Hanif Kureishi - Gabriel's Gift

‘Dad’s helping me think what to do with it.’

‘I bet he is,’ she said. ‘What suggestions does he have?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘He won’t be doing anything with it tonight, surely. Nor ever, if I have my way.’

‘What?’

She said, ‘Please let them look.’

‘As long as they don’t breathe on it.’

‘Don’t worry, these characters are hardly alive at all.’

She took the picture and swept from the room.

Gabriel put on his slippers and hurried out behind her.

It was almost dark in the living room but Gabriel could see that his mother’s two friends were emptying bottles down their throats and the front of their shirts as rapidly as they could.

The door to the little kitchen was open; Hannah’s flickering black and white television illuminated the outline of her solid peasant frame wrapped in a blanket.

The two men were arguing.

‘The thing is —’ one of them was saying.

‘That’s not the case at all,’ the other was saying. ‘In fact you are talking complete crap —’

‘I’m going to convince you, George.’ said the other, offering his fist. ‘Sit still and hear me out now,’

Like a teacher addressing a group of school kids, Mum held the picture out.

‘Look — you bums. Look at this. This is by Lester Jones, the pop star. I used to know him. I designed him a pair of flocked trousers. We called it his “Indian Restaurant” period.’

‘But listen —’ said the man called George.

‘I know exactly what you’re going to say,’ said the other. ‘And if you say it, I’ll fight to the death not to have to hear it —’

Mum snapped the music off, cleared the ashtrays and glasses off the table, and laid the picture out.

She pointed at Gabriel.

‘This is him, my son.’

One of the men said, ‘I’d forgotten you’d said you had one of those.’

The other said, ‘What the hell is he wearing?’

Mum said, ‘A kimono Never mind that. Now, Gabriel, Lester Jones drew this for you, isn’t that right?’

‘Not entirely, Mum. Dad’s an old friend of Lester’s. Lester told me that Dad was one of the best musicians he played with. Dad created his sound, really. Lester had started the picture already and when Dad and I turned up —’

‘All right, all right. You’re not giving a lecture at the Tate Gallery. Did you know, Lester Jones had me once,’ she said. ‘Years ago. I think he wanted to go out with me.’

‘You should have married him,’ one of the men said.

‘At least I wouldn’t have to buy my own drinks!’

‘And you wouldn’t be hanging around with us,’ said the other man.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘look at it, you two.’

Trying to be obedient, the two men attempted to focus on the picture, one of them busily rubbing his eyes for a clearer view.

After a time one of them said, ‘What is it?’

The other replied, ‘Never mind that —’

‘He should stick to singing.’

‘Look at it, for Christ’s sake,’ said Mum. ‘That’s all I’m asking you to do.’

One man elbowed the other, to shut him up. They gazed at the picture mournfully, saying nothing until the glowing ash from one man’s cigarette dropped, like a desiccated leaf, onto the paper. Gabriel, who had been watching, leapt forward, flicking it away before it could mark the picture. The ash flew into the other man’s lap.

He regretted it; the picture would have made a pretty conflagration. The fire might have caught him too. Mum would have had to put him out, wrapping him in sheets like a mummy. He would have had many restful weeks in bed. Why was it so pleasurable to think of destroying the most valuable things?

‘OΚ,’ said his mother. ‘That’s enough! Another time!’ She turned to the men. ‘He’s talented, you know.’

‘Lester can sing, no doubt about that. “Ha, ha said the clown!”’

‘That’s not him,’ said the other man. Gabriel could smell the ash smouldering in the front of the man’s trousers. ‘That’s —’

Mum said, ‘No, I mean Gabriel!’

‘Who?’ said the man with the burning trousers. By now his eyes were wide and he was holding his crotch with one hand and flapping in it with the other.

‘This boy — this boy right in front of you!’

The men looked at Gabriel the apparition. Usually, when his mother became angry, Gabriel and his father grew afraid. But these men were unmoved and looked at her vacantly. They seemed to have taken something, not only alcohol, that made them not understand what was going on. This mystified Gabriel; he knew something about drugs — every kid did these days — but he still didn’t know why anyone would want to do this to themselves.

She turned to Gabriel: ‘Hey, I’ve got an idea. Show them how talented you are! Will you draw us? Yes, all of us — here, now! Go and get your crayons and stuff. What a good idea!’

‘I don’t feel like it, Mum. I’m tired and I’ve got school tomorrow! I should be in bed!’

‘That’s the first time you’ve ever said that! Don’t be sulky.’

‘Couldn’t I just sing “Consider Yourself”?’

‘What for? We’ve got music here. Too good for us, are you, now that Lester has praised you?’

‘Go on.’ said one of the men.

The other man laughed. ‘Get a job, lad!’

Gabriel went upstairs and fetched his things.

When he came back he settled down in corner of the room, and soon his mother and her fuzzy-eyed friends, drinking, yelling and retiring to the bathroom to do something secret, seemed to forget him.

He drew quickly, as he liked to now, in crayon, rubbing the colours together with his finger, to give the impression of the smoke-smudged room. For some reason the scene reminded him of an artist he liked, Toulouse-Lautrec, who had, by the age of sixteen, completed fifty paintings and three hundred drawings. Once Gabriel had recalled this, Lautrec’s was the style he worked in.

After a time his mother remembered him. ‘Let’s have a look! Is it good?’

She carried the sketchbook across the room and turned on a reading light.

For some time she studied the picture of the tired, middle-aged, black-stockinged woman pulling her skirts up, while corpulent, self-important men in tight waistcoats looked on condescendingly.

Standing next to her, Gabriel noticed she wasn’t wearing the Indian ring Dad had given her. It wasn’t a wedding ring — as bourgeois as tradesmen in every other way, they weren’t of a generation that got married. Dad had bought it the day he took Mum to the Taj Mahal: ‘Not the restaurant, the building in India,’ it gave him pleasure to explain. Gabriel had never seen her without it before.

He was about to mention this when one of the men said, ‘The tension is killing us — let’s have a look!’

He went to Gabriel’s mother, put his arm around her and lifted her arse. Gabriel didn’t like the way he touched her, but couldn’t wait to see what the man made of the picture.

The man laughed and turned back to Gabriel. ‘Couldn’t you have made me more handsome, you little devil? I look like a wild boar!’

‘I wonder why!’ said the other man.

‘Look at what he’s done with you!’ said the first. ‘Microwaved pizza comes to mind!’

His mother took the picture, folded it up, and put it on the table.

‘Aren’t you going to bed, Mum?’ Gabriel said.

‘Yes, yes, soon.’

She accompanied Gabriel upstairs to bed, forgetting to kiss him because she was thinking hard about something else.

‘Dad wouldn’t like these people,’ Gabriel said.

‘It’s none of his business. Nothing is, now.’

Much later the front door slammed. A man’s voice echoed up the street; then a bottle smashed. She went into her room and everything was quiet again.