Love in a Blue Time (22 page)

Baxter wants to ask Gerard why he is interested in these conversations, but it soon ceases to matter. Something is different. Gerard has aroused in him a motivating desperation.
At night he no longer lies on the floor being devoured. He paces, yes; but at least this is movement, and nothing will stick to him. There is something still alive within him, in both of them, which the flies have been unable to kill off.

Near dawn one night Baxter wakes up and can’t go back to sleep. In his cot the boy sucks at his bottle. Baxter places his finger in the boy’s fist; he holds his father tight. Baxter waits until he can withdraw without waking him. From the cot he takes a little wooden rattle. He dresses in silence, puts the rattle in his pocket, and walks towards the wardrobe. It is a while since he has poked at anything in there. It seems fruitless now.

He steps out onto the street. As he goes past the bearded man’s house and that of his female neighbour he sees a black cloud in the sky ahead of him. There will be a storm, no doubt about it. Soon he is lost, but he keeps his eyes on the cloud, making his way through narrow streets and alleys; he traverses wide roads and, eventually, crosses the river, trying to think of what, yet, might be done. He sees other men who are, perhaps, like him, travelling through the night with mementoes in their pockets, searching for different fears; or popping out of doorways to stand still and stare upwards, thinking of too much to notice anyone, before walking determinedly in one direction, and then in another.

The cloud, as he walks towards it, seems to explode. It separates and breaks up into thousands of tiny fragments. It is a cloud of flies which lifts and breaks, sweeping upwards into the indifferent sky.

Hanif Kureishi grew up in Kent and studied philosophy at King’s College London. His novels include
The Buddha of Suburbia
, which won the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel,
The Black Album, Intimacy
and
The Last Word.
His screenplays include
My Beautiful Laundrette,
which received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay,
Sammy and Rosie Get Laid
and
Le Week-End
. He has also published several collections of short stories. He has been awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and been translated into thirty-six languages.

PLAYS

Plays One (
The King and Me, Outskirts, Borderline, Birds of Passage
)

Sleep With Me

When the Night Begins

The Black Album

SCREENPLAYS

My Beautiful Laundrette & Other Writings

Sammy and Rosie Get Laid

London Kills Me

My Son the Fanatic

The Mother

Venus

Collected Screenplays 1

Le Week-End

FICTION

The Buddha of Suburbia

The Black Album

Love in a Blue Time

Intimacy

Midnight All Day

Gabriel’s Gift

The Body

Something to Tell You

Collected Stories

NON-FICTION

The Faber Book of Pop (edited with Jon Savage)

Dreaming and Scheming

My Ear at His Heart

The Word and the Bomb

Collected Essays