Gabriel's Angel Read online

  ‘Oh, shut up Sam,’ said Izzy.

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Ellie.

  ‘Maybe we invented him because without him, who would we all be praying to for Lola and Luca tonight?’

  And Ellie remembered again why she liked Sam so much.

  42

  Michael and James were in very different moods. Indeed, the further they got from London and the nearer to Norwich, the more distinct their mental states became.

  Michael was tense from the beginning. He had grown accustomed to his daily rituals that had formed over the last week and the further he got from Julie’s room, the thinner the air felt. A couple of times he nearly asked James to turn the car around to go back, but he didn’t. He had decided upon this mission of sorts, and as he clung to the armrest and stared out of the window, he convinced himself that this was the only thing he could possibly do that might make the slightest difference to Julie. To not act, to stay and stare at her almost-lifeless body, was selfish and passive. At least this way, he reasoned, he was not simply waiting for her to die. It had occurred to him, in the way it can to the overtired or overwrought, that he had already spent too long taking the easy option.

  James, meanwhile, was tuned in to Magic FM, and currently bouncing around to something that Michael considered wholly unnecessary by The Alarm. James was happy to be away from London, particularly pleased to be away from the hospital, and really looking forward to playing the Apollo. Any Apollo. He hadn’t given much thought to what exactly might happen between the point where he arrived in Norfolk and the Apollo part, but detail was never his strong point.

  His plan was to get to the barn before the others and tidy up a bit, make it look like a working studio. Of course the others may have expected him to have one or two songs to play them, Christ knows Gary Guitar would have a couple of dozen ready, but how hard could it be to ignore those for the first rehearsal? James reckoned that mostly they would all just want to reacquaint themselves with their instruments, jam a bit, play ‘Stand By Me’ a lot. Maybe run over some of the old stuff. The old magic would start coming back when they were all there together. And there would be plenty of time to write some material in the next few days.

  Bernie was picking Gary up around three. They may stop for a bite to eat, but should be at the cottage by six-thirty. Matthew and Alice were leaving early but stopping off in Cambridge to pick up the mad religious bloke. They were aiming for seven or seven-thirty. James was on schedule to get home by three and there was no way he could keep Michael there for four hours. But he had a plan.

  ‘So Mikey, how about I drop you at my place, you pick up your car and go over to her new place. I’ll have a really good rummage around, up in the attic, over in the barn. I’ll go through the music collection and see if I can find anything? Then you come back to mine and pick up the stuff. Maybe stay over? You don’t want to go back down tonight, do you?’

  ‘Er cheers, yeah OK, but I will go back tonight. The traffic will be better than in the morning. But I’ll drop by after I’ve been to Brenda’s.’

  ‘Brenda?’

  ‘Yeah, the woman Julie was staying with. I phoned her earlier. She was really lovely. She said Julie was special.’

  ‘Well she was, mate.’

  ‘Is Jim—she’s not dead yet.’

  43

  Ellie was supposed to be resting. She lay on the bed for a while staring at the ceiling, and then got up and started walking around the flat pretending to tidy things up, even though she had already watched Moira and Izzy have a tidying-Ellie’s-flat competition.

  ‘Lie down,’ Izzy said.

  ‘Why?’ said Ellie.

  ‘I don’t bloody know, it feels like you should.’

  The doorbell rang. ‘Shall I?’ said Moira. Ellie nodded distractedly. At the door was a large man, breathing heavily and looking nervous.

  ‘Hello,’ said Moira.

  ‘Hello … Ellie?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh. Is she in?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Ah, my name’s Dave, I’m a mate of Gabe’s.’

  ‘Dave?’ said Ellie, ‘Gabe’s talked about you—come in, I’ve been trying to get through to your place for ages but nobody answers the phone.’

  ‘My place?’

  ‘Work.’

  ‘Oh right,’ Dave looked embarrassed. ‘Where’s Gabe?’

  Ellie stared at him.

  ‘There was an accident; Gabriel died yesterday,’ said Moira.

  ‘Why haven’t you been in touch?’ asked Izzy.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He hasn’t been at work for eight days and nobody has called. Aren’t you supposed to be his friend?’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ellie. ‘He was hit by a car over a week ago in Shoreditch, on his way home.’

  ‘Shoreditch?’

  ‘I don’t know what he was doing there; he told me he was covering something … but … I don’t know why he was covering it in Shoreditch. He had bagels with him, my favourite. I think he felt guilty about working late. He was working late, right?’ Her eyes began to burn.

  ‘He had been with me,’ said Dave. He sat down. He had turned white. He looked up at Ellie and then back down at the carpet. ‘And he was trying to work. I’m so sorry, so so sorry.’

  ‘What do you mean he was “trying to work”?’

  ‘Look,’ said Dave ‘The last thing he said to me … . Dead? Oh fuck. I’m so sorry, and you … with the IVF …’ And big Dave started to cry. Ellie sat down beside him, put her arms round him and cried too. The two strangers leaned on each other, sobbing.

  ‘Anyone want a cup of tea?’ said Sam, emerging from the kitchen.

  Dave looked up. ‘Sam! Sam knew.’

  Everyone looked at Sam.

  ‘Knew what?’ snapped Izzy.

  ‘Gabe asked me not to say anything. It wasn’t an unreasonable request in the circumstances.’ He looked at Ellie. ‘And he was trying to do what seemed to be the right thing, despite the fact that he didn’t want to do it.’

  ‘What thing?’ said Ellie.

  ‘And when were you planning on saying something … and why didn’t you say anything to me at least, anyway?’ snapped Izzy.

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ said Sam, who had decided in the face of dithering uncertainty simply to keep his word to his mate and hope that he would wake up.

  Dave sighed. ‘Look, the last thing he said to me was that he was going to come home and tell you the truth. When he didn’t come into the new place I thought … well … “Spartacus.” ’

  ‘What truth? Gabe never lied to me, never.’

  ‘Yeah I know,’ said Dave softly. ‘That’s why he said he had to tell you the truth.’ And so Dave told Ellie everything about the redundancy, the desperate attempt to get work, and even slipped in that he had lost his second ‘job’ in a fortnight for lamping the editor, finishing by saying sheepishly ‘He, Gabe I mean, didn’t want to do it, but he … you know … loved yer.’

  44

  Gabriel was in his room, sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the floor. Even the angels couldn’t do much about the feeling in his chest, the one that ran down to his stomach and made him feel riddled with the pain that exists only to remind people that they had the very thing he had lost.

  He may in time, who knows how long, get to the multitude of conflicts screaming at him from the last stage of his life. How he was promised a ‘chance’ by the kind of folk who one would expect to keep their promises, yet didn’t really get that chance. How the very thing he longed for, a chance to go back and see Ellie, was given to a murdering scumbag. A murdering scumbag, incidentally, who not only killed him but was actually in the same room as Ellie, near her, spoke to her, and didn’t even give her a message.

  How did that happen? How on earth did he get time off? Was this ground leave only available to professional killers? Doesn’t the life you lead matter, even if there is a God in heaven?

  These th
oughts swirled around the middle of Gabriel’s mind, struggling like drowning cats to get to the surface. But they couldn’t get past Ellie. He would never see Ellie again, or touch her, or smell her, and he would never make a baby with her. And if there were any advantages to being dead, surely they should be that he couldn’t feel this burning pain, but he did.

  In fact, from Gabriel’s perspective, and he saw it clearly as he sat on a motel bed under heaven, it was clear that this wasn’t a bus stop on the way to eternity. It wasn’t part of God’s modernisation programme and it wasn’t a chance to turn himself into a better man. He was in hell, and there was nothing he could do about it. And it wasn’t just any old hell either, he wasn’t just getting prodded with hot sticks or performing sexual favours for the evil dead. This was a very specific hell, personal and perfectly constructed in every detail. He stood up and kicked the foot of the bed. It really bloody hurt. All this, and bruising too? Hell.

  Two or three years ago, he and Ellie went to Brighton for the day. They had, even then, joked occasionally about one day moving down there—with the rest of London—and raising a family. They spent the day ambling around the Lanes and sitting on the beach. They went on the pier and had a go on the ghost train and the roller coaster. He threw bean bags at tin cans (5 times, £2 a throw) to win her a scraggly-looking stuffed toy worth 70 pence. They drank wine on the beach and watched the sun go down, and walked back through the town the long way so they didn’t lose sight of the sea until the very last minute.

  It was one of those days that felt as natural as breathing. It didn’t feel ‘get out the camcorder’ special, you didn’t run around like a puppy on amphetamines, you didn’t dribble nonsense about happiness or life or love. You hardly noticed you were living; you just lived. But when he looked back, that day became a touchstone. It may have been one of the last carefree days he had had before the infertility and all it brought with it became overwhelming. It may have been the landscape: sunset, sea, lots of smiling, relaxed people strolling around in linen, and the balmy evening air that smelt of sea salt and sweet crepes from the pier. Or it may have been the togetherness. No greater than any other day but clearer to see, and in retrospect so easy.

  They got to the station just in time to see their train leave. They smiled and bought coffee. There are few occasions in anyone’s life when missing a train doesn’t matter—this was one of theirs. They drank coffee and chatted about what it would take to live by the sea. Jobs obviously, a house they could afford, but there is nothing to be gained from worrying about the realities of modern life when you want to bathe in the luxury of choice, so they shrugged about work and vaguely talked about commuting, or starting a business, or stumbling into well-paid undemanding work that nobody else wanted.

  Two youngish men were singing and laughing in the middle of the station. Drunk enough to stand out but not so drunk that they were about to fall over. Their sense of abandon grew alongside the delusion that they were entertaining. They shouted half-heartedly at a couple of women as they passed, edging perhaps toward the point where they would feel offended that the rest of Brighton had not drunk a litre of cheap sherry at the railway station.

  Gabriel half watched the men, aware of their presence and the irritating unpredictability it offered. He saw the thin, short young man skip-walking across the concourse. Tight cream top, pale jeans; pristine, pretty, and camp. As he drew nearer the drunks, one of them wolf-whistled, the other laughed and started to mince around like John Humphries.

  ‘Oh, do fuck off,’ said the young man without even pausing, and they should have laughed—in fact the mincing drunk nearly did—but his friend had instead gone in a different direction. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said fuck off. What are you deaf, stupid, and fucking ugly?’

  ‘Come here, you cunt!’ the drunk shouted: loud, unbridled anger from out of nowhere. He started to walk toward the gay man, who of course should have carried on walking, not even looked back. But he stopped and turned.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Gabriel.

  The drunks walked forward and, without thinking, Gabriel got up and walked toward them. Ellie followed. Gabriel managed to get between the drunks and the thin man, who was by now shaking. Gabriel smiled. ‘Let it go fellers, eh?’

  They both slowed. ‘What has it got to do with you?’

  ‘Nothing, except I don’t want to watch a couple of blokes hit another bloke. I’ve had a lovely day and I don’t want to see him get hurt or you two arrested.’ All the time Gabriel was smiling, almost shrugging.

  Everyone paused. And then the angry drunk laughed, and so did his friend. Stepping back from angry to amiable the way only a drunk can. ‘Fair enough, have a nice evening, young fella,’ aimed at the gay man standing with Ellie. ‘And you too mate,’ he nodded at Gabriel. And they walked toward the exit, and the nearest off licence. Gabriel turned and smiled at Ellie.

  ‘Fecking homophobes,’ said the slightly shaking man, younger than he had previously looked. Gabriel shrugged, still smiling. ‘I’d go a different way to them, if I were you.’

  ‘I’m not scared,’ he said, sounding scared.

  Ellie kissed Gabriel on the cheek, put her arm through his, and guided them both toward the coffee shop. ‘My hero,’ she whispered in as mocking a way as she could muster.

  There were times when Gabriel had done the right thing but toward the end, when he looked at his life, he couldn’t see them.

  Now he was thinking about what had got him here. They had never been specific about his failings, but he had long been full of them anyway. His misanthropy, his disengagement, his cowardice. He had become a fearful man. Of course, what he should have been punished for was not loving Ellie well enough. For having at the heart of his life a woman he adored and who loved him right back. But life is never that simple. It should be, he had told himself many times that it should be, but it isn’t. He had thought of the infertility as a test, but the test became a punishment and finally some kind of symbol, and how useful are those these days? He had railed against his lack of power, but in truth before now he had never known what it was to be powerless.

  Well, he thought, there is always something you can do. It may be pointless, it may not affect anything, but you can always do something, if only to prove you are still there. Or at least had been once. So he went to the bathroom, opened the adequately stocked cabinet and took out the spray-on deodorant. I’ve never liked these, he thought. Murder on the ozone layer.

  45

  When James finally arrived at home, Michael had jumped out of the car and straight into his own. As Michael pulled away, James was standing in the drive, waving like an overcaffeinated holiday rep. ‘You come on back after you’ve got the stuff and I’ll have anything of Julie’s I can find all ready for you!’

  Bizarrely, when Michael pulled up at her cottage, Brenda was waiting at the open front door. She walked down the garden path to the gate and was smiling warmly at Michael before he got out of the car. Brenda was a short, stout woman in a lemon dress and a black cardigan; she looked as though she might once have been in the military, her short, permed ash-grey hair was moulded to her head and she stood erect and alert as Michael got out of the car.

  ‘Hello, Michael,’ she said softly. ‘Come inside and have a cup of tea. I expect you want to get back to London quite quickly.’ Which could have sounded as if she’d like him out of her house as fast as he could manage, but didn’t. Instead it felt to him as though she understood.

  ‘A cup of tea would be lovely, thank you.’ Michael had to duck through the front door. Inside, the hallway was narrow and dark. He followed Brenda into an immaculate small living room. It wasn’t overly furnished: a two-seater sofa that looked like nobody had sat on it since the ‘50s, a matching chair, a small desk, and two bookcases on either side of an old-fashioned, still-working fireplace. Above the bookcases were two paintings. Michael stared at them: they were both of Julie.

  They weren’t bad; hell, he could tell
they were Julie. He wondered if she posed for them before going to London. He looked more closely. Brenda was quite good: one of them in particular captured something about Julie. She had her head turned slightly sideways, and the beginnings of a smile were on her lips. Julie’s eyes were closed. Like she was having a pleasant dream.

  Brenda came back in with tea and a plate of assorted biscuits.

  ‘Good likeness,’ Michael said.

  ‘It’s hard, but one must persevere,’ said Brenda.

  ‘Quite,’ said Michael. ‘I was rubbish at art at school.’ They both carried on looking at the pictures. ‘Was Julie a good teacher?’

  ‘She was lovely,’ said Brenda, without answering the question. ‘We all loved her instantly. She was very respectful of our own varying abilities, and that to me is what a teacher of people of my generation should be.’

  They sipped their tea, still staring at the wall. There was a ticking clock on the mantelpiece that served to slow down time and made Michael too self-conscious to have a custard cream.

  ‘Would you like to see some more?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course,’ said Michael.

  ‘Follow me,’ said Brenda.

  They left the living room and went next door to what might once have been the dining room. Light streamed in through the French doors that almost filled the back wall. In the centre of the room was an easel, beside it an old two-leafed dining table covered in newspaper. On the easel was another picture of Julie. On the table, lying beside a box with paint and some brushes, were three, four … six more pictures of Julie. All with her eyes closed. Michael scanned the room. There was a small armchair in the corner with a cat asleep on the back and two, maybe three more pictures of Julie on it. On the floor beside the table there were two more. Michael thought he had strayed into ‘The Wicker Man.’

  ‘None of them are quite right,’ offered Brenda. She seemed perplexed by this.