Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

Nathan slept badly. All night the sheets felt rough against his body, and when morning came the glare seemed to reach through his eyelids with metal instruments. In a dream he saw Jed at the bottom of the garden, a wheelbarrow beside him. He was shovelling his dead skin on to the bonfire. He was burning the dead parts of himself.

When Nathan woke he went straight to the window, expecting Jed to be standing below, a spade in his hands. But there was only bright sunlight and green grass. He rubbed his eyes. His skin stretched taut and thin across his face, the tail-end of all that cocaine rattling like a ghost train through his blood. It was Monday. He looked at the clock. It was almost eleven.

In the kitchen he found the one person he had been trying to avoid: Harriet. She was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and a cigarette.

‘There you are,’ she said.

She had the face of a witch that morning. A shield of black hair and skin like candlewax. Her two front teeth were crossed swords in her mouth. He could no longer believe what had happened on the day of the funeral.

‘I’d like a word with you,’ she said.

He poured himself some coffee. ‘What about?’ He kept his hand steady, his voice even.

She glanced at the ceiling. Yvonne was moving about upstairs. ‘In the dining-room,’ she said. ‘I don’t want us to be disturbed.’

In the dining-room she lit another cigarette and stood by the fireplace. All the furniture had been sold. There was nowhere to sit.

‘That person who’s staying,’ she said, ‘who is he?’

‘He’s a friend.’

‘A friend.’ She gave the word some extra weight.

He knew what she was implying, but he didn’t rise to it.

‘This,’ and she paused, ‘friend, how long is he staying?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I want him out of here.’ She held her right elbow in the palm of her left hand and stared at him, her lit cigarette aimed at him and burning, like a third eye.

He looked at his feet. ‘This isn’t your house, you know.’

‘It isn’t yours either.’

‘You’re wrong. It’s mine and Georgia’s —’

‘And Rona’s.’

She didn’t know, he realised. She really didn’t know.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not Rona’s.’ He told her the story. He explained why the house had never actually, legally, belonged to Dad. ‘I’m sorry, Harriet,’ he said, ‘but that’s how it is.’

She walked to the window, stared out into the driveway. ‘Tell me something. Do you like this city?’

Her voice was thin now, a voice you could cut with. It would cut the way grass cut. First the pain and nothing to see, then the blood welling seemingly from nowhere.

‘Why?’ he said.

‘I could make things difficult if I wanted to.’

‘In what way?’

‘I could contest the will. It might take six months to sort out.’ She faced into the room again and smiled at him. ‘Maybe longer.’

‘I thought you said you were leaving after the funeral.’

‘I’ve decided not to.’ She walked to the fireplace and tapped half an inch of ash into the grate. ‘I’ve got my daughter’s interests to take care of. You see,’ and she looked up at him, ‘I’m not sure I trust you.’

It was so absurd, he had to laugh. But his laughter sounded false in the hollow room. ‘What about Yvonne?’ he said. ‘What’s she going to think about all this?’

‘Oh, hasn’t she told you? She’s leaving today. She’s driving back to Hosannah Beach. She said she had some things to do. You know,’ and Harriet sneered, ‘paint.’ She picked up her pack of cigarettes and her lighter from the mantelpiece, and moved towards the door. ‘In the meantime,’ she said, ‘I’m sure your friend can find somewhere else to stay.’ She gave him a mocking smile. ‘There are plenty of those men’s hostels on the west side.’

Nathan stood in the middle of the room. A thin spiral of smoke rose from the grate. It was Harriet’s cigarette. He went over and crushed it out under his heel.

From his table in the corner of the Ocean Café Jed watched Carol walk down a flight of steps, across the terrace, and through the glass doors. She was wearing a yellow shirt and black slacks. Her limp had got worse. She clung to the strap of her shoulder-bag with both hands, as if for support.

She stood beside the table, smiling uncertainly.

‘I’m late,’ she said, ‘aren’t I?’

She sat down. She unhitched her bag from her shoulder and put it in her lap. Her mouth seemed even smaller than he remembered. As if they’d stitched her up some more. As if they were trying to stop her talking altogether.

‘I’ve just been to the doctor,’ she said.

‘Is it your leg?’

‘Not my leg,’ she said, and she was still smiling, ‘no.’

A waiter arrived to take their orders. She looked up at the waiter, then she moved her head back down, moved it so fast that the smile flew off.

‘A tea,’ she said.

Jed ordered the same.

When the waiter had gone, Jed leaned forwards. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

She turned away from him.

‘You’re taking pills, aren’t you?’ He paused. ‘Aren’t you?’ He’d raised his voice. He didn’t know why he suddenly felt so angry.

She was staring out to sea. His anger didn’t touch her.

He was reminded of the old people who sat in rows behind the plateglass fronts of their hotels. Vasco used to call them pawns. They sat in rows all day, they watched the waves wrinkling in the distance like their own skin, and when they died it was as if death had come in from the ocean, come in on a surprising diagonal like a bishop, and suddenly there was a gap, someone had been taken, one of the pawns had gone.

‘What are you so scared of?’ he asked her.

‘The sun’s too bright. There are too many colours. Noises scrape at me.’ She turned to him. ‘I’m scared of feeling like me. Really like me, with no layers of anything over it.’

He didn’t want to hear this. This wasn’t what he’d come to hear.

She saw the look on his face. ‘You asked,’ she said.

He sipped his tea. It was cold already.

‘Aren’t you scared?’ she asked him.

‘What of?’

She shrugged. ‘They say people who aren’t scared, either they’re brave or they’re very stupid.’

‘That’s like saying nothing, isn’t it?’ he snapped. ‘That’s like saying precisely fucking nothing.’

She looked down at her hands. ‘Why did you want to see me, Jed? What do you want?’

‘I need your help.’

‘I don’t see how I can help you.’

‘I want to know what you meant that day.’

She frowned. ‘What day?’

‘The day of your father’s funeral. You came up to me and you said, “This whole thing’s a sham.” I want to know what you meant by that.’

She turned her cup on its saucer. Noises scrape at me.

‘Carol?’

She lifted the cup and sipped. ‘Why do you have to open all that up again?’ she said. ‘It’s over.’

‘Not for me it isn’t.’

‘It was years ago.’

‘I want to know, Carol. I need to know. It might help.’

She brought her cup down so hard, the saucer fell into two neat pieces. ‘You’re so selfish, Jed. You only want to listen now it suits you. You wouldn’t listen back then. Back then you were having too good a time, weren’t you?’

Too good a time. That was a joke. But he didn’t say anything. He just drank some more cold tea.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘suppose I tell you what I think you meant.’

She shrugged.

‘I think Creed was responsible for your father’s death,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what he did exactly. But he played a part in it, didn’t he, him and his people?’