the stated day. Roy had been so grateful for this — and his need so urgent — that when Turner had visited in the past, Roy had enquired after his health and family, giving Turner, he was afraid, the misapprehension that he was a person as well as a vendor. He had become a nuisance. The last time Roy phoned him, Turner had flung the phone to one side, screaming that the cops were at the door and he was ‘lookin’ at twenty years!’ As Roy listened, Turner was dumping thousands of pounds worth of powder down the toilet, only to discover that the person at the door was a neighbour who wanted to borrow a shovel.

Despite Turner’s instability, Roy called him. Turner said he’d come round. At once Munday’s office then rang.

‘He’s coming to you,’ they said. ‘Don’t go anywhere.’

‘But when?’ Roy whined.

‘Expect him in the near future,’ the cool girl replied, and added, with a giggle, ‘This century, definitely.’

‘Ha, ha.’

They had some time at least. While listening for Upton’s car, Roy and Jimmy had a few more drinks. At last Roy called Jimmy over to the window.

‘There.’

‘No!’ Jimmy seized the curtain to give him strength. ‘It’s a windup. That isn’t Turner. Maybe it’s Munday.’

‘It is our man, without a doubt.’

‘Doesn’t he feel a little conspicuous — in his profession?’

‘Wouldn’t you think so?’

‘Jesus, Roy, and you’re letting this guy into your new home?’

They watched Turner trying to land the old black Rolls in a space, his pit-bull sitting up front and music booming from the windows. He couldn’t get the car in anywhere, and finally left it double-parked in the road with the traffic backing up around it, and rushed into the house with the noisy dog. Turner was small, balding and middle-aged, in a white shirt and grey suit that clung to his backside and flared at the ankles. He saw Jimmy drinking at the table and came to an abrupt standstill.

‘Roy, son, you’re all fucking pissed. You should have said we’re having a bit of a laugh, I’d have brought the party acid.’

‘This is Jimmy.’

Turner sat down, parting his legs and sweeping back his jacket, exposing his genitals outlined by tight trousers as if he anticipated applause. He reached into his pocket and tossed a plastic bag onto the table containing fifty or sixty small envelopes. Jimmy was rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

Turner said, ‘How many of these are you having? Eh?’

‘Not sure yet.’

‘Not sure? What d’you mean?’

‘Just that.’

‘All right,’ Turner conceded. ‘Try it, try it.’

Roy opened one of the envelopes.

‘Never seen so many books an’ videos as you got in these boxes,’ Turner said, pacing about. He halted by a pile and said, ‘Alphabetical. A mind well ordered. As a salesman I evaluate the people from looking at their houses. Read ’em all?’

‘It’s surprising how many people ask that,’ Roy said with relaxed enjoyment. ‘It really is. Turner, d’you want a drink or something else?’

‘You must know a lot then,’ Turner insisted.

‘Not necessarily,’ Jimmy said. ‘It doesn’t follow.’

‘I know what you mean.’ Turner winked at Jimmy and they laughed. ‘But the boy must know something. I’m gonna offer credit where it’s due, I’m generous like that.’ He lit a cigarette in his cupped hand and surveyed the kitchen. ‘Nice place. You an’ the wife getting the builders in?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Course. I bet you have a pretty nice life, all in all. Plays, travel, posh friends. The police aren’t looking for you, are they?’

‘Not like they are for you, Turner.’

‘No. That’s right.’

‘Turner’s looking at fifteen. Isn’t that right, man?’

‘Yeah,’ said Turner. ‘Sometimes twenty. I’m looking at —’ He noticed Jimmy suppressing a giggle and turned to see Roy smirking. He said, ‘I’m looking at a lot of shit. Now, Mister Roy, if you know so fucking much I’ll try and think if there’s something I need to ask you, while I’m here.’

Jimmy said to Roy, ‘Are you ready for Mr Turner’s questions?’

Roy tapped his razor blade on the table and organised the powder into thick lines. He and Jimmy hunched over to inhale. Turner sat down at last and pointed at the envelopes.

‘How many of them d’you want?’

‘Three.’

‘How many?’

‘Three, I said.’

‘Fuck.’ Turner banged his fist on the table. ‘Slags.’

Roy said, ‘You want a piece of pie?’

‘That I could go for.’

Roy cut a piece of Clara’s cherry pie and gave it to Turner. Turner took two large bites and it was inside him. Roy cut another piece. This time Turner leaned back in his chair, raised his arm and hurled it across the kitchen as if he were trying to smash it through the wall. The dog thrashed after it like a shoal of piranhas. It was an aged creature and its eating was slobbery and breathless. The second it had finished, the dog ran back to Turner’s feet and planted itself there, waiting for more.

Turner said to Roy, ‘Three, did you say?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So I have come some considerable miles at your instant command for fuck-all. You know,’ he said sarcastically, ‘I’m looking at eighteen.’

‘In that case four. All right. Four g’s. Might as well, eh, Jimmy?’

Turner slapped the dog. ‘You’ll get another go in a minute,’ he told it. He looked at Jimmy. ‘What about ten?’

‘Go for it,’ said Jimmy to Roy. ‘We’ll be all right tomorrow. Ten should see us through.’

‘Smart,’ said Turner. ‘Planning ahead.’

‘Ten?’ Roy said. ‘No way. I don’t think you should hustle people.’

Turner’s voice became shrill. ‘You saying I hustle you?’

Roy hesitated. ‘I mean by that … it’s not a good business idea.’

Turner raised his voice. ‘I’m doing this to pay off my brother’s debts. My brother who was killed by scum. It’s all for him.’

‘Quite right,’ murmured Jimmy.

‘Hey, I’ve got a fucking question for you,’ Turner said. ‘Little Roy.’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you know how to love life?’

Jimmy and Roy looked at one another.

Turner said, ‘That’s stumped you, right? I’m saying here, is it a skill? Or a talent? Who can acquire it?’ He was settling into his rap. ‘I deal to the stars, you know.’

‘Most of them introduced to you by me,’ Roy murmured.

‘And they the unhappiest people I seen.’

‘It’s still a difficult question,’ said Roy.

He looked at Turner, who was so edgy and complicated it was hard to think of him as a child. But you could always see the light of childhood in Jimmy, he was luminous with curiosity.

‘But a good one,’ said Jimmy.

‘You’re pleased with that one,’ Roy said to Turner.

‘Yeah, I am.’ Turner looked at Jimmy. ‘You’re right. It’s a difficult question.’

Roy put his hand in his jeans pocket and dragged out a wad of £20 notes.

‘Hallo,’ Turner said.

‘Jesus,’ said Jimmy.

‘What?’ Roy said.

‘I’ll take a tenner off,’ Turner said. ‘As we’re friends — if you buy six.’

‘I told you, not six,’ said Roy, counting the money. There was plenty of it, but he thumbed through it rapidly.

Turner reached out to take the whole wad and held it in his fist, looking down at the dog as his foot played on its stomach.

‘Hey,’ Roy said and turned to Jimmy who was laughing.

‘What?’ said Turner, crumpling the money in his hand. Roy pulled the cherry pie towards him and cut a slice. His hand was shaking now. ‘You are in a state,’ Turner said. He took the mobile phone out of his pocket and turned it off.

‘Am I?’ Roy said. ‘What are you going to do with that money?’

Turner got up and took a step towards Roy. ‘Answer the fucking question!’

Roy put up his hands. ‘I can’t.’

Turner pushed three small envelopes towards Jimmy, put all the money in his pocket, yanked away his drug bag, and, pursued by the dog, charged to the door. Roy ran to the window and watched the Rolls take off down the street.

‘You wanker,’ he said to Jimmy. ‘You fucking wanker.’

‘Me?’

‘Christ. We should have done something.’

‘Like what?’

‘Where’s the knife! You should have stuck it in the bastard’s fucking throat! That pig’s run off with my money!’

‘Thing is, you can’t trust them proles, man. Sit down.’

‘I can’t!’

‘Here’s the knife. Go after him then.’

‘Fuck, fuck!’

‘This will calm you down,’ said Jimmy.

They started into the stuff straight away and there was no going back. Roy attempted to put one gram aside for Munday but Jimmy said, why worry, they could get more later. Roy didn’t ask him where from.

Roy was glad to see Upton go. He’d be glad, too, to see the end of the chaos that Jimmy had brought with him.

‘What are your plans?’ he asked. ‘I mean, what are you going to be doing in the next few days?’

Jimmy shook his head. He knew what Roy was on about, but ignored him, as Roy sat there thinking that if he was capable of love he had to love all of Jimmy now, at this moment.

It was imperative, though, that he clear his mind for Munday. The drug got him moving. He fetched a jersey and clean socks for Jimmy, thrust Jimmy’s old clothes into a plastic bag, and, holding them at arm’s length, pushed them deep into the rubbish. He showered, got changed, opened the windows and prepared coffee.

*

It was only when Munday, who was ten years younger than him and Jimmy and far taller, came through the door, that Roy realised how spaced he and Jimmy were. Fortunately Clara had said she’d be out that evening. Munday, who had just got off the plane, wanted to relax and talk.

Roy forced his concentration as Munday explained his latest good news. His business, for which Roy had made many music videos, was in the process of being sold to a conglomerate. Munday would be able to make more films and with bigger budgets. He would be managing director and rich.

‘Excellent,’ said Roy.

‘In some ways,’ Munday said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Let’s have another drink.’

‘Yes, we must celebrate.’ Roy got up. ‘I won’t be a moment.’

At the door he heard Jimmy say, ‘You might be interested to hear that I myself have attempted a bit of writing in my time …’

It was that ‘I myself ’ that got him out.

Roy went to buy champagne. He was hurrying around the block. Powerful forces were keeping him from his house. His body ached and fluttered with anxiety; he had Aids at least, and, without a doubt, cancer. A heart attack was imminent. On the verge of panic, he feared he might run yelling into the road but was, at that moment, unable to take another step. He couldn’t, though, stay where he was, for fear he might lie down and weep. In a pub he ordered a half but took only two sips. He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there, but he didn’t want to go home.

Munday and Jimmy were sitting head to head. Jimmy was telling him a ‘scenario’ for a film about a famous ageing film director and a drifting young couple who visit him, to pay homage. After they’ve eaten with him, praised his percipience and vision, admired his awards and heard his Brando stories, they enquire if there is anything they can do for him. The director says he wants to witness the passion of their love-making, hear their conversation, see their bodies, hear their cries and look at them sleeping. The girl and her earnest young man co-operate until … They become his secretaries; they take him prisoner; maybe they murder him. Jimmy couldn’t remember the rest. It was written down somewhere.

‘It’s a decent premise,’ said Munday.

‘Yes,’ agreed Jimmy.

*

Munday turned to Roy, who had rejoined them. ‘Where’s this guy been hiding?’

He was durable and unsubtle, Munday; and, in spite of his efforts, kindness and concern for others were obvious.

‘In the pub,’ said Roy.

‘Artist on the edge,’ said Jimmy.

‘Right,’ said Munday. ‘Too much comfort takes away the hunger. I’ll do this …’ he said.

He would advance Jimmy the money to prepare a draft.

‘How much?’ asked Jimmy.

‘Sufficient.’

Jimmy raised his glass. ‘Sufficient. Brilliant — don’t you think, Roy?’

Roy said he had to talk to Munday in the kitchen.

‘OK,’ said Munday. Roy closed the door behind them. Munday said, ‘Terrific guy.’

‘He used to be remarkable,’ said Roy in a low voice, realising he’d left the champagne in the pub. ‘Shame he’s so fucked now.’

‘He has some nice ideas.’

‘How can he get them down? He’s been dried out three times but always goes back on.’

‘Anyhow, I’ll see what I can do for him.’

‘Good.’

‘I meet so few interesting people these days. But I’m sorry to hear about your condition.’

‘Pardon?’

‘It happens to so many.’

‘What happens?’

‘I see. You don’t want it to get around. But we’ve worked together for years. You’re safe with me.’

‘Is that right? Please tell me,’ Roy said, ‘what you’re talking about.’

Munday explained that Jimmy had told him of Roy’s addiction to cocaine as well as alcohol.

‘You don’t believe that, do you?’ Roy said.

Munday put his arm around him. ‘Don’t fuck about, pal, you’re one of my best video directors. It’s tough enough as it is out there.’

‘But you don’t, do you?’

‘He predicted you’d be in denial.’

‘I’m not in fucking denial!’

Munday’s eyes widened. ‘Maybe not.’

‘But I’m not — really!’

Nevertheless, Munday wouldn’t stop regarding him as if he were contriving how to fit these startling new pieces into the puzzle that Roy had become.

He said, ‘What’s that white smear under your nose? and the blade on the table? You will always work, but not if you lie to my face. Roy, you’re degrading yourself! I can’t have you falling apart on a shoot. You haven’t been giving one hundred per cent and you look like shit.’

‘Do I?’

‘Sure you feel okay now? Your face seems to be twitching. Better take some of these.’

‘What are they?’

‘Vitamins.’

‘Munday —’

‘Go on, swallow.’

‘Please —’

‘Here’s some water. Get them down. Christ, you’re choking. Lean forward so I can smack you on the back. Jesus, you won’t work for me again until you’ve come out of the clinic. I’ll get the office to make a booking tonight. Just think, you might meet some exciting people there.’

‘Who?’

‘Guitarists. Have you discussed it with Clara?’

‘Not yet.’

‘If you don’t, I will.’

‘Thank you. But I need to know what’s happening with the film.’

‘Listen up then. Just sip the water and concentrate — if you can.’

Later, at the front door Munday shook Jimmy’s hand and said he’d be in touch. He said, ‘You guys. Sitting around here, music, conversation, bit of dope. I’m going back to the airport now. Another plane, another hotel room. I’m not complaining. But you know.’

The moment Munday got in his Jag and started up the street, Roy screamed at Jimmy. Jimmy covered his face and swore, through his sobs, that he couldn’t recall what he’d told Munday. Roy turned away. There was nothing to grasp or punish in Jimmy.

*

They stopped at an off-licence and drank on a bench in Kensington High Street. A young kid calling himself a traveller sat beside them and gave them a hit on some dope. Roy considered how enjoyably instructive it could be to take up such a position in the High Street, and how much one noticed about people, whereas to passers-by one was invisible, pitied or feared. After a while they went morosely into a pub where the barman served everyone else first and then was rude.

Roy’s film would be delayed for at least eighteen months, until Munday was in a stronger position to argue for ‘unconventional’ projects. Roy doubted it would happen now.

For most of his adult years he’d wanted success, and thought he knew what it was. But now he didn’t. He would have to live with himself as he was and without the old hope. Clara would be ashamed of him. As his financial burdens increased his resources had, in a few minutes, shrunk.

As the dark drew in and the street lights came on and people rushed through the tube stations, he and Jimmy walked about, stopping here and there. There seemed, in London, to be a pub on every corner, with many men on red plush seats drinking concentratedly, having nothing better to do. Occasionally they passed restaurants where, in the old days, Roy was greeted warmly and had passed much time, too much — sometimes four or five hours — with business acquaintances, now forgotten. Soon Roy was lost, fleeing with the energy of the frustrated and distressed, while Jimmy moved beside him with his customary cough, stumble and giggle, fuelled by the elation of unaccustomed success, and a beer glass under his coat.

At one point Jimmy suddenly pulled Roy towards a phone box. Jimmy ran in, waited crouching down, and shot out again, pulling Roy by his jacket across the road, where they shrank down beside a hedge.

‘What are you doing?’

‘We were going to get beaten up.’ Though shuddering and looking about wildly, Jimmy didn’t stop his drinking. ‘Didn’t you hear them swearing at us? Poofs, poofs, they said.’

‘Who, who?’

‘Don’t worry. But keep your head down!’ After a while he said, ‘Now come on. This way!’

Roy couldn’t believe that anyone would attempt such a thing on the street, but how would he know? He and Jimmy hastened through crowds of young people queuing for a concert; and along streets lined with posters advertising groups and comedians whose names he didn’t recognise.

There was a burst of laughter behind them. Roy wheeled round, but saw no one. The noise was coming from a parked car — no, from across the road. Then it seemed to disappear down the street like the tail of a typhoon. Now his name was being called. Assuming it was a spook, he pressed on, only to see a young actor he’d given work to, and to whom he’d promised a part in the film. Roy was aware of his swampy loafers and stained jacket that stank of pubs. Jimmy stood beside him, leaning on his shoulder, and they regarded the boy insolently.

‘I’ll wait to hear, shall I?’ said the actor, after a time, having muttered some other things that neither of them understood.

*

They settled in a pub from which Roy refused to move. At last he was able to tell Jimmy what Munday had said, and explain what it meant. Jimmy listened. There was a silence.

‘Tell me something, man,’ Jimmy said. ‘When you prepared your shooting scripts and stuff —’

‘I suppose you’re a big film writer now.’

‘Give me a chance. That guy Munday seemed okay.’

‘Did he?’

‘He saw something good in me, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, yes. Perhaps he did.’

‘Right. It’s started, brother. I’m on the up. I need to get a room — a bedsitter with a table — to get things moving in the literary department. Lend me some money until Munday pays me.’

‘There you go.’

Roy laid a £20 note on the table. It was all the cash he had now. Jimmy slid it away.

‘What’s that? It’s got to be a grand.’

‘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.

Nearby was a coffee shop where he used to go. The manager waved at him, brought over hot chocolate and a cake, and, as usual, complained about the boredom and said he wished for a job like Roy’s. When he’d gone, Roy opened his bag and extracted his newspaper, book, notebook and pens. But he just watched the passers-by. He couldn’t stay long because he remembered that he and Clara had an antenatal class. He wanted to get back, to see what was between them and learn what it might give him. Some people you couldn’t erase from your life.

We’re Not Jews

Azhar’s mother led him to the front of the lower deck, sat him down with his satchel, hurried back to retrieve her shopping, and took her place beside him. As the bus pulled away Azhar spotted Big Billy and his son Little Billy racing alongside, yelling and waving at the driver. Azhar closed his eyes and hoped it was moving too rapidly for them to get on. But they not only flung themselves onto the platform, they charged up the almost empty vehicle hooting and panting as if they were on a fairground ride. They settled directly across the aisle from where they could stare at Azhar and his mother.

At this his mother made to rise. So did Big Billy. Little Billy sprang up. They would follow her and Azhar. With a sigh she sank back down. The conductor came, holding the arm of his ticket machine. He knew the Billys, and had a laugh with them. He let them ride for nothing.

Mother’s grey perfumed glove took some pennies from her purse. She handed them to Azhar who held them up as she had shown him.

‘One and a half to the Three Kings,’ he said.

‘Please,’ whispered Mother, making a sign of exasperation.

‘Please,’ he repeated.

The conductor passed over the tickets and went away.

‘Hold onto them tightly,’ said Mother. ‘In case the inspector gets on.’

Big Billy said, ‘Look, he’s a big boy.’

‘Big boy,’ echoed Little Billy.

‘So grown up he has to run to teacher,’ said Big Billy.

‘Cry baby!’ trumpeted Little Billy.

Mother was looking straight ahead, through the window. Her voice was almost normal, but subdued. ‘Pity we didn’t have time to get to the library. Still, there’s tomorrow. Are you still the best reader in the class?’ She nudged him. ‘Are you?’

‘S’pose so,’ he mumbled.

Every evening after school Mother took him to the tiny library nearby where he exchanged the previous day’s books. Tonight, though, there hadn’t been time. She didn’t want Father asking why they were late. She wouldn’t want him to know they had been in to complain.

Big Billy had been called to the headmistress’s stuffy room and been sharply informed — so she told Mother — that she took a ‘dim view’. Mother was glad. She had objected to Little Billy bullying her boy. Azhar had had Little Billy sitting behind him in class. For weeks Little Billy had called him names and clipped him round the head with his ruler. Now some of the other boys, mates of Little Billy, had also started to pick on Azhar.

‘I eat nuts!’

Big Billy was hooting like an orang-utan, jumping up and down and scratching himself under the arms — one of the things Little Billy had been castigated for. But it didn’t restrain his father. His face looked horrible.

Big Billy lived a few doors away from them. Mother had known him and his family since she was a child. They had shared the same air-raid shelter during the war. Big Billy had been a Ted and still wore a drape coat and his hair in a sculpted quiff. He had black bitten-down fingernails and a smear of grease across his forehead. He was known as Motorbike Bill because he repeatedly built and rebuilt his Triumph. ‘Triumph of the Bill,’ Father liked to murmur as they passed. Sometimes numerous lumps of metal stood on rags around the skeleton of the bike, and in the late evening Big Bill revved up the machine while his record player balanced on the windowsill repeatedly blared out a 45 called ‘Rave On’. Then everyone knew Big Billy was preparing for the annual bank holiday run to the coast. Mother and the other neighbours were forced to shut their windows to exclude the noise and fumes.

Mother had begun to notice not only Azhar’s dejection but also his exhausted and dishevelled appearance on his return from school. He looked as if he’d been flung into a hedge and rolled in a puddle — which he had. Unburdening with difficulty, he confessed the abuse the boys gave him, Little Billy in particular.

At first Mother appeared amused by such pranks. She was surprised that Azhar took it so hard. He should ignore the childish remarks: a lot of children were cruel. Yet he couldn’t make out what it was with him that made people say such things, or why, after so many contented hours at home with his mother, such violence had entered his world.

Mother had taken Azhar’s hand and instructed him to reply, ‘Little Billy, you’re common — common as muck!’

Azhar held onto the words and repeated them continuously to himself. Next day, in a corner with his enemy’s taunts going at him, he closed his eyes and hollered them out. ‘Muck, muck, muck — common as muck you!’

Little Billy was as perplexed as Azhar by the epithet. Like magic it shut his mouth. But the next day Little Billy came back with the renewed might of names new to Azhar: sambo, wog, little coon. Azhar returned to his mother for more words but they had run out.

Big Billy was saying across the bus, ‘Common! Why don’t you say it out loud to me face, eh? Won’t say it, eh?’

‘Nah,’ said Little Billy. ‘Won’t!’

‘But we ain’t as common as a slut who marries a darkie.’

‘Darkie, darkie,’ Little Billy repeated. ‘Monkey, monkey!’

Mother’s look didn’t deviate. But, perhaps anxious that her shaking would upset Azhar, she pulled her hand from his and pointed at a shop.

‘Look.’

‘What?’ said Azhar, distracted by Little Billy murmuring his name.

The instant Azhar turned his head, Big Billy called, ‘Hey! Why don’t you look at us, little lady?’

She twisted round and waved at the conductor standing on his platform. But a passenger got on and the conductor followed him upstairs. The few other passengers, sitting like statues, were unaware or unconcerned.

Mother turned back. Azhar had never seen her like this, ashen, with wet eyes, her body stiff as a tree. Azhar sensed what an effort she was making to keep still. When she wept at home she threw herself on the bed, shook convulsively and thumped the pillow. Now all that moved was a bulb of snot shivering on the end of her nose. She sniffed determinedly, before opening her bag and extracting the scented handkerchief with which she usually wiped Azhar’s face, or, screwing up a corner, dislodged any stray eyelashes around his eye. She blew her nose vigorously but he heard a sob.

Now she knew what went on and how it felt. How he wished he’d said nothing and protected her, for Big Billy was using her name: ‘Yvonne, Yvonne, hey, Yvonne, didn’t I give you a good time that time?’

‘Evie, a good time, right?’ sang Little Billy.

Big Billy smirked. ‘Thing is,’ he said, holding his nose, ‘there’s a smell on this bus.’

‘Pooh!’

‘How many of them are there living in that flat, all squashed together like, and stinkin’ the road out, eatin’ curry and rice!’

There was no doubt that their flat was jammed. Grandpop, a retired doctor, slept in one bedroom, Azhar, his sister and parents in another, and two uncles in the living room. All day big pans of Indian food simmered in the kitchen so people could eat when they wanted. The kitchen wallpaper bubbled and cracked and hung down like ancient scrolls. But Mother always denied that they were ‘like that’. She refused to allow the word ‘immigrant’ to be used about Father, since in her eyes it applied only to illiterate tiny men with downcast eyes and mismatched clothes.

Mother’s lips were moving but her throat must have been dry: no words came, until she managed to say, ‘We’re not Jews.’

There was a silence. This gave Big Billy an opportunity. ‘What you say?’ He cupped his ear and his long dark sideburn. With his other hand he cuffed Little Billy, who had begun hissing. ‘Speak up. Hey, tart, we can’t hear you!’

Mother repeated the remark but could make her voice no louder.

Azhar wasn’t sure what she meant. In his confusion he recalled a recent conversation about South Africa, where his best friend’s family had just emigrated. Azhar had asked why, if they were to go somewhere — and there had been such talk — they too couldn’t choose Cape Town. Painfully she replied that there the people with white skins were cruel to the black and brown people who were considered inferior and were forbidden to go where the whites went. The coloureds had separate entrances and were prohibited from sitting with the whites.

This peculiar fact of living history, vertiginously irrational and not taught in his school, struck his head like a hammer and echoed through his dreams night after night. How could such a thing be possible? What did it mean? How then should he act?

‘Nah,’ said Big Billy. ‘You no Yid, Yvonne. You us. But worse. Goin’ with the Paki.’

All the while Little Billy was hissing and twisting his head in imitation of a spastic.

Azhar had heard his father say that there had been ‘gassing’ not long ago. Neighbour had slaughtered neighbour, and such evil hadn’t died. Father would poke his finger at his wife, son and baby daughter, and state, ‘We’re in the front line!’

These conversations were often a prelude to his announcing that they were going ‘home’ to Pakistan. There they wouldn’t have these problems. At this point Azhar’s mother would become uneasy. How could she go ‘home’ when she was at home already? Hot weather made her swelter; spicy food upset her stomach; being surrounded by people who didn’t speak English made her feel lonely. As it was, Azhar’s grandfather and uncle chattered away in Urdu, and when Uncle Asif ’s wife had been in the country, she had, without prompting, walked several paces behind them in the street. Not wanting to side with either camp, Mother had had to position herself, with Azhar, somewhere in the middle of this curious procession as it made its way to the shops.

Not that the idea of ‘home’ didn’t trouble Father. He himself had never been there. His family had lived in China and India; but since he’d left, the remainder of his family had moved, along with hundreds of thousands of others, to Pakistan. How could he know if the new country would suit him, or if he could succeed there? While Mother wailed, he would smack his hand against his forehead and cry, ‘Oh God, I am trying to think in all directions at the same time!’

He had taken to parading about the flat in wellington boots with a net curtain over his head, swinging his portable typewriter and saying he expected to be called to Vietnam as a war correspondent, and was preparing for jungle combat.

It made them laugh. For two years Father had been working as a packer in a factory that manufactured shoe polish. It was hard physical labour, which drained and infuriated him. He loved books and wanted to write them. He got up at five every morning; at night he wrote for as long as he could keep his eyes open. Even as they ate he scribbled over the backs of envelopes, rejection slips and factory stationery, trying to sell articles to magazines and newspapers. At the same time he was studying for a correspondence course on ‘How To Be A Published Author’. The sound of his frenetic typing drummed into their heads like gunfire. They were forbidden to complain. Father was determined to make money from the articles on sport, politics and literature which he posted off most days, each accompanied by a letter that began, ‘Dear Sir, Please find enclosed …’

But Father didn’t have a sure grasp of the English language which was his, but not entirely, being ‘Bombay variety, mish and mash’. Their neighbour, a retired school-teacher, was kind enough to correct Father’s spelling and grammar, suggesting that he sometimes used ‘the right words in the wrong place, and vice versa’. His pieces were regularly returned in the self-addressed stamped envelope that the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook advised. Lately, when they plopped through the letter box, Father didn’t open them, but tore them up, stamped on the pieces and swore in Urdu, cursing the English who, he was convinced, were barring him. Or were they? Mother once suggested he was doing something wrong and should study something more profitable. But this didn’t get a good response.

In the morning now Mother sent Azhar out to intercept the postman and collect the returned manuscripts. The envelopes and parcels were concealed around the garden like an alcoholic’s bottles, behind the dustbins, in the bike shed, even under buckets, where, mouldering in secret, they sustained hope and kept away disaster.

At every stop Azhar hoped someone might get on who would discourage or arrest the Billys. But no one did, and as they moved forward the bus emptied. Little Billy took to jumping up and twanging the bell, at which the conductor only laughed.

Then Azhar saw that Little Billy had taken a marble from his pocket, and, standing with his arm back, was preparing to fling it. When Big Billy noticed this even his eyes widened. He reached for Billy’s wrist. But the marble was released: it cracked into the window between Azhar and his mother’s head, chipping the glass.

She was screaming. ‘Stop it, stop it! Won’t anyone help! We’ll be murdered!’

The noise she made came from hell or eternity. Little Billy blanched and shifted closer to his father; they went quiet.

Azhar got out of his seat to fight them but the conductor blocked his way.

Their familiar stop was ahead. Before the bus braked Mother was up, clutching her bags; she gave Azhar two carriers to hold, and nudged him towards the platform. As he went past he wasn’t going to look at the Billys, but he did give them the eye, straight on, stare to stare, so he could see them and not be so afraid. They could hate him but he would know them. But if he couldn’t fight them, what could he do with his anger?

They stumbled off and didn’t need to check if the crêpe-soled Billys were behind, for they were already calling out, though not as loud as before.

As they approached the top of their street the retired teacher who assisted Father came out of his house, wearing a three-piece suit and trilby hat and leading his Scottie. He looked over his garden, picked up a scrap of paper which had blown over the fence, and sniffed the evening air. Azhar wanted to laugh: he resembled a phantom; in a deranged world the normal appeared the most bizarre. Mother immediately pulled Azhar towards his gate.

Their neighbour raised his hat and said in a friendly way, ‘How’s it all going?’

At first Azhar didn’t understand what his mother was talking about. But it was Father she was referring to. ‘They send them back, his writings, every day, and he gets so angry … so angry … Can’t you help him?’

‘I do help him, where I can,’ he replied.

‘Make him stop, then!’

She choked into her handkerchief and shook her head when he asked what the matter was.

The Billys hesitated a moment and then passed on silently. Azhar watched them go. It was all right, for now. But tomorrow Azhar would be for it, and the next day, and the next. No mother could prevent it.

‘He’s a good little chap,’ the teacher was saying, of Father.

‘But will he get anywhere?’

‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘Perhaps. But he may be a touch —’ Azhar stood on tiptoe to listen. ‘Over hopeful. Over hopeful.’

‘Yes,’ she said, biting her lip.

‘Tell him to read more Gibbon and Macaulay,’ he said. ‘That should set him straight.’

‘Right.’

‘Are you feeling better?’

‘Yes, yes,’ Mother insisted.

He said, concerned, ‘Let me walk you back.’

‘That’s all right, thank you.’

Instead of going home, mother and son went in the opposite direction. They passed a bomb site and left the road for a narrow path. When they could no longer feel anything firm beneath their feet, they crossed a nearby rutted muddy playing field in the dark. The strong wind, buffeting them sideways, nearly had them tangled in the slimy nets of a soccer goal. He had no idea she knew this place.

At last they halted outside a dismal shed, the public toilet, rife with spiders and insects, where he and his friends often played. He looked up but couldn’t see her face. She pushed the door and stepped across the wet floor. When he hesitated she tugged him into the stall with her. She wasn’t going to let him go now. He dug into the wall with his penknife and practised holding his breath until she finished, and wiped herself on the scratchy paper. Then she sat there with her eyes closed, as if she were saying a prayer. His teeth were clicking; ghosts whispered in his ears; outside there were footsteps; dead fingers seemed to be clutching at him.

For a long time she examined herself in the mirror, powdering her face, replacing her lipstick and combing her hair. There were no human voices, only rain on the metal roof, which dripped through onto their heads.

‘Mum,’ he cried.

‘Don’t you whine!’

He wanted his tea. He couldn’t wait to get away. Her eyes were scorching his face in the yellow light. He knew she wanted to tell him not to mention any of this. Recognising at last that it wasn’t necessary, she suddenly dragged him by his arm, as if it had been his fault they were held up, and hurried him home without another word.

The flat was lighted and warm. Father, having worked the early shift, was home. Mother went into the kitchen and Azhar helped her unpack the shopping. She was trying to be normal, but the very effort betrayed her, and she didn’t kiss Father as she usually did.

Now, beside Grandpop and Uncle Asif, Father was listening to the cricket commentary on the big radio, which had an illuminated panel printed with the names of cities they could never pick up, Brussels, Stockholm, Hilversum, Berlin, Budapest. Father’s typewriter, with its curled paper tongue, sat on the table surrounded by empty beer bottles.

‘Come, boy.’

Azhar ran to his father who poured some beer into a glass for him, mixing it with lemonade.

The men were smoking pipes, peering into the ashy bowls, tapping them on the table, poking them with pipe cleaners, and relighting them. They were talking loudly in Urdu or Punjabi, using some English words but gesticulating and slapping one another in a way English people never did. Then one of them would suddenly leap up, clapping his hands and shouting, ‘Yes — out — out!’

Azhar was accustomed to being with his family while grasping only fragments of what they said. He endeavoured to decipher the gist of it, laughing, as he always did, when the men laughed, and silently moving his lips without knowing what the words meant, whirling, all the while, in incomprehension.

D’accord, Baby

All week Bill had been looking forward to this moment. He was about to fuck the daughter of the man who had fucked his wife. Lying in her bed, he could hear Celestine humming in the bathroom as she prepared for him.

It had been a long time since he’d been in a room so cold, with no heating. After a while he ventured to put his arms out over the covers, tore open a condom and laid the rubber on the cardboard box which served as a bedside table. He was about to prepare another, but didn’t want to appear over-optimistic. One would achieve his objective. He would clear out then. Already there had been too many delays. The waltz, for instance, though it made him giggle. Nevertheless he had told Nicola, his pregnant wife, that he would be back by midnight. What could Celestine be doing in there? There wasn’t even a shower; and the wind cut viciously through the broken window.

His wife had met Celestine’s father, Vincent Ertel, the French ex-Maoist intellectual, in Paris. He had certainly impressed her. She had talked about him continually, which was bad enough, and then rarely mentioned him, which, as he understood now, was worse.

Nicola worked on a late-night TV discussion programme. For two years she had been eager to profile Vincent’s progress from revolutionary to Catholic reactionary. It was, she liked to inform Bill — using a phrase that stayed in his mind — indicative of the age. Several times she went to see Vincent in Paris; then she was invited to his country place near Auxerre. Finally she brought him to London to record the interview. When it was done, to celebrate, she took him to Le Caprice for champagne, fishcakes and chips.

That night Bill had put aside the script he was directing and gone to bed early with a ruler, pencil and The Brothers Karamazov. Around the time that Nicola was becoming particularly enthusiastic about Vincent, Bill had made up his mind not only to study the great books — the most dense and intransigent, the ones from which he’d always flinched — but to underline parts of and even to memorise certain passages. The effort to concentrate was a torment, as his mind flew about. Yet most nights — even during the period when Nicola was preparing for her encounter with Vincent — he kept his light on long after she had put hers out. Determined to swallow the thickest pills of understanding, he would lie there muttering phrases he wanted to retain. One of his favourites was Emerson’s: ‘We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.’

One night Nicola opened her eyes and with a quizzical look said, ‘Can’t you be easier on yourself?’

Why? He wouldn’t give up. He had read biology at university. Surely he couldn’t be such a fool as to find these books beyond him? His need for knowledge, wisdom, nourishment was more than his need for sleep. How could a man have come to the middle of his life with barely a clue about who he was or where he might go? The heavy volumes surely represented the highest point to which man’s thought had flown; they had to include guidance.

The close, leisurely contemplation afforded him some satisfaction — usually because the books started him thinking about other things. It was the part of the day he preferred. He slept well, usually. But at four, on the long night of the fishcakes, he awoke and felt for Nicola across the bed. She wasn’t there. Shivering, he walked through the house until dawn, imagining she’d crashed the car. After an hour he remembered she hadn’t taken it. Maybe she and Vincent had gone on to a late-night place. She had never done anything like this before.

He could neither sleep nor go to work. He decided to sit at the kitchen table until she returned, whenever it was. He was drinking brandy, and normally he never drank before eight in the evening. If anyone offered him a drink before this time, he claimed it was like saying goodbye to the whole day. In the mid-eighties he’d gone to the gym in the early evening. For some days, though, goodbye was surely the most suitable word.

It was late afternoon before his wife returned, wearing the clothes she’d gone out in, looking dishevelled and uncertain. She couldn’t meet his eye. He asked her what she’d been doing. She said ‘What d’you think?’ and went into the shower.

He had considered several options, including punching her. But instead he fled the house and made it to a pub. For the first time since he’d been a student he sat alone with nothing to do. He was expected nowhere. He had no newspaper with him, and he liked papers; he could swallow the most banal and incredible thing provided it was on newsprint. He watched the passing faces and thought how pitiless the world was if you didn’t have a safe place in it.

He made himself consider how unrewarding it was to constrain people. Infidelities would occur in most relationships. These days every man and woman was a cuckold. And why not, when marriage was insufficient to satisfy most human need? Nicola had needed something and she had taken it. How bold and stylish. How petty to blame someone for pursuing any kind of love!

He was humiliated. The feeling increased over the weeks in a strange way. At work or waiting for the tube, or having dinner with Nicola — who had gained, he could see, a bustling, dismissive intensity of will or concentration — he found himself becoming angry with Vincent. For days on end he couldn’t really think of anything else. It was as if the man were inhabiting him.

As he walked around Soho where he worked, Bill entertained himself by thinking of how someone might get even with a type like Vincent, were he so inclined. The possibility was quite remote but this didn’t prevent him imagining stories from which he emerged with some satisfaction, if not credit. What incentive, distraction, energy and interest Vincent provided him with! This was almost the only creative work he got to do now.

*

A few days later he was presented with Celestine. She was sitting with a man in a newly opened café, drinking cappuccino. Life was giving him a chance. It was awful. He stood in the doorway pretending to look for someone and wondered whether he should take it.

Vincent’s eldest daughter lived in London. She wanted to be an actress and Bill had auditioned her for a commercial a couple of years ago. He knew she’d obtained a small part in a film directed by an acquaintance of his. On this basis he went over to her, introduced himself, made the pleasantest conversation he could, and was invited to sit down. The man turned out to be a gay friend of hers. They all chatted. After some timorous vacillation Bill asked Celestine in a cool tone whether she’d have a drink with him later, in a couple of hours.

He didn’t go home but walked about the streets. When he was tired he sat in a pub with the first volume of Remembrance of Things Past. He had decided that if he could read to the end of the whole book he would deserve a great deal of praise. He did a little underlining, which since school he had considered a sign of seriousness, but his mind wandered even more than usual, until it was time to meet her.

To his pleasure Bill saw that men glanced at Celestine when they could; others openly stared. When she fetched a drink they turned to examine her legs. This would not have happened with Nicola; only Vincent Ertel had taken an interest in her. Later, as he and Celestine strolled up the street looking for cabs, she agreed that he could come to her place at the end of the week.

It was a triumphant few days of gratification anticipated. He would do more of this. He had obviously been missing out on life’s meaner pleasures. As Nicola walked about the flat, dressing, cooking, reading, searching for her glasses, he could enjoy despising her. He informed his two closest friends that the pleasures of revenge were considerable. Now his pals were waiting to hear of his coup.

Celestine flung the keys, wrapped in a tea-towel, out of the window. It was a hard climb: her flat was at the top of a run-down five-storey building in West London, an area of bedsits, students and itinerants. Coming into the living room he saw it had a view across a square. Wind and rain were sweeping into the cracked windows stuffed with newspaper. The walls were yellow, the carpet brown and stained. Several pairs of jeans were suspended on a clothes horse in front of a gas fire which gave off an odour and heated parts of the room while leaving others cold.

She persuaded him to remove his overcoat but not his scarf. Then she took him into the tiny kitchen with bare floorboards where, between an old sink and the boiler, there was hardly room for the two of them.

‘I will be having us some dinner.’ She pointed to two shopping bags. ‘Do you like troot?’

‘Sorry?’

It was trout. There were potatoes and green beans. After, they would have apple strudel with cream. She had been to the shops and gone to some trouble. It would take ages to prepare. He hadn’t anticipated this. He left her there, saying he would fetch drink.

In the rain he went to the off-licence and was paying for the wine when he noticed through the window that a taxi had stopped at traffic lights. He ran out of the shop to hail the cab, but as he opened the door couldn’t go through with it. He collected the wine and carried it back.

He waited in her living room while she cooked, pacing and drinking. She didn’t have a TV. Wintry gales battered the window. Her place reminded him of rooms he’d shared as a student. He was about to say to himself, thank God I’ll never have to live like this again, when it occurred to him that if he left Nicola, he might, for a time, end up in some unfamiliar place like this, with its stained carpet and old, broken fittings. How fastidious he’d become! How had it happened? What other changes had there been while he was looking in the other direction?

He noticed a curled photograph of a man tacked to the wall. It looked as though it had been taken at the end of the sixties. Bill concluded it was the hopeful radical who’d fucked his wife. He had been a handsome man, and with his pipe in his hand, long hair and open-necked shirt, he had an engaging look of self-belief and raffish pleasure. Bill recalled the slogans that had decorated Paris in those days. ‘Everything Is Possible’, ‘Take Your Desires for Realities’, ‘It Is Forbidden to Forbid’. He’d once used them in a TV commercial. What optimism that generation had had! With his life given over to literature, ideas, conversation, writing and political commitment, ol’ Vincent must have had quite a time. He wouldn’t have been working constantly, like Bill and his friends.

The food was good. Bill leaned across the table to kiss Celestine. His lips brushed her cheek. She turned her head and looked out across the dark square to the lights beyond, as if trying to locate something.

He talked about the film industry and what the actors, directors and producers of the movies were really like. Not that he knew them personally, but they were gossiped about by other actors and technicians. She asked questions and laughed easily.

Things should have been moving along. He had to get up at 5.30 the next day to direct a commercial for a bank. He was becoming known for such well-paid but journeyman work. Now that Nicola was pregnant he would have to do more of it. It would be a struggle to find time for the screenwriting he wanted to do. It was beginning to dawn on him that if he was going to do anything worthwhile at his age, he had to be serious in a new way. And yet when he considered his ambitions, which he no longer mentioned to anyone — to travel overland to Burma while reading Proust, and other, more ‘internal’ things — he felt a surge of shame, as if it was immature and obscene to harbour such hopes; as if, in some ways, it was already too late.

He shuffled his chair around the table until he and Celestine were sitting side by side. He attempted another kiss.

She stood up and offered him her hands. ‘Shall we dance?’

He looked at her in surprise. ‘Dance?’

‘It will ’ot you up. Don’t you … dance?’

‘Not really.’

‘Why?’

‘Why? We always danced like this.’ He shut his eyes and nodded his head as if attempting to bang in a nail with his forehead.

She kicked off her shoes.

‘We dance like this. I’ll illustrate you.’ She looked at him. ‘Take it off.’

‘What?’

‘This stupid thing.’

She pulled off his scarf. She shoved the chairs against the wall and put on a Chopin waltz, took his hand and placed her other hand on his back. He looked down at her dancing feet even as he trod on them, but she didn’t object. Gently but firmly she turned and turned him across the room, until he was dizzy, her hair tickling his face. Whenever he glanced up she was looking into his eyes. Each time they crossed the room she trotted back, pulling him, amused. She seemed determined that he should learn, certain that this would benefit him.

‘You require some practice,’ she said at last. He fell back into his chair, blowing and laughing. ‘But after a week, who knows, we could be having you work as a gigolo!’

*

It was midnight. Celestine came naked out of the bathroom smoking a cigarette. She got into bed and lay beside him. He thought of a time in New York when the company sent a white limousine to the airport. Once inside it, drinking whisky and watching TV as the limo passed over the East River towards Manhattan, he wanted nothing more than for his friends to see him.

She was on him vigorously and the earth was moving: either that, or the two single beds, on the juncture of which he was lying, were separating. He stuck out his arms to secure them, but with each lurch his head was being forced down into the fissure. He felt as if his ears were going to be torn off. The two of them were about to crash through onto the floor.

He rolled her over onto one bed. Then he sat up and showed her what would have happened. She started to laugh, she couldn’t stop.

*

The gas meter ticked; she was dozing. He had never lain beside a lovelier face. He thought of what Nicola might have sought that night with Celestine’s father. Affection, attention, serious talk, honesty, distraction. Did he give her that now? Could they give it to one another, and with a kid on the way?

Celestine was nudging him and trying to say something in his ear.

‘You want what?’ he said. Then, ‘Surely … no … no.’

‘Bill, yes.’

He liked to think he was willing to try anything. A black eye would certainly send a convincing message to her father. She smiled when he raised his hand.

‘I deserve to be hurt.’

‘No one deserves that.’

‘But you see … I do.’

That night, in that freezing room, he did everything she asked, for as long as she wanted. He praised her beauty and her intelligence. He had never kissed anyone for so long, until he forgot where he was, or who they both were, until there was nothing they wanted, and there was only the most satisfactory peace.

He got up and dressed. He was shivering. He wanted to wash, he smelled of her, but he wasn’t prepared for a cold bath.

‘Why are you leaving?’ She leaped up and held him. ‘Stay, stay, I haven’t finished with you yet.’

He put on his coat and went into the living room. Without looking back he hurried out and down the stairs. He pulled the front door, anticipating the fresh damp night air. But the door held. He had forgotten: the door was locked. He stood there.

Upstairs she was wrapped in a fur coat, looking out of the window.

‘The key,’ he said.

‘Old man,’ she said, laughing. ‘You are.’

She accompanied him barefoot down the stairs. While she unlocked the door he mumbled, ‘Will you tell your father I saw you?’

‘But why?’

He touched her face. She drew back. ‘You should put something on that,’ he said. ‘I met him once. He knows my wife.’

‘I rarely see him now,’ she said.

She was holding out her arms. They danced a few steps across the hall. He was better at it now. He went out into the street. Several cabs passed him but he didn’t hail them. He kept walking. There was comfort in the rain. He put his head back and looked up into the sky. He had some impression that happiness was beyond him and everything was coming down, and that life could not be grasped but only lived.

With Your Tongue down My Throat

Blue, Blue Pictures of You

I used to like talking about sex. All of life, I imagined — from politics to aesthetics — merged in passionate human conjunctions. A caress, not to speak of a kiss, could transport you from longing to Russia, on to Velazquez and ahead to anarchism. To illustrate this fancy, I did, at one time, consider collecting a ‘book of desire’, an anthology of outlandish, melancholy and droll stories about the subject. This particular story was one, had the project been finished — or even started — I would have included. It was an odd story. Eshan, the photographer who told it to me, used the word himself. At least he said it was the oddest request he’d had. When it was put to him by his pub companion, his first response was embarrassment and perplexity. But of course he was fascinated too.

At the end of the street where Eshan had a tiny office and small dark room, there was a pub where he’d go at half past six or seven, most days. He liked to work office hours, believing much discipline was required to do what he did, as if without it he would fly off into madness — though he had, in fact, never flown anywhere near madness, except to sit in that pub.

Eshan though he liked routine, and for weeks would do exactly the same thing every day, while frequently loathing this decline into habit. In the pub he would smoke, drink and read the paper for an hour or longer, depending on his mood and on whether he felt sentimental, guilty or plain affectionate towards his wife and two children. Sometimes he’d get home before the children were asleep, and carry them around on his back, kick balls with them, and tell them stories of pigs with spiders on their heads. Other times he would turn up late so he could have his wife make supper, and be free of the feeling that the kids were devouring his life.

Daily, there were many hapless people in that bar: somnolent junkies from the local rehab, the unemployed and unemployable, pinball pillocks. Eshan nodded at many of them, but if one sat at his table without asking, he could become truculent. Often, however, he would chat to people as he passed to and fro, being more grateful than he knew for distracting conversation. He had become, without meaning to, one of the bar’s characters.

Eshan’s passion was to photograph people who had produced something of significance, whose work had ‘meaning’. These were philosophers, novelists, painters, film and theatre directors. He used only minimal props and hard, direct lighting. The idea wasn’t to conceal but to expose. The spectator could relate the face to what the subject did. He called it the moment of truth in the features of people seeking the truth.

He photographed ‘artists’ but also considered himself, in private only, to be ‘some sort’ of an artist. To represent oneself — a changing being, alive with virtues and idiocies — was, for Eshan, the task that entailed the most honesty and fulfilment. But although his work had been published and exhibited, he still had to send out his portfolio with introductory letters, and harass people about his abilities. This was demeaning. By now he should, he reckoned, have got further. But he accepted his condition, imagining that overall he possessed most of what he required to live a simple but not complacent life. His wife illustrated children’s books, and could earn decent money, so they got by. To earn a reasonable living himself, Eshan photographed new groups for the pop press — not that he was stimulated by these callow faces, though occasionally he was moved by their ugliness, the stupidity of their innocence, and their crass hopes. But they wanted only clichés.

A young man called Brian, who always wore pink shades, started to join Eshan regularly. The pub was his first stop of the day after breakfast. He was vague about what he did, though it seemed to involve trying to manage bands and set up businesses around music. His main occupation was dealing drugs, and he liked supplying Eshan with different kinds of grass that he claimed would make him ‘creative’. Eshan replied that he took drugs in the evenings to stop himself getting creative. When Eshan talked about surrealism, or the great photographers, Brian listened with innocent enthusiasm, as if these were things he could get interested in were he a different person. It turned out that he did know a little about the music that Eshan particularly liked, West Coast psychedelic music of the mid-sixties, and the films, writing and politics that accompanied it. Eshan talked of the dream of freedom, rebellion and irresponsibility it had represented, and how he wished he’d had the courage to go there and join in.

‘You make it sound like the past few years in London,’ Brian said. ‘Except the music is faster.’

A couple of months after Eshan started seeing him in the pub, Brian parted from his casual girlfriends. He went out regularly — it was like a job; and he was the sort of man that women were attracted to in public places. There was hope; every night could take you somewhere new. But Brian was nearly thirty; for a long time he had been part of everything new, living not for the present but for the next thing. He was beginning to see how little it had left him, and he was afraid.

One day he met a girl who used to play the drums in a trip-hop group. Any subject — the economy, the comparative merits of Paris, Rome or Berlin — would return him to this woman. Every day he went to some trouble to buy her something, even if it was only a pencil. Other times it might be a first-edition Elizabeth David, an art deco lamp from Prague, a tape of Five Easy Pieces, a bootleg of Lennon singing ‘On The Road to Rishikesh’. These things he would anxiously bring to the pub to ask Eshan’s opinion of. Eshan wondered if Brian imagined that because he was a photographer he had taste and judgement, and, being married, had some knowledge of romance.

After a few drinks Eshan would go home and Brian would start phoning to make his plans for the night ahead. In what Eshan considered to be the middle of the night, Brian and Laura would go to a club, to someone’s house, and then on to another club. Eshan learned that there were some places that only opened at nine on Sunday morning.

Lying in bed with his wife as they watched TV and read nineteenth-century novels while drinking camomile tea, Eshan found himself trying to picture what Brian and Laura were doing, what sort of good time they were having. He looked forward to hearing next day where they’d been, what drugs they’d taken, what they wore and how the conversation had gone. He was particularly curious about her reaction to each gift; he wanted to know whether she was demanding more and better gifts, or if she appreciated the merits of each one. And what, Eshan enquired with some concern, was Brian getting in return?

‘Enough,’ Brian inevitably replied.

‘So she’s good to you?’

Unusually, Brian replied that no lover had ever shown him what she had. Then he leaned forward, glanced left and right, and felt compelled to say, despite his loving loyalty, what this was. Her touch, her words, her sensual art, not to mention her murmurs, gasps, cries; and her fine wrists, long fingers and dark fine-haired bush that stood out like a punk’s back-combed mohican — all were an incomparable rapture. Only the previous evening she had taken him by the shoulders and said –

‘Yes?’ Eshan asked.

‘Your face, your hands, you, all of you, you…’

Eshan dried his palms on his trousers. Sighing inwardly, he listened, while signalling a detached approval. He encouraged Brian to repeat everything, like a much-loved story, and Brian was delighted to do so, until they were no longer sure of the facts.

Perhaps Eshan envied Brian his lover and their pleasure, and Brian was beginning to envy Eshan his stability. Whatever it was between them, Brian involved Eshan in his new love. It was, Eshan was pleased to see, agonising. Laura drew out Brian’s best impulses; tenderness, kindness, generosity. He became more fervent as a dealer so as to take her to restaurants most nights; he borrowed money and took her to Budapest for a week.

But in love each moment is magnified, and every gesture, word and syllable is examined like a speech by the President. Solid expectation, unfurled hope, immeasurable disappointment — all are hurled together like a cocktail of random drugs that, quaffed within the hour, make both lovers reel. If she dressed up and went to a party with a male friend, he spent the night catatonic with paranoia; if he saw an old girlfriend, she assumed they would never speak again. And surely she was seeing someone else, someone better in every way? Did she feel about him as he did her? To love her was to fear losing her. Brian would have locked her in a bare room to have everything hold still a minute.

One day when Eshan went to the bar he returned to see that Brian had picked up a folder Eshan had left on the table, opened it, and was holding up the photographs. Brian could be impudent, which was his charm, and Eshan liked charm, because it was rare and good to watch as a talent. But it also exposed Brian as a man who was afraid; his charm was charged with the task of disarming people before they damaged him.

‘Hey,’ said Eshan.

Brian placed his finger on a picture of Doris Lessing. Laura was reading The Golden Notebook; could he buy it for her? Eshan said, yes, and he wouldn’t charge. But Brian insisted. They agreed on a price and on a black frame. They drank more and wondered what Laura would think. A few days later Brian reported that though Laura would never finish the book — she never finished any book, the satisfaction was too diffuse — she had been delighted by the picture. Could she visit his studio?

‘Studio? If only it was. But yes, bring her over — it’s time we met.’

‘Tomorrow, then.’

They were more than two hours late. Eshan had been meditating, which he did whenever he was tense or angry. You couldn’t beat those Eastern religions for putting the wet blanket on desire. When he was turning out the lights and ready to leave, Brian and Laura arrived at the door with wine. Eshan put out his work for Laura. She looked closely at everything. They smoked the dope he had grown on his balcony from Brian’s seeds, lay on the floor with the tops of their heads touching, and watched a Kenneth Anger film. Brian and Laura rang some people and said they were going out. Would he like to come? Eshan almost agreed. He said he would like to have joined them, but that he got up early to work. And the music, an electronic blizzard of squeaks, bleeps and beats, had nothing human in it.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Laura said. ‘Nothing human there. A bunch of robots on drugs.’

‘You don’t mean that,’ said Brian.

A few days after the visit Brian made the strange request.

‘She enjoyed meeting you,’ he was saying, as Eshan read his newspaper in the pub.

‘And me her,’ Eshan murmured without raising his eyes. ‘Anyone would.’

It cheered Brian to hear her praised. ‘She’s pretty, eh?’

‘No, beautiful.’

‘Yes, that’s it, you’ve got the right word.’

He picked up his phone. ‘She wants to ask you a favour. Can she join us?’

‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Of course, you’ve got to put the kids to bed, but I think you’ll find it an interesting favour.’

Laura arrived within fifteen minutes. She sat down at their table and began.

‘What we want is for you to photograph us.’

Eshan nodded. Laura glanced at Brian. ‘Naked. Or we could wear things. Rings through our belly buttons or something. But anyway — making love.’ Eshan looked at her. ‘You photograph us fucking,’ she concluded. ‘Do you see?’

Eshan didn’t know what to say.

She asked, ‘What about it?’

‘I am not a pornographer.’

It must have sounded pompous. She gave him an amused look.

‘I’ve seen your stuff, and we haven’t the nerve for pornography. It isn’t even beauty we want. And I know you don’t go for that.’

‘No. What is it?’

‘You see, we go to bed and eat crackers and drink wine and caress one another and chatter all day. We’ve both been through terrible things in our lives, you see. Now we want to capture this summer moment — I mean we want you to capture it for us.’

‘To look back on?’

She said, ‘I suppose that is it. We all know love doesn’t last.’

‘Is that right?’ said Eshan.

Brian added, ‘It might be replaced by something else.’

‘But this terrible passion and suspicion … and the intensity of it … will get domesticated.’ She went on, ‘I think that when one has an idea, even if it is a queer one, one should follow it through, don’t you?’

Eshan supposed he agreed with this.

Laura kissed Brian and said to him, ‘Eshan’s up for it.’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Brian.

Eshan had picked up his things, said goodbye and reached the door, before he returned.

‘Why me?’

She was looking up at him.

‘Why? Brian has run into you with your children. You’re a kind father, a normal man, and you will surely understand what we want.’ Eshan looked at Brian, who had maintained a neutral expression. She said, ‘But … if it’s all too much, let’s forget it.’

It was an idea they’d conceived frivolously. He would give her the chance to drop the whole thing. She should call in the morning.

He thought it over in bed. When Laura made the request, though excited, she hadn’t seemed mad or over-ebullient. It was vanity, of course, but a touching, naive vanity, not a grand one; and he was, more than ever, all for naivety. Laura was, too, a woman anyone would want to look at.

*

An old upright piano and guitar; painted canvases leaning against the wall; club fliers, rolling papers, pills, a razor blade, beer bottles empty and full, standing on a chest of drawers. Leaning against this, a long mirror. The bed, its linen white, was in the centre of the room.

Laura pulled the curtains, and then half-opened them again.

‘Will you have enough light?’

‘I’ll manage,’ Eshan whispered.

Brian went to shave. Then, while Eshan unpacked his things, he plucked at the guitar with his mouth open, and drank beer. The three of them spoke in low voices and were solicitous of one another, as if they were about to do something dangerous but delicate, like planting a bomb.

A young man, covered in spots, wandered into the room.

‘Get out now and go to bed,’ Laura said. ‘You’ve got chickenpox. Everyone here had it?’ she asked.

They all laughed. It was better then. She put a chair against the door. They watched her arrange herself on the bed. Eshan photographed her back; he photographed her face. She took her clothes off. The breeze from the open window caressed her. She stretched out her fingers to Brian.

He walked over to her and they pressed their faces together. Eshan photographed that. She undressed him. Eshan shot his discomfort.

Soon they were taking up different positions, adjusting their heads, putting their hands here and there for each shot. Brian began to smile as if he fancied himself as a model.

‘It’s very sweet, but it ain’t going to work,’ Eshan told them. ‘There’s nothing there. It’s dead.’

‘He might be right,’ Laura told Brian. ‘We’re going to have to pretend he’s not here.’

Eshan said, ‘I’ll put film in the camera now, then.’

*

Eshan didn’t go to bed but carried his things through the dark city back to his studio. He developed the material as quickly as he could and when it was done went home. His wife and children were having breakfast, laughing and arguing as usual. He walked in and his children kept asking him to take off his coat. He felt like a criminal, though the only laws he’d broken were his own, and he wasn’t sure which ones they were.

Unusually he had the pictures with him and he went through them several times as he ate his toast, keeping them away from the children.

‘Please, can I see?’ His wife put her hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t hide them. It’s a long time since you’ve shown me your work. You live such a secret life.’

‘Do I?’

‘Sometimes I think you’re not doing anything at all over there but just sitting.’

She looked at the photographs and then closed the folder.

‘You stayed out all night without getting in touch. What have you been doing?’

‘Taking pictures.’

‘Don’t talk to me like that. Who are these people, Eshan?’

‘People I met in the pub. They asked me to photograph them.’

They went into the kitchen and she closed the door. She could be very disapproving, and she didn’t like mysteries.

‘And you did this?’

‘You know I like to start somewhere and finish somewhere else. It wasn’t an orgy.’

‘Are you going to publish or sell them?’

‘No. They paid me. And that’s it.’

He got up.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Back to work.’

‘Is this the same kind of thing you’ll be doing today?’

‘Ha ha ha.’

He tried to resume his routine but couldn’t work, or even listen to music or read the papers. He could only look at the pictures. They were not pornography, being too crude and unembellished for that. He had omitted nothing human. All the same, the images gave him a dry mouth, exciting and distressing him at the same time. He wouldn’t be able to start anything else until the material was out of the studio.

He thought Brian would have gone back to his place, but wasn’t certain. However, he couldn’t persuade himself to ring first. He took a chance and walked all the way back there again. He was exhausted but was careful to cross the road where he crossed it before.

She came to the door in her dressing gown, and was surprised to see him. He said he’d brought the stuff round, and proffered the folder as evidence.

He went past her and up the stairs. She tugged her dressing gown around herself, as if he hadn’t seen her body before. Upstairs they sat on the broken sofa. She was reluctant to look at the stuff, but knew she had to. She held up the contact sheets, turning them this way and that, repeatedly.

‘Is that what you wanted?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is that what you do on a good day?’

‘I should thank you for the lovely job you’ve done. I don’t know what I can do in return.’ He looked at her. She said, ‘How about a drum lesson?’

‘Why not?’

She took him into a larger room, where he noticed some of Brian’s gifts. Set before a big window, with a view of the street and the square, was her red spangled kit. She showed him how she played, and demonstrated how he could. Soon this bored her and she made lunch. As he ate she returned to the photographs, glanced through them without comment, and went back to the table. He wasn’t certain that she wanted him there. But she didn’t ask him to go away and seemed to assume that he had nothing better to do. He didn’t know what else he would do anyway, as if something had come to an end.

They started to watch television, but suddenly she switched it off and stood up and sat down. She started agitatedly asking him questions about the people he knew, how many friends he had, what he liked about them, and what they said to one another. At first he answered abruptly, afraid of boring her. But she said she’d never had any guidance, and for the past few years, like everyone else, had only wanted a good time. Now she wanted to find something important to do, wanted a reason to get out of bed before four. He murmured that fucking might be a good excuse for staying in bed, just as the need to wash was an excuse for lying in the bath. She understood that, she said. She hardly knew anyone with a job; London was full of drugged, useless people who didn’t listen to one another but merely thought all the time of how to distract themselves and never spoke of anything serious. She was tired of it; she was even tired of being in love; it had become another narcotic. Now she wanted interesting difficulty, not pleasure or even ease.

‘And look, look at the pictures …’

‘What do they say?’

‘Too much, my friend.’

She hurried from the room. After a time she returned with a bucket which she set down on the carpet. She held the photographs over it and invited him to set fire to them.

‘Are you sure?’ he said.

‘Oh yes.’

They singed the carpet and burned their fingers, and then they threw handfuls of ash out of the window and cheered.

‘Are you going to the pub now?’ she asked as he said goodbye.

‘I don’t think I’ll be going there for a while.’

He told her that the next day he was going to photograph a painter who had also done record covers. He asked her to come along, ‘to have a look’. She said she would.

Leaving the house he crossed the street. He could see her sitting in the window playing. When he walked away he could hear her all the way to the end of the road.

My Son the Fanatic

Surreptitiously the father began going into his son’s bedroom. He would sit there for hours, rousing himself only to seek clues. What bewildered him was that Ali was getting tidier. Instead of the usual tangle of clothes, books, cricket bats, video games, the room was becoming neat and ordered; spaces began appearing where before there had been only mess.

Initially Parvez had been pleased: his son was outgrowing his teenage attitudes. But one day, beside the dustbin, Parvez found a torn bag which contained not only old toys, but computer discs, video tapes, new books and fashionable clothes the boy had bought just a few months before. Also without explanation, Ali had parted from the English girlfriend who used to come often to the house. His old friends had stopped ringing.

For reasons he didn’t himself understand, Parvez wasn’t able to bring up the subject of Ali’s unusual behaviour. He was aware that he had become slightly afraid of his son, who, alongside his silences, was developing a sharp tongue. One remark Parvez did make, ‘You don’t play your guitar any more,’ elicited the mysterious but conclusive reply, ‘There are more important things to be done.’

Yet Parvez felt his son’s eccentricity as an injustice. He had always been aware of the pitfalls which other men’s sons had fallen into in England. And so, for Ali, he had worked long hours and spent a lot of money paying for his education as an accountant. He had bought him good suits, all the books he required and a computer. And now the boy was throwing his possessions out!

The TV, video and sound system followed the guitar. Soon the room was practically bare. Even the unhappy walls bore marks where Ali’s pictures had been removed.

Parvez couldn’t sleep; he went more to the whisky bottle, even when he was at work. He realised it was imperative to discuss the matter with someone sympathetic.

Parvez had been a taxi driver for twenty years. Half that time he’d worked for the same firm. Like him, most of the other drivers were Punjabis. They preferred to work at night, the roads were clearer and the money better. They slept during the day, avoiding their wives. Together they led almost a boy’s life in the cabbies’ office, playing cards and practical jokes, exchanging lewd stories, eating together and discussing politics and their problems.

But Parvez had been unable to bring this subject up with his friends. He was too ashamed. And he was afraid, too, that they would blame him for the wrong turning his boy had taken, just as he had blamed other fathers whose sons had taken to running around with bad girls, truanting from school and joining gangs.

For years Parvez had boasted to the other men about how Ali excelled at cricket, swimming and football, and how attentive a scholar he was, getting straight ‘A’s in most subjects. Was it asking too much for Ali to get a good job now, marry the right girl and start a family? Once this happened, Parvez would be happy. His dreams of doing well in England would have come true. Where had he gone wrong?

But one night, sitting in the taxi office on busted chairs with his two closest friends watching a Sylvester Stallone film, he broke his silence.

‘I can’t understand it!’ he burst out. ‘Everything is going from his room. And I can’t talk to him any more. We were not father and son — we were brothers! Where has he gone? Why is he torturing me!’

And Parvez put his head in his hands.

Even as he poured out his account the men shook their heads and gave one another knowing glances. From their grave looks Parvez realised they understood the situation.

‘Tell me what is happening!’ he demanded.

The reply was almost triumphant. They had guessed something was going wrong. Now it was clear. Ali was taking drugs and selling his possessions to pay for them. That was why his bedroom was emptying.

‘What must I do then?’

Parvez’s friends instructed him to watch Ali scrupulously and then be severe with him, before the boy went mad, overdosed or murdered someone.

Parvez staggered out into the early morning air, terrified they were right. His boy — the drug addict killer!

To his relief he found Bettina sitting in his car.

Usually the last customers of the night were local ‘brasses’ or prostitutes. The taxi drivers knew them well, often driving them to liaisons. At the end of the girls’ shifts, the men would ferry them home, though sometimes the women would join them for a drinking session in the office. Occasionally the drivers would go with the girls. ‘A ride in exchange for a ride,’ it was called.

Bettina had known Parvez for three years. She lived outside the town and on the long drive home, where she sat not in the passenger seat but beside him, Parvez had talked to her about his life and hopes, just as she talked about hers. They saw each other most nights.

He could talk to her about things he’d never be able to discuss with his own wife. Bettina, in turn, always reported on her night’s activities. He liked to know where she was and with whom. Once he had rescued her from a violent client, and since then they had come to care for one another.

Though Bettina had never met the boy, she heard about Ali continually. That late night, when he told Bettina that he suspected Ali was on drugs, she judged neither the boy nor his father, but became businesslike and told him what to watch for.

‘It’s all in the eyes,’ she said. They might be bloodshot; the pupils might be dilated; he might look tired. He could be liable to sweats, or sudden mood changes. ‘Okay?’

Parvez began his vigil gratefully. Now he knew what the problem might be, he felt better. And surely, he figured, things couldn’t have gone too far? With Bettina’s help he would soon sort it out.

He watched each mouthful the boy took. He sat beside him at every opportunity and looked into his eyes. When he could he took the boy’s hand, checking his temperature. If the boy wasn’t at home Parvez was active, looking under the carpet, in his drawers, behind the empty wardrobe, sniffing, inspecting, probing. He knew what to look for: Bettina had drawn pictures of capsules, syringes, pills, powders, rocks.

Every night she waited to hear news of what he’d witnessed.

After a few days of constant observation, Parvez was able to report that although the boy had given up sports, he seemed healthy, with clear eyes. He didn’t, as his father expected, flinch guiltily from his gaze. In fact the boy’s mood was alert and steady in this sense: as well as being sullen, he was very watchful. He returned his father’s long looks with more than a hint of criticism, of reproach even, so much so that Parvez began to feel that it was he who was in the wrong, and not the boy!

‘And there’s nothing else physically different?’ Bettina asked.

‘No!’ Parvez thought for a moment. ‘But he is growing a beard.’

One night, after sitting with Bettina in an all-night coffee shop, Parvez came home particularly late. Reluctantly he and Bettina had abandoned their only explanation, the drug theory, for Parvez had found nothing resembling any drug in Ali’s room. Besides, Ali wasn’t selling his belongings. He threw them out, gave them away or donated them to charity shops.

Standing in the hall, Parvez heard his boy’s alarm clock go off. Parvez hurried into his bedroom where his wife was still awake, sewing in bed. He ordered her to sit down and keep quiet, though she had neither stood up nor said a word. From this post, and with her watching him curiously, he observed his son through the crack in the door.

The boy went into the bathroom to wash. When he returned to his room Parvez sprang across the hall and set his ear at Ali’s door. A muttering sound came from within. Parvez was puzzled but relieved.

Once this clue had been established, Parvez watched him at other times. The boy was praying. Without fail, when he was at home, he prayed five times a day.

Parvez had grown up in Lahore where all the boys had been taught the Koran. To stop him falling asleep when he studied, the Moulvi had attached a piece of string to the ceiling and tied it to Parvez’s hair, so that if his head fell forward, he would instantly awake. After this indignity Parvez had avoided all religions. Not that the other taxi drivers had more respect. In fact they made jokes about the local mullahs walking around with their caps and beards, thinking they could tell people how to live, while their eyes roved over the boys and girls in their care.

Parvez described to Bettina what he had discovered. He informed the men in the taxi office. The friends, who had been so curious before, now became oddly silent. They could hardly condemn the boy for his devotions.

Parvez decided to take a night off and go out with the boy. They could talk things over. He wanted to hear how things were going at college; he wanted to tell him stories about their family in Pakistan. More than anything he yearned to understand how Ali had discovered the ‘spiritual dimension’, as Bettina described it.

To Parvez’s surprise, the boy refused to accompany him. He claimed he had an appointment. Parvez had to insist that no appointment could be more important than that of a son with his father.

The next day, Parvez went immediately to the street where Bettina stood in the rain wearing high heels, a short skirt and a long mac on top, which she would open hopefully at passing cars.

‘Get in, get in!’ he said.

They drove out across the moors and parked at the spot where on better days, with a view unimpeded for many miles by nothing but wild deer and horses, they’d lie back, with their eyes half closed, saying ‘This is the life.’ This time Parvez was trembling. Bettina put her arms around him.

‘What’s happened?’

‘I’ve just had the worst experience of my life.’

As Bettina rubbed his head Parvez told her that the previous evening he and Ali had gone to a restaurant. As they studied the menu, the waiter, whom Parvez knew, brought him his usual whisky and water. Parvez had been so nervous he had even prepared a question. He was going to ask Ali if he was worried about his imminent exams. But first, wanting to relax, he loosened his tie, crunched a popadom and took a long drink.

Before Parvez could speak, Ali made a face.

‘Don’t you know it’s wrong to drink alcohol?’ he said.

‘He spoke to me very harshly,’ Parvez told Bettina. ‘I was about to castigate the boy for being insolent, but managed to control myself.’

He had explained patiently to Ali that for years he had worked more than ten hours a day, that he had few enjoyments or hobbies and never went on holiday. Surely it wasn’t a crime to have a drink when he wanted one?

‘But it is forbidden,’ the boy said.

Parvez shrugged. ‘I know.’

‘And so is gambling, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. But surely we are only human?’

Each time Parvez took a drink, the boy winced, or made a fastidious face as an accompaniment. This made Parvez drink more quickly. The waiter, wanting to please his friend, brought another glass of whisky. Parvez knew he was getting drunk, but he couldn’t stop himself. Ali had a horrible look on his face, full of disgust and censure. It was as if he hated his father.

Halfway through the meal Parvez suddenly lost his temper and threw a plate on the floor. He had felt like ripping the cloth from the table, but the waiters and other customers were staring at him. Yet he wouldn’t stand for his own son telling him the difference between right and wrong. He knew he wasn’t a bad man. He had a conscience. There were a few things of which he was ashamed, but on the whole he had lived a decent life.

‘When have I had time to be wicked?’ he asked Ali.

In a low monotonous voice the boy explained that Parvez had not, in fact, lived a good life. He had broken countless rules of the Koran.

‘For instance?’ Parvez demanded.

Ali hadn’t needed time to think. As if he had been waiting for this moment, he asked his father if he didn’t relish pork pies?

‘Well …’

Parvez couldn’t deny that he loved crispy bacon smothered with mushrooms and mustard and sandwiched between slices of fried bread. In fact he ate this for breakfast every morning.

Ali then reminded Parvez that he had ordered his own wife to cook pork sausages, saying to her, ‘You’re not in the village now, this is England. We have to fit in!’

Parvez was so annoyed and perplexed by this attack that he called for more drink.

‘The problem is this,’ the boy said. He leaned across the table. For the first time that night his eyes were alive. ‘You are too implicated in Western civilisation.’

Parvez burped; he thought he was going to choke. ‘Implicated!’ he said. ‘But we live here!’

‘The Western materialists hate us,’ Ali said. ‘Papa, how can you love something which hates you?’

‘What is the answer then?’ Parvez said miserably. ‘According to you.’

Ali addressed his father fluently, as if Parvez were a rowdy crowd that had to be quelled and convinced. The Law of Islam would rule the world; the skin of the infidel would burn off again and again; the Jews and Christers would be routed. The West was a sink of hypocrites, adulterers, homosexuals, drug takers and prostitutes.

As Ali talked, Parvez looked out of the window as if to check that they were still in London.

‘My people have taken enough. If the persecution doesn’t stop there will be jihad. I, and millions of others, will gladly give our lives for the cause.’

‘But why, why?’ Parvez said.

‘For us the reward will be in paradise.’

‘Paradise!’

Finally, as Parvez’s eyes filled with tears, the boy urged him to mend his ways.

‘How is that possible?’ Parvez asked.

‘Pray,’ Ali said. ‘Pray beside me.’

Parvez called for the bill and ushered his boy out of the restaurant as soon as he was able. He couldn’t take any more. Ali sounded as if he’d swallowed someone else’s voice.

On the way home the boy sat in the back of the taxi, as if he were a customer.

‘What has made you like this?’ Parvez asked him, afraid that somehow he was to blame for all this. ‘Is there a particular event which has influenced you?’

‘Living in this country.’

‘But I love England,’ Parvez said, watching his boy in the mirror. ‘They let you do almost anything here.’

‘That is the problem,’ he replied.

For the first time in years Parvez couldn’t see straight. He knocked the side of the car against a lorry, ripping off the wing mirror. They were lucky not to have been stopped by the police: Parvez would have lost his licence and therefore his job.

Getting out of the car back at the house, Parvez stumbled and fell in the road, scraping his hands and ripping his trousers. He managed to haul himself up. The boy didn’t even offer him his hand.

Parvez told Bettina he was now willing to pray, if that was what the boy wanted, if that would dislodge the pitiless look from his eyes.

‘But what I object to,’ he said, ‘is being told by my own son that I am going to hell!’

What finished Parvez off was that the boy had said he was giving up accountancy. When Parvez had asked why, Ali had said sarcastically that it was obvious.

‘Western education cultivates an anti-religious attitude.’

And, according to Ali, in the world of accountants it was usual to meet women, drink alcohol and practise usury.

‘But it’s well-paid work,’ Parvez argued. ‘For years you’ve been preparing!’

Ali said he was going to begin to work in prisons, with poor Muslims who were struggling to maintain their purity in the face of corruption. Finally, at the end of the evening, as Ali was going to bed, he had asked his father why he didn’t have a beard, or at least a moustache.

‘I feel as if I’ve lost my son,’ Parvez told Bettina. ‘I can’t bear to be looked at as if I’m a criminal. I’ve decided what to do.’

‘What is it?’

‘I’m going to tell him to pick up his prayer mat and get out of my house. It will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but tonight I’m going to do it.’

‘But you mustn’t give up on him,’ said Bettina. ‘Many young people fall into cults and superstitious groups. It doesn’t mean they’ll always feel the same way.’

She said Parvez had to stick by his boy, giving him support, until he came through.

Parvez was persuaded that she was right, even though he didn’t feel like giving his son more love when he had hardly been thanked for all he had already given.

Nevertheless, Parvez tried to endure his son’s looks and reproaches. He attempted to make conversation about his beliefs. But if Parvez ventured any criticism, Ali always had a brusque reply. On one occasion Ali accused Parvez of ‘grovelling’ to the whites; in contrast, he explained, he was not ‘inferior’; there was more to the world than the West, though the West always thought it was best.

‘How is it you know that?’ Parvez said, ‘seeing as you’ve never left England?’

Ali replied with a look of contempt.

One night, having ensured there was no alcohol on his breath, Parvez sat down at the kitchen table with Ali. He hoped Ali would compliment him on the beard he was growing but Ali didn’t appear to notice.

The previous day Parvez had been telling Bettina that he thought people in the West sometimes felt inwardly empty and that people needed a philosophy to live by.

‘Yes,’ said Bettina. ‘That’s the answer. You must tell him what your philosophy of life is. Then he will understand that there are other beliefs.’

After some fatiguing consideration, Parvez was ready to begin. The boy watched him as if he expected nothing.

Haltingly Parvez said that people had to treat one another with respect, particularly children their parents. This did seem, for a moment, to affect the boy. Heartened, Parvez continued. In his view this life was all there was and when you died you rotted in the earth. ‘Grass and flowers will grow out of me, but something of me will live on —’

‘How?’

‘In other people. I will continue — in you.’ At this the boy appeared a little distressed. ‘And your grandchildren,’ Parvez added for good measure. ‘But while I am here on earth I want to make the best of it. And I want you to, as well!’

‘What d’you mean by “make the best of it”?’ asked the boy.

‘Well,’ said Parvez. ‘For a start … you should enjoy yourself. Yes. Enjoy yourself without hurting others.’

Ali said that enjoyment was a ‘bottomless pit’.

‘But I don’t mean enjoyment like that!’ said Parvez. ‘I mean the beauty of living!’

‘All over the world our people are oppressed,’ was the boy’s reply.

‘I know,’ Parvez replied, not entirely sure who ‘our people’ were, ‘but still — life is for living!’

Ali said, ‘Real morality has existed for hundreds of years. Around the world millions and millions of people share my beliefs. Are you saying you are right and they are all wrong?’

Ali looked at his father with such aggressive confidence that Parvez could say no more.

One evening Bettina was sitting in Parvez’s car, after visiting a client, when they passed a boy on the street.

‘That’s my son,’ Parvez said suddenly. They were on the other side of town, in a poor district, where there were two mosques.

Parvez set his face hard.

Bettina turned to watch him. ‘Slow down then, slow down!’ She said, ‘He’s good-looking. Reminds me of you. But with a more determined face. Please, can’t we stop?’

‘What for?’

‘I’d like to talk to him.’

Parvez turned the cab round and stopped beside the boy.

‘Coming home?’ Parvez asked. ‘It’s quite a way.’

The sullen boy shrugged and got into the back seat. Bettina sat in the front. Parvez became aware of Bettina’s short skirt, gaudy rings and ice-blue eyeshadow. He became conscious that the smell of her perfume, which he loved, filled the cab. He opened the window.

While Parvez drove as fast as he could, Bettina said gently to Ali, ‘Where have you been?’

‘The mosque,’ he said.

‘And how are you getting on at college? Are you working hard?’

‘Who are you to ask me these questions?’ he said, looking out of the window. Then they hit bad traffic and the car came to a standstill.

By now Bettina had inadvertently laid her hand on Parvez’s shoulder. She said, ‘Your father, who is a good man, is very worried about you. You know he loves you more than his own life.’

‘You say he loves me,’ the boy said.

‘Yes!’ said Bettina.

‘Then why is he letting a woman like you touch him like that?’

If Bettina looked at the boy in anger, he looked back at her with twice as much cold fury.

She said, ‘What kind of woman am I that deserves to be spoken to like that?’

‘You know,’ he said. ‘Now let me out.’

‘Never,’ Parvez replied.

‘Don’t worry, I’m getting out,’ Bettina said.

‘No, don’t!’ said Parvez. But even as the car moved she opened the door, threw herself out and ran away across the road. Parvez shouted after her several times, but she had gone.

Parvez took Ali back to the house, saying nothing more to him. Ali went straight to his room. Parvez was unable to read the paper, watch television or even sit down. He kept pouring himself drinks.

At last he went upstairs and paced up and down outside Ali’s room. When, finally, he opened the door, Ali was praying. The boy didn’t even glance his way.

Parvez kicked him over. Then he dragged the boy up by his shirt and hit him. The boy fell back. Parvez hit him again. The boy’s face was bloody. Parvez was panting. He knew that the boy was unreachable, but he struck him nonetheless. The boy neither covered himself nor retaliated; there was no fear in his eyes. He only said, through his split lip: ‘So who’s the fanatic now?’

The Tale of the Turd

I’m at this dinner. She’s eighteen. After knowing her six months I’ve been invited to meet her parents. I am, to my surprise, forty-four, same age as her dad, a professor — a man of some achievement, but not that much. He is looking at me or, as I imagine, looking me over. The girl-woman will always be his daughter, but for now she is my lover.

Her two younger sisters are at the table, also beautiful, but with a tendency to giggle, particularly when facing in my direction. The mother, a teacher, is putting a soft pink trout on the table. I think, for once, yes, this is the life, what they call a happy family, they’ve asked to meet me, why not settle down and enjoy it?

But what happens, the moment I’m comfortable I’ve got to have a crap. In all things I’m irregular. It’s been two days now and not a dry pellet. And the moment I sit down in my better clothes with the family I’ve got to go.

These are good people but they’re a little severe. I am accompanied by disadvantages — my age, no job, never had one, and my … tendencies. I like to say, though I won’t tonight — unless things get out of hand — that my profession is failure. After years of practice, I’m quite a success at it.

On the way here I stopped off for a couple of drinks, otherwise I’d never have come through the door, and now I’m sipping wine and discussing the latest films not too facetiously and my hands aren’t shaking and my little girl is down the table smiling at me warm and encouraging. Everything is normal, you see, except for this gut ache, which is getting worse, you know how it is when you’ve got to go. But I won’t get upset, I’ll have a crap, feel better and then eat.

I ask one of the sisters where the bathroom is and kindly she points at a door. It must be the nearest, thank Christ, and I get across the room stooping a little but no way the family’s gonna see me as a hunchback.

I sit down concerned they’re gonna hear every splash but it’s too late: the knotty little head is already pushing out, a flower coming through the earth, but thick and long and I’m not even straining, I can feel its soft motion through my gut, in one piece. It’s been awaiting its moment the way things do, like love. I close my eyes and appreciate the relief as the corpse of days past slides into its watery grave.

When I’m finished I can’t resist glancing down — even the Queen does this — and the turd is complete, wide as an aubergine and purplish too. It’s flecked with carrot, I notice, taking a closer look, but, ah, probably that’s tomato, I remember now, practically the only thing I’ve eaten in twenty-four hours.

I flush the toilet and check my look. Tired and greying I am now, with a cut above my eye and a bruise on my cheek, but I’ve shaved and feel as okay as I ever will, still with the boyish smile that says I can’t harm you. And waiting is the girl who loves me, the last of many, I hope, who sends me vibrations of confidence.

My hand is on the door when I glance down and see the prow of the turd turning the bend. Oh no, it’s floating in the pan again and I’m bending over for a better look. It’s one of the biggest turds I’ve ever seen. The flushing downpour has rinsed it and there is no doubt that as turds go it is exquisite, flecked and inlaid like a mosaic depicting, perhaps, a historical scene. I can make out large figures going at one another in argument. The faces I’m sure I’ve seen before. I can see some words but I haven’t got my glasses to hand.

I could have photographed the turd, had I brought a camera, had I ever owned one. But now I can’t hang around, the trout must be cooling and they’re too polite to start eating without me. The problem is, the turd is bobbing.

I’m waiting for the cistern to refill and every drip is an eternity, I can feel the moments stretching out, and outside I can hear the murmuring voices of my love’s family but I can’t leave that submarine there for the mother to go in and see it wobbling about. She knows I’ve been in the clinic and can see I’m drinking again; I’ve been watching my consumption, as they say, but I can’t stop and she’s gonna take her daughter to one side and …

I’ve been injecting my little girl. ‘What a lovely way to take drugs,’ she says sweetly. She wants to try everything. I don’t argue with that and I won’t patronise her. Anyhow, she’s a determined little blonde thing, and for her friends it’s fashionably exciting. I can tell she’s made up her mind to become an addict.

It took me days to hunt out the best stuff for her, pharmaceutical. It’s been five years for me, but I took it with her to ensure she didn’t make a mistake. Except an ex-boyfriend caught up with us, took me into a doorway and split my face for corrupting her. Yet she skips school to be with me and we take in Kensington Market and Chelsea. I explain their history of fashion and music. The records I tell her to listen to, the books I hold out, the bands I’ve played with, the creative people I tell her of, the deep talks we have, are worth as much as anything she hears at school, I know that.

At last I flush it again.

Girls like her … it is easy to speak of exploitation, and people do. But it is time and encouragement I give them. I know from experience, oh yes, how critical and diminishing parents can be, and I say try, I say yes, attempt anything. And I, in my turn, am someone for them to care for. It breaks my heart but I’ve got, maybe, two years with her before she sees I can’t be helped and she will pass beyond me into attractive worlds I cannot enter.

I pray only that she isn’t pulling up her sleeve and stroking her tracks, imagining her friends being impressed by those mascots, the self-inflicted scars of experience; those girls are dedicated to the truth, and like to show their parents how defiant they can be.

I’m reaching for the door, the water is clear and I imagine the turd swimming towards Ramsgate. But no, no, no, don’t look down, what’s that, the brown bomber must have an aversion to the open sea. The monstrous turd is going nowhere and nor am I while it remains an eternal recurrence. I flush it again and wait but it won’t leave its port and what am I going to do, this must be an existential moment and all my days have converged here. I’m trembling and running with sweat but not yet lost.

I’m rolling up the sleeve of my Italian suit, it’s an old suit, but it’s my best jacket. I don’t have a lot of clothes, I wear what people give me, what I find in the places I end up in, and what I steal.

I’m crying inside too, you know, but what can I do but stick my hand down the pan, into the pissy water, that’s right, oh dark, dark, dark, and fish around until my fingers sink into the turd, get a muddy grip and yank it from the water. For a moment it seems to come alive, wriggling like a fish.

My instinct is to calm it down, and I look around the bathroom for a place to bash it, but not if it’s going to splatter everywhere, I wouldn’t want them imagining I’m on some sort of dirty protest.

By now they must have started eating. And what am I doing but standing here with a giant turd in my fist? Not only that, my fingers seem to adhere to the turd; bits of my flesh are pulled away and my hand is turning brown. I must have eaten something unusual, because my nails and the palms are turning the colour of gravy.

My love’s radiant eyes, her loving softness. But in all ways she is a demanding girl. She insists on trying other drugs, and in the afternoons we play like children, dressing up and inventing characters, until my compass no longer points to reality. I am her assistant as she tests the limits of the world. How far out can she go and still be home in time for tea? I have to try and keep up, for she is my comfort. With her I am living my life again, but too quickly and all at once.

And in the end, to get clear, to live her life, she will leave me; or, to give her a chance, I must leave her. I dream, though, of marriage and of putting the children to bed. But I am told it is already too late for all that. How soon things become too late, and before one has acclimatised!

I glance at the turd and notice little teeth in its velvet head, and a little mouth opening. It’s smiling at me, oh no, it’s smiling and what’s that, it’s winking, yes, the piece of shit is winking up at me, and what’s that at the other end, a sort of tail, it’s moving, yes, it’s moving, and oh Jesus, it’s trying to say something, to speak, no, no, I think it wants to sing. Even though it is somewhere stated that truth may be found anywhere, and the universe of dirt may send strange messengers to speak to us, the last thing I want, right now in my life, is a singing turd.

I want to smash the turd back down into the water and hold it under and run out of there, but the mother — when the mother comes in and I’m scoffing the trout and she’s taking down her drawers I’m gonna worry that the turd lurking around the bend’s gonna flip up like a piranha and attach itself to her cunt, maybe after singing a sarcastic ditty, and she’s going to have an impression of me that I don’t want.

But I won’t dwell on that, I’m going to think constructively where possible even though its bright little eyes are glinting and the mouth is moving and it has developed scales under which ooze — don’t think about it. And what’s that, little wings …

I grab the toilet roll and rip off about a mile of paper and start wrapping it around the turd, around and around, so those eyes are never gonna look at me again, and smile in that way. But even in its paper shroud it’s warm and getting warmer, warm as life, and practically throbbing and giving off odours. I look desperately around the room for somewhere to stuff it, a pipe or behind a book, but it’s gonna reek, I know that, and if it’s gonna start moving, it could end up anywhere in the house.

There’s a knocking on the door. A voice too — my love. I’m about to reply ‘Oh love, love’ when I hear other, less affectionate raised voices. An argument is taking place. Someone is turning the handle; another person is kicking at the door. Almost on me, they’re trying to smash it in!

I will chuck it out of the window! I rest the turd on the sill and drag up the casement with both hands. But suddenly I am halted by the sky. As a boy I’d lie on my back watching clouds; as a teenager I swore that in a less hectic future I would contemplate the sky until its beauty passed into my soul, like the soothing pictures I’ve wanted to study, bathing in the colours and textures of paint, the cities I’ve wanted to walk, loafing, the aimless conversations I’ve wanted to have — one day, a constructive aimlessness.

Now the wind is in my face, lifting me, and I am about to fall. But I hang on and instead throw the turd, like a warm pigeon, out out into the air, turd-bird awayaway.

I wash my hands in the sink, flush the toilet once more, and turn back to life. On, on, one goes, despite everything, not knowing why or how.

Nightlight

She comes to him late on Wednesdays, only for sex, the cab waiting outside. Four months ago someone recommended her to him for a job but he has no work she can do. He doesn’t even pay himself now. They talk of nothing much, and there are silences in which they can only look at one another. But neither wants to withdraw and something must be moving between them, for they stand up together and lie down beside the table, without speaking.

Same time next week she is at the door. They undress immediately. She leaves, not having slept, but he has felt her dozing before she determinedly shakes herself awake. She collects herself quickly without apology, and goes without looking back. He has no idea where she lives or where she is from.

Now she doesn’t come into the house, but goes straight down into the basement he can’t afford to furnish, where he has thrown blankets and duvets on the carpet. They neither drink nor play music and can barely see one another. It’s a mime show in this room where everything but clarity, it seems, is permitted.

At work his debts increase. What he has left could be taken away, and no one but him knows it. He is losing his hold and does it matter? Why should it, except that it is probably terminal; if one day he feels differently, there’ll be no way back.

For most of his life, particularly at school, he’s been successful, or en route to somewhere called Success. Like most people he has been afraid of being found out, but unlike most he probably has been. He has a small flat, an old car and a shabby feeling. These are minor losses. He misses steady quotidian progress, the sense that his well-being, if not happiness, is increasing, and that each day leads to a recognisable future. He has never anticipated this extent of random desolation.

Three days a week he picks up his kids from school, feeds them, and returns them to the house into which he put most of his money, and which his wife now forbids him to enter. Fridays he has dinner with his only male friend. After, they go to a black bar where he likes the music. The men, mostly in their thirties, and whose lives are a mystery to him, seem to sit night after night without visible discontent, looking at women and at one another. He envies this, and wonders if their lives are without anxiety, whether they have attained a stoic resignation, or if it is a profound uselessness they are stewing in.

On this woman’s day he bathes for an hour. He can’t recall her name, and she never says his. She calls him, when necessary, ‘man’. Soon she will arrive. He lies there thinking how lucky he is to have one arrangement which costs nothing.

Five years ago he left the wife he didn’t know why he married for another woman, who then left him without explanation. There have been others since. But when they come close he can only move backwards, without comprehending why.

His wife won’t speak. If she picks up the phone and hears his voice, she calls for the kids, those intermediaries growing up between immovable hatreds. A successful woman, last year she found she could not leave her bed at all. She will have no help and the children have to minister to her. They are inclined to believe that he has caused this. He begins to think he can make women insane, even as he understands that this flatters him.

Now he has this inexplicable liaison. At first they run tearing at one another with middle-aged recklessness and then lie silently in the dark, until desire, all they have, rekindles. He tells himself to make the most of the opportunity.

When she’s gone he masturbates, contemplating what they did, imprinting it on his mind for ready reference: she on her stomach, him on the boat of her back, his face in her black hair for ever. He thinks of the fluffy black hairs, flattened with sweat, like a toff ’s parting, around her arsehole.

Walking about later he is both satisfied and unfulfilled, disliking himself for not knowing why he is doing this — balked by the puzzle of his own mind and the impossibility of grasping why one behaves so oddly, and why one ends up resenting people for not providing what one hasn’t been able to ask for. Surely this new thing is a web of illusion, and he is a fool? But he wants more foolishness, and not only on Wednesdays.

The following weeks she seems to sense something. In the space where they lie beneath the level of the street, almost underground — a mouse’s view of the world — she invites him to lie in different positions; she bids him touch different parts of her body. She shows him they can pore over one another.

Something intriguing is happening in this room, week after week. He can’t know what it might be. He isn’t certain she will turn up; he doesn’t trust her, or any woman, not to let him down. Each week she surprises him, until he wonders what might make her stop.

One Wednesday the cab doesn’t draw up. He stands at the window in his dressing gown and slippers for three hours, feeling in the first hour like Casanova, in the second like a child awaiting its mother, and during the third like an old man. Is she sick, or with her husband? He lies on the floor where she usually lies, in a fever of desire and longing, until, later, he feels a presence in the room, a hanging column of air, and sits up and cries out at this ghost.

He assumes he is toxic. For him, lacking disadvantages has been a crime in itself. He grasps the historical reasons for this, since his wife pointed them out. Not that this prevented her living off him. For a while he did try to be the sort of man she might countenance. He wept at every opportunity, and communicated with animals wherever he found them. He tried not to raise his voice, though for her it was ‘liberating’ to get wild. Soon he didn’t know who he was supposed to be. They both got lost. He dreaded going home. He kept his mouth shut, for fear of what would come out; this made her search angrily for a way in.

Now he worries that something has happened to this new woman and he has no way of knowing. What wound or hopelessness has made her want only this?

Next week she does come, standing in the doorway, coat-wrapped, smiling, in her early thirties, about fifteen years younger than him. She might have a lover or husband; might be unemployed; might be disillusioned with love, or getting married next week. But she is tender. How he has missed what they do together.

The following morning he goes downstairs and smells her on the sheets. The day is suffused with her, whoever she is. He finds himself thinking constantly of her, pondering the peculiar mixture of ignorance and intimacy they have. If sex is how you meet and get to know people, what does he know of her? On her body he can paint only imaginary figures, as in the early days of love, when any dreams and desires can be flung onto the subject, until reality upsets and rearranges them. Not knowing, surely, is beautiful, as if everything one learns detracts from the pleasures of pure imagination. Fancy could provide them with more satisfaction than reality.

But she is beginning to make him wonder, and when one night he touches her and feels he has never loved anything so much — if love is loss of the self in the other then, yes, he loves her — he begins to want confirmation of the notions which pile up day after day without making any helpful shape. And, after so many years of living, the expensive education, the languages he imagined would be useful, the books and newspapers studied, can he be capable of love only with a silent stranger in a darkened room? But he dismisses the idea of speaking, because he can’t take any more disappointment. Nothing must disturb their perfect evenings.

You want sex and a good time, and you get it; but it usually comes with a free gift — someone like you, a person. Their arrangement seems an advance, what many people want, the best without the worst, and no demands — particularly when he thinks, as he does constantly, of the spirit he and his wife wasted in dislike and sniping, and the years of taking legal and financial revenge. He thinks often of the night he left.

*

He comes in late, having just left the bed of the woman he is seeing, who has said she is his. The solid bulk of his wife, her back turned, is unmoving. His last night. In the morning he’ll talk to the kids and go, as so many men he knows have done, people who’d thought that leaving home was something you did only once. Most of his friends, most of the people he knows, are on the move from wife to wife, husband to husband, lover to lover. A city of love vampires, turning from person to person, hunting the one who will make the difference.

He puts on the light in the hall, undresses and is about to lie down when he notices that she is now lying on her back and her eyes are open. Strangely she looks less pale. He realises she is wearing eyeshadow and lipstick. Now she reaches out to him, smiling. He moves away; something is wrong. She throws back the covers and she is wearing black and red underwear. She has never, he is certain, dressed like this before.

‘It’s too late,’ he wants to cry.

He picks up his clothes, rushes to the door and closes it behind him. He doesn’t know what he is doing, only that he has to get out. The hardest part is going into the children’s room, finding their faces in the mess of blankets and toys, and kissing them goodbye.

This must have turned his mind, for, convinced that people have to take something with them, he hurries into his study and attempts to pick up his computer. There are wires; he cannot disconnect it. He gathers up the television from the shelf. He’s carrying this downstairs when he turns and sees his wife, still in her tart garb, with a dressing gown on top, screaming, ‘Where are you going? Where? Where?’

He shouts, ‘You’ve had ten years of me, ten years and no more, no more!’

He slips on the step and falls forward, doubling up over the TV and tripping down the remaining stairs. Without stopping to consider his injuries, he flees the house without affection or dislike and doesn’t look back, thinking only, strange, one never knows every corner of the houses one lives in as an adult, not as one knew one’s childhood house. He leaves the TV in the front garden.

*

The woman he sees now helps kill the terrible fear he constantly bears that his romantic self has been crushed. He feels dangerous but wants to wake up in love. Soft, soft; he dreams of opening a door and the person he will love is standing behind it.

This longing can seize him at parties, in restaurants, at friends’ and in the street. He sits opposite a woman in the train. With her the past will be redeemed. He follows her. She crosses the street. So does he. She is going to panic. He grabs her arm and shouts, ‘No, no, I’m not like that!’ and runs away.

He doesn’t know how to reach others, but disliking them is exhausting. Now he doesn’t want to go out, since who is there to hold onto? But in the house his mind devours itself; he is a cannibal of his own consciousness. He is starving for want of love. The shame of loneliness, a dingy affliction! There are few creatures more despised than middle-aged men with strong desires, and desire renews itself each day, returning like a recurring illness, crying out, more life, more!

At night he sits in the attic looking through a box of old letters from women. There is an abundance of pastoral description. The women sit in cafés drinking good coffee; they eat peaches on the patio; they look at snow. Everyday sensations are raised to the sublime. He wants to be scornful. It is easy to imagine ‘buzzes’ and ‘charges’ as the sole satisfactions. But what gratifies him? It is as if the gears of his life have become disengaged from the mechanisms that drove him forward. When he looks at what other people yearn for, he can’t grasp why they don’t know it isn’t worth wanting. He asks to be returned to the ordinary with new eyes. He wants to play a child’s game: make a list of what you noticed today, adding desires, regrets and contentments, if any, to the list, so that your life doesn’t pass without your having noticed it. And he requires the extraordinary, on Wednesdays.

He lies on his side in her, their mouths are open, her legs holding him. When necessary they move to maintain the level of warm luxury. He can only gauge her mood by the manner of her lovemaking. Sometimes she merely grabs him; or she lies down, offering her neck and throat to be kissed.

He opens his eyes to see her watching him. It has been a long time since anyone has looked at him with such attention. His hope is boosted by a new feeling: curiosity. He thinks of taking their sexuality into the world. He wants to watch others looking at her, to have others see them together, as confirmation. There is so much love he almost attempts conversation.

For several weeks he determines to speak during their love-making, each time telling himself that on this occasion the words will come out. ‘We should talk,’ is the sentence he prepares, which becomes abbreviated to ‘Want to talk?’ and even ‘Talk?’

However his not speaking has clearly gladdened this woman. Who else could he cheer up in this way? Won’t clarity wreck their understanding, and don’t they have an alternative vocabulary of caresses? Words come out bent, but who can bend a kiss? If only he didn’t have to imagine continually that he has to take some action, think that something should happen, as if friendships, like trains, have to go somewhere.

He has begun to think that what goes on in this room is his only hope. Having forgotten what he likes about the world, and thinking of existence as drudgery, she reminds him, finger by finger, of the worthwhile. All his life, it seems, he’s been seeking sex. He isn’t certain why, but he must have gathered that it was an important thing to want. And now he has it, it doesn’t seem sufficient. But what does that matter? As long as there is desire there is a pulse; you are alive; to want is to reach beyond yourself, into the world, finger by finger.

Lately

The Flies

One morning after a disturbed night, a year after they moved into the flat, and with their son only a few months old, Baxter goes into the box-room where he and his wife have put their wardrobes, opens the door to his, and picks up a pile of sweaters. Unfolding them one by one, he discovers that they all appear to have been crocheted. Not only that, the remaining threads are smeared with a viscous yellow deposit, like egg yolk, which has stiffened the remains of the ruined garments.

He shakes out the moths or flies that have gorged on his clothes, and stamps on the tiny crisp corpses. Other flies, only stupefied, dart out past him and position themselves on the curtains, where they appear threateningly settled, just out of reach.

Baxter hurriedly rolls up the clothes in plastic bags, and, retching, thrusts them into the bottom of a dustbin on the street. He goes to the shops and packs his wardrobe with fly killer; he sprays the curtains; he disinfects the rugs. He stands in the shower a long time. With water streaming down him nothing can adhere to his skin.

He doesn’t tell his wife about the incident, thinking, at first, that he won’t bother her with such an unimportant matter. He has, though, spotted flies all over the flat, which his wife, it seems, has not noticed. If he puts mothballs in his pockets, and has to mask this odour with scents, and goes about imagining that people are sniffing as he passes them, he doesn’t care, since the attack has troubled him.

He wants to keep it from himself as much as from her. But at different times of the day he needs to check the wardrobe, and suddenly rips open the door as if to surprise an intruder. At night he begins to dream of ragged bullet-shaped holes chewed in fetid fabric, and of creamy white eggs hatching in darkness. In his mind he hears the amplified rustle of gnawing, chewing, devouring. When this wakes him he rushes into the box-room to shake his clothes or stab at them with an umbrella. On his knees he scours the dusty corners of the flat for the nest or bed where the contamination must be incubating. He is convinced, though, that while he is doing this, flies are striking at the bedsheets and pillows.

When one night his wife catches him with his nose against the skirting board, and he explains to her what has happened, she isn’t much concerned, particularly as he has thrown away the evidence. Telling her about it makes him realise what a slight matter it is.

He and his wife acquired the small flat in a hurry and consider themselves fortunate to have it. For what they can afford, the three rooms, with kitchen and bathroom, are acceptable for a youngish couple starting out. Yet when Baxter rings the landlord to enquire whether there have been any ‘outbreaks’ before, he is not sympathetic but maintains they carried the flies with them. If it continues he will review their contract. Baxter, vexed by the accusation, counters that he will suspend his rent payments if the contagion doesn’t clear up. Indeed, that morning he noticed one of his child’s cardigans smeared and half-devoured, and only just managed to conceal it from his wife.

Still, he does need to discuss it with her. He asks an acquaintance to babysit. They will go out to dinner. There was a time when they would have long discussions about anything — they particularly enjoyed talking over their first impressions of one another — so happy were they just to be together. As he shaves, Baxter reflects that since the birth of their child they have rarely been to the theatre or cinema, or even to coffee shops. It has been months since they ate out. He is unemployed and most of their money has been spent on rent, bills, debts, and the child. If he were to put it plainly, he’d say that they can hardly taste their food; they can’t even watch TV for long. They rarely see their friends or think of making new ones. They never make love; or, if one of them wants to, the other doesn’t. Never does their desire coincide — except once, when, at the climax, the screams of their child interrupted. Anyhow, they feel ugly and their bodies ache. They sleep with their eyes open; occasionally, while awake, they are actually asleep. While asleep they dream of sleep.

Before the birth, they’d been together for a few months, and then serious lovers for a year. Since the child their arguments have increased, which Baxter imagines is natural as so much has happened to them. But their disagreements have taken on a new tone. There was a moment recently when they looked at one another and said, simultaneously, that they wished they had never met.

He had wanted a baby because it was something to want; other people had them. She agreed because she was thirty-five. Perhaps they no longer believed they’d find the one person who would change everything.

Wanting to feel tidy, Baxter extracts a suit from his wardrobe. He holds it up to the light on its hanger. It seems complete, as it did the last time he looked, a couple of hours before. In the bathroom his wife is taking longer than ever to apply her make-up and curl her hair.

While removing his shoes, Baxter turns his back. When he looks again, only the hanger remains. Surely a thief has rushed into the room and filched his jacket and trousers? No; the suit is on the floor, a small pyramid of charred ash. His other suits disintegrate at one touch. Flies hurl themselves at his face before chasing into the air.

He collects the ash in his hands and piles it on the desk he’s arranged in the box-room, where he has intended to study something to broaden his understanding of life now that he goes out less. He has placed on the desk several sharpened but unused pencils. Now he sniffs the dirt and sifts it with the pencils. He even puts a little on his tongue. In it are several creamy ridged eggs. Within them something is alive, hoping for light. He crushes them. Soot and cocoon soup sticks to his fingers and gets under his nails.

Over dinner they drink wine, eat good food and look around, surprised to see so many people out and about, some of whom are smiling. He tells her about the flies. However, like him, she has become sarcastic and says she’s long thought it time he acquired a new wardrobe. She hopes the involuntary clear-out will lead to sartorial improvement. Her own clothes are invariably protected by various guaranteed ladies’ potions, like lavender, which he should try.

That night, tired by pettiness and their inability to amuse one another, she sits in the box-room and he walks the child up and down in the kitchen. He hears a cry and runs to her. She has unlocked her wardrobe to discover that her coats, dresses and knitwear have been replaced by a row of yellowish tatters. On the floor are piles of dead flies.

She starts to weep, saying she has nothing of her own left. She implies that it is his fault. He feels this too, and is ready to be blamed.

He helps her to bed, where the child sleeps between them. Just as they barely kiss now when they attempt love, he rarely looks into her eyes; but as he takes her arm, he notices a black fly emerge from her cornea and hop onto her eyelash.

Next morning he telephones a firm of exterminators. With unusual dispatch, they agree to send an Operative. ‘You need the service,’ they say before Baxter has described the symptoms. He and his wife obviously have a known condition.

They watch the van arrive; the Operative opens its rear doors and strides into their hall. He is a big and unkempt man, in green overalls, with thick glasses. Clearly not given to speaking, he listens keenly, examines the remains of their clothes, and is eager to see the pyramidal piles of ash which Baxter has arranged on newspaper. Baxter is grateful for the interest.

At last the Operative says, ‘You need the total service.’

‘I see,’ says Baxter. ‘Will that do it?’

In reply the man grunts.

Baxter’s wife and the baby are ordered out. Baxter runs to fetch a box in order to watch through the window.

The Operative dons a grey mask. A transparent bottle of greenish liquid is strapped to his side. From the bottle extends a rubber tube with a metal sieve on the end. Also feeding into the sieve is a flat-pack of greyish putty attached to a piece of string around the man’s neck. On one thigh is a small engine which he starts with a bootlace. While it runs, he strikes various practised poses and holds them like a strangely attired dancer. The rattling noise and force is terrific; not a living cretin could proceed through the curtains of sprayed venom.

The Operative leaves behind, in a corner, an illuminated electrified blue pole in a flower pot, for ‘protection’.

‘How long will we need that?’ Baxter enquires.

‘I’ll look at it the next couple of times. It’ll have to be recharged.’

‘We’ll need the full Operative service again?’

The Operative is offended. ‘We’re not called Operatives now. We’re Microbe Consultants. And we are normally invited back, when we are available. Better make an appointment.’ He adds, ‘We’re hoping to employ more qualified people. By the way, you’ll be needing a pack too.’

‘What is that?’

From the van he fetches a packet comprising of several sections, each containing different potions. Baxter glances over the interminable instructions.

‘I’ll put it on the bill,’ says the Operative. ‘Along with the curtain atomiser, and this one for the carpet. Better take three packs, eh, just in case.’

‘Two will be fine, thanks.’

‘Sure?’ He puts on a confidential voice. ‘I’ve noticed, your wife looks nice. Surely you want to protect her?’

‘I do.’

‘You won’t want to run out at night.’

‘No. Three then.’

‘Good.’

The total is formidable. Baxter writes the cheque. His wife leans against the door jamb. He looks with vacillating confidence into her tense but hopeful eyes, wanting to impress on her that it will be worth it.

She puts out the potions. The caustic smell stings their eyes and makes them cough; the baby develops red sores on its belly. But they rub cream into the marks and he sleeps contentedly. Baxter goes to the shops; his wife cooks a meal. They eat together, cuddle, and observe with great pleasure the saucers in which the dying flies are writhing. The blue pole buzzes. In the morning they will clear out the corpses. They are almost looking forward to it, and even laugh when Baxter says, ‘Perhaps it would have been cheaper to play Bulgarian music at the flies. We should have thought of that!’

The next morning he clears the mess away and, as there are still flies in the air, puts out more saucers and other potions. Surely, though, they are through the worst. How brought down he has been!

Lately, particularly when the baby cries, he has been dawdling out on the street. A couple of the neighbours have suggested that the new couple stop by for a drink. He has noticed lighted windows and people moving across holding drinks. Leaving his wife and child in safety, he will go out more, that very night in fact, wearing whatever he can assemble, a suit of armour if need be.

His wife won’t join him and she gives Baxter the impression that he hasn’t brought them to the right sort of neighbourhood. But as he is only going to be five minutes away, she can’t object. He kisses her, and after checking that the blue pole is functioning correctly, he begins at the top of the street, wearing an acrylic cardigan purchased from the charity shop, inedible combat trousers and a coat.

The first couple Baxter visits have three young children. Both adults work, designing household objects of some kind. Kettles, Baxter presumes, but it could be chair legs. He can’t remember what his wife has said.

He rings the bell. After what seems a considerable amount of hurried movement inside, a bearded man opens the door, breathing heavily. Baxter introduces himself, offering, at the same time, to go away if his visit is inconvenient. The man demurs. In his armchair he is drinking. Baxter, celebrating that night, joins him, taking half a glass of whisky. They discuss sport. But it is a disconcerting conversation, since it is so dark in the room that Baxter can barely make out the other man.

The woman, harassed but eager to join in, comes to the foot of the stairs before the children’s yells interrupt. Then she stomps upstairs again, crying out, ‘Oh right, right, it must be my turn again!’

‘Will they never stop?’ shouts the man.

‘How can they sleep?’ she replies. ‘The atmosphere is suffocating them.’

‘All of us!’ says the man.

‘So you’ve noticed!’

‘How could I not?’

He drinks in silence. Baxter, growing accustomed to the gloom, notices a strange gesture he makes. Dipping his fingers into his glass, the bearded man flicks the liquid across his face, and in places rubs it in. He does the same with his arms, even as they talk, as if the alcohol is a lotion rather than an intoxicant.

The man stands up and thrusts his face towards his guest.

‘We’re getting out.’

‘Where?’

He is hustling Baxter by the arm of his black PVC coat towards the door. Immediately the woman flies down the stairs like a bat and begins to dispute with her husband. Baxter doesn’t attend to what they are saying, although other couples’ arguments now have the ability to fascinate him. He is captivated by something else. A fly detaches itself from the end of the man’s protuberant tongue, crawls up the side of his nose, and settles on his eyebrow, where it joins a companion, unnoticed until now, already grazing on the hairy ridge. It is time to move on.

Taking a wrong turn in the hall, Baxter passes through two rooms, following a smell he recognises but can’t identify. He opens a door and notices an object standing in the bath. It is a glowing blue pole, like the one in his flat, and it seems to be pulsating. He looks closer and realises that this effect is caused by the movement of flies. He is reaching out to touch the thing when he hears a voice behind him, and turns to see the bearded man and his wife.

‘Looking for something?’

‘No, sorry.’

He doesn’t want to look at them but can’t help himself. As he moves past they drop their eyes. At that moment the woman blushes, for shame. They give off a sharp bleachy odour.

He isn’t ready to go home but can’t stay out on the street. Further down the road he sees figures in a window, before a hand drags the curtain across. He has barely knocked on the door before he is in the room with a glass in his hand.

It is a disparate crowd, comprising, he guesses, shy foreign students, the sorts of girls who would join cults, an oldish man in a tweed suit and rakish hat, people dancing with their shoes off, and others sitting in a row on the sofa. In the corner is a two-bar electric fire and a fish tank. Baxter has forgotten what exactly he is wearing and when he glimpses himself in a mirror and realises that no one minds, he is thankful.

His neighbour is drunk but oddly watchful. She puts her arms around his neck, which discomfits him, as if there is some need in him that she has noticed, though he can’t see what it is.

‘We didn’t think you’d come. Your wife barely speaks to any of us.’

‘Doesn’t she?’

‘Well, she’s charming to some people. How is the flat?’

‘It’s fine … Not too bad.’

Becoming aware of an itching on his forehead, he slaughters a fly between finger and thumb.

She says, ‘Sure?’

‘Why not?’

He feels another fly creeping across his cheek. She is looking at him curiously.

‘I’d like it if you would dance with me,’ she says.

He dislikes dancing but suspects that movement is preferable to stasis. And tonight — why not? — he will celebrate. She points out her husband, a tall man standing in the doorway, talking to a woman. Warm and fleshy, she shakes her arse, and he does what he can.

Then she takes the index finger of his right hand and leads him into a conservatory at the back. It is cold; there is no music. She shoves down her clothes, bends forward over the arm of a chair and he slides the finger she’s taken possession of, and two others, into her. It is a luxurious and well-deserved oblivion. Surely happiness is forgetting who you are! But too soon he notices a familiar caustic smell. He looks about and sees bowls of white powder placed on the floor; another contains a greenish-blue sticky substance. Injured specks move drowsily in the buckets.

He extracts his hand and holds it out. Up at the wrist it is alive with flies.

She looks round. ‘Oh dear, the little babies are hungry tonight.’ She flaps at them unconcernedly.

‘Isn’t there a remedy?’ he asks.

‘People live with it.’

‘They do?’

‘That is the best thing. It is also the worst. They work incessantly. Or drink. People all over the world endure different kinds of bacteria.’

‘But surely, surely there is a poison, brew or … blue light that will deter them for ever?’

‘There is,’ she says. ‘Of a kind.’

‘What is it?’

She smiles at his desperation. ‘The potions do work, for a period. But you have to replace them with different makes. Imported is best, but expensive. Try the Argentinian. Then the South African, in that order. I’m not sure what they put in that stuff, but … Course, the flies get used to it, and it only maddens and incites them. You might need to go on to the Madagascan.’ Baxter must be looking disheartened because she says, ‘In this street this is how we keep them away — passion!’

‘Passion?’

‘Where there is passion you don’t notice anything.’

He lies over her from behind. He says he can’t believe that these things are just inevitable; that there isn’t, somewhere, a solution.

‘We’ll see to it — later,’ she grunts.

After, in the living room, she whispers, ‘Most of them have got flies round here. Except the newly-weds and adulterers.’ She laughs. ‘They got other things. Eighteen months, it takes. If you’re lucky you get eighteen months and then you get the flies.’ She explains that the flies are the only secret that everyone keeps. Other problems can be paraded and boasted of, but this is an unacceptable shame. ‘We are poisoned by ourselves.’ She looks at him. ‘Do you hate her?’

‘What?’

‘Do you, yet? You can tell me.’

He whispers that it is dawning on him, as love dawns on people, that at times he does hate her; hates the way she cuts up an apple; hates her hands. He hates her tone of voice and the words he knows she’ll use; he hates her clothes, her eyelids, and everyone she knows; her perfume makes him nauseous. He hates the things he’s loved about her; hates the way he has put himself in thrall to her; hates the kindnesses she shows him, as if she is asking for something. He sees, too, that it doesn’t matter that you don’t love someone, until you have a child with them. And he understands, too, how important hatred is, what a strong sustaining feeling it is; a screen perhaps, to stop him pitying her, and himself, and falling into a pit of misery.

His neighbour nods as he shivers with shame at what she has provoked him into saying. She says, ‘My husband and I are starting a microbe business ourselves.’

‘Is there that much call for it?’

‘You can’t sing to them, can you?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘We’ve put a down payment on our first van. You will use only us, won’t you?’

‘We’re broke, I’m afraid. Can’t use anyone.’

‘You can’t let yourself be invaded. You’ll have to work. You haven’t been using the Microbe Consultants, have you?’

‘They have passed by, yes.’

‘They didn’t sell you a pack?’

‘Only two.’

‘Useless, useless. Those men are on commission. Never let them in the house.’

She holds him. Dancing in the middle of the night, while he is still conscious, she puts her mouth to his ear and murmurs, ‘You might need Gerard Quinn.’

‘Who?’

‘Quinn has been hanging around. He’ll be in touch. Meanwhile, behind that door’ — she points at a wooden door with a steel frame, with a padlock hanging from it — ‘we are working on a combination potion, a deadly solution. It’s not yet ready, but when we have a sample, I’ll bring it.’ He looks at her sceptically. ‘Yes, everyone would be doing it. But the snag is, what prevents a definitive remedy is that husbands and wives give the stuff to their partners.’ Baxter feels as if he will fall over. ‘Have you actually mixed it in with her cereal yet, or are you still considering it?’

‘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?’

The Operative gives him a mocking look.

‘We never disclose formulas. We have heard that there are people who are mixing their own poisons at home. This will make your skin bubble like leprosy, and your bones soften like rubber. It could be fatal. Leave these things to the experts.’

Baxter writes a cheque for five packs. At the end of the afternoon, he sees the Operative has parked his unmarked van outside the bearded man’s house and is going in with plastic bags. The man glances at Baxter and give a little shrug. Several of the local inhabitants are making slow journeys past the house; as Baxter moves away he notices faces at nearby windows.

Baxter discovers his wife examining the chequebook.

‘Another cheque!’ she cries. ‘For what?’

‘Three packs!’

‘It doesn’t work.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Just look!’

‘It might be worse without the poison.’

‘How could it be worse? You’re throwing money away!’

‘I’m trying to help us!’

‘You don’t know where to start!’

She blinks and nods with anger. The baby cries. Baxter refuses to recount what the Operative said. She doesn’t deserve an explanation. It does occur to him, though, to smash her in the mouth, and at that instant she flinches and draws back. Oh, how we understand one another, without meaning to!

What suggestions does she have, he enquires, trying to keep down self-disgust. She doesn’t have to consider this; she has intentions. Tired of the secrecy, she will discuss the contagion with a friend, when she has the energy. She wants to go out into the world. She has been lonely.

‘Yes, yes,’ he agrees. ‘That would be good. We must try something new.’

A few days later, as soon as his wife has left for the park, there are several urgent taps on the window. Baxter ducks down. However, it is too late. At the door, with a triumphant twirl, his female neighbour presents a paint pot. She wrenches off the lid. It contains a sticky brown substance like treacle. Her head is thrown back by the reek.

Holding the paint pot at arm’s length, she takes in the room. By now they have, piece by piece, removed a good deal of the furniture, though a few items, the curtains and cushions, have been replaced by spares, since it is imperative to uphold belief. Baxter and his wife can’t encourage visitors, of course. If old friends ring they arrange to see them outside. The only person who visits regularly is his mother-in-law, from whom his wife strives to conceal all signs of decay. This loyalty and protectiveness surprises and moves Baxter. When he asks his wife about it, she says, ‘I don’t want her to blame you.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re my husband, stupid.’

The neighbour says, ‘Put this out.’

Baxter looks dubiously at the substance and grimaces. ‘You’re not an expert.’

‘Not an expert? Me?’

‘No.’

‘Who told you to say that?’

‘No one.’

‘Yes they did. Because who is, may I ask? You don’t know, do you?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘Experts steal our power and sell it back to us, at a profit. You’re not falling for that, are you?’

‘I see what you mean.’

‘Look.’

She sticks her finger in the stuff, puts it on her tongue, waggles it at him, tastes it, and spits it into a napkin.

‘Your wife’s not going to eat that, even if you smother it in honey,’ she says, gagging. ‘But it’ll draw the little devils from all over the room.’ She gets on her knees and makes a cooing sound. ‘You might notice a dungy smell.’

‘Yes.’

‘In that case — open the window. This is an early prototype.’

She puts out the treacle in his saucers. There is no doubt that the flies are drawn by it, and they do keel over. But they are not diminishing; the treacle seems to entice more and more of them.

She turns to him. ‘Excellent! The ingredients were expensive, you see.’

‘I can’t pay!’ he says forcibly. ‘Not anything!’

‘Everybody wants something for nothing. This then, for now.’ She kisses his mouth. ‘Remember,’ she says, as she goes. ‘Passion. Passion!’

He is staring into the overrun saucers when his wife comes in, holding her nose.

‘Where did you get that?’

‘An acquaintance. A kind neighbour.’

‘That harridan who stares at me so? You’re swayed by the oddest people. Any fool’s flattery can seduce you.’

‘Clearly.’

‘But it stinks!’

‘The houses are old, the century is old … what do you expect?’

He sticks his finger in the muck, licks it and bends forward, holding his stomach.

‘Baxter, you are suffering from insanity.’ She says softly, ‘You would prefer her opinion to mine. But why? Is something going on there?’

‘No!’

‘You don’t care about me now, do you?’

‘I do.’

‘Liar. The truth counts for nothing with you.’

He notices she has kept her coat on. She puts the baby in his cot. She has finally arranged to visit her best friend, a well-off snobbish woman with two children whose exhibitions of affluence and happiness can be exasperating. He notices now the trouble his wife has taken to look her best. A woman’s face alters when she has a baby, and a new beauty may emerge. But she still looks shabby in her ragged clothes, and strained, as if from the effort of constantly keeping something bad away.

From the window he watches her go, and is happy that at least her determination hasn’t gone. There is, though, nothing left of their innocence.

Baxter digs a hole in the garden and throws in the odoriferous paint pot and saucers. To avoid his neighbour, he will have to be sure to look both ways and hurry when leaving the house.

He gets the boy up and lies on the floor with him. The kid crawls about, banging a wooden spoon on a metal tray, a noise which delights him, and keeps away all flies. He seems unaffected by the strange tensions around him. Every day he is different, full of enthusiasm and curiosity, and Baxter doesn’t want to miss a moment.

He looks up to see the Operative waving through the window. Baxter has never seen him so genial.

‘Look,’ he says. ‘I’ve nabbed some of the latest development and rushed it straight to you.’ He puts several tins of a sticky treaclish substance on the table. ‘It’s a free sample.’

Baxter pushes him towards the door. ‘Get out.’

‘But —’

‘Pour the tins over your head!’

‘Don’t shove! You’re giving up, are you?’ The Operative is enraged but affects sadness. ‘It is a common reaction. You think you can shut your eyes to it. But your wife will never stop despising you, and your child will be made sick!’ Baxter lunges at him. The man skips down the steps. ‘Or have you got a solution of your own?’ he sneers. ‘Everyone thinks that at some time. But they’re deceived! You’ll be back. I await your call but might be too busy to take it.’

When Baxter’s wife returns they sit attentively opposite one another and have a keen discussion. The visit to her friend has animated her.

‘She and the house and the children were immaculate and practically gold-plated, as usual. I kept thinking, I’m never going to be able to bring the subject up. Fortunately the phone rang. I went to the bathroom. I opened her closet.’ Baxter nods, understanding this. ‘She loves clothes, but there was virtually nothing in there. There were powders and poisons in the bottom.’

‘They’ve been married six years,’ says Baxter.

‘He’s lazy —’

‘She’s domineering —’

‘He’s promiscuous —’

‘She’s frigid —’

‘Just shut up and listen!’ She continues, ‘The rich aren’t immune but they can afford to replace everything. When I brought up the subject she knew what I was talking about. She admitted to a slight outbreak — from next door.’ They both laugh. ‘She even said she was thinking of making a radio programme about it. And if there’s a good response, a television investigation.’ Baxter nods. ‘I’m afraid there’s only one thing for it. There’s this man they’ve found. All the top people are using him.’

‘He must be expensive.’

‘All the best things are, and not everyone is too mean to pay for it. I’m not ready to go back to work, but Baxter, you must.’

‘You know I can’t find a job.’

‘You must stop thinking you’re better than other people, and take anything. It’s our only hope. They’re living a normal life, Baxter. And look at us.’

Once he loved her tenacity. He thinks of how to close this subject.

‘What will I wear?’

‘You can go to my mother’s in the morning and change there, and do the same in the evening.’

‘I see.’

She comes towards him and puts her face close to his; her eyes, though darkly ringed and lined now, shine with optimism.

‘Baxter, we are going to try everything, aren’t we?’

Feeling she will stand there for ever, and ashamed of how her close presence alarms him, he talks of what they might do once the contagion is over. He thinks, too, of how little people need, and how little they ask for! A touch, a hug, a word of reassurance, a moment of warm love, is all she wants. Yet a kiss is too much for him. Why is he so cruel, and what is wrong with him?

For a few weeks he thinks that by keeping away from her, by self-containment and the avoidance of ‘controversial’ subjects, she will forget this idea. But every few days she brings up the subject again, as if they have both agreed to it.

One night when he leans back, the new cushion disintegrates. It is a charred pile. He jumps up and, standing there, feels he will fall over. He reaches out and grabs the curtains. The entire thing — gauze, he realises — comes apart in his hand. The room has darkened; shadows hang in menacing shapes; the air is thick with flies; the furniture looks as though it has been in a fire. Flies spot his face; his hair turns sticky and yellow even as he stands there. He wants to cry out but can’t cry out; he wants to flee but can’t flee.

He hears a noise outside. A quarrel is taking place. Crouching below the windowsill, he sees the bearded man on the doorstep of his own house, shouting to be let in. A window opens upstairs and a suitcase is flung out, along with bitter words and sobs. The bearded man eventually picks up the suitcase and walks away. He passes Baxter’s house pulling the wheeled case. Certain that Baxter is watching, he waves forlornly at the window.

Baxter feels that if the plague is to be conquered it is unreasonable of him not to try everything. Even if he doesn’t succeed he will, at least, have pleased his wife. He blames and resents her, and what has she tried to do but make him happy and create a comfortable home? No doubt she is right about the other thing: in isolation he has developed unreasonably exalted ideas about himself.

But he goes reluctantly to work. The other employees look at him knowingly the day he goes in to apply for the job. It is exhausting work, yet he soon masters the morose patter, and his body becomes accustomed to the physical labour. The spraying is unpleasant; he has no idea what effect the unavoidable inhalation of noxious gases will have. Seeing all the distressed and naive couples is upsetting at first, but he learns from the other men to detach himself, ignore all insults and concentrate on selling as many packs as possible in order to earn a high commission. The Operatives are a cynical and morose group who resemble lawyers. None of the many people who need them will insult these parasites directly — they can’t survive without them. But they can never be liked.

Baxter and his wife have more money than before, but to afford the exceptional Exterminator they must save for much longer and do without ‘luxuries’. Baxter is hardly at home, which improves the atmosphere during the day. But there is something he has to do every night. When his wife and baby are asleep he turns off the light, sinks to his knees and turns onto his back on the living-room floor. There, as he hums to himself, working up a steady vibration from his stomach, moths graze on his clothes, in his hair, and on his closed eyes. It is a repellent but — he is convinced — necessary ritual of accustomisation. He tells himself that nothing can be repaired or advanced but only accepted. And, after acceptance, there will occur a liberation into pure spirit, without desire, a state he awaits with self-defeating impatience. Often he falls asleep here, imagining that the different parts of himself are being distributed by insects around the neighbourhood, or ‘universe’ as he puts it; he regards this as the ultimate compliance. His wife believes that his mind has been overrun.

One morning a youngish man in a black suit stands at the door. Baxter is surprised to see he carries no powders, illuminated electrifying poles, squirters, or even a briefcase. His hands are in his pockets. Gerard sits down, barely glancing at the chewed carpet or buckets of powder. He declines an offer to look in the wardrobe. He seems to know about it already.

‘Has there been much of this about?’ Baxter asks.

‘In this street? A few cases.’

Hope rushes in again from its hiding place. Baxter is almost incoherent. ‘Did you cure it? Did you? How long did it take?’

Gerard doesn’t reply. Baxter goes and tells his wife she should talk to Gerard, saying he has a reassuring composure. She comes into the room and looks Gerard over, but she cannot bring herself to discuss any of their ‘private matters’.

Baxter, though, tells Gerard the most forbidden, depressing and, particularly, trivial things. Gerard likes this stuff the most, persuading Baxter to see it as an aperture through which to follow the labyrinth of his mind. After, Baxter is more emotional than he has ever been, and wheels about the flat, feeling he will collapse, and that mad creatures have been released in the cage of his mind.

When Gerard asks if he should come back, Baxter says yes. Gerard turns up twice a week, to listen. Somehow he extends Baxter’s view of things and makes unusual connections, until Baxter surprises himself. How gloomy one feels, explains Baxter, as if one has entered a tunnel which leads to the centre of the earth, with not an arrow of light possible. Surely this is one’s natural condition, human fate, and one can only instruct oneself to be realistic? The wise will understand this, and the brave, called stoics by some, will endure it. Or is it very stupid? suggests Gerard. He turns things around until revolt seems possible, a terrifying revolt against one’s easy assumptions.

Baxter begins to rely on Gerard. His wife, though, resents him. Despite all the ardent talk, the flat remains infested. She claims Gerard is making Baxter self-absorbed, and that he no longer cares about her and the baby.

Baxter wonders about Gerard too. Does this man know everything? Is he above it all? And why is he expending his gifts on Baxter without asking for money? Why should the ‘clean man’ be immune from the contagion? What can be so special about him?

One time the Operatives bring up the subject in the canteen. Baxter, who normally pays no attention to their conversations, looks up. ‘There are people now who think they can talk the contagion away,’ they scoff. ‘Like people who think they can pray for rain, they won’t accept it is a biological fact of nature. There is nothing to be done but await a breakthrough.’

Baxter wants to ask Gerard why he is interested in these conversations, but it soon ceases to matter. Something is different. Gerard has aroused in him a motivating desperation. At night he no longer lies on the floor being devoured. He paces, yes; but at least this is movement, and nothing will stick to him. There is something still alive within him, in both of them, which the flies have been unable to kill off.

Near dawn one night Baxter wakes up and can’t go back to sleep. In his cot the boy sucks at his bottle. Baxter places his finger in the boy’s fist; he holds his father tight. Baxter waits until he can withdraw without waking him. From the cot he takes a little wooden rattle. He dresses in silence, puts the rattle in his pocket, and walks towards the wardrobe. It is a while since he has poked at anything in there. It seems fruitless now.

He steps out onto the street. As he goes past the bearded man’s house and that of his female neighbour he sees a black cloud in the sky ahead of him. There will be a storm, no doubt about it. Soon he is lost, but he keeps his eyes on the cloud, making his way through narrow streets and alleys; he traverses wide roads and, eventually, crosses the river, trying to think of what, yet, might be done. He sees other men who are, perhaps, like him, travelling through the night with mementoes in their pockets, searching for different fears; or popping out of doorways to stand still and stare upwards, thinking of too much to notice anyone, before walking determinedly in one direction, and then in another.

The cloud, as he walks towards it, seems to explode. It separates and breaks up into thousands of tiny fragments. It is a cloud of flies which lifts and breaks, sweeping upwards into the indifferent sky.