Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

‘He went to bed hours ago.’

A bird called from a tree at the end of the garden. A low, brooding murmur. Harriet stood up and began to unzip her skirt.

‘I’m going for a swim.’ She was laughing at her own impulsiveness.

‘Now?’

‘Why not?’ She looked down at him, the lower half of her face masked by her shoulder. ‘Join me?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t really feel like it.’ But he did. He could already feel that dark water creeping up over his body as he lowered himself in.

Harriet stepped out of her skirt. Then, crossing her arms in front of her, she lifted her blouse over her head and dropped it on top. She’d been lying in the garden all summer, and her skin looked almost black against her white silk underwear. He knew it was silk. She’d told him once in the car; she’d said she couldn’t wear anything else. He tried not to look at her. He didn’t want her to think he was interested. When he did look at her he concentrated on the flaws, the slightly swollen thighs, the stomach rumpled by childbirth.

Still, he thought she felt his eyes on her, he thought she liked the feeling, because she lingered at the edge of the pool, staring into the darkness, before she moved down the steps and into the water. She waded out of the shallow end, trailing her fingertips across the surface, then she gave herself, the water rustling as it accepted her, like a present being unwrapped. Halfway up the pool she turned and swam back towards him. ‘It’s so beautiful. Are you sure you won’t come in?’

It seemed so intimate, this invitation, with her face tipped up to his and Dad’s curtains closed behind her, but it was only a swim, what harm could it do? He stripped down to his shorts and slid over the side. He sighed as the water closed round him like a glove. Floating on his back, he stared up into the sky. The moon was sinking, yellow now. A plane droned overhead, one red light on its wing-tip winking. Trees bloomed dark at the edges of his vision. He’d almost forgotten that he wasn’t alone. Then the water rustled and a voice breathed into his ear. ‘I told you, didn’t I?’

Harriet was standing beside him. He twisted sideways and his feet found the bottom. Now he was standing too. She took her hair in both hands and, looking at him, began to wring it out. Her bra had become transparent, and her breasts showed clearly below her arm, the nipples sharp beneath the wet cloth. She let her arms drop. The insides of her wrists knocked against her hips. She moved a step closer to him and seemed to lose her balance in the water. She put a hand on his chest, as if to steady herself, but then she left it there and reached up with her mouth. He felt his mouth drawn down to hers, he felt one of her thighs edge forwards, wedge between his legs. He pulled away from the kiss. Small waves scuttled to the side of the pool.

She seemed surprised. ‘What’s wrong?’

What’s wrong? He wanted to shout, but couldn’t. Those closed curtains. The man sleeping so lightly behind.

‘Don’t you like it?’

‘No,’ he hissed.

He could tell she didn’t believe him. But maybe when he turned away from her and swam to the edge of the pool and hauled himself out, maybe she believed him then. He didn’t bother to look round and find out. Snatching up his clothes, he walked back into the house and up the stairs to his room.

The next day, at breakfast, Dad said, ‘There was water all over the floor when I came down this morning.’

Harriet smiled. ‘I went swimming with Nathan in the middle of the night. I forgot to tell you.’

‘In the middle of the night?’

Harriet smiled. She’d known that Dad would seize on that particular aspect of the story. If something wasn’t part of his routine, he found it unimaginable, hugely eccentric, almost humorous. She’d known that. She was much shrewder than Nathan had given her credit for, and he now trusted her even less.

From that time on, she cooled towards him. Those sweet looks she’d always specialised in, they suddenly became barbed, like chocolates injected with poison. She was constantly asking him why he never brought girls home. She began to accuse him of having love-affairs with the other lifeguards. ‘I think homosexuality is a disease,’ she’d say suddenly, at breakfast. ‘What do you think, Nathan?’

He shook his head at the memory, looked across the table at India-May.

‘And were you?’ she asked him.

‘Was I what?’

‘Having love-affairs with lifeguards.’

‘No.’ He smiled. ‘She didn’t understand the bond. We were close, yes, but it was like brothers.’

India-May nodded slowly, tipped some ash into a saucer. ‘So you had to carry all this alone. Couldn’t you talk to anyone?’

‘There wasn’t anyone.’

There was only one person apart from Dad, and that was Georgia. She’d just turned thirteen. She wore her hair greased back and hung out a lot. Espresso bars, mostly. Sometimes he had to go and pick her up. He always rang the place first and told her he was on his way. He didn’t want her losing face with her friends just because her old man worried too much, and anyway he liked the air of conspiracy. He’d lean against a wall on the other side of the street and watch her. She’d be sitting at a table, gum tumbling in her open mouth, smoke rising from her hand, as if she was a puppet and that wavering blue thread controlled her every move. In her own time she’d slap some money on the table and then she’d kind of unfold, and the faces of the others would tip to hers. She’d push past some guy and his chin would tilt and his eyes would follow her as she left. She’d stand on the sidewalk, hands stuffed in her jacket pockets, and Nathan would jerk his head, to tell her where the car was, and she’d walk down her side of the street and he’d walk down his, and it was only once they were in the car that anyone would’ve realised they were connected in any way, and by then it was too late, because nobody could see them. They’d always played games, this was just the latest.

But she was only thirteen. How could he tell her anything? All he could do was sit by and watch as she caught on.

He remembered her first outburst. It was lunchtime. He could still see Harriet putting her fork down and heaving a sigh of relief. ‘Well, at least Rona will be normal,’ she said, and turned to Rona who was knocking her spoon against her plastic bowl, ‘won’t you, darling?’

Dad frowned. ‘Why do you say that?’

Harriet seemed surprised that he should ask. ‘You told me about Kay. You know, the madness in that side of the family. Poor woman,’ she said, ‘it must’ve been awful.’

Georgia threw her knife at her plate. A chip of white china hit the wall the same way a reflection does. ‘Christ,’ she said, ‘I’d rather have her blood than yours,’ and then, shoving her chair back, she said, ‘I’m not hungry any more.’ She stamped out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

‘Georgia?’ Dad’s face paled. His hands fastened round the arms of his chair.

Nathan couldn’t bear to look at him. Suddenly Dad was stumbling about in a kind of no man’s land. In the place where he was he couldn’t possibly win. From now on there were only different ways of losing, different kinds of pain.

Without meeting Harriet’s eye, and in a low voice, Dad said, ‘I think you went a bit far, Harriet.’

Later that afternoon Nathan heard Harriet shouting in the bedroom. ‘Why don’t you ever stand up for me? You always stand up for them, never for me. Why don’t you stand up for me?’

And Dad was shouting too. ‘Stop it, Harriet,’ he was shouting. ‘Stop it, stop it.’

Nathan listened at the foot of the stairs. He was the toy soldier of all those years ago, but he hadn’t toppled over, he was marching from room to room, marching from the kitchen to the hall, the hall to the study, the study to the hall again, he didn’t know what to do, he couldn’t go upstairs and intervene, nor could he leave the scene of what felt like a crime, he was shaking with this terrible indecision. Those jets were flying again, tearing the air inside his head, he could only think one thought: He’s going to die. She’s going to kill him.