Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

The mermaid stood by an open door, her nipples hidden in pale-pink shells. Smiling, she showed him into a room. One entire wall was an aquarium. The rest seemed plunged in darkness. But he could just make out a bed sunk in the floor. And there was a telephone beside the bed. It was made of clear plastic. There were goldfish swimming in the receiver. He bent down, watched the goldfish. Now he was smiling too. He could no longer remember what was so important about the telephone. All he knew was that Reid hadn’t lied to him. There was a telephone and it had fish in it. Reid had told the truth. That was the main thing.

Reid turned the key in the door.

‘Take off your clothes,’ he said.

Nathan looked across at him. ‘What about you?’

‘You first. I want to watch.’

Nathan began to undress. Soon he was naked except for a pair of white boxers. So white in the mauve light shed by the aquarium. He slipped his thumbs inside the elastic and was about to draw them down when Reid said, ‘Leave those on.’

Reid moved across the room. He covered distance the way other people altered the angle of their heads. He accomplished it with such tact, such grace. There were only two positions: over there and here, now. Nathan felt Reid’s clothes, the fabric coarse against his bare skin, and he was glad that Reid had told him to undress first.

‘You’ve been here before, haven’t you?’ Nathan murmured.

Reid nodded. ‘Many times.’

‘Always with boys?’

‘Always.’

He could hear the whales again. It sounded like something familiar slowed down. It sounded like curiosity.

The gloves lingered on his ribs, slid down his spine.

Only the rush of waves now. They rolled towards a reef, ripped open, spilled their foam. And then a wall built out of water, and fish trailing wakes of red and blue and gold.

There was a click. So precise in the haze of everything else that he was almost startled. He looked round. Reid was shutting his briefcase.

Reid handed him a mask. ‘I want you to wear this.’

He took the mask.

It was black leather, the shape of a head. Two holes to breathe through and a silver zipper for a mouth. No eyes.

‘I won’t be able to see,’ he said.

‘Just feel.’ Reid smiled. ‘Would you do that for me?’

He pulled the mask over his head and found that he could breathe quite easily. He lay back on the bed. The sheets were satin, cool against his forearms. The bed began to tilt and rock.

He reached out, found a body, touched it. Ran the tip of his finger all the way from the armpit to the anklebone. The same speed as a plane crossing the sky. He thought maybe you could learn to read a body blind. By touch. Like braille.

A moment of clarity, and he said, ‘I don’t know your body at all.’ And then, when there was no reply, ‘Are you there?’

‘I’m here.’ A pause. ‘Your skin, it’s so soft.’

‘How can you tell?’ he said. ‘You’re wearing gloves.’

‘You’re forgetting something. There’s my mouth.’

He felt his boxers being eased down, over his thighs, down to his ankles. His cock on a spring. This contact with the air was almost friction enough. Then the sudden warmth. A mouth.

His head locked in darkness, his body twitching like one of those fish you place on the palm of your hand to tell your fortune, they curl, they arch, sometimes they flip right over, but they’re never still, not unless you’re very cold, not until your fortune’s told.

He felt something push through the zipper and into his mouth.

‘Make it tighter.’

He did as he was told. It was taking a long time.

‘Use your teeth.’

And Reid’s body heaved and a sound was dragged out of him, it had notches, like a rack, and Nathan rolled on to his back and lay there, swallowing.

Soon afterwards he took the mask off. The room, it was so bright, it was like being inside a jewel. Reid stood by the window, parted the curtains an inch. Outside it was dark. The room was wearing a mask. Reid began to laugh.

‘What’s so funny?’ Nathan asked.

‘Private joke.’

‘You’re not going to tell me?’

‘No.’ Reid had this way of standing so his face was always in shadow. When Reid turned to look at him, he could read nothing there. He just heard that soft laughter and felt a surprising lack of curiosity about its source.

‘I don’t want to know,’ he said, ‘I really don’t. I’m not interested.’

Reid laughed again. ‘That’s my girl.’

‘If I was a girl,’ Nathan said, ‘you wouldn’t look twice.’

Reid came towards the bed, both hands on the buckle of his belt. ‘Maybe not even once.’

Nathan watched him approach. ‘I thought you’d finished.’

‘I’m starting again,’ Reid said.

Afterwards he must’ve slept because everything went still, that stillness that seems sudden, that tells you time’s gone by.

‘We’ll need a boat.’ A silence. ‘Good.’

Reid was talking on the phone again. Nathan watched through half-closed eyes.

‘Just make sure it’s there. The West Pier, midnight.’

Nathan walked to the window. A flicker of silver on the ground outside. Like a thrown rope, a lasso. It took him a moment to realise that it was a reflection, that there was water out there. A pool.

He slid the window open and crossed the patio. When he dived in he hardly felt the transition from air to water. It was as if he was moving from one kind of air that was warm into another that was cooler. He surfaced, lay on his back. The palm trees were black silhouettes against a bright brown sky. We’ll need a boat. The West Pier. Midnight. He saw Maxie Carlo’s face close up. Maybe you know him as Reid. That’s what he calls himself sometimes. Maxie’s top teeth showed as he smiled, one tooth edged in gold like a page from the Bible. But which page? Not the Ten Commandments, that was for sure. Something from Revelation, maybe. The sound of a plane in the sky like paper being torn slowly. The red light winking on its wing-tip. Know what I mean?

He walked back through the sliding window just as Reid put the phone down.

‘How do you feel?’ Reid asked him.

‘Fine.’ Nathan sat down on the bed. ‘I ran into a friend of yours the other night.’

‘Really? Who?’

‘Maxie Carlo.’

‘Old Maxie. How is he?’

‘He said your name’s Neville.’

‘That’s my professional name.’

‘Professional name?’

‘I told you I was a hand model, didn’t I?’ Reid looked at Nathan, then he lit a cigarette. His face so smooth and still, the flame seemed nervous.

Nathan remembered a grey day on South Beach. This was a few months back, before Dad died. A storm was on the way and the red flags were up. Nobody was swimming.

Towards lunchtime a woman strode on to the beach with a towel and goggles. He hadn’t seen her before, but he knew the type. He knew she probably wouldn’t listen to him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but you can’t swim today.’

She continued buckling the strap of her bathing cap under her chin. ‘Oh? Why not?’

‘The flags are up.’

She smiled at him. ‘It’s all right, I’m a swimming instructor.’

In a strange way she reminded him of Yvonne so he was patient with her. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘it’s my lunchbreak. If anything happens to you while I’m away it’ll be my responsibility.’

‘You go and have your lunch,’ she said. ‘I’ll be fine.’

Sometimes you have an instinct for what’ll happen next. He knew this woman was going to get into trouble. He knew that if he left the beach she might even drown. He also knew that she had to find out for herself.

He waited at the top of the beach, under the awning of the kiosk that sold candy bars and soda. He watched her run towards the water. He saw the short arc her body made as she met the first wave.