The Gift

Just like the thirteenth floor.

6.

A Deal Sealed

While Lou’s meeting with Mr Brennan about the – thankfully not rare but still problematic – slugs on the development site in County Cork was close to being wrapped up, Alison appeared at his office door, looking anxious, and with the pile of clothes for Gabe still draped in her outstretched arms.

‘Sorry, Barry, we’ll have to wrap it up now,’ Lou rushed. ‘I have to run, I’ve two places to be right now, both of them across town, and you know what the traffic is like.’ And just like that, with a porcelain smile and a firm warm handshake, Mr Brennan found himself back in the elevator descending to the ground floor, with his winter coat draped over one arm and his paperwork stuffed into his briefcase and tucked under the other. Yet, at the same time, it had been a pleasant meeting.

‘Did he say no?’ Lou asked Alison.

‘Who?’

‘Gabe? Did he not want the job?’

‘There was no one there.’ She looked confused. ‘I stood at reception calling and calling his name – God it was so embarrassing – and nobody came. Was this part of a joke, Lou? I can’t believe that after you made me show the Romanian rose-seller into Alfred’s office that I’d fall for this again.’

‘It’s not a joke.’ He took her arm and dragged her over to his window.

‘But there was no man there,’ she said with exasperation.

He looked out the window and saw Gabe still in the same place on the ground. A light rain was starting to fall, spitting against the window at first and then quickly making a tapping sound as it turned to hailstones. Gabe pushed himself back further into the doorway, tucking his feet in closer to his chest and away from the wet ground. He lifted the hood from his sweater over his head and pulled the drawstrings tightly, which from all the way up on the thirteenth floor seemed to be attached to Lou’s heartstrings.

‘Is that not a man?’ he asked, pointing out the window.

Alison squinted and moved her nose closer to the glass. ‘Yes, but –’

He grabbed the clothes from her arms. ‘I’ll do it myself,’ he said.

As soon as Lou stepped through the lobby’s revolving doors, the icy air whipped at his face. His breath was momentarily taken away by a great gush and the rain alone felt like ice-cubes hitting his skin. Gabe was concentrating intently on the shoes that passed him, focusing his mind on something else, no doubt to try to ignore the elements that were thrashing around him. In his mind he was elsewhere, anywhere but there. On a beach where it was warm, where the sand was like velvet and the Liffey before him was the endless sea. While in this other world he felt a kind of bliss that a man in his position shouldn’t.

His face, however, didn’t reflect that. Gone was the look of warm contentment of that morning. His blue eyes were colder than the heated pools of earlier as they followed Lou’s shoes from the revolving doors all the way to the edge of his blanket.

As Gabe watched the shoes, he was imagining them to be the feet of a local man working at the beach he was currently lounging on. The local was approaching him with a cocktail balanced dangerously in the centre of a tray, the tray held out and high from his body like the arms of a candelabra. Gabe had ordered this drink quite some time ago but he’d let the man away with the small delay. It was a hotter day than usual, the sand was crammed with glistening coconut-scented bodies and so he would forgive this local his shortcomings. The muggy air was slowing everybody down. The flipflop-clad feet that approached him sank into the sand, spraying grains of sand into the air with each step. As they neared him, the grains of sand became splashes of raindrops, and the flipflops became a familiar pair of shiny shoes. Gabe looked up, hoping to see a multicoloured cocktail filled with fruit and umbrellas on a tray. Instead, he saw Lou with a pile of clothes over his arm, and it took him a moment to adjust once again to the cold, the noise of the traffic and the hustle and bustle that had replaced his tropical paradise.

Lou’s appearance of earlier that morning had also altered. His hair had lost its Cary Grant-like sheen and neatly combed quiff, and the shoulders of his suit appeared to be covered in dandruff as the little white balls of ice falling from the sky nested in his expensive suit and took their time to melt. When they did, they left dark patches on the fabric. He was uncharacteristically windswept and his usually relaxed shoulders were instead hunched high in an effort to shield his ears from the cold. His body trembled, missing his cashmere coat like a sheep who’d just been sheared and now stood knobbly-kneed and naked.

‘You want a job?’ Lou asked confidently, but it came out quiet and meek as half of his volume was taken away by the wind and the question asked instead to a stranger further down the pavement.

Gabe simply smiled. ‘You’re sure?’

Confused by his reaction, Lou nodded. He wasn’t expecting a hug and a kiss but his offer seemed almost expected. This he didn’t like. He was more atuned to a song and a dance, an ooh and an ahh, a thank you and a declaration of indebtedness. But he didn’t get this from Gabe. What he did get was a quiet smile and, after Gabe had thrown off the blanket from his body and raised himself to his full height, a firm, thankful – and, in spite of the temperature, a surprisingly warm – handshake. Without Gabe hearing another word, it was as though they were already sealing a deal Lou couldn’t recall negotiating.

Standing at exactly the same height, their blue eyes gazed directly into one another’s, Gabe’s from under the hood that was pulled down low over his eyes, monk-like, boring into Lou’s with such intensity that Lou blinked and looked away. At the same time as that blink occurred, a doubt entered Lou’s mind, now that the mere thought of a good deed was becoming a reality. The doubt came breezing through like a stubborn guest through a hotel lobby with no booking, and Lou stood there, confused as to what decision to make. Where to put this doubt. Keep it or turn it away. He had many questions to ask Gabe, many questions he probably should have asked, but there was only one that he could think of right then.

‘Can I trust you?’ Lou asked.

He had wanted to be convinced, for his mind to be put at ease, but he did not count on receiving the kind of response he was given.

Gabe barely blinked. ‘With your life.’

The Presidential Suite for the gentleman and his word.

7.

On Reflection

Gabe and Lou left the icy air and entered the warmth of the marble entrance hall. With walls, floors and pillars of granite covered by swirls of creams, caramels and Cadbury-chocolate colours, Gabe was just short of licking the surfaces. He had known he was cold, but until he felt this warmth he’d had no idea of the extent. Lou felt all eyes on him as he led the rugged-looking man through reception and into the Gents on the ground floor. Unsure of why, Lou took it upon himself to check each toilet cubicle before talking.

‘Here, I brought you these.’ Lou handed Gabe the pile of clothes, which were slightly damp now. ‘You can keep them.’

He turned to face the mirror to comb his hair back into its perfect position, wiped away the hailstones and raindrops from his shoulders and tried his best to return to normality, physically and mentally, as Gabe slowly sifted through the belongings. Grey Gucci trousers, a white shirt, a grey and white striped tie. He fingered them all delicately as though a single touch would reduce them to shreds.

While Gabe discarded his blanket in the sink and then went into one of the cubicles to dress, Lou paced up and down the urinals responding to phone calls and emails. He was so busy with his work that when he looked up from his device, he didn’t recognise the man before him and returned his attention to his BlackBerry. But then he slowly reared his head again, realising with a start that it was Gabe.

The only thing to show that this was the same man were the dirty pair of Doc Martens beneath the Gucci trousers. Everything fitted perfectly, and Gabe stood before the mirror, looking himself up and down as though in a trance. The woollen hat that had covered Gabe’s head now revealed a thick head of black hair, similar to Lou’s, though far more tousled. The warmth had replaced the coldness in his body and his lips were now full and red, his cheeks a nice rosy instead of the frozen pallid colour of before.

Lou didn’t quite know what to say but, sensing a moment that was far deeper than he was comfortable with, he splashed around in the shallow end instead.

‘That stuff you told me about the shoes, earlier?’

Gabe nodded.

‘That was good. I wouldn’t mind if you kept your eyes open for more of that kind of thing. Let me know now and then about what you see.’

Gabe nodded.

‘Have you somewhere to stay?’

‘Yes.’ Gabe looked back at his reflection in the mirror. His voice was quiet.

‘So you’ve an address to give Harry? He’s your boss.’

‘You won’t be my boss?’

‘No.’ Lou took his BlackBerry out of his pocket and began scrolling for nothing in particular. ‘No, you’ll be in another … department.’

‘Oh, of course.’ Gabe straightened up, seeming a little embarrassed for thinking otherwise. ‘Right. Great. Thanks so much, Lou, really.’

Lou nodded it off, feeling embarrassed. ‘Here.’ He handed Gabe his comb while looking the other way.

‘Thanks.’ Gabe took it, held the comb under the tap and then began to shape his messed hair. Lou hurried him on and led him back out of the Gents and through the marble lobby to the elevators.

Gabe offered the comb back to Lou.

Lou shook his head and waved his hand dismissively, looking around to make sure nobody waiting with them by the elevators had seen the gesture. ‘Keep it. You have an employer number, PRSI number, things like that?’ he rattled off at Gabe.

Gabe shook his head, looking concerned. His fingers ran up and down the silk tie, as though it were a pet and he was afraid it would run off.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll sort that out. Okay,’ Lou started to move away as his phone began ringing, ‘I’d better run, I’ve so many places to be right now.’

‘Of course. Thanks again. Where do I –?’

But Gabe was cut off as Lou wandered around the lobby, his movements jittery as he spoke on the mobile in that half-walk, half-dance that people on mobile phones do. His left hand was jingling the loose change in his pocket, his right hand glued to his ear. ‘Okay, gotta run, Michael.’ Lou snapped the phone shut and tutted when he found an even bigger crowd still waiting at the elevators. ‘These things really need to be fixed,’ he said aloud.

Gabe fixed him with a look that Lou couldn’t quite read.

‘What?’

‘Where do I go?’ Gabe asked again.

‘Oh, sorry, you’re going down a floor. The mailroom.’

‘Oh.’ Gabe looked taken aback at first, and then his pleasant face returned again. ‘Okay, great, thanks,’ he nodded.

‘Ever worked in one before? I bet they’re, um … exciting places to be.’ Lou knew that offering Gabe a job was a great gesture, and that there was nothing wrong with the job he was being offered, but somehow he felt that it wasn’t enough, that the young man standing before him was not only capable but expectant of much more. There was no reasonable explanation for why on earth he felt this, as Gabe was as soft, friendly and appreciative as he had been the very first moment Lou had met him, but there was something about the way he … there was just something.

‘Do you want to meet for lunch or anything?’ Gabe asked hopefully.

‘No can do,’ Lou replied, his phone starting to ring again in his pocket. ‘I’ve such a busy day ahead and I’ve …’ He trailed off as the elevator doors opened and people began filing in. Gabe moved to step in with Lou.

‘This one’s going up,’ Lou said quietly, his words a barrier to Gabe’s entrance.

‘Oh, okay.’ Gabe took a few steps back. Before the doors closed and a few last people ran to scurry in, Gabe asked, ‘Why are you doing this for me?’

Lou swallowed hard and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. ‘Consider it a gift.’ And the doors closed.

When Lou finally reached the fourteenth floor, he was more than surprised to enter his office area and see Gabe pushing a mail cart around the floor, depositing packages and envelopes on people’s desks.

Unable to think of what to say but running through the time in which it had taken him to get to his floor, he merely stared at Gabe open-mouthed.

‘Eh,’ Gabe looked left and right with uncertainty, ‘this is the thirteenth floor, isn’t it?’

‘It’s the fourteenth,’ Lou replied breathlessly, speaking the words more out of habit and barely noticing what he was saying. ‘Of course you should be here, it’s just that …’ He held his hand to his forehead, which was hot. He hoped his moments in the rain without his coat hadn’t made him ill. ‘You got here so quickly that I just … never mind.’ He shook his head. ‘Those bloody lifts,’ he mumbled to himself, making his way to his office.

Alison jumped up from her chair and blocked him from entering his office. ‘Marcia’s on the phone,’ she called loudly. ‘Again.’

Gabe pushed his cart down to the end of the plush corridor to another office, one of the wheels squeaking loudly. Lou watched him for a moment in wonder, and then snapped out of it.

‘I don’t have time, Alison, really, I’ve somewhere else to be right now and I have a meeting before I can even leave. Where are my keys?’ He searched through the pockets of his coat, which was hanging from the coat stand in the corner.

‘She’s called three times this morning,’ Alison hissed, blocking the receiver and holding it away from her body as though it were poison. ‘I don’t think she believes that I’m passing on her messages.’

‘Messages?’ Lou teased. ‘I don’t remember any messages.’

Alison squeaked with panic, moving the receiver high up in the air, further from Lou’s grasp. ‘Don’t you dare do that to me, don’t blame me! There are three messages already on your desk from this morning alone! And besides, your family hate me as it is.’

‘They’re right to, aren’t they?’ He stood close against her, backing her into her desk. Giving her a look that withered every part of her insides, he allowed two of his fingers to slowly crawl up her arm and to her hand, where he took the phone from her grasp. He heard a cough coming from behind him and he quickly moved away and pulled the phone to his ear. Pretending he didn’t care, he casually spun around to check out who had interrupted them.

Gabe. With the squeaking mail cart that had miraculously failed to alert Lou this time.

‘Yes, Marcia,’ he said down the phone to his sister. ‘Yes, of course I received your ten thousand messages. Alison very kindly passed them all on.’ He smiled sweetly at Alison, who stuck her tongue out at him before leading Gabe into Lou’s office. Lou stood up a little taller then and watched Gabe.

Following Alison into Lou’s office, Gabe looked around the huge room like a child at the zoo. Lou noticed him take in the large en suite to the right, the floor-to-ceiling windows that displayed the city, the giant oak desk that took up more room than necessary, the couch area in the left-hand corner, the boardroom table to seat ten, the fifty-inch plasma on the wall. It was as big or bigger than any Dublin city apartment.

Gabe’s head moved around the room, his eyes taking in everything. His expression was curiously unreadable and then their eyes met and Gabe smiled. It was an equally curious smile. It wasn’t quite the face of admiration that Lou was hoping for, it most certainly wasn’t of jealousy. More a look of amusement. Whatever it was, it immediately killed the pride and satisfaction that were lined up in the queue of emotions Lou planned to experience next. It was a smile that seemed only for Lou, but the problem was, Lou wasn’t sure whether the joke was on him or if he and Gabe were sharing it. Feeling a lack of confidence he wasn’t used to, he nodded back at Gabe in acknowledgement.

Meanwhile, over the phone, Marcia continued her mindless chat, and Lou felt as though his head was getting hotter and hotter.

‘Lou? Lou, are you listening?’ she asked in her soft voice.

‘Absolutely, Marcia, but I really can’t stay on right now because I’ve two places to be and neither of them are here,’ he said, then, after a pause, added a laugh to soften the blow.

‘Yes, I know you’re so busy,’ she said, and without any jibes intended she added, ‘I wouldn’t disturb you at work if we saw you on a Sunday once in a while.’

‘Oh, here we go.’ He rolled his eyes and waited for the usual rant.

‘No, I’m not going there, please, just listen. Lou, I really need your help on this. Usually I wouldn’t bother you, but Rick and I are going through the divorce papers and …’ she sighed. ‘Anyway, I want to get this right and I can’t do it alone.’

‘I’m sure you can’t.’ He wasn’t sure of what it was she could or could not do as he had no idea what she was talking about, and he was so preoccupied with his growing paranoia over Gabe’s movements around his office.

He stretched the phone cord to the corner of the room so that he could reach for his coat. In a messy twist of trying to get his coat on while keeping the phone tucked between his ear and shoulder, he dropped the receiver. He fixed his coat before swooping down to retrieve the receiver. Marcia was still talking.

‘So can you at least answer my one question about the venue?’

‘The venue,’ he repeated. His phone rang in his pocket and he covered the speaker to silence the ring tone, wanting nothing more than to answer it.

She was quiet for a moment. ‘Yes. The venue,’ she said, her voice so quiet now he had to strain his ear to hear.

‘Ah, yes, the venue for the …’ He looked at Alison with his best look of alarm and she abandoned her study of Gabe to charge out from his office towards him with a bright yellow Post-it.

‘A-ha!’ Lou exclaimed, plucking it from her hand, saying the words as though clearly reading them. ‘For your dad’s – that would be my dad’s – birthday party. You want a venue for Dad’s birthday party.’

Lou felt a presence behind his back once again.

‘Yes,’ Marcia said, relieved. ‘But I don’t need a venue, we already have two, remember, I told you this? I just need you to help me choose one. Quentin thinks one and I think the other, and Mum just really wants to stay out of it, and –’

‘Can you call my mobile, Marcia, I really have to run. I’m going to be late for a lunch meeting.’

‘No, Lou! Just tell me where –’

‘Look, I’ve got a great venue,’ he interrupted her again, looking at his watch. ‘Dad will love it and everyone will have a great time,’ he rushed her off the phone.

‘I don’t want to introduce somewhere new at this point. You know what Dad’s like. Just a small, intimate family gathering somewhere he feels comfort—’

‘Intimate and comfortable. Got it.’ Lou grabbed a pen from Alison’s fingers and made a note of the party he was entrusting her to start organising. ‘Great. What date are we having it?’

‘On his birthday.’ Marcia’s voice was quieter with each response.

‘Right, his birthday.’ Lou looked up at Alison questioningly, who dove for her diary and began flicking at top speed. ‘I thought we’d want to have it on a weekend so that everybody could really let themselves go. You know, let Uncle Leo really go for it on the dancefloor,’ he smirked.

‘He’s just been diagnosed with prostate cancer.’

‘Not really my point. So what date is the nearest weekend?’ he improvised.

‘Daddy’s birthday falls on a Friday,’ she said, tired now. ‘It’s December twenty-first, Lou. The same as it was last year and every year before that.’

‘December twenty-first, right.’ He looked at Alison accusingly, who wilted for not getting there first. ‘That’s next weekend, Marcia, why have you left it so late?’

‘I haven’t, I told you, everything’s arranged. Both venues are ready to go.’

Lou stopped listening to her response once again, grabbed the diary from Alison and started flicking through it. ‘Ah, no can do, would you believe. That’s the date of the office party, and I really have to be here. We’re having some important clients over. Dad’s party can be on the Saturday, I’ll have to move some things around,’ he thought aloud, ‘but the Saturday could work.’

‘It’s your father’s seventieth, you can’t change the date because of an office party,’ she said disbelievingly. ‘Besides, the music, the food, everything has already been decided on for that date. All we need is to decide which one of the two venues –’

‘Well, cancel all that,’ Lou said, hopping off the corner of the desk and getting ready to hang up. ‘The venue I have in mind does its own catering and music, you won’t have to lift a finger, okay? So that’s all sorted. Great. I’ll put you back on to Alison so she can take all the details.’ He put the phone down on the desk and grabbed his briefcase.

Despite feeling Gabe’s presence behind him, he didn’t turn around. ‘Everything okay, Gabe?’ he asked, lifting files from Alison’s desk and arranging them into his open briefcase.

‘Yep, great. I just thought I’d ride down in the elevator with you, seeing as we’re going the same way.’

‘Oh.’ Lou snapped the case closed, turned and didn’t slow in his walk to the elevator, suddenly afraid that he’d made a big mistake and that he’d now have to show Gabe that his intentions behind getting him a job were not to find a playdate. He pressed the elevator button and, while waiting for the floor numbers to climb up, busied himself with his phone.

‘So you have a sister?’ Gabe asked softly.

‘Yep,’ Lou replied, still texting, feeling like he was back at school and trying to shake off the nerd he’d once been nice to. Of all the times his phone decided not to ring.

‘That’s great.’

‘Mmm.’

‘What was that?’

Gabe had responded so curtly that Lou’s head snapped up.

‘I didn’t hear you,’ Gabe said, like a schoolteacher.

Then, for some unknown reason, guilt overcame Lou and he placed his phone into his pocket. ‘Sorry, Gabe,’ he wiped his brow, ‘it’s been a funny day. I’m not myself today.’

‘Who are you then?’

Lou looked at him with confusion but Gabe just smiled.

‘You were saying about your sister.’

‘I was? Well, she’s just being the usual Marcia.’ Lou sighed. ‘She’s driving me crazy about organising my dad’s seventieth party. Unfortunately it’s on the same day as the office party, which causes some problems, you know. Always a good night here.’ He looked at Gabe and winked. ‘You’ll see what I mean. But I’m taking the whole organisation off her hands now, to give her a break,’ he said.

‘You don’t think she’s enjoying organising it?’ Gabe asked.

Lou looked away. Marcia loved organising the party, she’d been planning it for the past year. In taking it out of her hands he was in fact making it easier on himself. He couldn’t stand the twenty calls a day about cake-tasting and whether or not he’d allow three of their decrepit aunts to stay overnight in his house or if he’d lend a few of his serving spoons for the buffet. Ever since her marriage had ended she’d focused on this party. If she’d given her marriage as much attention as she did the bloody party, she wouldn’t find herself crying to her friends at Curves every day, he thought. Taking this off her hands was a favour for her and a favour for him. Two things accomplished at once. Just what he liked.