Midnight All Day by Hanif Kureishi Read Free Book Online

and damp. There’s no money, only a cut of the box office. But it’s good work. It is great work!’
    She is playing the mother in The Glass Menagerie. By coincidence, the pub is at the end of my street. I tell her I am delighted.
    ‘You will come and see me, won’t you?’
    ‘But yes.’
    ‘I often wonder if you’re still upset about that holiday.’
    We have never discussed it, but now she is in the mood.
    ‘I’ve thought about it a thousand times. I wish Archie hadn’t come.’
    I laugh. It is too late; how could it matter now? ‘I mean, I wish I hadn’t brought him. Sitting in that stationary train with you scowling was the worst moment of my life. But I had thought I was going mad. I had been looking forward to the holiday. The night before we were to leave, Archie asked again if I wanted him to come. He could feel how troubled I was. As I packed I realised that if we went away together my marriage would shatter. You were about to go to America. Your film would make you successful. Women would want you. I knew you didn’t really want me.’
    This is hard. But I understand that Archie is too self-absorbed to be disturbed by her. He asks for and takes everything. He does not see her as a problem he has to solve, as I do. She has done the sensible thing, finding a man she cannot make mad.
    She goes on, ‘I required Archie’s strength and security more than passion – or love. That was love, to me. He asked, too, if I were having an affair.’
    ‘To prove that you weren’t, you invited him to come.’
    She puts her hand on my arm. ‘I’ll do anything now. Say the word.’
    I cannot think of anything I want her to do.
    For a few weeks I do not see her. We are both rehearsing. One Saturday, my wife Helen is pushing the kid in a trolley in the supermarket as I wander about with a basket. Florence comes round a corner and we begin talking at once. She is enjoying the rehearsals. The director does not push her far enough – ‘Rob, I can do much morel’ – but he will not be with her on stage, where she feels ‘queenlike’. ‘Anyhow, we’ve become friends,’ she says meaningfully.
    Archie does not like her acting; he does not want strangers looking at her, but he is wise enough to let her follow her wishes. She has got an agent; she is seeking more work. She believes she willmake it.
    After our spouses have packed away their groceries, Archie comes over and we are introduced again. He is large; his hair sticks out, his face is ruddy and his eyebrows look like a patch of corn from which a heavy creature has recently risen. Helen looks across suspiciously. Florence and I are standing close to one another; perhaps one of us is touching the other.
    At home I go into my room, hoping Helen will not knock. I suspect she won’t ask me who Florence is. She will want toknow so much that she won’t want to find out.
    Without having seen the production, I rouse myself to invite several people from the film and theatre world to see Florence’s play. Drinking in the pub beforehand, I can see that to the director’s surprise the theatre will be full; he is wondering where all these smart people in deluxe loafers have come from, scattered amongst the customary drinkers with their elbows on the beer-splashed bar, watching football on television with their heads craned up, as if looking for an astronomical wonder. I become apprehensive myself, questioning my confidence in Florence and wondering how much of it is gratitude for her encouragement of me. Even if I have put away my judgement, what does it matter? I seem to have known her for so long that she is not to be evaluated or criticised but is just a fact of my life. The last time we met in the teahouse she told me that eighteen months ago she had a benign lump removed from behind her ear. The fear that it will return has given her a new fervency.
    The bell rings. We go through a door marked ‘Theatre and Toilets’ and gropingly make our way down the steep, worn