Hanif Kureishi - Gabriel's Gift

Gabriel had wondered whether his father might be amused, too; he used to enjoy anything subversive. Once, Dad dressed up as Santa Claus and took Gabriel and his school friends into a big shop in the West End and began distributing the toys to the children. It wasn’t long before Dad, Gabriel and the others were chased out by store security, who in their turn were pursued by children outraged to see a benevolent Santa arrested. Outside, they laughed until they choked.

There was no opportunity for amusement now.

As they started to shoulder through the noisy crowd — and it was easier for Gabriel, being smaller — he glanced back to see that something was holding his father up.

One of Lester’s fans, an old woman, had laid the white claw of her hand on Dad’s arm and was pinning him to her.

‘Excuse me,’ she was saying. ‘One second only, sir!’

‘No comment,’ parroted Dad, trying to pull away.

Gabriel had to jump up and down to catch a glimpse of his father, clutching Lester’s picture to him.

‘Dad, Dad — come on!’

He was about to return to grab his father’s hand and tug him free. The woman, searching frantically for something in her mind, suddenly said, ‘But — Rex! Rex!’

‘Who are you?’ Gabriel’s father peered into her old face as if he might see other, younger ones, underneath. ‘I don’t recognize you.’

‘I was there. It was me that saw … that saw —’

‘Where were you? What did you see?’

‘In Finland, where you fell from your superboots. I used to follow the group around. You were the bass player.’

‘I was that man!’

‘A lovely smooth bass line you had, too.’

‘You noticed?’

‘I was watching when your ankle went. I heard you cry out. Then you were down. “Oh God, he’s had it,” I thought, and I wanted to run to you and kiss you back to life and —’

Her voice was drowned out as a voice rose in the crowd: ‘Lester’s bass player!’

‘He was in the Leather Pigs!’

‘It’s Rex! He’s alive!’

‘He’s returned from Iceland!’

‘He’s been to see Lester! He’s touched him!’

‘Rex! Rex!’

‘Look over here Mr Pig Rex!’ cried a photographer. ‘Smile for your fans!’

‘Smile, smile, smile!’

The crowd had turned to Gabriel’s father, pushing and shoving to get a better view. Some people clambered onto the backs of others. Gabriel saw that Dad didn’t know whether to be delighted or humiliated by the attention.

The woman went on, ‘You were the most attractive Pig. I always looked at you the most — after Lester,’ she added, unnecessarily.

Dad said, ‘D’you remember my paisley glitter suit and the silver shoes with hearts?’

‘Oh yes, yes I do — Oh the silver shoes!’

‘And the red satin —’

Gabriel realized that the fans were not plucking at his father, but that they wanted to touch him, as if he could cure or save them. For a moment he looked like someone wearing a costume made of hands.

The woman said, ‘I beg you — let me have your autograph.’

Dad quickly signed her book. He bent forward and kissed her. At this the other fans started to wave their books at Dad, heaving forward in a threatening way. For a moment Dad went under the crowd.

‘Run!’ shouted Gabriel, when his father’s bald patch bobbed up again. ‘Run, Dad! Run!’

Ensuring that his father was hopping and tripping behind him, Gabriel started to run himself, breaking out of the crowd and into the freedom of the ordinary street with its shoppers and office workers. Neither of them stopped until they reached the end of the road.

Dad was white and shaken; he held his chest and found it difficult to speak.

‘I thought they were going to devour me and spit me out.’

‘Just like the old days?’

‘Too much like that. Though less well paid.’

‘Good fun, though. Wait till people hear about it.’

‘Don’t tell Mum.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s not a good idea. Promise?’

His father unchained the bicycle. Gabriel looked back at the hotel.

A black car with dark windows emerged from further along the brick wall and swept towards them, the dignified whisper of its wheels suggesting that it barely touched the earth. Lester’s fans and photographers spotted the car and started to hurtle along behind it, some of them falling down and getting trampled, their autograph books and pens flung from their hands. At least they no longer had any interest in Dad.

The car passed and Dad waved. ‘There’s Lester — going to the airport.’

‘Where’s he off to?’

‘He owns an island where he is protected by barbed wire and gunboats. He’s not a fool — he has always known that fame is a handful of foam. He recognized too, that fame isn’t a tap you can turn on and off at will. But it was a price he had to pay for what he wants to do. Lester can’t roam the streets like us.’ Dad glanced up and down the street. ‘Not that he’d be missing much.’

It wasn’t fame that Lester had warned Gabriel about when they lay on the floor together. It was envy, which Lester called one of the strongest human forces: the jealousy and hatred of others, and their desire to contain or undermine you. He said the temptation in the face of such a force might be to make oneself as inconspicuous as possible, to merge, blend in, not seem more talented than other people. However, if you attempted that — trying to ‘disappear’ yourself or live undercover — you would rob yourself of your own gifts. Lester said it was important to find people who were supportive and inspiring, and who didn’t mock one’s hopes.

The car accelerated into the distance and Gabriel thought of the pale, isolated figure within, writing, drawing and perhaps humming, with a kind of contentment, ‘She’s Got It’.

Dad said suddenly, ‘Where’s the picture?’

Gabriel tapped it. ‘Right here, Dad. Safe.’

‘Good, good. I’ll hold on to it, I think. I found that a very interesting meeting with Lester. Let’s go to a café and have a talk.’

Gabriel reminded his father, ‘I’m still supposed to be at school.’

‘I forgot about that. Do you fancy some education?’

‘I’ve had enough of that for one day.’

Dad took the picture and pushed it down the front of his coat.

They went to a café near by where Dad wiped the damp table down with his cuff. He slipped off the rubber band and unrolled the picture. To keep it flat Gabriel placed a sauce bottle on one end, and a pot of mustard on the other.

‘Not bad, not bad at all.’

Dad put on his glasses and assumed a voice like an antique dealer on a television programme evaluating an old object.

‘I didn’t get the chance to look at it properly just now,’ he went on. ‘For what it is, it’s pretty interesting. I thought it might just be a sketch.’

‘It’s not that,’ said Gabriel, leaning over it.

Like his father, Gabriel could see it was a complete, coherent picture, rather than a sketch or selection of scribbles. Lester had probably been working on it for a while.

‘It’s dedicated to you, and signed,’ said Dad. ‘Lester was very friendly, just as I predicted. He’s always been like that with me.’

‘Did you enjoy his new album?’

‘Yes, yes I did,’ said Dad, airily. ‘There can’t be many people who have heard it. We were lucky to be so honoured.’

Meanwhile the waitress had come over and was looking at the picture.

‘Did you do it?’ she said to Gabriel. ‘It’s pretty.’

‘It is, yes.’

‘I wish I could draw like that.’

Glancing up at his father Gabriel wondered what exactly was wrong; he appeared to be grimacing and gurning at her.