Collected Stories by Hanif Kureishi Read Free Book Online

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