Hanif Kureishi - Gabriel's Gift

‘You wait and see,’ he said. ‘Is it all right, Gabriel, if I go out with Mum for a bit?’

‘Sure. Mum, what did Jake say?’

‘He rang me up out of the blue and said he wanted to take me to the Ivy. I couldn’t refuse! I called up work and said I wasn’t well. What a place the Ivy is! I was looking around at everyone so much I hardly heard a word he said. Danny La Rue was there, looking great!’

Gabriel said, ‘What did Jake want?’

‘He was praising both my boys. Said Rex was a great teacher for waking up his lad and everything. And you — well … He seemed to think you wouldn’t necessarily make a lawyer. It would be a waste.’

‘What did you say?’

‘All that matters to me is that Gabriel doesn’t turn out like his father.’

Dad didn’t find this amusing.

Mum was blushing. She said, ‘Jake promised to keep an eye on you, Gabriel. Like a godparent. What an impressive man that Jake is. His head — in fact his whole damn body — should be on a stamp.’

‘Then you could lick it,’ said Dad.

‘Gabriel,’ said Mum. She was laughing. ‘We’ll leave you alone for a bit, OK? See you later.’

When his parents had kissed him and left, Gabriel told Hannah he was going out. She hardly listened. She was sitting in a chair singing or moaning to herself.

Gabriel went to Splitz to sketch and photograph Speedy in situ. Gabriel wanted to finish the portrait; he had been thinking that Speedy would appreciate his restaurant being in the picture. The chaise-longue wasn’t quite right. He’d take Speedy’s head and put it somewhere else. Wasn’t that called having an imagination?

After a couple of hours’ sketching and observation, Gabriel told Speedy that the preparatory work was complete. He didn’t need to see him again in the — here he could only hesitate — flesh. He would, in a few weeks, give him the finished painting.

Sitting at his Operating table’, Speedy was disappointed.’ But I love posing for you, Angel. One more time, surely?’

‘Sorry, Speedy, your face is etched in my memory.’

Speedy clapped his hands and said he couldn’t wait to see the picture.

Gabriel warned him, ‘You don’t know, I’m still only a kid and it might be terrible.’

‘The more terrible the better! Ha, ha, ha!’ Then Speedy said, ‘Have you told your parents what we’re doing?’

‘No. No I haven’t.’

‘Thought not. I guess your mum will be all right about it. But your father probably won’t like the picture and he won’t like you spending time with me. He’ll imagine all kinds of stuff.’

‘I’ll tell him when I’m ready, then.’

‘That’s right.’ Speedy was watching him. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘What?’ Gabriel said, ‘I was thinking that if I were taking photographs at the moment I’d only photograph people in close-up. I’d be so close I’d only get part of their ear, the tip of their nose or a patch of skin. I wouldn’t be able to get all of them in. Why’s that?’ he asked, confident that Speedy would know the answer.

‘You’re too close to your parents. You can’t see them — they’re on top of you.’

‘Yes …’

‘When it comes to other people, it’s always difficult to get the distance right.’

‘Yes.’

‘Now you’ve got something to think about. D’you want a taxi?’

‘Yes, I’d better get home.’

When he went into the house, Gabriel heard an unearthly noise. Thinking someone was being slaughtered, he ran into the kitchen. Hannah was weeping.

‘Hannah! Has someone died? Tell me what’s wrong!’

She didn’t want to talk. He made her a cup of tea, gave her some cake and eventually she gave way.

‘It’s worse than dead! Your mama and dadda are again together as one! Your father is carrying his things here.’

It was true. Every few days Dad would ‘accidentally’ leave something in the house, ‘until next time’. The place was beginning to resemble its former condition.

Gabriel explained, ‘It’s only a trial period.’

‘Wha?’

‘To see how it goes.’

‘Suppose it goes too good?’

Mum had explained to Gabriel that she couldn’t help having reservations about Dad. It wasn’t that she doubted he had ‘progressed in his growth’, it was whether any couple could eliminate the years of habit that had accumulated between them. She was, after all — and she hated to admit this — used to regarding Dad as a ‘bit of a fool’. There was the habit of disliking him; the habit of calling him lazy; the habit of trying to push him to do things; the habit of considering him a failure. He, too, had his own way of seeing her, as a petty nag, for instance, with a conventional mind.

There was a lot for his parents to get over; it would be big work for both of them.

Gabriel liked to think he was nudging things along by informing Mum that the mother of one of Dad’s pupils was so interested in him she had decided to take up music. When Dad asked, ‘What instrument are you thinking of learning?’ she replied, ‘Oh, anything that involves four hands.’ She had even begun to give Dad gifts.

‘What sort of gifts?’ Mum asked.

‘Oh, just little things.’ Gabriel said, helpfully.

‘Little things, eh?’ She hummed to herself but said no more. He knew she had taken it in when she bought Dad a new bag in which to carry his files, music and books.

Now Hannah went on, ‘I know they won’t want me here any more.’

‘There’s always someone left out, I suppose.’

‘It’s me!’

‘Why don’t you want to go home?’

‘I don’t! I don’t! First Communists — now gangsters!’

He fetched her a drink and said, ‘I’ll talk to Mum about it, if you want. She might be able to help fix you up with something else — people even better than us.’

‘Would you? Oh Master Gabriel, I’d be so grateful!’

This time she kissed him.

His parents were back late. As Gabriel worked, he could hear them murmuring in the kitchen below. He was intending to go down and talk to them, but their voices grew more raucous, with sudden hushes followed by mysterious lulls. Soon, the teacups in the cupboards started to rattle. The windows would be next; a love-storm was approaching.

Gabriel was deputed to accompany his father to his old room. Dad hadn’t been there for a few days. He’d been staying ‘at home’.

After they’d climbed the stairs and pushed the door, Dad stood there sniffing and looking contemptuously at the familiar detritus. He took a few steps.

‘I don’t even want to touch my own things. I’d just as soon leave them. Everything seems coated in grease. Mum wants me to keep this place in case things don’t work out between us. But I think they will. She seems to be into it, don’t you think?’

‘Yeah, I think so.’

Mum had, Gabriel knew, been out with George. He could tell that George had rung because of the speed with which she’d dressed and got out of the door. The night this happened Dad had rung from the other side of London, where he was working. Gabriel had said she was at work, but Dad had already tried there. Dad kept ringing, until Gabriel went to bed and put the answering machine on. She came home late but alone, and, when he crept to her door and looked through, she was staring at the ceiling miserably. That was the end, he guessed. He knew for certain it was over when she abandoned Italian and started to wonder whether it was too late for her to become a primary school teacher.

Now Dad said, ‘Even if things don’t work out and she asks me to leave again, I’ll never live in this room again. I’d sleep on the street or stay with a student, if it came to it. There were times in here,’ he sighed, ‘when I felt everything had been taken away and I had nothing to live for. That time after we’d been to Speedy’s, and I’d sold him the picture … It was an all-time low, in my opinion. I hope nothing like this ever happens to you, Angel. It certainly reduces a man.’