by Monica Ali
Gabriel looked at Oona’s neat clipped ears, her large square bosom, the matronly way she filled his little sickbay. A lump rose in his throat. ‘Don’t know what I’d do, Oona,’ he said, ‘without my executive sous-chef.’
Gleeson was in the locker room changing his tie. Still facing the mirror, he drawled, ‘Look what the cat’s dragged in. Where have you been?’
Gabriel rubbed his chin. ‘Nut Tree Farm.’
The restaurant manager froze and unfroze in two rapid frames. He adjusted the knot at his collar. ‘OK, let’s go along with this fiction for a moment. What were you doing there?’
‘Picking spring onions,’ said Gabriel. ‘For two days.’
Gleeson turned round so smartly that his heels clicked together. ‘How amusing,’ he said, raising one eyebrow.
‘I met your brother. He looks a lot like you.’
‘Dear, oh dear, what a state! There are hygiene regulations in a kitchen, you know.’
‘I apologize,’ said Gabriel, ‘for my appearance, but the facilities at Nut Tree Farm are a little limited.’
Gleeson bowed. ‘Well, it’s been fascinating, as usual, to talk to you. You’re so … imaginative!’ He stalked towards the door. ‘By the way, have you managed to find a psychiatrist yet?’
‘Don’t you want to hear what happened?’ said Gabriel. ‘I think you should know.’
Gleeson hovered by the doorway. His tongue darted out and ran quickly over his lips. ‘Speak, if you wish, and I’ll listen, and we’ll call it a talking cure.’
‘Your brother threw me out.’
‘You do surprise me. Can’t imagine why.’
‘I raised an objection to the way a worker was being treated, an Eastern European – I’m not sure which country he was from.’
Gleeson tutted. ‘If you’re going to make something up, make it good. Add some details, make it concrete.’
‘Apologies once more for the messy presentation,’ said Gabriel, peaceably. ‘Anyway, as I was saying, this lad wasn’t paid what he was owed, and your brother and his thugs had taken his passport, supposedly to get him legally registered. And now they’re telling him that they didn’t do it, and …’ He talked on without rancour, feeling only the inevitability of the situation, as if he were only a note being played in someone else’s melody. ‘… and he’s stayed too long without permission in the country so he can’t go to the authorities, so that he’s at your brother’s mercy … and mercy may be one of the qualities your brother happens to lack.’
‘This is all very droll,’ said Gleeson, polishing a cufflink with his thumb, ‘but it may have escaped your notice that this is one of our busiest nights of the year. I only popped down here to change my tie, it had a spot on it. In any case, even supposing anything you say bore the slightest resemblance to reality, why are you telling me?’
Gabriel shrugged. He glanced down at his mud-caked shoes and clothes. How had it come to this? It all went back to Yuri. If Yuri hadn’t been drinking that night, if he had dried his feet properly after his shower, if he had fallen a couple of inches further forward or to the side and woken up with a sore head, then Gabriel would never have seen Lena in the doorway, looking at him like that, and one thing would not have led to another. He would have travelled in a different direction. But Yuri was the first link in a tightly coiled chain thrown suddenly overboard, and there was no way to stop it unravelling. Yuri could have dried his feet. But he didn’t. It was all random and utterly inevitable. Gabriel saw it both ways, and between these two ways of seeing he felt not the slightest contradiction.
‘I don’t know,’ said Gabriel. ‘Giving you fair warning, I guess. That kind of intimidation, you know, it amounts to forced labour, a kind of slavery. Your brother could end up in jail.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake! A bunch of lies and fairy tales.’
‘No,’ said Gabe, some heat entering his voice, ‘I know what I saw. And I know about the girls as well.’
Gleeson laughed. ‘Whatever that’s supposed to mean. But what are you waiting for? Off you go to the police. You must have plenty of witnesses to corroborate your little daydream.’
Who would come forward? By the time he had left Nut Tree Farm it looked like the boy was the only person he had managed to scare. Perhaps Olek would be prepared to speak out. But the last time he did that he ended up sleeping rough.
‘I won’t let it go,’ said Gabriel. ‘And what about the hotel minibus? That’s stolen property, you can’t get out of that.’
‘What stolen … oh, that old bus. We bought it, you loon. Why don’t you go and check? You know, I’m starting to feel rather sorry for you.’
Gabriel walked past Gleeson, who, throughout the conversation, had shimmied about the room as if engaged in a fencing match.
‘I’ve said what I had to say,’ he told him. ‘And I’m going now.’
Gleeson dashed across to the door and began hissing. ‘You sanctimonious little arsehole. What gives you the right? Passing judgement on everyone else. People want work, we employ them, it’s called giving people what they want. There’s a market price, it’s called commerce, that’s how everything works. Why don’t you just get over it? Get real, Chef. Start accepting how things are.’
‘What if I don’t like how they are?’
‘Oh, grow up!’ Gleeson yelled at Gabriel’s departing back. ‘You arsehole! Those workers come through an agency. What about you? What about your own kitchen? Where are your porters from? Are your hands clean? Are they?’
Up in the ballroom, amid a swirl of fancy dresses and penguin suits, the charity auction was in full flow. Although the place was crowded, Gabriel made his way through easily. People stood quickly aside for him. He spotted Maddox talking to a man with an important beard. The man kept raking it with two fingers as if there was much wisdom to be gleaned from it.
‘Come on, ladies and gentlemen,’ called the auctioneer. ‘I know that’s not the best you can do. Remember it’s for a fantastic cause. Our charity tonight, I’ll remind you once more, is the Helping Hands Foundation, and all the money raised will be going to help poor farmers in Africa. Now do I hear one thousand five hundred? One thousand five, I am bid. One thousand six, anybody? Thank you, sir. One thousand eight hundred pounds?’
The item in question, being held up by a scandalous blonde, was a pair of knickers, autographed, and previously worn, by a mega-league pop star.
Gabriel hung back in an alcove, waiting for an opportunity to approach Maddox. He looked around at the men, all dressed in black and white, a collective statement of certainty, no room for shades of grey. The women, with glossy hair and hoisted breasts, fiddled with jewellery that seemed to strobe under the lights. The knots of people standing closest to him drifted steadily away. Discreetly, Gabriel sniffed his sweatshirt. He didn’t smell too bad.
He had a better line of sight anyway, to Maddox, and just beyond him he could see Rolly and Fairweather now. Fairweather was laughing and chatting to a young woman in a backless dress. He touched his hand briefly to the ridge of her spine.
‘Two thousand three,’ said the auctioneer. ‘Do I hear two and a half?’
Mr Maddox clocked Gabriel. He threw him a look like a left hook. ‘Wait there,’ he mouthed.
Gabriel nodded, understanding Maddox’s desire to avoid introducing him as executive chef to a member of the PanCont board.
Fairweather, with his finely honed self-deprecating smile, swept back his long blond fringe.
Gabriel, starting to feel a little dizzy, leaned on the edge of the alcove. His head was light, but there was a weight in his stomach and the room began to grow dim. He kept watching Fairweather.
The moment grew inexorably nearer, and though it had not happened yet, it was as good as done.
‘One pair of black and red panties, as worn on the Sugar Daddy world tour and signed by the legend herself, going for three thousand one hundred … and I’m bid three thousand two.’
As if at the end of a dark tunnel
, Gabriel saw Fairweather laugh and twist his wedding band, turning it around his ring finger.
Fairweather, such a way with the ladies, such a way of making them blush! How did he live with himself?
But hadn’t he explained to Gabriel the way of dealing with guilt? Say something often enough, you start to believe it. Let’s say you feel guilty about something. Keep telling yourself you don’t. It’ll do the trick in the end.
Gabriel looked for a way out, but the doors slammed all around.
‘A good cause, ladies and gentlemen, a fantastic cause. Who’ll give me three seven fifty?’
Lot of psychopaths in Westminster. Ha, ha, I should say.
Gabriel floated towards Fairweather, he couldn’t feel his feet on the ground, couldn’t feel anything except the lead in his belly, and the weight in his fists.
‘For the poor farmers of Africa, I am hearing four thousand pounds, for these super-sexy panties, signed and worn by a bona fide superstar.’
In the dim outer circle of his vision, Gabe could see Mr Maddox, he could see Rolly eating a canapé from a stick, but they looked like ghosts to him. Fairweather, flesh and blood, flushed and carnal, spotlit in the centre, raised a hand and smiled.
‘Going once …’
Gabriel raised his own hand, still shaped into a fist. ‘What did you do to her?’ He drew the fist back.
‘Going twice …’
He let it fly.
‘Sold to the gentleman in the—’
The room imploded in a volley of gasps. Fairweather didn’t go down at the first blow, just swayed on his feet with a stunned expression and a great deal of blood pouring from his nose. ‘Who?’ he said. Gabriel pounded him again so he had him on the floor and got him by the ears and banged his head against the boards and tried to knee him in the groin and pressed his thumbs into his throat and didn’t know how he could stop, and then submitted easily to the hands that pulled him off.
Although Mr Maddox and Rolly were standing in front of him and shouting, Gabriel could not hear them, because of the general din. All that punching had left him feeling battered, and a member of hotel security had him in a bear hug from behind. The room grew quieter, as the delayed recognition set in that it might be unseemly to show such excitement at a brawl.
‘What the hell? What the hell?’ shouted Mr Maddox, disabled by anger.
Rolly dropped to his knees and tended to Fairweather, who was rolling his head from side to side. Fairweather gave a feeble groan.
‘Someone get an ambulance,’ said Rolly, losing control of his emotions and spraying spittle all over his friend.
Fairweather tried to sit up. ‘Oh God,’ he moaned. ‘I’m OK, nothing broken, no ambulance. We don’t want press on this,’ he added, before slumping down again.
‘Cancel the ambulance,’ said Rolly, looking up with reddened eyes. ‘You’re finished, it’s over,’ he said to Gabriel. ‘I don’t even want to hear … get yourself a lawyer, if you can afford one, because if you think I’m giving you your money back …’ He tailed off, overcome, and began to dab at Fairweather with his handkerchief.
Maddox, unable to give full vent before the audience, was turning green and purple, like a head of sprouting broccoli.
‘I never – I say never – want to set eyes on you again. You go out the back door, don’t stop to collect your stuff, don’t come back again.’
He turned his back, but then turned round and succumbed to another rant.
‘You think you’ll get another job in this industry? You think you’ll ever work …’
Gabriel tuned him out. He looked at Fairweather, sitting up and sipping a glass of water, ministered to from all sides.
He’d had to do it, hadn’t he? For Lena’s sake. He’d done it for her. If I see this man I will kill him. Well, he’d done his best.
A five-strong coterie helped Fairweather to his feet. One of his eyes was beginning to close up, his nose was still dripping, but he adjusted his hair, nevertheless, with a certain panache. He looked at Gabriel almost shyly, the mixture of hurt and bafflement heightened by the lopsided swelling on his face.
Gabriel grew uneasy. Something wasn’t right. A plague of doubt spread through him. He opened his mouth but failed to say anything. Where would he begin?
‘No,’ bellowed Mr Maddox. ‘You don’t speak. Just get out of here.’
He was frogmarched down the back stairs and then through the kitchen to get to the back exit. He could feel the brigade, all his boys, watching him but he didn’t look at them, though he counted, automatically, the dockets fluttering above the pass.
Oona planted herself, rock solid, in front of the door, interrupting the eviction.
‘Oona,’ said Gabriel, ‘it’s … erm … what …’
‘News travel fast,’ said Oona. ‘I already heard.’
‘Not my finest hour. Not my best day.’
‘Tomorrow be better, you see.’
‘Well, I guess this is goodbye.’
‘You need anyting, you call me.’
‘Thanks … erm … Oona, I have to tell you, because you should know … I tried to get you fired.’
‘I know,’ said Oona. ‘News travel fast.’
‘Sorry,’ he whispered.
‘’S OK,’ she whispered back. ‘You not been yourself lately.’ She smiled at him and her eyes and her gold tooth twinkled. ‘Lord bless you and keep you,’ she said.
Gabriel swallowed hard. He sought release of one arm and the security man was good enough to grant this wish. Gabriel, moving slowly, with infinite tenderness, unhooked the diamanté hairclips from Oona’s white coat and slid them into her hair.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
As he was bundled out of the door, he looked back and saw that all his crew had gathered at the nearest station, Victor, Nikolai, Suleiman, Benny, Albert and his assistant, Damian and the rest, only Ivan missing.
‘Six dockets up, six tables waiting. Back to work,’ he called.
‘Yes, Chef,’ they cried as one.
She was gone, of course, had left no note, all the drawers she had taken over cleared. Gabriel went into the kitchen, without switching on the light. He stared at the answering machine, the red number blinking at him. Eventually, he pressed play.
‘Gabe, I think you best come home,’ said Jenny. ‘Dad’s not doing so good. OK, call me, I’ll try your mobile as well.’
‘Gabe, could you call me? It’s Jenny, by the way.’
‘Where are you, Gabe? Dad’s had to go in, he’s—’
Gabriel hit fast forward. He found the last message.
‘This is Jennifer Lightfoot calling on Saturday at 10am. Dad passed away at 9.15, and if anyone else picks up this message, please inform Gabriel Lightfoot that he’s to come home straight away.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
GABRIEL WAS A FEW MINUTES EARLY FOR HIS APPOINTMENT WITH the manager of the Greenglades Nursing Home. He was shown into a small reception room which gave on to the landscaped grounds. Beneath the window, set between gravel walkways, a few woody lavenders, etiolated rosemary bushes and ornamental thyme made up the ‘aromatherapy garden’ which he had seen described in the brochure. Beyond this, however, running a long arc down the gentle slope of lawn, camellias in unrestrained bloom provided an alternative tonic. The lawn gave way to a flower garden, itself fringed by a wood, so that the incarcerated had at least the consolation of a pleasant enough outlook.
Gabe stood in front of the fireplace and examined the painting that hung above the mantelpiece. It was a still life. It showed two apples and a brown and white feather laid on a velvet cloth on a table placed by a window. Although the picture was not, Gabriel assumed, of the highest artistic value, and was cheap enough to reside at Greenglades, and though it could not be said to have a photographic reality, and though he suspected it of not being ‘good’, he was drawn to look at it, and could see the ripeness of the velvet, reckon the bursting crispness of the apples, and the feather had a certain quality w
hich he had never before observed, just as the painted window offered something which he had failed to notice at all when looking through the real one: the texture, the tone, the way the light fell, the very glassness of the glass.
‘Mr Lightfoot?’ The woman had the warmly bulldozing manner of Matron and, at her hip, a bunch of warder’s keys. ‘Mrs Givens,’ she continued, extending a hand. ‘Manager, for my sins. Shall we start with a walk round?’
‘Ah,’ said Gabe.
‘See you were admiring our painting. Favourite with our guests as well,’ she told him, leading the way. ‘Sometimes we sit them in here if they get a bit … agitated. Calms them. Seems to. I find that interesting, because if I sat them down with a couple of pieces of fruit and a feather … well, I don’t think it’d have the same effect. Right, here we are, offices to your left, kitchen off to your right, downstairs cloakrooms, physio suite, we’ll stick our head round the door.’ She moved briskly along. Gabriel, who had visited Nana a couple of times already, wasn’t in need of a tour, but he had wanted to meet Mrs Givens, to know what kind of person was in charge. He let her speed on.
‘Recreation room,’ said Mrs Givens. Although there were two card tables and a cupboard with board games stacked on top, the only recreation being pursued was the television, which seemed always to be on and was tuned to a cookery programme. But the room, like the rest of Greenglades, was clean and airy, and didn’t smell, as Gabriel had feared before his first visit, even remotely of cat food and pee.
‘Very nice,’ said Gabriel.
‘Bingo at eleven thirty,’ said Mrs Givens, ‘watercolours at three.’
They went to the lounge, where most of the inmates were installed and where the television was a constant companion and boon. Several of the residents, however, were unable to watch, due to the severe curvature of their spines. They appeared to be trapped in a permanent search for something of great importance and minute dimensions lost in the folds of their laps. A couple of the more alert old ladies looked at Gabriel with winning smiles, unsure if they were meant to recognize him, but prepared (if not physically then at least in spirit) to rise to the occasion should he turn out to be a grandson or even husband.
