The Five Gates of Hell

by Rupert Thomson

  Reid rolled him gently over, on to his belly, and he felt Reid slide between his buttocks.

  He lifted his head, said, ‘No,’ and then louder, ‘No.’

  Reid murmured something.

  He turned on to his side, moved down the bed. He thought he heard music somewhere, asked what it was, but Reid said it was nothing. He took Reid between his fingers, between his lips, he did what he liked people doing to him. It was so strange being on the other side of things, he’d forgotten the salty taste of it, the power of those final moments just before it came, when the muscles arched and sang, the lick and snap of railway tracks when a train’s approaching.

  Then only the darkness pressing against his ears and the pumping of his heart.

  Later he woke, it was still dark, he saw his dreams. His dreams were red and gold. He lay without moving, almost without breathing. The milky oblong of a window. And light from the window catching something that was hanging on the door. A silk gown, a kind of kimono. A vulture embroidered on the back. Feathers of metal, breath flaring from its open beak, breath that was red like fire or blood. Eyes like stones in the white bowls of their sockets, dead grey stones. He lay without moving, almost without breathing.

  This was the wave he had to take. This wave.

  He slid out of bed and tiptoed to the window. He stared out at the black uneven trees and the dark grey sky. Was that the ocean, between the two, a shiver of silver, the blade of a knife seen sideways on?

  It must be. Hundreds of miles of darkness and one pale strip where the moonlight fell. He turned back into the room, felt around the bed for his clothes. Reid’s breathing surfaced, sank again. He had to be so quiet. Or Reid would wake. Or the vulture would come screeching off the back of that kimono. Red Indian feet. Now more than ever. Now.

  He couldn’t find his socks. His feet still bare, his arms stretched in front of him, he felt his way through the apartment. It was bigger than he remembered, but then he didn’t really remember, did he? Or maybe it just seemed put together in a different way. Like a puzzle there are two answers to.

  He got the wrong door. Thought it was the front door, but it wasn’t. A cupboard. With a skeleton hanging inside. No head, just all the bones from a body. Sewn on to black fabric. A suit of bones. His heart slammed against his ribs, it seemed for a moment they might crack. He closed the cupboard, pretended he’d seen nothing. He found the front door. This time he knew he was right because of the locks. There were four different locks and it was minutes before he could align them correctly. Each time he turned a knob, it clicked and, sooner or later, he felt sure, one of these clicks would reach the bedroom. That kind priest’s voice behind him. That gentle hand on his shoulder. He didn’t know why he was frightened. Yes, he did. That kimono, that suit of bones. Why? They were the first personal things he’d seen, that was why. The first things he’d seen that belonged to Reid. A vulture and a suit of bones.

  He saw himself in a mirror outside the elevator. His hair in his eyes, his shirt ripped. He looked as if he’d been attacked. The night porter was dozing. He crept past on bare feet, his shoes in his hand. One last wisp of steam drifted up from the cooling cup of coffee at the porter’s elbow. The clock behind his head said ten to five.

  He walked down to the promenade and caught a cab at the all-night taxi-stand outside Belgrano’s. The driver wore a cap and a leather jacket. He wanted to talk. He tried a couple of subjects, but Nathan didn’t say much. He eyed Nathan once or twice in the mirror.

  ‘You’ve been fucking,’ the driver said, ‘haven’t you?’

  Nathan turned and looked at him. ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. Listen, I’ve been driving cabs for twenty-four years. I know who’s been fucking and who hasn’t. Know how I know?’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It’s five in the fucking morning, that’s how I know. Right? And another thing. You’ve got the look of fucking about you. You’ve got that look people have when they’ve been fucking, know what I mean?’

  Nathan smiled faintly.

  ‘She all right, was she?’ The driver was rubbing his lips.

  ‘She nice?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Nathan said, ‘she was great.’

  All Wins on Lit Lines Only

  The Towers of Remembrance dated from a time when many of the city’s graveyards were full. A time of panic: suddenly there was nowhere for the dead to go. And then somebody said, ‘Let people be buried high above the ground, not six feet under it; let people be buried closer to heaven.’ It seemed like the perfect solution. The first high-rise cemetery in history. Original, dramatic, space-conscious. And also, unfortunately, doomed.

  There had been a sudden reaction against the whole notion of burial on land. It was unhealthy, people said. It slowed the natural decay of the body. Hindered the soul’s transition. Sins collected, fouled the earth. Result? Psychic unrest, evil spirits, disease. And so, after an initial rush of enthusiasm, the Towers were left to rot. Windows were smashed. Graffiti blossomed. Ever since Jed could remember, the place had been a sanctuary for runaways, vultures, junkies. A lost generation. Not gone, but forgotten. He climbed out of his car and locked the door. The South Tower had been his home for three years. His own ghosts were here, among all the others.

  It was almost dark now. A wind blew off the ocean. It was a warm wind, but the sound it made as it lunged down the concrete corridors was cold. He stepped into the central plaza. Something landed on the ground next to his left foot. A white frothy medal of spit. He looked up. Two children peered at him from the walkway twenty feet above. A boy with a crewcut and puffy eyes and a girl with heart-shaped sunglasses and white-blonde hair. Project kids.

  ‘Hey, mister,’ the girl called down, ‘why are you wearing that stupid hat?’

  The boy grinned. ‘So we can’t spit on his stupid head.’ Their screechy laughter broke up in a sudden gust of wind.

  Jed walked on.

  He reached the foot of the South Tower. Steel doors slouched on their hinges, windows were holes with glass teeth round the edge. In the hallway the walls had been sprayed with the usual tangle of graffiti. The elevator was jammed open. He punched the button a couple of times, but nothing happened. He looked inside. Rectangular, for the coffins. A red smear on the dull metal wall. It could’ve been paint or blood. Blood, most likely: this was Mangrove East. He stepped back. Above the elevator was a notice: PLEASE SHOW RESPECT FOR THE DEAD. Bit late for that. He took a breath and started up the stairs.

  By the time he reached the thirteenth floor he was winded. He leaned against the door until his heart slowed down, then he knocked. He waited, knocked again. At last he heard footsteps, the shooting of bolts. A woman’s face appeared. She wore her hair tied back in a ponytail. A baby sat in the crook of her arm. Jed just stared.

  ‘It’s a baby,’ the woman said.

  Now Jed stared at her. ‘I’m looking for Silence.’

  The woman jerked her head. ‘Come on in.’

  He brushed past her. Stood in the corridor while she fastened an assortment of locks and bolts.

  ‘Not a very high-class neighbourhood,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I used to live here.’

  She pushed past him. He followed her down the corridor. Boxes stacked against one wall, almost to the ceiling. He turned his head sideways, read a label. Videos. There must’ve been fifty of them. All the same make. Silence the fence.

  He passed through an archway and into what had once been the memory room. This was where the ashes would’ve rested. This was where the family would’ve gathered to pay their respects. Silence rose from a deep leather chair. He was wearing a bright rust-coloured suit with a pale-blue pinstripe. Ten years didn’t seem to have aged him at all. He had the same round cheeks, the same slit eyes.

  ‘Like the suit,’ Jed said.

  Silence smiled. They shook hands. Silence pointed at the sofa. They both sat down again, Jed on the sofa, Silence in his leather chair. Silence was watc
hing a programme on TV.

  Jed looked around. Silence had knocked through into the next grave suite, by the look of it, and turned the extra space into a kitchen and bathroom. He’d installed a cooker, fuelled by gas cylinders, and a hot-water heater. The electricity was being supplied by a portable generator. A bit of a change from the old days of fast-food and candlelight.

  He touched Silence on the arm. ‘Real nice job you’ve done.’

  Silence accepted the compliment with another smile and a slight bow.

  Jed turned to the woman. ‘You live here too?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘we’re just visiting.’ She opened the glass door to the balcony. It faced due north, towards the airport. ‘Bob likes it here,’ she said. ‘He sits here for hours drinking his milk and watching the planes.’

  Jed stared at the baby again. It looked like a tortoise.

  Silence tapped him on the arm and handed him a business card. On the blank side Silence had written something in block capitals: IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME.

  ‘No kidding,’ Jed said.

  He held the card out for Silence to take, but Silence made a tearing gesture with his hands and pointed at the bin. Jed tore the card in two and dropped the pieces in the bin. He noticed that the bin was half full of identical business cards that had been torn in a similar way.

  ‘This all the things you say?’ Jed asked.

  Silence nodded.

  ‘How long since you emptied it?’

  Silence shrugged. ABOUT A MONTH, he wrote.

  ‘You don’t talk much, do you?’ Jed said. ‘I guess you never did.’

  THERE’S TWO KINDS OF TALKING, Silence wrote. TALKING OUT LOUD AND TALKING IN YOUR HEAD.

  Jed had to agree with that.

  SO WHAT I CAN DO FOR YOU? Silence wrote.

  ‘I need somewhere to stay.’

  NO PROBLEM.

  ‘Something else,’ Jed said. ‘I’m not here, OK? If anyone asks, don’t tell them a thing.’

  HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO TELL THEM? I’M A DEAF MUTE, REMEMBER?

  ‘What if they tell you to write it down?’

  Silence smiled and wrote, OW! I JUST HURT MY HAND.

  Jed was given Tip’s old room. Eight feet by eight (in the old days they’d christened it the Cell). Now it was used for what Silence called ‘stock’: two rowing-machines, a stack of cordless phones, ten microwaves, and a mountain bike. There was just enough room left over for a bunk bed. Jed took the top bunk. He went to sleep early that night and woke before morning. He rolled on to his belly, stared out of the window. Dawn had driven yellow wedges into the darkness along the horizon. The city lay below, cool as ashes. He could hear no traffic, only the wind murmuring. He remembered the night Tip OD’d. High winds, storm-force. Clothes swayed on their rails, water see-sawed in the goldfish tank. Tip had shot up and tumbled sideways, his face grey, words like rubber. Jed called the ambulance, then he hid behind the sliding doors that used to house the altar and waited. It didn’t take them long. He heard boots on the floor, breathing, curses. And all the time the south wind moaning, like a choir of ghosts. That was where the ocean cemeteries were, south of the city, twelve miles out. When the wind blew from that direction, some people said it was the voices of the dead. The cops were so spooked that night, they didn’t even think to search the place. Lucky for him. That was the last time he saw Tip. He laid his head back on the pillow, watched the walls turn grey. There were ashes in urns on the floor above. There were fourteen people sealed into the walls downstairs. But you could flip fear over like a coin and then it meant protection. He was glad to be this high up, it made him feel out of reach, safe. And the wind? That was like airport music, it was nothing, it was just there. He fell asleep again and slept till midday.

  He left for the asylum at five that afternoon. One phone-call had told him all he needed to know: the visiting hours (between six and eight) and the address (somewhere in Westwood Heights). From Mangrove he cut through the old meat-packing district towards the tunnel. It was a narrow road that ran along the southern lip of the harbour. No restaurants or stores here, just the steel-roll doors of warehouses, wide enough for trucks, and cobblestones instead of tarmac, and deep gutters for the blood to run down. When he reached the Helix, it spun him round till he was almost dizzy, then he dipped down under the harbour and rose again for air in Venus. He headed west on Highway 12. It was the same route he’d taken from Mitch’s place the day before, only now he was travelling in the opposite direction, away from the city. It was a gamble to be travelling at all, but it was one that he had to take, one that Mitch, for all his warnings, might understand. If anyone was going to understand what he was doing, it would be Mitch, he felt. He left the highway five miles further on, drove through Westwood and up into the foothills.

  The location surprised him. He would’ve expected to find the asylum in one of the gloomier and more fetid sections of the city. But Westwood was a retirement suburb. Tree-lined streets, wrought-iron gates. Valets and video security. People died comfortably here, in monogrammed sheets, their heads wrapped in a soft cocoon of drugs. In fact, they didn’t really die at all; they ‘fell asleep’, they ‘joined their maker’, they were ‘called’. A death in Westwood was worth at least two or three in Mangrove. These had always been rich harvesting grounds for the Paradise Corporation.

  It was dusk. He caught a glimpse of a building set high above the road and floodlit from beneath. That would be the place. He took a curve too fast and almost lost control. A black H showed in his headlamps. H for Hospital. He turned between stone gateposts. Another sign told him to go slow. After driving through acres of parkland, the grass turning blue as night came down, he saw a lawn. It was so neat, it frightened him. He’d met people like that. Suit on the outside, knife underneath. He reached into his inside pocket and took out a piece of candy. He tore the wrapper off and tossed it on the floor of the car.

  In the lobby the girl behind the reception desk had fingernails that could have been his mother’s doing. An inch long and frosty-pink. The girl ignored him for a while. He had time to admire her crisp white uniform, to notice the glittery gold belt she wore around her waist.

  He took his hat off, smoothed his hair. ‘I’m here to see Mr Gorelli,’ he said.

  She glanced up at him and then her eyes slid sideways and came to rest on his right shoulder. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I’m here to see Mr Gorelli. I rang earlier.’

  The girl lifted a white phone. ‘There’s someone to see Mr Gorelli.’ She replaced the phone. ‘Sister will be along in a moment,’ she told him. ‘If you’d like to take a seat.’

  He crossed the polished marble floor and sank down into a soft pink sofa. There were three more soft pink sofas in the lobby. There was a white grand piano too, like something from a winter fairy tale. The girl with the gold belt was watching him. When the clock struck six, she’d change into a vulture. He let his eyes drift away from her and through the room. Money was seeds. People threw it around and places like this sprang up out of the ground. He wondered how Vasco could afford it. And then his chin jerked upwards like a fish on a line. Maybe Creed was paying the bills. He was perverse enough.

  ‘Are you the gentleman who’s come to see Mr Gorelli?’

  One look at the Sister and he thought he’d better smile. She was about fifty. Her face seemed to hang from some invisible hook, all its weight gathered in the folds of her cheeks and the rolls beneath her chin. The skin under her eyes looked stretched. As if it was being pulled downwards. As if, at any moment, it might tear.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’m the gentleman,’ and he rose to his feet.

  ‘This way, please.’

  ‘How is he?’ He thought he ought to ask.

  She eyed him over her shoulder. ‘Pretty much the same.’

  The same as what?

  He tried to remember what Mitch had told him. All he could see was a man curled naked in a gutter. It didn’t even look like Vasco.

  Sister pushed t
hrough some swing doors that were muffled, like her shoes, in black rubber. Everything about her was precise, hygienic. If she ever farted, he thought, it’d probably sound like someone slipping a note under a door.

  ‘Nearly there,’ she said.

  They pushed through more swing doors and entered a long room with a wooden floor. There were ten beds on either side and bars on the windows. The air smelt faintly of ether.

  ‘Second bed from the end on the right,’ the Sister said. ‘Are you a relative?’

  ‘I’m a colleague. We used to work together.’

  She nodded. ‘If you need me, I’ll be in the office.’

  ‘Thank you, Sister.’

  Jed stood beside the bed, looking down. Vasco lay with his arms resting on top of the blankets, his hands loosely clenched. Those chunky rings he used to wear had been removed. But there was nothing anyone could do about the tombstones: two rows of blue tattoos that ran all the way from his shoulders to his wrists. And there was one, Jed remembered with a shiver, that covered almost the whole of his back. His eyes jumped to Vasco’s face. Masklike. All the blood seemed to have drained from his skin, and his hair, still black, looked stiff, fake.

  Jed sat down. ‘Hey, Vasco,’ he said, ‘remember me?’

  Vasco stared at the ceiling.

  Jed shifted his chair closer to the bed. ‘It’s Jed,’ he whispered. ‘You know, Spaghetti. The ugly one.’ He leaned closer still, spoke right into Vasco’s ear. ‘So fucking ugly, I’m hardly human.’

  There was a murmur at his shoulder. He looked round. An old man stood behind him, clutching a hymn book. The old man’s pyjamas had come undone and Jed could see his penis dangling like a piece of gristle in the gap.