The Five Gates of Hell (34 page)

They'd covered his face with a square of gauze. It looked as if it had landed there by chance, like a piece of paper or a leaf. The next gust of wind would blow it away. Except there wasn't any wind. The air was still, chilling.

His face was curiously smooth and youthful. His mouth had fallen open in a kind of sigh. There were no signs of violence, nothing to suggest that his death had not been peaceful. He looked like a pope, Nathan thought, or a saint. A holy man who'd prepared for his death, who might even, perhaps, have welcomed it.

It was only when he moved round to the side that he saw the blue, chapped ears and the hair, frozen and brittle, as if you could snap it off. It was only then that he noticed how raw and scalded the neck looked, how it bulged. Now that the death looked painful, now that he could see traces of a struggle, he began, in a kind of panic, to say things in his head, he began to talk to the dead man. He said he was sorry for not visiting more often, sorry for not being there, for not, for not, for not, these omissions of his, these confessions, they rose into his closed mouth until it seemed that he might choke, they were
jumbled up, dislocated, like old bones in a crypt, but he knew they fitted together, he knew they would form a skeleton where he could hang the flesh and muscle of his guilt.

He looked at Georgia. She tried to smile, but her smile wavered, didn't hold. He remembered taking her to school, it was after their mother died, Georgia would've been seven, she didn't want to go, there were girls who tied her to trees, it was her accent or her looks, he couldn't remember now, but he had to take her because he'd promised Dad, Dad who didn't know anything, the scratches on her legs were brambles, the bruises on her wrists were something else, he couldn't remember now, how could they tell him the truth, how could they tell him anything when all he did was sit in dark rooms with his head in his hands, his head haunted by her ghost, and each dawn broke like the slow blow of a hammer. It was a nice road, the road that led to the school. High grass banks and trees for carving your initials on and ditches trickling with water. One morning he saw a clock lying under a bush. ‘Look at that,' he said, and crouched and peered, drawing her in, ‘a clock, how strange,' strange because it was an antique clock with inlaid wood and round brass knobs for legs, it should have been softly ticking away on someone wealthy's mantelpiece, a china shepherdess on either side, a marble fireplace below, and yet here it was, lying under a bush, and tilted at a curious angle as if it was drunk, and not ticking at all. That morning they parted under the trees, he never took her all the way to the gates, that would only have made things worse, that morning she looked the way she always looked, rings under her eyes and her whole body braced for the ordeal that lay ahead, how hard it was to leave her always, maybe that was why they always drew the parting out, sometimes it took minutes, just the saying goodbye, they backed away from each other, then stopped and called something out, then backed away again, they called out special words that they'd made up, words to fill the distance between them, words for the things they couldn't say, they backed away till he was under the trees or she was through the gates, whichever happened first, she looked the same way she always looked that morning, except for one thing, she had a clock tucked under her arm, the clock they'd found together, the clock that didn't tick, the lonely clock. It was the same thing, his sister then, his father now, Georgia walking towards a beating in the school yard, Dad fighting for breath in his red chair, he wanted to save them, only he could do it, who else was there, but he hadn't, he couldn't, not really, but the wanting to, the failure to, you couldn't get away from that.

Harriet climbed back up the steps. Yvonne followed her.

He wanted to leave now too, but he had to make some kind of contact with the dead man first. Touching the face through that gauze would have seemed like sacrilege, so he chose the hair instead. He reached out cautiously. It was stiff, chilled. It was both wet and dry at the same time. Like ice. He shivered, turned away. Georgia had been watching him.

‘What did it feel like?' she whispered.

‘Cold,' he whispered. ‘Not like hair at all.'

She came closer, reached out, touched. Then drew back quickly, as if she'd just been burned.

After leaving the chapel, they went walking in the gardens. They set off from the same place but, like pieces of something that had just exploded, they each took a different course across the lawn. Though later, driving home, Nathan saw it another way. It wasn't like an explosion. They were separate, there was space between them, but, like flowers in a vase, they were all standing in the same water.

The next morning Nathan and Georgia were required, as executors of the will, to meet with Dad's lawyer. He was a dull man with bad teeth. His jacket was ripped at the armpit. They sat obediently in leather chairs while he read the document out loud. A massive, antiquated fan whirred and clattered in the corner of the office, turning on its metal stem, examining them one by one. The will was straightforward enough. Dad had left slightly more money than expected, and that money was to be divided equally between Nathan, Georgia and Rona, Rona's share to be held in trust until she attained the age of eighteen. The lawyer reminded Nathan and Georgia that the house on Mahogany Drive already belonged to them since, as they doubtless knew, their mother had died intestate and, when their mother's mother died some years later, the house, deemed to be two-thirds of her estate, became legally theirs. (Yvonne, the other beneficiary, had received a cash settlement.) Now their father was dead, the house was theirs to do with as they wished.

‘As for the manner of burial,' the lawyer said, ‘it appears that your father wishes to be buried in the same place as his first wife. In other words, a sea burial in Coral Pastures. Just in case there's any confusion,' and he smiled, ‘he's written down the exact co-ordinates.'

‘Harriet's not going to like that,' Georgia said.

‘Harriet?' The lawyer's eyebrows lifted.

‘Our father's second wife,' Nathan explained. ‘Our stepmother.'

‘Of course,' the lawyer said. ‘I met her once.' And then he drew
his eyebrows down again. ‘Is she,' and he hesitated, looking for the most delicate statement of his question, ‘involved in the proceedings?'

‘She's staying with us,' Georgia said. ‘In the house.'

‘Ah,' the lawyer said. ‘Yes, I can see how that might be awkward.' He leaned forwards. ‘It will require,' and he paused, ‘a certain amount of tact.'

On the way home Nathan turned to Georgia in the car and said, ‘It will require,' and he paused, and then they both shouted, ‘a certain amount of tact.'

They laughed so hard that Nathan had to pull off the road. Later, when they were over it, Georgia said, ‘I never knew death would be so funny.'

It was the morning of the funeral. Almost twelve o'clock. From where Nathan was sitting, in a chapel adjacent to the altar, he could hear the cathedral filling up. Looking along the pew, he saw Georgia, Harriet, Yvonne, all three in profile, stern as the heads on coins.

He realised suddenly that he had to go to the bathroom. He checked the watch on Georgia's wrist. Five minutes till the service began. There was still time. Just.

He slipped out of the pew and hurried back down the aisle. He was surprised at how crowded the cathedral was. He hadn't realised that Dad knew so many people.

Once outside he paused. He was standing in a square paved with dark-grey stone. There were statues on pedestals, angels or statesmen, he couldn't tell. A great many people sat at the feet of the statues or stood about in groups near by. They were all dressed in black. They were all crying. Some dabbed at their eyes with handkerchiefs, others covered their faces and wept into their hands. One man stood alone, his breeches held up with string, his arms pinned to his sides. He shed tears the way a flower sheds petals, they fell to the ground, lay scattered round his feet. It struck Nathan that these were all people who had been unable to get in.

But the pressure in his bladder was growing, and he set off across the square in search of a public toilet. He turned down the first street he came to, turned left, right, left again, he walked down a hill, along an alley, through a deserted square, but still he couldn't find one anywhere. He noticed a clock on the top of a building. The two gold hands were almost one. He had to get back. And then, looking around him, he realised that he no longer knew where he was. He began to run in what he thought was the right direction, but he didn't recognise
any of the buildings. I was born here, he thought. Surely I'll see something familiar soon. He could hardly hear his thoughts above the rasping of his breath.

He saw an elderly couple approaching.

‘The cathedral?' They consulted each other, they disagreed, they changed their minds. At last they pointed back up the street, nodding and smiling.

‘Are you sure?' he asked.

‘Yes,' they chorused gaily. ‘Yes, we're sure.'

He ran off up the street, turned a corner, then another, and stopped. Still no sign of the cathedral. The elderly couple must have been mistaken.

He teetered on the brink of panic now. One step forwards and he would fall headlong. He looked one way, then he looked the other. Sweat seeped into his eyes. Thoughts came from all directions and collided. He felt he might be going mad.

A car came towards him. He stepped out into the road and waved his arms. The man behind the wheel was only too willing to oblige. ‘Of course, of course,' he said. ‘Jump in.' He seemed to think that Nathan was new to the city. Every now and then he lifted a finger off the wheel and pointed out some famous bridge or statue or museum. Nathan was about to free the man from his illusion when the man braked and, leaning across Nathan, opened the door for him.

‘There you are,' he said.

Nathan got out and looked around. ‘But the cathedral.'

‘You're welcome,' the man said. And, shifting into gear, he drove away.

Nathan looked round. Scrapyards, jetties, railway tracks. The sun was setting. He felt no sense of urgency now. Waves were pages turning. Railway trucks were edged in gold.

When he woke he was lying in Dad's bed. Georgia was bent over the basin, throwing up. It was the morning of the funeral.

The day proved awkward from the beginning, like a knife you can't pick up without cutting yourself. Harriet slipped on the stairs and twisted her ankle. Yvonne couldn't find the fish brooch that she always wore for funerals. She lit a cheroot to calm herself, and promptly burned a hole in her dress. Georgia had taken pills to settle her stomach, but she was still throwing up every hour.

The car arrived at two. The funeral director had a cold; he had to keep reaching into the back for tissues. ‘Usually, of course, these are
for clients,' he said, ‘but in this case, if you don't mind,' and he blew his nose again, and sighed.

Nathan glanced at Georgia.

She summoned up the makings of a smile. ‘I think the pills are beginning to work,' she said.

He pushed the hair back from her forehead. ‘One thing about a sea burial,' he said. ‘If you want to throw up, at least you can just do it over the side.'

They arrived at the Y Street wharf. The chartered boat was already moored by the quay. The traditional awning, white canvas with black edges, fluttered in the breeze. A modest congregation sat underneath on benches.

As they waited for the casket to be hoisted on to the boat, Nathan noticed a preacher on the other side of the quay. You could tell he was a preacher. He had a microphone in his hand and his eyes were set way back in his head, as if he'd seen the Lord once too often. Nathan watched him step on to a crate. There was a crackle and a whine from the microphone.

‘This is God's distant early-warning system.'

A drunk lay slumped against an oil drum, a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag beside him. At the sound of the preacher's voice he twitched, wiped one eye with the back of his hand, and looked up, moistening his lips.

‘Heaven is a real place,' the preacher said. ‘There are people up there right now, enjoying themselves.'

The drunk lifted his bottle and shook the last few drops into his throat. ‘Well, how about that,' he said and, turning his head in the direction of the preacher, he shouted, ‘Hallelujah,' then he winked at Nathan, as if they were in this together, and fell back in a heap and shut his eyes.

The preacher turned his volume up. His voice now carried across the quay to the boat, interfering with the sombre piped music. Several members of the congregation looked round.

‘Seven years ago,' the preacher informed them, ‘I was a useless person.' He pointed at the drunk. ‘Seven years ago I was like him, but then Jesus,' and his voice rose and wavered, and his eyes lifted to the sky, ‘yes, Jesus, he came to me and he planted the seeds of truth in me –'

A black woman stood below the preacher. She tilted her head on one side as if she was trying very hard to understand.

Then she must've said something.

The preacher levelled a finger at her. ‘You've got a filthy mouth.' His eyes scoured the small audience for support. ‘You see? This here's what –'

Suddenly Yvonne was standing below him. She reached up, snatched the microphone out of his hands. With two brisk movements she wrenched the wire loose and tossed the microphone into the water. It was so brutal, and yet so matter of fact. It was like watching somebody wring a chicken's neck.

‘Someone had to do it,' she hissed through her black veil as she passed Nathan on the way back.

They followed the coffin on to the boat and took their seats in the front row. The engines shuddered, the ropes were loosed; the quay slid backwards like a piece of moving scenery. Nathan could still see the preacher standing, shocked and speechless, on his box. The earthquakes in people's heads, half the city's population was cracked, a rabble of doom-merchants, psychos, ghouls. They could smell a funeral a mile off, and out they crawled, out of the woodwork. A funeral lit them up, it was like fuel, it kept them burning for days. It wasn't just the old and the rich who moved to Moon Beach. The city was like a dangerous bend in a road. If you sat on that bend for long enough you'd be sure to see something.