The Five Gates of Hell (55 page)

He gasped. That feeling of being filled in a place he'd never thought of as being empty.

Through the door, somewhere else, quick.

Somewhere far away. He saw black children dancing on sand. They were Twilight's children. They had names like Morning, Noon, and Siesta (she was the lazy one), because that was where they were in their lives. And even though it wasn't raining, even though there wasn't a cloud in the sky, he could hear the old woman playing her flute. And there were children dancing on sand, and their hair was tied back with ribbons and string, and they were pure.

It was only the burning that suddenly spread through him like something spilt that told him it was over. He curled up on his side, facing the wall. That safe, fake teak. A wetness spreading under him.

‘You're lucky,' Creed said. ‘I did it the nice way.'

Nathan didn't answer.

‘You're lucky I didn't let the Skull loose on you.' Creed unlocked the cabin door. ‘Skull?' he called out. ‘Hey, Skull.'

The Skull's shaved head appeared in the doorway. He grinned at the sight of Nathan, naked from the waist down.

‘He doesn't think he's lucky,' Creed said. ‘Tell him how lucky he is,' he said, ‘that I didn't hand him over to you.'

‘No point you handing him over to me,' the Skull said.

‘Why not?'

‘I had him already.'

‘That's right. I forgot.'

Nathan spoke to the Skull. ‘What do you mean by that?'

‘In the motel. You did it for me there.'

‘Did what?'

‘You know. Did it.'

‘But,' and Nathan was talking to Creed now, ‘that was you.'

‘How would you know,' the Skull leered, ‘with that mask on your head?'

‘That was you,' Nathan repeated, appealing to Creed.

Creed snapped his lighter open, lit a cigarette. ‘Me once, him once.' He snapped the lighter shut again, tucked it into his pocket. ‘Fair's fair.'

The Skull was still grinning, knots of muscle standing out on his jaw, his teeth slick with saliva. It was true. That was what the truth looked like.

‘Creed?' It was Angelo, up on deck. He sounded alarmed. ‘There's a patrol boat coming.'

Creed spoke to the Skull. ‘Keep him quiet.' He left the cabin, closing the door behind him.

A police voice came through a megaphone. ‘Cut your engines. We're coming aboard.'

The Skull sat on the bunk opposite Nathan. He drew a four-inch knife out of his boot and tapped the blade against his palm. He tilted his head towards the roof. A vein pulsed in his temple.

The engines died. Only the slapping of waves and then a bump as the patrol boat tied up alongside.

Creed spoke first. ‘Good evening, Sergeant.'

‘What's your business out here, sir?'

‘We had a report that one of the buoys had come loose in Angel Meadows. We've just been out to check on them. Here's my licence.'

A silence.

‘That seems to be in order.'

‘If you need verification, just call Lieutenant Gomez down at O Street. He's got the details.'

‘I don't reckon that'll be necessary. Sorry to trouble you, Mr Creed.'

‘No problem, Sergeant. Good night.'

‘Good night.'

Nathan heard the sudden growling of engines as the patrol boat swung away. He listened to the growling turn to purring and then nothing. The police had been tamed.

‘You've got the fairy dust, Creed,' came Angelo's voice. ‘You've got the fairy dust all right.'

‘Those water cops,' Creed said. ‘You could tell them it's Tuesday, they'd believe you.'

Then Angelo's voice. ‘It
is
Tuesday.'

And Creed's laughter.

The cabin door opened and Creed looked in. ‘Dress him, Skull,' he said, ‘then bring him out.'

The Skull hauled Nathan to his feet, then he pulled up Nathan's pants. ‘You don't smell too good.'

He brought Nathan to within two inches of his face. Nathan could see himself twice in the mirrors of the Skull's eyes, he could smell the Skull's bitter breath. He saw one corner of the Skull's mouth lift, as if the Skull had been hooked, as if someone was pulling on a line. Then he was pushed through the cabin door and up the stairs and out on deck.

They were already in the harbour, no more than a couple of hundred yards offshore. He tried to get his bearings. A passing sign said VENUS ENGINEERING. It must be Venus Bay then. One of the remote backwaters. Angelo steered into the flat black water of a boatyard and threw the engines into reverse to bring the port side flush with the quay. The Skull jumped ashore. Once he'd secured the ropes, Creed and Nathan followed.

They walked down the quay and out into a parking-lot. Creed's black car waited by a high, wire-mesh fence. The Skull tossed a set of keys to Angelo, who bounced them on his palm. Angelo walked to the car on feet that seemed alert. Angelo would be the one to follow through a minefield; he'd always find the magic route. Nathan watched him unlock the car and climb inside. The engine crackled and spat, the headlamps lifted like eyes and lit the gravel. Nathan thought of Jed's bad skin.

Creed put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I'm afraid you're going to have to find your own way back.'

‘So you're not going to kill me?'

Creed smiled. ‘You'll keep your mouth shut. You've seen what happens to people who don't.'

The car drew alongside. The tail-lights turned their faces red. For the first time Nathan noticed the numberplate:

3UR 1AL

Creed saw where he was looking. ‘You like it?'

Nathan didn't answer.

‘Numberplates,' Creed said. ‘It's a little hobby of mine. Maybe you should come and see my collection some time.'

Nathan took a step backwards.

Creed laughed, slid into the car. The door clicked shut. The car trickled over the gravel to the gate.

‘What about my hands?' Nathan shouted.

The car turned left on to the road and vanished behind a warehouse wall. The sound of the engine faded.

He walked to the gate. On the other side of the road there was a small park with trees and benches. That would do. All he could think of now was sleep. He crossed the road and lay down on the first bench he came to. The world went black, the stars shrank and vanished, his heart blew through his body like a bomb, again, again, again. He heard the shrapnel land on the ground around him, it came showering down like rain. He was so cold inside, and burning too. But he was feeling less and less. His eyelids closing, it was like dust settling, soon there was nothing.

He woke, and it was light. He sat up. He wanted to rub his eyes, but he didn't have any hands. He looked up and saw a policeman standing in front of him. A big solid policeman.

‘What's the time?' he asked the policeman.

The policeman was wearing a big solid watch to go with the rest of him. ‘It's seven-thirty.' He seemed slightly annoyed Nathan had asked the first question. Policemen are supposed to do that. He had to be satisfied with the second question. ‘What are you doing here?'

‘I was just waiting till daylight,' Nathan said. ‘Then I was going to hitch a lift home.' Though how would he hitch, he wondered, with no thumbs?

‘Couldn't you get home last night or what?'

‘No money.' Nathan wanted to spread his hands in the air. Couldn't, of course. All he could manage was a kind of shrug, a kind of grin.

The policeman slowly leaned sideways, like a falling tree. ‘Something wrong with your hands?'

‘You guessed it.' Nathan couldn't help sounding smart. It was just to keep his head above water. If he didn't say stuff, if he stopped and looked at his boots, he'd sink for sure. ‘I'm all tied up.' He turned round, showed the policeman his hands.

‘How do you explain that?' the policeman asked.

‘It was a joke,' Nathan said. ‘Some friends of mine.'

‘Nice friends,' the policeman said and, walking round behind Nathan, he began to untie the belt.

He woke up and he was drowning. It was as if he'd been born blind into a world where the only element was water. He struck out with his hands and kicked with his feet, but the water wrapped all his movements up, stole all their strength. He struck out, kicked again. Rose to the surface. Drank the black air down. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his wrist. Now he could see. Black trees crowding over him. The night sky, one shade lighter, just behind. He turned in the water. A glimmer of white. Windows hooded like the eyes of owls. The house. He swam to the side of the pool and hauled himself out. He crouched, his head between his knees, retching.

When the water had finished spilling from his nose and mouth, he huddled at the end of the pool, his toes hooked over the edge. A warm wind blew across his shoulders, drying him. He could only think of one explanation. He must've been walking in his sleep. He must've walked right into the deep end.

Ever since that night on the boat he'd been buying the Moon Beach papers every day, scouring their pages for some mention of the name Jed Morgan. He wasn't expecting front-page news. He knew Creed well enough to realise there'd be no mistakes, no clues. That was why Jed had been dumped in Angel Meadows and not some stagnant harbour bay. When those deep waters took you they took you for ever. But there had to be a paragraph somewhere, even if it was only six lines tucked away at the bottom of a page: MAN, 27, MISSING. Something like that. Surely
someone
would report him missing. He felt he needed evidence of what had happened. Some kind of proof. But almost a month had passed, and there'd been nothing.

And now he was walking in his sleep again, for the first time in almost fifteen years. He remembered the rumours it had spread about him, the tall tales it had told. And yet he'd never said anything about it. That was the way he'd been brought up. You kept all your worries locked inside, in some attic in your head, like mad relations. Sometimes you met people who could hear the screams. You tried to cover up.
Scream? you said. I didn't hear a scream. Must've been the wind. Sometimes he thought that all his pain had come from biting his tongue, all his pain had come from silence. And silence, once established, bred a new pain of its own.

He remembered how Georgia had appeared behind the reinforced glass of the police-station window. Her face still smeared with sleep, it had been so early. Her eyes moving from his torn and filthy clothes to his scorched wrists.

‘Nathan,' she said, ‘what happened?'

It was in his head to say, ‘I'm all right, don't worry, I'm all right, really,' but that was what he'd been taught, white lies and twisted courage. There were no apologies to give her, no reassurances. Not this time.

Her eyes silvered over with tears. ‘But,' and she didn't know quite how to put it, ‘but it's me who's supposed to do things like this.'

‘Just take me home,' he said.

She was right. In the past it had always been her who needed saving. Now, suddenly, it was him. He could hear the shock in her voice, it sounded almost petulant, like indignation. He could hear the fear.

But she took him home. Ran a hot oil-bath for him. He sank into that water with such gratitude. He felt his body slow, his thoughts cut out. He lay back, let the seconds ripple, drift. Through the perfumed steam and the half-open door he saw clean sheets billowing across a room.

Later, as she tucked him into bed, she said, ‘We've got to look after each other. Like that dream you had. Like the jets.' He smiled. She had the measure of the simple things. She knew what they were.

Time passed, and that simplicity attached to everything. They sat down at the kitchen table and made decisions. First they arranged for the bank to execute Dad's will on their behalf; it would put Nathan out of Harriet's reach. Next they accepted an offer on the house. It meant they had just one month to clear the place, but to Nathan that kind of urgency seemed welcome now, intended, even crucial. Apart from anything else, it took his mind off the continuing silence of the newspapers. Working together, they began to sift the past, and they sifted it with an exuberance that bordered, at times, on delirium. One afternoon they built a fire out of all the worst things they could find: carpets, mattresses, hose-pipes, tyres. Black smoke gushed into the air, it looked as if a plane had crashed in their back garden, and some neighbour called the fire department. But they just laughed when the
red trucks lined up in the road, it had the look of a joke, they were children answering to nobody. The days ran like clean cold water from a tap. Not even Harriet had any power any more.

Though she made one last attempt to wield it.

It was late one afternoon. The distant beat of helicopters circling above the harbour bridge. A fringe of shadows on the lawn. He was down in the empty pool, scrubbing the tiled sides, when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned round. Harriet was standing in the shallow end. She was smiling with her crimson lips. She thought she'd made an entrance.

‘Well?' she said, and the empty pool took the word and played ball with it. ‘Have you been thinking about what I said?'

He smiled. ‘Yes, I have.'

‘What did you decide?'

‘If you have any questions about the will,' he said, ‘you'd better contact the bank. They're dealing with it now.'

He watched her lips tighten on her teeth. He had to be careful or she would turn him into someone like her. That was the one power she still had left. And so he bore her no ill will, he showed no malice. He simply told the truth. And smiled.

‘I thought they might do a better job,' he said. ‘I thought they might be more,' and his smile widened, ‘trustworthy.'

She walked back up the steps, her head set so stiff on her shoulders that it might've been glued. It's hard to make a dramatic exit when there isn't any door to slam. She had to be content with the screeching of her tyres on the drive. That was the last they'd heard of her.