Once Upon a Time in Hell (6 page)

For all my attempts to convince myself otherwise, it certainly felt like one, as I cautiously made my way behind the bar and gave the bottles a closer examination.

Then my eyes fell on a bottle of Dufrockies Single Malt and my indecision vanished. I simply couldn't resist a taste of it. I had never seen another bottle outside the holiday villa of my publisher, a draughty little pile of bricks and resentful servants he keeps on the banks of Loch Ness. He had bought it locally and we had wrung it dry with increasingly warm enthusiasm. The idea of finding a bottle here should, perhaps, have been no surprise. Whether this was my Heaven or my Hell, both regions could hardly be complete without one. I found a glass and poured a small measure into it. Then topped it up a little. If I was only going to have one—and I was determined that would be so—then let it be worth having. It is the breaking of the resolution that's the thing, not the degree by which one has broken it.

I put the bottle back on the shelf, stood the glass on the bar and stared at it for awhile. It was quite, quite, beautiful, the brown liquid glistening in the glass like the most precious stone a man could ever set eyes on. This was my Koh-i-Noor. The perfection I would chip away at, sip by precious sip, never finding the true beauty I thought had lived at its centre. I wanted to drink it very badly indeed but, in the end, I managed to resist. I would like to say that it was simply a case of resolve but I was also aware of where I was standing, who could say what other eyes might be watching my deliberation? Was this entire scenario a test? An alcoholic trap designed to judge me?

For all that I wanted that drink, I decided the risks of taking it were too great. I didn't pour it away. I just left it there like a votive candle, flickering a malty prayer.

I moved back towards the doors of the saloon and suddenly felt my legs crumple beneath me. For a moment I truly regretted not taking that last drink as a bright light flooded over me and I felt myself pass out.

W
HEN I CAME
to again, it was to the smell of old books. As scents go it is certainly one that has clung to me over the years. When I was a child, I can remember no greater comfort than to lie on the floor of the library, close my eyes and imagine that smell transmuting to other odours: a summer's field, an Arabian bazaar, an ancient battlefield. Books were the gateway to all these places and countless more. They were my passage outside of myself before the whisky took over the job.

"Mr Quartershaft?" asked a voice, "or is it Irish?"

"Irish," I replied, sitting up and looking around.

The room was an exact replica of that childhood library, I looked around half-expecting to see the young me curled up in a corner somewhere lost in the fantasies of Sir Walter Scott.

At one end was the walnut desk at which my father would sit and compose his correspondence. If he ever simply sat and read books in the library I had never witnessed it, it had been a place of business not pleasure. Sat at the desk now was Alonzo, looking perfectly at home.

"I hope you don't mind?" he said, gesturing to a book on the desk. "But you were unconscious for some time." He held up the book, The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley. "Jolly fun, especially in his open-minded attitudes towards belief." "'No one has a right to say that no water babies exist,'" I quoted, "'till they have seen no water babies existing, which is quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing water babies.'"

"Quite." He smiled. "Do you, as it were, believe in water babies? You certainly used to, your books were filled with creatures every bit as bizarre and unlikely."

"My imagination has never found it hard to fly."

"Indeed not. More importantly, you have convinced others have you not? It's all very well to talk of strange tribes and lizard creatures but making the reader quite convinced they exist?

That is another skill entirely."

"You're most kind."

"I am merely stating fact, you are one of the greatest liars of your day."

"I prefer 'novelist'."

He laughed. "The term is interchangeable."

I suspect you know my opinion on that and will therefore hardly be surprised to hear that I didn't argue. Instead I asked a question that had been on my mind for some little time: "Why did you want me to come here? It seems to me that you made a concerted effort to ensure I did so. Are there a shortage of liars in Heaven? Presuming, of course you don't come from Hell."

"The line can get blurred between the two, though they are two different dominions. To answer your question, the simplest one at least: there are plenty of liars in both. But I wanted one who was mortal."

"I am still that, then?" I asked, "It had occurred to me that I may no longer lay claim to the condition." "Oh no, that's one of the rules of The Fastening, you are a visitor, your life is still your own."

"The Fastening?"

"This period, when we join with you, when the barrier between us is lowered."

"Albeit subjectively."

"Ah..." he shifted in his seat, a piece of theatre I decided, there was no way this man had been truly uncomfortable in his life, "I confess we are being a little more selective than some might hope."

"So not everyone is going to get their chance to see the hereafter?" I smiled. "There certainly are liars in Heaven then."

He looked at me in silence for a moment, his fingers drumming gently on the surface of his book. "To answer your other question," he said finally and, I noted, ignoring my potential insult, "I wanted you to come here because I have need of your skills."

"Really?"

"Yes, I want you to write a book. A sequel, I suppose you could call it, to a book that we feel has outlived its usefulness. Tell me, have you read The Bible?"

T
HE GATE OPENED
out onto a large boardwalk and jetty protruding into a lake so huge we might as well hang it all and just call the damn thing a sea. The air was cooler than before and the sky was the heavy red of an overripe plum. The water of the lake was dark and thick, surrounded on all sides by mountains that reached up into that miserable looking sky. The shoreline was flat, sewn thick with long grasses.

There was a small kiosk at one end of the jetty. A gas lamp hung off the corner of its lop sided roof, throwing a sickly, purple light in a puddle all around it. Here and there other people paced up and down, waiting for whatever boat it was that travelled these waters. Some were clearly human, others less so. I tried not to stare at a thing that looked like a crab with a horse's head in case it got it in mind to snip my legs off with its pincers.

"The Dominion of Circles?" I asked.

The old man nodded. "Or Hell, if you prefer."

"I most certainly do not. I kind of had my heart set on Heaven"

"All in good time, our journey must start here."

"And what a lovely place to start."

"It's known as The Bristle," the old man said, pointing at the water.

"Nice name."

"Look at the banks of the lake," he replied. Following his finger I realised that what I had taken as long grass was in fact thick hair. It was as if we had been reduced to the size of mosquitoes, crawling around in the thick beard of a dead man, his mouth wide open and filled with molasses. It was not the most charming place I had ever visited.

"You'll have to buy a ticket," he said. "They can see you."

"But not you? Like the three of them back there? They had no idea you were creeping up on them did they?"

"I am Non Grata in these parts. Nobody sees me or hears me."

"One of the reasons you needed company I suppose?"

He nodded. "Now go and buy your ticket."

"Where shall I say I'm heading?"

"There's only one destination."

"How much is it? I left my money belt back at the camp."

"You don't pay with money."

"Shit-fire! I'm not going to like this am I?"

He shrugged and moved to the edge of the boardwalk to look out over the thick water.

Figuring I had little choice in the matter I walked up to the kiosk. On the other side of the dirty glass sat a small man in a striped vest. A cap covered his head, strands of white hair creeping out from beneath its tweed. As I drew closer he looked up at me, his eyes turned into giant, goggling spheres by the thick lenses of his spectacles.

"I'd like a ticket," I said, "for the... you know..."

He just nodded and pulled a stubby piece of card from a small drawer in front of him.

"What do you have to pay with?" he asked.

"How much does it cost?" He stared at me for a moment, though whether he was suspicious of me or just trying to decide what price he could get away with I couldn't tell.

"I need something precious," he said. "Something you cherish."

I thought for a moment, putting my hands in my pockets. "My watch?" I suggested.

"Time isn't precious," he said as I pulled it out of my vest pocket. "We have all we need of it down here."

I looked at the watch's face where the hands where moving around seemingly at random.

"What would you suggest?"

"You married?"

"Nope."

"Ever been in love?"

I thought about that. "I guess I've thought so, though nothing that ever stuck."

"What about the first girl you kissed?"

This line of questioning was getting a mite more personal than I had expected from my experience of travelling on ticketed transport.

"What about her?"

"You have kissed a girl then? Or boy? Whichever floats your boat. We don't give a donkey's dick which way you swing here."

"A girl," I said, quickly, trying not to seem too defensive.

"She got a name?"

"Course she does. Esme Heap."

"I hope she looked prettier than she sounds." I pictured her, remembering that hot afternoon behind the schoolhouse. I'd been following the trail of a snake, it's curved lines carved into the dusty floor like a child's drawing of the sea. I'd almost bumped right into her, not paying attention to where I was walking. She had been a few years older than me, cocky and sly. She always wore the kind of smile that made me nervous. It was the kind of smile I expected to see on something that wanted to take a bite out of me.

"If it ain't little Elwyn," she'd said, laughing a little and flicking up the hem of her skirts as if about to start dancing. "The quiet one. I like the quiet ones. They're full of secrets."

My first thought was to try and think of one I could offer her. "Rattlesnakes don't have ears," I told her. "They can tell when something's coming by feeling the ground move." I stamped my foot a little as if to prove the point.

"Well," she said, laughing loudly, "there's a thing to know."

I'd been encouraged by that, so much so in fact that I'd sat down next to her and told her everything I could remember about snakes. Looking back on it she must have thought I was the most boring kid in the world. Maybe that's why she kissed me, to shut me up. It worked. I was in shock as her face suddenly loomed at me, not really knowing what to do as she planted her lips on mine. Then her tongue pushed its way into my mouth and I thought of snakes again, tasting the air. I made to reciprocate but she'd already pulled back. "That's your prize for being a clever boy," she'd said, getting up and rustling her skirts again. "If you think of any better secrets I'll find you an even better prize." She gave me that scary smile again and ran off. I never dared talk to her again. I wanted the prizes she had to offer but was scared that I wouldn't know what to do with them when I got them.

"She was pretty enough," I told the man in the kiosk. He nodded and gave me a smile that reminded me of her. I wondered if he wanted to know anything about snakes.

"It's a nice memory?" he asked. "When you think about it do you get that mixture of excitement and discomfort? Regret but pleasure?"

I'd never thought about it that deeply but, now he'd come to mention it, I told him he was about right.

"Then that'll do."

He handed the ticket over.

"Oh, right then. Thanks."

I took the ticket and looked at it. In fancy writing it announced that I was entitled to pas sage on the Riverboat Clearsight.

"When's it due?" I asked, looking back up at him. He'd removed his cap to expose a ruptured cranium, like the split dome of an egg.

He scratched at the wet wound then looked at his hand, idly rubbing the dampness between his index and forefinger. "Who can ever tell? It shouldn't be long."

I decided not to comment on his exploration of his skull, just took my ticket and walked back over to where the old man was leaning against the boardwalk railings.

"Wasn't that difficult was it?" he said.

"No, he just wanted to know about a girl I used to know when I was a kid."

"Yes? What was special about her?"

I thought about that. "Couldn't tell you. I don't think I ever even talked to her."

He smiled. "It'll come back to you. A boat ticket is cheap, the payment doesn't last long." I had no idea what he was talking about at the time so just put the ticket in my pocket and looked out at the water. It was too dark to be able to see it clearly, it just looked like a thick black mass; there was the occasional slopping sound as something moved within it.

"What is it?" I asked. "It sure ain't water."

"You don't want to know. Boat's coming."

I looked up to see the huge shape of a paddle steamer cutting its way towards us. I was sure it hadn't been there before but that was no surprise, there was no point in expecting the expected here. The black smoke from its funnel pulled a fat line across the red sky, its paddles shining slightly in the pale light.

As it got closer the crowd on the boardwalk began to gather at the mouth of the jetty, pushing and shoving to be the first allowed onboard. The thing that was somewhere between a horse and a crab did its best to jostle against the crowds but someone fetched it a solid kick and it toppled off the jetty and into the water below.

"Rather you than me," I said, leaning over to watch as it fought to stay afloat in the thick liquid. Suddenly a pair of hands reached out from the water and latched onto it, pulling it down as it whinnied in fright.