Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

‘You don’t want to think about that now,’ India-May told him. ‘It was bad, but it’s over.’ She patted his hand. ‘It’s cats for drowning, Donald. Just cats for drowning.’

Donald nodded.

He was quiet to begin with, he just stayed in his room. For days this hush lay on the house like dust. But a change was in the air, a season was drawing to a close. Twilight left, as if he could smell the storm coming. Pete and Chrissie’s baby couldn’t keep its food down. Joan, the mad woman, stopped cooking.

The first time Nathan knew for certain that something wasn’t right was when Donald smashed him over the head with a can of beans. He’d come in after work and found two cans of baked beans in the cupboard. He hadn’t eaten all day, so he opened one of them and cooked it up. He didn’t think twice about it. One of the house rules was, nothing belongs to anyone. That was why India-May could handle being ripped off all the time. So he was sitting at the kitchen table eating his plate of beans when Donald walked in. Donald stood just behind him, that place where you can’t see someone unless you actually turn round, that place where it feels as if someone’s going to sink a pickaxe into the soft part of your skull, Donald stood behind him and took a deep breath, as if he was about to dive under a wave, and said, ‘Those are my beans.’

Nathan stopped eating and thought about it. But there was really nothing to say. Donald knew the rules, same as everyone else. As he began to eat again he heard Donald move towards the cupboard. The next thing he knew he was lying on the floor, half stunned, beans everywhere. It’s not stars you see. You’re too close to them to call them stars. It’s more like planets.

His head buzzed and sang as if power was being fed into it. He saw Donald standing over him, a can of beans in his hand. Those cans of beans, he thought, they’re not safe. Then he thought he could smell Donald’s feet. He wasn’t particularly surprised. Some people, all you need is one look at them and you just know their feet are going to smell.

‘Don’t ever,’ and Donald took another breath, through his mouth this time, as if he’d only surfaced for a moment, ‘don’t EVER eat my beans again.’

That was the first time Nathan knew that something wasn’t right.

He spoke to India-May about it. She explained that Donald was going through a difficult time, ‘We all have our difficult times, right?’ and Nathan would have to be patient with him. Patient? He couldn’t believe it. How many times can you sit in your chair and let someone smash you over the head with a can of beans? Nathan reckoned about once. Definitely about once was the limit. But he gave Donald another chance. And wished he hadn’t because, two weeks later, Donald was holding him up with a sawn-off shotgun for an hour and a half. Nobody had called Donald down to supper, that was the reason, and he was holding Nathan responsible.

‘Why me?’ Nathan asked.

‘There’s no one else here.’ Which may have been the reason, but also sounded like a threat.

‘What about India-May? It’s her house.’

Donald jammed the shotgun into the crook of bone under Nathan’s jaw. ‘Shut up.’

Nathan wondered if the gun was loaded. No way of telling. But even if it wasn’t, Donald could still hit him with it. He hoped Donald wasn’t going to do that. He still had the bruise from that can of beans.

‘Next time,’ Donald said, ‘you CALL me, you understand?’

Nathan didn’t want to move his chin. But it’s hard to say something without moving your chin.

‘YOU UNDERSTAND?’

‘Yes.’ Nathan managed to squeeze that one word through his clenched teeth.

He went to India-May again, and told her of his fears. Donald was trying to take over. Donald wanted an empire of his own, like some kind of Napoleon or something. Donald would use force. India-May was stoned that night. She thought Nathan was making it up. ‘Napoleon?’ she said, and laughed until she couldn’t see. She said she was glad Nathan had moved in. She said it made a real change to have a bit of humour round the place.

‘He held me up,’ Nathan said, ‘with a shotgun.’

‘A shotgun? Napoleon?’ And she was off again, tears pouring from her eyes.

He could get no sense out of her.

Donald’s son came to stay at weekends sometimes. The boy was ten, and slight for his age. Shy too. He’d stand in the doorway and watch Nathan tinkering with his bike and then, when Nathan looked round, he’d step back into the shadows. One Sunday afternoon, as Nathan was leaving the house, he came across Donald and the boy in the yard. Donald had one hand in the boy’s hair, and he was whipping the boy with a leather belt. There was blood on the back of the boy’s legs. Nathan stopped ten yards away. Suddenly the sun felt raw against his neck.

‘What’s going on, Donald?’

Donald didn’t even break his rhythm. ‘Little bastard,’ he said, ‘he deserves it.’ The sweat evenly distributed on his face, as if he’d been greased.

‘What did he do?’

Donald’s mouth swerved in his direction. ‘Is it time to eat?’

‘No.’

‘Then fuck off.’

That night Nathan went to India-May for the third time. ‘You’ve got to throw him out,’ he said. ‘You’ve simply got to.’

‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘Imagine what it’d do to him.’

Nathan tried to hold his anger down. ‘What it’d do to him?’ he said. ‘For Christ’s sake, India-May. What about what he’s doing to everybody else?’

Her mouth tightened. ‘I think you’re over-reacting.’

He walked out of the room and slammed the door. He imagined Donald listening at the top of the stairs. He saw the smirk on Donald’s glassy face. He walked until the farm was two small lights in the darkness. Somewhere down the hill Lumberjack began to bark. India-May had called him Lumberjack because his bark sounded just like someone sawing wood. She called him Jack for short. Suddenly his frustration with her turned to pain. She was putting her trust in the wrong people again. Her trusting Donald like this, it was lessening the value of her trust in him. It made it so much cheaper, worthless even. He wanted her to know the difference.

Out on the ridge that night he decided there was nothing for it. He’d have to take the matter into his own hands. He went and knocked on the door of Pete and Chrissie’s room. Pete opened the door. Chrissie was sitting on the bed, the baby’s head resting sideways on her shoulder, a bottle of Infant Suspension beside her. The baby was whimpering. The room smelt chalky and damp. Sour milk. Vomit.

‘How is he?’ Nathan asked.

Chrissie sighed. ‘The same.’

They talked about the baby’s health for a while.

‘It’s weird,’ Chrissie said, ‘but the moment that guy showed up, she got sick.’

‘Which guy?’ Nathan asked, though he knew. He just wanted everything to be clear, like in a court of law. This was, after all, the judgement of Donald.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘Donald.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘and Joan suddenly stopped cooking.’

Chrissie’s eyes opened wide. ‘That’s right.’ She turned to Pete. ‘You remember, Pete?’

Pete nodded slowly. He adored her. He’d remember anything if she asked him to.

Nathan told them about the can of beans, the shotgun hold-up, the brutal thrashing in the back yard.

‘We didn’t know,’ Chrissie said.

‘I did,’ Pete said. ‘I saw him beating one of the dogs.’

That clinched it. They sat up late, trying to work out how to get rid of Donald. He wasn’t going to go peacefully, that was for sure.

One evening a friend of Pete’s called Tommy came round with a bottle of something. Tommy had been a marine. Pete told him about Donald. Tommy listened, nodding, as if it was a story he’d heard before. When Pete had finished, Tommy said, ‘There’s only one way to do it, and that’s kill him.’