Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

‘Wedding? What wedding?’ He sat on the edge of the bed. She was surrounded by bottles of pills. The bed clicked and rattled every time he moved. ‘Where did you get all these pills?’

‘They’re Dad’s. They were in his drawer.’

‘How many have you had?’

‘Not many.’

‘How many?’

She shrugged. ‘About fifteen.’

‘Fifteen? Which ones?’

‘All different.’ She looked at him. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. They’re mostly stale. They don’t do much.’

‘Stale? How can you tell?’

‘The dates on the bottles. Some of them are ten years old.’

He looked at her dubiously.

‘For Christ’s sake, Nat,’ she said, ‘I’m ALL RIGHT.’

‘You sounded so strange on the phone. Like one of those movie-stars who takes an overdose and then they start making phone-calls.’

‘You called me, remember?’

‘I know. But, you know.’

‘Well, I’m sorry. I certainly didn’t mean to sound like one of those movie-stars.’

It was so unlike her to be sarcastic, her face took on a shape he didn’t recognise. Waves of anger, and hurt under the anger like a reef. Uncomfortable, he turned to the TV.

City Hall on a bright day, the shadows almost purple. A scrap of paper went tumbling across the wide, stone steps. He could see Dad and Harriet standing just inside the entrance, Dad agitated, smoothing his hair. A chip of white flashed in the gloom. Harriet’s teeth. She must’ve been saying something. Then they emerged, arm in arm. Into the sunlight, blinking. Dad took her hand. Their smiles seemed slowed down. The veins showed on the back of Dad’s hand, stood out like weak ropes. Moored in his body, but only just. Dad and Harriet turned to face each other, they were supposed to kiss. A moment’s hesitation.

The tape ended suddenly.

‘There’s another one somewhere,’ Georgia said. ‘I’ve been watching them all night.’

‘So where’ve you been?’ Nathan asked her.

‘I don’t know. Around.’

‘I was trying to find you. Yesterday, it was.’

‘Yesterday?’

‘No, wait. It was the day before. I waited outside your place all afternoon.’ He put his hand on hers. ‘I wanted to see you. It was after I had lunch with Harriet.’

‘Talking of Harriet.’ Georgia reached down beside the bed and pulled out another video. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you put this on.’

‘What is it?’

‘Put it on.’

He took the video from her, pushed it into the machine, and pressed PLAY. He sat back on the bed. He glanced at her, but she wouldn’t look at him. He faced the TV again.

The back garden. A hot day. Every blade of grass caught the light. The lawn looked sharp, almost metallic. A bed of nails. Harriet lay in the distance, sunbathing.

And then close-up suddenly, everything tilting, seasick. Harriet was sitting on a blue towel in her bikini, a can of Coke beside her, a radio. She said something, then smiled. Then said something else. There was tanning oil trapped, like mercury, in the crease that ran across her belly.

Nathan turned to Georgia. ‘Why do you want me to watch this?’

‘Just wait,’ Georgia said.

Darkness now. Inside the house. The view from the hallway, looking up the stairs. He noted the banisters, the moon painting that Yvonne had given him, and, high up, the pale oblong of the landing window. The darkness was blue, as if lightning had struck and left a low electric charge behind.

And then a shadow passed the window, coming down the stairs. It was Harriet. At first he thought she was wearing that white silk underwear of hers. Then he realised she was naked. The white areas were the parts of her body that hadn’t been exposed to the sun. She came down the stairs, a smile held awkwardly on her face, as if balanced, her eyes lit with a strange glitter. He couldn’t take his eyes off her breasts, her groin. So white, raw somehow, almost painful. That smile, her nudity, the blue gloom of the house. He turned to Georgia. ‘I don’t think I want to watch this.’

She didn’t take her eyes off the screen. ‘It’s nearly over.’

‘I don’t want to watch any more.’

She looked at him. ‘I thought you liked her.’

He shook his head slowly, a sad smile on his face. ‘That’s not why it happened, George.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me? I thought,’ and her voice shrank, ‘I thought we were brothers.’

‘We are brothers.’

‘So why didn’t you tell me, Nathan? Why did I have to hear it from her?’

He began to explain it to her. It had started so long ago, he said, long before they became brothers. He told her everything, and she listened carefully, her head lowered, her fingers wandering among the beads of her necklace.

‘It wasn’t like sex,’ he finished by saying, ‘not really. It was more like an exorcism or something. She’d screwed me up for so long. I had to get her out of my system.’

Georgia was silent for a while, then she lifted her head and a smile tiptoed on to her face. ‘You know what she told me?’

‘No. What?’

‘She told me you were lousy in bed.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I suppose I was.’ Then he began to smile.

‘What’s so funny?’ she asked.

‘I was just thinking. She’ll never know.’

‘Never know what?’

‘How good I am in bed.’

She stared at him. ‘But I thought you said you —’

‘We did. But not in bed.’

‘Where then?’

‘In the summerhouse.’

‘You didn’t.’

‘We did.’ He looked at her and saw that she was laughing, and then he knew he had her back again.

But he hadn’t finished yet, he had to go on. This laughter of hers, it would seal her return to him.

‘In the summerhouse,’ he said, ‘with all those flowerpots and bicycle pumps. With all those watering cans.’ He shook his head. ‘I was just about to come and I knelt on a tomato.’

Tears were sliding down her cheeks. All the tiny bottles of pills tumbled off the bed and rolled across the floor.

‘I was lousy,’ he said. ‘I was really lousy.’

Towards midday she dropped into a deep sleep. He didn’t want to risk losing her again so he stayed beside her. Those jets were circling in the small sky of the room, circling like vultures, and he took her hand and held it while she slept. He watched TV, he listened to her breathing change. Then, as dusk fell, he grew tired too. He lay down beside her and soon he was asleep.

He woke once, sat upright. ‘What’s that?’ he said.

‘What?’ she murmured.

‘I thought I heard something.’

She turned over. ‘You’re getting as bad as Dad.’

He lay down again, and slept.

The next time he woke, his watch said eleven. He couldn’t believe he’d slept so long. He left the bed and crossed the landing to his old room. He switched the light on, and jumped. A thin man was sitting in the chair by the window. Blond hair, glasses, dark-red leather jacket. The man reached up and scratched his neck, just to the left of his Adam’s apple, with the first two fingers of his right hand. A few flakes of dry skin trickled down through the yellow air.

‘Jed?’

Jed just stared at him.

‘I didn’t recognise you,’ Nathan said.

Jed looked down at himself, as if he’d forgotten, then he looked up again. ‘So what’s new?’ His voice was thin, whittled to a point, like a stick.

He was wearing different clothes. No black top hat, no black jacket. He looked like one of those street preachers, the ones who come by in the daytime and stick one foot in the door and tell you what hell’s like. Mostly they look like they’ve been there. They’re not easy to get rid of either. If you slam the door in their faces, they just walk right through the wall.