by Monica Ali
He was glad of it. He wouldn’t miss the old Gabe, that miser, counting his love like money, hoarding and rationing, seeking out bargains. With Lena he was always calculating who did what for whom in a trade that was never fair or free. All that careful accounting to make sure he got his share. What did he want from her anyway? What did he deserve?
He recalled with shame the many times he had shaken her down for information, sifting through her story for flaws and inconsistencies, marking them down as lies, every lie a debit chit. He had understood nothing.
‘Why?’ she would say, when he asked if it was the Bulgarian girl she had lived with first or the Ukrainian and whether it had been for six months or three. ‘Why? What is difference to you?’
He wanted to believe her story. It had to have order and neatness. It had to be credible.
But life had not been reasonable to Lena. Life was random and cruel. And why should she, to please him, try to make sense out of it?
He wondered if the changes inside him would be reflected on his face. Was love visible? He went to the bathroom to wash and smiled serenely to himself. He wanted to see what others would see.
He almost reeled back but held on to the sink and lowered his eyes to the plughole. It wasn’t possible. There had to be some mistake. He tried again. Again the image confronted him. A lunatic stared out of the mirror with red-rimmed eyes. His skin was grey, unshaven and flaked. He had a cut on his forehead and a green and purple bruise on his cheek. There was a wild look about him, his hair standing in tufts and clumps as if he had been pulling it out. His chef’s jacket was stained with blood and other unidentified substances. He looked like a man on the run – an escapee from the asylum in a stolen white coat, a pathetic attempt at disguise.
Gabriel took a deep breath. It’s what’s inside that’s important. Everyone knew that. But he ran the hot water, stripped for the baptism, shaved his face and brushed his teeth. He arranged his hair as best he could. Then he tiptoed into the bedroom and assigned himself a new identity with a red sweatshirt and a clean pair of jeans.
Lena had kicked the covers off. She sprawled across the bed like a homicide. Tenderness welled in Gabriel, and a new feeling grew in him. The fact that he had met Lena held great importance. It was meant to be. The feeling nurtured itself; it grew and thrived. Their meeting had been momentous. It had changed their lives. It was not some hapless and shoddy encounter. He would make sure of that. He touched his fingers to his lips.
Although minutes ago he had been certain that life was random and beyond control he was in no doubt at this moment that everything happened for a reason. He was meant to help Lena and help her he finally would. Lena was not insignificant. He would not let all that had happened be meaningless.
He would begin by emptying his bank accounts. There wasn’t much left after putting the sixty thousand in … Never mind. The point was to make a start. He fizzed around the flat gathering his wallet, watch, keys, chequebooks and, in an inspired move, the passbook for a long-fallow Post Office savings account. He was fired by a sense of purpose. There was so much you could do if you opened your heart. And it wasn’t just Lena – he would seize every chance.
All the limits he had placed, all the walls he had built! Let them come crashing down. He would not cut himself off any more. He would be involved. He would live. What would he do? Everything! He would go out there and do it now. He was ready and he would begin right away with random acts of kindness and senseless acts of love. Was that a song? He had heard it somewhere, something like it, and it was beautiful. There’s beauty. There’s beauty if you take the time to look. But he was wasting time and he would go now, descend into the world and see what he could do.
Immediately an opportunity presented itself. The front door of the opposite flat stood open and it could not be more obvious.
‘Hello,’ he called. He popped his head round the door. ‘Hello,’ he said again with great warmth as he stepped inside the sitting room. ‘Isn’t it a beautiful day?’
That was an excellent start. He was managing to keep himself calm although he was bursting with good will and energy. He didn’t want to startle his neighbours. He would ease into conversation.
‘Uh,’ said the woman. ‘Hi.’ She stopped in her tracks in the middle of the room.
‘I’m Gabe, your neighbour. It’s silly, isn’t it, I don’t even know your name.’
‘Sarah. As you can see …’
‘Sarah, that’s lovely, and your husband is – or your boyfriend?’
‘Down at the van.’ She seemed a little nervous. She pushed her hair behind her ears. ‘Be up in a moment, though. Can I … Can I help you?’
Gabriel observed her keenly. Before today he had noticed nothing about her. About thirty, dark brown hair, that was all he could have said. Now he saw everything – athletic shoulders, strong hands, a scattering of freckles, a crooked incisor, the wrinkle at the bridge of her nose that made her look as if she were reading the small print.
‘Can I help you?’ she said again.
‘Oh no,’ said Gabriel. ‘If anything, I’m here to … but let’s start with a little chat. Getting-to-know-you type thing. What is it that you do? Is it advertising? You look like … something in the media? Aha! I’m getting warm. Television? Is that it?’
She took a step backwards. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but as you can see we’re rather busy. We’re moving out today.’
Gabriel looked around. To his astonishment, the room, which a moment ago had appeared perfectly normal, was a wasteland – a couple of chairs and a few cardboard boxes remained. He scratched his head. It seemed impossible. He was so alert, so … so … ah, there were two shelves that had been missed. He would pack the items for her. He would load the boxes on the van. ‘What a shame!’ he cried, bounding over. ‘But let me help.’ He grabbed some books and put them in an open box. He shoved in some papers and files.
‘Excuse me,’ said Sarah. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘It’s nothing,’ panted Gabe, working feverishly. ‘Glad to help.’
‘Don’t touch them. Please! Stop it! You’ve muddled my papers. I was keeping those things … Oh God, now you’ve broken that. Leave it alone. No, leave it all. I’ll pick it up.’ She stooped to retrieve the jewellery box. The lid had cracked. As she came up, Gabriel’s arm, unbidden, went off and ricocheted off her head.
‘Oh my God, oh my God,’ she shrieked. Her voice had become so shrill it set him twitching and jerking again.
He lowered his head to hers. ‘I think if we could speak quietly, whisper like this, then it’ll all be fine. Let me take a look at that for you. Do you have any ice?’
‘Get away!’
‘Oh, such a shame you’re leaving,’ he said, flooding with neighbourliness. ‘Where you going to? Not too far, I hope. I mean, we could still meet up, couldn’t we?’
Sarah was trying to say something, but all that emerged from her mouth was a dab of foamy spit.
‘Still hurting?’ said Gabriel. ‘Poor thing. Sure you don’t want me to take a look?’
She was probably quite shy. Right from the moment he’d come in, he’d noticed how hard it was for her to communicate. No wonder they’d remained strangers until now. The fault had lain with him.
Sarah pulled out her mobile phone. She found her voice. ‘I’m calling the police,’ she said, a little hysterically. ‘I’ll have you arrested if you don’t get out of here.’
It was certainly harder than he had imagined. By mid-afternoon he had been shouted at, sworn at, spat at, kicked and generally abused. Worst of all, a little girl had burst into tears. But he felt OK. The light had not gone out. For the first time in his life he could honestly say that at no time during the day had he walked by on the other side.
He had been to the bank and the Post Office and had the money in his pockets – £8,570 and some change. He ran upstairs to the flat, his trainers barely skimming the wooden treads.
Lena, dressed in her mour
ning clothes, was sitting on the edge of the bed, her hands tucked under her thighs.
He stood in front of her, only shaking very slightly. ‘Hey,’ he said gently. ‘Guess where I’ve been. Guess what I’ve been doing.’
She lifted her face and looked right through him. ‘I don’t care,’ she said.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘Why should you? But look – I’ve brought you this.’ He pulled the envelopes out of his jeans and his sweatshirt and laid them on her lap.
‘What it is?’ said Lena, still sitting on her hands.
‘Have a little look,’ he pleaded. ‘Go on, open them.’
Lena pulled her hands free. She picked up the first envelope, felt the wad of notes, and slid a finger under the seal. Quickly she moved to the second envelope and the third. She put the envelopes on the bed, picked up the first again and pulled the money out. She began to count. After a few seconds she broke off. ‘My money,’ she said.
He assured her it was so.
She carried on counting, began on the second envelope then quickly measured it against the first. ‘How much?’ she said. ‘How much money for me?’
‘All of it,’ said Gabriel. He pulled up the chair and sat opposite her.
‘Tchh,’ she said.
‘Eight thousand, five hundred and seventy pounds,’ he declared. ‘Everything I have. Well, there’s seven pounds something in my pocket but that’s all.’
Lena twisted her earrings. She looked angry. The tendons in her neck ridged up.
‘Lena,’ said Gabriel, urgently, ‘it’s not a joke. I’m serious. I want you to have it. I wish it was more.’ The phone rang in the kitchen. He left it to the answering machine.
‘What … what I have to do?’
‘Nothing. You don’t have to do anything. It’s yours. You can do … anything you like. I’ll help you get a flat, find a job …’
‘Tchh,’ she hissed at him. The blood raced to her cheeks.
When he looked at her now he marvelled at how wonderfully real she was, because so many times he had had the feeling she was only something out of his dark imaginings.
‘I’ve let you down,’ he said. ‘Forgive me. But you can trust me, honestly.’ From somewhere in the sitting room his mobile cried out in alarm.
‘You find flat and job?’ said Lena. ‘Like you find Pasha for me.’
‘Sorry, I’m sorry,’ he mumbled.
She stayed quiet and after a while he looked up at her. He looked at this young woman, red-cheeked and white-knuckled with defiance, and he was truly crushed. What had he done? How could he ask for forgiveness when it was the last thing he deserved?
How, oh, how had it happened? Why had he not behaved – as he knew from the very start – the way he should? He had given free rein to his impulses, turned his desires into needs and his needs into obsessions, all in the service of – what exactly? Himself, of course. Me, myself and I. It was as though he had some monster lurking inside him, some great and greedy ever-feeding beast, some half-blind animal enraged by an old wound, some troll beneath the bridge, a narrow and boundless figment, his certified and monstrous self.
He thought that he had woken to a new and better Gabe. Who was he kidding? No, he had not slain the beast. He had patched its wounds. And now he was – forgive me – asking Lena to do the same.
Gabriel held his head in his hands. He sobbed and was ashamed.
‘Is OK,’ said Lena. ‘No need for cry.’
He could not stop. He felt her hand on his shoulder as if she wanted to comfort him. He tried to dry his eyes so he could look at her and tell her on the level that it was all right, that she had every right to despise him, that she did not have to pretend.
‘Lena,’ he said, still choking. ‘I know that you …’
He looked into those eyes where he had so often looked and seen nothing, as if they were milky with cataracts. They were clear, bright blue. And he saw in them pity. He saw compassion. Wasn’t that a kind of love? He was more afraid of it than of her hate. Despite everything … in spite of it all … love was what remained. Gabriel could not speak. He bowed his head.
‘Gabriel,’ said Lena, delivering a chaste kiss on his crown, ‘like the angel.’
He heard her gathering the envelopes and slipping out of the room.
A little while later, Gabriel called Oona and told her that he’d gone home with a migraine yesterday, that it had taken until now to clear and that he was on his way. As soon as he left the building he turned round and went back up to the flat. There was something he had forgotten. If only he could remember what it was. Stupidly, he checked all the rings on the cooker were off. It was pointless but nevertheless soothing. Lena sat circling ads in her newly bought copy of Loot.
‘These flatshares,’ said Gabriel, ‘it’d be better if I came with you to check them out. You never know what …’ He couldn’t finish the sentence. The hypocrisy made him sick.
Lena hardly looked up. ‘Yes, is better,’ she said.
He went to the newsagents and bought a packet of fags, which left him with less than the two pounds he needed for the bus. At some point last night he must have lost his travel pass. He thought briefly about borrowing some cash from Lena. Trust me, he had said, the money’s yours. He would have to walk.
He crossed Westminster Bridge against the flow of office workers in the midst of their daily exodus. To get to work he needed to go north along Whitehall and then up Haymarket. Instead he walked south-west down Victoria Street and turned left on Buckingham Palace Road. When he reached the coach station he stood outside at the crossroads looking up at the white deco building, then over at the construction works, the row of turquoise Portakabins, and the stone colonnade that fronted the shopping mall. What was he doing here?
He entered the building and drifted aimlessly for a while. He looked overhead at the signs as if they might provide a clue. Arrivals, Gates 2–20, Toilets, Bureau de Change, Continental Check-in, Left Luggage, Refreshments. He sat down by Gate 12, which was for the coach to Harrogate. A large African family, their luggage packed in laundry bags, squabbled among themselves in French, two Arab men argued over tickets with an inspector, a couple of Asian porters, on a break, ate rice from Tupperware. Gabriel had taken out his cigarettes before he saw the notice – NO SMOKING, ZGODNIE Z PRAWEM.
Gabriel moved on, looking for somewhere to smoke. He paused by the timetable that was fixed to the wall. Who was it that wanted to get the National Express to Port Talbot at 03.35? Or the Megabus to Sheffield leaving at 04.05, or the 03.20 to Bridgend?
He found a café and spent a pound on a cup of tea. He smoked a cigarette and then another. A tramp asked for change and Gabriel emptied what was left in his pocket. He needed to ring Jenny back. It had probably been her calling earlier on. He looked through his rucksack but all he had packed was a fresh set of whites, must have left his mobile at home. As soon as he got to the Imperial he would call.
After an hour or so the waiter tried to clear his mug. Gabriel held on to it. Another waiter came on shift but left Gabe alone. Gabriel watched the drift of the terminus. As it grew later the travellers began to change. There were fewer families and more young men, many in dirty work clothes.
Eventually Gabriel got up and went to sit on one of the grey metal seats that served the gates. It was the middle of dinner service and he should have been standing at the pass. But his long night of walking had caught up with him and every muscle hurt. His legs were stiff. He’d sit a while longer yet. A peak-capped official passed by swinging a bunch of keys on a chain. On the opposite bench an elderly gentleman in brogues and spectacles read a catalogue of antique maps. Next to him a group of Eastern European workers solemnly passed round a pornographic magazine. The station grew busier as evening turned into night. Some people had to sit on their bags and the air became humid.
Still, Gabriel could not move. What was he doing? Once upon a time he had told Lena that he had been here to search for her brother. Was this the reason he had come? A p
art of him believed it, a part of him did not, and some other bit didn’t wish to consider the matter at all. It was as if he were divided into three selves. The first self wanted to go back in time and set a few things right, the second laughed at the absurdity of this idea, and the third’s only and ardent wish was for the other two selves to go away.
Finally, when the smell of cheap food and tinned beer had saturated his skin, when the grind and squeal of the coaches slinging into the slip road had set his ears jingling, when he could taste on his tongue not only his own tiredness but that of the travellers, he shook himself down and left. Outside he watched a procession of coaches, white, orange, green and blue. He glanced back down the side street. The first thing he saw was an Imperial Hotel minibus, stopped at a pedestrian crossing. The crest and lettering had worn away or been removed but the outlines remained so that the words were clearly legible. The bus moved on, turned off at the first right and parked outside a restaurant. Gabriel followed along.
A group of around twenty people, mostly young and male, with meagre baggage and wary faces, tested the edges of the pavement with shuffling feet. They made unlikely hotel guests. Gabriel put his hood up. He leaned against a wall and watched. The driver got down from the bus and spoke in some Slavic language. He began to count heads. He had to be picking up cleaners to take them for a shift at the hotel, though Gabriel at this moment couldn’t think why they should have their luggage with them.
The driver didn’t seem satisfied. He went back on the bus and emerged again with a sheet of paper, perhaps some kind of list. Gabriel pushed off from the wall and shuffled into the mix. A man, one of the older ones, began to cough as if he would bring up a lung. A woman looked over her shoulder at Gabe and when he began to smile at her she flinched and looked quickly away. Gabe strafed the gathering, darting looks here and there. Casually, he turned round and there through the crowd he saw him, Lena’s brother or lover. Pavel. Pasha.