Midnight All Day by Hanif Kureishi Read Free Book Online Page A

stairs into a cellar, converted into a small theatre. The programme is a single sheet, handed to us by the director as we go in. The room smells musty, and despite the dark the place is shoddy; there is a pillar in front of me I could rest my cheek on. Outside I hear car alarms, and from upstairs the sound of cheering men. But in this small room the silence is charged by concentration and the hope of some home-made magnificence.For the first time in years I am reminded of the purity and intensity of the theatre.
    When I get out at the interval I notice Archie pulling himself up the stairs behind me. At the top, panting, he takes my arm to steady himself. I buy a drink, and, in order to be alone, go and stand outside the pub. I am afraid that if my friends, the ‘important’ people, remain after the interval it is because I would disapprove if they left; and if they praise Florence to me, it is only because they would have guessed the ulterior connection. The depth and passion Florence has on stage is clear to me. But I know that what an artist finds interesting about their own work, the part they consider original and penetrating, will not necessarily compel an audience, who might not even notice it, but only attend to the story.
    Archie’s head pokes around the pub door. His eyes find me and he comes out. I notice he has his son, Ben, with him.
    ‘Hallo, Rob, where’s Matt?’ says Ben.
    ‘Mart’s my son,’ I explain to Archie. ‘He’s in bed, I hope.’
    ‘You happen to know one another?’ Archie says.
    I tug at Ben’s baseball cap. ‘We bump into one another in the park.’
    ‘In the teahouse,’ says the boy. ‘He and Mummy love to talk.’ He looks at me. ‘She would love to act in a film you were in. So would I. I’m going to be an actor. The boys at school think you’re the best.’
    ‘Thank you.’ I look at Archie. ‘Expensive school too, I bet.’
    He stands there looking away, but his mind is working.
    I say to Ben, ‘What do you think of Mummy in this play?’
    ‘Brilliant.’
    ‘What is your true opinion?’ says Archie to me. ‘As a man of the theatre and film?’
    ‘She seems at ease on stage.’
    ‘Will she go any further?’
    ‘The more she does it, the better she will get.’
    ‘Is that how it works?’ he says. ‘Is that how you made it?’
    ‘Partly. I am talented, too.’
    He looks at me with hatred and says, ‘She will do it more, you think?’
    ‘If she is to improve she will have to.’
    He seems both proud and annoyed, with a cloudy look, as if the familiar world is disappearing into the mist. Until now she has followed him. I wonder whether he will be able to follow her, and whether she will want him to.
    I have gone inside and found my friends, when he is at my elbow, interrupting, with something urgent to say.
    ‘I love Florence more and more as time passes,’ he tells me. ‘Just wanted you to know that.’
    ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Good.’
    ‘Right,’ he says. ‘Right. See you downstairs.’

Four Blue Chairs
    After a lunch of soup, bread and tomato salad, John and Dina go out on to the street. At the bottom of the steps they stop for a moment and he slips his arm through hers as he always does. They have been keen to establish little regularities, to confirm that they are used to doing things together.
    Today the sun beats down and the city streets seem deserted, as if everyone but them has gone on holiday. At the moment they feel they are on a kind of holiday themselves.
    They would prefer to carry blankets, cushions, the radio and numerous lotions out on to the patio. Weeds push up between the paving stones and cats lie on the creeper at the top of the fence as the couple lie there in the afternoons, reading, drinking fizzy lemonade and thinking over all that has happened.
    Except that the store has rung to say the four blue chairs are ready. Dina and John can’t wait for them to be delivered, but must fetch them this afternoon because Henry is coming to