Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi

Written in first person present tense, it is the inner monologue of a man who is on his last night in his home with his family. Unbeknownst to them, he is leaving in the morning. The opening line tells the whole story, "It is the saddest night, for I am leaving and not coming back." Why, we immediately want to know and that puts the reader right at the highest dramatic point.

How does he tell the story? The reader is with Jay over the course of the evening. The story moves through about six hours as he bathes his boys, puts them to bed, eats with his wife, tries to pack, goes to bed, masturbates in bathroom, is interrupted by son, puts him back to bed, leaves the house. Threaded throughout that is back story that tells us why Jay is leaving and what he thinks about it.

• What he anticipates the future to hold. "Eight years ago, my friend Victor left his wife. Since then he has had only unsatisfactory loves, including the Chinese prostitute who played the piano naked and brought all her belongings to their assignations." (p.362)
  
• His reflection on sex despite his active sexual longings, and finally affair with a young girl. "After a certain age, sex is no longer casual. To lay your hand on another's body, or to put your mouth against another's –what a commitment that is! Your whole life uncovered." (p.363)
  
• His marriage: "It wasn't Susan's wit or beauty that attracted me. There was never great passion—perhaps that was the point." (p.365)
  
• His insecurity: "Fear is something I recognize. My childhood still tastes of fear. Fear of parents, aunts, and uncles, of vicars, police, and teachers, and of being kicked, abused, and insulted by other children. The fear of getting into trouble, of being discovered, castigated, smacked, ignored, locked in, locked out. There is, too, the fear of your own anger, of retaliation and of annihilation, as well as the fear of who you might become. It isn't surprising that you become accustomed to doing what you are told while making a safe place inside yourself and living a secret life." (p.366)
  
• His friend Asif's perspective on marriage, followed by what Jay sees as his failures.
  
  

  "But marriage is a battle, a terrible journey, a season in Hell, and a reason for living. You need to be equipped in all areas, not just the sexual.'
  

  'Yes,' I said, dully, 'I know.'
  

  Oh to be equipped in all areas." (p. 368)
  

• His struggle with the question of being true to his own self and his (self-centered) desire for freedom and possibility.
  
• "What did father's life show me? That life is a struggle, and that struggle gets you nowhere. That there is little pleasure in marriage; that it is like doing a job one hates. You can't leave and you can't enjoy it. Both he and Mother were frustrated, neither being able to find a way to get what they wanted. Nevertheless, they were loyal and faithful to each other. Disloyal and unfaithful to themselves. Or do I misunderstand?" (p. 369)
  
• His role in his marriage. "Its been weeks since we fucked. I've stopped approaching Susan in that way, to see if she desires me. I have waited for a flicker of interest. I am a dog under the table waiting for a biscuit."
  
• His hope for redemption. "If she wakes up, puts out her arms, and says she loves me, I will sink back into the pillow and never leave. But she has never done such a thing." (p.370)
  
• The tragedy of his situation. "I glance into the mirror and see a gray-haired, grimacing, mad-eyed monkey with a fist in front of him (his other hand placed delicately on his side because his back hurts from lifting the children). I suddenly feel I am more likely to weep than ejaculate." (p.371)
  
• The sadness of leaving his children. "I wonder when I will sleep beside him again. He has a vicious kick and a tendency, at unexpected moments, to vomit in my hair. But he can pat and stroke my face like a lover. His affectionate words and little voice are God's breath to me." (p.372)
  

All this serves to make Jay a fully dimensional character as an emotionally limited man. Because despite all this insight and sensitivity, there is really never a question about him leaving. He is flirting with it throughout but he is unable to be serious. His character perfectly summed up by his friend Asif. "You remind me of someone who reads only the first chapter of a book. You never discover what happens next." (p.367) Jay is perpetually stuck in his adolescent approach to the shiny and new.

I read somewhere that this story became a novella. I find that interesting since the whole story is perfectly encapsulated in these eleven pages. And while Jay is sympathetic in this short form and the portrait of this marriage poignant, I am not interested enough in him to read a longer work.