by Monica Ali
They continued with the stock check. Gabe kept looking at Nikolai. They counted bottles and tins. Nikolai found mouse droppings at the back of a shelf.
‘No,’ said Gabe. ‘No, those are old. That problem’s been sorted out. OK?’
‘OK,’ said Nikolai.
They carried on.
‘Know what your problem is,’ said Gabriel.
Nikolai waited patiently.
‘No, I can’t be bothered to tell you.’
They worked on, calling product names and numbers, sliding boxes and hefting sacks.
‘I’ll tell you what your problem is,’ said Gabe. ‘You go on about science, you think you know everything, but you don’t know about people at all.’
‘My ex-wife would agree with you.’
‘Science tells us this, science tells us that,’ said Gabe, his voice rising, ‘we’re machines, we have no free will. Well, bloody science doesn’t tell me anything about how I bloody well feel.’ And that, he decided, had always been his problem. As a chef as much as anything. His marvellous scientific approach. He’d even given Oona a lecture on the molecular structure of custard. For God’s sake! Who needed to know that? What you needed to know, standing there stirring, was exactly how it felt as it was all about to thicken.
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ said Nikolai, remaining damnably calm.
‘Go on,’ Gabe urged, ‘go on, talk, don’t treat me like an idiot.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Nikolai slowly, ‘it would be interesting to look at it from another point of view. Leave science aside. Let’s say you are reading a novel, and this novel is about a man’s life. It begins with his childhood and follows him through various events until, maybe, a crisis somewhere in middle age.’
Nikolai paused and Gabriel instantly became incensed. ‘Well,’ he cried, ‘get on with it. Don’t make a speech. Just talk.’
‘All right. Let’s say it is a decent novel and you believe in this character, you begin to understand him. Now, as you read, the character is always making decisions, choices, about his life, thinking, vacillating, about which way he will go.’
‘Yes! Exactly! That’s how it is. That’s how people are.’
Nikolai gazed out steadily from beneath his combustible stack of hair. ‘But if we have got to know him, his make-up, his circumstances, then we know how he will act. It is these books which take on authority, inevitability, because we feel they are true to life. The protagonist cannot be otherwise, cannot do otherwise, and yet he is condemned to behave – as we all must – as if he were free.’
‘Oh, bullshit,’ said Gabriel hotly. ‘How boring is that? How boring is a book without twists and turns? What about characters who act on impulse, without any reason, without even knowing why they’re doing something?’
‘Of course. That too,’ said Nikolai, soothingly. ‘But if they are controlled by impulse and act without reason, that is also an argument against the existence of free will.’
‘That’s only …’ said Gabriel. Nikolai thought he was so clever and see where his cleverness got him. A commis, no more, no less. Gabe would explain to him clearly how false his argument was. ‘What you don’t …’ he began again and faltered. His mind whirred like an electric whisk, beating in an empty bowl. He had to speak. ‘It’s you who goes round in circles. You twist everything to fit one idea. You think you’re proving something but it’s just your opinion, your belief. For God’s sake, you’re like a true believer,’ he said, shaking with anger. ‘It’s like a religion with you.’
When he’d finished the stock-take, Gabriel told Suleiman to come outside with him for a moment. He needed a cigarette.
Suleiman peered and squinted, the consternation caused by this irregularity.
‘Relax,’ said Gabriel. ‘You’re not being had up in court.’
Suleiman wrung his toque between his hands. ‘Oh no, Chef, it is most pleasant to enter a conversation with you.’
‘I wanted … er … to see how everything is going. Making progress? All OK?’
‘It is the appraisal?’ said Suleiman, looking like a man who has left his briefcase on the train.
‘That kind of thing,’ said Gabe. ‘I’m very impressed, I should tell you, very impressed by your focus, your attitude. I’ll be setting up my own place – you have to keep that secret for now – and I could certainly find a position for you. It’d be a promotion. Would that suit you?’
Suleiman rocked on his crooked legs. ‘Thank you for these kind words. May I have a little time to consider your offer, please?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Gabriel expansively, his back against the cold yard wall, his face turned to the sun. ‘Think and we’ll talk again. See if it fits in with your plans. I haven’t forgotten, how you’ve got it all worked out.’
‘It is my father’s influence,’ said Suleiman smiling. When he smiled he did so vigorously, as if it were a form of exercise undertaken for the good of his health.
‘Jolly good. And what about … tell me, is it just your career you have mapped out or do you have plans for … wife, kids, all the other stuff?’
‘Most certainly,’ said Suleiman. ‘It would be utmost negligence to leave these things to chance.’
Gabriel nodded. He enjoyed his cigarette.
‘My parents are presently selecting a number of girls,’ continued Suleiman, ‘from good families, of course.’
‘And then you’ll choose the one you like best.’
‘Subject to compatibility screening, when that has been carried out.’
‘But you can’t know if you’re compatible unless you spend some time together. Your presence will be required.’
‘Eventually,’ conceded Suleiman. ‘But not in the first phase. First our charts must be matched.’
‘Oh, how does that work?’
‘Astrological charts. It is exceedingly most important, otherwise a correct decision cannot be made.’
‘Really? Like a marriage horoscope?’
‘Based on birth stars of the boy and the girl. It is an ancient science, very complex, and it reveals much detail. For instance, the presence of a certain alignment, the Dina Koota agreement, ensures that the husband and wife will remain healthy and free from diseases. The Ganam and also the Yoni Kootas will determine sexual compatibility, and if Rajju is in present alignment it bestows the girl living happily with the husband for a long time.’
Gabriel lit another cigarette. It made him cough and it made his eyes run. ‘But do you,’ he said between splutters, ‘believe all that?’
‘No one in my family,’ said Suleiman, earnestly, ‘has ever got divorced. Maybe as modern men we should not believe what is written in the stars. But as a way of making bride selection it does appear to work as well as any system you have here.’
The tube train pulled into Russell Square before he realized what he’d done. He’d got on the wrong line. How could that have happened? Going in completely the wrong direction when he’d done this journey so many times. He made a dash for the doors and they closed in his face. At King’s Cross he studied the underground map as if he’d never seen it before. No point going back now, he could get the Hammersmith and City or the Circle to Edgware Road. He stared at the map, all the connections and intersections, you could know every detail and still have no idea about London at street level, still be lost in the real world. When he’d first lived here he used to get the tube between Covent Garden and Leicester Square.
He turned to face the platform and saw a little black mouse on the tracks, running brave and scared. He saw a Chinese ancient with a plaited beard, a couple kissing, a girl with a bandaged knee, and a man carrying a silver birdcage. The train rumbled in the distance, they stepped forward, all those gathered here, and a mighty wind blew from the tunnel mouth as if God himself were about to speak.
Gabe sat in solemn and vacant contemplation, and it was only when he arrived at Edgware Road that he hesitated, and then decided to press on. At the sound of Charlie’s voice on the interco
m he nearly ran away.
‘Hello,’ said Charlie. ‘Yes?’
‘It’s Gabriel. Can I come up?’
She buzzed him in and when he reached her front door it was open. He screwed his eyes up for a moment, trying to squeeze his brain, to get it working again. He went inside.
Charlie stood in the sitting room with one hand on her hip, lovely as a summer’s day.
‘I …’ said Gabriel. ‘I brought you some flowers. I left them on the train.’
‘Hello, stranger,’ said Charlie. ‘Won’t you sit down?’
‘I know you don’t want to see me. And I don’t blame you.’
‘Guess what I did today. Spent the morning in a school.’ Charlie swung out her desk chair and sat on it the wrong way round, hugging her arms across the back.
‘Did you? That’s great. Going in for this teaching business, then?’
‘It was so noisy. My ears are ringing still.’
Gabriel laughed. He glanced around at the porthole window, the sloping ceiling, the framed film posters, the vase of tulips, the patchwork quilt that draped the sofa, all the brilliant clutter of the room. He said, ‘Is it OK if I take my coat off?’
Charlie looked at him with her jade-green eyes. ‘You are funny. Would I ask you to sit and then order you to keep your coat on?’
‘I’ve missed you.’
She looked away, took a breath, looked at him again. ‘Same here.’
‘Charlie …’ His heart wept and sang.
‘I mean,’ she said, in a rush, ‘we can still be friends, can’t we? After all this time. There’s a friendship to be salvaged, I think.’
‘I didn’t think you’d want to see me. You didn’t return my calls.’
She swept her hair from behind her neck and pulled it forward over one shoulder and that sweet, familiar gesture nearly brought him to tears.
‘That was ages ago,’ she said. ‘You haven’t called me for ages. I kept expecting you to ring or show up here.’ She smiled. ‘You know, come round and apologize, grovel for all you’re worth.’
‘The number of times I’ve thought …’
Charlie came over to the sofa. She sat sideways on the arm with her feet on the cushion next to him. She wore a cream skirt with a nipped-in waist and a dark cashmere vest and she looked sensational. She looked like the girl he’d been trying half his life to find.
‘So,’ she said, ‘if I may be so bold, what finally brings you here?’
‘God, I’ve missed you and I’m so, so sorry, and if we could be friends,’ he gabbled, ‘that’s … that’s so wonderful and I am sorry, really sorry, for … and I’m incredibly sorry, I am.’
‘Go on,’ said Charlie, laughing, poking his leg with her foot. ‘Go on, grovel, more.’
He looked at her, engorged with emotion, his mouth and tongue thick with it. ‘Tell me how you are, Charlie. How are you?’
She pressed her hands on to her thighs, lifting her shoulders. ‘Oh, the usual, still worrying about Darfur, the polar ice caps, the wrinkles round my eyes.’
‘All the trouble hotspots of the world,’ said Gabriel. ‘Look at this, I’m going bald.’ He turned his head.
‘We’re not getting any younger, are we?’
Gabe spread his hands. ‘I come to you for help and what do I get? You’re supposed to say, no, that bald patch is not visible to the human eye.’
Charlie grew serious. ‘Why now, Gabe? Why come now? Help with what?’
‘There is something,’ said Gabriel. He told her about Gleeson, and Ivan and the housekeeping supervisor, and how he’d found the photos on the desk. ‘I don’t know what’s going on but there’s something not right and whatever it is, they’re still at it, still using that room. You’re the only person I can talk to, Charlie, and it’s you and the Penguin Club in those photographs, I thought you had a right to know.’
Charlie thought for a while. ‘When was all this?’ she said.
‘Before Christmas.’
‘And you thought I had a right to know … but you didn’t tell me until now.’
‘I called. I left messages.’
‘OK. And it’s happened again? You’ve seen the same thing, the same set-up?’
‘Well, they’re more careful now but I know they’re still using that room.’
‘I see.’
‘Charlie?’
‘Gabe, have you considered that you might be imagining things? It doesn’t seem like anything to me. You don’t like Gleeson, do you? You want to make it seem sinister.’
‘If you don’t believe me …’ said Gabe, ‘I thought you’d be the one person I could talk to about this.’
‘Stop chewing your fingernails,’ said Charlie, suddenly irritable. ‘Have you been sleeping properly? You look tired.’
Gabe put his head in his hands. He groaned. ‘Things have been tough, to be honest.’
‘Oh, Gabe, your father. I didn’t ask.’
‘Lost a lot of weight, not eating properly, but battling on as people say. We went for a walk at Christmas. But Charlie, it’s not been easy, one way or another, I’ve been having a hard time.’
‘Poor Gabriel,’ said Charlie, in a tone he couldn’t gauge. The clock struck the hour and she got up and went over to it, a piece of kitsch she’d picked up in a flea market in Camden Town. ‘The man and woman don’t come out any more. They seem to be stuck.’ She opened a little door and fiddled about, wound the hands on to the next hour. The clock struck again. ‘Well and truly bust.’
‘As a matter of fact,’ said Gabriel, ‘I’ve hardly slept in weeks.’
‘I don’t know why we’re avoiding the subject,’ said Charlie. ‘Don’t know why I’m avoiding it.’
‘I could have a look at that clock for you.’
‘I guess I’m going to have to ask you straight out.’
‘I remember when you bought that.’
‘What happened to the girl? Lena, wasn’t it? What happened to her?’
‘It’s good that we can talk, Charlie, that we can be friends again. You know, whatever does happen, you’ll always be able to turn to me.’
‘Did something happen, Gabriel? Gabriel, what did you do?’
‘Nothing. I didn’t do anything, she’s fine, I’m still … taking care of her.’
Charlie chewed it over. She put her hands on her hips. ‘Taking care of her?’
‘Did you think I’d done something to Lena? Come on, you know me better than that.’
‘She’s still with you.’
If anyone could understand, it would be Charlie. If he could explain to her. ‘Last night,’ he said, ‘Lena said a truly terrible thing to me. Well, it was in the middle of a big row, I suppose.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘She may only be young but she can give as good as she gets.’
Charlie opened her mouth and struck a note that could break a glass.
‘What?’ cried Gabriel, leaping up. ‘What is it?’
‘As good as she gets?’ screamed Charlie. She picked a magazine off an artful stack and hurled it at his head.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Gabe, ducking, ‘I thought it was all over with us. I didn’t think you’d have me back.’
‘Have you back? Are you crazy?’ She tossed her head.
‘Look, if I knew you’d be so upset …’ He ran his tongue over parched lips. He ran out of words. A minute ago he’d been full, brimming, bursting at the seams. And now, from nowhere, this drought, this dry canyon.
‘And you come round here looking for sympathy? I’m having a hard time. You want me to feel sorry for you?’
A desert wind blew inside him; it blew the dust and the tumbleweed. Trembling, he stretched out his hand. ‘But you said … we can salvage a friendship. You said so, you said, you did.’
She sagged and she looked at him, not unkindly, and the scorching wind in his belly quieted down. ‘Go away, Gabriel,’ she said sadly. ‘Go away now. You’re on your own.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
DRIFTING ALONG THE RO
AD AWAY FROM CHARLIE’S, HARDLY knowing which way he was going, Gabriel continually troubled his mobile, trying to raise his old life. He got three answering services, two ‘number unobtainables’, and one wife who said she hadn’t seen the bastard in six months. Nathan Tyler picked up on the second ring.
‘Gabriel Lightfoot! You little fucker. And about time too.’
‘Nathan,’ croaked Gabe. He cleared his throat. ‘Hello, mate. Fancy a drink?’
‘Always.’
‘Great. Where are you now?’
‘On a beach in Thailand getting massaged by two teenage whores. Where d’you think I fucking am?’
‘Guess you’re at work.’
‘You’re a fucking genius. Listen, I’ve got to go home after the shift or Lisa’s gonna have my balls. Now the baby’s come, you know …’
‘Hey,’ said Gabe, ‘I’m really … boy or girl?’
‘Boy called Sam. Got Lisa’s nose and the biggest baby-boy cock you’ve ever seen,’ said Nathan, with unmistakable pride.
‘Congratulations,’ said Gabriel. The way it came out sounded strangled, ungenerous. He tried again. ‘That’s great.’
‘I know,’ said Nathan. ‘What you doing next Thursday? My night off, gonna scale the walls.’
‘I’ll call you,’ said Gabe.
‘You little fucker,’ said Nathan affectionately. ‘You say that, but you won’t.’
It was around five thirty when Gabriel got back to the Imperial. He worked prep with Benny and Suleiman. For dinner service he put Oona on the pass and cooked with his brigade, with all his boys. He held the line all evening and didn’t shirk the clean-down. Afterwards he went to his office and stirred some papers around. He wasn’t going home tonight, he was staying to stake out the room. But now he had hours and hours and they draped around him like a necklace of shrunken skulls. He wouldn’t see Lena tonight. He wouldn’t call. Last night when she … but what did it matter, anyway?
In the lift, ascending to the top floor, he looked at himself in the bronze-toned mirrored wall. He held the brass rail and leaned his head against the glass, which steamed up and took out his face. The doors slid discreetly aside. Gabriel floated down the vanilla corridor of penthouses and master suites. The silence was cloying and the air trembled, the whole place fallen into a swoon of luxury. Not a single soul came past. He descended one floor, traced the length and breadth of the hotel and fell into checking each room for a strip of light beneath the door. A woman went by in stockinged feet, coat slung over her shoulders, dangling a pair of high heels by their straps. Gabriel shivered. Only déjà vu, but he hated this sense of a life already lived. He roamed on, descending and ascending, padding softly along in the anaesthetizing blandness, bowing his head in reciprocal acknowledgement as the lift doors curtseyed open to him.