Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

‘That’s nice,’ she said.

He sighed.

‘I’ve come to take you to lunch,’ she said.

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘I want to talk to you,’ she said and before he could reply she was walking away. ‘I’ll wait for you in the car.’

He took his time drying.

As soon as he got into the car, she started the engine and pulled out into the traffic. They drove along in silence for a while. Then, casually, like someone making conversation, she said, ‘You came home pretty late last night.’

‘It was pretty late,’ he said, ‘yes.’

‘Where were you?’

‘I was out.’

‘Well, obviously.’

She turned the radio on. One of those easy-listening stations. All swooning strings and lush brass.

‘You mind if I change this?’ he asked her.

‘I like it,’ she said.

She tightened her lips, holding the smile inside. It showed only as a narrowing at the corners of her eyes, a kind of temporary roundness in her cheeks, as if she had fruit in there, or candy.

He looked out of the window. ‘Where are we going?’

‘A little place I know,’ she said. ‘It’s in Torch Bay.’

Torch Bay. He might’ve guessed. It was just about the most pretentious suburb in the city. White yachts, beauty parlours, haughty blondes in foreign cars. Some people called it TB, for short. Like the disease.

They pulled up outside a place called Maison something. Shrubs in tubs on the sidewalk. Coachlamps. Valet parking.

‘I’m not dressed for this,’ he said.

She slipped her feet into black suede pumps, teased her fringe out in the mirror. ‘You’re fine.’

As they entered the restaurant a waiter took her hand and bent over it, his hair swirling into the crown of his head the way bathwater disappears down a plughole. They were led to a table by the window. Nathan looked around. A peppermint interior. Air-conditioning on Hi-Cool. A woman perched on a stool at the bar in a lime-green jumpsuit, amethyst lipstick and enough gold chains to get her elected mayor. He turned back to Harriet. ‘So what was it you wanted to talk about?’

The waiter appeared at her shoulder.

‘I think we should order first,’ she said, ‘don’t you?’ She didn’t have to look at the menu. ‘I’ll have the avocado salad,’ she told the waiter, ‘and some mineral water.’ She turned to Nathan. ‘What about you, darling?’

‘I told you already. I’m not hungry.’

‘But you must have something.’

‘I’ll have some coffee,’ he said, ‘then I’d better go.’

‘Will you have the coffee now, sir?’ the waiter asked him.

‘Yes,’ Nathan said, ‘now.’

‘That’ll be all, thank you,’ Harriet told the waiter.

The waiter bowed once, backed away.

Harriet snapped her bag open. She took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. ‘You’ve lost all your nice manners,’ she said, and she inhaled, her pale lips tightening around the filter.

He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.

‘You never had much respect for me,’ she went on, ‘but at least you had nice manners. Now they seem to have completely vanished.’ She tapped her cigarette against the lip of the ashtray. ‘I don’t know what your father would’ve thought.’

She raised the cigarette to her lips, inhaled again. Then she turned her head to one side and blew the smoke across the restaurant. Her eyes never left his face. ‘I imagine,’ she said, ‘that he would’ve been rather disappointed.’

He saw that she would always use his love for Dad against him. Almost as if she was jealous of it. ‘Is that what you brought me here to talk about,’ he said, ‘my manners?’

She laughed, but there was no amusement in it. This was something new, this sourness. It told of her many disappointments. It was their residue.

The waiter was back. Salad, fizzy water, coffee with a dome of froth. Nathan reached for a sachet of sugar. There was an advertisement on the back. THE HOUSE OF SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, it said. YOUR PEACE OF MIND IS OUR SATISFACTION. So they were even advertising on sugar now. The House of Sweetness and Light. They probably had a monopoly on everyone who died of diabetes. He tore the sachet open, watched the granules sink into the froth. He liked the way the froth seemed to open, swallow the sugar, and then close again as if nothing had happened.

‘Nathan?’

He looked up. ‘Yes?’

‘I’ve seen a lawyer.’

‘Oh. What did they say?’

‘They say the house belongs to you and Georgia.’ ‘That’s what I told you.’

‘They say Rona’s got no claim. None whatsoever.’

Nathan waited.

‘It raises a question.’

He lifted an eyebrow. ‘What question?’

‘The question of Rona’s share of the money.’

‘That’s all taken care of,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be invested. By the time she’s eighteen, it will’ve doubled.’

Harriet pushed a sliver of avocado around with her fork. ‘That’s nine years away.’

‘I know.’

‘She needs the money now.’

‘She can’t have it now. You know that.’

Harriet’s fork hit the edge of her plate. ‘You’re going to try and cheat her out of her money, aren’t you? You want to make her suffer, just like you made your father suffer. Christ, Nathan, you’re so selfish.’

For a moment he couldn’t move. Not his hands, not his face; nothing. It was hard for him to believe that she’d actually said what she’d just said. She could summon her venom with so little effort; it surfaced in such neat, numbing packages.

He forced himself forwards in his seat. He kept his voice low. ‘Dad left instructions in his will. He said the money was to be invested for her until she was eighteen. It’s the law, Harriet. All we’re doing is obeying it.’

She drank a delicate amount of mineral water and replaced the glass on the table. ‘You could still release the money,’ she said, ‘if you wanted to.’

He looked down at his coffee. The dome of froth had collapsed. ‘Why do you think Dad wrote it into the will in the first place?’

She speared a piece of asparagus. She held the fork just below her lips and waited for him to tell her.

‘He didn’t trust you with the money. Same as what you’re accusing me of. That’s pretty funny, isn’t it?’

She didn’t seem to think so. She placed the asparagus in her mouth and put her fork down. She chewed, she swallowed. She sighed. ‘I’m afraid I’ve talked to Georgia.’

He stared at her blankly. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I told her what you did to me on the day of the funeral.’

‘What I did to you?’

‘What you did to me,’ and she paused, ‘against my will.’

‘You’re not serious,’ he said, and he began to laugh. But then he looked into her face and his laughter left him and he was cold suddenly. ‘You told Georgia that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

Harriet shrugged. ‘She thinks she knows you. I thought I’d tell her what you’re really like.’

‘But it’s a lie.’

She turned a leaf of lettuce over with the tip of her knife. ‘Who says it’s a lie?’

He stood up quickly. Her glass slopped over. Water fizzed on the white tablecloth and was absorbed.

Harriet raised her hand. ‘Waiter?’

‘You should be careful,’ Nathan said, and his voice was quiet, uneven at the edges. ‘You should just be careful.’

On his way out of the restaurant he passed the woman in the lime-green jumpsuit. He heard her chains clink as she turned to watch him go. He stood in the bright sunshine, trembling. He went through his pockets. He had about a dollar-fifty. Just enough for a bus to Central Station. He could walk the rest of the way. He would’ve walked all the way if he’d had to. Anything rather than stay in that place a moment longer.