After appointing a sentry to keep watch, Vasco scaled the fence. He climbed close to the support stanchion so the wire mesh didn’t sag or buckle. The rest of the gang followed, dropping lightly into the weeds on the other side. Dark mounds lay on the ground. Cramps Crenshaw had done a thorough job of poisoning the dogs. Vasco began to hand out pieces of paper. Every piece was printed with the same slogan: DEATH TO THE FUNERAL BUSINESS.
‘What are these?’ Tip asked.
‘They’re curses,’ Vasco explained. ‘Look.’ Running into the nearest building, he climbed a series of ladders to the roof. He held up a piece of paper and let it drop into the gap between the still-unfinished walls. ‘This building is now damned.’
When the curses had been sealed into the walls of every building on the site, he gathered the gang around him once again. ‘Who’s got the lighter fluid?’
PS stepped forwards and handed Vasco a small yellow can.
‘We’re only doing one,’ Vasco said.
‘One?’ PS sounded disappointed.
‘One.’ Vasco’s eyes moved across the faces of his gang. ‘The power’s in the curses.’ he said. ‘Burning a house down, that’s just our calling card.’
It took PS a moment to see it. The things Vasco came out with, it often took his gang a while to see. Then PS nodded and he fitted his phones over his ears and his music started up.
They watched as Vasco climbed high into the rafters of the main office and sprayed the new blond wood with lighter fuel. He lit the end of the trail of fuel the same way you light a fuse. The central roofbeam was a sudden ribbon of fire. It made the same sound a clean sheet makes when it’s snapped out over a bed.
Vasco slid back down the ladders, dropping the last ten feet. He stood in the front entrance, wiping his hands on his coat. Sombre now, he surveyed the faces of his gang.
‘This is for Scraper,’ he said.
The gang responded, and one word was stamped on the quiet air. ‘Scraper!’
Then they were running towards the fence, the rest of the curses spilling from Vasco’s hands, streaming out behind him, scattering across the mud. They split into groups, according to plan, just as the sirens started in the distance.
Two hours later each one of the gang-members reported in by phone, as arranged. There’d been no arrests. Lying in bed that night, Jed played the whole thing back. One picture stuck. It was Vasco walking out of the door in his leather coat, the roof on fire above his head.
He woke early the next morning. It was still cool, but he opened the window and, leaning on the ledge, looked down at the river. A ship slid by. Then another. Years later, in exile, he would watch the railway trucks from his hotel, and it would sink a well in him, and he would taste the same calm water.
One night Nathan woke and he was falling. He landed at the bottom of a flight of stairs. It was dark. He reached out, touched a wall. It felt like brick. This was the second time it had happened. The other time he hadn’t woken up. He’d just walked round the house turning all the taps on and Dad had walked round after him and turned them off again. He wasn’t at home now, though. It didn’t feel like home. It was too cold. Too big. He sat still on the cold floor. He tried to work out where he was.
There was a bitter smell. Like metal. No, like oil. And slowly he put it together. Usually he spent at least part of each summer at Aunt Yvonne’s house, but this year she was ill and he’d been unable to go. Dad had sent him on summer camp instead. It was run by people called the Pilgrims. It was a sort of adventure holiday with a bit of God thrown in. They were staying down the coast from Moon Beach in a building that used to be an army barracks, and it still smelt of that thin, dark oil that soldiers rub into guns.
There were three identical dormitories in the barracks, one on top of the other. The stairs that linked the dormitories were also identical. They were strange stairs, wide and deep, their edges sheathed in rubber. His feet didn’t know these stairs the way they knew the stairs at home. He must’ve stumbled almost straight away. This being so, it made sense to think that he’d come from the dormitory directly above. Pleased with this piece of logic, feeling better already despite the bruises on his knee and hip, he climbed back up the stairs and opened the dormitory door. The air churned with the breathing of the other boys. The tall windows were severe with moonlight. He walked to where his bed was, then stopped. He couldn’t believe it. There was somebody sleeping in it. Was he in the wrong dormitory after all? No, look. That blanket on the bed, it was his. He could tell by the satiny edge to it. It was his pale-blue blanket from home. Dad had taken it out of the airing cupboard specially.
He went up to the head of the bed and shook the sleeping boy by the shoulder. ‘What are you doing in my bed?’
‘It’s my bed,’ came the reply.
‘It’s my bed,’ Nathan hissed. ‘You’re in my bed.’
The boy mumbled, shrugged, rolled over.
Nathan checked again, this time by looking out of the window. The view was exactly as it should be. The wide, grey parade ground; the rifle range; four palm trees. It was his bed.
He went round to the other side, shook the boy’s shoulder again. ‘This is my bed,’ he said, ‘honestly.’
The boy opened his eyes. There was nothing in his eyes. No sense, no recognition.
‘You’ve got to go back to your own bed,’ Nathan explained.
The boy lifted his head off the pillow and stared at Nathan with his dark, blank eyes. He spoke very clearly, as if he was reciting something from memory, something he’d learned but didn’t understand. ‘It’s not your bed,’ he said, ‘so go away,’ and then he lowered his head and closed his eyes. In five seconds he was asleep again. Nathan could tell by the breathing. He knew about breathing. He’d spent whole nights lying awake and listening to it, making sure it didn’t stop.
He took one step backwards. He couldn’t risk talking any louder. He might wake someone up and then there’d be a scandal. Someone sleeping in your bed, it didn’t look good. There’d been a scandal at the camp two years before. Two boys were sent home early. They’d been found in the rifle range after lights out. Everyone knew what that meant.
Miserable now, and cold, he did the only thing he could think of: he began to insert himself into his bed alongside the other boy. They were narrow beds and it took him long minutes, with long minutes of stillness in between, to get into a position where sleep might be possible. He must’ve fallen asleep in the end, however, because he woke suddenly and it was light. He was a different person to the person he’d been during the night. He looked around and panicked. The blanket on the bed, it wasn’t pale-blue like his, it was pale-green. He looked across at the next bed and recognised the face. It belonged to one of the prayer-leaders. It was so obvious this morning. He was in the wrong dormitory. The wrong bed.
Praying nobody had seen him, he eased out of the bed. He tiptoed the fifty yards to the door. Opened it without making one single creak, then closed it again, just as silently. Dad would’ve been proud of him. Back downstairs he slid into his own cold bed and, closing his eyes, pretended he’d been there all night.
He realised how narrow his escape had been when, less than five minutes later, the rising-bell began to sound. But, as it turned out, somebody must’ve seen him. Word went round at breakfast that Christie had slept in someone else’s bed. Later that day he was summoned to the padre’s office.
‘So tell me, Christie,’ the padre said, resting his chin on one hand and looking steadily into Nathan’s soul, ‘what exactly happened last night?’
‘I was sleepwalking.’
The padre said nothing.
‘If you don’t believe me, ask my father,’ Nathan said. ‘He knows I do it.’
‘Do you know why you do it?’
Nathan shrugged. ‘My father says it started after my mother died.’
No action was taken, but that didn’t stop the rumours spreading. Overnight Nathan acquired the reputation for being some kind of prostitute
and nothing he said could change anyone’s mind. His blond hair and his green eyes were used as evidence against him. The only thing the boys weren’t sure of was how much he charged.
Three nights later he walked in his sleep again, but this time he woke up in a field. Once he’d recovered from the terror of not knowing where he was, he felt only relief. There was nothing scandalous about a field. Though, once again, his absence from his own bed was noted and people thought the worst.
He spent the last two weeks of the holidays at home. As the days passed and the new semester loomed, he was overtaken by a sense of dread. He knew that some of the boys at camp went to the same school as he did. What if they remembered? What if word got out? Dad took him into the sitting-room one day and asked him what the matter was. He told Dad that he didn’t want to go back to school. Dad wanted to know why. It was a question that he found he couldn’t answer. So back he went.
For the first few days he hardly spoke. He tried to will himself into a kind of invisibility. It seemed to be working, because he heard nothing. Then, one evening during the second week, he was leaving the pool with Tip when he noticed a thin figure sitting on the grass bank under the streetlamp. Red baseball cap, acne, spectacles. Something contaminating about him. Like you could get a disease just by looking.
‘What’s he doing here?’ Nathan asked.
Tip looked. ‘You know him?’
‘I’ve seen him around. Blackmailed his mother or something, didn’t he?’
A grin from Tip. ‘You heard about that?’
‘It was all over the school.’
‘Yeah,’ and Tip nodded, ‘yeah, I guess it was.’ He turned to the thin figure who had uncoiled from the bank and was shambling over. ‘Hey, Jed, what’s up?’
Jed didn’t answer. He was looking at Nathan. ‘There’s going to be a shark run,’ he said.
‘Great,’ Tip said. ‘Who’s doing it?’
‘I’ll give you one guess.’ Jed was still looking at Nathan.
Tip understood and looked away. ‘How come?’
‘There’s talk about him. We want to see if he’s guilty.’
Nathan’s heart sank. So they knew.
‘What talk?’ Tip asked, but Jed wouldn’t say.
Nathan spoke to Tip. ‘It’s not true,’ he said, ‘none of it’s true,’ but nobody was listening.
‘He a good swimmer?’ Jed was looking at Nathan, but he was talking to Tip.
Tip said he was.
‘Oh shit,’ and Jed smirked. ‘Looks bad.’
Tip scraped at the gravel with his boot.
‘He’ll do it, won’t he?’ Jed said.
‘I guess.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Jed said. ‘He chicken?’
‘Ask him,’ Tip said.
‘What’s a shark run?’ Nathan said.
Jed took Tip’s sleeve. ‘It’s happening in Blackwater Bay, Saturday night. It’s your job to make sure he’s there.’ Then he turned to leave. Tip turned with him.
‘Hey, Tip,’ Nathan called out. ‘What’s all this about?’
Tip spoke over his shoulder. ‘I’ll tell you Saturday. I’ve got to go now.’
Nathan was left standing with his bicycle.
He watched Tip and Jed slouch off into the night. As they passed through the streedamp’s pyramid of light, he saw the word WOMB painted across the back of Jed’s cheap leather jacket. It was no surprise to learn that Jed was part of the gang.
He watched them move beyond the light and vanish into the darkness where the road was. It was as if they’d both been switched off, as if they’d never been there at all. If only. A fine rain began to fall. He climbed on to his bicycle. He rode fast, but he was still soaked by the time he reached home.
The Shark Run
Summer rose from the river like a sack of dead air. Jed had been living in the house on Mangrove Heights for almost six months now and nobody had even seemed to notice, let alone object. Mario treated him as if he’d always been there. He looked at Jed in the same way that he listened to the money on the far side of the river; Jed was as real as all his other hallucinations. Rita was never in the house long enough to suspect that Jed might actually be living there; she just thought he stayed over a lot. Reg was no problem either. He rarely left his room. You heard him sometimes – a creak on the stairs, the click of a door – but you never saw him. And there hadn’t been a sound from Muriel. It was as if Jed had moved from one dimension to another. His original dimension hadn’t reported him missing, and his new dimension didn’t acknowledge his presence. Maybe what he’d really done was end up somewhere between the two. Some days he almost felt invisible.
One morning in July, while everyone was still asleep, he left the house. The moment he stepped on to the platform in Mangrove East, a train pulled in. It took him across the river to Baker Park. There was a Sweetwater bus waiting at the stop when he walked out of the station. Everything seemed preordained, blessed. If someone had tried to assassinate him that morning, the bullet would’ve missed his head by a quarter of an inch.
It was still only seven-forty-five when he turned the corner into Mackerel Street. His mother left for work at around nine. Used to, anyway. There’d be enough time; more than enough. He wondered what she’d say when she saw him. He wondered if he’d grown.
He worked his way round to the back of the house. The kitchen door was open, and sunlight spilled into the room. She was standing by the fridge, peeling the silver foil off the top of a yoghurt. Maybe she sensed the light change behind her because she turned suddenly and saw him, and her left hand jerked sideways, knocking a carton of orange juice on to the floor. She fell to her knees with a cloth. One of his hands wandered away from his body, out into the air. It’s only juice, he wanted to say. But it was better to say nothing. He knew her. It was already too late. He always seemed to make her break things. He didn’t even have to touch anything. It was like those women with high voices, except he didn’t even have to sing. He stayed where he was, on the doorstep. The kitchen floor looked dangerous, somehow. He might step on it and fall right through.
She wrung the cloth out in the sink, her face holy and still, as if they were her own tears that she was wringing out of the cloth, her own tears splattering on to the bright metal.
And then, without turning, ‘Where’ve you been, Jed?’
That break in her voice. As if his absence was a hangnail and it had caught on every day that had passed since he had gone. It sounded so convincing that he almost believed her.
‘Why?’ he said. ‘Have you been worried?’
‘Worried?’ She was facing him now, arms folded. ‘Of course I’ve been worried.’
‘Did you think something bad had happened?’
‘For Christ’s sake, Jed, it’s been months. Where’ve you been?’
‘What did you do? Did you call the police?’
‘You told me not to.’
He looked at her. That wasn’t the reason. ‘You didn’t call anyone, did you?’
‘I called school. I called your friends –’
‘I’ve been staying with a friend. I don’t remember you calling.’
‘Which friend’s that?’
She was sly, but he wasn’t falling for her tricks.
‘Did you leave a message?’ he said. ‘If you did, I never got it.’
Of course she hadn’t left a message. But he had this knife and he had to twist it. It was the same old duel.
‘You don’t change,’ she said, ‘do you?’
He didn’t say anything. He tried the floor with one foot, as if it was water. It held.
‘You’re only thirteen, Jed. I’ve a right to know where you –’
‘Fourteen.’
‘What?’
‘I’m fourteen now. You didn’t even know.’
‘It was a mistake.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was, wasn’t it?’
He’d forgotten his birthday too. It had happened a couple of months back, and he�
�d completely forgotten. It hadn’t hurt him to forget. It only hurt him now, now he’d found out that she’d forgotten too. That’s what birthdays were. Days when you found out where you stood. Who was on your side and who wasn’t. Nothing to do with how old you were.
The sun was in his eyes. He shifted.
‘You seen Pop?’ he asked.
‘Not for a while.’
He nodded. ‘Well, anyway,’ he said, ‘I just thought I’d come and see how you were.’
And now you’ve seen. And now you’ve remembered.
‘You’re not coming in?’ Her voice had softened.
He shook his head. ‘I should get going.’
‘Come and sit down, Jed. I’ll make you a cup of coffee.’
‘I’ve got to go.’
‘So you’re not going to tell me anything.’
He stepped back into the yard.
‘I’m your mother, Jed. I’m supposed to know. Legally.’
‘Since when did you care about legally?’
‘I’ll call the police.’
He shrugged. ‘Call them.’ He had nothing in common with her. It was as if even the blood in their veins had been changed.
He tried to think of something.
‘How’s Adrian?’ he said.
She looked blank. ‘Who?’
It was lucky that Dad went to bed so early.
Nathan waited twenty minutes, then he opened the french windows and stepped out into the garden. There was no light showing behind Dad’s bedroom curtains. He must be asleep already. Back indoors, Nathan changed into the clothes he’d hidden under the stairs: a black sweater, old jeans, sneakers. He let himself out of the house, leaving the door key on the porch, in the third cactus from the left, then he rode down to the subway station, locked his bicycle to the railings, and caught one of the silver trains that went over the bridge into the city.
The Five Gates of Hell Page 7