Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi Read Free Book Online

fifties. My parents remained in the same house all their lives. Mother was only partially there. Most of the day she sat, inert and obese, in her chair. She hardly spoke – except to dispute; she never touched anyone, and often wept, hating herself and all of us: a lump of living death. She wouldn’t wash; there were cobwebs in all the rooms; the plates and cutlery were greasy. We hardly changed our clothes. All effort was a trouble and she lived on the edge of panic, as if everything was about to break down. Occasionally there were reminders of life, a smile or joke, even a conversation. But these were rare, and she was gone. For a long time I had the strange feeling that she reminded me of someone I used to know.
    She was aware of it, in some way.
    â€˜Selfish,’ she called herself, because her mind hurt so much she could only think of herself. She didn’t know how to enjoy other people, the world, or her own body. I was afraid to approach her, since with such a mother you never knew whether she wouldsend you away or put out her arms for a kiss. My existence was a disturbance. Being a burden, or interruption, I couldn’t ask her for anything. But if she didn’t like me, I did cause her to worry. And I worried about her worrying. Anxiety handcuffed us to one another. At least we had something in common.
    When I was nominated for the Oscar and I rang to tell her, she said, ‘Will you have to go all that way to America? It’s a long way.’
    â€˜Thanks for the concern,’ I said.
    When we were older money was short. Father refused to look for another job and he wouldn’t move to a different part of the country. Nothing was allowed to happen until he ‘made it’. Mother was forced to find employment. She was a school dinner lady; she worked in factories and offices; she worked in a shop. I think the compulsion and other people were better for her than sitting at home.
    The day I started to live with my sad girlfriend in London, I went home to pick up my things. I imagined it would be the first and last time I would leave home. I didn’t know I’d be making a habit of it. My parents sat in separate armchairs, watching me carryout my records. What was there left for them to do? Hadn’t I rendered them irrelevant?
    But when my brother and I left, our parents started going to art galleries, to the cinema, for walks and on long holidays. They took a new interest in one another, and couldn’t get enough of life. Victor says that once the lights on a love have dimmed, you can never illuminate them again, any more than you can reheat a soufflé. But my parents went through the darkness and discovered a new intimacy.
    Can’t you, then, apply yourself? Susan often accuses me of lack of application. It was what my teachers said, that I didn’t concentrate. But I was concentrating. I believe the mind is always concentrated – on something that interests it. Skirts and jokes and cricket and pop, in my case. Despite ourselves, we know what we like, and our errors and distracted excursions are illuminations. Perhaps only the unsought is worthwhile – like Nina’s face and the caresses of her long fingers.
    Not loving Susan I insist on seeing as a weakness, as my failure and my responsibility. But what is the point of leaving if this failure reproduces itself with every woman? Suppose it is like an illness that yougive to everyone you meet? Wouldn’t I have to keep a bag permanently packed by any door I had taken refuge behind?
    I don’t want to think of that.
    My bag sits on the floor.
    I will be needing pens and paper on my journey. I won’t want to forfeit any important emotion. I will pursue my feelings like a detective, looking for clues to the crime, writing as I read myself within. I want an absolute honesty that doesn’t merely involve saying how awful one is. How do I like to write? With a soft pencil and a hard dick – not