Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

He pushed through double doors of glass and into a beige lobby. A rhinestone chandelier chinked and chattered in the draught. Red letters zipped tirelessly across a digital read-out screen above reception: SMOKING IN THE LOBBY AND CAFETERIA ONLY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION. Jed scowled. He didn’t like being thanked for something before he’d even done it.

His appointment was for nine. It was only quarter to. A girl with ginger hair and a small mouth asked him for his name.

‘Take a seat, Mr Morgan.’

There were sofas of brown vinyl, arranged at right-angles to each other. Tall cylindrical ashtrays made of stainless steel stood in between. The place looked like an airport lounge. He counted the sofas. Fourteen. He counted the ashtrays. Twelve. They must do a lot of business, he thought. And the business they do must smoke a lot.

After ten minutes the girl directed him to Mr Creed’s office. ‘Down the corridor, last door on the right.’ It was a plain wood door. All he could think of was the word ‘efficiency’. Otherwise he was blank. He looked at his watch. One minute to nine. He waited. Thirty seconds to nine. Twenty seconds. Ten. He tightened his hand into a fist, knocked twice and walked in.

It was a small office. Wood-panelled ceiling, wood-panelled walls. There were no windows. One desk, one framed photograph of head office. One chair, which he sat in while Creed finished his call.

Creed.

Dark suit, white shirt, neat hair. Everything was ordinary, predictable, even slightly disappointing. Until he noticed the gloves.

Nobody had mentioned anything about gloves. They’d told him that Creed was going to live for ever. They’d told him that Creed cast a shadow, even when there wasn’t any sun. They’d told him that Creed was Latin for ‘I believe’. But they hadn’t told him about the gloves.

Bad circulation? A skin disease? Some fingers missing?

Then Jed remembered the advice that Vasco had given him, and he moved his eyes somewhere else. Somewhere safe. The window? There wasn’t one. The photograph would do. You didn’t act too curious, and you didn’t ask any questions. A driver was deaf and dumb. That’s what Vasco had told him. Did he want the job or didn’t he?

Creed hung up. He pressed a button and said, ‘No more calls for ten minutes.’ Then he looked at Jed and said, ‘I’m told you’re a good driver.’

‘I can drive.’

‘I need a chauffeur. It’s a twenty-four-hour job. Right round the clock. Not many people could do it.’ Creed’s eyes wandered across Jed’s face. ‘You can think about it if you like. You can have a couple of days to think about it.’

‘I don’t need to think about it.’

Creed smiled. ‘How do you know you’ll like working for me?’

Jed suddenly had the curious feeling that Creed was behind him, even though he could see Creed in front of him. The air in the small office seemed glassy, hallucinogenic. Breathing was like a pill on your tongue. Just breathing.

‘Don’t you think you should ask around?’ Creed was saying. ‘Find out what I’m like as an employer?’

Now Jed was looking into Creed’s eyes. He noticed how dark they were. You couldn’t tell where the pupils ended and the irises began. He stared at Creed, trying for a few long seconds to separate the two, then he became aware that he was staring, and he looked away, looked down.

Creed’s voice again. ‘You sure you don’t want to think about it?’

Jed nodded. ‘I’m sure.’

‘See my secretary on your way out. She’ll take care of the details.’

‘Is that it?’

‘That’s it.’

‘When do I start?’

‘Monday.’

Jed moved towards the door.

‘Before you go,’ Creed said.

Jed paused. ‘Yes?’

‘I expect loyalty from my employees. Do you understand what loyalty means?’

‘I think so.’

‘Perhaps you’d care to define it for me.’

‘Loyalty.’ Jed faltered.

His thoughts spilled in all directions like the beads of a necklace when it breaks. For some reason he thought of old Mr Garbett bending to gather the beads and suddenly he had the answer.

‘It’s silence. That’s what loyalty is. Silence.’

And, looking back across the office, he was sure that he was right.

‘Monday,’ Creed said, and turned back to his papers.

The secretary showed Jed round the office and introduced him to the staff. He was fitted for a chauffeur’s uniform: a dark suit, a pair of black shoes, a peaked cap with the Paradise Corporation logo printed on the front in red. He was taken through a familiarisation procedure for the car: the type of performance to expect, the kind of maintenance required. When he returned to the office two hours later he found Vasco lounging in a chair, one leg dangling over the arm.

‘Get the job?’

‘Looks like it.’

They walked back down the corridor together, Vasco’s arm round Jed’s shoulder. ‘You must come and have dinner sometime,’ Vasco said. ‘Meet the wife.’

‘You’re married?’

Vasco laughed. ‘Been married three years. Got a kid too.’

They reached reception. ‘This is Jed,’ Vasco told the girl at the desk. ‘He’s Creed’s new driver.’

‘I’m Carol,’ the girl said, and her small mouth stretched as wide as it would go.

Vasco showed Jed outside.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘you’re one of us now.’

They stood on the neat green lawn in the sunlight.

‘Just like old times,’ Jed said.

Vasco smiled. ‘Just like old times.’ The same words, but they seemed spoken from a long way off. The same words, with distance added.

It was nothing like old times. Vasco worked for Creed. That in itself was something new. Creed existed inside a kind of magnetic field. It had a pull that most people, even Vasco, it seemed, found irresistible. But it was hard for Jed to adjust to the idea that Vasco had cut a deal, that he was no longer in control. And if it was hard for Jed, might it not also be hard, at times, for Vasco?

Jed wondered.

But he didn’t have the time to do much wondering. When Creed said it was a twenty-four-hour job, it had been no exaggeration. He only slept about three hours a night, usually between three and six. He must have some kind of technique, Jed decided. He’d read about it: you dropped down six or seven levels at once, you dropped straight into the deepest sleep, it was pure and concentrated, you didn’t need as much of it, and then you rose again, six or seven levels, it was like going up in an elevator, and you stepped out at the top, rested, immaculate, alert. Jed didn’t have a technique. He had to learn to sleep in snatches, ten minutes here, forty-five there, often sitting at the wheel of the car. At the same time he was trying to study. He’d bought the most detailed map he could find, and he was learning the city street by street, route by route. He was rewarded during his third week when Creed slid the glass panel open and said, ‘You seem to know the city pretty well.’ He felt this need to prove himself to Creed. He wanted to become indispensable.

The weeks passed and he began to make the job his own. Not just performing it to the best of his ability, but re-inventing it as well. There was a taxi-driver in Mangrove, Joshua, who’d warned him about piles and haemorrhoids and fissures of the anus. Jed’s first purchase was a scarlet velvet cushion. It protected him against discomforts of the kind that Joshua had mentioned; it also made him feel like royalty when he lowered himself into position behind the wheel. His eyes would suffer too, Joshua had told him. The constant sunlight, the glare. Jed found a pair of dark lenses in a run-down optician’s on Second Avenue. All he had to do was clip them over his glasses and the streets were instantly bathed in a deep and soothing green. It was during this time that he switched to a new brand of candy. He’d discovered Liquorice Whirls. Long-lasting, fresh-tasting, they were the ideal candy for a round-the-clock chauffeur.