Hanif Kureishi - Gabriel's Gift

‘Yeah. Dad, let’s get started.’

‘Right.’

The first thing Dad did was remove the picture of the chair Gabriel had given him. Dad folded it up neatly and put it in his inside pocket.

‘Now,’ he said in a conspiratorial voice. ‘This is how we’re going to get the stuff out.’

‘Sorry?’

Dad explained that as he wasn’t quite up to date with the rent, and didn’t intend to be, they had to make an ‘alternative exit’.

They gathered everything up, took it downstairs and, while Gabriel acted as look-out, carried it out through the back door of the house in rubbish bags. They regained the street by a side entrance. The van, driven by the old pal of Dad’s who’d taken his possessions in the other direction, arrived just as someone came out and saw them.

They collected Dad’s other things from his friend’s garage. By the afternoon, his father’s clothes, guitars and other instruments, Grateful Dead posters and books were back home. Hannah was asked to help; she shed a tear as each object was returned to its old place. The house seemed crowded and Dad’s cheerfulness was tiring.

‘I’m glad to be back here and in charge of everything again.’ he declared, slapping Mum on the arse.

‘I’ve never liked being whacked like an old donkey.’

‘Come on, Fluffy,’ he said. ‘You’re not an old donkey, you’re my wife.’

‘Wife? We’re not married.’

‘I don’t think I’m ready.’

‘That’s right. Like most men you’re too immature.’

‘It’s only that you don’t have a sense of humour.’

‘That’s because you never say anything amusing.’

‘Christine, other people laugh at my jokes.’

‘Give me their names and addresses. They’re just being polite, Rex.’

‘Why would they be?’

‘To get away from you as soon as possible. Or they’re your students, fawning over you —’

‘That’s respect. Now, listen —’

She said, ‘I think I’m getting a migraine —’

As Gabriel went to the door and out into the street, he could hear their voices growing quieter and quieter behind him. This story of his parents was one he thought he might turn into a film, in the future. If only he didn’t have to live through it first.

He went to call on Zak, who said, ‘Hey, where have you been all this time? Come in, come in!’

Gabriel almost fell through the door. ‘It’s good to be here. Fuck, I should have come before.’

‘Where have you been?’

‘Oh, God, I’ve had enormous parent stuff going on.’ sighed Gabriel.

Zak knew from experience what galling work this could be. Every time his parents went out, Zak feared they’d come back with more of what he called ‘steps’. He had stepsisters, stepbrothers and step-uncles all over London, as well as half, quarter and one-eighth brothers and sisters, the mementoes of repudiated parental passion. Sometimes he wondered who in their circle he wasn’t related to. His mother, for instance, had just had a baby with a friend of her husband’s, a man she no longer saw.

‘Explains everything,’ Zak said. ‘Wounded, eh? Me too.’

They picked their way through the house. The expensive furniture was at odd angles, and there was a goldfish bowl in the middle of the floor, as if the contents of the house had only that morning been brought in by the removal men.

‘Everything’s always upside-down when the feng shui guy’s visited,’ explained Zak. ‘I’m telling you, the parents have exploded.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Blown up! They’re only human beings anyway. They don’t know anything, the bastards.’

‘Mine are back together.’

‘In the same house? The same bed?’ Zak was looking at him in fascination. ‘How come? Are they doing it for you?’

‘Sorry? Did that happen to you?’

‘Course. My mother said, “If you didn’t exist I’d never have to talk to that madman, your father, ever again.”’

‘She married him.’

‘I did point that out,’ said Zak.

‘What did she say?’

‘That’s when the psychiatrist opened his door and asked me whether I’d had any interesting dreams and sexual fantasies and I told him the thing about the fish.’

‘I don’t know.’ said Gabriel. ‘Would you like your parents to live together?’

‘That’s unlikely now, with my dad a queen and all. The kids at school never stop going on about poofs.’

‘Yeah, it’s bad. Still, it’s worse to think that we’re going to turn out like our parents, don’t you think?’

‘I’ve never thought about that,’ said Zak. ‘Christ, that’s a hell to look forward to. Never marry, I say!’

‘Never marry!’

‘Just screw and work!’

‘Screw and work!’

Zak’s place was three times bigger than Gabriel’s, with a conservatory overlooking the garden. Gabriel fetched his easel and Zak worked on the script; they both liked the company. At last Gabriel told him that he’d received his first commission, painting Speedy. As Zak was intrigued, later that day Gabriel went home to his room, retrieved the painting of Speedy, and showed Zak what he’d done so far.

Zak stood back from the painting and announced, at last, that the picture was coming up a treat. Speedy looked like a pink poodle who’d won a prize. Gabriel should paint him with a rosette on his chest, or even on his fly.

Later, as Zak read Gabriel the latest version of the script and Gabriel made drawings and notes, a girl walked in, as girls do. Ramona was the sixteen-year-old friend of one of Zak’s ‘steps’. She looked as though she could have been one of Degas’s dancers. As Gabriel would never be able to address her sanely, he consulted Archie, his own agony aunt.

Archie told Gabriel to close his mouth and be lulling, seductive, kind. He reminded him of something Jake said. ‘If you become a director, not only will you have the opportunity to speak at inordinate length about the awfulness of other directors, the book you’ve read and the films you’ve made, while people listen, because they have to, you will also get girls. Quite a lot of women like cameras, you will find.’

Gabriel informed Ramona, ‘We’re making a short film, in the summer. How would you like to be in it — or at least audition?’

Her beautiful lips guarded the tongue of an asp. ‘How do you know I want to be an actress? Do I look like an exhibitionist? Show me the story and I’ll give it my fullest consideration.’

‘Your fullest consideration, eh?’

‘That’s right. It better be good.’

Gabriel was staring at her. When she left, she kissed him on the cheek.

That night Gabriel and Zak worked on the script until late, writing, making shot lists and acting out various scenes, as well as trying out possible music. When Gabriel felt tempted to dismiss their work as frivolity, as being not-quite-adult, he thought of Lester on his hands and knees on the floor, as serious as anything about a picture and a few words.

In the morning, as Gabriel and his father breakfasted together, Dad tried to discuss his students, which was difficult, as Hannah felt impelled to produce a show. She’d get on her knees and scrub like a martyr at the feet of Christ, occasionally looking up at her employer with imploring eyes. Gabriel had never known her to clean either under or inside anything but now you could have snacked on any surface or licked any crevice. Nevertheless, Dad felt uncomfortable: although he was used to his wife working in front of him, anyone else made him feel guilty. He had remained an egalitarian in theory.

‘Thank you, Hannah,’ he’d say, a phrase he’d heard the upper classes use in films, hoping that this would somehow make her disappear. But she merely took it as gratitude, to which she soon became addicted, following Dad around with a basket full of cleaning equipment, in the hope of more praise.