Midnight All Day by Hanif Kureishi

Author:Hanif Kureishi [Hanif Kureishi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571268078
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 1999-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

They were standing, a few days later, in the cramped kitchen looking out over the garden in which she, her father and younger brother had played tennis over a tiny net, when Marcia decided to tell her mother the good news.

‘Aurelia Broughton wrote to me. You know, the writer. You’ve heard of her, haven’t you?’

‘I have heard of her‚’ her mother said.

Mother was small but wide. She wore two knitted jumpers and a heavy cardigan, which made her look even bigger.

Mother said, ‘I’ve heard of lots of writers. What does she want from you?’

Alec went into the garden and kicked a ball. Marcia wished her father were alive to do this with him. They all missed having a man around.

‘Aurelia liked my work.’ Marcia felt she had the right to call the writer Aurelia; they would become friends. ‘She wants to talk about it. It’s great, isn’t it? She’s interested in what I’m doing.’

Her mother said, ‘You’d better lend me one of her books so I can keep up.’

‘I’m re-reading them myself at the moment.’

‘Not during the day. You’re at school.’

‘I read at school.’

‘You never let me join in. I’m pushed to one side. These are the last years of my life –’

Marcia interrupted her. ‘I’ll be needing to write a bit in the next couple of weeks.’

This meant her mother would have to keep Alec in the evenings, and for some of the weekend. His father took him on Saturday afternoons, and returned him on Sunday.

Marcia said, ‘Could he spend Sunday with you?’ Her mother assumed her ‘put-upon’ face. ‘Please.’

Mother formed the same expressions today as she had in the past when caring for two children and a husband, and had made it obvious by her suffering that she found her family overwhelming and pleasureless. Depressives certainly had strong wills, killing off sentient life for miles around them.

‘I had a little date, but I’ll cancel it‚’ said Mother.

‘If it’s not too much trouble.’

Since Marcia’s father had died six years ago, Mother had started going to museums and galleries. In the evenings, after a smoked salmon and cream cheese supper, she went often to the theatre and cinema. For the first time since she was young, she had friends with whom she attended lectures and concerts, sailing home in a taxi, spending the money Father had received on retirement. She had even taken up smoking. Mother had grasped that it was a little late for hopelessness.

Marcia didn’t want to wait thirty years.

She had, recently, gained a terrible awareness of life. It might have started when she began meeting men through the dating agency, which had made her feel – well, morbid. Until recently, she had lived as if one day there would be a salve for her wounds; that someone, a parent, lover, benefactor, would pluck her from chaos.

Marcia didn’t become a teacher until she was almost thirty. She and her husband had started wanting to smash at one another’s faces. She had, literally, kicked him out of bed; he ran into the street wearing pyjamas and slippers.

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