You are becoming very materialistic, he said.
Am I?
I had no idea. Is it the influence of Winnie? I like money, but not so much I’d work to get it. Apparently sex and money can make people mad, but I never imagined it of you, even after seven years together. You seem strange now. I look at you differently. You are unpeeling in front of me. I wonder what is really underneath?
I had no idea myself. Until recently.
Until he came? He’s done, or undone, something in you. In us. We can’t stop it now. What is it?
Not only him. Life itself. We are almost thirty and we have lost something. Answer this: are we going to be at this level for the rest of our lives? Are we? Is that how you see us?
No need to get sharp and cranky, he said. Let’s face it, we are going to remain for ever at ‘this level’ unless one of us writes a hit record. We’ve tried for years. It’s getting late for fame and fortune. Paul McCartney was my age when the Beatles broke up.
The argument continued the following day. He had begun to pack up their possessions and, after work, trudge around flats they might rent, showing her photographs of possible places.
Grim and grimmer, she said, refusing to look at them properly and even pushing his phone away. She would rather sleep on the street or die than live there, even if they did have a photograph of Jimmy Page to cover the mould.
We do actually have to go somewhere soon, he pointed out. We can’t escape the fact that we must leave this area and may never have such a nice garden again. We’ll have to travel on public transport to get back here. We’ll lose pupils. They won’t want to come to us for fear of their lives. But what can we do? We can only continue.
She was talking over him, of people they knew. One friend’s father would sell a painting; another’s aunt left them a house in Venice or the country; someone else sold a first novel to Hollywood. There were all kinds of stories. She wanted a story. Why the hell didn’t they have a fucking story?
Shiv, open your eyes. Look around, baby. We can barely see the sky for the cranes above us. There are lush new apartments with nice balconies and forbidding high gates being built all around. Maybe they’ll let us in to give a lesson, but we will never live there. Who are they for? Why not for ordinary educated people like us? We’re losing our place. When you played guitar in a bar the other night, it was like they were going to ask you to serve drinks and wash up. I love you and hate to see you like that. But are we trash now?
Not quite. Patiently he said they had to recognise that, despite their minor complaints, they were the luckiest couple alive: unlike most people they had work they loved, and while there were shortages, didn’t they have enough of everything? There was always someone who had more, so why ever think of that? Did she envy Bill Gates? Surely the Billionaire was frustrated too. Shiv knew he was. Money couldn’t buy talent, and the Billionaire’s wish was to stand on stage under the lights and play a solo like Jimmy Page. He would never do that.
Are you asleep? she asked. Hadn’t he noticed anything about her – that she had started to hate her work; it would soon kill her spirit, doing the same thing every day with mediocre people they had to flatter. Why wouldn’t he recognise her dissatisfaction? Her envy wasn’t the problem; he lacked ambition and hope, the engine that kept people’s fire alive.
He took offence. What else could they do but live their lives?
What could they do? She had many ideas.
Like what?
Stop being so polite, respectable and restrained.
For what purpose?
First off, he could open up and discuss their situation with the Billionaire. If the Billionaire had made himself so rich, he could easily help make them just a little bit rich. He could make suggestions. He must be full of good ideas and imagination. Why shouldn’t he help them? That would be a start. They could take it from there. She would tell Shiv what to propose.
Shiv started to laugh; he couldn’t stop himself. This infuriated her until she said, if you tell me one more time that we are happy because we love one another and we love our work, I will knock you down. Okay? It’s complacency, and I want to change things now. I would sleep with him –
You would sleep with him?
Probably. Yes. Why not?
Why not?
Wouldn’t you?
No.
You’d want to watch, though, wouldn’t you? I knew it.
He shook his head, and she walked out. He couldn’t find her for several hours and began to worry. He couldn’t look for her because he had to teach.
As the Billionaire was packing up his guitar and preparing to leave, Luna suddenly skipped into the room in her best clothes, put her arms around the Billionaire, kissed him and thanked him for the photograph.
She’d had an idea. She wanted to ask him to supper, at the end of next week, with just a handful of close friends. Would he come? It would be simple but lovely. Please, would he come?
Yes. He would love to. That would be very nice indeed. That was very generous. So kind.
It was a frenzy then. They made a short list of friends to invite. The cast would be made up of two other couples and a single woman to make up the numbers. The first people they asked, a couple who might be impressed but not over-impressed, refused immediately. Billionaires were no longer fat men with big cigars, fine suits and arrogant swaggers, but that didn’t prevent him being an exploitative bastard, even if he did work with wildlife.
Among the single women there was a rush. They could have sold tickets, filled a stadium and live-streamed it. But Luna insisted that everyone who came should be calm and classy; nothing slutty to embarrass them. In fact, she needed to know what everyone was wearing. In the end it had to be Winnie, who pushed, who then begged, until Shiv said they should relent.
The simple supper, which Luna was referring to as an ‘investment’, took three days to organise. They scoured cookbooks and markets, bought candles, napkins and good wine, borrowed plates and cutlery, and cleaned and polished; they discussed the music extensively. They were almost broken before it began, certainly financially. Shiv said the Last Supper must have been simpler.
* * *
The evening of the supper, the Billionaire, good-mannered as always, had brought flowers and pudding; the others wine or ice cream. The table talk was light, about exhibitions, shows and plays.
Luna, observing him when she could, realised that the Billionaire hadn’t really been silent, which would have drawn attention. What he had done was ask the others questions, keeping the conversation going. When he did speak, it was banal. Winnie had insisted on sitting next to him – Luna said not on top of him – and Luna had instructed her to ask if he thought someone would be interested in funding a school for teaching music. He didn’t think it was a bad idea, but schools weren’t his area. He had been a rebel, dropping out early.
One of the others, towards the drunker end of the evening, became bold and asked him if he knew of any killer investments, you know, at the bottom end, for poorer people. The Billionaire laughed; the wisest thing would be to keep your money in an ordinary bank. Never try anything exciting with money, he said. Just be cool and enjoy it.
As a surprise, he and Shiv announced they would play ‘Going to California’ on acoustic guitars. At the end, everyone applauded and asked for more.
The Billionaire apologised and left, saying he had to get up early the next day to go to Africa, where he was expanding his charity. He’d enjoyed the food and the company, and was delighted they liked the photograph so much.
They all crowded at the window to watch his black car slip out of their street.
How could he? Luna said, in front of everyone. I don’t believe it. The wildlife will be eating caviar. He brought us cake! That was what he gave us, after all we’ve done for him.
Oh Luna, Shiv said, what gave you all that stupid hope, when nothing was ever really going to come of it all? He already has everything! He can afford to disappoint.
Something did come of it. She collapsed and stayed in bed for three days with some kind of fever. Shiv was packing for them, but sometimes joined her. In bed, she began to use the Billionaire’s name, and Shiv followed her. The Billionaire became an obscene stimulant. For a while he was there with them, driving them here and there, roughly. Shiv said fantasising was the most they could do with him.
* * *
The following month they left the flat and moved south of the river, to a basement with bars on the windows. It was a dangerous and dirty area, noisy at night, keeping them awake. There were fewer pupils, and it had been expensive to buy new furniture.
The awful thing – perhaps the thing, according to Shiv, which had driven Luna to her bed – was that Winnie had been asked out by the Billionaire. Not only that, after telling Luna this and completing the date, she refused to divulge a single thing about the Billionaire: whether she liked him, whether she was seeing him again. Not a word, a complete blackout, except that Winnie did go to Venice.
Shiv said that what mattered was that they didn’t lose more students. The Billionaire continued to come for his lessons, Shiv pushing him to work on Howlin’ Wolf. The Billionaire was making good progress, said Shiv, as the two of them sat there under the photograph of Jimmy Page. He really was smart.
The Billionaire mentioned that he wanted to start an amateur blues band with friends, to play charity gigs. He was wondering if Shiv would like to play guitar with them and produce the music. It would be a blast. Shiv said yes, and Luna would play piano for as long as she could, during her pregnancy.
Acknowledgements
‘Birdy Num-Num’ first appeared in Sight & Sound; ‘If Their Lips Weren’t Sealed by Fear’ first appeared in Antigone, Slavoj Žižek (Bloomsbury, 2016); ‘Love Is Always an Innovation’ first appeared in The Amorist; ‘Excessive, Explosive Enjoyment’ first appeared in Port magazine and la Repubblica; ‘London: Open City’ first appeared in the Financial Times; ‘Where Is Everybody?’ first appeared in la Repubblica and Vrij Nederland; ‘Two Keiths and the Wrong Piano’ first appeared in Granta; ‘It Feels Like a Crime: The Devil Inside’ first appeared in the Guardian, La Stampa and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; ‘The Muse Gave Me a Kiss’ first appeared in the Guardian; ‘She Said He Said’ first appeared in the New Yorker; ‘We Are the Pollutants’ first appeared in the Guardian and la Repubblica; ‘It Was So Much Fun’ first appeared in the Guardian; ‘Starman Jones’ first appeared in the Guardian and la Repubblica; ‘His Father’s Watch’ first appeared as an afterword in The Train, Georges Simenon (Kampa Verlag, 2020); ‘The Widow’ first appeared in the Italian edition of LOVE + HATE (Bompiani, 2018); ‘Travelling to Find Out’ first appeared in the London Review of Books; ‘Why Should We Do What God Says?’ first appeared in the Times Literary Supplement; ‘Fanatics, Fundamentalists and Fascists’ first appeared in the Spectator and la Repubblica; ‘Nowhere’ first appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story magazine; ‘My Beautiful Box Set Binge’ first appeared in the Guardian; ‘An Ice Cream with Isabella’ first appeared in la Repubblica.
About the Author
Hanif Kureishi grew up in Kent and studied philosophy at King’s College London. His novels include The Buddha of Suburbia, which won the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel, The Black Album, Intimacy, The Last Word and The Nothing. His screenplays include My Beautiful Laundrette, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid and Le Week-End. He has also published several collections of short stories. Kureishi has been awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the PEN/Pinter Prize, and is a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. His work has been translated into thirty-six languages. He is professor of Creative Writing at Kingston University.
Also by the Author
PLAYS
Plays One (The King and Me, Outskirts, Borderline, Birds of Passage)
Sleep With Me
When the Night Begins
The Black Album
SCREENPLAYS
My Beautiful Laundrette & Other Writings
Sammy and Rosie Get Laid
London Kills Me
My Son the Fanatic
The Mother
Venus
Collected Screenplays 1
Le Week-End
FICTION
The Buddha of Suburbia
The Black Album
Love in a Blue Time
Intimacy
Midnight All Day
Gabriel’s Gift
The Body
Something to Tell You
Collected Stories
The Last Word
NON-FICTION
The Faber Book of Pop (edited with Jon Savage)
Dreaming and Scheming
My Ear at His Heart
The Word and the Bomb
Collected Essays
A Theft: My Con Man
LOVE + HATE
Copyright
First published in the UK in 2019
by Faber & Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2019
All rights reserved
© Hanif Kureishi, 2019
Cover design by Faber
The right of Hanif Kureishi to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–35207–4
What Happened? Page 13