The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi

Author:Hanif Kureishi [Hanif Kureishi]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780571249398
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2011-10-22T16:00:00+00:00

One night, after a rehearsal and drinks with Terry, I came into the flat to find Charlie getting dressed in Eva and Dad’s bedroom, prancing in front of a full-length mirror which leaned against the partition wall. At first I didn’t recognize him. After all, I’d seen only photographs of his new personality. His hair was dyed black now, and it was spiky. He wore, inside out, a slashed T-shirt with a red swastika hand-painted on it. His black trousers were held together by safety-pins, paperclips and needles. Over this he had a black mackintosh; there were five belts strapped around his waist and a sort of grey linen nappy attached to the back of his trousers. The bastard was wearing one of my green waistcoats, too. And Eva was weeping.

‘What’s the matter?’ I said.

‘Keep out of this,’ said Charlie, sharply.

‘Please, Charlie,’ Eva implored him. ‘Please take off the swastika. I don’t care about anything else.’

‘In that case I’ll keep it on.’

‘Charlie –’

‘I’ve always hated your fucking nagging.’

‘It’s not nagging, it’s for compassion.’

‘Right. I won’t be coming back here, Eva. You’re such a drag now. It’s your age. Is it the menopause that’s making you like this?’

Beside Charlie on the floor was a pile of clothes from which he pulled jackets, macs and shirts before throwing them aside as unsuitable. He then applied black eye-liner. He walked out of the flat without looking at either of us. Eva screamed after him, ‘Think of those who died in the camps! And don’t expect me to be there tonight, you pig! Charlie, you can forget my support for ever!’

As arranged, I went to Charlie’s gig that night, at a club in Soho. I took Eva with me. It didn’t take much to persuade her to come and nothing would have prevented me from seeing precisely what it was that had turned my schoolfriend into what the Daily Express called ‘a phenomena’. I even made sure we got there an hour early in order to take everything in. Even then the queue for the gig stretched around the block. Eva and I walked among the kids. Eva was excited and perplexed and intimidated by the crowd. ‘How has Charlie done this?’ she kept asking. ‘We’ll soon find out,’ I said. ‘Do their mothers know they’re here?’ she asked. ‘Does he really know what he’s doing, Karim?’ Some of the kids were as young as twelve; most were about seventeen. They were dressed like Charlie, mostly in black. Some of them had orange-or blue-streaked hair, making them look like cockatoos. They elbowed and fought and gave each other tongue-sandwiches, and spat at passers-by and in each other’s faces, there in the cold and rain of decaying London, with the indifferent police looking on. As a concession to the New Wave I wore a black shirt, black jeans, white socks and black suede shoes, but I knew I had uninteresting hair. Not that I was the only one: some older men in 1960s expensive casual

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