Gabriel's Gift (13 page)

Dad removed his coat, tossed the Coke bottle across the room into a bin, and picked up one of the kid's electric guitars.

‘Carlo, tell me something,' he said. ‘What d'you call this?'

‘Some people call it a guitar.'

Dad plugged it in and stroked the strings. A tinny noise emerged.

‘What the hell's that – a weeping mouse?' said Dad.

The boy shrugged. ‘Call it what you like, man, I don't give a monkey's.'

Dad got to his feet.

Gabriel's father, in most ways by now a respectable middle-aged father, stepped back and took a kick at one of the expensive speakers, his boot breaking through the front of it. They would, surely, be ejected now.

Dad, grinning with satisfaction at this memory of rock ‘n' roll, turned the volume up to ‘unbearable', and scythed across the strings. Ablaze of noise and jagged feedback penetrated the three of them like fiery arrows. The boy, who had sat up at Dad's attitude, seemed to stagger under the noise.

‘Why whisper?' said Dad. ‘This is the devil's music. Or it is when it's done properly.'

It was a blues number, one of Gabriel's favourites, ‘Mean Old World'. Dad was banging his foot and singing, though they couldn't hear a word but saw only his opened mouth so that he resembled one of Bacon's screaming Popes.

Crouched over as if to avoid a hail of bullets, two of the staff ran into the room with their hands over their ears. They struggled to close the windows and to indows, and, make absolutely sure, dragged the curtains across. Then they scurried out across the vibrating floor, whimpering.

The boy grabbed a guitar, turned up the volume, stabbed and twisted his foot in the front of another speaker – at least he had learned that aggression was imperative for a vivid performance – and started to play, pursuing his teacher into the distance.

The boy managed a decent bluesy sound and when Dad paused, keeping the rhythm, the boy took over.

As his father worked, letting Carlo play along with him, not forcing him to do anything, and the boy began to see he could do it, Gabriel could settle down to biting his fingernails and chewing his cheek. Gabriel had never worried about anything as much as Lester's picture, though perhaps he didn't have to take any
action at the moment. Lester might not become aware of the picture's whereabouts for a long time, and even then, might not realize that the picture was a forgery. Maybe, in the future, he could write Lester a letter. Dad had the address.

When Gabriel and his father got up to leave he noticed, to his surprise, Carlo's father standing in the door. The film producer was small, jovial and bald, in a good suit without a tie. With the top button of his shirt done up and his Adam's apple seeming to still bob with the beat, his head looked constrained, like a boil about to burst.

Dad had told Gabriel that Jake Ambler was so busy he would invite people who sought meetings with him to sit in his car on the way to the airport, or even to walk around the building with him, as he ate his lunch or went to the toilet.

‘Thank you so much,' Jake said, following Dad and Gabriel down the stairs, tearing notes from an impressive wad and pushing them into Dad's hand. ‘You deserve this. I enjoyed that so much I felt like getting my leather trousers let out.'

Dad turned and looked at him, nervous of any condescension. There was none; the man was looking at him gratefully.

Jake said quietly, ‘Carlo didn't say anything offensive did he?'

‘Like what?'

‘Well … you know … that you were a self-abuser.'

‘No.' said Dad. ‘He didn't mention anything like that.'

‘I'm relieved. I can't seem to find the right tone with him. He's my only son, Rex. It's terrible: the boy has strange turns.'

‘He does?'

‘When he goes to sleep he thinks flies walk over his body. He thinks policemen are watching him. We sent him to that therapist that people have started seeing, the one who wrote the book, Deedee Osgood. Have you met her yet? Carlo seemed to get very attached to her, but it didn't cure him. He won't learn anything but the one thing he's interested in is music. He's either playing or listening, all the time. Music can make people feel better, can't it?'

‘It's always had that effect on me.'

‘Please, will you try it with him, then?'

‘Try what?'

‘Teaching him stuff – anything that you know – through music.'

‘I'd like to be of help, Jake. I'm flattered and all that. But I've never done it before. I'm not qualified.'

‘I don't care about that. The boy has worshipped Lester for years. He wouldn't show it, but he was very excited when he heard you were coming. He'll see you, I know he will. Please, give it a go – just for a while. If it doesn't work out, nothing will have been lost.'

‘It's strange,' said Dad. ‘I know how the boy feels. For years I could hardly speak. I didn't like other people standing too close to me. Music was the only thing that went into my head. Let me think.'

Dad walked away and seemed to be thinking a bit, though mostly he was fiddling with his hair. Jake and Gabriel watched him. At last Dad agreed to come by every other day to give the boy lessons.

‘I don't know what I'll do,' said Dad. ‘But I don't mind telling him some of the things I know.'

‘I'm delighted!' said Jake, shaking his hand. ‘You must come round for dinner. I'll get some people in that you might like. Can my driver drop you anywhere? He's at your disposal – both of you.'

‘No thanks,' said Rex, before Gabriel could say anything. ‘We like the street. We're used to having our feet on the ground.'

When Gabriel and Dad were turning the corner, Carlo ran up behind them and shoved tapes of his father's films into Gabriel's arms and whispered, ‘He's all right, your father.'

‘Thanks for saying that,' said Gabriel.

Dad lit a joint and they walked away through the cold air.

‘I'm surprised you didn't smack that kid across the room,' said Gabriel. ‘I was getting ready to.'

‘I noticed. You could have easily taken the skinny little bastard. But it wouldn't have created a good impression with his old man if you'd put that bottle through his head.'

‘No.'

‘He didn't bother me one bit,' said Dad. ‘I'm glad we went. But I am exhausted. I couldn't go through all that again, even if they paid me. I'll ring and say I'm emigrating to Africa.'

‘No you won't. Surely we didn't go through all that for nothing?'

Dad said, ‘Do you know why people become teachers?'

‘In my experience, because they like being listened to.'

‘That's a good reason for being one, then, if you have something to say.' Dad counted the money three times and whistled. ‘To think – all these years I've been passing on my opinions in pubs for nothing!' He said quickly, ‘You know, when that kid started cursing me, I remembered that my mum was a primary school teacher. I'd sort of forgotten that. She was devoted to it, too. She was hardly at home and when she was there she was preparing for the next day. We'd run into her adoring ex-pupils all over the place, waving and saying hello. Whenever I went to the school there was always a kid holding on to her. I hated that.'

‘Why?'

‘I wanted her to be only mine. But she could do this remarkable thing – she knew how to make kids feel she was on their side.'

‘How did she do that?'

‘By being really on their side. By disliking authority.' Dad was sobbing. ‘I haven't thought about her for a long time. Can you believe it – I'm talking about more than forty years ago. Maybe in forty years, long after I'm dead, you'll remember this moment. I often think about how you'll remember me. Maybe you'll put me in a film or something. Who could play me, d'you think? How about Robert De Niro?'

‘Won't you be around when I'm old? I want you here for ever.'

‘Yeah, I know. I'll try and last as long as I can, pal. But I'll be dead before you, I hope. You'll have a son and you can tell him all about our adventures together. The stupid things I used to do … and how I sold your picture … and how I –'

‘Yes.'

‘Whatever. Shall we go and eat? Things are looking up a little. We should celebrate, eh?'

He took Gabriel to a good Italian place where they filled themselves up with pasta and ice-cream.

It had been a busy day but to Gabriel's surprise Dad wasn't depleted. The teaching had reinvigorated him. Gabriel himself had even managed to temporarily forget about the picture. It was, of course, hanging in Splitz, but Lester didn't go there.

Later, at the top of their road, Gabriel said, ‘Mum will be pleased.'

‘About what?'

‘The teaching job.'

‘Will you tell her?'

‘It would be better coming from you.' said Gabriel. ‘She keeps saying to me that there's something important she wants to talk about, but she never gets round to it.'

‘D'you know what it is?'

Gabriel shrugged. ‘The future, I expect. Dad, why don't you come round?'

‘I've thought about it. But I can't go into the house … it's heartbreaking. Even walking about this area makes me feel sick.'

‘Go to the bar where she works.'

‘Do you think she'd been happy to talk to me? She's falling in love with someone else.'

‘It doesn't matter. I've never met a bigger idiot than that guy. She's only trying to make you jealous.'

‘Yeah? I'll think about it. My problem is, I don't really want anyone else. But she's been rather hard on me.'

‘It's for your own good.'

‘Thank you, Gabriel, but I don't feel improved by it yet.'

Gabriel kissed his father.

‘See you soon, Dad.'

‘See you.'

One Sunday morning a couple of weeks later, when at last he got up, Gabriel found Hannah had bared her thick arms and donned rubber gloves, covered her head with a ragged tea towel, and put on a pair of his father's old shoes, without laces. Gabriel wondered if she were about to tackle a pile of nuclear waste, but saw she was intending to clean the living room. Mum had had people round: the sour air was thick and muzzy, the ashtrays full, the chairs scattered, and on the table were beer and wine bottles, crisp packets and half-eaten sandwiches.

Afraid Hannah might hand him a mop or duster, he skipped through into the kitchen. To his surprise he found his mother listening to a waltz on the radio and cooking him a fried breakfast.

‘Hi, Angel. It's a lovely day. How about going to Kew Gardens?'

The suggestion startled him; he quite liked Hannah now, but he didn't want to spend the day in a hothouse with her.

He said, ‘I'm going swimming with a mate.'

Mum said, ‘I thought it would be nice for us to go out.'

Gabriel and his parents often used to go to Kew Gardens on Sundays. They had taken many photographs there. It must have been two years since they'd last visited.

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, reading
French 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.'

Gabriel could see that Mum wanted to talk about Rex, his father – to someone who knew him, who would understand. At the same time, she knew she couldn't say all she felt.

‘Gabriel, I can imagine him teaching. He's bad-tempered and testy, your father, and he'd be surprised that his pupils don't know everything already But he understands music. In certain moods, he likes to … lecture. I haven't talked to Lester for years, but he was always incredibly alive and energetic. Maybe he's inspired Dad. It's obviously done him good.'

In this was some surprising generosity.

Gabriel said, ‘Grandma – Dad's mum – was a teacher.'

Her face brightened. ‘Oh yes, that's right. She'd take you to the library.'

‘Didn't she teach me to read?'

‘Yes, with my help.'

Gabriel said, ‘Dad and I did stuff together, but you were always shouting at him about the sticky patch on the living-room floor.'

‘Weeks it was there, that sticky patch. I kept getting glued to the floor. I thought I'd never move again.'

‘He got discouraged.' Gabriel had read somewhere that people say this when they are angry: ‘Anyhow, I can't forgive you for it.'

She was shocked. ‘What made you say that?'

‘Archie.'

‘Archie? You're talking about your brother now?'

‘Yes.'

She said, ‘My son's dead. It nearly drove me mad. I was on medication for a long time –'

‘Archie's almost dead.'

‘Almost! What are you saying? Gabriel –'

‘He's a part of me. He talks to me.'

‘Archie talks to you? What does he say?'

‘He gives me advice.'

‘That's odd, seeing as he never became much of a talker. Now you're saying he's having conversations. Gabriel you had better watch out – the psychiatrists'll be round tapping your knees with hammers and asking you your own name. Does your father know anything about this?'

‘No.'

‘I should talk to him about it. Except we're not talking.'

‘Why don't you?'

‘I might have to. I can't believe it. Christ Almighty, what's happened to you? What a strange little boy you are!'

‘I'm not little any more! You should open your eyes!'

Mum was looking at Gabriel in puzzlement. She snatched back her handkerchief. She said, ‘Oh, you don't understand how people can make one another crazy. Gabriel, don't you dare try to make me feel guilty. Parents always feel they fail. It's a losing game, parenthood. I'm a woman on her own, without a useful husband, trying to make a living for us both! A single mother!'

‘Single mother,' he imitated her.

‘What do you expect me to do? It's no party at work!'

‘You have plenty of parties!'

‘And why not?' She shook herself, flinging off agitation like rainwater. ‘I've got to tell you – I've been offered a new job …'

‘Really?'

‘By a man called Speedy.'

‘Speedy?'

‘Yes. What's it to you?'

He said, ‘Strange name.'

‘He's always in a hurry. I ran into him at a party in the Portobello Road a little while ago. We were friends in the old days. He had a villa near Marrakech where we all stayed. He always wore
shiny shirts. Many of the people are dead now, or mad, or have moved to Wales. But Speedy owns hamburger places full of rock and pop stuff. He knows my situation with Dad, and he's sympathetic. I think he's going to employ me. At first I'll do some waitressing. Then he'll promote me. I'm pretty sure I'll get to manage one of the places. It's a good start. What do you say?'

‘Er … I'll have to think about it.'

‘Why? It's not a philosophical problem! Aren't you pleased at my new job?'

He nodded and said, ‘Have you been to this hamburger place?'

‘Oh, I used to go there, only for parties, not for the food, of course. I'd rather eat my feet. But I told you.' she said impatiently ‘Don't you listen? I ran into Speedy at a party. I was thinking, too,' she went on, ‘that we should show Lester's picture to Speedy.'

‘Lester's picture?'

‘Yes.'

‘What for?'

‘He might be interested. Anyway, even if we don't do that, I think we should have it framed. I'm going to see to that next week. Before I start the new job, I thought we might go to Italy.'

‘To see George's castle?'

‘Yes.'

Gabriel said, ‘I don't like castles.'

‘Oh, don't you?'

‘They're too draughty. I want to work on my film.'

‘Good. You can do it there. Oh, Gabriel, it'll be wonderful for us to have some sun and sea. It's been so long since things were good!'

‘I can only work in London. It's the environment in which I feel most comfortable.'

‘Oh really? You're a cussed devil. You'll have to stay with Hannah, then.'