The Nothing

by Hanif Kureishi

  I wheel into her room and catch her, reminding her that I am still here.

  ‘You’re going to Paris? Zee. Please answer me.’

  ‘On the next train.’

  ‘Without me?’

  ‘There’s no time to organise.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘The Ritz.’

  ‘That’s where we had our anniversary.’

  ‘It’s convenient.’

  ‘How will you afford it?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘And even after what we said about his character?’

  ‘Jealousy is a despicable thing. Didn’t you always tell me so? We’re developing a business idea. Don’t you like me as an independent woman? Eddie has some contacts who will invest in us. His French is perfect; he never yells. People believe in him. You will hear about the project.’

  ‘When?’

  She says, ‘When you stop watching me like that. I shiver when I feel your eyes on me.’

  ‘I’ll look the other way.’

  ‘We’re in a rush. Please remove yourself before I trip over you.’ I sit there with a head like a glowing cigarette. ‘You’ll burst, Waldo. This is self-inflicted.’

  She puts on her large Greta Garbo sunglasses before slipping into her heels.

  ‘What would your mother say, Zee?’

  ‘Don’t you dare, Waldo.’

  ‘We should talk about it.’

  ‘Not now. You’re holding me back.’

  She walks out with Eddie.

  ‘What a happy couple they are,’ says the nurse who comes in as they leave. ‘Is he your son?’

  I don’t even laugh. I look away and I ask the nurse to remain silent and still my bleating heart with a pot of lapsang and a jug of boiling water on the side.

  I don’t like being left for long struggling with my dangerous self. I am more compassionate when Zee – my friend, ally, pal – can hear me. Thoughts, unconverted into words, can become monstrous, like heavy metal in your head. The world can seem very strange when there are no words for experience. But there is music. There is Muddy Waters. Nothing consoles like the blues. Muddy knows what I’m going through. He’s seen it all.

  I discover that Zee has taken a chunk of money from our joint account. It was only I who put anything in it: earnings from royalties and sometimes from talks, appearances or teaching work at the film school. I’ve not only been abandoned: I’m paying for these moon-eyed sweethearts to stay at the Ritz, and all I can hope for is that she brings me an ashtray.

  I was a serene old man treading the nirvanic plateau to oblivion. Now I wake up, wanting love, seething, seeing her mouth drawing in his cock, over and over. I’ve become a disgruntled father rather than a lover or friend. I can’t bear not to be on her mind.

  I need talk. I need advice. I need the cavalry.

  I call Anita. Anita is my other girl.

  Anita loves secrets and gossip. She will know what to do. She will have good ideas. When she hears this, she will be on fire.

  EIGHT

  Anita is not a woman a man can look at for long without wanting to put his penis in her mouth. My eyes take in her hair, cheekbones, fine hands. I close my eyes and bask in her voice as she reads to me.

  For months Anita Bassett has been visiting at least once a fortnight. She began reading me classical texts. Being a movie and theatre star, her voice is a caress from God.

  Anita was in three of my films. I worked out how to photograph her, letting her be witty, wicked, amusing. With Anita it’s a one-woman show: she communicates directly with an audience. As a director, all you could do was set it up and sit back. These were her best performances, some say.

  She does charity work with children; she reads, lunches and appears on chat shows; she rests in her small house on a cliff near Amalfi, learning Italian. In London she comes to me with a large bunch of my favourite flowers: thistles.

  Some people pay to hear her speak. Nothing made me fall asleep faster, so we made a new arrangement. She brings me ganja. And when she sits on my couch, her hair in a ponytail, with her lovely knees drawn up, she reads to me from my favourite detective stories, ones I loved as a kid. As a reader, I’m done with literature. I only want fun.

  Her kindness temporarily releases me from my fury. I am in a good place until my eyes fall on Eddie’s stuff tucked behind the end of the other sofa, across the room.

  Anita’s voice has stopped. She has been watching me.

  ‘Is all well, Waldo? Am I too dull for you today? You want a little song? How about a twerk?’

  ‘You’re the only person left. I trust you completely.’

  She puts the book down. ‘What about Zee?’

  ‘This concerns her. Will you tell me the truth without restraint? What sort of man is Eddie, that pal of mine who visits all the time? My estimation of things might be off. Reality can be precarious. Now it has begun to curve and bend—’

  ‘It has?’

  ‘Eddie Warburten, he’s a public-school flâneur, a sort of gigolo. Recently he has moved right in on us. He makes love to Zee—’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘In this apartment. In her bedroom. If they are rushed, even in the living room.’

  ‘You allow it? Waldo – really? But you are – you can be – a brute.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Zee has fallen for him. She was always something of a fantasist. She is relatively young. He gives her hope and cock. She will go crazy if I break them apart. She insists he travel with us. They leave me to stew while they see the sights with their arms around one another. It is as if she has released an enormous rat into my apartment.’

  Far from the sympathy and fury I expected, Anita regards me with bizarre scepticism.

  ‘You’re being silly, Waldo. Zee adored you from the moment you met. You’re not an easy person, believe me. Think carefully, dear friend, before you accuse her.’

  ‘I’m a deluded mad old man?’

  ‘Your mind resembles a roaring wind tunnel. You told me yourself, darling. Let’s have a drink and forget all this. Red or white?’

  I say, ‘Eddie and I were once sitting with an elderly woman. Perhaps in her eighties. He took her hand and caressed it with both his hands while looking into her eyes. She was his forever. It was so moving and effective. Then he tells the women he was sexually abused. It’s an aphrodisiac, baby. Makes them so crazy to help they give him all their money. He has done this to Zee.’

  ‘Do you have any evidence, Waldo?’ I look at her again. ‘Think of the numerous drugs you have to take and what they can do.’

  I tell her the story. She does me the credit of listening well.

  ‘But there’s no actual evidence, Waldo.’

  I’m getting mad. ‘I’ve explained everything. You’re saying I’m ridiculous and he’s a saint?’

  ‘We need more than this to go on.’

  ‘You don’t believe the barefaced truth?’

  ‘Don’t torment yourself, Waldo. It would be a terrible thing to accuse Zee. On the other hand – doesn’t a woman need a little pleasure?’ She kisses me and prepares to leave. ‘Don’t be glum.’ At the door, she stops and turns. ‘I can do something. I could have him checked out. It won’t take any time at all.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’ll get my assistant onto it. He’ll make a report. Then we can decide whether to fatwa the dog – if he is a dog. After all, a saint is only someone who has been under-researched.’

  ‘There’s one more thing. Would you do something?’

  ‘Ask.’

  ‘Please pull out that stuff. Over there.’ I indicate Eddie’s things.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘You said “anything”.’

  ‘I’m too kind.’

  ‘Bring it to me, then.’

  ‘I’ll do it for you, Waldo.’

  She goes over, pulls his bags out and tips the stuff onto the floor. I nod. She picks through it
, showing me everything.

  There are dirty clothes, shoes and toiletries. Computer drives and wires. Condoms and a cock ring. A small capsule filled with blue Viagra pills. A tube of lubricant. A vibrator. Two mobile phones, a camera, two expensive watches. Expensive cufflinks. The manuscript of a novel. Panties, a book of matches from a smart restaurant and three ‘Dear Dad’ letters from ‘F’ – his daughter Francesca, I guess – which I cannot bear to read.

  ‘Look more. Poke about.’

  ‘Yuck.’

  ‘Go in there, please. I’ll buy you a manicure.’

  In the inside pocket of a bag she finds a frayed, shambolic diary held together by a rubber band.

  ‘Open it, please.’

  Business cards, newspaper cuttings and photographs of children fall out. A wad of twenties: about £300. And something I read: two local newspaper articles about Bow’s suicide.

  She is looking at a photograph. She shields her eyes. She says, ‘I wonder, Waldo, if this is – er – anyone you know.’

  I reach for it. She holds onto it. Then hands it to me: a printed selfie. An older woman on her knees in stockings and heels, with dildos in her arse and cunt.

  ‘I’m sorry, Waldo. Those shoes—’

  ‘She was in her room a lot, with the door closed.’

  ‘This is harsh.’ She says, ‘There are more. Can you bear to see them?’

  I make copies with my phone. There’s no justice when it comes to sex. We’re all pornographers now.

  ‘She’s become crazed,’ I say. ‘Could you please read the diary to me.’

  ‘I feel odd. This is becoming repulsive.’

  She reads from Eddie’s diary. He’s no Pepys – meetings, walks, character sketches, ideas for articles and documentaries, notes on my obituary where he is complimentary but dismisses two of the better films. I soon get it. Nothing incriminating about Zee.

  She lets me be silent for a while. A good friend can do this. Anita could be right: folly can flatten everything good in a moment.

  I have an idea.

  ‘Can you do something else? Photograph the pages so I can read and reread at my leisure.’

  She makes a face. But she extracts her phone and does it. She emails me the material so I can read it on my iPad later while pretending to be dead.

  I hear the front door downstairs slam. The lift clanks.

  ‘It’s them, Anita.’

  The diary is in my lap. In a panic I drop it. Eddie’s stuff slides over the floor. Anita moves quickly, picking up everything and replacing it as best she can. She hurries into the bathroom to wash her hands.

  One of the photographs has fallen face down on the floor. I wheel over but however I strain I cannot pick it up. I try to kick it under the sofa and almost fall out of my chariot. I think of throwing a cushion over it, but there isn’t time now.

  Eddie and Zee come in.

  ‘Hey, you two,’ I say. ‘How was Paris? Look – I have a friend visiting. See who it is. Come and say hi. Let’s have tea. Let’s open champagne. Bring cake.’

  NINE

  I say, ‘See what I do for you, Eddie?’

  Suddenly Eddie opens his arms, he is so excited to see Anita walking towards him. His eyes vibrate with excitement.

  ‘You are my Marilyn.’

  ‘Boo-boo be-doo.’

  Anita kisses Eddie, kisses Zee. She begins to work Eddie, her words all over him. I photograph them together.

  ‘I have to hear it all,’ Anita tells him. ‘Tell me everything about yourself.’ This is a subject he is mad for. She says, ‘I must go and rehearse soon – but come on.’

  She offers her hand, inviting him to join her in the kitchen for a brandy.

  He hurries, almost tripping over. ‘Won’t be long.’ He stops, picks up the photograph and looks at it. ‘This is a picture of my daughter Francesca.’ He examines us. ‘Why is it here?’

  ‘You must have dropped it.’

  ‘I’m certain I didn’t.’

  He looks at us again, puts it back among his things, and Anita shuts the door.

  It is quiet. Zee and I are excluded. But we are together. She squats down beside me for the first time in weeks. I watch her make a cigarette, insert the filter, lick it, light it and smoke it.

  ‘What are they chatting about, do you think? Why is she talking to him like this?’

  ‘He must be telling her the names of everyone famous he’s met. He’s watched her in the theatre for more than twenty-five years. Her leather-and-fur Duchess of Malfi helped make him the man he is.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Waldo, she won’t want to hear that. These filmi girls are praised everywhere.’

  ‘Maybe she sees in him what you do.’

  ‘Like what?’

  I say, ‘Boring people are always popular. They never do anything unexpected. But he has a keenness. Some enthusiasm. Ardour. What else? Let me ponder. It’s a big subject.’

  She pours herself a large glass of wine.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. How is it that she comes round every time I go out?’

  ‘You know I don’t like to be left alone. Her beauty cheers me up.’

  She says, ‘But what are the two of them doing in there?’

  ‘We can ask Eddie later. If he’s around. Can we be together tonight, baby, or will he be joining us this evening?’

  ‘He will be.’

  ‘How was Paris? Did you go to the Avenue Montaigne, and were the young people lovely? Was it productive?’

  ‘I’ll tell you in good time.’

  ‘Would you get me a drink?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Are there any olives?’

  ‘I bought some the other day.’

  ‘My favourites?’

  ‘Your favourites.’

  ‘You haven’t forgotten me.’

  ‘You’re unforgettable, Waldo.’

  ‘Kiss me.’

  She slaps my face with her open hand.

  ‘Ouch. Why? You’ve bruised my lip. Kiss it better, baby.’

  ‘You know what you’ve been doing. I’ll get you some wine. Soon you won’t feel a thing.’

  Being beaten, being loved, what’s the difference? I smile and watch her. I love to look at her, the way she moves and does things.

  ‘Anita won’t seduce him, Zee. She has class.’

  ‘She’s been through a lot of men but none of them seemed to stick. Why is that?’

  I shrug. ‘She has high standards.’

  ‘She still has “that thing”.’

  ‘What, Zee? Charm?’

  ‘Seductiveness and a touch of masochism.’

  ‘So do you still have it, Zee. But you’re losing it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You’re in a hurry now. Charm is slow. It makes time. It’s languid and confident. Artists, sportsmen – Zidane, Miles Davis, Garbo – and the people I like best. They have it. Slowness. Infinitude.’

  She puts the drink beside me and rolls another cigarette. She watches herself in the mirror, turning her head from side to side.

  ‘Look – this horrible mirror hates me. Why do you have to have them everywhere?

  ‘You bring her here and didn’t even warn me that she was coming. One of the most beautiful women in the world. You can tell a healthy woman by her skin.

  ‘Have you noticed she never wears cheap shoes, even with jeans? She’s never without that Prada bag. The other day at the exhibition she didn’t wear a bra. Who would dare at her age? Faultless all the time. It kills me. You were right—’

  ‘About what?’

  Zee pulls at her face. ‘You know only the myth matters. How things seem to others. Look at me. I’m tiny. I’m even Indian. My nose shines. How could you treat me like this today?’

  ‘Anita is my talking book. That’s all. You know you excite me …’

  ‘Touch my dry hair.’

  ‘Let me put coconut in it for you.’

  ‘Look at my withered hands. These varicose veins here in my leg
s have to be removed. My knees are arthritic. When we went to that dinner the other day at Bafta, I felt like the oldest woman there. Not one person looked at me. Didn’t I mesmerise men, once?’

  ‘Particularly me.’

  ‘They chased me but I ignored them. I was a prude and called it feminism.’

  I say, ‘It’s only in the movies that people are beautiful all the time.’

  She says, ‘Does every woman have my fear? That I’ll turn into my mother?’

  ‘Don’t traduce her, Zee. Your Bibi was a fascinating woman who could look at herself without fear. I remember her praying. It moved me so to see it, Zee. One time she let me join her. She urged me to convert. She said we had got it all wrong in the West. And you should have gone to Pakistan.’

  ‘She wanted that? Absurd.’

  ‘We’ve lost our relationship to truth and value. We’ve become slaves—’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘Brief passions. Sex fantasies. Money. Time in London passed too quickly for her. She said one could become old in a day.’

  Zee is silent. She walks about.

  ‘How could you listen to that? I admit you were patient. You were kind with the children and you were kind with her. Mum was old at forty, and too devout,’ she says. ‘You helped me break away. Suppose tomorrow I discover I have cancer? Everything could change in a moment. I want a new nose. Will you get me one?’

  ‘If you ask me right.’ I sip my whisky. ‘I was thinking of getting a new penis at the same time.’

  She sits with her head in her hands.

  ‘Anita doesn’t have a boyfriend, does she? Didn’t you say she’d never found the love of her life?’

  ‘She broke up with one of my scribblers. A bastard I thrashed into talent. She claims that no one dares ask her on dates, except younger men.’

  ‘I know what you say to women, Waldo. You say she is too intelligent for most men.’

  ‘She is sharp, she’s mischievous. She’s sexual. She regrets many things – not having a family. With men she sought punishment.’

  Zee paces. ‘She is a danger. You’re crafty: you brought her here on purpose. Don’t you talk to her about me? What do you say?’

  ‘I say you make me unhappy.’

  ‘You said that? Does she have any idea what it’s like to look after someone day and night for years? Let her try. Does she have a husband who messes the bed? I know how your mind works and so I have to slap you. Why are they taking so long?’