Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

‘Scraper did it once.’

‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’

Tip nodded. ‘PS did it too.’

Great. Just great. Scraper had always been a guinea-pig. If someone had an idea, they always tried it out on old Scraper. He was one of those people who’d do anything. He had a slack smile that covered both pain and pleasure, so you couldn’t tell what he was feeling, you couldn’t tell the difference. If you’d told him to cut his head off, he would’ve done it, and that smile’d still be on his face afterwards. As for PS, he was nuts. He’d do it for a dare. Just as long as you didn’t make him take those phones off his head. It was no consolation to hear that Scraper and PS had done the shark run, no consolation at all. He wished he’d never asked.

They were walking along Five Dock Road. Trees lined one side, the grey grass of a park between. Dockyards on the other. This was the east end of the harbour, more than a mile from the bridge. The water stopped here. Half a dozen bays of stagnant, black water, the surface smeared with oil slicks, condoms, orange peel, insults hurled at the water by the land.

They passed a row of padlocked gates: ALLIED COAL. PIONEER CEMENT. STERLING SHIP REPAIRS AND ENGINEERING. They paused to watch a crane sink its jaws into the open hold of a ship and rise again with a mouthful of coal, dust spilling from between its teeth, grey against the brown night sky, then Tip nudged Nathan in the ribs, held his watch up, and they hurried on.

They turned down an alley, crossed a narrow iron bridge that spanned a canal. The canal had smooth, concrete banks and held no more than a couple of feet of water, water that was sealed in by a lid of green slime. Metal spars stuck out, like the elbows of people who’d drowned. They climbed over a gate and suddenly they were walking on grass. A breeze clattered in the palm trees that bordered the canal. The grass sloped down to a wall of loose rocks. Beyond the rocks lay the harbour.

‘This is the place,’ Tip said, and Nathan, who’d been hoping they’d never arrive, began to shiver.

As he looked round he saw several figures moving towards him. They fanned out in an arc, ten-feet gaps between them, like a net trawling for fish. The net closed and suddenly Vasco was standing in front of Tip, black leather coat and a cigarette in the shelter of his palm. He pulled on the cigarette and in the brief red glow Nathan saw the faces of the Womb Boys: José PS Mendoza, Cramps Crenshaw, Slim Jimmy Chung, Jed Morgan, Thomas Baby Vail, two others he didn’t know the names of, and the ghost of Scraper O’Malley, half his face caved in, inlaid with silver from that fast car’s fender. They were all there, passing a bottle around. Scraper drank too, twisting his mouth away from the wound.

Vasco spoke to Tip. ‘It’s almost eleven. What kept you?’

‘Trains’re fucked up.’ Tip took the bottle and swallowed a mouthful, then he wiped his lips on his sleeve.

Why had he lied? Maybe, Nathan thought, because you didn’t mention things like family to Vasco. He wouldn’t’ve known what you were talking about.

Vasco pulled on his cigarette again, let the breeze haul the smoke across his teeth. He turned to Nathan. ‘You’ve got a pretty bad reputation.’

Nathan looked at his feet.

‘That stuff you’ve been doing, you’ve been doing it at God camp. God don’t like that, Christie. I don’t like it either.’

‘I got into his bed, that’s all. I thought —’

‘That’s all.’ Vasco laughed, and two or three gang members joined in.

‘I was sleepwalking,’ Nathan said.

Jed stepped forwards. He was wearing a T-shirt that said SUICIDE PACT on the front. On the back it said YOU FIRST. ‘You were what?’ he said.

‘I was sleepwalking.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘I was. I’ve been sleepwalking for years. Ever since —’

‘Ever since what?’ Jed had come a step closer. Nathan could see the dead flakes of skin on his face.

‘Nothing’

‘OK, this is the thing,’ Vasco said. ‘He does the shark run. If he gets taken, he’s innocent. If he survives, he’s guilty. Right?’

‘Right,’ shouted the Womb Boys.

‘That’s not fair,’ Nathan said.

Jed stretched his head out on his long, reptile neck and leered into Nathan’s face. ‘Who the fuck said anything about fair?’

Vasco lifted one arm towards the water. ‘See that?’ He was pointing at a warehouse that had the words VENUS ISLAND CONTAINER TERMINAL painted across its metal roof.

Nathan nodded.

‘What you got to do is, you got to swim to it,’ Vasco said. ‘That’s the shark run.’

‘I still don’t get it,’ Nathan said. ‘Why’s it called the shark run?’

Sniggers from the gang.

Vasco led him down to the waterline and showed him a sign that was mounted on a metal pole. On the sign was the silhouette of someone swimming freestyle with a red bar drawn through it. Below it were the words DANGER SHARKS.

‘That’s why,’ Vasco said.

Nathan looked round, caught Tip’s eye.

‘PS did it,’ Tip said.

‘You told me that,’ Nathan said.

‘Wore his headphones,’ Jed said. ‘So he wouldn’t hear the sharks coming.’

PS was nodding. Though he might just’ve been nodding to the imaginary music in his head.

‘This is different,’ Vasco said. ‘This is a trial.’

‘If a shark gets you,’ Jed said, ‘you won’t feel anything. Just cold.’ He leered. ‘Just cold where a piece of you’s gone.’

Vasco nodded. ‘Yeah, I heard that too.’

Nathan stared out into the bay. A few weeks before they’d found a girl’s body floating six miles off the coast. She’d been swimming on Moon Beach and a shark had taken her. Her name, he remembered, was Shelley. According to her mother, Shelley had always been ‘real strong in the water’.

Vasco pulled his sleeve up and pointed at the tombstone tattoo on his bicep. The name on the stone was Scraper O’Malley. No dates. ‘Just think,’ he said. ‘You could be next.’ His teeth shone in the moonlight. ‘That’s what you’re here for, in this shit-forsaken town. To die. To end up on my arm. I’ll carry the lot of you before I’m through,’ and he tipped his head back, and his laughter was so dry it was like sticks snapping in his throat, and his shoulders shook under his famous leather coat.

There was a hysteria to Vasco, and it was the first time Nathan had been close enough to notice it. The members of Vasco’s gang, they followed him because they couldn’t follow him. Nobody could go where he went, but seeing someone do that, it made you want to try. They got as close as they could, and when people did that it looked like some kind of worship. Nathan felt the power of this, the blast, like heat from a furnace, and for a moment he forgot to feel scared.

Tip took the bottle off PS. ‘Here,’ he said to Nathan. ‘Have some, it’ll keep you warm.’

‘Yeah,’ PS said, ‘kept me warm,’ and he opened his mouth to laugh and left it open, but no laughter came out. So he closed it again and went on listening to music that didn’t exist.

Nathan didn’t bother looking at the label. He just raised the bottle to his lips and swallowed twice. Handed the bottle back again. Nothing at first, then the whole of his insides lit up. He stripped down to his shorts and felt the breeze move curious fingers across his skin, as if it was blind and trying to work out who he was. He climbed over the cold, slippery rocks, climbed down to the water’s edge. So black it looked, just like its name, with bits of smashed gold from the lights on the highway. Feel your way in slow, Tip had told him. There’s all kinds of shit in there. The clash and sneeze of a truck as it shifted gears on the causeway. He wasn’t thinking of the danger, of the sharks. He was too preoccupied with how strange it felt to be standing at the edge of the harbour in the middle of the night with nothing on. The world had never felt so big.