The Gift
David Flusfeder Fourth Estate, 313pp, £12.99
ISBN 033390219X
Most of us have probably felt a little wrong-footed when someone gives us an expensive and well-chosen present, but for Phillip, the narrator of David Flusfeder's new novel, this feeling develops into an obsession. He and his wife Alice are friends with a gay couple, Barry and Sean, who have the knack of coming up with the perfect gift.
Alice throws a dinner party - Phillip grumpily says that she insists on calling it a "supper party", an indicator of her superior social origins - and "the boys" bring along a corkscrew, "large and intricate and made of green translucent glass", to replace the terrible old thing that Phillip always struggles with. The new corkscrew works like magic and is etched with an Italian designer's name.
"It's number four of fifty," Barry says. "Number three's at the Cipriani. Spielberg's got number two." Phillip asks, as he is clearly expected to, "And number one?" ". . . The Pope." But the corkscrew is the least of it. The boys treat Phillip, Alice and their twin daughters to a skiing holiday, which Phillip finds deeply humiliating because he is not much of a provider himself.
When young, he had prospects of wealth and fame as a footballer. "I was still Philip then; I hadn't yet added the second, distinguished 'L' to my name," he tells us. Unfortunately his left knee was wrecked by a hard tackle when he was playing for the England Under-16s in China. He now works as a technical writer, producing English versions of the instruction manuals for things such as Korean bread-making machines and dishwashers, with the dubious help of literal translations provided by the manufacturers. The reader is not likely to esteem someone who plies that particular trade. And although Phillip never says so, Alice is the main earner, being a brand consultant for a marketing firm.
When they first met, he was running the sports club at a Caribbean hotel and she was a holidaying PA. Barry's PA, as it happens. Barry is an expat American film producer.
So. Say you're Phillip, a poor freelance drudge living mostly off your wife's income. An amiable movie mogul enjoys patronising you with displays of generosity. Do you: a) let it ride, or b) engage in a senseless cycle of competitive gift-giving? Well, if you are fool enough to think that bogus second "L" is distinguished, you are pretty much bound to pick the stupider option.
Phillip gets "revenge" for the corkscrew by giving Barry and Sean a fine, hand-made brass kaleidoscope. The skiing trip is his punishment for that. Barry and Sean prefer to be one up, thank you. Feebly he gives them a rose bush. They give him tickets for the royal box at the FA Cup final. He gives them a pair of rare pedigree rabbits. In devastating reprisal, they give the twins a pony each.
At this point Phillip rather goes off the rails and so, to some extent, does the novel. Although we see the insecurities that trouble him, we don't quite see why they drive him physically to attack Barry (who magnanimously forgives him, increasing his sense of obligation), or to empty the family savings account and invest the lot in a dodgy Balkan gambling syndicate. By the time he starts cutting himself for blood to secrete into the borscht served at a party, there is a distinct problem of tone. Instead of a black comedy, we seem to have wandered into a domestic drama with heavy mental-health issues.
This is lightened, paradoxically, by the introduction of a real-life lost soul called Syd Barrett. Barry is a fan of Syd, the once-charismatic founder of Pink Floyd, who has lived as a recluse for 30 years following a major breakdown. Phillip says: "The only thing I could think of that would bring the index of obligation back towards zero was the gift of Syd Barrett." He goes on a quest to locate the notoriously shy ex-rock-god and persuade him to meet Barry.
He thinks he has failed, but a surprise twist reveals otherwise, and a degree of serio-comic balance is restored. Despite some untidy digressions and a lack of the farcical logic that a writer like Joseph Connolly might bring to a similar subject, The Gift is mostly acute and very funny, both ha ha and peculiar.
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