Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

Harriet climbed back up the steps. Yvonne followed her.

He wanted to leave now too, but he had to make some kind of contact with the dead man first. Touching the face through that gauze would have seemed like sacrilege, so he chose the hair instead. He reached out cautiously. It was stiff, chilled. It was both wet and dry at the same time. Like ice. He shivered, turned away. Georgia had been watching him.

‘What did it feel like?’ she whispered.

‘Cold,’ he whispered. ‘Not like hair at all.’

She came closer, reached out, touched. Then drew back quickly, as if she’d just been burned.

After leaving the chapel, they went walking in the gardens. They set off from the same place but, like pieces of something that had just exploded, they each took a different course across the lawn. Though later, driving home, Nathan saw it another way. It wasn’t like an explosion. They were separate, there was space between them, but, like flowers in a vase, they were all standing in the same water.

The next morning Nathan and Georgia were required, as executors of the will, to meet with Dad’s lawyer. He was a dull man with bad teeth. His jacket was ripped at the armpit. They sat obediently in leather chairs while he read the document out loud. A massive, antiquated fan whirred and clattered in the corner of the office, turning on its metal stem, examining them one by one. The will was straightforward enough. Dad had left slightly more money than expected, and that money was to be divided equally between Nathan, Georgia and Rona, Rona’s share to be held in trust until she attained the age of eighteen. The lawyer reminded Nathan and Georgia that the house on Mahogany Drive already belonged to them since, as they doubtless knew, their mother had died intestate and, when their mother’s mother died some years later, the house, deemed to be two-thirds of her estate, became legally theirs. (Yvonne, the other beneficiary, had received a cash settlement.) Now their father was dead, the house was theirs to do with as they wished.

‘As for the manner of burial,’ the lawyer said, ‘it appears that your father wishes to be buried in the same place as his first wife. In other words, a sea burial in Coral Pastures. Just in case there’s any confusion,’ and he smiled, ‘he’s written down the exact co-ordinates.’

‘Harriet’s not going to like that,’ Georgia said.

‘Harriet?’ The lawyer’s eyebrows lifted.

‘Our father’s second wife,’ Nathan explained. ‘Our stepmother.’

‘Of course,’ the lawyer said. ‘I met her once.’ And then he drew his eyebrows down again. ‘Is she,’ and he hesitated, looking for the most delicate statement of his question, ‘involved in the proceedings?’

‘She’s staying with us,’ Georgia said. ‘In the house.’

‘Ah,’ the lawyer said. ‘Yes, I can see how that might be awkward.’ He leaned forwards. ‘It will require,’ and he paused, ‘a certain amount of tact.’

On the way home Nathan turned to Georgia in the car and said, ‘It will require,’ and he paused, and then they both shouted, ‘a certain amount of tact.’

They laughed so hard that Nathan had to pull off the road. Later, when they were over it, Georgia said, ‘I never knew death would be so funny.’

It was the morning of the funeral. Almost twelve o’clock. From where Nathan was sitting, in a chapel adjacent to the altar, he could hear the cathedral filling up. Looking along the pew, he saw Georgia, Harriet, Yvonne, all three in profile, stern as the heads on coins.

He realised suddenly that he had to go to the bathroom. He checked the watch on Georgia’s wrist. Five minutes till the service began. There was still time. Just.

He slipped out of the pew and hurried back down the aisle. He was surprised at how crowded the cathedral was. He hadn’t realised that Dad knew so many people.

Once outside he paused. He was standing in a square paved with dark-grey stone. There were statues on pedestals, angels or statesmen, he couldn’t tell. A great many people sat at the feet of the statues or stood about in groups near by. They were all dressed in black. They were all crying. Some dabbed at their eyes with handkerchiefs, others covered their faces and wept into their hands. One man stood alone, his breeches held up with string, his arms pinned to his sides. He shed tears the way a flower sheds petals, they fell to the ground, lay scattered round his feet. It struck Nathan that these were all people who had been unable to get in.

But the pressure in his bladder was growing, and he set off across the square in search of a public toilet. He turned down the first street he came to, turned left, right, left again, he walked down a hill, along an alley, through a deserted square, but still he couldn’t find one anywhere. He noticed a clock on the top of a building. The two gold hands were almost one. He had to get back. And then, looking around him, he realised that he no longer knew where he was. He began to run in what he thought was the right direction, but he didn’t recognise any of the buildings. I was born here, he thought. Surely I’ll see something familiar soon. He could hardly hear his thoughts above the rasping of his breath.

He saw an elderly couple approaching.

‘The cathedral?’ They consulted each other, they disagreed, they changed their minds. At last they pointed back up the street, nodding and smiling.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ they chorused gaily. ‘Yes, we’re sure.’

He ran off up the street, turned a corner, then another, and stopped. Still no sign of the cathedral. The elderly couple must have been mistaken.

He teetered on the brink of panic now. One step forwards and he would fall headlong. He looked one way, then he looked the other. Sweat seeped into his eyes. Thoughts came from all directions and collided. He felt he might be going mad.

A car came towards him. He stepped out into the road and waved his arms. The man behind the wheel was only too willing to oblige. ‘Of course, of course,’ he said. ‘Jump in.’ He seemed to think that Nathan was new to the city. Every now and then he lifted a finger off the wheel and pointed out some famous bridge or statue or museum. Nathan was about to free the man from his illusion when the man braked and, leaning across Nathan, opened the door for him.

‘There you are,’ he said.

Nathan got out and looked around. ‘But the cathedral.’

‘You’re welcome,’ the man said. And, shifting into gear, he drove away.

Nathan looked round. Scrapyards, jetties, railway tracks. The sun was setting. He felt no sense of urgency now. Waves were pages turning. Railway trucks were edged in gold.

When he woke he was lying in Dad’s bed. Georgia was bent over the basin, throwing up. It was the morning of the funeral.

The day proved awkward from the beginning, like a knife you can’t pick up without cutting yourself. Harriet slipped on the stairs and twisted her ankle. Yvonne couldn’t find the fish brooch that she always wore for funerals. She lit a cheroot to calm herself, and promptly burned a hole in her dress. Georgia had taken pills to settle her stomach, but she was still throwing up every hour.

The car arrived at two. The funeral director had a cold; he had to keep reaching into the back for tissues. ‘Usually, of course, these are for clients,’ he said, ‘but in this case, if you don’t mind,’ and he blew his nose again, and sighed.

Nathan glanced at Georgia.

She summoned up the makings of a smile. ‘I think the pills are beginning to work,’ she said.

He pushed the hair back from her forehead. ‘One thing about a sea burial,’ he said. ‘If you want to throw up, at least you can just do it over the side.’