A short story

For days he had been fearful of this night but wanted to believe he was ready.

However, when he arrived at the party, bearing a bottle of champagne, he started to feel afraid that people would notice, that they would be able to tell right away what had happened to him, and how he had changed. He wondered if his friends would think badly of him. He considered who would be hostile, who envious and who sympathetic. It was consuming him.

His friends were modernising the house. The floorboards were still bare and some walls unpainted. Wires hung from their sockets; tinsel hung from the wires. The hostess hurried past, wearing antlers. The host, bearing a tray of mince pies, either didn't recognise Brett or took him for granted.

Brett sidled in, shocked that his paranoia hadn't diminished with age even as his reasonable side told him how unlikely it was that anyone would be in any state to take a close interest in him. "Brett, Brett!" someone shouted.

"Hallo there!" he replied. "Whoever you are!"

He had deliberately left it late; the room was crowded. He knew most of the revellers, who were of his age. Now he was able to think about it, he had known some of them for more than twenty years.

He kissed and greeted those nearby and went into the kitchen. These were well-off people; they would give a good party. The trestle table was bent with the load of bottles, cans and food. He added the champagne to the load and looked around.

He wasn't about to drink lemonade. Someone put a glass of wine in his hand. It was a good idea, the perfect cover.

Recently he had been going to the theatre and cinema, and had stayed to the end; he had read at least three books all the way through. This was the first party he'd been to since the incident "by the river", as he called it. He had made up his mind to stay a while. There were things it would do him good to look straight at.

He returned to the living room. To his relief, a sombre male friend joined him and began to talk. From where Brett sat, occasionally asking a question, he could observe the other people.

He watched a man trying to zip up his sweater. The zip stuck; it wouldn't budge. The man pulled it apart and began again. He couldn't get the serrated edges together, and when they did click, they wouldn't move. This went on for some time. Finally the man took the thing off, joined the parts together on his lap and tried to pull it over his head, where it lodged. Others joined in then, tugging the sweater and the man in different directions.

Brett was distracted from this by a wet-eyed acquaintance who was dribbling already; his head was bent. Walking like an old man, he looked as though he might collapse. Another friend pulled Brett up, stood close to him, and shouted in first one ear and then the other. When it was obvious that Brett didn't understand, the friend brought a companion over and together they yelled at Brett, or, it seemed, yelled to him, laughing at one another.

Brett was nodding his head. "I see, I see now."

"That's it!" said the first friend. "Brett is with us! Hello Brett!"

Brett didn't understand why they had to stand so near, or why they kept plucking at him. The only thing to do was to have a drink. That was the key to things here; then he would know. But he couldn't have a drink.

Luckily, Francine fell into the sofa on the other side of him.

"There you are Brett, darling. Thank God you're here. Some of these bloody people are boring fuckers!"

"Are they?"

"You know they are!"

She had made the effort: her lips were bright, her black clothes expensive, her hair colouring and cut the best. She wore high-heeled black suede boots. He noticed, though, when talking to her, that her eyes kept closing, even as she told a story about getting stuck in a lift with her boss. During this narcoleptic monologue, she spilled her drink over him.

He stood up.

"Oh God, God, God! So sorry!" she said. "I've made you wet." She was pulling at his wrist. "Sit down!" She wiped his leg with her hand; she dried her hand on the sofa. "Don't look so grumpy. You did the same to me once. Except it went over my breasts."

He looked at her breasts. "I didn't."

"You won't remember. You don't remember anything, remember?"

"No," he said. "I don't think I do."

If he'd forgotten, it wasn't only that dissipation had wiped his memory: he hadn't properly been there in the first place.

"You are out of your mind." Francine shifted closer to him and stroked his hair. "Your face is smooth. You've shaved, for a change. But you really are gone, this time."

"Perhaps I am," he said, and chuckled. "Please tell me what you're talking about."

"First you can give me some of that. Brett, you owe me."

Her hands were in his crotch, searching for his pockets.

She said: "Your face is white, dear! I've never seen you so tense or wide-eyed. Is it that pure stuff people are talking about? You shouldn't be taking it, with your blood pressure. Give it to me and get to the rehab!"

"Is there really something wrong with me, Francine? Tell me if you think there is."

"What's right with you! You haven't laughed at anything I've said."

"You haven't said anything funny."

"Don't be a fool, Brett."

"Stop that fiddling!" he said. "There's absolutely nothing for you in my pocket."

It didn't discourage her. "You banged your head when you fell in the river. That's what did you in. Isn't that right?" She was laughing with her mouth open. "What were you doing down there, by the river?"

"Looking around."

"Come on."

People loved this story; they rang to ask about it, and it was repeated around town. He couldn't deny her.

He said: "I got Carol to stop the cab after that party because I needed a pee and didn't want people to see me."

"Is that why you climbed over the wall and slipped?"

"With my cock out, actually, all the way down the ramp. Right into the cold river, I feared. But into the cold mud, luckily."

"Didn't Rowena and Carol haul you out?"

"Haul me out?" he said. "They were tottering around hysterically at the top. I could hear them screeching like a zoo. I was told Rowena rang her agent who was having dinner at Gaga and asked him what to do."

"What did the agent say? I told her to get rid of that fish. I can fix her up with Morton. He did that deal for Ronnie. Maybe I should arrange-"

Brett said: "If you really want to know about it, the taxi driver pulled me out. Otherwise I would have gone down for good and that, as they say, would have been that. He had blankets in the boot, which he wrapped me in. He took me home. I guess I messed up his car. D'you think it's too late to call him and apologise?"

"Where did Carol and Rowena go after?"

"Don't know."

The taxi driver had been tall and dark-skinned, a north African of some sort, wearing worn-out shoes. At home, Brett invited him in and made tea. The man sat there with Brett's mud on him and said he was a law student with two children. He studied half the time and drove the rest; sometimes he slept; occasionally he played with his children.

Brett offered him dry clothes. When the man refused, Brett tried to give him money for his dry-cleaning bill. At this, the man raised his hands in protest.

"What's wrong?" Brett had asked.

"You don't understand!"

"Please tell me-"

"But anyone would have done this thing!"

"Yes, of course!" said Brett. The man seemed relieved. "I see, I do see," said Brett.

He shook the man's hand.

Drinking tea only, Brett had thought about this for the rest of the night and went over it again the next day.

Probably the man was religious. But you didn't need religion to save someone. It had not been a sentimental gesture, but what you did when someone fell.

Now Brett watched people shouting at one another; they would laugh inexplicably, their mouths almost touching. No one was listening, but what was there to hear? People's words were not in any recognisable order and their gestures unrelated to anything they said. A couple dancing looked as though they were wrestling.

Brett kissed Francine's cheek. "It's time I made a move."

"Already? That's the best suggestion I've heard in minutes."

They went out into the hall, where she started talking to someone. She and the other person went into the bathroom and Brett left the house.

Outside he lit a cigarette and looked for his car keys. It was frosty and still. From the house opposite he could hear voices singing, and a piano.

He had walked to the gate when she was behind him, one arm in her coat.

"You tried to sneak off without me. Would I leave you here alone! Have I ever done that to you? Here's the keys I took from your pocket."

He helped her on with the coat and said: "You live way across town."

"We're going on to Gaga! Please, just for a bit. Then you can take me home."

"I don't want to go to Gaga, but I'll drop you off there, if you want."

"How will I get home?"

"How have you got home every night for the last fifteen years?"

"What nonsense you talk, Brett. Come on, you've got to sober up for the drive."

In the car, she was smoking. Her skirt was up.

"You behave so badly, Brett. But somehow I always forgive you."

"Thank you," he said. "Jesus. Have you seen what's going on tonight?"

He drove slowly. The high street was more than busy. Crowds gathered outside bars and clubs. People ran in the road; they shouted and a man threw a punch; there were ambulances and police cars about. He slowed to a stop and waved at the cars behind him. Someone was lying face down in the road. Others were trying to pull the person to the pavement but couldn't decide which side of the road was best.

He said: "What you just said sounded strange but intriguing. What do I have to be forgiven for?"

"Brett, where is the light in this wretched car?"

She had managed to empty her bag on the floor and was bent double trying to reclaim her credit cards, cocaine, numerous pills and keys.

He thought he was bleeding. He reached up and realised it was snowing on his head. Slush ran down the back of his neck. Looking for the light, she had released the sunroof. He left it open.

She was saying: "Forget all that, Brett, the thing is, I think we both need to go away. It's that time of the year. How about Rio?"

"Now?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"It's too far."

"Paris? It's only up the road now."

"What would we do?"

"Eat, drink, go out."

"I don't want to do that any more."

"What else is there?"

He said: "Where am I going to park?"

She had already opened the car door and was heading towards the members' club, plumping her hair and squirting perfume at her throat.

"See you inside!" she called.

They knew him at Gaga. At the end of the night they often called cabs for him and lent him money to pay for them.

When he pushed the familiar glass door and stepped across the carpet which he remembered, on occasion, feeling against his cheek, he saw a former business partner with mistletoe attached to his forehead by bands of Sellotape.

He pulled Brett to him and started kissing him. "It's you - you, you bastard! The one who let me down! Now we're both bankrupt!"

"Yes, yes," said Brett. "That's right!"

"Been swimming in the river I hear! How are you doing now?" It took his friend a while to find the words. He was so pleased, he repeated them. "You doing . . . you doing swimmingly . . ." he went, laughing to himself. "Won't sit down! Busy with something!"

"Right."

Brett bought Francine a drink and one for himself. How expensive it was! How much money he had spent on it over the years, not to mention the energy!

In the bathroom, he threw the drink away and filled his glass with water. What a beautiful drink water was. The smell of the alcohol had made him feel sick.

He took a seat at the bar and watched the man with the mistletoe weave about until he dropped into a sofa. There he went to some trouble to relocate the mistletoe in his open fly. Then he leaned back with his knees apart and began on the business - giggling the while - of attracting the waitress's attention.

Over the years, Brett must have sat on all the bar stools and armchairs in the place. He could see a group of his friends settling down to play cards, Johnny, Chris, Carol and Mike. They would be there for a long time; later they'd go somewhere else. On any other night he'd have joined them.

The aggression in Gaga seemed high; people wanted help and attention, but they were asking the wrong people, asking others just like them. Some of them were wired, with their eyes popping; others were exhausted with failing heads. Odd it was how people took substances that made them feel worse, that made everything worse in the end. Dissipation was gruelling work, a full-time job. Yet things did get done; these people had professions. Brett had to be grateful: at least he had kept his flat and job. He'd only lost his wife.

If he didn't sit with his friends - and he wouldn't; he was cold, while they were hot with enthusiasm - where else was there? How did you find other people? After all, it wasn't only him, or his circle, like this. It was his ex-wife's father, his own sister and her boyfriend who sat around with cans and bottles, fighting and weeping. Or they had been "cured" but had become addicted to the cure, as tedious off the stuff as they had been on it.

Francine had taken her drink and gone to join a group of people. He noticed she continued to watch him, knowing he might shrug her off and leave. He didn't see why this would matter to her.

Brett was content to think of the north African, wondering whether something about the man had influenced him. Like the taxi driver, Brett seemed to be in a world where everyone resembled him but spoke in a foreign language. If the man stayed in England, he would always struggle to understand it, never quite connecting.

He had helped Brett; why shouldn't Brett help him? Brett imagined himself turning up at the man's house, offering to do anything. But what might he do? Wash up or read to the children? Take them all to the cinema? Why shouldn't he do it, now he felt better? The man might be too shy or suspicious for such things, yet surely he had to stop work for lunch or supper? Brett could listen to him. There was no accounting for why or how people could like one another.

Brett got down from the stool.

"No you don't." Francine came over and put her tongue in his mouth. "You take me home. You've been coming on to me all night. Oh Brett, please take me home."

"I will do that," he said. "Don't worry, I won't go without you."

He didn't mind taking her home. He had come to dislike his own street and thought he should move to another district. Apart from the fact that a change would do him good, living nearby was a woman he passed often, an ex-barmaid. If she recognised him, which he doubted, she never acknowledged him. She had four children by different fathers, and the youngest was his, he knew it. He had stayed with her one night after a party, four years ago. When he made the calculation, it added up. A drinking acquaintance pointed it out. "Look at that kid. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were the father."

He had gone to the playground to watch the child. It was true; she had his own mother's hair and eyes. He had seen the woman shout at the girl. He didn't like passing his only daughter in the street.

In the car, Francine was drinking from a bottle of wine.

"Haven't you had enough yet?" he said. "Can't you just stop?"

"Tonight I'm going the whole way."

"Why?"

"That's a fatuous question."

"But I would like to know, really."

"Stop getting at me, Brett! I can't take it tonight!"

She started to cry, talking all the while. She didn't think to spare him her misery; perhaps it didn't occur to her that he would be concerned.

The north African man drove strangers night after night, despised or invisible among abhorrent fools who had so much of everything they could afford to piss it away.

At Francine's block of flats, he helped her upstairs. He put the lights on and led her to bed. She thrashed about, as if the mattress were a runaway horse she had to master.

He turned his back but she couldn't remove her clothes. He got her into her pyjamas and kissed her on the side of the head.

"Goodnight, Francine."

"Don't leave me! You're staying, aren't you? I-"

She was clawing at his chest. She was an awful colour. He ran for the washing-up bowl and held it by her face. She was groaning.

"Is this it? Is this it?" she kept asking. "Is it now, tonight?"

"Is it what, Francine?"

"Death! Is he here? Has William Burroughs come to call?"

"Not tonight, sweetheart. Lie back."

"Oh God, I wish I were a baby."

"Why?"

"I'd be protected at least. I think I believed, for a long time, that everything would be all right. But why, why should it be? Hold me!"

Her vomit splattered the walls; it went over his jacket, his shoes, trousers and shirt, and in his hair.

At the end she did lie back, exhausted. He removed her soiled pyjamas and put her into a dressing gown.

He was sitting there. She extended her arms to him. "Come on, Brett."

"You're pretty sick, Francine."

"I've finished. There's nothing left. You can do what you want to me." She was shivering but she opened her dressing gown. "That's something no one ever says no to!"

"What difference would it make?"

"Who cares about that! Fetch yourself a drink and settle down. I've always liked you."

"Have you?"

"Don't you know that? Despite your problems, you're bright and you can be sweet. Won't you tell me what you are on tonight, Brett?"

He shook his head and put a glass of water to his lips. "Nothing. Nothing."

"There must be someone else you're going to. That's a rotten thing to do to a woman."

He thought for a time. "There is no woman. It's a taxi driver."

"Christ!"

"Yes."

"The one who fished you out? You won't know where he is."

"I'll go to the cab office and wait. They know me there. He'll understand what I want."

She said: "You enjoyed sleeping with me last time."

"What last time? There wasn't any last time."

"Don't pretend to be a fool when you're not. Get in."

She was patting the bed.

He walked to the door and shut it behind him. She was still talking, to him, to anyone and no one.

"There's someone I've got to find," he said.

Copyright Hanif Kureishi 2001. Hanif Kureishi's new novel, Gabriel's Gift, is published by Faber and Faber (£9.99)

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