The Nothing

by Hanif Kureishi

  I am hungry and she knows it. A woman wants to give to a man, I’ve noticed. But only one man at a time.

  ‘Don’t you touch that toast, you bad, cruel thing. I bet you’re hungry. Maybe you can have an almond biscuit later. Are you sorry now?’

  ‘Don’t be sadistic, Zee. You’ve become nasty.’

  ‘So have you. He was humiliated. That was the least of it. I shudder at the thought.’

  She is punishing me for pushing Eddie out into the dirty, unforgiving city. Apparently he walked; sat down; stumbled and staggered. He saw the sights, illuminated. All-night workers; early-morning workers; sex workers, thieves, the demented gesticulating. He phoned friends but they were indisposed. It was short notice. He dozed on a bench. You guessed it: he lost his wallet.

  He’s on his way here like a starved dog, yellow-faced, walking, if not hobbling.

  ‘If you make me some eggs I’ll tell you something important.’

  She shows me the back of her hand. ‘You’ve gone too far and I will have to take action. Were you delirious? You promised to find him work, and then you told him to call me mother.’ She makes the eggs. She strokes my hair and removes my dribble. ‘So, what is it?’ I eat most of my eggs while she waits. ‘Don’t do this. Tell me.’

  ‘Follow my instructions. Go to the window.’ She does so. I’m behind her. ‘See, there’s a man waiting. Watching us. He’s looking for Eddie. You get rid of one parasite and in no time there’s another one biting you.’

  ‘How long’s he been there?’

  ‘An hour or so.’

  I pass her the binoculars. In his early fifties, with a shaved head, black-rimmed glasses and a cheap suit, he’s about as wide as he is tall.

  ‘Pure malevolence.’

  She studies him. ‘How do you know he’s looking for Eddie?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘You could be right, for once.’ She says, ‘I’m going outside to confront him. I might slam him one.’

  ‘Your recklessness is exciting. Don’t do it, though.’

  ‘He could hurt Eddie.’

  ‘He won’t. Not on the street. Does Eddie owe money?’

  ‘So what? It’s not a crime. Who doesn’t owe money?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘We can help him out as we would with any friend. The man will go away.’

  We are still together at the window. I hold her arm.

  ‘He’s coming,’ she says. ‘It’s Eddie, turning the corner. The other man sees him. Eddie’s smiling but he’s nervous. I’ve never seen him like this. He’s backing off …’

  ‘It’s too late. He’s got him.’

  ‘What should we do?’

  The man approaches Eddie.

  I say to Zee, ‘Thank Christ Eddie’s got my ciabatta.’

  The man talks to Eddie. Eddie nods and glances up towards us. They’re not unfriendly. Unfortunately the man doesn’t touch Eddie, apart from laying his hand on his shoulder.

  ‘He’s only doing his job. He must be collecting money. He hasn’t threatened him. But they know where he is. We must jettison Eddie, Zee.’

  ‘As long as he’s with us, he’s safe. They won’t touch us.’

  ‘Bad people are looking for him. Bailiffs. Landlords. Probably the police. He could be a criminal. He’s making us vulnerable.’

  ‘I got your loaf,’ he says a few minutes later.

  ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘Easy.’ He holds up a key and smiles.

  ‘How did you get it?’

  ‘From Zee, to save you from inconvenience.’

  ‘And the coffee?’

  ‘No, Waldo. Sorry. I got into a spot of bother,’ says Eddie. ‘I forgot about the coffee.’

  ‘Run into anyone you know?’

  ‘No, no.’

  He smells sour. He’s dishevelled. I hope he doesn’t fart on our new sofa; it’s John Lewis, with a Biba blanket.

  ‘What sort of trouble?’ I say.

  ‘What d’you think?’ says Zee. ‘A bit of money. Is it only money, Eddie?’

  He nods. ‘Greed.’

  She says, ‘Why do people make such a thing about a few pounds? Capitalism uses people and spits them out.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I say what I like. It’s free speech in this apartment.’

  ‘Since when did you become a Marxist, Zee?’

  ‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me.’

  Eddie says, ‘Only well-off, secure people can attack others for their so-called materialism. It’s a confident position of privilege to speak from. For the rest of us, there’s a living to be made. I have to say it’s quite a sickening hypocrisy.’

  ‘It certainly is.’ She says, ‘Sit down, Eddie. Rest. Let me get you a blanket and a soft pillow. You must be broken.’

  He slips his shoes off and lies back. We got the cushions in The Conran Shop. We paid too much for them, as you do there. But I like anything in faux fur.

  I ask, ‘How much do you owe?’

  ‘Forty or so.’

  ‘Grand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘And school fees. Other things. Feel-good merchants: doctors, psychiatrists, therapists …’

  ‘Who was that man?’ I ask him. ‘The one outside.’

  He holds his head. ‘It’s nothing. But Waldo, I didn’t sleep. I’m broken. I can’t continue like this—’

  ‘Eddie, have you met him before? What’s his name?’

  Zee says, ‘Since when did you become Maigret, Waldo? Eddie, take a bath and relax. Everyone’s too excited right now. Waldo, it’s time for your rest. Come on, old tortoise, let’s get you out of harm’s way.’

  Out of harm’s way? On my way to bed I go to the window. The stocky guy looks up at me. He takes a photograph. I ride out onto the balcony, rise up as much as I can, and give him the finger. I take a photograph. He walks away.

  Zee pushes me into my bedroom and helps me lie down.

  I like the dark and quiet. It’s a good opportunity for me to speak my diary. I’ve got plenty to say.

  FIFTEEN

  I work in my study, looking at the pictures and material I shot, attempting to bang it together as incoherently as possible, experimenting with music.

  Eddie’s stuff surrounds me: his newspapers, books. The photograph of his daughter which Anita dropped stares at me.

  Behind me, he slumbers on the sofa through the morning. He wakes up when she takes him his coffee. They’re in a hurry to go out. Since she helps him put a tie on, I guess they’re going to the bank. Soon the lowlife’s pockets will bulge, along with the wand in the front of his trousers.

  They’re starting a website featuring interviews with famous people. Eddie will use his contacts. Zee will squeeze me for mine; she’s been attentive. They want to start with Anita, who is a keen talker but has never done her childhood: it would be a coup. Who wants the artist’s work, when they can have it explained and stripped of the complication of artifice?

  Zee leaves with Eddie. I zip onto the balcony and watch them come out of the building. They approach the guy standing across the road. He’s back there.

  She was always tough and determined, Zee. When I was leaving India I was in a self-destructive phase. Alone and depressed, I’d considered retirement and suicide. Otherwise my philosophy was affirmative. Act – make an event. Smash the coordinates and see where the smithereens fly. Let in the madness, and be sure to be a danger to oneself and others. Too much thinking turns you into that fool Hamlet.

  Or into Zee’s husband, an affable, sweet-natured doctor who’d advised on the film. She and I were lovers by then. She’d driven me through Mumbai at night to my hotel. She’d shown me her earrings and told me she’d worn them for me. She asked to come to my room. She told me without equivocation that I smelled of loneliness. I wanted to argue with her. But she was right.

  Not long after, I said, ‘Zeena, I’m done here. Come with me. Bring the kids. Otherwise
it’s over and we’ll both regret it. This might be a mistake worth making.’

  She was about to move to Islamabad – the world’s dullest town – with a husband who was devoted to his mother. She told me how she dreaded it. The mother-in-law was a strain and harassed her constantly. But she wanted to look after her. I asked why and she told me. I blanched but it didn’t put me off her. I saw her differently. Zee’s father was in an asylum, having strangled his mother to death, an understandable temptation which most of us resist.

  Insanity isn’t hereditary. Otherwise who would be untouched? Take me, I offer, a man who looks reality right down the line, one who knows we suffer more by trying to avoid suffering.

  I packed up and headed to the airport. There she was, hand in hand with her two sweet daughters. She walked to me and never looked back. I will admire her for that forever. Her terror was that they’d end up like English girls, drunken, shameless, vulgar, underdressed. I assured her they’d inherit our respectability. The older one is visiting soon, sightseeing in London with her two kids. That will be a pleasure for Zee and should distract her.

  I whirl to the window to see them leave the block. I get a close gander of them talking to the man. I learn nothing. The man walks off, to his car.

  I watch a movie and text my movie star. I send her some photographs of the neighbours in their kitchens. To my surprise, Anita is not busy. She says she’s on her way. She has to tell me something right away. I hope it’s juicy. I’m impatient.

  When she arrives I’m in my study, whizzing about like Ironside on acid, moving Eddie’s stuff.

  ‘Help me, baby. This is difficult for me.’

  ‘I’ve been worrying. I’m glad to see you active. What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m having a positive day.’ I tell her, ‘Please open the window.’

  ‘You need air, Waldo? I thought a draught for you is like an amputation. What’s going on?’

  ‘We’re going to fling Eddie’s stuff out. It’s started to sicken me. I’ve been weak. Help me, this is my last gasp.’

  ‘What should I do?’

  ‘Don’t you do boxing now? Toss his gear through the window, baby.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ She says, ‘Waldo, Zee will hate you for this.’

  ‘She’ll thank me in the very long run.’

  Anita is reluctant but persuadable. We stuff his belongings in boxes and put my things back. I point to a large framed poster advertising a lecture of mine.

  ‘I want this photograph of myself up there, Anita, please. I’m using Mao as my inspiration. “Cast away illusions. Prepare for struggle.” I’m back in business, baby. You don’t know you’re stuck until you get moving.’

  ‘Wise.’

  ‘Hang it right there, please. I need to be centre-stage.’

  We dust it, she knocks in the pins. I help her hold it up.

  ‘A sinister guy has been watching us, Anita.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You know? How?’

  ‘Waldo, listen. I’m at home last night, learning my lines. I get a text from him – Eddie. He’s not with Zee, he says. She’s not well and she’s gone to bed. So he’s at a club looking for company. The Six. He says, “Come by for a drink.” I’m alone in my room and don’t feel right.

  ‘The evenings get oppressive. I know you say God made fags for women like me. After a certain age there aren’t many people you want to listen to.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Someone I can say anything to. I read, smoke a joint, stretch, meditate – and then it’s too much. I got in a cab and went to the Six. Do you mind?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘I find Eddie there. Maybe I can investigate.

  ‘It’s a cramped, low-ceilinged basement with some chairs and tables, a small stage and a kitchen. Eddie has his oversized white jacket on. Look …’

  There he is, on her phone, ungainly but sincere with his hair slicked back.

  ‘He does three tunes including this one – “Come Rain or Come Shine”. It isn’t so awful. It’s kind of heartbreaking … When he finishes he goes behind the bar and serves the customers.

  ‘I’m sitting with a guy at his table. Gibney. The fellow who owns the club and runs other bars and restaurants. Even with me, Gibbo’s one of those busy-everywhere people, always looking over your shoulder for someone who could be of more use.

  ‘It turns out that that girl there,’ – she shows me a photograph – ‘it’s Francesca, Eddie’s daughter. You see, she’s hiding behind her hair, but she’s tattooed and pierced and the rest, as you see, witnessing this sad spectacle of her father.’

  I notice she has a bandage on her lower arm, near the wrist. I guess she’s the reason Zee didn’t want to go to the club, if indeed she was invited. Behind the scarred daughter I glimpse the man Anita now describes – Gibbo.

  ‘Gibney is a long-term Soho pal of Eddie’s. They’ve known one another for years. Eddie helped Gibney at the beginning. When the place opened he invited all his well-known pals and word got round. Eddie even cooks there.

  ‘I learn, mostly from the girl, that Eddie never tires of involving Gibney in his misfortunes. But, as with everyone he makes contact with, Eddie has strained his friend’s patience.

  ‘Gibney paid for doctors for the kids, helped out with the wives, placating and phoning with excuses and the rest. Often he lets the money go. Sometimes he doesn’t.

  ‘Gibney heard that Eddie was embarrassed and flung out by you. Eddie’s foothold at your place isn’t as strong as Gibbo thought.’

  ‘Shame.’

  ‘He’s been on at Eddie to get himself together. Eddie’s despair and hopelessness have been worrying him a lot recently … The daughter, Francesca, is in a bad way. She phones Gibbo and weeps. He’s no intellectual, Gibney.’

  ‘A mercy.’

  ‘He’s an old-time Chelsea tough guy in his mid-fifties. Not one of those modern men with perfume and plastic muscles.’

  ‘I’m thinking Tony Curtis in The Sweet Smell of Success.’

  ‘Do.’ She’s finished with the packing. ‘I went to some trouble for you. I’ve put some of the pieces of this puzzle together.’

  We move to the kitchen table. She opens a bottle.

  ‘Gibney is guiding Eddie; that’s why he’s been giving you the eyeball.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘He has a plan. He knows Eddie has nowhere to go and is edging towards the criminal. A year ago Eddie was desperate to pay his rent and forged a signature on a cheque. He just about got away with it after he confessed to Gibney, who paid the fellow back with his own money. He wanted to save Eddie from jail—’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They’re friends.’ She shrugs. ‘Eddie told Gibney he was thinking of becoming a life coach.’

  ‘No better profession for a psychotic forger.’

  ‘But Gibney conceived the excellent idea that as Eddie is good with the ladies—’

  ‘Please, darling, I’ve witnessed him at work. His semen glistens on my best rug, if not on my wife.’

  ‘Eddie has got to find a vulnerable rich woman, of which there are many in London.

  ‘Eddie should hook up with one of these losers, settle down and collaborate with Gibney. Eddie can support his family and share the largesse—’

  ‘Largesse, you say?’

  ‘Houses, of course. Land. Paintings. Pensions and so on – with his old pal, his manager and sponsor, Gibney.’

  ‘And who is the mark here?’

  ‘Eddie has shown him photographs of this flat. They’ll sell your home in the country, this place and your archive. Eddie and Zee will get a new apartment, and there’ll be something left over for the business and the investments Gibney and Eddie have in mind once some money is freed up.’

  ‘So we offer my life in order for Fast Eddie to spend the rest of his up to his ass in gold bullion? Perfect. They just have to wait for me to die.’

  ‘You’re an optimist.’

&n
bsp; ‘I understand now. Why would they not want to speed it along? I am infernally alive, despite Eddie’s efforts.’

  ‘He resembles you. Eddie. Have you noticed?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You, as you were. As you are still, sometimes. Evasive, tricky. It’s like you’re being haunted by yourself.’

  Thankfully we are disturbed. Zee has come home.

  She’s in a hurry and strides right over, standing with her hands reversed on her hips, taking in the boxes and looking at the photograph of Chairman Mao.

  ‘I’m working in here on a new idea, Zee—’

  ‘Waldo, explain to me, please. Is that Eddie’s stuff you’ve packed? Anita, are you helping?’

  ‘I can explain,’ Anita says, as people do when they can’t.

  I say, ‘It’s ready for Eddie to take with him. He must have found somewhere by now. You remember, I didn’t loan him the dough – I gave it to him in deep fondness. He’s set.’

  ‘He’s our guest. He can stay until he’s ready. Can’t I invite my friends here?’

  ‘He’s been offered a job, thanks to me.’

  ‘Yes, thanks, in Trivandrum, India, teaching the films of Clint Eastwood.’

  ‘Finest work on God’s earth, Zee. If the young are not educated, where would we be?’

  She is looking at Anita. ‘Have you touched Eddie’s things again? Who gave you permission to behave like this in my apartment? Would I do this in your home? You think you’re so famous you can do whatever you like?’

  Anita’s mouth moves about until she says, ‘I’m sorry, Zee. But Waldo is being made anxious. We should be concerned about him. He’s frail—’

  ‘You’re a despicable woman, whispering with my husband about me behind my back.’

  I say, ‘You’re being vile, Zee.’

  ‘Wait till I slap her.’

  ‘She’ll slap you.’

  ‘Let her try.’ Zee makes a cross on her cheek. ‘How about right here?’

  Anita sits down and stares at Zee, who says, ‘Anita, unpack these things. If Eddie goes, I go.’

  I say, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Zee …’

  To me Zee says, ‘And you trust Anita? She is dating Eddie’s pal, Gibney. They were drinking tequila and dancing. She taught him the Funky Chicken. She sang a song. She’s come straight from him. He had her and took her out for breakfast. Eddie says she ate twice. Surely, Waldo, she must have mentioned it.’