When everyone was there, and nicely drunk and laughing, Eva stood up and knocked on the table. She was smiling and caressing the back of Dad’s head as she strained to be heard. She said, ‘Can I have some quiet. Some quiet, please, for a few minutes. Everyone – please!’
There was quiet. Everyone looked at her. Dad beamed around the table.
‘There’s an announcement I must make,’ she said.
‘For God’s sake make it, then,’ Dad said.
‘I can’t,’ she said. She bent to his ear. ‘Is it still true?’ she whispered.
‘Say it,’ he said, ignoring the question. ‘Eva, everyone’s waiting.’
She stood up, put her hands together and was about to speak when she turned to Dad once more. ‘I can’t, Haroon.’
‘Say it, say it,’ we said.
‘All right. Pull yourself together, Eva. We are getting married. Yes, we’re getting married. We met, fell in love, and now we’re getting married. In two months’ time. OK? You’re all invited.’
She sat down abruptly, and Dad put his arm around her. She was speaking to him, but by now we were roaring our approval and banging the table and pouring more drinks. I raised a toast to them, and everyone cheered and clapped. It was a great, unsullied event. After this there were hours of congratulation and drinking and so many people around our table I didn’t have to talk much. I could think about the past and what I’d been through as I’d struggled to locate myself and learn what the heart is. Perhaps in the future I would live more deeply.
And so I sat in the centre of this old city that I loved, which itself sat at the bottom of a tiny island. I was surrounded by people I loved, and I felt happy and miserable at the same time. I thought of what a mess everything had been, but that it wouldn’t always be that way.
About the Author
Hanif Kureishi is the author of novels (including The Buddha of Suburbia, The Black Album and most recently Something to Tell You), story collections (Love in a Blue Time, Midnight All Day, The Body), plays (including Outskirts, Borderline and Sleep With Me), and screenplays (including My Beautiful Laundrette, My Son the Fanatic and Venus). Among his other publications are the collection of essays Dreaming and Scheming, The Word and the Bomb and the memoir My Ear at his Heart.
By the Same Author
plays
PLAYS ONE (The King and Me,
Outskirts, Borderline, Birds of Passage)
SLEEP WITH ME
WHEN THE NIGHT BEGINS
screenplays
MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE & OTHER WRITINGS
SAMMY AND ROSIE GET LAID
LONDON KILLS ME
MY SON THE FANATIC
COLLECTED SCREENPLAYS ONE
THE MOTHER
VENUS
fiction
THE BLACK ALBUM
LOVE IN A BLUE TIME
INTIMACY
MIDNIGHT ALL DAY
GABRIEL’S GIFT
THE BODY
non-fiction
THE FABER BOOK OF POP
(edited with Jon Savage)
DREAMING AND SCHEMING
MY EAR AT HIS HEART
THE WORD AND THE BOMB
Copyright
First published in 1990
by Faber and Faber Limited
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2008
All rights reserved
© Hanif Kureishi, 1990
The right of Hanif Kureishi to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
ISBN 978—0—571—24939—8 [epub edition]