‘What do you do here?’
‘What does anyone do anywhere? You know me: if I need a song I’ll sing one. Now, I should feed you otherwise your mother will accuse me of … unspeakableness. Was she nervous of letting you come here?’
Gabriel didn’t want to tell his father what Mum had said the previous night, when she woke him up to talk about the next day Dad hadn’t ‘disciplined’ Gabriel sufficiently; Gabriel was doing badly at school because of his father’s bad example. Hannah had been brought in to aid the ‘discipline’ process. If it showed signs of breaking down, further ‘measures’ would be taken; and if, during Gabriel’s visit, Dad started drinking, ‘you’re to call me,’ she said, ‘and I’ll fetch you home. If he depresses you, or it’s too squalid, ring and I’ll be there.’
Gabriel said, ‘Not really, Dad. I think she wants to do other things now.’
‘Like what?’
‘I’m not really sure. Just something else.’
‘Right, well, that’s exactly what I want to do, too. Let’s eat, pal.’
On the single gas burner, Gabriel had noticed an opened tin of ravioli, black around the bottom and with a spoon in it, probably still hot.
‘Wait,’ Gabriel said.
From his bag he produced some tacks and pinned the picture of the yellow chair over his father’s bed.
He regretted it was a copy of another picture; he wished he had done something original. He would do something original.
In the meantime the yellow chair would do.
It reminded him that he had been intending to speak to Dad about the ‘hallucinations’ and other strange scenes and nightmares taking place within the theatre of his mind. He saw now that his father was burdened enough as it was.
Gabriel finished pinning the picture up and noticed his father’s eyes were as wet as the wall.
‘Magic,’ said Dad. ‘A few more of those and I’ll be tickling myself under the chin rather than trying to cut my throat. You’re good to me, Angel. I hope, whatever happens, that I will be the same to you. I think we should find a restaurant.’
‘Cool.’
‘Stop saying that!’
In the pizza place Dad ate nothing but drank a beer and watched Gabriel, asking him about school and his friends. Gabriel didn’t know if his father had lost his appetite; it occurred to him that Dad couldn’t afford to eat.
He said, ‘Where have you been, Dad?’
‘Yes, sorry. Trying to get my life started again —’
‘Why didn’t you phone? I thought you’d gone gay.’
‘Gay?’ Dad looked shocked. Then he laughed. ‘I remember you said that’s what happened to your friend Zak’s father. One day he woke up and decided he wanted to be with boys. Why would that happen to me? Didn’t Zak’s father always collect teapots? And you say he didn’t know he was homosexual! Have I ever taken such a turn with teapots or any such fancy, nancy objects?’
Gabriel recalled Zak’s father, who had had blond streaks painted into his thinning hair and wore tight white T-shirts with a packet of Marlboros shoved up the sleeve.
Zak and Gabriel had been friends since the first day at school, when they discovered that they not only liked the same films and music but were likely to have the same enemies.
Zak’s parents were well off; his father was a computer magazine publisher and his mother a journalist. Zak had been sent to a state school rather than a fee-paying one ‘on principle’. While he might not be the recipient of any worthwhile information at the school, at least, it was thought, for the only time in his life, he would mix with ordinary people, an education almost worth paying for. Some other kids were in the same situation: their parents were politicians or actors, or they ran the local arts cinema where Gabriel and Zak were let in for free. These kids were bullied for being ‘snobs’, as if they were slumming or thought they were doing the school a favour by attending it, popping in for a lesson after breakfasting with their parents and the children of other celebrities in some hip Notting Hill café where models, producers and movie stars took their first calls of the day. The rough kids knew that no parents in their right mind — unless they were spectacularly privileged or politically perverse — would actually volunteer to send their child to the school.
Zak had never been poor. He didn’t know what it was like. The established middle class had different fears from everyone else. They would never be desperate for money; they would never go down for good.
Sometimes Gabriel was regarded in the same light as Zak. Although there was no question of his parents being able to send him anywhere else and Gabriel’s father turned up at the school not in a car, like some other parents, but on his bicycle, waiting outside with a roll-up and a newspaper he had pulled from a dustbin, he was still regarded as a ‘rock star’ for having played with the still popular Lester Jones. He was both derided and admired for this. The kids would sing Lester’s songs in the playground behind Gabriel’s back.
Gabriel said now, ‘You used to wear glitter and make-up.’
‘Of course I did! I was a pop boy. Heterosexual Englishmen love getting into a dress. It’s called pantomime. Anyhow, I admire Zak’s dad.’
‘You do?’
‘Changing his whole life like that. It’s a big, magnificent thing to do. Funny how everyone seems to be living a bohemian life now, except for people in the government, who have to be saints. And me.’ He said grandly, ‘I have had a job.’
‘A job?’ said Gabriel.
‘Your surprise surprises me. I’ve been in gainful employment — out in the fresh air.’
‘What for?’
‘It was just a fantasy I had. Gabriel, I was a sort of coolie. A bicycle courier.’
‘What happened?’
‘I found it very hard, very hard. I got sick. It exhausted me. The distances, across London, were too great for me. I had no idea this city was so … undulating.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘Fucking hilly. I thought my chest would explode.’
‘You’ve stopped doing it?’
‘I … sort of collapsed. I’m looking for something more brain-based.’
‘Like what?’
‘Don’t ask so many questions. How’s the film?’
‘It’s nearly ready to be shot,’ lied Gabriel. ‘All I’ve got to do now is save up for a movie camera.’
‘I wish I could help you. I will get you a camera from somewhere, I promise. What we need is a stroke — one stroke of luck. Tell me what else has been happening at home.’
‘We’ve got a hairy au pair called Hannah.’
‘I know. I saw her watching me. What was her last job, turning on the gas in Auschwitz?’
‘Actually, she’s an immigrant. She’s lost in a bad dream. Most of the time she doesn’t know where she is.’
‘Yes, yes, sorry. And this woman is lazing around in those leather chairs I got for a good price? I hope she hasn’t scratched them up.’
‘Not at all. Mum exchanged them for a new futon.’
‘She exchanged them! Didn’t you try to stop her?’
‘You know what she’s like when she makes up her mind. Out they went!’ Dad looked away. Gabriel said, ‘Now she’s at work, waitressing. You know that, too.’
‘Has anyone come round?’
‘Sorry?’
‘To the house.’
‘Only Mum’s friends — Norma, that fat woman who always says, “Kiss me, stupid.” And the other women — Angie and that lot — who wear big overcoats and too many scarves.’
‘Anyone I don’t know? Strangers?’
Gabriel shook his head. ‘No, no strangers.’
Dad drank his beer. ‘I’m afraid she’s going to find it tough to survive without me there to guide her. When she phones for advice, I might refuse her. You will learn that women like to think they get by without us. But we give them —’