ON CUNNILINGUS, ENVY, AND OTHER MATTERS
As my more discerning readers will already have noticed, I am - after the incident involving the fish - now more intimate with the Heimlich manoeuvre than I am with cunnilingus.
It doesn’t follow that just because one is severely injured, one doesn’t think about sex. Indeed one might think about sex more.
I might eventually be capable of a little light cunnilingus, and I imagine myself as a man with a mouth full of mango rather than the last image I had of myself, as a desperate man attempting to open a bag of cashew nuts using only his teeth and a brick wall.
But when it comes to skills I might envy, there are many others on my mind. I remember as a child, in my local park in Bromley, envying other kids who were so much better at football than me, and who earned trials at Crystal Palace Millwall and Millwall, respectably, if the word respectably can be applied in any form to that club.
When I was around the age of fourteen, my best friend’s mother gave her son an acoustic guitar, I think with some despair, and told him to “Get on with it.” I guess she thought, if the kid is good for nothing else, he might at least get into one of these horrible bands, where the talentless become famous.
I learned to play the guitar around the same time. I practiced a lot at home and read the guitar books. When my friend and I decided to form a group called The Orange Socks I soon saw that he was already far better as a guitarist than I would ever be.
So what to do then? Give up or persist? Wisely, I gave up. I envied him a bit but my envy got me nowhere.
As I moved beyond my teenage years, I had an outbreak of many other envies. I envied those who could make good jokes spontaneously. I envied other boys who could speak to women without trembling.
And I envied those who were good at maths and science, which unfortunately I found tedious and lacking in actual flesh-and-blood life.
But to my own surprise, I persisted in looking for something I might be better at than others. I did eventually find something I was more than half-good at, which is writing. And I can still do it, fluently, up to a certain level. It is a talent, and you have to practice it every day, like a dancer or a sport person, but at the base of it is something called a gift. And the gift is inexplicable.
No one knows why someone is a brilliant artist, while someone else, equally intelligent, has no imagination. This is always the problem with creative writing courses, for instance. Some people have it, and others don’t.
You would think at my age that I would be free of the disease of envy, but this morning at the bar of the hospital with my two new friends, as they attempted to teach me backgammon, I noticed I have developed a new form of envy.
I envy those who can scratch their own heads. I envy those who can tie their own shoe laces. I envy those who can pick up a cup of coffee.
When I saw a man waving to his own wife, I couldn’t believe that he didn’t see what a profoundly complicated act this was.
I envy those who can use their own hands.
My friend, Miss S, tells me that after one of her strokes she could only communicate using one eye. She now feeds me, pushes herself around the hospital, and shares her vape with me. (Oh, delicious smoke!)
Yesterday, in the gym, my physiotherapist placed my own claw-like hand onto my own face. It was certainly a horror, as if several semi-frozen vegetarian sausages had been draped across my face by a prankster.
The hand felt cold and inanimate. But Miss S claims I should forego the self-pity. If I persist, I will soon be waving at London taxis and giving my enemies the finger. At the moment, my right hand is more lively than my left, which feels nearly dead.
What I would like, what I wish for, what I dream of, is the ability to pick up a fountain pen, and make a mark in the page; to write my own name in purple ink. This is my ambition.
Sometimes I am hopeful, particularly when I am with my friends, all of whom have made remarkable progress. On other days, I feel flat and unmotivated.
But writing this blog, which has connected with so many thousands of people, is a good reason for living.
So: two victory fingers to my pals and readers. And a finger to the future,
Your loving No-hands man,
Hanif x
Dear Mr. Kureishi,
As someone who has admired your work for a very long time, and who lives with a degenerative neuromuscular disease, I am so grateful for this newsletter. May I say, "welcome to our club"? In the disability community, we sometimes refer to those outside of it as "temporarily abled". Ours is a club that anyone can join, regardless of race, gender, religion or age. That said, I cannot imagine what it must feel like to go abruptly from one state of being to another. I have no particular advice to give you....because each person experiences their disability differently. I did my best, until my late 20s, to ignore it. I fronted a punk band. I worked in radio. Lord, I even did performance art (not my finest moment), before realizing that I did not have the talent to really make a go of the artistic life. And so I did two things. I married the love of my life. And I became a....wait for it....public servant. And I have had an amazing career and a wonderful life. BUT.....as my condition progresses, I do mourn what I have lost; the things I used to be able to do. Some days, I succeed in focusing on what I have now. And trying to be grateful.
It is, and I am, a work in progress.
Here are two things that are true for me:
Disability does not define me.
Disability is an intrinsic part of my identity.
Yazmine
yes your readers are all part of the conspiracy sending you energy and imagining that moment when you will make the mark on the page with an ink pen. In the meantime, the thoughts direct from your brilliant mind through your voice to your son into your blog are evidence of your Great Gift. thank you.