by Hanif Kureishi

I'm at this dinner. She's eighteen. After knowing her six months I've been invited to meet her parents. I am, to my surprise, forty-four, same age as her dad, a professor--a man of some achievement, but not that much. He is looking at me or, as I imagine, looking me over. The girl-woman will always be his daughter, but for now she is my lover. Her two younger sisters are at the table, also beautiful, but with a tendency to giggle, particularly when facing in my direction. The mother, a teacher, is putting the food on the table, it's trout, pink and soft, and will melt on the tongue. And there's salad and potatoes and wine...And I think, for once, yes, this is the life, what they call a happy family, they've asked to meet me, why not settle down and enjoy it?

But what happens, the moment I'm comfortable I've got to have a crap. In all things I'm irregular. It's been two days now and not a dry pellet. And the moment I sit down in my better clothes with the family I've got to go. These are good people but they're a little severe, and who can argue, do they want their daughter with me, you know. I bring disadvantages, my age, no job, never had one, and my...tendencies. I like to say, though I won't tonight, unless things get out of hand, that my profession is failure, at which, after years of practice, I'm quite a success at.

On the way I stopped off for a couple of drinks, otherwise I'd never have come through the door, and now I'm sipping wine and discussing the latest films not too facetiously and my hands aren't shaking and my little girl is down the table smiling at me warm and encouraging. For once everything is normal, you see, except for this gut-ache, which is getting worse, you know how it is when you've got to go. But I won't get upset, I'll have a crap, feel better and then eat. I ask one of the sisters where it is and she kindly points at a door off the kitchen, where we're eating. It must be the nearest, thank Christ, and I get across the room stooping a little but no way the family's gonna see me as a hunchback and in no time I've nipped behind the door. In here it's tiny, a little bigger than a phone booth; there's no sink, nothing but carpet and books, but I'm safe.

I sit down concerned they're gonna hear every splash but it's too late; the knotty little head is already pushing out, a flower coming through the earth, but thick and long and I'm not even straining. I can feel its soft motion through my gut, in one piece. It's been awaiting its moment the way things do, like love. I close my eyes and appreciate the relief as the corpse of days past slides into its watery grave. When I'm finished I can't resist glancing down--even the Queen does this--and the turd is complete, wide as an aubergine and purplish too, flecked with carrot, I notice taking a closer look, but ah, that's tomato, I remember now, practically the only thing I've eaten in twenty- four hours.

I flush the toilet and check my look. Tired and greying I am now, with a cut above my eye and a bruise on my cheek, but I've shaved and feel as OK as I ever will, still with the boyish smile that says I can't harm you. And waiting is the girl who loves me, the last of many, I hope, who sends me vibrations of confidence. My hand is on the door when I glance down and see the prow of the turd turning the bend. Oh no, it's floating in the pan again and I'm bending down for a better look. It's one of the biggest turds I've ever seen. The flushing downpour has rinsed it and there's no doubt that as turds go it is exquisite, flecked and inlaid like a mosaic depicting, perhaps, a historical scene. I can make out large figures going at one another in argument. The faces I'm sure I've seen before. I can see some words but I haven't got my glasses to hand.

I could have photographed the turd, had I brought a camera, had I ever owned one. But now I can't hang around, the trout must be cooling and they're too polite to start eating without me. The problem is, the turd is bobbing. I'm waiting for the cistern to refill and every drip is an eternity, I can feel the moments stretching out, and outside I can hear the murmured voices of my love's family but I can't leave that submarine there and the mother goes in and sees it wobbling about. She knows I've been in the clinic and can see I'm drinking again; I've been watching my consumption, as they say, but I can't stop and she's gonna take her daughter to one side and...

I've been injecting my little girl. "What a lovely way to take drugs," she says sweetly. She wants to try everything. I don't argue with that and I won't patronize her. Anyhow, she's a determined little blonde thing, and for her friends it's fashionably exciting. I could tell she'd made up her mind to become an addict. It took me days to hunt out the best stuff for her, pharmaceutical. It's been five years for me, but I took it with her to make sure she didn't make a mistake. Except an ex-boyfriend caught up with us later, took me into a doorway and split my face for corrupting her. Yet she skips school to be with me and we take in Kensington Market and Chelsea, the history in fashion and music of which I explain. The records I say listen to, the books I hold out, the bands I've played with, the creative people I tell her of, the deep talks we have, are worth as much as anything she hears at school, I know that. But all the same, I'm terrified of what I'm getting into.

At last I flush it again and imagine my love outside the door waiting for me. Girls like her...it is easy to speak of exploitation, and people do. But it is time and encouragement I give them...I know from experience, oh yes, how critical and diminishing parents can be and I say try, I say yes, attempt anything....And I in my turn, am someone for them to care for. It breaks my heart but I've got, maybe, two years with her before she sees I can't be helped and she will pass beyond me into interesting worlds I cannot enter. I pray only she isn't pulling up her sleeve and stroking her tracks, imagining her friends being impressed by those mascots, the self-inflicted scars of experience; those girls are dedicated to the truth, and like to show their parents how defiant they can be.

I'm reaching for the door, the water is clear and I imagine the turd swimming towards Ramsgate. But no, no, no, don't look down, what's that, the brown bomber must have an aversion to the open sea. The monstrous turd is going nowhere and nor am I while it remains an eternal recurrence. I flush it again and wait but it won't leave its port and what am I going to do, this must be an existential moment and all my days have converged here. I'm trembling and running with sweat but not yet lost; I can, if pressed, become a master of improvisation. The next thing is: I'm rolling up the sleeves of my Italian suit, it's an old suit, but it's my best jacket, I don't have a lot of clothes, I wear what people give me, what I find in the places I end up, and what I steal.

I'm crying inside too, you know, but what can I do but stick my hand down the pan, into the pissy water, that's right, oh dark, dark, dark, and fish around until my fingers sink into the turd, get a muddy grip and yank it from the water. for a moment it seems to come alive, wriggling like a fish. My instinct is to calm it down,and I look around the bathroom for a place to bash it, but not if it's going to splatter everywhere, I wouldn't want them imagining I'm on some kind of dirty protest...

I try to steady my mind and think soon I'll be out of here into life again. By now they must have started eating, unless they're still waiting, and asking where is he? And what am I doing but standing here with a giant turd in my fist and not only that my fingers seem to adhere to the turd; bits of my flesh are pulled away and my hand is turning brown. I must have eaten something unusual, because my nails and the palms are turning the color of gravy. My love's radiant eyes, her loving softness. But in all ways she is a demanding girl. She insists on trying other drugs, and in the afternoons we play like children, dressing up and inventing characters, until my compass no longer points to Reality. I am her assistant as she tests the limits of the world. How far out can she go and still be home in time for tea? I have to try and keep up, for she is my comfort. With her I am living my life again, but too quickly all at once.

And in the end, to get clear, to live her life, she will leave me; or, to give her a chance, I must leave her. I dream, though, of marriage and of putting the children to bed. But for all that, I am told, it is already too late. How soon things become too late, and before one has acclimatized! I glance unbelievingly at the turd and notice something, oh no, yes it's true, oh no it's not, I can see little teeth in its velvet head and a little mouth opening and it's smiling at me, oh no, it's smiling and what's that, it's winking, yes, the piece of shit is winking up at me, and what's that at the other end, a sort of tail, it's moving, yes it's moving, and oh Jesus, it's trying to say something, to speak, no, no, I think it wants to sing, yes and even though it is somewhere stated that the truth may be found anywhere and the universe of dirt may send strange messengers to speak to us, the last thing I want, right now in my life, is a singing turd.

I want to smash the turd back down into the water and hold it under and run out of there, but the mother, when the mother comes in and I'm scoffin the trout and she's taking down her drawers I'm gonna worry that the turd lurking around the bend's gonna flip up like a piranha and attach itself to her cunt, maybe after singing a sarcastic ditty, and she's going to have an impression of me that I don't want. But I won't dwell on that, I'm going to think constructively where possible even though its bright little eyes are glinting and the mouth is moving and it has developed scales under which ooze--don't think about it. And what's that, little wings...

I grab the toilet roll and rip off about a mile of paper and start wrapping it around the turd, around and around, so those eyes are never gonna look at me again, and smile in that way. But even in its paper shroud it's warm and getting warmer, warm as life, and practically throbbing and giving off odours. I look desperately around the room for somewhere to stuff it, a pipe or behind a book, but it's gonna reek, I know that, and if it's gonna start moving, that's what I'm afraid of, it could end up anywhere in the house; and my arms are turning brown...and I'm getting warm, I'm wet with fear, my whole body feels slimy...

There's a knocking on the door. I freeze. It happens again, and gets louder and more urgent. A voice too--my love. I'm about to reply oh love love when I hear other, less affectionate raised voices. An argument is taking place. Someone is turning the handle; another person is kicking at the door. Almost on me, they're trying to smash it in! I will chuck it out the window! I rest the turd on the sill and drag up the casement with both hands. But suddenly I am halted by the sky. As a boy I'd lie on my back watching clouds; as a teenager I swore that in a less hectic future I would contemplate the sky until its beauty passed into my soul, like the soothing pictures I've wanted to study, bathing in the colours and textures of paint, the cities I've wanted to walk, loafing, the aimless conversations I wanted to have--one day, a constructive aimlessness.

Now the wind is in my face, lifting me, and I am about to fall. But I hang on and instead throw the turd, like a warm pigeon, and scream, out out into the air, turd-bird awayaway. I wash my hands in the sink, flush the toilet once more, and turn back to life. On, on, one goes, despite everything, not knowing why or how.