In the Kitchen

by Monica Ali

  Suleiman peered anxiously over the top of his imaginary spectacles. ‘Chef, could you please repeat the question?’

  ‘Three words. Describe me. First three things that come into your head.’

  Suleiman looked aghast. ‘Without preparation—’ he began.

  Gabriel had already moved on to Benny. ‘OK, listen, this is not a trick question and you can say whatever you like. How would you describe me in only three words?’

  ‘Only three words?’ said Benny.

  Gabe nodded eagerly. ‘Yes, brilliant, you’ve got the idea. Good man.’

  ‘I would say, tall.’ He looked Gabe slowly up and down. ‘Tall. White. Male.’

  ‘No,’ moaned Gabriel. He collapsed against the worktop.

  ‘Chef?’

  Gabriel sprang to life. ‘Never mind.’ He raced for the door. Only Charlie could help him. He had to see her now.

  Twice, over the intercom, she told him to go away. ‘Please,’ he begged, ‘I’ll only stay two minutes. If you ever loved me … please.’

  ‘Oh, you’re really something,’ she said, and buzzed him in.

  He tried to embrace her in the doorway but Charlie dodged him, backed up quickly and inserted herself in a chair.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me,’ he said, trying to calm himself. He hovered on the rug.

  ‘It better be good.’

  ‘I have to talk to you, Charlie, you have to talk to me, there’s no one else …’ He bit his tongue to stop it babbling. He needed to anchor himself to something. He darted to the table and held it by two corners. If he let go he might float up to the ceiling like a helium balloon.

  ‘What’s that on your collar? Are you bleeding?’ said Charlie, half getting up. ‘Why have you come in your work clothes?’

  ‘It’s nothing, it’s nothing,’ said Gabriel. ‘It’s a scratch.’ He glanced at the dark streaks on his fingers, the cakes of blood beneath his nails.

  Charlie crossed her legs. She held herself so stiffly that her back became concave. ‘Well? Let’s hear it, whatever it is.’

  ‘Darling …’ said Gabriel.

  ‘If you think …’

  ‘No, no, let me explain. You’re the one who really knows me. That’s the reason I’ve come here. I know you won’t … I know we can’t … All I want is for you to tell me. And I’m the one who knows you too.’ He was appalled by his burbling but still he carried on. ‘We had some good times, do you remember? I remember. I haven’t forgotten anything. When you broke a heel – that was our first date – and I had to …’

  ‘Gabe! I’m going out soon. What do you want? What do you want me to tell you? That it’s over? It is.’

  ‘I know,’ groaned Gabriel. ‘You don’t have to tell me that.’ He let go of the table and began to drift around the room. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Charlie, it’s a mess. It’s all a mess. What’s happened to me?’

  Charlie folded her arms. With her legs still crossed, she tucked a foot around the ankle of the other leg. The more Gabriel talked the tighter she wrapped herself away from him.

  But he could not stop. ‘You asked me why I became a chef. Do you remember? You do, I know you do – you see, I know you. I know how you are. Every look. That one too. What was I saying? Oh yes. By the way, am I talking too much? I won’t keep talking. I’ll sit down and then I’ll ask … it’s the only reason I came and it won’t take two minutes, I promise you. Why a chef? I can’t sit. Do you mind if I walk?’ He walked and talked.

  Abruptly, he stopped pacing and whipped round to face her. Charlie had grabbed a cushion and squeezed it to her chest. Her voice wavered slightly as she spoke. ‘Gabriel, will you please calm down. Sit down and take some nice, deep breaths.’

  ‘Charlie,’ he cried, springing to her side. ‘Don’t worry. I’m fine. I’m sorry, I must look a mess. Should I wash my hands? Is there blood on my face? No? It’s OK, I won’t touch you. Now, look at me!’ He took some deep breaths. ‘I’m calm. I’m normal. I’m fine.’

  Charlie put the cushion behind her back. She uncoiled a bit. ‘Your father, what were you talking about? You were speaking so fast I couldn’t … is he all right?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said, reassuringly. ‘Dad’s perfectly all right. Apart from the cancer. Apart from that. Now, where was I?’ He took up his pacing again. His fingers were digging into the back of his head. The pain was stopping him thinking properly. ‘I know,’ he said, quickly patting his pockets, ‘I’ll have a cigarette. You don’t mind. Otherwise, I keep scratching, you see. It’s a little trick I’ve learned.’ He smoked and weaved in and out of the furniture. Suddenly he saw everything clearly. Yes, he could face up to it now. ‘All my life, Charlie, I’ve been drifting. I have. That’s my problem. I’m owning up.’ His voice rose as if in ecstasy. ‘Drifting – from town to town, from job to job. Yes, from girl to girl. Don’t … don’t look at me like that. Can’t you understand? My mother scared me. It’s true. A boy never recovers. It’s all … you never get away from …’

  ‘Stop,’ cried Charlie, getting up. She placed her hands fiercely on her hips. ‘I’ve heard enough. You come round here and make excuses, the most pathetic excuses, blaming your mother – how do you think you’ll get away with that? You cheat on me, you have a … I don’t know what … with a … with some poor girl who … and you come round here and explain that it’s all your mother’s fault, and I’m supposed to … what? I was scared of my mother as if … bullshit, Gabriel, it’s the first I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘I wasn’t scared of her,’ said Gabriel, tapping ash into a vase. ‘She scared me. Don’t you see the difference? No, you can’t throw me out. Close the door. Close it. I’ll close it. Shit, sorry, mind my cigarette. Are you OK?’ He trailed her like a shadow as she flitted around the room. His left arm began to jerk up. He stood still for a moment to light another cigarette. He held it in his left hand and smoked alternately from left and right. ‘I’m getting to the point now, Charlie. I’m coming right to it.’ Oh, she was lovely. He loved the way she tossed her hair. He should get on his knees. He should kiss her feet.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Charlie. ‘Why are you smoking, anyway? You’re dropping ash all over the place. Gabe, I want you to leave.’

  ‘I will,’ said Gabriel, passionately. ‘I’ll do whatever you want.’

  ‘You shouldn’t smoke.’

  ‘It’s a free country, isn’t it? It’s my choice.’

  ‘It’s an addiction. What kind of choice is that? Oh, I don’t even want to argue with you. I just want you to go.’

  ‘I’m not addicted,’ said Gabe.

  ‘You’re smoking two cigarettes.’

  ‘Because I want to,’ declared Gabriel, lighting a third from the butt of his first. ‘Now, will you tell me – and then I’ll leave, for ever if you like. You don’t want me to leave for ever, do you, Charlie? You don’t mean that.’

  ‘Tell you what?’ said Charlie. She stood behind the sofa. He stood in front of it with his knees pressed into the seat. She looked down at his hands as if they held two smoking guns.

  ‘Tell me what I’m like. Describe me. In as many words as you want.’

  Charlie opened her mouth. She shook her head. She uttered a word he could not make out.

  ‘Bit louder,’ said Gabriel, trembling in anticipation. ‘I couldn’t hear.’

  ‘Unbelievable,’ said Charlie, loud and clear. ‘You are fucking unbelievable.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Gabriel. ‘Really? In what way?’

  ‘You want me to talk about you?’ shouted Charlie. ‘It’s all about you? You want me to tell you what you’re like?’

  ‘You’re the one who knows me.’ He could scarcely breathe but he pulled on one cigarette and then the next. In a moment she would tell him. Charlie, who knew him best.

  ‘No,’ she yelled. ‘I won’t do it. I’m not going to stand here and talk about you. I’m not interested. I don’t care.’

  ‘Oh, please,’ said Gabriel with great ardour. ‘I’ll never
ask you for anything else. All I’m asking for is a few words.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what you’re like, then,’ cried Charlie. ‘You’re selfish. You’re the most selfish person I’ve ever met.’

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ said Gabriel, almost crying with relief. ‘Selfish, I see, I’m sure you’re right, not the best quality but still … and what else? Anything else you can think of? Anything at all?’

  ‘Self-obsessed, pig-headed …’ said Charlie. She began to count off on her fingers. Her eyes flashed. Her nostrils flared. She looked quite crazy but Gabriel didn’t mind in the least. ‘… insensitive, unfeeling, stubborn, stupid, selfish, selfish pig!’

  Gabriel sank on to his knees on the sofa. He tried to hold her but she escaped. ‘I want to thank you,’ he gasped, ‘for your honesty, for speaking so freely. I want to thank you for … knowing me.’

  Charlie crumpled into a chair. She shrank inside her clothes. ‘Oh, Gabriel, I don’t know you. I don’t know you any more.’

  Somehow he was in the street, and by some means he was moving although he seemed to make no contact with the ground. Perhaps he was being blown along like a paper bag. He didn’t know where he was. Buildings, pavement, tarmac and then buildings again. What would it matter if he went on for ever this way? And was he moving or was it the street that moved? It seemed to flow around him. It seemed to pass through him.

  He was sure now that he had stopped. He shivered. It was dark and cold. For a time he stood there and marvelled at the miracle of his own body, so true to itself, so fully occupied with shivering. The next moment an enormous jolt passed through him, as if he had received an electric shock. He began to run. His feet slapped the pavement so hard he could feel it in his teeth.

  He ran and ran, every muscle, sinew, nerve ending on red alert. He could feel everything. He felt the marrow bubble in his bones. Only minutes ago he had been nothing, an empty husk, and now this. A million things were happening inside him, a frenzy of activity, dilations and contractions and connections, circuits made and lost, pumping and pounding, absorbing, excreting, reacting, every bit of him living and living from the skin of his fingertips to the very depth of his bowels.

  And still there was more. He was crammed with fragments, memories, images, songs hurtling through his brain, a picture of his mother singing, a premonition it would rain, an advertising slogan – the ride of a lifetime, a snatch of conversation on a loop, Jenny riding a bike, Nana’s clacking teeth. He kept on running. He was getting warm. He looked up at lighted windows, at streetlamps and neon signs. The lights streamed into him and he into them. The cars streaked, the buildings blurred, fuzzy people went by. And he wasn’t whole, he was part of it, or it was part of him. He was in the bloodstream of the city that was in his blood. And he was growing hot, too hot, and he was only a molecule, a protein speck in the city and his bonds were beginning to break. At a certain temperature a globular protein will begin to uncoil. The basic science of cooking. He ran though his legs were shaking now. Heat a molecule and it vibrates more and more, and if the vibrations are strong enough a protein will shake itself free of its internal bonds. He remembered, he still knew this stuff. It was called denaturing.

  He looked up behind him, head between his knees, trying to catch his breath. Upside down he read a street sign – Holloway Road. Oona lived here, somewhere close, this very area, maybe he would see her, she might get off that bus that was pulling up. He straightened and jogged over to the bus stop. The people queuing kindly moved out of his way but she was not there. Disembarking passengers stepped around him carefully. How considerate they were. He would wait here, take a seat in the shelter and rest. Oona would surely come. It wasn’t a sign he had seen – it was a sign. How could it be a coincidence? He hadn’t meant to come here and yet here was where he was. As if some hand had guided him to this very place. Oona was the person he needed. Oona would put him right. Dear, sweet Oona. She would take him home with her. She would make him a cup of tea. His eyes filled. He rocked to and fro.

  He shifted up to make space for a woman with heavy shopping bags but she didn’t notice and walked to the kerb and set the bags down.

  Over the road, in the window of a pizza parlour, a word flashed on and off – DELIVERY. He watched the buses come and go. There were signs everywhere. In the windows, above doors, on the walls. They were pasted on the sides of buses, painted on taxi rumps. They were in the leaflets and newspapers that flowered from the pavements. They were lettered on to the bins. They sprouted at junctions, splashed along hoardings, and shouted out from the billboards. Open, closed, no turning, three reasons why, no hot ash, deep discount, beauty, best value, fried chicken, free. Gabriel closed his eyes. Where was Oona? Why didn’t she come?

  He smelt the acid smell of old urine, the hard burnt smell of the road. Brakes flared, someone erupted, a radio blazed from a car. Gabriel burst into action. He had to get out of here before the whole place went up in flames.

  For a long and unknown time he drifted and dissolved from one street into the next. The traffic began to drain, and the walls sucked people in. Lights flicked off, shutters closed. Gabriel was pulled along. He saw a man in surgical scrubs dry-heaving in a doorway. A tramp passed by holding a can of Special Brew and a mobile phone. A woman cycled on the pavement, a book tucked into the back of her skirt. Gabriel tried to get his bearings. He looked around. That was a train station. Where were the signs when you needed them?

  A man approached. His face was round and waxy, like a church candle. ‘How long have you been on the streets?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Gabe, ‘I don’t know. I lost track.’

  The man smiled with infinite kindness. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it’s difficult, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know where I am.’

  ‘Don’t know if you’re coming or going. Have you eaten tonight?’

  ‘No.’

  The man nodded. He seemed to understand everything. ‘Do you want to come with me, and we’ll get you sorted out?’

  At last, thought Gabe. He began to shake. ‘Yes. Where will we go?’

  ‘Start with some food, shall we, and take it from there.’

  Gabe reached out to the man and stumbled. He almost fell on his saviour. ‘Where shall we go? I know a lot of places. I’m a chef, and I know …’

  ‘Chef, were you?’ said the man, retreating a little. ‘Tell me all about it as we’re walking. Soup van’s parked around the back. Where are you going? Hey! Aren’t you coming with me? We can find you a bed for the night.’

  Gabriel stood on the bridge and looked down at the slick black water. The bloated city fizzed all around. He opened his mouth and let out a low moan. He looked up at the sky that seemed to hold, not stars, but the weak reflected lights of the never-ending earth. If Oona were here she would pray for him. He would pray for himself if he knew how. He fell to his knees and bowed his head to the railings. He dug deep, he squeezed, he wrung, he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t manage, he didn’t have, he wasn’t given, he’d never been blessed, and it was only tears that came. Oh, the pity of it. The pity. He lifted his head, he threw it back, have pity, have mercy, let us pray. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love. Oh, dear Lord, why do you not hear me? Why do you not help me? Why do you not exist?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  HE IS IN THE CATACOMBS, DRIFTING, AND WHEN HE COMES TO the place the body is not there. He looks into the other rooms as he floats down every corridor. Only one room remains, and when he opens the door it is filled with dazzling white light.

  ‘Hello,’ he calls. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Oh, there you are,’ says his mother. She reaches out a hand from the far side of the room and takes a step towards him, the collar of her swingy white coat turned up, her earrings snagging on it. ‘Oh, there you are. I’ve been looking all over for you.’

  ‘Mum,’ he says, squinting into the brightness. ‘I’m sorry, Mum.’

  ‘That’s not why I’ve come,�
�� she says.

  ‘Is this … are we in …?’ He cannot see clearly. ‘Are those wings on your back?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Gabriel Lightfoot,’ she says, laughing, ‘and get yourself ready. Get your dressing gown on.’ She turns on her heel, and calls out to him before she is swallowed up by the light. ‘Ever seen a shooting star? Hurry up, Gabe! Don’t miss it. Be quick. Don’t miss it this time.’

  * * *

  He woke and sat up on the sofa. The sun licked a broad stripe down the sitting room from the casement window to the door. For a few moments he struggled to remember what had happened and why he had slept in his clothes. He blinked in the primrose light and rubbed his eyes, unfurling from his sleep. He had found his way home, walked the long night through, the dark edges of the sky beginning to crumple by the time he climbed the stairs. At most he’d had a couple of hours asleep. Some instinct had saved him. Something deep within delivered him home. Through all the tiredness, it shone in him now.

  He crept into the bedroom and watched Lena sleeping. Usually he felt like a thief when he watched her, even if she was awake. But now, he knew, he would never take anything from her again. He would only give. She had not believed him when he said that he loved her. Well, she had been right. But he loved her now, pure and true. If he had loved before it was only blue flicker and red crackle, not this still white heart of the flame. She turned on her back. Love lifted him off his feet. He loved Lena as he should. He had it in him. He loved Charlie and always had. He loved Dad and he loved Nana and Jenny and Harley and Bailey and it was inexhaustible, inextinguishable, this love of his. He looked around at the blandly furnished bedroom and saw its potential. All it lacked was some photographs, some flowers, a few touches to bring it to life. Even a room needed love.

  He went to the kitchen and checked the time. Nearly eight o’clock. He filled the coffee machine.

  All night he had walked and thought. He had worked things out, he had come to realize, had come to understand … No, what he had done was suffer. If there was light in him now it wasn’t because he’d screwed the bulbs in, it was the light of suffering. It had changed him and he had woken – it should be no surprise – to a new and better self.