Free Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi Page A

home Susan and I laid bets on how long the marriage would last. We laughed for the first time in ages, and I wondered how much recognition there was in our mirth.

These days I think often of the couples I know
    These days I think often of the couples I know or have met, and consider which of them is in love. There are some. It is tangible, you can see it between them, and feel the depth of their pleasure. Not long ago, at the kids’ open day, I noticed a couple who were not engrossed in one another – they had things to do. But they were continuously aware of one another. Then, as their child ran about, and she thought no one was looking, she couldn’t wait any longer, and she thrust her hand into her husband’s hair and he kissed her.
    No wonder everyone wants it – as if they haveknown such love before and can barely remember it, yet are compelled ever after to seek it as the single thing worth living for. Without love, most of life remains concealed. Nothing is as fascinating as love, unfortunately.

It is beguiling how, in good relationships 
    It is beguiling how, in good relationships, even after years, formerly undiscovered parts of people are suddenly exposed, as in an archaeological dig. There is much to explore, and understand. With other people you can only turn away, bored.
    I want to say: this is just the way things are.

I can’t have been at my best
    I can’t have been at my best the first time Susan and I visited the therapist. Once you know it is over there is no comfort in the present. Everybody was irritating me. I shoved strangers on the street. In the tube Ipushed someone down the stairs, hoped to be arrested by the police and charged with possession of an uncontrolled mind. I rushed around the flat where I worked from one thing to another. My doctor, a friend, delighted in telling me about the range of available tranquillizers. But I refused to give him the pleasure of witnessing whether they provided tranquillity.
    I was surprised we got to the therapist’s at all without removing one another’s windpipes with our fingernails. Susan and I passed the journey haranguing one another over the correct duration for the immersion of a teabag. According to her I had no facility for making tea, though I drank it all day, even – quite successfully – adding a little milk, on occasions, and sometimes a slice of lemon. But this was not good enough for Susan. I was hoping that the tea question would not come up with the therapist, at least not immediately: I am leaving because I cannot make her a cup of tea.
    I could have poured hot water over her head, and Susan was ready to shove my testicles into boiling water, when we rammed the car into the therapist’s drive and ran for her door.
    I would imagine that therapy has benefited Victor. It gives him the opportunity to think of himself more than he always did, but less gloomily. He knows something of himself now. Whether he has changed is another matter. I suppose it depends on whether one sees self-knowledge as a benefit, and believes in it as the central purpose of mankind. Also, I have wondered whether there’s a new class distinction emerging, between those who can afford to maintain their minds and emotions, cleansing themselves of toxic notions each week – and those who have to live with that which poisons them.
    Yet despite my reluctance to go – to be coerced, once more – I had decided to confess all, to offer a few secrets without inhibition, such as they were. I wanted to be good at being helped. All the same, as we entered the room I stumbled, fancying I could hear the howls of pitiable couples trapped together for ever within the walls. I had to rest my face against the toilet wall and resist the idea of escaping through the window and absconding across the Vale of Health.
    Susan and I sat side by side and six feet apart opposite a middle-aged and somewhat patronizing womanwho had a