A Smaller Hell

by A. J. Reid

  ‘Ah, you must be the captain then?’ I said, looking at the medals.

  His scowl deepened.

  ‘May I come in?’

  ‘You been at sea?’

  ‘Did a bit of canoeing in the scouts.’

  The Captain laughed in my face, his powerful shoulders looming over me. I was helpless as he pulled me into his lair like a sack of grain.

  Sweet smoke filled the room the Captain was pushing me into. Lighting was provided by a few oil lamps strewn about the pub, illuminating the nooks and crannies of indecipherable conversation, with the bar an island in the middle of it all. The scruffy figures hunched over it were engrossed in discussions that seemed serious and absurd in equal measure.

  The whole bar was made of tarnished brass and stained wood, behind which the Captain now stood, arms folded across his barrel chest.

  ‘Drink?’

  His white hair was lit from behind by one of the oil lamps, briefly making it seem as though he wore a halo; though it was easy to see by the scars on his face and the tattoos on his hands that he was no angel.

  ‘What do you have?’ I asked, unable to see any bottles, optics or beer pumps.

  ‘You can have ale.’

  I waited for the Captain to offer an alternative, but he just eyed me impatiently.

  ‘Ale, please,’ I said.

  He walked over to the other side of the bar, on top of which rested two battered barrels with a brass tap attached to each. One had the world ALE branded into its wood, the other, XXX. He held a metal tankard beneath the ale barrel and turned it to release the dark amber liquid. A few clouds of froth spilled on to the worn wood as he placed the tankard down in front of me. The only beer mats were a few rolls of mouldy ‘90s logos that were still blowing around on the floor.

  ‘How much do I owe you?’ I asked.

  ‘We'll put it on the slate, son.’

  ‘I won't be staying all that long.’

  As I uttered these words, the entire ale-house fell silent. All eyes were on the Captain to see what his reaction was. He stared at me from beneath his fierce eyebrows and iterated his point, his white beard twitching.

  ‘We'll put it on the slate,’ he repeated.

  I nodded and picked up the drink in front of me. All eyes were still turned towards me.

  ‘Cheers,’ I said, taking a drink of ale.

  And the hubbub resumed.

  ‘What is this stuff?’ I asked.

  One or two of the patrons raised their tankards to me with their shabby hands, while the Captain smiled with what teeth he had left.

  ‘That stuff will put hairs on your coconuts, lad.’

  The rest of the patrons had settled back into their furtive conversations with each other, so I faced forward and drank. The Captain walked round the other side of the island and returned to my spot at the bar wielding a large, dangerous-looking sabre. The brass fittings were spotless, the steel blade sharp and unblemished and the ornate guard finely crafted.

  ‘This is Pearl.’

  ‘Pearl?’ I said, leaning away from the sharp edge.

  ‘She was taken from me just before the war.’

  The Captain cradled the blade with his left hand, the dim light from the oil lamps reflecting on to his scarred face and his large beard. He still had his pipe clamped between his teeth and the smoke spiralled through the light dancing off the blade.

  ‘She was the best friend I ever had,’ he said. ‘We were outside a tavern in Denmark. I had business in the port and she wanted to go to the market.’

  ‘She never came back?’ I asked.

  ‘I know he took her.’

  ‘Who took her?’

  ‘You know … Him,’ the Captain said, casting his eyes downwards. ‘He’s everywhere.’

  ‘I’m sorry about Pearl,’ I said. ‘But I don’t know what you mean about who took her.’

  ‘You will,’ he said. ‘Oh, you will.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘The other fella,’ the Captain said. ‘The other one.’

  ‘I know, I’m just saying … Nevermind. So what did you do when Pearl went missing?’

  ‘I sold my boat and its cargo, released the crew from their duties to find work elsewhere, and used the money to track her down.’

  ‘And you never found her?’

  ‘I went everywhere looking for Pearl … Knee-deep in it, some places.’

  I hoped that it was only a figure of speech, but his hand looked far too familiar and comfortable with the sword's grip, as if he had drawn it a thousand times. He parried and thrusted, telling me to stand back and taking a roundhouse swing with the sword at a wax-sealed wooden flask on the bar. The cork popped out and pieces of red wax landed in my tankard. I noticed that the scabbard resting on the bar was covered in notches, piquing my curiosity as to what they represented. I lifted myself off my stool to head for the door, but the Captain caught me with the tip of the sword under my chin.

  ‘And where are you going?’ the Captain asked.

  No words came.

  Fresh Bread

  In the quieter hours during the afternoons, the sounds of the wind, the waves and the crackling of the open fire would usually keep me company. My head was now fizzing with the Captain's ale and his stories, particularly the one about Pearl, his lost love. I had no idea how strong the ale had been, but then eight tankards is probably enough of any ale. As I walked towards town, the wind tasted sweet in my mouth and my blood fizzed with the sea air to make my whole body lighter. I felt as if I had an army behind me as I made my way down the long hill into the centre. The concrete slabs of the pavement disappeared and reappeared under my feet at an amazing rate. I had arms like cannons and the momentum of a war galleon; the wind at my back and blue sky up ahead.

  ‘Watch where you’re walking, you prick.’

  My vision suddenly became a blur of logos, gold and smoke and my sense of smell a riot of knock-off aftershave, cheap tobacco and pungent ganja. A thick brown stump of an animal with bared teeth and a stud collar strained against his lead in an attempt to designate my leg as dinner.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ I said, backing away from both dolehound and hellhound.

  ‘Nobhead.’

  He turned his back on me and continued on his way up the hill. I resumed my charge into town, my breath now fogging in the cold night and I began to relish the prospect of Rachel's warm car. I made my way to the rear of the store and waited, arms tucked under each other, my reefer jacket buttoned up to the neck.

  Rachel appeared, standing in front of me, wrapped up in her scarf and woolly hat. Her smile sparkled against her rosy cheeks and pink nose. She closed her gloved hands on both my cheeks and wrapped her arms around me.

  ‘You have a pink nose,’ she spoke softly in my ear.

  ‘So do you. Do I stink of booze? Sorry about that.’

  ‘No, you don't smell at all. I wouldn’t care if you did,’ she said, kissing me with cold lips.

  We three sat round the dining table with wine, beef stew that Rachel’s mum had made and fresh baguettes to mop up the gravy. The frost had been all but banished from my bones, but it returned somewhat when the conversation turned to Rachel’s father. Two years ago, he had vanished without any kind of explanation. Liz related most of the story to me, Rachel only interjecting to agree with her mother's sentiments which ranged from missing him terribly, to hating him, to wanting to be able to move on. Apparently, no-one knew why he’d gone or what had happened.

  ‘Anyway, enough of all that. Let's not put a damper on your success, you two. You must be looking forward to your induction on Monday?’ Liz said as she topped up my wine glass.

  ‘Did you get the job, Rachel?’ I asked.

  Rachel smiled at me and held my hand under the table. ‘They only gave it me out of sympathy,’ she shrugged.

  ‘She never gives herself any credit. She thinks just because her father worked there …’ Liz shook her head and resumed eating her dinner.

  I thought a
bout what Graziano had said in Ms. Doyle’s office about killing a man. ‘Your father worked for Tanner’s?’

  ‘When I mentioned that I'd been looking for my father, she launched into some big speech about how I needed something to occupy my mind, so she appointed me sales assistant in Cosmetics on the spot. As if that's going to fill the void.’

  ‘Perfume or make-up?’ I asked, trying to change the subject from the void.

  ‘I know she had something to do with Dad going missing,’ Rachel said. ‘I just know it.’

  Liz took a long drink from her wine glass. ‘Rachel, please.’

  ‘I can’t just forget about him, Mum.’

  ‘No-one’s asking you to forget, just … Get on with your life.’

  ‘Have another glass of wine, Mum.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Liz said to me.

  Despite the warmth of the cottage’s dining room, I could still hear the void tinking on the windows and knocking at the door.

  I said goodbye and thanked Liz for dinner. Rachel's offer to drive me home set my mind in motion, trying to work out how to keep her from seeing the truth of my circumstances. Fumbling about in my jacket for the phone Rachel had lent me, I found my shopping list and my excuse for being dropped somewhere other than the squat of doom. 24-hour supermarket. I handed the phone to Rachel as she was driving, but she insisted it was spare and that I keep it.

  ‘Would you mind dropping me off at the supermarket?’

  ‘You're going shopping now?’

  ‘I didn't make it today.’

  ‘Because you were boozing in some dockers' pub all day, maybe?’

  ‘Well, you know …’

  ‘You're a very strange boy. My mother is convinced that you're in some kind of trouble.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You never talk about home or your family. I think she finds that suspicious,’ she said. ‘Good job she likes you.’

  ‘You mean good job you like me.’

  ‘I'm just trying to keep my mother happy. I suppose you're not all that bad, though.’

  Lay Away

  The next morning, I approached Tanner’s from the shopping precinct entrance, making it look more imposing and cathedralesque than before. The other outlets surrounding the store in the square seemed to be kneeling and looking up at the behemoth in their midst, pleading to be spared. A collection of bust-like sculptures crowning the top of the building lent an air of menace to the square, casting disapproving grimaces on the bustling crowds below and frowning at the incontinent pigeons perched yet higher above them.

  ‘You're not going to your induction dressed like that, surely?’

  Miss Allister stood behind me, shielding herself from the rain with a black brolly clutched in her bony fingers.

  ‘I was hoping that I might just get through today wearing this shirt and black jeans,’ I said.

  ‘Come with me,’ she replied, leading me to a side entrance with a keypad lock. She tapped in a code and hurried me through the door, looking round to see if we were being watched.

  ‘I'm amazed that you got the job in the first place. She must be running low on newborn babes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just don't make any noise.’

  We trod as quietly as we could down the dark corridor in our smart shoes. The tiny square of light grew larger as we moved forward. Miss Allister pushed open the door and hurried me inside.

  We were in some kind of store room, but nothing was packaged and there were all sorts of goods strewn about the place, and upon them sticky labels fluttering in the air-conditioned breeze.

  ‘Lay Away. This is where we keep the stock for customers or members of staff who want to pick it up or pay for it at a later date. Over here we have Damaged Goods,’ she said waving her umbrella. ‘Where you belong.’

  ‘Charming.’

  ‘Less of the lip,’ she said poking me in the chest with the steel tip of her brolly. ‘Now, help me with this.’

  She removed the steel tip from my chest and tapped it on a heavy-looking set of dusty old wooden shelves.

  ‘I'm actually recovering from a broken set of ribs, Miss Allister.’

  ‘You'll be recovering from a broken set of something else in a minute.’

  I shouldered the heavy oak of the shelving in an attempt to gauge the weight. It did not move. Clamping my hands on one of the shelves, I heaved upwards and pulled outwards and it moved all of an inch. Miss Allister stood with her hands crossed over the ivory handle of her brolly, shaking her head. After a few more attempts, there was just enough room for me to see a hatch, rather than a door, hidden behind the shelves. I pulled them out far enough for me to get to the handle, which was padlocked. Miss Allister unscrewed the handle of her umbrella and out fell a key, which I used to unlock it. There was only blackness within, so I took the lighter from my pocket and ignited it.

  ‘Be quick. You haven't much time,’ she said.

  I crawled into the space and, after a few shuffles forward, was able to stand up again in another room, the air in this one older than the last. I searched for a light switch to no avail, but found a few large candles on a table. When I lit them, it became apparent that the room was a lay away within lay away. Dusty unopened boxes of ancient toys were stacked on shelves much like the one that had been concealing the hatch. I searched through the clothes rail for something that might fit, pushing aside an old wedding dress. I took a suit and shirt, blew out the candles and ducked to return through the hatch, when I heard a forced whisper from the other side.

  ‘Don't forget the shoes!’

  I relit my lighter and fumbled about for them. I found a pair hiding underneath the rack of clothes and shoved them, the shirt and the suit ahead of me before I crawled through.

  ‘What are you doing, boy? Just get changed in there.’

  I retreated back into the Lay Away museum and got undressed. As I put on my new clothes, the material of the suit felt heavy and smooth on my skin. Although it was a bit old-fashioned, I liked it. It was a dark navy colour and was unlike any I had ever worn before: it didn’t itch, strangle or boil me. It was actually comfortable. I blew out the candles and slipped back through the crawlspace. Once I was back in the Lay Away room with Miss Allister, I stood up and brushed myself off. She stared at me in silence.

  ‘Something the matter?’ I asked.

  ‘You remind me of someone,’ she said and set to work immediately, straightening me up and brushing me down. ‘Come on, you haven't much time.’

  ‘What's all that stuff in there?’

  ‘Off you go, then. Registration starts in three minutes.’

  Miss Allister unlocked the keypad door and nudged me back out into the world, slamming the door shut behind me. As I walked back round to the main entrance, I didn’t recognise my reflection in the glass of the revolving door.

  The Tunnels

  The department store was quiet, having just opened for the day. All those decorations and no-one to enjoy them made the store look somewhat melancholy. I wandered through, nodding at the people I had already met; feeling like it was my first day at school. As I headed towards the lift, I saw myself in a mirror by Haberdashery. An air of antiquated grandeur had been lent to my appearance by the suit, like a gangster or stockbroker from the 1920s. It occurred to me that a lot of those characters ended up on a barber shop floor, razored by their colleagues, or outside on the pavement, slung from high office windows by their own ambition.

  I strode to the lift and made my way to the meeting room on the top floor.

  Meeting Room turned out to be something of an understatement. I expected something like the curious poverty of the waiting room, but it was quite the opposite. The faces surrounding the large oak table in the middle of the room looked apprehensive as I entered. I wondered if they were willing me to leave before it was too late. They knew it was too late for them, but if I ran, I might still escape the clutches of Graziano, who sat with his legs folded in the corner, once again positioned
so as to be shrouded by the darkness. Only the white porcelain of his espresso cup was noticeable, occasionally rising to and falling from his mouth. There were two remaining chairs, so I sat in one and searched the faces around the table.

  I couldn’t see Rachel anywhere.

  Ms. Doyle entered, clutching a tan leather file. She sat in the plush, freshly oiled Winchester clearly set aside for her at the head of the table near Graziano and threw down the file.

  ‘Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your induction. Today, we will be covering the basics of customer service and a few items of health and safety. Now, can anyone tell me …’

  Her eyes locked on to the empty space where Rachel should have been.

  ‘Are we … missing someone?’

  Doyle's eyes fired up as there was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in!’

  Rachel entered sheepishly. ‘I'm so sorry I'm late. I was …’

  ‘Ah, I see you've decided to join us, Miss Mackenzie.’

  ‘I know it's …’

  Doyle's voice was calm. ‘Is there something that makes your time more valuable than ours?’

  Rachel looked at the floor. ‘If I could just …’

  ‘Sit down. You can just do that. And shut up, if that’s not asking too much,’ Doyle said, pointing at the empty chair with her manicured digit. Rachel sat down next to me in the empty seat, head bowed. I reached for her hand beneath the table, resting mine on top of hers. Doyle's brow furrowed and she cast sideways glances in our direction as she delivered her speech.

  ‘No doubt some of you came here today thinking that you are to begin working for Tanner's department store.’

  ‘Since my husband died, I could have sold up all of this and retired to the Caribbean. It was Albert's great-great-grandfather Commander Clarence who built this store for the people of this town to keep them in work,’ she said, gesturing wearily to a bronze bust resting atop a bookcase. ‘He was never able to conceive after being injured in the war and so his workforce became his family. Legend has it that the next owner, Albert's great-grandfather, was found in one of the tunnels one Christmas, wrapped only in Bible pages and lard, but Clarence raised him as his own son …’