Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

It took him five minutes to reach the centre of Torch Bay. He sat down on a bench and waited for a bus. The inside of his head was so tangled, he couldn’t get one straight thought out.

When the bus drew up, he moved all the way to the back and sat with his eyes fixed and the points of his knees wedged against the seat in front of him. I told her what you did to me. He watched the city pass in the window. Sky and buildings blurred under the swirly tinted glass. A city under the sea. What you did to me. Against my will. The bus lumbered on. It was so hot, he was sitting over the engine, his eyes seemed weighed down, down. Down. It was as if he’d toppled off a ledge and sleep was the drop. A long, sweet drop; a million miles.

Then somebody was shouting. ‘Central,’ they were shouting, ‘Central Station.’ And somebody knocked against his leg.

He hauled himself upright, stumbled down out of the bus, his hair sticky with salt, lunchtime seeming like a dream he’d just woken from. But it wasn’t a dream. It was real. Downtown crowded in on him. Sirens, neon, liquor. Every time he saw Georgia’s face he shut the picture off. He didn’t dare imagine. He simply had to get to her. He took the quiet streets and almost ran. At last he reached the building. An old apartment block with a canopy, a doorman, a marble hallway. Georgia, she always landed on her feet.

‘I’m here to see Georgia,’ he said. ‘I’m her brother.’

‘Georgia?’ The doorman screwed his face up, as if he was trying to shift the whole of one side of it on to the other side. ‘Reckon she went out.’

Nathan sagged, his strings cut. ‘When?’

‘About an hour ago.’

‘Any idea where she went?’

‘Sorry, pal.’

‘I’ve got to see her,’ Nathan said. ‘I’d better wait.’

‘Whatever you say.’

Nathan sat on the steps. A tall building at the end of the street told him, in beads of golden neon, that it was 2.55. 103°. 2.55. 103°. 2.56. 103°.

‘Hottest day for nine years.’

Nathan looked up to see the doorman standing behind him. ‘Is that right.’

The doorman had a grey rag in his hand. He dabbed the back of his neck with it. ‘Just said so on the radio.’

‘Think it’ll rain?’ Nathan asked him.

There were clouds in the sky. Scalloped at the edges, like old postcards. Almost brown.

‘Too hot to fucking rain.’ The doorman tipped his face at the sky and slit his eyes. Then he shook his head and returned to the lobby.

No rain came. Only lightning, sheeting above the roof of the Hotel Terminal. As if some kind of press conference was being held in the next street.

Time went by, measured in golden beads. Dusty yellow curtains slouched in the open windows of the hotel. A lazy neon sign said V CANCIES. Couldn’t even be bothered with the A.

3.25. 104º.

Then, looking up once more, he saw a figure that he recognised. The black top hat, the cracked black shoes. Unmistakable.

‘Jed?’ he called out. ‘Hey! Jed!’

Jed stopped in his tracks, his body still facing forwards, and turned his head. Nathan ran across the street. When he reached Jed he didn’t know what to say. He found himself staring at the scarf that Jed was wearing round his neck.

‘You sick or something?’ he said.

Light trickled off the rims of Jed’s spectacles as he tilted his head towards the sky. ‘Sick? Heh.’ His voice creaked like a piece of wood furniture in an old house.

‘So how’re you doing?’ Nathan said. ‘Did you find a place?’

Jed nodded. ‘I found a place.’

‘Where?’

‘Round here.’ And Jed nodded again.

Nathan thought of the time he ran into Tip and Jed on Central Avenue. ‘I remember when you used to live in the Towers.’ He smiled. ‘I went there once. I looked for you.’ He shook his head. ‘Couldn’t find you, though.’

‘Must’ve been years ago,’ Jed said.

‘The place was like a maze,’ Nathan said.

‘By the way.’ Jed reached into his pocket and took out a bill. He smiled down at it for a moment, then he handed it to Nathan. ‘Here’s the money I owe you.’

Nathan stared at the bill. It was a hundred dollars. A hundred-dollar bill.

‘But,’ he said, ‘but I only lent you eight.’

Jed was still smiling, but the smile had altered. ‘Yeah, well,’ he said. ‘You were so kind, letting me stay and all.’

Nathan felt the change in that smile like a lowering in the temperature. He almost shivered.

‘Well,’ Jed said, ‘better be going.’

Nathan watched Jed as he walked away. Jed stayed in the shadows, close to the wall, the way blind men do. When he reached the corner he looked back over his shoulder. He didn’t make any sign or gesture, he just looked. Then he was gone.

Nathan returned to the steps and sat down. He looked at the hundred-dollar bill in his hand, could make no sense of it. Still, he felt easier now. Somehow his faith had been renewed. If Jed could come by, then surely Georgia could come by too. But he waited another hour and all that new faith drained away. It was 6.04. He left a message with the doorman, then he stood on the sidewalk, trying to remember Georgia’s favourite places, trying to think where she might be.

He worked his way through the neighbourhood. The bars, the cocktail lounges. By the time he’d finished, it was almost nine. Then he suddenly remembered. There was a place she sometimes went when she was depressed. The Starlite Rooms, on the end of the pier. She liked to watch the old people dance.

It was years since he’d been along the pier at night. So much junk on sale. Coffin-shaped ice-creams, T-shirts that said things like MOON BEACH — THE CITY THAT PUTS THE FUN BACK INTO FUNERALS, midnight cruises to the ocean cemeteries. There was even a DATE-OF-YOUR-DEATH machine. You put 50 cents in the slot, then you placed your hand in the machine and it told you how much longer you were going to live. ‘You’ll die tomorrow. Have a nice day.’ He kept walking. Up ahead he could see the pale dome of the Starlite Rooms. A white neon sign glowed above the entrance: DANCING NITELY. He could hear music now. An electric organ, a drum machine. A man’s voice singing. Something about turning off the sunshine. It sounded blurred and he thought he knew why. It was all the old folks singing along. Late on their cues and out of tune. It was as if the music was a ship and it was leaving a wake behind it in the air.

The doorman had a pencil moustache and a wide fierce nose. ‘Evening, sir,’ he said. ‘You dancing tonight?’

‘I don’t know,’ Nathan said. ‘I’m looking for my sister.’

The doorman sucked some air in past his teeth. ‘How old is she, this sister of yours?’

‘Twenty-three.’

‘Ah, well. You won’t find her in there.’

‘How do you know?’

‘No one under fifty in there.’

A waltz started up inside. The doorman’s arms lifted away from his sides and curved to hold an invisible woman. He twirled her round the entrance hall. ‘Never could resist a waltz,’ he said, grinning over his shoulder.

‘I think I’ll just have a look, if you don’t mind,’ Nathan told him, and pushed through the mirror doors.

The place was lit like the inside of a fridge. A stage with a backdrop of spangled gold drapes. A horseshoe dance-floor. Hundreds of tables, all occupied. Nathan scanned the room, but the doorman was right. No one under fifty. Still, there was a chance she might turn up. It was only just after nine. He bought a drink and sat at a table with three old ladies in sleevelesss frocks. The waltz ended.

The man who was playing the organ tucked his chin into his right shoulder in a kind of shorthand bow. ‘Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I must say it’s a great pleasure to be here in the famous Starlite Rooms tonight …’