The Five Gates of Hell (27 page)

The first time Nathan knew for certain that something wasn't right was when Donald smashed him over the head with a can of beans. He'd come in after work and found two cans of baked beans in the cupboard. He hadn't eaten all day, so he opened one of them and cooked it up. He didn't think twice about it. One of the house rules was, nothing belongs to anyone. That was why India-May could handle being ripped off all the time. So he was sitting at the kitchen table eating his plate of beans when Donald walked in. Donald stood just behind him, that place where you can't see someone unless you actually turn round, that place where it feels as if someone's going to sink a pickaxe into the soft part of your skull, Donald stood behind him and took a deep breath, as if he was about to dive under a wave, and said, ‘Those are my beans.'

Nathan stopped eating and thought about it. But there was really nothing to say. Donald knew the rules, same as everyone else. As he began to eat again he heard Donald move towards the cupboard. The next thing he knew he was lying on the floor, half stunned, beans everywhere. It's not stars you see. You're too close to them to call them stars. It's more like planets.

His head buzzed and sang as if power was being fed into it. He saw Donald standing over him, a can of beans in his hand. Those cans of beans, he thought, they're not safe. Then he thought he could smell Donald's feet. He wasn't particularly surprised. Some people, all you need is one look at them and you just know their feet are going to smell.

‘Don't ever,' and Donald took another breath, through his mouth
this time, as if he'd only surfaced for a moment, ‘don't EVER eat my beans again.'

That was the first time Nathan knew that something wasn't right.

He spoke to India-May about it. She explained that Donald was going through a difficult time, ‘We all have our difficult times, right?' and Nathan would have to be patient with him. Patient? He couldn't believe it. How many times can you sit in your chair and let someone smash you over the head with a can of beans? Nathan reckoned about once. Definitely about once was the limit. But he gave Donald another chance. And wished he hadn't because, two weeks later, Donald was holding him up with a sawn-off shotgun for an hour and a half. Nobody had called Donald down to supper, that was the reason, and he was holding Nathan responsible.

‘Why me?' Nathan asked.

‘There's no one else here.' Which may have been the reason, but also sounded like a threat.

‘What about India-May? It's her house.'

Donald jammed the shotgun into the crook of bone under Nathan's jaw. ‘Shut up.'

Nathan wondered if the gun was loaded. No way of telling. But even if it wasn't, Donald could still hit him with it. He hoped Donald wasn't going to do that. He still had the bruise from that can of beans.

‘Next time,' Donald said, ‘you CALL me, you understand?'

Nathan didn't want to move his chin. But it's hard to say something without moving your chin.

‘YOU UNDERSTAND?'

‘Yes.' Nathan managed to squeeze that one word through his clenched teeth.

He went to India-May again, and told her of his fears. Donald was trying to take over. Donald wanted an empire of his own, like some kind of Napoleon or something. Donald would use force. India-May was stoned that night. She thought Nathan was making it up. ‘Napoleon?' she said, and laughed until she couldn't see. She said she was glad Nathan had moved in. She said it made a real change to have a bit of humour round the place.

‘He held me up,' Nathan said, ‘with a shotgun.'

‘A shotgun? Napoleon?' And she was off again, tears pouring from her eyes.

He could get no sense out of her.

Donald's son came to stay at weekends sometimes. The boy was ten, and slight for his age. Shy too. He'd stand in the doorway and
watch Nathan tinkering with his bike and then, when Nathan looked round, he'd step back into the shadows. One Sunday afternoon, as Nathan was leaving the house, he came across Donald and the boy in the yard. Donald had one hand in the boy's hair, and he was whipping the boy with a leather belt. There was blood on the back of the boy's legs. Nathan stopped ten yards away. Suddenly the sun felt raw against his neck.

‘What's going on, Donald?'

Donald didn't even break his rhythm. ‘Little bastard,' he said, ‘he deserves it.' The sweat evenly distributed on his face, as if he'd been greased.

‘What did he do?'

Donald's mouth swerved in his direction. ‘Is it time to eat?'

‘No.'

‘Then fuck off.'

That night Nathan went to India-May for the third time. ‘You've got to throw him out,' he said. ‘You've simply got to.'

‘I can't,' she said. ‘Imagine what it'd do to him.'

Nathan tried to hold his anger down. ‘What it'd do to him?' he said. ‘For Christ's sake, India-May. What about what he's doing to everybody else?'

Her mouth tightened. ‘I think you're over-reacting.'

He walked out of the room and slammed the door. He imagined Donald listening at the top of the stairs. He saw the smirk on Donald's glassy face. He walked until the farm was two small lights in the darkness. Somewhere down the hill Lumberjack began to bark. India-May had called him Lumberjack because his bark sounded just like someone sawing wood. She called him Jack for short. Suddenly his frustration with her turned to pain. She was putting her trust in the wrong people again. Her trusting Donald like this, it was lessening the value of her trust in him. It made it so much cheaper, worthless even. He wanted her to know the difference.

Out on the ridge that night he decided there was nothing for it. He'd have to take the matter into his own hands. He went and knocked on the door of Pete and Chrissie's room. Pete opened the door. Chrissie was sitting on the bed, the baby's head resting sideways on her shoulder, a bottle of Infant Suspension beside her. The baby was whimpering. The room smelt chalky and damp. Sour milk. Vomit.

‘How is he?' Nathan asked.

Chrissie sighed. ‘The same.'

They talked about the baby's health for a while.

‘It's weird,' Chrissie said, ‘but the moment that guy showed up, she got sick.'

‘Which guy?' Nathan asked, though he knew. He just wanted everything to be clear, like in a court of law. This was, after all, the judgement of Donald.

‘You know,' she said, ‘Donald.'

‘Yeah,' he said, ‘and Joan suddenly stopped cooking.'

Chrissie's eyes opened wide. ‘That's right.' She turned to Pete. ‘You remember, Pete?'

Pete nodded slowly. He adored her. He'd remember anything if she asked him to.

Nathan told them about the can of beans, the shotgun hold-up, the brutal thrashing in the back yard.

‘We didn't know,' Chrissie said.

‘I did,' Pete said. ‘I saw him beating one of the dogs.'

That clinched it. They sat up late, trying to work out how to get rid of Donald. He wasn't going to go peacefully, that was for sure.

One evening a friend of Pete's called Tommy came round with a bottle of something. Tommy had been a marine. Pete told him about Donald. Tommy listened, nodding, as if it was a story he'd heard before. When Pete had finished, Tommy said, ‘There's only one way to do it, and that's kill him.'

Silence in the room except for the bottle emptying into Tommy's throat. It was strange but, since they'd started talking about getting rid of Donald, the baby had quietened down. Now it was sleeping on the bed. Tommy wiped his mouth and handed the bottle to Nathan, who passed it straight to Pete. Tommy bared his teeth. ‘I'll do it.'

‘Listen,' Nathan said, ‘maybe we can do this without making any mess. Maybe we can do it clean.' Though he hadn't sampled the contents of Tommy's bottle, he felt drunk.

‘What the fuck you talking about, clean?' Tommy said.

So Nathan told him.

One night they were all sitting round the same as usual, in the kitchen this time, Pete and Tommy and a friend of Tommy's, they were sitting round drinking the whisky Tommy's friend had brought over when they heard footsteps in the yard. They all watched the door as it opened and Donald's face poked round the edge, and then they all looked at each other and they all thought the same thought: Now?

There was a moment of absolute stillness. Nathan thought of the
shotgun locked under his chin; he'd held himself so rigid that night that he'd ached for three days afterwards. Only Donald was moving in the room – lighting his pipe, shaking a paper open.

That was when they jumped him.

Suddenly Donald was tied to his chair with the flex from the lamp, the plug still attached. Pete gagged Donald with an apron that had a picture of a spaniel on it. Tommy set fire to some of Donald's hair by mistake. It must've been the pipe. They spent some time telling him what they thought of him. Tommy had to make it up, because he'd never met Donald before. It's strange to see someone crying without using their mouth. It's hard to watch. They turn red and the tears fall out. There's hardly any noise. It's like those dolls.

They stood Donald in the back of Tommy's pick-up truck, then they climbed into the cab. It was a thirty-mile drive. They took the side roads. They didn't want any cops pulling them over and asking them what they were doing with a man tied to a chair in the back of their truck. Once they had to stop at a red light, and they heard Donald whimpering. ‘They're all cowards,' Tommy said. ‘Deep down they're all fucking cowards.' Most of the time they couldn't hear anything because of the engine.

Then it began to rain.

It was after midnight when they reached the place. The gates were open so they just drove right in. They got out of the truck. That smell of rotten meat, and the warm rain running over their heads and hands. Tommy shot the bolts on the tailgate and let it drop. The chair had toppled over with Donald still attached. His cheek pressed against the studded metal. One eye blinked as the rain splashed into it. He must've thought they were going to kill him, but that was why they didn't have to. The fear was the same. Tommy peered upwards, through the darkness. The pyramid loomed above.

‘On top, you said.'

Nathan nodded. ‘I think so.'

‘Right.'

A dead dog lay close by. Three of its legs had been sawn off. Tommy's friend stood over it. ‘Who'd do that to a dog?' he said. ‘Who'd do that to a poor, defenceless dog?'

Tommy took him by the arm and led him to the chair. ‘Get the front.' He turned to Pete. ‘You help him.'

Tommy and Nathan lifted the back and, between the four of them, they half-dragged, half-carried Donald to the top. Once there, they set him upright. Stood back, breathing hard. There was a curious
silence, a moment when it seemed that something might be said. But nobody spoke. The wind moved the hair on Donald's head.

They ran back down, huge crunching strides. Tried not to think what they were treading on. When they reached the bottom they automatically looked back. Donald was an inch high. Nathan nodded to himself. It was right. Donald had wanted to rule. Well, he could rule that pile of trash. He could be Pharaoh of that pyramid, a Pharaoh with a crown of flies.

Tommy's friend shuffled in the dirt. ‘Think the rats'll get him?'

Tommy laughed.

‘What about the gag?' Tommy's friend said. ‘Think we should've taken the gag off?'

‘They'll find him tomorrow,' Nathan said. But it was hours till tomorrow. There was plenty of time for Donald to think things over. Smell the smell of his own foul behaviour.

Tommy looked up at the pyramid, then out towards the ocean. ‘Some view he'll have,' he said.

Then they drove home.

The next morning India-May wanted to know where Donald had got to.

Nathan looked her in the eye. ‘He left.'

‘He left late last night,' Pete said. ‘He didn't want to disturb you.'

India-May looked from one to the other, colour creeping up her neck. ‘Where's my chair?'

‘What chair?' Pete said.

‘You know what chair.'

‘I'll get you another one,' Nathan said.

‘I didn't ask you to get me another one, did I? I said, where is it?' Nathan shrugged.

India-May turned and whirled across the kitchen. Her dress shrieked as it caught on the corner of the table and tore. ‘Whose house is this,' she said, ‘that's what I'd like to know,' and slammed the door behind her.

But they did get her another chair, and put it in the old chair's place. She didn't thank them, but she did start using it, and perhaps that was all the thanks they could expect. She was using it a week later when Nathan walked in through the kitchen door. It was close to midnight and India-May was the only one up. She was making necklaces, which was a form of meditation for her, a method of forgetting. Coloured beads mingled with flecks of tobacco and grass on the surface of the table, and the air was draped with smoke that
smelt as sweet as creosote. Lumberjack sprawled on the tiles at her feet, whining sofdy in his sleep like a damp log on a fire.

Nathan sat down.

She looked at him, her fingers threading the beads blind. She might've been calculating something. The amount of trust she had left, the days till the end of the world.

‘What's new?'

‘I've come to tell you that I'm leaving.'

She nodded. ‘I had a feeling you were going to say that.'

He told her it was like the moment when the tide stops coming in and starts going out again. It seems like nothing, but suddenly everything's different. And the longer you wait, the clearer it becomes. It was a pretty lie.

But she was nodding. She understood this kind of talk. He'd almost learned it from her.

‘Where will you go?' she asked.

‘I don't know. Somewhere further up the coast.'