Gabriel's Gift

Gabriel went into the kitchen and made some tea. He was tired; it had been a long night and he had to go to school.

  Turning up the radio, he cleared his throat, put his head back and spat in George’s tea. Though he added milk and sugar, and stirred it, the snot-green tea still looked noxious.

  George was so exhausted his head was almost on the table.

  Gabriel gave him the drink and sat opposite him.

  ‘What are you doing today, George?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m a painter, so I don’t have to do anything except sit on my arse. Don’t you like artists?’

  ‘Mum always says they’re no-good people.’

  ‘She’s never said that to me.’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Gabriel. ‘There’s a lot of things people don’t say at first. She doesn’t like to be tied down, for instance. More than anything she likes her freedom. And I’m her favourite boy.’

  George said, ‘The poor woman’s tired. She’s been run off her feet lately.’

  ‘Really. Enjoying your tea?’

  ‘Thanks, yes.’

  ‘More sugar?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Milk?’

  The phone rang.

  ‘How are you, Dad?’ said Gabriel.

  ‘Is your mother there?’

  ‘Do you want to talk to her?’

  Dad hesitated. ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘She’s in the shower.’

  Dad seemed relieved. ‘You and I can talk then. Can I have the picture?’

  ‘I’m nearly finished with it.’

  ‘Good. Ill come and pick it up.’

  How keen people became when they wanted something!

  ‘Yes.’ said Gabriel. ‘Whenever you like but definitely not now. Not until I tell you when.’

  George sipped his tea and started to cough and choke. ‘Christ Almighty!’ he said. ‘Can’t breathe!’

  ‘Who’s that?’ said Dad.

  ‘Hannah.’

  ‘What is she, a baritone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I bet. Let me talk to that guy.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Dad.’

  ‘Listen, you’ve got to help me out. Don’t be too long with the picture,’ said Dad.

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘As well as being a bit short of cash, I haven’t got long to live!’

  ‘Are you not well?’

  ‘Going down. On the way to zero.’

  His father replaced the receiver.

  Gabriel said to George, ‘That was my dad. He’s coming round.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘He could be. He’s a musician.’

  George snorted. ‘He used to be.’

  ‘You never lose a talent – if you’re fortunate enough to have one in the first place.’

  When Mum came in, George said, ‘Gabriel’s explaining to me about talent.’

  ‘Oh yes. He would know.’

  Gabriel said, ‘Dad had an incredible talent, but something terrible happened to him.’

  ‘Yes, I heard he fell flat on his face,’ said George. ‘Everyone knows.’

  Gabriel said, ‘Shall I tell him about Dad’s dream about being asked to join the Rolling Stones, but as a cleaner? He had to sweep peanuts from the stage as they played. Then, backstage –’

  ‘Let’s leave that,’ said his mother. ‘George is a painter.’

  George was smiling at her. ‘I’m going to paint you, my dear.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You agreed.’

  ‘I’m not confident enough,’ she said.

  ‘You’re a coy little thing, aren’t you?’

  ‘But I am shy. You know I am, George.’

  ‘I do. But you’re not always shy, my darling. I’m thinking of the other night when you –’

  ‘Stop it now, please.’

  George said, ‘Look at these, Gabriel.’

  ‘He’s too young, George.’

  ‘Rubbish. Boys of his age are more experienced than we are. I’m not too old to remember!’

  George produced a bag and some slides. Gabriel went to the window and held them up to the light. There were paintings of near-naked, completely naked and obscenely naked women with Pre-Raphaelite hair made of swirls and flurries of irrelevant paint.

  ‘You’re in PR then.’ said Gabriel.

  ‘What are you saying now, Gabriel?’ asked his mother. She said to George, ‘He’s always bloody well saying something funny.’

  ‘Pre-Raphaelites.’ Gabriel cleared his throat. ‘Lots of colour.’

  ‘You like them?’ asked George.

  ‘I like looking at things,’ said Gabriel.

  ‘You like girls?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Got a girlfriend?’

  ‘I had five. No one at the moment.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘I haven’t had time to develop a meaningful relationship.’

  ‘George, don’t tease him,’ said Mum. ‘George works in Italy. In a castle on a hill. He’s invited us to go and see him there. We can stay as long as we like.’

  George said, ‘The Tiber valley. It’s not far from where the Giottos fell on the monks’ heads. God’s joke, I think. My district is full of artists and writers. In the evening, when the day has cooled down, we sit in the little square. The local carpenter puts up a screen, and we watch films outdoors, smoking, drinking and arguing until late.’

  Gabriel nodded.

  George pointed at the wall. ‘Looks as though some of these old photographs have been up too long. Who’s that other boy?’

  ‘He died a long time ago,’ said Mum. ‘He was Gabriel’s twin.’

  ‘God Almighty, so there were two of them?’ said George.

  ‘Yes.’ said Mum. ‘There were. Now there aren’t.’

  She was biting her lip.

  Gabriel said, ‘Elvis was a twin. Then he blew up to twice his own size.’

  ‘Really?’ said George. To Christine he said, ‘Would you like a picture?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Mum.

  ‘Gabriel?’

  ‘As long as it matches the wallpaper.’

  George was laughing.

  Gabriel said, ‘Do you just paint or do you decorate as well?’

  George’s colour changed. Mum looked at Gabriel. ‘I think we should have a talk,’ she said.

  ‘I’m ready,’ he said.

  ‘Christine –’ said George. ‘I thought we were going out to breakfast.’

  ‘All right.’ She said to Gabriel, ‘I didn’t mean now. You’ve got to go to school. We will talk, another time.’

  ‘I’ll put it in my diary,’ said Gabriel.

  ‘He’s got a lot of lip,’ said George. ‘If I had a stapler, I’d pin his lips together.’

  ‘Yes. Stop it, Gabriel.’

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘Whatever you’re doing.’

  When George and Mum had left the house – and Gabriel watched them going down the road, talking and laughing together – Gabriel returned to his two copies. He was pleased with them; he had done what he had set out to do.

  To celebrate, he took his big music box into the ‘garden’ – a concrete patio enclosed by a fence topped with barbed wire – and danced and sang until he fell over.

  Afterwards, he rolled up one copy of the picture and placed it under his mother’s bed, clicking home the padlock and rolling the wheels of the combination. He put the original and one copy in a cupboard no one ever looked in, that was full of old toys and books.

  He didn’t think his mother would bother to look at the picture under the bed, as she was so preoccupied with her job and George and her friends.

  However, that evening she came into his room.

  ‘I know you’re concerned about your precious picture, Angel,’ she said. ‘But I came home when you were at school, picked it up from where I’d put it away for safe keeping, and took it to work.’

  ‘To the bar?’

  ‘To sho
w people.’

  ‘To show off,’ he muttered.

  ‘Sorry?’

  He said, ‘Mum … did they like it?’

  ‘They thought it excellent.’

  ‘The colours … they approved of?’

  ‘I told them all about how I designed Lester’s trousers, and who I would hang out with in those cafés and restaurants in Chelsea. Most of the kitchen kids are too young to recognize the names of the people I knew, of course. I was unappreciated, as usual. Some of them, though, had some good suggestions about what to do with the picture.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘How to show it off to its full advantage. Meanwhile, I’m going to put it away again.’ she said. She was puzzled when she looked at him. ‘You’re not going to make one of your fusses, are you?’

  ‘No, Mum. As long as it’s safe. That’s all that matters. I know you know how to look after things.’

  ‘Yes.’ she said, a little sceptically. ‘Good boy.’

  His mind palpitated with pride. He thought of everyone looking at the picture. It had been his copy of Lester’s picture that they had praised in the bar. His scheme had worked; no one had suspected a thing. His mother was happy and so was he.

  He had become, in a way, an appreciated artist, though as anonymous, for the time being, as one of Rubens’s assistants.

  Chapter Eight

  The next time his father rang, Gabriel said he had sufficiently studied and thought about the picture. Now he was ready to lend it out. He said, ‘I’ll bring it to you after school, Dad. I can remember where you live.’

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t go walking about with that work of art. You might drop it! Take it easy right where you are. I’m coming to get it – now. Are you sure you’ve’ “studied” it enough?’

  ‘Well, I think I –’

  Before Gabriel could reply, Dad replaced the receiver. Later that morning he was smiling on the doorstep.

  ‘What are you going to do with it?’ said Gabriel, bringing out the picture and handing it to him. Gabriel felt both proud of and guilty about the copy.

  ‘It’s going on the wall! Gabriel, you’re an angel!’ Dad opened it out and was looking at it. ‘It’s even better than I remember.’

  Dad kissed the picture.

  Gabriel said, ‘Don’t you want me to help you get it framed and put up?’

  ‘No thanks!’

  ‘But you haven’t even got a hammer!’

  ‘Don’t worry about that – I’ll use my dick!’

  Gabriel said, ‘Why are you in such a hurry? Don’t you want to have a chat?’

  ‘Later. Things are starting to look up. Cheerio.’

  Gabriel watched his father cycling up the road with the picture inside his jacket.

  Gabriel didn’t hear from him again; he guessed his father was busy starting a new life. However, a few days later Hannah, on his mother’s instructions, was deputed to accompany Gabriel to his father’s house, where he was to spend the afternoon.

  Hannah, who stood on the doorstep in her vast black overcoat, heavy shoes and hat, looked like someone from another age. But at least she had sartorial self-respect, thought Gabriel. The rest of the older population now resembled a legion of disoriented mountaineers, in lightweight, all-weather clothes covered in pockets, with labels like Eiger and South Face.

  ‘Come on, then,’ he said, helping her down the steps. ‘And make sure I don’t fall into the clutches of any drug dealers on the way.’

  Hannah rarely went further than the local shops and market. As Gabriel led her to the bus stop and saw how alarmed she was by the swirling indifferent crowd and its numerous languages, he talked to her continuously. Still she insisted on taking his hand; not, he realized, to lead him, but for fear of getting lost herself.

  Seeing the various neighbourhoods from her point of view – for a while it seemed advantageous to pretend to himself that he was in Calcutta – he noticed that the bus, onto which they had had to clamber at the traffic lights as the driver appeared to see no other reason for slowing down, was driven by a monosyllabic lunatic who only stopped when shouted at by the passengers, most of whom were listening to music on headphones. Other ‘customers’ chatted loudly on their mobiles and almost everyone else gibbered and swore to themselves. Then the bus – because of road works, he was told – didn’t take its usual route but seemed to veer around West London almost at random, with the frantic passengers shouting instructions each time they saw a sign saying DIVERSION.

  She was solid, Hannah, and, back on the street, moved only slowly, with a kind of shuffle, whereas everyone else was engulfed by the stream; a moment’s hesitation could engender a homicide. Gabriel tried to stand between her and this eventuality.

  By the time they reached Dad’s house she seemed exhausted. But when, on the pavement outside, she heard people speaking in her language, Hannah’s face brightened and she started to follow them into the building. Gabriel had to tell her to stay where she was.

  ‘Why –?’ she began.

  ‘Dad might be in a bad mood,’ he explained.

  She stepped back sadly. Gabriel couldn’t let her see Dad’s place for fear she wouldn’t be able to resist telling his mother that he was drinking beer, surrounded by ashtrays, dirty plates, and his only asset, a picture by an old rock star.

  Gabriel then took her to the bus stop, accompanied her onto the ship of fools and instructed someone to tell her when to get off. Then, as she looked so bewildered, and he was grateful not to be her, he bent down to her face and kissed her. Her hands went to his and she kissed him back, in gratitude. He waved from the street as her terrified face flew into the traffic.

  At last he was pushing on his father’s door.

  ‘Here comes the son!’ called Dad gaily. He was in bed in all his clothes, apart from his trousers, reading the paper. ‘Little darlin’!’

  ‘You’re cheerful today,’ said Gabriel. ‘What are we going to do? Is it a museum or the cinema? There’s a film I want to see.’ He patted his pocket. ‘Don’t worry, Mum’s given me the money.’

  ‘Why – does she think I haven’t got any?’

  ‘She knows you, Dad.’

  ‘And she thinks I’m useless. If we want to see a film we can do it. We can go anywhere we like – almost.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘You’ll see. Pass me my trousers. Have you noticed that they’re new combats?’

  Gabriel was looking around. ‘Where’s Lester’s picture?’

  His father got up energetically but slipped on several discarded beer cans and landed back on the bed.

  Gabriel helped him up and said, ‘Take it easy, Dad. Save the falls for a stadium.’

  ‘When I find the motherfucking floor and my shoes I’m going to show you where your picture is.’

  ‘We have to go somewhere? You said it was on the wall.’

  ‘It is on the wall. Not on this wall, necessarily. But it is definitely on a wall. A wall is a wall, isn’t it? Or are you picky about your walls?’

  ‘I am picky about them, as it happens. I like my possessions to be on walls I know.’

  ‘Do you want to see it or not?’

  ‘I’m less keen now.’

  Dad was putting his trousers on. ‘Christ, you’re in a dismal mood.’

  ‘You’ve put me in one, funky fingers,’ said Gabriel.

  ‘You’ll be OK in a minute. Got any grass?’

  ‘I’ve given up, Dad.’

  ‘Mum tell you off?’

  ‘It was making me paranoid … and I kept seeing strange things. Chairs and stuff.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve had paranoia in my time. No chairs, though. I wouldn’t want that. Chairs? Was it the stuff you got at school or the stuff I grew at home?’

  ‘All of it. I’ve been getting very lost in my own head and sometimes I feel I’ll never get out, as if I’m –’

  ‘Come on now, we’ve got things to do.’

  As they went out, Gabriel noticed, leaning
against the entrance, the man with the curly slippers who’d threatened Dad. He nodded as they went past, as if he knew everything about them.

  After travelling a short distance, Dad locked up the bicycle and they walked to a hamburger restaurant with a flashing neon sign announcing the name, Splitz.

  The girl on the door greeted Dad like a friend, kissing him on both cheeks.

  ‘What sort of place is this?’ Gabriel said. ‘What are we doing here?’

  ‘Speedy – the boss and owner – is an old pal. He used to hang around the bands. When we were on tour, he started to cook for us. He was so slow because he couldn’t stop wittering on that he was called Speedy. Look at him now, shaking his withered old pussy in cream while we’re just – just creamed!’

  Gabriel looked at tourists and adolescents in London for the day, eating hamburgers as big as rugby balls, knickerbocker glories and sundaes like icebergs.

  ‘But Dad –’

  Dad said, ‘Yo! Speedy!’

  Hurtling towards them, Speedy was middle-aged with a young man’s face, tinted yellow. He had good teeth and teenage American clothes.

  ‘This is him, my boy.’ said Dad.

  ‘At last,’ said Speedy. He took Gabriel’s hand and caressed it with long, manicured fingers. ‘He is blond, and not the wrong blond either! Those cheekbpnes could cut you open! Where did he get them?’

  ‘Not from me, obviously,’ said Dad.

  ‘And Lester’s friend, too! I can see why.’

  Speedy laughed soundlessly by opening his mouth and pushing his head forward on its long wrinkled neck. Gabriel guessed that professionally he had to laugh a lot and this was the most economical way to do it.

  ‘How is dear Lester?’ Speedy asked.

  On closer examination, Gabriel saw that Speedy’s head seemed to have been shrunken from a larger model, as if his features had shrivelled over the years.

  ‘The very same cool dude,’ said Dad. ‘I told you, I was hanging out with him just the other day. You know, when he gave me the … thing.’

  ‘Thing?’

  ‘The thing … on the wall.’

  ‘Yes, yes. That reminds me, there’s something I need to tell you. Hold on a minute.’

  ‘Bacchus with a face-lift,’ whispered Dad, as Speedy suddenly disappeared to have his lips nibble at another face.

  On his return, Speedy said, ‘Come up to my operating table.’