Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

‘Testing, testing.’ He nodded to himself. That’s what they said. But what else? He couldn’t remember. ‘I hope this works.’ He paused, and then fiercely, ‘It’d better.’

Back in his own room he wound the tape back and switched to PLAY. Nothing for long seconds, then a rustling, like leaves, then his voice, wrapped up, as if he was talking through cloth. His voice, though. It had worked. He switched the tape recorder off and sat on the floor, his thighs pulled tight against his chest, his chin on his knees.

His mother didn’t come home for lunch.

He left the mike taped to the back of the headboard for two weeks. During that time the embalmer came round four times. The first time there was an argument in the bedroom. The embalmer was trying to smooth things over, restore things to normal. But he could only do that with dead bodies, apparently. Something was thrown, something broke. Jed couldn’t guess what it was. Probably that blue vase by the window. There was a silence, and then tears. His mother’s. It was interesting, but it wasn’t what he wanted. The second time nothing happened at all. They just went to sleep. The third time a plane went over right at the crucial moment and ruined everything. He almost gave up. Almost. The fourth time he was in the hall when they came in the front door. It was midnight, and they were both drunk.

‘What the hell are you doing up?’ His mother was wearing a red dress that was stained dark with wine or sweat. She looked the way a rose petal looks when you crush it between finger and thumb. The embalmer hung back, awkward at being observed. White shoes tonight. Pretty fancy. Jed didn’t say anything. He just backed into his room and closed the door.

First there was rustling. That would be them kissing, undressing. At least a minute of that. Then five creaks, one after the other, very brisk. The bed, presumably. Then a whimper (his mother) and a grunt (the embalmer). Then voices. Hers first, ‘Oh Adrian,’ then his, ‘Muriel,’ then hers again, ‘Oh God.’ God was three syllables. And then a creak. Not the bed this time. A human creak. The embalmer coming. Bit quick, that. Then, about a minute later, a low flapping rumble followed by a whine as the embalmer, Adrian, began to snore. It was better than he could’ve expected. It was perfect.

The next day he went to see Mr Garbett and asked whether he could get a copy made. Mr Garbett said he’d take care of it. Jed didn’t tell Mr Garbett not to listen to it, and he knew, when Mr Garbett handed the duplicate and the original back a week later, that he had. It didn’t matter. Jed doubted whether he’d ever see Mr Garbett again. His days of junk were over.

That night he waited in his room with the tape recorder primed. He looked at his watch. It was six-thirty. She usually got home at around seven. He sat on the edge of his bed and wedged a Lemon Sherbet Bomb in his cheek and turned his head to the street. It had been another hot day. Through the window he could hear the hiss of sprinklers watering small lawns. It wasn’t often you could hear the sprinklers. Maybe there was a strike at the airport or something.

It was almost nine when he heard the key turn in the lock. He’d been waiting so long, his heart jumped at the sound. Then he froze. She wasn’t alone. He could hear a man’s voice. Pop’s.

He opened his door and stood in the hall.

‘You could at least offer me a cup of coffee,’ he heard Pop saying. ‘I’ve been waiting two hours.’

‘Nobody asked you to wait, did they?’ She was trying to close the door on him, but he was stronger.

‘Muriel.’ Pop was pleading now. ‘One cup of coffee.’

She weakened. ‘All right. One cup of coffee and that’s it.’

Pop stepped into the light. He’d greased his hair back and he was wearing a clean shirt, but it was no good.

‘One cup,’ he said, and winked at Jed. He was like one of those salesmen who stick their feet in the door.

Don’t you see? Jed wanted to shout. It’s no good.

‘Your mother and I,’ Pop said, ‘we’re just going to have a little talk.’ That wink again. A smirk.

IT’S NO GOOD.

When Pop moved towards the kitchen, he trailed this smell behind him, ashes or rust, old worn-down things, things you normally throw out. Jed was sure his mother could smell it too. Though she had different names for it, of course. She called it weakness, failure, regret.

He went and sat in his room while they had their ‘little talk’. He heard the shouting, he heard a plate break. The smell was everywhere, you wanted to hold your nose. No amount of violence or repentance could freshen the air.

And he realised, with a slight shock, that Pop didn’t count any more. Pop was just another Adrian. A noise, a pair of feet, an inadequacy. He felt sorry for Pop, but in a distant way, as you might feel sorry for someone on TV. He wanted Pop out of the house, even more than his mother did.

An hour later the kitchen door opened. Jed opened his own door a crack, and listened.

‘A second chance, that’s all I’m asking.’

‘What do you think this is, some stupid game?’

The house shook as the front door banged against the inside wall. Through his window Jed saw Pop stamping off up Mackerel Street, clouding the air with empty threats.

He found his mother standing in the kitchen. Her face had the polished look of a trophy. It was a game, whatever she said, and it looked as if she’d won again. He returned to his room and, leaving the door ajar, turned the tape recorder on. Top volume. And waited.

The tape had only reached the creaking stage when she came and stood in the doorway. ‘What’s this you’re playing?’ she asked, light, yet tense, as if she had already guessed.

Jed watched the transparent wheels spin round, one eager, empty, one slow and burdened with knowledge. He watched the slim brown tape unwind, unwind.

When the whimpering began, he looked up into his mother’s face. He saw the light shrink in her eyes then, without seeming to move, she unleashed herself, the air a blur of red nails and flailing hands, she was hissing and muttering, she seemed to have eight arms, like that statue that he’d seen in Mr Garbett’s store, which Mr Garbett said had come from India. She caught him twice with open-handed blows that made his head buzz like a jam jar of flies, and one of her nails tore the skin at the corner of his mouth, as if he ought to be smiling. He didn’t try to back away, he just wrapped his head in his hands and when the beating stopped he slowly took his hands away and peered up at her. She was panting and her arms were fastened against her sides and her hair had come unpinned and hung in tangled strands across her eyes. She looked more natural now than ever before. She looked like a witch. He wanted her to hold him now, he wanted to burn with her, but he knew it wouldn’t happen. And so it was like TV again. Everything was like TV.

‘How could you do that?’ she was saying in a strange, flat voice. ‘How could you do a thing like that?’

Easy.

‘You threw my radios away.’

The embalmer began to snore.

Lunging at the tape recorder, she snatched up the spool and tore the tape to shreds. When she tired of that she threw it down and stamped on the top of the tape recorder. Then she bent down and picked the tape recorder up and hurled it against the wall. It dropped to the carpet and the casing came away, fractured in two places. There was a dent in the wall where it had hit.

Jed watched all this impassively, as if he could change channels any time he pleased. He didn’t care what she did. The tape recorder had already served its purpose, and he had wrapped his spare copy of the tape in industrial plastic, then he’d locked it inside an old metal toolbox, and he’d buried the toolbox halfway up the garden on the right, next to the fence. There was nothing she could do to hurt him. He felt one side of his mouth grinning where she had cut him. He watched her turn to him and scrape the hair back out of her eyes.