The Hunter Davies Interview: The real life of Salman Rushdie: In a five-hour conversation the trials of an existence under the fatwa emerge in gripping detail

GUESS who's coming for lunch. I had to tell my wife, or what would she have thought when this bearded, speccy bloke with receding hair arrived at the front door? Plus three armed heavies. Oh no, she said, what can I make? Don't worry, I said, Salman will eat anything; only too pleased to go out and have some proper food. No, she said, the heavies. Do they eat with us, or is it sandwiches in the servants' quarters? Problems, problems. I don't think there is a book on social etiquette for entertaining members of the Special Branch. Perhaps Salman will write one, when all this awfulness is over.

We did have lunch, some 10 years ago, and what I remember about him was his humour, his narrative powers, his self-mockery, telling stories against himself. Not an image of him which the general public has.

At the Booker in 1981, which he won with Midnight's Children, instead of thanking his editor, his publisher, his mum, his dad in the usual slobby way, he used his thank-you speech to lash out at critics who had been horrible about his first novel, Grimus. That did not help his literary image.

On the other hand, my wife remembers a lunch for Margaret Atwood about eight years ago. Salman was there, and worked hard, asking her endless questions about her work, while she appeared to be uninterested in him. Which is the true Salman?

A knock at the door and the first heavy was there. How do I know you are Special Branch and not selling dishcloths? He flashed his card; I said flash it again, I want to read it properly. He came inside, checked our ground floor, pulled the front curtains almost together, then got out his walkie-talkie and started talking to his mate somewhere outside in the armoured Jaguar. Some cursing and moaning, as the walkie-talkie was on the blink. Then he opened the front door and waited.

I worried about the heat escaping - not cheap, our central heating bill - and the half-pulled curtains. We never do that. Could look suspicious. Our friendly Neighbourhood Watch might ring the police, saying we had burglars.

Salman was whisked in, down the hall, wearing a boring football terrace anorak. A bit fatter, in 10 years, but aren't we all, looking rather tired, but then he has been very busy these past few months since he started travelling, making himself available to the media, knowing they will give him space, to mark the fourth year of the fatwa on Sunday, Valentine's day. And then probably forget him. That's been his problem, these past four years, keeping his name in the public conscience.

'For the first 18 months, I kept low, kept quiet, which was the advice I was given by the Foreign Office. They hoped that if my case was not in the papers, it might all blow away. Then, of course, because of the hostages, I was told to say nothing that might make their situation worse.

'It's taken the Government four years to realise that the softly-softly approach does not work. Silence is always the wrong way. I regret I kept my mouth shut for so long. It allowed the other side to set the agenda. The world talked about them and their threats, not my novel.

'There has been a sudden shift in British policy in the past couple of weeks. I've been to see Douglas Hogg at the Foreign Office, and he's promised help, and agrees that keeping a high profile is now the best thing. Incidentally, we met in a room that used to be the old India Office.' Which is where his story all began . . .

Born in Bombay 45 years ago; Muslim parents, but not strict; father wealthy businessman, great Anglophile, educated at Cambridge. Salman, his only son, went to Rugby, then Cambridge. At Rugby, he was unhappy; people wrote 'Go home, wogs' on the wall. After Cambridge, which he enjoyed, he worked for a fringe theatre group, then advertising. Gave it all up to write when his first novel came out.

I hate to say this, but did Rugby in any way prepare you for what has happened? Public schools do have their uses. After all, you've said you felt 'isolated and upopular'.

'It did upset me at the time, and left bruises, but it's so long ago. I've lived in England since 1961. At one time, I would have failed Norman Tebbit's immigrants' test - which side do you cheer when it's India versus England? I think I'd now cheer for England.'

The change in British policy towards his case has come about for two reasons. First, his own campaign, orchestrated by Article 19, the British-based anti-censorship organisation, visiting nine countries, gathering support from foreign governments. 'I like to think this has been vital, but I'm probably flattering myself.' Second, the Iranians have been behaving badly again. 'It's not just me they are threatening to kill. They've killed three people recently, including a Turkish journalist. The world now acknowledges it has to be tougher with Iran.'

In the United States, Canada, Scandinavia and elsewhere, meeting officials and giving speeches, he made the front page in their papers - but not a line back home. 'I don't understand it. Perhaps in the US it's to do with their First Amendment. There was a tidal wave in my defence. In Europe there is a long history of enlightenment, they have more time for writers. In Britain writers don't have the same status. Perhaps in Britain it's fatigue with the issue? I don't know. You tell me.'

It could be personal, Salman, even racist. There are those who still feel you are not one of us, and some people believe it was partly your own fault . . .

Long sighs, a tired look, so I opened the first bottle. The heavies refused a drink or any food. 'We don't drink or eat on duty,' said one, doing the Independent crossword. 'It keeps us mean and sharp. Consider us invisible.'

'How could I have known what would happen?' Salman said. 'Has such a thing ever happened to a book before in the whole of history? On publication day, if I'd told you there would be a death threat on me, and a bounty of pounds 2m for anyone who would murder me, all because of my book, you'd have considered me insane.'

But you have a Muslim background. You knew about the extremists. 'I knew the mullahs would not like it, but I don't write to please the mullahs. Don't forget Shame (his third novel) won a prize in Iran. A pirated edition, by the way, for which I got no royalties.

'It is the job of an artist to be iconoclastic, to give the dissenting view. Cultures can't stand still. I expected a few mullahs would be offended, call me names, and then I could defend myself in public. I was prepared for that.'

Were you even looking forward to that? 'I said I was prepared, that's all. Look, I am sick and tired of people saying I should have known. I honestly never expected anything like this. It's a novel which happens to contain a castigation of Western materialism. The tone is comic. All the attacks are by people who have not read the book. If anyone reads the book, they will see what I was trying to say.'

But as a clever person, Muslim-bred, did you not realise the attacks would come from people who had not read the book? 'What you are saying is that I shouldn't have written the book. I'm a writer. I write books. Otherwise I die.'

I explained I was only putting to him what some, including writers and politicians, have said. 'It's an odd reversal. I am the victim of religious persecution, yet I am thought the cause of my own persecution. If people choose to believe I invented my own cancer, or that I'm a publicity seeker, creating scandal to make more money, what else can I say? I'm not the criminal. The crime has been committed against me.'

Being a Muslim with a Muslim name presumably did not help. 'I'm sure that's right. If Philip Roth had written it, the mullahs would have dismissed it as another Jewish conspiracy.'

There have been two low points in his four years of, well, what do we call it? You're not in prison. You're not a hostage. 'I don't have one name. Sometimes I think, 'since I went underground'. Or 'before the Plague Years'.'

The worst was when he said he did believe in Islam, then later recanted. No one prompted him, he says. He thought it was a peace-keeping gesture, to let ordinary Muslims know he was one of them. 'I was a fool. I was pretty low. I regret none of my words and actions - except that.'

And that Booker speech? 'Yes, that's another regret, but you have to understand it was my first success after a long haul, during which I'd had some body blows. It wasn't gracious.'

The other underground blow came after five months, when his second wife, Marianne Wiggins, who went into hiding with him, emerged and accused him of being a coward and self-obsessed. 'She's got to live with what she said. I'm not throwing mud back.' From all acounts, the marriage was not in great shape anyway? 'She was not a help when she was with me. It's been better on my own.'

Surely being on your own is the worst deprivation, especially for someone such as you who loves parties, gossip and chat? 'Don't forget, I'm also a writer. I was used to sitting alone all day. The difference now is that I can't go out in the evening and enjoy myself. What I miss most is my freedom. I'm tired of having to ask permission to do anything, even going to the lavatory.'

All the same, he sleeps well, no bad dreams, but when he does wake up, there is no moment when he thinks none of it has happened. 'Even my subconscious does not pretend.'

He rises at nine, makes himself some coffee, does all his own cooking, mostly frozen food, sending out one of the heavies with a shopping list, three days ahead. Only once in four years has he been to a shop - to buy some clothes.

He reads the Independent, Guardian and Times, starting first with the sports pages, looking for Spurs news - though at present he has satellite television and watches all the matches. 'I've been once to see Spurs, but not at White Hart Lane. I can't tell you where. The other club had to make very complicated arrangements. But Spurs won that day.'

He dearly misses his son, now aged 14, from his first marriage, but speaks on the phone to him most days. 'One worry, while I've been away, is that he's started following Arsenal.'

No one can ring him. He can only ring out. He doesn't listen to the radio, to my amazement. Did you not even listen to it when you were alive, I asked. A tired smile at my slip. We were on to the second bottle. 'No, the radio was never part of my life.'

Then at 10.30 he starts writing. In the past four years, he has been in roughly 50 different locations. Only once was he in a hotel. This was on the first night when the whole world was looking for him. In the next room was a Daily Mirror reporter, with a woman not his wife.

From moment to moment, day to day, he doesn't feel scared for his life. The security people worry about that. The whole operation costs about pounds 1m a year. He himself contributes pounds 100,000 a year. I guessed the latter was for rent, living costs, but he wouldn't say, as that might give clues.

When he moves, as he does regularly, he takes with him the same few things: a small block of silver showing a map of pre-partition India, given to him by a friend of his father; a small Haitian primitive painting, given by a friend; an exercise bike; and an Apple Mac. That's new, I said. Before the fatwa, you were a typewriter man. 'I was a Luddite, refusing all modern machinery. Now I've had time to learn. I also play a lot of Nintendo. It's helped me become computer-fluent.'

So something good has come out of all this. Very weak smile. 'I would not recommend what has happened to me as a path to self-improvement.'

He lost the vote, on becoming 'no fixed address', which had one important result: he no longer had his own MP to fight for him. 'But Michael Foot was a great help.'

His health is good, considering the lack of fresh air, but he has developed asthma. 'I thought it might be stress, but I was tested, and my blood pressure and heart are OK. I think it was with smoking, which I took up for six months when I was very depressed, but have now stopped.' He's now half a stone over normal. His father took to the bottle in his later years, but Salman has resisted it. 'I was always a social drinker. I can't drink on my own, and I'm mostly on my own.'

Only once in four years has he needed medical attention - going into hospital to have a wisdom tooth removed. He discovered later that the Special Branch's emergency tactics, in case of discovery, would have been to anaesthetise him, put him in a body bag and bring him out in a coffin.

The heavies change all the time, many become friends. He knows now how to spot if they're being followed. He has picked up some of their codes, such as OFD, or Only Fucking Drivers, or JULF, Jumped Up Little Fucker. Then there's DPG, which offically stands for Diplomatic Protection Group. They say it means Doorsteps, Pavements and Gutters.

He's half-way through a novel, to be called The Moor's Last Sigh, which refers to the explulsion of the Moors from Granada in 1492. Oh Salman, Salman, don't do it again. 'I'm not starting self-censorship now, but don't worry. It's a modern novel. The Moorish reference is about a painting one of the characters is working on.'

He has kept a diary, a record of his thoughts and events, which he hopes one day to publish. 'I never ever thought I'd write autobiography, but what has happened to me is so odd, sitting inside the eye of the storm. I also want to thank the friends who have stood by me, helped and supported.'

There has been no family member or girlfriend leading public indignation, unlike the hostages. Would this not have helped? 'I have three sisters, one in England, and they wanted to help, but I told them not to. Their lives would have been hell. The press would never have left them alone.'

His father is dead but his mother is alive, living in Pakistan. 'Everyone knows her house, who she is, but not once in four years has she had a rude word or phone call. It shows this whole thing has been concocted by the mullahs, who are the most hated people in any Muslim country.'

Recently a disgusting personal attack was made on him in a US mag, which also alleged that his friends organised posses of willing women to visit him. 'Girls? Where are they, that's what I want to know.' So your sexual life has been non-existent for four years? 'Jesus, I'm not talking about that. Just use your imagination.'

Where will it all end? At one time, it was said the fatwa could never be rescinded. Now it has emerged that, for a matter of national security, it might be. 'It was all nonsense. Iran is run by a religious, fascist dictactorship - there, those are words I could not have used four years ago. If there is enough international pressure against them, they'll change anything. I hope Douglas Hurd will now take my case to the Council of Europe, and one of the foreign countries I've visited will take it to the International Court of Justice.'

He feels sad about the Labour Party. He has always supported it. (My memory of The Satanic Verses was that his worst abuse was for Margaret Thatcher, or Mrs Torture, as he called her.) 'They haven't supported me. Perhaps Hattersley and Kaufman were worried about upsetting Muslims in their constituencies, which is ridiculous. I do not fear any British Muslims. Whatever their reasons, the Labour Party has never answered our letters. Paddy Ashdown has been terrific, but it's been left to the Tories, a party I always opposed, to come to my help.

'I feel better now than I've done in the past four years. No, I don't consider I'm winning. My life has been wrecked. And still is. What I'm now doing is fighting my corner.'

The heavies whisked him out after our five-hour chat and lunch, and I watched them escort him into their high-powered car. Then on the hall table I found a walkie-talkie. I ran out, but the car was disappearing at speed. An old banger I hadn't noticed before was coming slowly past my front door, and I recognised the driver.

Your mates have left this, I shouted. Fucking hell, he said, snatching the walkie-talkie. Then they were all gone, back to the underground.

(Photograph omitted)