Hanif Kureishi - Gabriel's Gift

He said, ‘You and me?’

‘Yes.’

‘No George?’

‘There is something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.’

He said, ‘No Hannah, either.’

His mother put her finger to her lips. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you. Anyhow, she’s decided to do some work.’

During breakfast he watched his mother sceptically. He wasn’t convinced she was actually going to walk out of the door with him.

They did, at last, say goodbye to Hannah. Gabriel was even more surprised when, taking his hand, his mother said they’d be going to Kew on the habe. He didn’t know how long it had been since she’d got on a train, but she had stopped travelling on the underground for a variety of sensible reasons: it was beneath the earth and the experience resembled being buried alive; it was polluted — killer gases and toxic odours could poison you; and only murderers and lunatics travelled on the District Line.

He was apprehensive walking beside her on the way to the station; he could feel how afraid she was. Once they were on the train — while she read the papers with perhaps more interest than the Sunday Times merited — she glanced about nervously, but managed to keep her fear down. What she used to consider a boiling hell was an almost empty carriage rattling over the wide, beautiful, dirty Thames on a Sunday morning.

When they got off she sighed in relief.

‘Brave, eh?’ she said.

‘Well done, Mum.’

‘It’ll be an aeroplane next. It’s too late to be scared of everything.’ She looked him over. ‘Pull that hood down —’

‘Mum —’

‘Pull it down! Out here people will think you’re a drug dealer!’

For them, cool clean Kew was the countryside; it was a place to dream in.

Mum talked thoughtfully of how the English loved gardens and their houses, and how tedious she used to find it. But when she visited a middle-class area like Kew it cleared her mind and she could see she wanted more than the weed-infested patch of concrete containing rotting bookshelves and a burnt saucepan that they had at the back of the house. When she started to earn more money they would move.

‘We’ll get a proper garden,’ she said. ‘It won’t be big — just the right size for the two of us to sit out.’

They would be there, she added, until he went to university.

She said, ‘When I was in my twenties, living off the King’s Road and knowing fashionable people, I was quite a strange girl, lonely and …’ She searched for the word. ‘Extreme. I haven’t made the most of myself. In those days I would calm myself by thinking of being sixty. A sprightly woman I’d be, always well dressed but with weak knees, bent toes and bright eyes, readingFrench novels and listening to The Seven Deadly Sins . You can bring me flowers and books. You will come, won’t you, even though you’ll have better things to do? Perhaps you will bring your own children.’

‘Why would I not come?’ he said.

‘Children have to fall out of love with their parents. It’s a terrible divorce. My own parents have nothing to say to me, as you’ve probably noticed. I left them at fifteen. And yet I will want you to come to me. What’s wrong?’

‘It seems funny,’ he said. ‘Waiting until you’re sixty before you do what you want to do. Why can’t you do it now?’

‘It’s a good question. I wish I knew.’

As she talked, Gabriel found it odd, their being together alone. Usually, when they went on an outing, his father would be chattering, drawing attention to himself, making jokes, singing.

Neither mother nor son mentioned him, but Gabriel kept thinking of whether his father was still in his bed in his room, or if he had enough money to go out for breakfast. Maybe he had gone for a walk? Gabriel couldn’t get rid of the idea that Dad would decide to come to Kew Gardens. He would step out from behind the pagoda and the three of them would link arms and walk together.

On the way back to the tube they passed a little bookshop.

‘Would you like to go in?’

‘Yes. I might get something to read,’ Gabriel said, hopefully.

‘You can have whatever you want.’

‘Anything?’

‘Choose what takes your fancy — I’ll get it for you. It might surprise you, but I have been earning some money out there! Your father hasn’t been sending us any money, even though I’ve written to ask him. There’s the bills and mortgage on the house, and you’re expensive to run.’

He took a long time but she waited, looking around herself, mostly at the self-help section. As Zak had pointed out, it was when you heard the word ‘healing’ that you knew there’d be parent trouble ahead. There’d be therapy or worse, hypnotism or other forms of weird religion. Numerous members of Zak’s clan were walking about with their arms extended in front of them, and their eyes closed, ‘realigning’ their lives.

Among the limited selection of art books, Gabriel found a book of portraits. Mum commended his choice; it surprised her how few contemporary artists were interested in the human face and in what people were really like. It was a subject that rock ‘n’ roll couldn’t explore.

Carrying his new book, they went to a café a few doors down and had pizza. He wondered if he could have what he’d called, as a child, a ‘curly one’ — a knickerbocker glory. She said yes and ordered a spoon for herself.

He noticed she was looking around. ‘Don’t they serve beer here?’

‘It’s a café. Why do you want beer?’

She passed her hand over her face. ‘You make things hard for me.’

‘Thought it might be my fault.’

‘No, Gabriel.’

He was eating intently; it was a while before he realized she was watching him.

‘You used to be such a noisy little boy.’

‘Did I?’

‘Or perhaps I found you difficult. I was suffering, for other reasons. You’ve become quite thoughtful. What were you thinking about just then?’

He replied, ‘Whether Dad prefers chocolate or coffee ice-cream.’ Gabriel, Dad and Mum had kept a row of ice-creams in the freezer and often enthusiastically debated the subject of their favourite flavour. ‘Chocolate, I think. Dad could be eating one now … at the same time as us.’

She handed Gabriel her handkerchief. ‘Wipe your face, big boy. You miss him? He’s not dead, Gabriel darling.’

‘No, he’s living in a bedsit.’

‘It’s not a catastrophe. He was unhappy, your father. He didn’t even know it. Now he’s been made to see its effect on others.’

‘You’ve done him a favour?’ He whispered, ‘It’d be the first.’

‘Don’t mumble. I knew there was something wrong when he stopped hating everything. He didn’t complain about what he watched, ate or heard. He was moving far away from us — or me, at least. Sorry for leaving you with Hannah — as my mother used to say, she’s got a face like a bag of hammers. But I had to get things going. The petrification — that means things staying the same — was killing me. I have my faults, but I haven’t given up.’ She stood up, raised her arms and sat down. ‘Look at me, don’t I have some energy? Even more now, since he’s gone.’

‘Dad could be at work right now.’

‘Work? Gabriel, apart from everything else, it’s Sunday.’

‘He’s started to teach.’

‘Teach, did you say? What sort of teaching is it?’

When he saw she wasn’t about to be sarcastic, Gabriel explained that Dad had been teaching guitar to a boy, who had, in turn, recommended him to another, less spiky, kid whom Dad had enjoyed being with. He had signed up to teach them both for a few weeks. ‘When I’m teaching,’ Dad had said, ‘it’s strange, but I don’t get stuck in one particular state of mind. It shakes me up good.’