Hanif Kureishi - Gabriel's Gift

‘That was my sound,’ Dad interjected. ‘We did that together, Lester and I!’

‘Incredible! I still play those records in my cars. Please, could you come over this afternoon and help my boy out?’

‘I would,’ said Dad. ‘But the thing is —’ He started to explain he was working on his opera about rebirth.

‘Oh,’ said Jake. ‘Thanks anyway for ringing. Are you absolutely certain —?’

Gabriel grasped his father’s wrist and twisted it until he agreed to give a first lesson later that day.

Gabriel was pleased: it meant he could accompany his father to ensure that he didn’t deliberately make a mess of things.

‘Why are you bothering me with all this?’ Dad was trying to pull himself upstairs. Gabriel had begun to realize how drunk Dad had got at Speedy’s. ‘I need to rest while I’ve still got a bed.’

‘Rest? You haven’t done anything!’

‘Seeing Speedy makes me feel weak.’

Dad might have been feeling weak but next to the bed was an orange box on which were his rolling papers, glasses and notebooks. Dad kicked the box across the room.

‘Fuck everything — I’m not going anywhere!’ He lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. The beer cans, one of them open, were on the floor where he could reach them. ‘Goodnight. I’m sorry for everything, kiddo. Turn out the lights. Forgive me and kiss me.’

‘I’m not kissing an arse like you.’

‘Your own father’s a bloody arse now?’

‘You are,’ said Gabriel.

His father said, ‘I wish I had the strength to thump you! Now piss off and don’t bang the door — it might fall off its hinges and I’ll have to pay for it!’ Dad laughed to himself and sang, ‘Valhalla, I am coming!’

Soon his father was snoring. Gabriel knew he wouldn’t wake up in time to give his lesson.

Gabriel left him and went downstairs. Every step he took away from the house made him feel bad. Archie was restless; he didn’t say anything, but he wasn’t happy. Gabriel wanted to go to Mum’s bar and ask her to try and get Dad out of bed. But she wouldn’t be prepared to do it; she’d given up on him. Everyone had, now.

Gabriel waited at the bus stop. He’d count to a hundred. If the bus didn’t come, he’d go back. He started to count; he lost his place and started again. He decided to do it backwards. The bus came. He got on and started up to the top deck. He couldn’t just go home and think about something else.

As the bus was gathering speed, Gabriel jumped down the stairs and threw himself off, scuffing his knee and grazing his hands. He couldn’t forget how, months ago, his father had rescued him from the ‘drum’.

He went back and kneeled beside his father’s bed, talking into Dad’s face. He looked so relaxed for the first time in months that Gabriel didn’t like to disturb him.

‘Wake up,’ he said. ‘You can sleep later,’

Dad stroked Gabriel’s face. ‘It is later. I was dreaming that I was at an airport but they wouldn’t let me on the planes and I was crying. Gabriel, if I’m asleep, at least I’m not feeling wretched.’

‘You know what Mum says?’

‘Who cares? What does she think?’

‘She says you’re useless, a waster, lazy and slow. What kind of future will I have watching you sit on your arse and drink all day?

‘She said that?’

‘She says I can’t see you if you’re going to depress me with your hopelessness and self-pity.’

‘It’s what she would say. Everyone says it.’

‘I don’t. If I don’t have a proper dad, who will look after me? I still need you, Dad. I want you to do this thing for me.’

‘What thing?’

‘Go to Jake’s as arranged.’

‘I’m not in the mood, Gabriel. You know how I’m feeling.’

‘You’ll cheer up when you’re there. We need the money. Dad —’

‘Why are you getting upset?’

‘Your stupidity makes me upset! Give me a drink!’

‘Hey, put that down right now! It’s the strongest there is — you’ll puke! Take it easy, little guy. I don’t like to see you like this!’

Gabriel said, ‘I’m not leaving until you get up!’

‘Right, right,’ said Dad. ‘I see. Please put the beer down.’

‘Get up, then!’

‘Wait …’

Gabriel watched Dad slowly begin to move, as if he were discovering for the first time that he had a body. When Dad got to his feet Gabriel gave a little cheer.

Dad began to throw his clothes about.

‘Boy, help me find my razor. I’m not going to cut my throat, though I’ve been considering it for the last few days. I’ll shave. You’re the only person I’d do this for. I wouldn’t take orders from anyone else!’

Gabriel went up the hall to borrow an iron; together they pressed Dad’s white shirt, holding it up and turning the sleeves and tail here and there, like explorers who’d come across an object they’d never seen before.

‘Better clean your teeth,’ said Gabriel.

‘I smell now?’

‘You’ve been drinking. And you smell of fish.’

‘This is rock ‘n’ roll.’

‘Not today, I’m afraid.’

Dad asked, ‘How are you feeling now?’

‘A bit better.’

He made his father leave with plenty of time to spare, as Dad used to do with Gabriel himself, before school. This time, as Dad had his guitar and it wasn’t far, they walked.

Dad moaned all the way like a morose teenager. ‘Why would anyone want to be taught to play the guitar? Play is playing. I learned from records.’

‘Take it easy with the philosophy,’ suggested Gabriel. ‘Hold the five-pound notes at the front of your mind.’

‘Money’s not everything. It’s just that I’ve been feeling a bit low these days —’

‘You’ll be telling me you’ve got a tummy ache.’

‘People only ever learn what they want to learn, just as you can’t force them to eat.’

Gabriel said quickly, ‘Maybe you can introduce them to food they’ve never had before.’

This encouraged Dad, but Gabriel could see that his pride was bruised by the possibility of this job. He wanted to see himself as a working musician. Teaching was the death of invention and certainly of pop glamour. Somehow Dad had to be convinced that it was possible to instruct as well as to play and perform.

The two of them stood outside a big house with iron gates, like menials beyond a medieval castle. Gabriel held the guitar in one hand and his father’s hand in the other, for fear he would slip away.

‘Christ,’ said his father. ‘You wouldn’t catch Jimmy Page doing this.’

‘You’re not —’ Gabriel stopped himself.

Dad didn’t hear; he was looking up at the house. ‘Look how posh they are — I expect they have their pyjamas dry-cleaned.’

The gates opened automatically as a robotic voice on an invisible intercom said, ‘Visitors, please enter now.’

In the entrance hall they passed a line of oriental staff in white uniforms with shiny buttons in which Gabriel could see a fish-eyed distortion of his father’s worried face. Being given instructions by a man in a black suit, the servants had their hands crossed in front of them, as if they were naked and didn’t want their intimate parts exposed.

Gabriel gazed up at a wide curved staircase and imagined a singing diva in a trailing white dress coming down it. Around them it was as busy as backstage at the opera. The staff and producer’s assistants hurried between wide rooms containing gilt and velvet furniture, overhung by intricate chandeliers. There must have been a fancy-dress party going on, as little girls dressed as princesses and boys in pirate costumes were ushered about by nannies.

The kid himself, Carlo, was about two years older than Gabriel. He was brought to them — or rather, almost dragged across — by a woman whom Gabriel guessed, from his knowledge of Gothic tales, to be the housekeeper. She rid herself of the boy — if he’d been a thing, she’d have flung him down, and if she’d been allowed, no doubt she’d have stamped on the thing, too — and disappeared with some relief and haste.