A Smaller Hell (13 page)

I kept Graziano in front of me for the remainder of our trek through the tunnels.  He kept looking round at me every fifty steps or so, like a child who had been caught wrongdoing and was being marched back to his mother.  His fear made me wonder just how many of those scars on his head, face and hands had been acquired in his boxing career, and how many had been inflicted to satisfy Doyle’s sadistic requirements.  I still wanted to ask him which man he had killed, but not until I had a clear escape route.

I finally felt the bitter sea wind on my face, then the barnacles and seaweed underfoot.  The chaotic wind howled and ragged us about as we both tried to step down the sharp decline in the tunnel toward the gate.  The seaweed did not make it easy, so Graziano and I held on to each other and took one wall each, using any irregularities in the rock as grips to prevent ourselves sliding into the tormented, frothy black water crashing around the tunnel’s exit. 

We both ended up knee deep in the freezing water, eventually.  I wondered what venomous, slimy sea creatures were swimming between my legs before a larger problem presented itself: one of the giant, old padlocks was holding us in.  Graziano turned a key in the lock and it dropped into the blackness of the estuary with a splash, letting us out of the tunnels and into the night.  I was now thigh-deep in water so cold that it felt as if it were burning.  A blizzard crashed heavy black waves against the colossal sea wall further up the coast and Christmas lights danced on the far shore as we thrust ourselves through the water.  Graziano cried out as one of his feet became stuck in the muddy sand.  I turned back and reached down to free his foot, the limb working free, but the shoe remaining where it was.

‘Which way?’

Graziano pointed with one of his thick fingers towards the ferry being thrown about in the churning black soup of the river, only just visible through the snowstorm.  If the marina had been on this side of the river, I would have borrowed a dinghy, but there was nothing.  We staggered on to the sand and I looked at the ferry in the distance, where Doyle had Rachel.

‘We have to get out there,’ I said, beckoning him to follow me as I strode westwards along the shore, closer to the ferry. 

When there was no response, and I couldn’t hear his heavy footsteps behind me, I looked back to see Graziano standing motionless in the same spot.  His feet, one unprotected, were sinking into the black sand as he stared down at them.  His bloodstained driver’s outfit made him look like a huge, injured penguin.

‘Are you alright?’

‘I can’t feel,’ he announced.

Through the snow, I could make out the dim lights of the ferry terminal, closed down for the night.  Everything seemed so far away through the swirling kaleidoscope of snow and darkness.  Graziano had already begun to limp and the ferry appeared no closer than when we had first emerged from the tunnel.  His lips were blue and he was holding his jacket tightly around him, his bloodied tie still dangling from his breezeblock head.  Looking around at the black sand and mud, although there were many small coves for shelter, the cold wind raged through each one.  Just as I began to lose hope of reaching the ferry at all, we rounded a corner of the sea wall and the stormy night air was carved in two by the bow of a boat, like a giant wooden nose peeking into my nightmare.  Graziano stood up straight as a dark shadow appeared on deck.

‘All aboard,’ said the Captain.

As we climbed up the rope ladder and on to the boat, he greeted us both with a slap on the back.

Inside the cabin, the Captain handed us two heavy blankets to wrap around our shoulders and flung open the door of his wood burner, the bright red glow of the embers radiating heat into the cabin.

‘Rachel’s aboard the ferry,’ I chattered through my teeth, still freezing.

‘With that witch, I suppose?’

I nodded, while Graziano just shivered.

The galley door flew open and to my surprise, Miss Allister emerged, carrying a large pot of stew and a ladle.  She went back into the galley and returned with bowls, spoons, crusty bread and a large clay flagon, such as I had seen in the Captain’s Rest.  Leaving the flagon aside, she served up the stew, glancing at me and shaking her head, but smiling at Graziano.

‘Miss Allister?’  

I tried catching her eye, but she ignored me.

‘Hmph,’ she grunted and turned away to fetch more. 

She placed Graziano’s chunk of bread down gently, before ramming mine endways into the middle of my bowl of stew.  I couldn’t imagine what I had done to anger her so.  Even the Captain looked sheepish as she stormed in and out of the room before seating herself at the table.

‘Miss Allister, thank you for the …’ I began.

‘You really ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ she interrupted, pointing her spoon at me.  ‘Look at this boy’s head.’

Graziano smiled and stew ran down the sides of his mouth.  He continued to shovel the steaming food into his face, while my spoon was held by my lips. 

‘But he … I was only defending myself,’ I pleaded.

‘You’re lucky someone didn’t get hurt,’ Miss Allister said, waving her spoon at me across the table. 

‘You eat up now.  We’ll say no more about it, but no more fighting,’ she said, now waving her spoon at both me and Graziano, who had already emptied his bowl.

‘How about a drink?’ the captain said, picking up the ancient flagon in one giant hand and uncorking it with the other.  He took a drink before handing it to me.

I drank and within seconds, my bones felt warmed.  I intended only to take a few mouthfuls of the stew before reminding everyone of the urgency of my circumstances.  As soon as I began to chew the steaming food before me, all my withered parts were replenished.  I finished the bowl and took another swig of brandy, afterwards wiping my mouth on my sleeve.  Miss Allister now smiled at me and walked over to my side.  She crouched down and wiped my face with her apron.

‘Pearl?  Your name is Pearl?’ I asked Miss Allister, casting a glance in the Captain’s direction.

Only weeks before, I had been working in the call-centre and returning to an empty flat every night to talk to ghosts in the photographs.  I would toast them with a bottle of wine.  Then another … and another, until I could toast no more and had penetrated the glass of the frames, warping time in the process, melting in amongst the faded colours of memories triggered by the photographs.  We were together again, albeit in a reduced sense.  I would circle their laughing bodies in the photographs, feeling the fabric of their clothing, marveling at how soft their skin was and the suppleness of their hair.  The smells of family barbecues, the way laughter reverberated around our house, fishing trips with my father and laughing with my mother.

But no matter how much I drank, I could never get them to hear me. 

‘Let’s you get you two on deck and over to this ferry,’ said the Captain, pushing me away from the table and out of the cabin. I was startled by the sound and sensation of the ripcord on my lifejacket being pulled.

‘It’s getting rough out here, lad.  Hold on,’ the Captain said, as I clung to the mast for dear life.

I tied the loose ends of my lifejacket firmly to my body and looked round to see Graziano working away as if he had been at sea all his life.  He seemed to know exactly what he was doing and moved without any awkwardness.  Even the lopsidedness of his mouth had straightened, and he seemed oblivious to the danger of our imminent undertaking.  The Captain shrugged and continued to instruct me.

After following the Captain’s orders, the sail caught the wind with a great rumble and crack, and we held on tight as the boat surged forward off its moorings.  Within seconds, we seemed to be moving at great speed towards the lights of the ferry.  The galaxies of each shoreline streamed past us and for a second it seemed as if we were
sailing through space, past constellations more ancient than anyone could imagine, home to strange creatures.  As we came to within twenty yards of the ship, it dawned on me that we were going to have to swim the remainder of the distance to avoid wrecking.  I looked down at the churning black waves rising and crashing, convinced that they would swallow me whole and never spit me back out.  The Captain pointed to a ladder on the side of the ferry.

‘Hypothermia,’ I said, shielding my eyes from the driving snow.  ‘We’ll die of hypothermia before we even get a finger on that ladder!’

‘Nonsense.  You’ll swim that before your coconuts freeze,’ said the Captain, shaking the snow out of his beard.  ‘Easy.’

Graziano came over to join us in a bright orange lifejacket, clearly designed for someone much smaller.

‘Easy,’ he murmured, taking me by the arm and walking me over to the edge of the boat.  Without another word, he threw me into the violent green and white water below.

The coldness bit, but the lifejacket bounced me to the surface, allowing my lungs to draw air.  I saw Graziano already swimming towards the ferry, so I put my arms and legs into motion and tried to catch up.  With the wind and tide in our favour, I had to plough hard through the water to avoid being swept beyond our target.

By the time Graziano and I reached the ferry’s ladder, I was losing consciousness.  I felt my hands relinquishing their grip on the cold metal rungs until I felt a rising sensation, as if I was being lifted up to Heaven by the hand of God.  Graziano’s great meat hook was clenched around my lifejacket as he hauled me on to the dark, abandoned deck, both of us landing in a heap.  I remember the sight of my limp feet dragging backwards through the ice and snow on the deck of the ferry and a pulling feeling across my neck and shoulders.

I came to in the engine room, which was at least twenty degrees warmer than outside.  The room was completely dark apart from the red glow provided by the furnace up ahead.  I could hear Graziano breathing.        

‘Take off your clothes,’ he said.  

‘Oh right, yeah,’ I said, shivering as I watched him wring out his shirt. 

Once I had removed and wrung out the last garment, Graziano hung them over a large pipe near the furnace next to his clothes.  He sat opposite me in the darkness like a statue that had been attacked with Stanley knives.

‘What happened to you?’ I asked, looking at the shiny scar tissue all over his shoulders catching the light.

‘I don’t remember,’ he said. 

The docks had a long and dark history of bareknuckle boxing, organized by the foremen of the shipyard and the underworld figures who never strayed far from the rich pickings inside the warehouses that lined the dockside.  I suspected that Graziano might have fought more than a few rounds.

‘It hurts sometimes,’ Graziano said, turning one hand over in the other.  Even with the roar of the furnace, the mechanical chugging of the engine and the distant howling of the snowstorm, his breathing was still audible.

‘Did you kill Tanner?’ I asked.

Graziano continued to fidget with his giant hands.  His large, lopsided features crumpled for a moment as if he were about to cry, and he brought his hands to his giant head to hide his eyes and nodded.

 I grabbed our clothes off the hot pipe.  Separating my clothes from Graziano’s was not difficult, since his were almost twice the size.  I handed them to him, but still he would not take his hands from his eyes.

‘Why don’t you get dressed and go and tell Ms. Doyle that everything’s fine, while I find Rachel?’

Graziano shook his head with his hands still attached. The blood had turned pink in the giant, churning washing machine of the estuary.

I put down his clothes down on the floor next to him.  ‘I have to go and find Rachel.’

‘Can I just … stay here?’ he asked through his fingers.

I looked at the scars on his head and shoulders again.  ‘Of course you can.’

My shoes were somewhere at the bottom of the salty, black washing machine, so my bare feet made very little sound as I crept away from Graziano.  Just as I unlatched the door with a resonant clank, he grunted and waved with one of his huge hands.

‘Merry Christmas,’ he said as I closed the door behind me.

I tidied myself up in the reflection of a porthole before heading out into the party.  I rested my head on the cold, white metal of a door, brushing my hand over a patch of rust on the handle.  My hands still burned from the cold water, despite having sat by the furnace long enough to dry out.  If the wrong person was to see me emerging from that doorway, I knew might well spend my last moments looking up through the surface of the river at Doyle and her henchmen, unable to reverse my watery fate. 

The first thing to stun me as I opened the door was the noise.  The music: bleak, hard techno pulsating and thudding through the darkness and the smoke.  I could see shapes grinding and shaking to the beat, bathed in purple and white light by the luminescent shafts slicing through the dancefloor.  I ventured out into the writhing crowd as a strobe came into effect, recognising one or two faces immobilized and illuminated for split seconds.  I ploughed through the sweaty, gyrating bodies, searching for Rachel.  The boat rocked violently in the storm, but this only seemed to inflame the party atmosphere as the dancers shrieked with laughter and picked themselves up off the sticky floor.

The strobe revealed Luke, dancing with a group of girls from the cafeteria.  He looked up and recognized me, made his excuses and broke away from his dancing partners.

‘What happened to you?’ he asked, brushing a bit of seaweed off my jacket.  ‘Tell me why you smell like a sewer.’

‘I was up on deck.  Got caught by a wave,’ I replied.

‘Hmmm.  Who were you with?’

‘On my own.’

‘With someone you shouldn’t have been?’

‘Where’s Rachel?’ I asked.

‘Haven’t seen her for about an hour.  Doyle was all over her from the moment they arrived at the ferry terminal in the limousine,’ Luke said.
 
‘Is she after a promotion?’

‘She’s in danger.’

‘Find Doyle; find Rachel, I reckon, mate,’ Luke said.  ‘Try Doyle’s room.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Listen, I only know because Michelle from …’

‘Just fucking tell me,’ I snapped.

‘Top deck.  Take the spiral staircase at the end of the smaller bar, then follow the corridor until you reach a steel door.’

‘There must be a hundred steel doors on this ship.’

‘It’s the one painted red,’ Luke said.

‘Very funny.’

‘Spit down: I’m not lying.’

I grabbed Luke by the lapel of his brand new Armani blazer.  ‘Are you in on this?’

‘In on what?  I swear … all I know is that it’s the red door.  Watch the jacket, lad.’

‘She
told
you to tell me, didn’t she?’

I started making my way through the crowd, only to have Luke follow me.
 
‘I swear that’s all I know.  She told me that if I wanted to keep my job, that I should pass on the message to you.  Please don’t be angry with me.’

‘Don’t get involved,’ I said. 

‘Wait,’ Luke said, before disappearing back into the tangled mass of dancers and persuading one of them to hand over her mobile.

‘Use this.  I’ll be your lookout.’

‘Where
is
security?’ I asked, checking the exits.

Luke pointed towards the centre of the dance floor at several of the guards dancing up against the sunbed orange bodies of the Cosmetics girls.

‘The natural
order,’ Luke shrugged.

I watched the steroid-inflated gorillas and the girls perform their mating rituals in ever more lurid fashion, all the time checking out their reflections in the giant mirror covering the far wall.

‘There’s nothing natural about that,’ I said.

Luke threw his arms around me and hugged me.  I could smell the vodka Martinis seeping through his skin. 

‘Be careful,’ he said.  ‘Doyle’s lost the plot.’

I hugged him back before weaving my way across the dance floor towards the spiral staircase.

In the corridor, I used the phone’s screen as a torch to examine each door as I passed it.  The swell caused me to stagger as the ship was dumped by another wave and the music from the dance floor faded in the steel gullet that was swallowing me, forcing me deeper into the belly of the vessel.  As I went further, the music was reduced to a tame repetitive thud.  Only when I could no longer even hear the strains of the bass drum did I find the red door.

I turned the phone to look farther along the white metal throat; sure enough, every door was painted white except for the one I was standing in front of, which stood out like blood in snow. 

I didn’t even want to touch it.