The Gift

‘When were you planning on having dinner?’

‘At three.’

‘I meant what day. It takes a minimum of twenty-four hours of defrosting time for every five pounds of turkey. Your turkey was fifteen pounds. You should have taken the turkey out of the freezer three days ago if you intended on eating it today.’

‘Whatever, Ratatouille.’ He looked at Raphie like he was crazy. ‘If I’d stuffed it with bananas too would I be in less trouble?’

‘The reason I mention it, is because if you had taken it out when you should have, it wouldn’t have been hard enough to go through a window. That may sound like planning to a jury, and no, bananas and turkey isn’t a clever recipe.’

‘I didn’t plan it!’ he squealed, and his age showed.

Raphie drank his coffee and watched the young teenager.

The boy looked at the cup before him and ruffled his nose. ‘I don’t drink coffee.’

‘Okay.’ Raphie lifted the Styrofoam cup from the table and emptied the contents into his mug. ‘Still warm. Thanks. So, tell me about this morning. What were you thinking, son?’

‘Unless you’re the other fat bastard whose window I threw a bird through, then I’m not your son. And what’s this, a therapy session or interrogation? Are you charging me with something or what?’

‘We’re waiting to hear whether your dad is going to press charges.’

‘He won’t.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘He can’t. I’m under sixteen. So if you just let me go now, you won’t waste any of your time.’

‘You’ve already wasted a considerable amount of it.’

‘It’s Christmas Day, I doubt there’s much else for you to do around here.’ He eyed Raphie’s stomach. ‘Other than eat doughnuts.’

‘You’d be surprised.’

‘Try me.’

‘Some idiot kid threw a turkey through a window this morning.’

He rolled his eyes and looked at the clock on the wall, ticking away. ‘Where are my parents?’

‘Wiping grease off their floor.’

‘They’re not my parents,’ he spat. ‘At least, she’s not my mother. If she comes with him to collect me, I’m not going.’

‘Oh, I doubt very much that they’ll come to take you home with them.’ Raphie reached into his pocket and took out a chocolate sweet. He unwrapped it slowly, the wrapper rustling in the quiet room. ‘Did you ever notice the strawberry ones are always the last ones left over in the tin?’ He smiled before popping it in his mouth.

‘I bet nothing’s ever left in the tin when you’re around.’

‘Your father and his partner –’

‘Who, for the record,’ Turkey Boy interrupted Raphie and leaned close to the recording device, ‘is a whore.’

‘They may pay us a visit to press charges.’

‘Dad wouldn’t do that.’ He swallowed, his eyes puffy with frustration.

‘He’s thinking about it.’

‘No he’s not,’ the boy whined. ‘If he is it’s probably because she’s making him. Bitch.’

‘It’s more probable that he’ll do it because it’s now snowing in his living room.’

‘Is it snowing?’ He looked like a child again, eyes wide with hope.

Raphie sucked on his sweet. ‘Some people just bite right into chocolate; I much prefer to suck it.’

‘Suck on this.’ The Turkey Boy grabbed his crotch.

‘You’ll have to get your boyfriend to do that.’

‘I’m not gay,’ he huffed, then leaned forward and the child returned. ‘Ah, come on, is it snowing? Let me out to see it, will you? I’ll just look out the window.’

Raphie swallowed his sweet and leaned his elbows on the table. He spoke firmly. ‘Glass from the window landed on the ten-month-old baby.’

‘So?’ the boy snarled, bouncing back in his chair, but he looked concerned. He began pulling at a piece of skin around his nail.

‘He was beside the Christmas tree, where the turkey landed. Luckily he wasn’t cut. The baby, that is, not the turkey. The turkey sustained quite a few injuries. We don’t think he’ll make it.’

The boy looked relieved and confused all at the same time.

‘When’s my mam coming to get me?’

‘She’s on her way.’

‘The girl with the’, he cupped his hands over his chest, ‘big jugs told me that two hours ago. What happened to her face by the way? You two have a lovers’ tiff?’

Raphie bristled over how the boy spoke about Jessica, but kept his calm. He wasn’t worth it. Was he even worth sharing the story with at all?

‘Maybe your mother is driving very slowly. The roads are very slippy.’

The Turkey Boy thought about that and looked a little worried. He continued pulling at the skin around his nail.

‘The turkey was too big,’ he added, after a long pause. He clenched and unclenched his fists on the table. ‘She bought the same-sized turkey she used to buy when he was home. She thought he’d be coming back.’

‘Your mother thought this about your dad,’ Raphie confirmed, rather than asked.

He nodded. ‘When I took it out of the freezer it just made me crazy. It was too big.’

Silence again.

‘I didn’t think the turkey would break the glass,’ he said, quieter now and looking away. ‘Who knew a turkey could break a window?’

He looked up at Raphie with such desperation that, despite the seriousness of the situation, Raphie had to fight a smile at the boy’s misfortune.

‘I just meant to give them a fright. I knew they’d all be in there playing happy families.’

‘Well, they’re definitely not any more.’

The boy didn’t say anything but seemed less happy about it than when Raphie had entered.

‘A fifteen-pound turkey seems very big for just three people.’

‘Yeah, well, my dad’s a fat bastard, what can I say.’

Raphie decided he was wasting his time. Fed up, he stood up to leave.

‘Dad’s family used to come for dinner every year,’ the boy caved in, calling out to Raphie in an effort to keep him in the room. ‘But they decided not to come this year either. The turkey was just too bloody big for the two of us,’ he repeated, shaking his head. Dropping the bravado act, his tone changed. ‘When will my mam be here?’

Raphie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Probably when you’ve learned your lesson.’

‘But it’s Christmas Day.’

‘As good a day as any to learn a lesson.’

‘Lessons are for kids.’

Raphie smiled at that.

‘What?’ the boy spat defensively.

‘I learned one today.’

‘Oh, I forgot to add retards to that too.’

Raphie made his way to the door.

‘So what lesson did you learn then?’ the boy asked quickly, and Raphie could sense in his voice that he didn’t want to be left alone.

Raphie stopped and turned, feeling sad, looking sad.

‘It must have been a pretty shit lesson.’

‘You’ll find that most lessons are.’

The Turkey Boy sat slumped over the table, his unzipped hooded top hanging off one shoulder, small pink ears peeping out from his greasy hair that sat on his shoulders, his cheeks covered in pink pimples, his eyes a crystal blue. He was only a child.

Raphie sighed. Surely he’d be forced into early retirement for telling this story. He pulled out the chair and sat down.

‘Just for the record,’ Raphie said, ‘you asked me to tell you this.’

The Beginning of the Story

4.

The Shoe Watcher

Lou Suffern always had two places to be at the one time. When asleep, he dreamed. In between dreams, he ran through the events of that day while making plans for the next, so that when he was awakened by his alarm at six a.m. every morning, he found himself to be very poorly rested. When in the shower, he rehearsed presentations and, on occasion, with one hand outside of the shower curtain he responded to emails on his BlackBerry. While eating breakfast he read the newspaper, and when being told rambling stories by his five-year-old daughter, he listened to the morning news. When his thirteen-month-old son demonstrated new skills each day, Lou’s face displayed interest while at the same time the inner workings of his brain were analysing why he felt the exact opposite. When kissing his wife goodbye, he was thinking of another.

Every action, movement, appointment, a doing or thought of any kind, was layered by another. Driving to work was also a conference call by speakerphone. Breakfasts ran into lunches, lunches into pre-dinner drinks, drinks into dinners, dinners into after-dinner drinks, after-dinner drinks into … well, that depended on how lucky he got. On those lucky nights at whatever house, apartment, hotel room or office that he felt himself appreciating his luck and the company of another, he of course would convince those who wouldn’t share his appreciation – namely his wife – that he was in another place. To them, he was stuck in a meeting, at an airport, finishing up some important paperwork, or buried in the maddening Christmas traffic. Two places, quite magically, at once.

Everything overlapped, he was always moving, always had someplace else to be, always wished that he was elsewhere or that, thanks to some divine intervention, he could be in both places at the same time. He’d spend as little time as possible with each person and leave them feeling that it was enough. He wasn’t a tardy man, he was precise, always on time. In business he was a master timekeeper; in life he was a broken pocket watch. He strove for perfection and possessed boundless energy in his quest for success. However, it was these bounds – so eager to attain his fast-growing list of desires and so full of ambition to reach new dizzying heights – that caused him to soar above the heads of the most important. There was no appointed time in his schedule for those whom, given the time of day, could lift him higher in more ways than any new deal could possibly accomplish.

On one particular cold Tuesday morning along the continuously developing dockland of Dublin city, Lou’s black leather shoes, polished to perfection, strolled confidently across the eyeline of one particular man. This man watched the shoes in movement that morning, as he had yesterday and as he assumed he would tomorrow. There was no best foot forward, for both were equal in their abilities. Each stride was equal in length, the heel-to-toe combination so precise; his shoes pointing forward, heels striking first and then pushing off from the big toe, flexing at the ankle. Perfect each time. The sound rhythmic as they hit the pavement. There was no heavy pounding to shake the ground beneath him, as was the case with the decapitated others who raced by at this hour with their heads still on their pillows despite their bodies being out in the fresh air. No, his shoes made a tapping sound as intrusive and unwelcome as raindrops on a conservatory roof, the hem of his trousers flapping slightly like a flag in a light breeze on an eighteenth hole.

The watcher half-expected the slabs of pavement to light up as he stepped on each, and for the owner of the shoes to break out into a tap dance about how swell and dandy the day was turning out to be. For the watcher, a swell and dandy day it was most certainly going to be.

Usually the shiny black shoes beneath the impeccable black suits would float stylishly by the watcher, through the revolving doors and into the grand marble entrance of the latest modern glass building to be squeezed through the cracks of the quays and launched up into the Dublin sky. But that morning the shoes stopped directly before the watcher. And then they turned, making a gravelly noise as they pivoted on the cold concrete. The watcher had no choice but to lift his gaze from the shoes.

‘Here you go,’ Lou said, handing him a coffee. ‘It’s an Americano, hope you don’t mind, they were having problems with the machine so they couldn’t make a latte.’

‘Take it back then,’ the watcher said, turning his nose up at the cup of steaming coffee offered to him.

This was greeted by a stunned silence.

‘Only joking.’ He laughed at the startled look, and very quickly – in case the joke was unappreciated and the gesture was rethought and withdrawn – reached for the cup and cradled it with his numb fingers. ‘Do I look like I care about steamed milk?’ he grinned, before his expression changed to a look of pure ecstasy. ‘Mmmm.’ He pushed his nose up against the rim of the cup to smell the coffee beans. He closed his eyes and savoured it, not wanting the sense of sight to take away from this divine smell. The cardboard-like cup was so hot, or his hands so cold, that it burned right through them, sending torpedoes of heat and shivers through his body. He hadn’t known how cold he was until he’d felt the heat.

‘Thanks very much indeed.’

‘No problem. I heard on the radio that today’s going to be the coldest day of the year.’ The shiny shoes stamped the concrete slabs and his leather gloves rubbed together as proof of his word.

‘Well, I’d believe them all right. Never mind the brass monkeys, it’s cold enough to freeze my own balls off. But this will help.’ The watcher blew on the drink slightly, preparing to take his first sip.

‘There’s no sugar in it,’ Lou apologised.

‘Ah well then.’ The watcher rolled his eyes and quickly pulled the cup away from his lips, as though in it there was contained a deadly disease. ‘I can let you off the steamed milk, but forgetting to add sugar is a step too far.’ He offered it back to Lou.

Getting the message, and the joke this time, Lou laughed. ‘Okay, okay, I get the point.’

‘Beggars can’t be choosers, isn’t that what they say? Is that to say choosers can be beggars?’ The watcher raised an eyebrow, smiled, and finally took his first sip. So engrossed in the sensation of heat and caffeine travelling through his cold body, he hadn’t noticed that suddenly the watcher became the watched.

‘Oh. I’m Gabe.’ He reached out his hand. ‘Gabriel, but everyone who knows me calls me Gabe.’

Lou reached out and shook his hand. Warm leather to cold skin. ‘I’m Lou, but everyone who knows me calls me a prick.’

Gabe laughed. ‘Well, that’s honesty for you. How’s about I call you Lou until I know you better.’

They smiled at one another and then were quiet in the sudden sliver of awkwardness. Two little boys trying to make friends in a schoolyard. The shiny shoes began to fidget slightly, tip-tap, tap-tip, Lou’s side-to-side steps a combination of trying to keep warm and trying to figure out whether to leave or stay. They twisted around slowly to face the building next door. He would soon follow in the direction of his feet.

‘Busy this morning, isn’t it?’ Gabe said easily, bringing the shoes back to face him again.

‘Christmas is only a few weeks away, always a hectic time,’ Lou agreed.

‘The more people around, the better it is for me,’ Gabe said as a twenty cent went flying into his cup. ‘Thank you,’ he called to the lady who’d barely paused to drop the coin. From her body language one would almost think it had fallen through a hole in her pocket rather than being a gift. He looked up at Lou with big eyes and an even bigger grin. ‘See? Coffee’s on me tomorrow,’ he chuckled.

Lou tried to lean over as inconspicuously as possible to steal a look at the contents of the cup. The twenty-cent piece sat alone at the bottom.

‘Oh, don’t worry. I empty it now and then. Don’t want people thinking I’m doing too well for myself,’ he laughed. ‘You know how it is.’

Lou agreed, but at the same time didn’t.

‘Can’t have people knowing I own the penthouse right across the water,’ Gabe added, nodding across the river.

Lou turned around and gazed across the Liffey at Dublin quay’s newest skyscraper, which Gabe was referring to. With its mirrored glass it was almost as if the building was the Looking Glass of Dublin city centre. From the re-created Viking longship that was moored along the quays, to the many cranes and new corporate and commercial buildings that framed the Liffey, to the stormy, cloud-filled sky that filled the higher floors, the building captured it all and played it back to the city like a giant plasma. Shaped like a sail, at night the building was illuminated in blue and was the talk of the town, or at least had been in the months following its launch. The next best thing never lasted for too long.

‘I was only joking about owning the penthouse, you know,’ Gabe said, seeming a little concerned that his possible pay-off had been sabotaged.

‘You like that building?’ Lou asked, still staring at it in a trance.

‘It’s my favourite one, especially at night-time. That’s one of the main reasons I sit here. That and because it’s busy along here, of course. A view alone won’t buy me my dinner.’

‘We built that,’ Lou said, finally turning back around to face him.

‘Really?’ Gabe took him in a bit more. Mid to late thirties, dapper suit, his face cleanly shaven, smooth as a baby’s behind, his groomed hair with even speckles of grey throughout, as though someone had taken a salt canister to it and, along with grey, sprinkled charm at a ratio of 1:10. Lou reminded him of an old-style movie star, emanating suaveness and sophistication and all packaged in a full-length black cashmere coat.

‘I bet it bought you dinner,’ Gabe laughed, feeling a slight twinge of jealousy at that moment, which bothered him as he hadn’t known any amount of jealousy until he’d studied Lou. Since meeting him he’d learned two things that were of no help, for there he was, all of a sudden cold and envious when previously he had been warm and content. Bearing that in mind, despite always being happy with his own company, he foresaw that as soon as this gentleman and he were to part ways, he would experience a loneliness he had never been previously aware of. He would then be envious, cold and lonely. The perfect ingredients for a nice homemade bitter pie.

The building had bought Lou more than dinner. It had gotten the company a few awards, and for him personally, a house in Howth and an upgrade from his present Porsche to the new model – the latter after Christmas, to be precise, but Lou knew not to announce that to the man sitting on the freezing cold pavement, swaddled in a flea-infested blanket. Instead, Lou smiled politely and flashed his porcelain veneers, as usual doing two things at once. Thinking one thing and saying another. But it was the in-between part that Gabe could clearly read, and this introduced a new level of awkwardness that neither of them was comfortable with.

‘Well, I’d better get to work. I just work –’

‘Next door, I know. I recognise the shoes. More on my level,’ Gabe smiled. ‘Though you didn’t wear those yesterday. Tan leather, if I’m correct.’

Lou’s neatly tweezed eyebrows went up a notch. Like a pebble dropped in a pool, they caused a series of ripples to rise on his as yet un-botoxed forehead.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not a stalker.’ Gabe allowed one hand to unwrap itself from the hot cup so he could hold it up in defence. ‘I’ve just been here a while. If anything, you people keep turning up at my place.’

Lou laughed, then self-consciously looked down at his shoes, which were the subject of conversation. ‘Incredible.’

‘I’ve never noticed you here before,’ Lou thought aloud, and at the same time as saying it he was mentally reliving each morning he’d walked this route to work.

‘All day, every day,’ Gabe said, with false perkiness in his voice.

‘Sorry, I never noticed you …’ Lou shook his head. ‘I’m always running around the place, on the phone to someone or late for someone else. Always two places to be at the same time, my wife says. Sometimes I wish I could be cloned, I get so busy,’ he laughed.

Gabe gave him a curious smile at that. ‘Speaking of running around, this is the first time I haven’t seen those boys racing by.’ Gabe nodded towards Lou’s feet. ‘Almost don’t recognise them standing still. No fire inside today?’

Lou laughed. ‘Always a fire inside there, believe you me.’ He made a swift movement with his arm and, like the unveiling of a masterpiece, his coat sleeve slipped down just far enough to reveal his gold Rolex. ‘I’m always the first into the office so there’s no great rush now.’ He observed the time with great concentration, in his head already leading an afternoon meeting.

‘You’re not the first in this morning,’ Gabe said.

‘What?’ Lou’s meeting was disturbed and he was back on the cold street again, outside his office, the cold Atlantic wind whipping at their faces, the crowds of people all bundled up and marching in their armies to work.

Gabe scrunched his eyes shut tight. ‘Brown loafers. I’ve seen you walk in with him a few times. He’s in already.’

‘Brown loafers?’ Lou laughed, first confused, then impressed and quickly concerned as to who had made it to the office before him.

‘You know him – a pretentious walk. The little suede tassels kick with every step, like a mini can-can, it’s like he throws them up there purposely. They’ve got soft soles but they’re heavy on the ground. Small wide feet, and he walks on the outsides of his feet. Soles are always worn away on the outside.’

Lou’s brow furrowed in concentration.

‘On Saturdays he wears shoes like he’s just stepped off a yacht.’

‘Alfred!’ Lou laughed, recognising the description. ‘That’s because he probably has just stepped off his ya—’ but he stopped himself. ‘He’s in already?’

‘About a half-hour ago. Plodded in, in a kind of a rush by the looks of it, accompanied by another pair of black slip-ons.’

‘Black slip-ons?’

‘Black shoes. Male shoes. A little shine but no design. Simple and to the point, they just did what shoes do. Can’t say much else about them apart from the fact they move slower than the other shoes.’

‘You’re very observant.’ Lou examined him, wondering who this man had been in his previous life, before landing on cold ground in a doorway, and at the same time his mind was on overdrive in its attempt to figure out who all these people were. Alfred showing up to work so early had him flummoxed. A colleague of theirs – Cliff – had suffered a nervous breakdown and this had left them excited, yes, excited, about the opening up of a new position. Providing Cliff didn’t get better, which Lou secretly hoped for, major shifts were about to take place in the company, and any unusual behaviour by Alfred was questionable. In fact, any of Alfred’s behaviour at any stage was questionable.

Gabe winked. ‘Don’t happen to need an observant person in there for anything, do you?’

Lou parted his gloved hands. ‘Sorry.’

‘No problem, you know where I am if you need me. I’m the fella in the Doc Martens.’ He laughed, lifting the blankets to reveal his high black boots.

‘I wonder why they’re in so early.’ Lou looked at Gabe as though he had special powers.

‘Can’t help you out there, I’m afraid, but they had lunch last week. Or at least, they left the building at what’s considered the average joe’s lunchtime, and came back together when that time was over. What they did in between is just a matter of clever guesswork,’ he chuckled. ‘No flies on me. Not today anyway,’ he added. ‘Far too cold for flies.’

‘What day was that lunch?’

Gabe closed his eyes again. ‘Friday, I’d say. He’s your rival, is he, brown loafers?’

‘No, he’s my friend. Kind of. More of an acquaintance really.’ On hearing this news Lou, for the first time, showed signs of being rattled. ‘He’s my colleague, but with Cliff having a breakdown it’s a great opportunity for either of us to, well, you know …’

‘Steal your sick friend’s job,’ Gabe finished for him with a smile. ‘Sweet. The slow-moving shoes? The black ones?’ Gabe continued. ‘They left the office the other night with a pair of Louboutins.’